The Fire People Part 20

There seemed to be five of our captors, all of them as evil-looking men as I think I have ever seen. They rummaged about the room, evidently in search for weapons they thought I might have secreted. Then they ordered me to stand up, and without more ado led Miela and me from the house.

This was once when I was glad of the interminable daylight. I hoped we might find some early risers about the streets, for I thought certainly the time of sleep must now be nearly over. But no one was in sight as we left the garden. We turned the first corner and headed toward the base of the mountain.

"To Baar's house they are taking us, I think. It is on the marshland below." Miela spoke without fear of our captors understanding the English words. We took advantage of this until after a moment we were roughly ordered to be quiet.

Lua, we thought, must have been taken away before we arrived; we would find her at Baar's house when we arrived there. We had come down to the level marshlands now, the outskirts of the city, and were pa.s.sing along a path between occasional shacks. Before us, standing alone in a rice paddy, I saw a larger, more pretentious house--a wooden structure on stilts, with a thatched roof, which Miela said was where Baar lived.

We went in single file up its board incline, and entered a squalid room with matting on the floor, a rude charcoal brazier at one side, and the remains of a previous meal lying on a table.

Two women were in the room as we entered. I took these to be Baar's wife and a servant. Two naked little children lay on the floor, one of them crying l.u.s.tily.

Baar glanced around as he came in, and with what I took to be an oath ordered the children removed from the room. The slave woman--I could see she was a slave by the band upon her arm--picked them up. Evidently she did not move fast enough to suit Baar's temper, for as she straightened up the man cuffed her upon the head. She stumbled to one side against Baar's wife, who was standing there, and the other woman, with a sharp imprecation, struck her full in the breast.

Neither of them saw the look she gave as she shuffled away, carrying the infants; but I did. It was a look of the most intense hatred, born and nourished, I realized, by long ill-treatment.

Miela and I were now bound securely hand and foot, and Miela's wings were lashed to her body. Thus rendered entirely helpless, we were laid together in a corner.

From the talk that followed Miela gathered that Baar and his men were expecting the arrival of others. He roughly ordered his wife--a woman of the Twilight Country, obviously--to clear away the remains of their last meal and bring other food. She obeyed submissively.

This, the first of the Twilight Country People I had seen, was a thick-set woman of perhaps thirty-five, although she might have been older, for her black hair, which fell in an unkempt ma.s.s to her waist, was beginning to gray. She wore a single garment, a pair of silken trousers, drab with dirt. Her clipped wings were covered in the usual way.

I could see now why Miela had said these Twilight women could not fly, for this woman's torso was fat and flabby. Her skin was curiously pale--a dead, unpleasant white. Her face was broad, heavy and unintelligent. Her eyes were large and protruded slightly.

Baar and his men ate breakfast, paying no further attention to Miela and me. Suddenly Miela spoke in a frightened whisper. "They are going now in a moment to the castle. The king they will kill!"

It was evidently a widespread plot we now overheard. Baar's followers had for some time been talking quietly with the lower cla.s.ses, and, finding they could count on their support, planned now to murder the king. Then with the queen and the little prince held as hostages, they expected that the men of science, threatened also with a revolt of the peons, would release the light-ray.

The light-ray once in his control, Baar could make himself king. It seemed an absurd hope, but such was the plan they were now discussing. And what was far worse, I could see no way by which I could prevent the attempt.

"They are going to the castle--now--to murder the king?" I whispered, incredulous.

"Yes," Miela answered. "So they plan. Now--in a moment--before the time of sleep is over."

"Isn't he guarded? Can they get in the castle without arousing others?"

"There are the guards--a few. But Baar has promised them great wealth, and they will stand aside and let him pa.s.s. So it is arranged."

The arrival of several other men interrupted our whispered conversation.

Baar, his meal over, consulted with them hurriedly. He then instructed his wife to watch us, and after a moment they all left the house.

The woman, who was now the only occupant of the room with us, shuffled about, clearing away the meal. I tried desperately to work my hands loose; I even tried with my teeth to gnaw Miela's bonds, but without success.

Every moment counted, if we were to do anything to save the king. I wondered again where Lua was--perhaps in another part of the house here, bound as we were.

"Miela," I whispered, "ask for food. Tell her we have had nothing for many hours. Perhaps she will loosen our bonds a little to let us eat. We may be able to do something then."

The woman answered Miela's pleading by setting us up side by side, with our backs against the wall. She placed food before us, and then, with a knife, cut the cords that bound our arms.

My heart leaped exultantly; but, instead of leaving us and going on with her work, she sat down just out of reach, holding the knife in her hand and watching us narrowly.

"We must eat, Miela," I said, using as casual a tone as I could and pointing to the food smilingly. "Eat, and pretend not to notice her.

Perhaps I can get to my feet."

We ate the food she had given us. I tensed the muscles of my legs, and believed that, bound as I was, I might be able to leap forward and reach the woman. It was almost hopeless to attempt it, for I realized she would meet my body with the dagger point.

We were still eating, and I was thinking over this plan, when the slave woman appeared silently in a doorway across the room, behind the woman who faced us. Something in her att.i.tude made me look away again casually and go on with my eating.

Miela had evidently not noticed her.

The slave woman came slowly toward us. A moment later she hurled herself upon Baar's wife from behind. At the same instant I threw myself forward, falling p.r.o.ne, but within reach of the seated woman. I gripped her with my hands, fumbling to catch her wrists, but before I could succeed she toppled forward and fell partly over me.

I heard Miela give a cry of fright. I struggled free and raised myself up to a half-sitting position. Baar's wife lay beside me dead, with the slave woman's knife buried to the hilt in her back.

Reaching over, I took the knife from the dead woman's fingers, and with it cut the cords that bound my ankles. I sprang to my feet. The slave had retreated and stood shrinking against the side of the room, terrified at what she had done. I paid no more attention to her for the moment, but hastened to release Miela.

We searched the house hurriedly, calling to Lua; but she did not answer, nor could we find her. When we returned the slave woman was still standing where we had left her, staring with horrified eyes at the body of her mistress.

"Tell her what she did was right," I said. "She may have saved the king.

Tell her to go to your house and wait for us."

The woman nodded eagerly when Miela told her what to do, and fell on her knees before us.

"She says she will serve us always. She has been very badly treated, Alan."

We sent the woman away, and with a last hasty glance around hurriedly left the house alone with its single dead occupant. A large wooden mortar and pestle, used for pounding rice, stood in the kitchen. I carried the pestle away with me; it was nearly five feet long and quite heavy--an excellent weapon.

We hastened up through the city--Miela half walking, half flying, and I carrying this bludgeon and running with twelve-foot strides. But it was now hardly more than three-quarters of an hour since we had pa.s.sed this way before, and there were still few people about to see us. Baar and his men had started some twenty minutes before us, I figured, and we must reach the castle before them.

I made extraordinary progress over the level country. But I could not run uphill for long, and soon had to slow down to a walk. Miela kept closer to me now. We approached the castle grounds.

"Where will the guards be, Miela? We must avoid them if we can. They might try to stop us."

Miela did not know where they would be; but under the circ.u.mstances, as Baar had told his men, she believed the guards would disappear from the vicinity. This conjecture proved to be correct. The guards, not wishing to be concerned in the affair at all, had simply disappeared. We saw nothing of Baar and his men on the way up the mountain, although I had hoped we might overtake them.

As we pa.s.sed hurriedly through the palm gardens surrounding the castle I saw its huge front doors were closed.

"Miela, we can't get in that way. A side entrance--or some other way--"

"I know," she said. "There is a smaller door below, and others on the side."

We hastened on. Suddenly I gripped Miela by the arm.

"What's that--over there--see, beyond the grove?"

There seemed to be furtive figures lurking among the palms.

"Those cannot be Baar's men, Miela--there are too many. What can it--"

We had reached a little doorway under the front terrace. There was no time to investigate these advancing figures. Baar and his men might already be inside the castle.