Chapter 11: Att The Terrible

When Myles Cabot left his encampment beside the little brook, he hastened down stream to where the brook joined the big river, along the edge of which there stretched a sandy beach. Falling on his knees, he picked up handful after handful of the silver sands.

There was still plenty of daylight left for him to examine the multitude of shiny metallic particles.

There could be no doubt of it, these sands held some metal which could be separated out in much the same manner as that in which the California gold miners of 1849 used to wash for gold, but only time would tell whether or not this metal was the much-to-be-desired platinum which the radio man needed for the grids, filaments, plates, and wires of his vacuum tubes.

On the morrow he would wash for this metal, using the wooden pans which he had brought for that purpose. The precious dust he would carry back to Vairkingi, melt it into small lumps if possible, and then try to analyze its composition in his laboratory.

As he sat on the sandy beach and thus laid his plans, his thoughts gradually wandered away from scientific lines, and he began again to worry about Lilla.

It was many days since she had sent the S O S which had recalled him from earth to Poros. Whatever she had feared must have happened by now. It was possible that he would never be able to effect a return to Cupia. Why not then accept the inevitable, settle down permanently among the Vairkings, and solace himself as best he could?

Even an ordinarily stalwart soul would have done his best and have been satisfied with that. But Myles Standish Cabot possessed that indomitable will which had given rise to the Porovian proverb: “You cannot kill a Minorian.”

To such a man, defeat was impossible. He would rescue the Princess Lilla in the end; that was all there was to it.

So he laid his plans with precision, as he sat on the sandy shore of the Porovian river in the crimsoning twilight.

Before the velvet darkness completely enveloped the planet, the earth-man arose from the sands, and began his return up the valley of the little estuary. But, as he was hurrying along, and was passing through a small grove of trees, a dark form noiselessly dropped on him from above.

The creature lit squarely upon his back, wrapping its furry legs around his abdomen and its furry arms around his neck. Although taken completely by surprise, Cabot wrenched the creature’s feet apart and then threw it over his head as a bucking broncho would throw a rider, a jiujitsu trick which he had learned from one of the Jap gymnasts at college.

The Roy, for that is what Cabot’s assailant proved to be, scrambled quickly to his feet, although a bit stunned, and crouched, ready to spring at him again. The earth-man planted his feet firmly apart, clenched his fists, and awaited the onslaught; then, when the creature charged, he met him on the point of the jaw with a well-aimed blow. Down crashed the furry one!

Cabot was rubbing his bruised knuckles and viewing his fallen antagonist with some satisfaction, when suddenly he was seized around the knees from behind, and was hurled prone by one of the neatest football tackles he had ever experienced.

Squirming quickly to a sitting position, he dealt the Roy who held his legs a stinging blow beside the ear. The grip on his knees loosened, and he was just about to scramble erect, when a third assailant caught him around the throat and pulled him over backward. Then scores of these furry savages swarmed upon him from every side. Yet still he fought, until his elbows were pinioned behind his back, his eyes were blindfolded, and a gag was placed between his teeth.

Thereupon, he ceased struggling, not because there was no fight left in him, but rather because he wisely decided to save his strength for some time when he might really need it. So he offered no further resistance when he was picked up and thrown across a pair of brawny shoulders, and carried off, he knew not whither.

Finally, after what seemed many hours, he was unceremoniously dumped onto the ground, and then jerked roughly to his feet.

His bandage was snatched off, and he found himself standing in the center of a circle of flares, confronting a large, squat, and particularly repulsive gray-furred Roy, who sat with some pretense of dignity upon a round boulder in front of him. Beside him stood another Roy, evidently the one who had brought him thither.

This one now spoke. “See the pretty Vairking which I have brought you.”

“If that’s a Vairking,” the fat one remarked, “then I’m my own father.”

“If he isn’t a Vairking,” the other countered, “then why does he wear Vairking leather armor? Answer me that.”

“Vairking or not,” the fat one declared, “he will do very nicely to string up by the heels and shoot arrows at. For quite evidently, he is no Roy. What say you to that, my fine target?”

The guard removed the gag.

“I say,” Myles evenly replied, “that you had better not take any such liberties with me.”

“And why not, furless?” the seated Roy sneered.

“First, let me ask you a question,” Myles said. “Who is King of the Roies, Grod the Silent or Att the Terrible?”