After occupying the new village, Orthis and I were
separated, he being assigned a hut close to Ga-va-go,
while I was placed in another section of the village.
If I could have been said to have been on good terms with
any of the terrible creatures of the tribe, it was with the
woman who had taught me the language of the Va-gas, and
it was from her that I learned why Orthis was treated with
such marked distinction by Ga-va-go, whom, it seemed, he
had promised to lead to the land of our origin, where, he
had assured the savage chieftain, he would find flesh in
abundance.
Nah-ee-lah was confined in still another part of the village,
and I only saw her occasionally, for it was evident
that Ga-va-go wished to keep the prisoners separated. Upon
one occasion when I met her at the shore of the lake I
asked her why it was that they had not slain and eaten her,
and she told me that when Ga-va-go had discovered her
identity, and that her father was a Jemadar, a ruler of a
great city, he had sent messengers with an offer to return
Nah-ee-lah for a ransom of one hundred young women of
the city of Laythe.
“Do you think your father will send the ransom?” I
asked.
“I do not know,” she replied. “I do not see how they
are going to get a message to him, for ordinarily, my race
kills the Va-gas on sight. They may succeed, however, but
even so, it is possible that my father will not send the ransom.
I would not wish him to. The daughters of my
father’s people are as dear to them, as am I to him. It
would be wrong to give a hundred of the daughters of
Laythe in return for one, even though she be the daughter
of the Jemadar.”
We had drunk, and were returning toward our huts when,
wishing to prolong our conversation and to be with this
pleasant companion while I might, I suggested that we walk
farther into the woods and gather fruit. Nah-ee-lah signified
her willingness, and together we strolled out of the
village into the denser woods at its rear, where we found
a particularly delicious fruit growing in abundance. I gathered
some and offered it to her, but she refused, thanking
me, saying that she had but just eaten.
“Do they bring the fruit to you,” I asked, “or do you
have to come and gather it yourself?”
“What fruit I eat I gather,” she replied, “but they bring
me flesh. It is of that which I have just eaten, and so I
do not care for fruit now.”
“Flesh!” I exclaimed. “What kind of flesh?”
“The flesh of the Va-gas, of course,” she replied. “What
other flesh might a U-ga eat?”
I fear that I ill-concealed my surprise and disgust at the
thought that the beautiful Nah-ee-lah ate of the flesh of
the Va-gas.
“You, too, eat of the flesh of these creatures?” I demanded.
“Why not?” she asked. “You eat flesh, do you not, in
your own country. You have told me that you raise beasts
solely for their flesh.”
“Yes,” I replied, “that is true, but we eat only the flesh
of lower orders; we do not eat the flesh of humans.”
“You mean that you do not eat the flesh of your own
species,” she said.
“Yes,” I replied, “that is what I mean.”
“Neither do I,” she said. “The Va-gas are not of the
same species as the U-ga. They are a lower order, just as
are the creatures whose flesh you eat in your own country.
You have told me of beef, and of mutton, and of pork,
which you have described as creatures that run about on
four legs, like the Va-gas. What is the difference, then,
between the eating of the flesh of pork and beef or mutton,
and the eating of Va-gas, who are low creatures also?”
“But they have human faces!” I cried, “and a spoken
language.”
“You had better learn to eat them,” she said, “otherwise
you will eat no flesh in Va-nah.”
The more I thought about it the more reason I saw in
her point of view. She was right. She was no more transgressing
any natural law in eating the flesh of the Va-gas
than do we, eating the flesh of cattle. To her the Va-gas
were less than cattle. They were dangerous and hated enemies.
The more I analyzed the thing, the more it seemed
to me that we humans of the earth were more surely transgressing
a natural law by devouring our domestic animals,
many of which we learned to love, than were the U-ga of
Va-nah in devouring the flesh of their four-footed foes, the
Va-gas. Upon our earthly farms we raise calves and sheep
and little pigs, and oftentimes we become greatly attached
to individuals and they to us. We gain their confidence,
and they have implicit trust in us, and yet, when they are
of the right age, we slay and devour them. Presently it
did not seem either wrong or unnatural that Nah-ee-lah
should eat the flesh of the Va-gas, but as for myself, I
could never do it, nor ever did.
We had left the forest, and were returning to the village
to our huts when, near the large hut occupied by Ga-va-go,
we came suddenly upon Orthis. At the sight of us together
he scowled.
“If I were you,” he said to me, “I would not associate
with her too much. It may arouse the displeasure of Ga-va-go.”
It was the first time that Orthis had spoken to me since
we had occupied this village. I did not like his tone or his
manner.
“You will please to mind your own business, Orthis,” I
said to him, and continued on with Nah-ee-lah. I saw the
man’s eyes narrow malignantly, and then he turned, and
entered the hut of Ga-va-go, the chief of the No-vans.
Every time I went to the river, I had to pass in the vicinity
of Nah-ee-lah’s hut. It was a little out of my way,
but I always made the slight detour in the hope of meeting
her, though I had never entered her hut nor called for her,
since she had never invited me and realizing her position,
I did not wish to intrude. I was of course ignorant of the
social customs of her people, and feared offending her accidentally.
It chanced that the next time that I walked down to the
lake shore, following our stroll in the woods, I made my
usual detour that I might pass by the hut of Nah-ee-lah.
As I came near I heard voices, one of which I recognized
as that of Nah-ee-lah, and the other, a man’s voice. The
girl’s tones were angry and imperious.
“Leave my presence, creature!” were the first words
that I could distinguish, and then the man’s voice.
“Come,” he said, ingratiatingly. “Let us be friends.
Come to my hut, and you will be safe, for Ga-va-go is my
friend.” The voice was the voice of Orthis.
“Go!” she ordered him again. “I would as soon lie with
Ga-va-go as with you.”
“Know then,” cried Orthis, angrily, “that you will go,
whether you wish it or not, for Ga-va-go has given you to
me. Come!” and then he must have seized her, for I heard
her cry out, “How dare you lay hands upon me, Nah-ee-lah,
princess of Laythe!”
I was close beside the entrance to the hut now, and I
did not wait to hear any more, but thrusting the hanging
aside entered. There they were, in the center of the single
room, Orthis struggling to drag the girl toward the opening
while she resisted and struck at him. Orthis’ back was
toward me and he did not know that there was another in
the hut until I had stepped up behind him and grasping him
roughly by the shoulder, had jerked him from the girl and
swung him about facing me.
“You cad,” I said; “get out of here before I kick you
out, and don’t ever let me hear of you molesting this girl
again.”
His eyes narrowed, and he looked at me with an ugly
light in them. “Since boyhood, you have cheated me out of
all that I wished. You ruined my life on earth, but now,
conditions are reversed. The tables are turned. Believe
me, then, when I tell you that if you interfere with me you
sign your own death warrant. It is only by my favor that
you live at all. If I gave the word Ga-va-go would destroy
you at once. Go then to your hut and stop your meddling
in the affairs of others—a habit that you developed in a
most flagrant degree on Earth, but which will avail you
nothing here within the Moon. The woman is mine. Ga-va-go
has given her to me. Even if her father should fail
to send the ransom her life shall be spared as long as I
desire her. Your interference then can only result in your
death, and do her no good, for provided you are successful
in keeping me from her, you would be but condemning her
to death in the event that her father does not send the ransom,
and Ga-va-go has told me that there is little likelihood
of that, since it is scarcely possible that his messengers will
be able to deliver Ga-va-go’s demands to Sagroth.”
“You have heard him,” I said, turning to the girl.
“What are your wishes in the matter. Perhaps he speaks
the truth.”
“I have no doubt but that he speaks the truth,” she replied,
“but know, strangers, that the honor of a princess of
Laythe is dearer than her life.”
“Very well, Orthis,” I said to the man. “You have
heard her. Now get out.”
He was almost white with anger, and for a moment I
thought that he was going to attack me, but he was ever a
coward, and contenting himself with giving me a venomous
look, he walked from the hut without another word.
I turned to Nah-ee-lah, after the hanging had dropped
behind Orthis. “It is too bad,” I said, “that with all your
suffering at the hands of the Va-gas, you should also be
annoyed by one who is practically of your own species.”
“Your kindness more than compensates,” she replied
graciously. “You are a brave man, and I am afraid that
you are going to suffer for your protection of me. This
man is powerful. He has made wonderful promises to Ga-va-go.
He is going to teach him how to use the strange
weapons that you brought from your own world. The
woman who brings me my meat told me of all this, and
that the tribe is much excited by the promises that your
friend has made to Ga-va-go. He will teach them to make
the weapons, such as you slew their warriors with, so that
they will be invincible, and may go abroad in Va-nah slaying
all who oppose them and even raiding the cities of the
U-ga. He has told them that he will lead them to the
strange thing which brought you from your world to Va-nah,
and that there they will find other weapons, like those
that you carried, and having the noise which they make,
and the things with which they kill. All these he says they
may have, and that later he will build other things, such as
brought you from your world to Va-nah, and he will take
Ga-va-go and all the No-vans to what you call Earth.”
“If there is any man in the universe who might do it, it
is he,” I replied, “but there is little likelihood that he can
do it. He is merely deceiving Ga-va-go in the hope of prolonging
his own life, against the possibility that an opportunity
to escape will develop, in which event he will return
to our ship and our friends. He is a bad man though, Nah-ee-lah,
and you must be careful of him. There is a vacant
hut near yours, and I will come and live in it. There is no
use in asking Ga-va-go, for if he is friendly with Orthis, he
will not permit me to make the change. If you ever need
me, call ‘Julian’ as loud as you can, and I will come.”
“You are very good,” she said. “You are like the better
men of Laythe, the high nobles of the court of the Jemadar,
Sagroth, my father. They too are honorable men, to whom
a woman may look for protection, but there are no others
in all Va-nah since the Kalkars arose thousands of kelds
ago, and destroyed the power of the nobles and the Jemadars,
and all the civilization that was Va-nah’s. Only in
Laythe, have we preserved a semblance of the old order.
I wish I might take you to Laythe, for there you would be
safe and happy. You are a brave man. It is strange that
you are not married.”
I was upon the point of making some reply, when the
hangings at the doorway parted, and a No-van warrior entered.
Behind him were three others. They were walking
erect, with drawn spears.
“Here he is,” said the leader, and then, addressing me,
“Come!”
“Why?” I asked. “What do you want of me?”
“Is it for you to question,” he demanded, “when Ga-va-go
commands?”
“He has sent for me?” I asked.
“Come!” repeated the leader, and an instant later they
had hooked their spears about my arms and neck and none
too gently they dragged me from the hut. I had something
of a presentiment that this was to be the end. At the doorway
I half turned to glance back at the girl. She was standing
wide-eyed and tense, watching them drag me away.
“Good-bye—Julian,” she said. “We shall never meet
again for there is none to carry our souls to a new incarnation.”
“We are not dead yet,” I called back, “and remember
if you need me call me,” and then the hanging dropped behind
us, and she was shut off from my vision.
They did not take me to my own hut, but to another, not
far distant from Nah-ee-lah’s, and there they bound my
hands and feet with strips of leather and threw me upon
the ground. Afterwards they left me, dropping the hanging
before the entrance. I did not think that they would eat
me, for Orthis had joined with me in explaining to Ga-va-go
and the others that our flesh was poisonous, and though they
may have questioned the veracity of our statements, nevertheless
I was quite sure that they would not risk the chance
of our having told the truth.
The Va-gas obtain their leather by curing the hides of
their dead. The better portions they use for their trappings
and harness. The other portions they cut into thin strips,
which they use in lieu of rope. Most of this is very strong,
but some of it is not, especially that which is improperly
cured.
The warriors who had been sent to seize me had scarcely
left the hut before I commenced working with my bonds
in an attempt to loosen or break them. I exerted all my
strength in the effort, until I became sure that those which
held my hands were stretching. The effort, however, was
very tiring, and I had to stop often and rest. I do not know
how long I worked at them, but it must have been a very
long time before I became convinced that however much
they gave they were not going to break. Just what I intended
to do with my freedom I do not know, since there
was little or no chance that I might escape from the village.
Perpetual daylight has its disadvantages, and this was one
of them, that there was no concealing nocturnal darkness
during which I might sneak away from the village unseen.
As I lay resting after my exertions, I suddenly became
aware of a strange, moaning sound from without, and then
the hut shook, and I realized that another storm had come.
Soon after I heard the beat of rain drops on the roof, and
then a staggering, deafening peal of lunar thunder. As the
storm waxed in violence, I could imagine the terror of the
No-vans, nor even in my plight could I resist the desire to
smile at their discomfiture. I knew that they must all be
hiding in their huts, and again I renewed my efforts to break
the bonds at my wrists, but all to no avail; and then suddenly,
above the moaning of the wind and the beating of
the rain, there came distinctly to my ears in a clear, full
voice, a single word: “Julian!”
“Nah-ee-lah,” I thought. “She needs me. What are
they doing to her?” There flashed quickly before my mental
vision a dozen scenes, in each of which I saw the divine
figure of the Moon Maid, the victim of some fiendish brutality.
Now she was being devoured by Ga-va-go; now
some of the females were tearing her to pieces, and again
the warriors were piercing that beautiful skin with their
cruel spears; or it was Orthis, come to claim Ga-va-go’s
gift. It was this last thought, I think, which turned me
almost mad, giving to my muscles the strength of a dozen
men. I have always been accounted a powerful man, but
in the instant that that sweet voice came across the storm
to find me, and my imagination pictured her in the clutches
of Orthis, something within moved me to Herculean efforts
far transcending aught that I had previously achieved. As
though they had been cotton twine now, the leather bonds
at my wrists snapped asunder, and an instant later those
at my ankles were torn away, and I was upon my feet. I
sprang to the door and into the open, where I found myself
in a maelstrom of wind and rain. In two bounds I
had cleared the space between the hut in which I had been
confined and that occupied by Nah-ee-lah, had torn the
hanging aside, and had sprung into the interior; and there
I beheld the materialization of my last vision—there was
Orthis, one arm about the slender body of the girl pinning
her arms close to her side, while his other hand was at her
throat, choking her and pressing her slowly backward across
his knees toward the ground.
He was facing the door this time, and saw me enter, and
as he realized who it was, he hurled the girl roughly from
him and rose to meet me. For once in his life he seemed to
know no fear, and I think that what with his passion for
the girl, and the hatred he felt for me, and the rage that
my interference must have engendered, he was momentarily
insane, for he suddenly leaped upon me like a madman,
and for an instant I came near going down beneath his
blows—but only for an instant, and then I caught him
heavily upon the chin with my left fist, and again, full in
the face with my right, and though he was a splendid boxer,
he was helpless in my hands. Neither of us had a weapon,
or one of us certainly would have been killed in short order.
As it was I tried to kill him with my bare fists, and at last,
when he had fallen for the dozenth time, and I had picked
him up and held him upon his feet and struck him repeatedly
again and again, he no longer moved I was sure
that he was dead, and it was with a feeling of relief and
of satisfaction in a duty well performed that I looked down
upon his lifeless body. Then I turned to Nah-ee-lah.
“Come,” I said, “there has been given to us this chance
for escape. Never again may such a fortuitous combination
of circumstances arise. The Va-gas will be hiding in
their huts, crouching in terror of the storm. I do not know
whither we may fly, but wherever it be, we can be in no
greater danger than we are here.”
She shuddered a little at the thought of going out into
the terrors of the storm. Though not so fearful of it as
the ignorant Va-gas, she still feared the wrath of the elements,
as do all the inhabitants of Va-nah, but she did not
hesitate, and as I stretched out a hand, she placed one of
hers within it, and together we stepped out into the swirling
rain and wind.
