Chapter 11

Dazed and grief-stricken, Kirby stood in the bloody, corpse-filled nave of the temple, surrounded by thirty-two girls whose faces were blanched and most of whose eyes were tear-bright. The fight was over, and they were assembled to decide what must be done, but for a time no one spoke.

Gaining the trapdoor just as it was pinioned from beneath, Kirby had torn at it with bare hands. But that had been hopeless. Then he had begun to fight again. But that had been hopeless also. With howls and screams they started to retreat, and it had not taken Kirby long to find out that every part of their raid had been carefully planned, even to this retreat under fire. Straight into the damp black tunnel which led away from the corridor behind the altar, the ape-men had leaped. And Kirby, in hot pursuit, had heard the Duca’s voice driving them on. Too much the soldier to follow in that darkness where the Duca knew every foot of the way, and he knew nothing, Kirby had seen that he must go back to the girls and take stock.

Now he looked at the strewn ape corpses, smelled the corrosive reek of burned powder, and tried to put aside his grief.

“The Duca,” he said at last, “must have been planning this with the apes ever since the first morning in the castle.”

Ivana, Naida’s sister, nodded.

“The Duca brought the ape-people here, kept them in the tunnel, and then herded them back when their work was done. I suppose it was one of the caciques who opened the door when the time was right.”

“Does anyone think we ought to try the tunnels now?” Kirby asked.

Several girls shook their heads. He knew that already they felt he had been wise in giving up the pursuit. Ivana spoke.

“If the Duca and his horde stay underground, we shouldn’t have a chance against them. And if they don’t, we’re better here.”

Kirby shot a searching glance at her, somehow sure that her thoughts were running parallel with his.

“You don’t think they’re going to stay here, do you?”

“No, and you don’t either,” Ivana answered.

“It seems to me that they will retreat into the Rorroh as fast as they can,” Kirby then observed.

“And do you think the Duca and all the caciques will go with the apes?” This time it was Nini who spoke, and with the council so well launched, Kirby began to feel better.

“I think,” he answered Nini, “that the Duca has gone over to Xlotli altogether. We fooled him to-day. Instead of killing or capturing us all, he--he only got Naida. But he won’t give up. I think he is taking the apes off to some place from which he can launch a new attack. And we’ve got to stop him before he is ready to deliver another blow.”

“What do you mean?” Ivana now asked.

“Do you know where the villages of the ape-people are?”

“Yes. None of us has been very far into the Rorroh, but I could guess where some of the villages may stand.”

Silence fell after that, but Kirby knew from the glint in Ivana’s eyes, and the quick breaths which other girls drew, that they understood.

“Ivana,” he said suddenly, “will you go with me into the Rorroh jungle, and stay with me, facing down every danger it may conceal, until we have found Naida and brought her back?”

A flush of life crept into Ivana’s pallid cheeks.

“Yes!”

Kirby faced the other girls, all of them keyed up now.

“Nini, will you go?”

Nini, bronze-haired, dainty nymph of a girl, who had yet the stamina of a man, looked at him with brave eyes. Then her hands tightened on her rifle, and she stepped forward.

“When will you have us start?” Ivana asked in a low voice.

“Now!” Kirby answered, and, taking up the rifle which lay beside him--the same with which Naida had fought--he looked at the other girls.

“There is not one of you,” he said slowly, “who would not go willingly on this quest. But the pursuit party must be small and mobile. And there is another duty. To all of you I leave the care of the castle and the plateau. Take the three rifles I shall leave behind, do what you can to reassure the old people, and hold the plateau safe until we return.”

A murmur of girls’ voices sounded in the temple. Kirby motioned to Nini and Ivana, and followed by a low cheer, they moved off together.

The night was on them, where they crouched in a cave above a swiftly flowing river. Kirby, rifle across his knees, sat peering out across the black, invisible stretches of the forest. His nostrils quivered to this mingled smells of fresh growth and fetid decay of the grotesque land. In his ears shrilled the creaking and scraping of insects, the flap of unseen wings, the distant bellowing grunt of some unseen, unknown animal.

“I cannot sleep,” Ivana said presently, from back in the cave.

“Hush,” he whispered, “you will wake Nini.”

“But I am already awake!” came her answer. “I--I cannot forget the white snakes which slid from that tree when you tried to cut firewood.”

“Hush,” Kirby murmured again. “Presently the moon will rise on the earth above, and light will come here. Even if the jungle is terrible, were you not born with courage? Go to sleep now, both of you, because you must relieve me soon.”

As silence fell again, he knew that the real thing behind their nervousness was their ghastly doubt about what the night was bringing to Naida. But none of them spoke of Naida. So sickening were the possibilities that Kirby would not permit conjecture to occupy even his mind when, at length, the sound of even breathing told him that Nini and Ivana slept.

After dreary passing of an hour, a faint light grew over the jungle, silver and clear, and Kirby let his mind run back to the two deserted ape-men communities which they had found and searched before dusk sent them to the cave. From the signs of hasty departure, it looked as though a far-reaching order had taken the brutes away from their dwellings, and sent them--somewhere.

That somewhere seemed likely to be the great central community which Ivana said was rumored to exist in the far reaches of the Rorroh. The problem was how to locate the community through the hideous country. But Kirby presently drove the question from his head. To-morrow’s evils could best be faced when morrow dawned.

Enough light had grown now so that the swirling bosom of the river, and a strip of sand directly below the cliff in which their cave was set, were visible. As Kirby let his eyes wander to the lush growth beyond the sand, he heard something which made him stir uneasily. Some creature which suggested power and hugeness immeasurable was moving there.

The brush parted, and he saw plainly an animal with the bulk of a two-story house. On two feet the nightmare thing stood, as lightly as a cat, and then came down on all four feet as it ambled out on the sand and extended into the lapping river a tremendous beak studded with teeth. A smell of crushed weeds and the musty odor like that of a lion house filled the night. The tyranosaur--it was more like a tyranosaur than anything else--breathed heavily and guzzled in great mouthfuls of water.

Kirby sat perfectly still. He hoped the thing would go away. But the tyranosaur did not go away. All at once it hissed loudly and stood up, its eyes glowing green and baleful, and Kirby leaned forward.

From the water was slithering another creature with a gigantic, quivering, jelly body. Kirby saw to his horror that, in addition to four short legs with webbed, claw-tipped feet, there sprouted from the body a number of octopus tentacles. From the scabrous mottle of the head, cruel, unintelligent, bestial eyes glared at the rearing tyranosaur.

One of the serpentine tentacles whipped out, slapped against the tyranosaur’s fore-shoulder to call forth a hiss and a short bellow. Then other tentacles waved in the moonlight, and in a flash the tyranosaur was enmeshed as by a score of slimy cables. He was not altogether helpless. Suddenly the steam shovel of a beak buried itself in the jelly body of the water animal, and there spurted out a flood of inky liquid. The water animal emitted a sickening gurgle. But the tyranosaur’s advantage was only temporary. Closer and closer drew the ugly, scabrous tentacles. The tyranosaur never had a chance. Its green eyes flared, the shovel beak plunged and slashed, but never for a second did the tentacles relax. As Kirby stared, he saw the water animal begin to back up, dragging its gigantic enemy with it. For a second the whole night was hideous with the sound of hisses, gurgles, dashing water. Then the river boiled once and for all, and both animals sank in its depths.

Kirby chafed cold hands together and shivered a little, then turned to see if Nini and Ivana had heard the struggle.

Fortunately, however, they still slept. And as if this peace which was upon them were an omen of good, the jungle continued quiet for the next hour. Kirby wakened them at last, and after a snatched nap, was in turn awakened.

The three of them started again when the first glimmerings of dawn came to the forest. Of food there was plenty--fruits which grew in profusion, and some roots which Nini grubbed out of the earth. Having started along the first trail which they encountered beside the river bank, they ate as they walked.

Kirby judged they had kept their steady gait for more than two hours before a slight widening of the trail roused him from the preoccupation into which he had fallen.