Chapter XIII: The Twelve

For a minute or two Rolla was not observed. She simply stood and stared, being neither confident enough to go forward nor scared enough to retreat. Childlike, she scrutinized the group with great thoroughness.

Their comparatively white faces and hands puzzled her most. Also, she could not understand the heavy black robes in which all were dressed. Falling to the floor and reaching far above their necks, such garments would have been intolerable to the free-limbed Sanusians. To the watchers on the earth, however, the robes made the group look marvelously like a company of monks.

Not that there was anything particularly religious about the place or in their behavior. All twelve seemed to be silent only because they were voraciously hungry. A meal was spread on the table. Except for the garments, the twelve might have been so many harvest hands, gathered for the evening meal in the cook-house. From the white-bearded man who sat at the head of the table and passed out large helpings of something from a big pot, to the fair-haired young fellow at the foot, who could scarcely wait for his share, there was only one thing about them which might have been labeled pious; and that was their attitude, which could have been interpreted: “Give us this day our daily bread--and hurry up about it!”

Apparently Rolla was convinced that these men were thoroughly human, and as such fairly safe to approach. For she allowed her curiosity to govern her caution, and proceeded to sidle through the doorway. Half-way through she caught a whiff of the food, and her sidling changed to something faster.

At that instant she was seen. A tall, dark-haired chap on the far side of the table glanced up and gave a sharp, startled exclamation. Instantly the whole dozen whirled around and with one accord shot to their feet.

Rolla stopped short.

There was a second’s silence; then the white-bearded man, who seemed to be the leader of the group, said something peremptory in a deep, compelling voice. Rolla did not understand.

He repeated it, this time a little less commandingly; and Rolla, after swallowing desperately, inclined her head in the diffident way she had, and said:

“Are ye friends or enemies?”

Eleven of the twelve looked puzzled. The dark-haired man, who had been the first to see her, however, gave a muttered exclamation; then he cogitated a moment, wet his lips and said something that sounded like: “What did you say? Say it again!”

Rolla repeated.

The dark-haired man listened intently. Immediately he fell to nodding with great vigor, and thought deeply again before making another try: “We are your friends. Whence came ye, and what seek ye?”

Rolla had to listen closely to what he said. The language was substantially the same as hers; but the verbs were misplaced in the sentences, the accenting was different, and certain of the vowels were flatted. After a little, however, the man caught her way of talking and was able to approximate it quite well, so that she understood him readily.

“I seek,” Rolla replied, “food and rest. I have traveled far and am weary.”

“Ye look it,” commented the man. His name, Rolla found out later, was Somat. “Ye shall have both food and rest. However, whence came ye?”

“From the other side of the world,” answered Rolla calmly.

Instantly she noted that the twelve became greatly excited when Somat translated her statement. She decided to add to the scene.

“I have been away from my people for many days,” and she held up one hand with the five fingers spread out, opening and closing them four times, to indicate twenty.

“Ye came over the edge of the world!” marveled Somat. “It were a dangerous thing to do, stranger!”

“Aye,” agreed Rolla, “but less dangerous than that from which I fled. However,” impatiently, “give me the food ye promised; I can talk after my stomach be filled.”

“Of a surety,” replied Somat apologetically. “I were too interested to remember thy hunger.” He spoke a word or two, and one of his companions brought another stool, also dishes and table utensils.

Whereupon the watchers on the earth got a first-class surprise. Here they had been looking upon twelve men, living in almost barbaric fashion amid the ruins of a great city; but the men had been eating from hand-painted china of the finest quality, and using silverware that was simply elegant, nothing less! Luxury in the midst of desolation!

Rolla, however, paid little attention to these details. She was scarcely curious as to the food, which consisted of some sort of vegetable and meat stew, together with butterless bread, a kind of small-grained corn on the cob, a yellowish root-vegetable not unlike turnips, and large quantities of berries. She was too hungry to be particular, and ate heartily of all that was offered, whether cooked or uncooked. The twelve almost forgot their own hunger in their interest in the stranger.

It was now pretty dark in the big room. The white-bearded man said something to the young fellow at the foot of the table, whereupon the chap got up and stepped to the nearest wall, where he pressed something with the tip of his finger. Instantly the room was flooded with white light--from two incandescent bulbs!

Rolla leaped to her feet in amazement, bunking painfully in the unaccustomed glare.

“What is this?” she demanded, all the more furiously to hide her fear. “Ye would not trick me with magic; ye, who call yourselves friends!”

Somat interpreted this to the others. Some laughed; others looked pityingly at her. Somat explained:

“It is nothing, stranger. Be not afraid. We forgot that ye might know nothing of this ‘magic.’” He considered deeply, apparently trying to put himself in her place. “Know ye not fire?” Of course, she did not know what he meant. “Then,” with an inspiration, “perchance ye have see the flower, the red flower, ye might call--”

“Aye!” eagerly. “Doth it grow here?”

Somat smiled with satisfaction, and beckoned for her to follow him. He led the way through a small door into another room, evidently used as a kitchen. There he pointed to a large range, remarkably like the up-to-date article known on the earth.

“The flower ‘groweth’ here,” said he, and lifted a lid from the stove. Up shot the flame.

“Great Mownoth!” shouted Holla, forgetting all about her hunger. “I have found it--the precious flower itself!”

Somat humored her childlike view-point. “We have the seed of the flower, too,” said he. He secured a box of matches from a shelf, and showed her the “little sticks.”

“Exactly what the angel showed me!” jubilated Holla. “I have come to the right place!”

Back she went to her food, her face radiant, and all her lurking suspicion of the twelve completely gone. From that time on she had absolute and unquestioning confidence in all that was told her. In her eyes, the twelve were simply angels or gods who had seen fit to clothe themselves queerly and act human.

Supper over, she felt immensely tired. All the strain of the past three weeks had to have its reaction. Like a very tired, sleepy child, she was led to a room in another part of the building, where she was shown an ordinary sleeping-cot. She promptly pulled the mattress onto the floor, where she considered it belonged, and fell fast asleep.

Meanwhile, back on the earth, Van Emmon and Smith had lost no time in making use of the doctor’s description of the twelve. Within a few minutes they had new agents; Van Emmon used Somat’s eyes and ears, while Smith got in touch with the elderly bearded man at the head of the table. His name was Deltos.

“A very striking confirmation of the old legends,” he was saying through a big yawn, as Smith made connection. He used a colloquial type of language, quite different from the lofty, dignified speech of the Sanusians. “That is, of course, if the woman is telling the truth.”

“And I think she is,” declared the young fellow at the foot of the table. “It makes me feel pretty small, to think that none of us ever had the nerve to make the trip; while she, ignorant as she is, dared it all and succeeded!”

“You forget, Sorplee,” reminded Somat, “that such people are far hardier than we. The feat is one that requires apelike ability. The only thing that puzzled me is--why did she do it at all?”

“It will have to remain a puzzle until she awakens,” said Deltos, rising from the table. “Lucky for us, Somat, that you saw fit to study the root tongues. Otherwise we’d have to converse by signs.”

Neither Smith nor Van Emmon learned anything further that night. The twelve were all very tired, apparently, and went right to bed; a procedure which was straightway seconded by the four watchers on the earth. Which brings us in the most ordinary manner to the events of the next day.

After breakfast all but Somat left the place and disappeared in various directions; and Rolla noted that the robes were, evidently, worn only at meal time. Most of the men were now dressed in rough working garments, similar to what one sees in modern factories. Whimsical sort of gods, Rolla told herself, but gods just the same.

“Tell me,” began Somat, as the woman sat on the floor before him--he could not get her to use a chair--”tell me, what caused thee to leave thy side of the world? Did ye arouse the wrath of thy fellow creatures?”

“Nay,” answered Rolla, and proceeded to explain, in the wrong order, as a child might, by relating first the crossing of the ridge, the flight from the bees, the “masters’” cruel method of dealing with Corrus and Dulnop, and finally the matter of the fire itself, the real cause of the whole affair. Somat was intelligent enough to fill in such details as Rolla omitted.

“Ye did right, and acted like the brave girl ye are!” he exclaimed, when Rolla had finished. However, he did not fully appreciate what she had meant by “the winged masters,” and not until she pointed out some bees and asked if, on this part of the planet, such were the rulers of the humans, that the man grasped the bitter irony of it all.

“What! Those tiny insects rule thy lives!” It took him some time to comprehend the deadly nature of their stings, and the irresistible power of concerted effort; but in the end he commented: “‘Tis not so strange, now that I think on it. Mayhap life is only a matter of chance, anyway.”

Presently he felt that he understood the Sanusian situation. He fell silent; and Rolla, after waiting as long as her patience would allow, finally put the question temporarily uppermost in her mind:

“It is true that I have crossed the edge of the world. And yet, I understand it not at all. Can ye explain the nature of this strange world we live upon, Somat?” There was infinite respect in the way Rolla used his name; had she known a word to indicate human infallibility, such as “your majesty,” she would have used it. “There is a saying among our people that the world be round. How can this be so?”