Brood Of The Dark Moon Part 23

Schwartzmann's booming voice came plainly even above the chorus of coughing growls and shriller chatter. Chet saw him showing his detonite pistol in a half-threatening motion, and the ape-men cringed away in fear.

"Not so well trained an army, Max, that I am general of, but if we find that man, Harkness, and his pilot and that traitor Kreiss, we will let these soldiers of mine tear them to little bits. Now, we go!"

Max's call had brought the other two men of Schwartzmann's party, and the black horde of ape-men broke into a wild run across the gra.s.s toward the place where Chet and Towahg lay. The two slipped hurriedly into the concealment of denser growth, then ran at top speed down a jungle trail that led off to one side.

They were bedded down for the night on the edge of the white forest; no persuasion of Schwartzmann's would have driven the ape-men into the darkness of the black trees and their flashing, luminous worm-beasts.

Chet and Towahg came within hearing of their encampment just at dusk, and a late-rising moon broke through the gaps in the leafy roof to make splotched islands of gold in the velvet dark where Chet and Towahg fought the jungle so they might swing around and past the camp.

Occasional grunts and scufflings showed that the ape-men were restless, and the two knew that every step must be taken in silence and every obstructing leaf moved with no rasping friction on other leaves or branches. But they came again to the trail, and now they were ahead of the pack, as the first gray light of dawn was stealing through the ghostly white of the trees.

Towahg would have curled himself into a sleepy ball a score of times had Chet not driven him on, and now the pilot only allowed a few minutes for food, where ripe purple fruit hung in cl.u.s.ters on the end of stems that were like ropes.

No use to explain to Towahg. Perhaps the ape-man thought they were hurrying to get through the black forest; he might even have thought the matter through to see the necessity for reaching their own valley and warning the others. Certainly he had no idea of any plans other than these, and he must have been puzzled some several hours later when Chet halted where the trail had crossed a barren expanse of rock.

Towahg had stopped there on the way down. Then he had sniffed the air, dropped his head low and circled about, motioning Chet to follow, from across the clearing where he had picked up the trail. Chet knew the ape-men would do the same unless they were diverted, and he had a plan.

To communicate it to his a.s.sistant was his greatest problem.

He stopped at the clearing, while Towahg urged him on across the smooth rock. Chet shook his head and pointed away from the direction of the big divide, and at last he made him understand. Then Towahg did what Chet never could have done.

He followed their former trail across the stone, his head close to the ground. Now he picked a bruised leaf: again he replaced a turned stone whose markings showed it had been displaced, and he came back over an area that even an ape-man would not follow as being a place where men had gone.

From where they emerged he turned as Chet had pointed, crossed the clearing as clumsily as the German scientist might have done, scuffed his bare feet in a pocket of gravel, and pointed to soft earth where Chet might walk and leave a mark of shoes. Chet grinned happily while Towahg did his grotesque dance that indicated satisfaction, though from afar the first cries of the pack rang in the air.

They could never have outdistanced the apes alone, Chet knew that. But he also knew that Schwartzmann and the others would slow them up, and he counted on the pack staying together on the trail as they traversed this new country. He entered the jungle with Towahg where their new trail led, and drove his tired muscles to greater speed while Towahg, always in the lead, motioned him on.

There were stops for food at times until another night came, and Chet threw himself down on a mat of gra.s.s and fell instantly asleep. If there was danger abroad he neither knew nor cared. He knew only that every muscle of his body was aching from the forced march, and that Towahg's twitching ears were on guard.

The following day they went more slowly, stopping at times to wait for the sounds of pursuit. They were leading the pack on a long journey; Chet wanted to be sure they were following and had not turned back. He left a plain mark of his boot from time to time, and knew that this mark would be shown to Schwartzmann. With that to lead him there would be no stopping the man: he would drive his army of blacks despite their superst.i.tious fears.

The short days and nights formed an endless succession to Chet. Only once did he see a familiar place, as they pa.s.sed a valley and he saw where their ship had rested on that earlier voyage.

"This is far enough," he told Towahg, and made himself plain with signs.

"Now we'll lose them; hang them right up in the air and leave them there."

Another steep climb and a valley beyond, and in the hollow a tumbling stream. There was no need to tell Towahg what to do, for he led straight for the water, and his thick legs churned through it as he headed down stream; nor did he stop until they had covered many miles.

Chet had wondered how they would leave the water without trace, but again Towahg was ready. A stone where the water splashed would show no mark of bare feet. From it he leaped into the air toward a swaying vine.

He missed, tried again, and finally grasped it. And the rest was a repet.i.tion of what had been done before.

He lowered a vine as Chet had taught him, pulled the slim figure of Chet up to the dizzy heights of the jungle trees, then took Chet's one arm in a grip of chilled steel and threw him across his back, while he swung sickeningly from limb to limb, up through the branches of another grotesque tree where its queerly distorted limbs sagged and swung them to its fellow some fifty feet away.

It was a wild ride for the pilot. "I've driven everything that's made with an engine in it," he told himself, "but this one-ape-power craft has them all stopped for thrills."

And at last when even Towahg's chest that seemed ribbed with steel, was rising and falling with his great breaths, Chet found himself set down on the ground, and he patted the black on the shoulder in the gesture that meant approval.

"Water and air," he said; "it'll bother them to trail us over that route. Towahg, you're there when it comes to trapeze work. Now, if you can find the way back again--!"

And Towahg could, as Chet admitted when, after a series of eventless days, they came again to the big divide above the reaches of Happy Valley.

And the grip of Harkness' hand, and the tears in Diane's eyes brought a choke to his throat until the voluble apologies of a penitent Herr Kreiss and the antics of a Towahg, recipient of many approving pats, turned the emotion into the safer channel of laughter.

"But I think we switched them off for good," Chet said, in conclusion of his recital; "I believe we are as safe as we ever were. And I've only one big regret:

"If I could just have been around somewhere when friend Schwartzmann found his scouts had led him up a blind alley, it would have been worth the trip. He did pretty well when he started cussing us out before; I'll bet he pumped his vocabulary dry on them this time."

CHAPTER XVII

_Hunted Down_

Work on the house was resumed. "And when it is done," said Diane with a gay laugh, "Walter and I shall have our wedding day. Now you see why you were wanted so badly, Chet; it was not that we worried for you, but only that we feared the loss of the one person on the Dark Moon who could perform a marriage ceremony."

"And I thought all along it was my clever carpenter work that had captivated you," responded Chet, and tried to fit the splintered end of a timber into a forked branch that made an upright post.

And each day the house took form, while the sun shone down with tropical warmth where the work was going on.

Only Harkness and Chet were the builders. Diane's strength was not equal to the task of cutting tough wood with a crude stone ax, and Herr Kreiss, though willing enough to help when asked, was usually in his own cave, busied with mysterious experiments of which he would tell nothing.

Towahg, their only remaining Helper, could not be held. Too wild for restraint of any kind, he would vanish into the jungle at break of day to reappear now and then as silently as a black shadow. But he kept them all supplied with game and fruit and succulent roots which his wilder brethren of the forest must have shown him were fit for food.

And then came an interruption that checked the work on the house, that drained the brilliant sunshine of its warmth and light, and turned all thoughts to the question of defense.

The two had been working on the roof, while Diane had returned to the jungle for another of the big leaves. She carried her bow on such trips, although the weeks had brought them a sense of security. But for Chet this feeling of safety vanished in the instant that he heard Harkness'

half-uttered exclamation and saw him drop quickly to the ground.

Beyond him, coming through the green smother of gra.s.s that was now as high as her waist, was Diane. Even at a distance Chet could see the unnatural paleness of her face; she was running fast, coming along the trail they had all helped to make.

Chet hit the ground on all fours and reached for the long bow with which he had become so expert; then followed Harkness who was racing to meet the girl.

"An ape!" she was saying between choking breaths when Chet reached them.

"An ape-man!" She was clinging to Harkness in utter fright that was unlike the Diane he had known.

"Towahg," Harkness suggested; "you saw Towahg!" But the girl shook her head. She was recovering something of her normal poise; her breath came more evenly.

"No! It was not Towahg. I saw it. I was hidden under the big leaves. It was an ape-man. He came swinging along through the branches of the trees: he was up high and he looked in all directions. I ran. I think he did not see me.

"And now," she confessed, "I am ashamed. I thought I had forgotten the horror of that experience, but this brought it all back.... There! I am all right now."