Part 24 (1/2)

Harkness held her tenderly close. ”Frightened,” he rea.s.sured her, ”and no wonder! That night on the pyramid left its mark on us all. Now, come; come quietly.”

He was leading the girl toward the knoll that they all called home. Chet followed, casting frequent glances toward the trees. They had covered half the distance to the barricade when Chet spoke in a voice that was half a whisper in its hushed tenseness.

”Drop--quick!” he ordered. ”Get into the gra.s.s. It's coming. Now let's see what it is.”

He knew that the others had taken cover. For himself, he had flung his lanky figure into the tall gra.s.s. The bow was beside him, an arrow ready; and the tip of polished bone and the feathered shaft made it a weapon that was not one to be disregarded. Long hours of practice had developed his natural apt.i.tude into real skill. Before him, he parted the tall gra.s.s cautiously to see the forest whence the sound had come.

The swish of leaves had warned Chet; some far-flung branch must have failed to bear the big beast's weight and had bent to swing him to the ground--or perhaps the descent was intentional.

And now there was silence, the silence of noonday that is so filled with unheard summer sounds. A foot above Chet's head a tiny bat-winged bird rocked and tilted on vermilion leather wings, while its iridescent head made flickering rainbow colors with the vibrations of a throat that hummed a steady call. Across the meadow were countless other flas.h.i.+ng, humming things, like dust specks dancing in the sun, but magnified and intensely colored.

Above their droning note was the shrill cry of the insects that spent their days in idle and ceaseless unmusical sc.r.a.pings. They inhabited the shadowed zone along the forest edge. And now, where the foliage of the towering trees was torn back in a great arch, the insect shrilling ceased.

As the strings of a harp are damped and silenced in unison, their myriad voices ended that shrill note in the same instant. The silence spread; there was a hush as if all living things were mute in dread expectancy of something as yet unseen.

Chet was watching that arched opening. In one instant, except for the flickering shadows, it was empty; the place was so still it might have been lifeless since the dawn of time. And then--

Chet neither saw nor heard him come. He was there--a hulking hairy figure that came in absolute silence despite his huge weight.

An ape-man larger than any Chet had seen: he stood as motionless as an exhibit in a museum in some city of a far-off Earth. Only the white of his eyeb.a.l.l.s moved as the little eyes, under their beetling black brows, darted swiftly about.

”Bad!” thought Chet. ”d.a.m.n bad!” If this was an advance scout for a pick of great monsters like himself it meant an a.s.sault their own little force could never meet. And this newcomer was hostile. There was not the least doubt of that.

Chet reached one hand behind him to motion for silence; one of his companions had stirred, had moved the gra.s.s in a ripple that was not that of the wind. Chet held his hand rigid in air, his whole body seeming to freeze with a premonition that was pure horror; and within him was a voice that said with dreadful certainty: ”They have found you.

They have hunted you down.”

For the thing in the forest, the creature half-human, half-beast, had raised its two s.h.a.ggy arms before it; and, with eyes fixed and staring, it was walking straight toward them, walking as no other living thing had walked, but one. Chet was seeing again that one--a helplessly hypnotized ape that appeared from a pit in a great pyramid. And the voice within him repeated hopelessly: ”They have found you. They have run you down.”

Chet lay motionless. He still hoped that the dread messenger might pa.s.s them by, but the rigidly outstretched arms were extended straight toward him; the creature's short, heavily muscled legs were moving stiffly, tearing a path through the thick gra.s.s and bringing him nearer with every step.

Diane and Harkness had been a few paces in advance of Chet when they dropped into the concealing gra.s.s. Chet could see where they lay, and the ape-man, as he approached, turned off as if he had lost the direction. He pa.s.sed Chet by, pa.s.sed where Walt and Diane were hiding and stopped! And Chet saw the glazed eyes turn here and there about their peaceful valley.

Unseeing they seemed, but again Chet knew better. Was he more sensitively attuned than the others? Who could say? But again he caught a message as plainly as if the words had been shouted inside his brain.

”Yes, the valley of the three sentinel peaks and the lake of blue; we can find it again. Houses, shelters--how crudely they build, these white-faced intruders!” Chet even sensed the contempt that accompanied the thoughts. ”That is enough; you have done well. You shall have their raw hearts for your reward. Now bring them in--bring them in quickly!”

The instant action that followed this command was something Chet would never have believed possible had his own eyes not seen the incredible leap of the huge body. The ape-man's knotted muscles hurled him through the air directly toward the spot where Walt and Diane were hidden. But, had Chet been able to stand off and observe himself, he might have been equally amazed at the sight of a man who leaped erect, who raised a long bow, fitted an arrow, drew it to his shoulder, and did all in the instant while the huge brute's body was in the air.

The great ape landed on all fours. When he straightened and stood erect--his arms were extended, and in each of his gnarled hands he held a figure that was helpless in that terrible grasp.

No chance to loose the arrow then, though the brute's back was half turned. He had Harkness and Diane by their throats, and Chet knew by the unresisting limpness of Harkness' body that the fearful fire in those blazing eyes had them in a grip even more deadly than the hands of the beast.

Thoughts were flas.h.i.+ng wildly through Chet's brain. ”Knocked 'em cold!