Two Thousand Miles Below Part 28

Dean pressed her back into the narrow way with his hands. "Wait here!"

he said, and gave her the flame-thrower. "I've an idea!" He stepped softly out into the broad pa.s.sage and on naked, noiseless feet, moved swiftly toward the lighted room.

It was empty. Beyond the barrier were no red figures, nor were there whistling voices to echo as he had heard them before. Here was the throne where Phee-e-al had sat; here the priests had stood; there, along the wall, were the chests.

Fully twenty of them, each eight feet long, they stood ranged along the three walls of that part of the room protected by the barrier. No two of them alike; all of them were oddly carved and studded with jewels.

The chests were ranged in a straight row a foot or more out from the wall. He crossed to them swiftly. About here was where that priest must have gone. He raised one of the heavy lids till the light struck within.

Bones! Only fragments of a skeleton, blackened by age; a necklace of teeth from some animal's jaw; worthless trifles for the mummery of the priests. Then, beneath them, he saw two great fangs, a foot in length.

They were curved, sharply pointed and yellow as old ivory.

What was it Gor had said of legends that told of ancestors coming from the outer world? Rawson knew that he was looking at priceless relics of the tribe, at the tusks of man's long extinct enemy, the great sabre-toothed tiger.

But he had neither time nor thoughts to spare for marvels new or old--he must find his gun. Yet, even then, he wondered what undreamed-of treasures the other chests might hold--what jewels, what paraphernalia of ancient kings.

He must be silent! Perhaps the next great glittering container might hold the blue gleam of his gun. And this time as the gem-studded lid was swung upward and back to rest noiselessly against the rock wall, Dean could not repress the audible gasp that came to his lips.

His own pistol! He had expected to find the one weapon, but, instead, the chest was filled with all it would hold of rifles and side arms and cartridge belts, all mingled in one indiscriminate heap.

They were twisted, some of them, and bent; discolored, too, evidently by flames. On some the stocks had been burned off.

Rawson's hands were suddenly trembling. There was one rifle that seemed unharmed; he brought it out, and hardly heard the little clatter that it made among the other weapons. An ammunition belt--he slipped out a clip of cartridges, made sure they fitted his gun, and threw one up into the firing chamber. He was fumbling for more of the clips when there pierced through his tumultuous thoughts the realization that he was hearing sounds not made by his own suddenly clumsy hands.

Marching feet, whistling voices--they came from beyond the room's farther end, beyond the entrance through which he had once been brought a captive. He took one step back toward the broad tunnel, then knew there were others coming there.

There was no possible avenue of escape. He threw himself in one wild dive into the narrow s.p.a.ce between the chests and the wall, and pulled himself forward under the shelter of the one back-turned lid. The rifle was still gripped in his hands.

By the sounds that came to him, he knew that the outer room had filled with red warriors, and that another smaller group had come scuffing from the pa.s.sage where he had just entered. And, by the echoing cry of shrill voices that shouted, "Phee-e-al! Phee-e-al!" he knew that the ruler was near.

Then there were footsteps approaching the chest. A priest no doubt; shrill whistling told of his anger. The concealing cover was jerked outward and down, and Rawson, staring above him, saw not the coppery face that he had expected, but the hideous white visage of Phee-e-al himself.

For an instant the ruler of the mole-men stood half stooped in petrified astonishment, and in that moment Rawson dragged himself to his feet. No chance to use the gun--the other was upon him, his gripping talons tearing Rawson's bare flesh. In one flashing thought, Dean cursed himself for the uselessness of his weapon--he should have taken a pistol, an automatic. Then, body to body with the savage, he was dragged out over the chest.

He had been holding the rifle above him, as he struggled from his cramped quarters. The savage had grabbed him about the shoulders, but his hands were still free; they held the gun on high. And in the second when he found his feet under him, as Phee-e-al dragged him clear of the chest, Rawson brought the breech of the gun crashing down upon the pointed skull.

He felt the talons release their hold. The priests were rushing upon him. Phee-e-al, too, had been only momentarily stunned--he was springing. Then Rawson whipped the rifle down in line, and the clamoring shrieks that filled the room with tumult were drowned under another roar.

He saw Phee-e-al fall. Even then, through all the pandemonium within his own mind, he thrilled with satisfaction at sight of a little dot and a spreading stain above Phee-e-al's heart, where only bare skin had been before.

The next shot took the foremost of the priests. The others paused, hesitant for a moment, ranged out in an irregular line. Past them, beyond the golden barrier, Rawson caught a confused glimpse of a sea of red faces. Green flames were stabbing upward from their ready weapons. The priests were between him and them, and there came to Rawson in that instant, through all the chaos of fighting and half-formed plans, the knowledge that these priests were a living barrier that held off the flames.

He fired once more to check them, then sprang for the wide entrance of the tunnel. He fired again back of him, shooting wildly as he ran, then saw Loah as she came from her hiding place with the flame-thrower ready in her hand.

"Quick!" he gasped. "Get back!" Then, with her, he was running stumblingly through the dark.

There could be no escape; even while they fled he knew it. And yet they almost made it--though the end, when it came, was one that neither could possibly have foreseen.

They were following a wide pa.s.sage, one of the countless thoroughfares of the Reds. It was deserted. Loah flashed her light freely. Ahead of them the pa.s.sage turned. Just short of that bend was a rift in the rocks.

"There!" Loah gasped. "Turn there. It will take us back to the _jana_." But the words were followed by a flash of green from dead ahead.

The flames that made it came quickly after and a dozen of the red warriors were before them, the light of their weapons slanting just above Rawson's head. His rifle was half raised--they would at least fight to the last. Then he realized that the green death was not swinging downward.

From behind them, in the corridor through which they had raced, came a chorus of whistling shouts. Rawson whirled to find more of the red fighters, and again, though their hissing green flames were held ready, they did not descend.

A priest, copper-colored, shining resplendently in the weird glow, detached himself from the group and stepped forward under the protection of their weapons. Loah's hand was depressing the muzzle of Rawson's rifle. "Wait!" she said. "He wishes to speak."

The priest stopped and addressed them. Loah answered; and to Rawson it seemed horrible that her lips and throat should be called upon to form those whistling words. Then she turned toward him.

"He says they will not harm you now if you surrender. Later, when they select a new ruler, he may order you set free."

Rawson was doing some quick thinking. The priest was lying, clumsily, childishly, but it might be he could bargain with them.

"Tell them this," he ordered Loah: "they are to let you go free--let you go right now! If they do that, I'll lay down my gun. If they don't, that priest will die before they get me. I don't think you can make it," he added, "but go back to the _jana_. Don't stop for anything. Drive it as fast as you can; you may still get there before Gor does his stuff. And take the flame-thrower in case you are followed--" He stopped; Loah was laughing.

"Did you really think, Dean-San, that I would desert you?" Again she laughed softly--laughing squarely in the face of that waiting death, a laugh that was half a sob, that caught suddenly in her throat as she stared at Dean.

He could not read the look in her eyes as their expression changed.

"Yes," she said slowly, "yes, you are right. If I stay we both die, quickly."

Again her voice made whistling sounds; the priest replied. Then Loah threw her arms around Dean and kissed him. He was gripping his rifle; before he could take her in his arms, she was gone. She walked swiftly, the flame-thrower in her hands, toward the dark cleft in the rocks, through which she disappeared. And Dean, though she had done what he really wished, felt that all of his life and strength had gone with him with that fleeing figure.

He placed his rifle on the floor and, straightening, held out his empty hands; the priest's talons were upon his flesh.

"But I got Phee-e-al, anyhow," he was thinking dully.

CHAPTER XXV

_Smithy_

Scarcely more than a vault in the solid rock, the room where Rawson lay. He had seen it for an instant when the priest, after tying his hands behind him, had hurled him viciously into the room. It had but one entrance, though up high on one wall was a crack some two feet in width that admitted fresh air. A little room, only some twenty feet square; but he would not suffocate--the priests did not intend that he should die--not yet.

He saw one of the giant yellow workers bring a big metal plate. He put it before the doorway; then, by the red glow, he knew that they had sealed him in.