CHAPTER VIII.

      EVALIE

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      The golden pygmies hissed; their yellow eyes were molten with hatred.

      The little man touched my hand, talking in the rapid trilling syllables, and pointing over the white river. Clearly he was telling me we must cross it. He stopped, listening. The little woman ran down the broken stairs. The little man twittered angrily, darted to Jim, beat at his legs with his fists as though to arouse him, then shot after the woman.

      “Snap out of it, Indian!” I said, impatiently. “They want us to hurry.”

      He shook his head, like a man shaking away the last cobwebs of some dream.

      We sped down the broken steps. The little man was waiting for us; or at least he had not run away, for, if waiting for us, he was doing so, in a most singular manner. He was dancing in a small circle, waving his arms and hands oddly, and trilling a weird melody upon four notes, repeated over and over in varying progressions. The woman was nowhere in sight.

      A wolf howled. It was answered by other wolves farther away in the flowered forest-like a hunting pack whose leader has found the scent.

      The little woman came racing through the fem brake; the little man stopped dancing. Her hands were filled with small purplish fruits resembling fox-grapes. The little man pointed toward the white river, and they set off through the screening brake of ferns. We followed.

      We came out of the brake, crossed the blue sward and stood on the bank of the river.

      The howl of the wolf sounded again, answered by the others, and closer.

      The little man leaped upon me, twittering frantically; he twined his legs about my waist and strove to tear my shirt from me. The woman was trilling at Jim, waving in her hands the bunches of purple fruit.

      “They want us to take off our clothes,” said Jim. “They want us to be quick about it.”

      We stripped, hastily. There was a crevice in the bank into which I pushed the pack. Quickly we rolled up our clothes and boots, and threw a strap around them and slung them over our shoulders.

      The little woman threw a handful of the purple fruit to her man. She motioned Jim to bend, and as he did so she squeezed the berries over his head and hands, his breasts and thighs and feet. The little man was doing the same for me. The fruit had an oddly pungent odour that made my eyes water.

      I straightened up and looked out over the white river.

      The head of a serpent broke through its milky surface; then another and another. Their heads were as large as those of the anaconda, and were scaled in vivid emerald. They were crested by brilliant green spines which continued along their backs and were revealed as they swirled and twisted in the white water. Quite definitely, I did not like plunging into that water, but now I thought I knew the purpose of our anointing, and that most certainly the golden pygmies intended us no harm. And just as certainly, I assumed, they knew what they were about.

      The howling of the wolves came once more, not only much nearer, but from the direction along which had gone the troop of women.

      The little man dived into the water, motioning me to follow. I obeyed, and heard the small splash of the woman and the louder one of Jim. The little man glanced back at me, nodded, and began to swim across like an eel, at a speed that I found difficult to emulate.

      The crested serpents did not molest us. Once I felt the slither of scales across my loins; once I shook the water from my eyes to find one of them swimming beside me, matching in play my speed, or so it seemed; racing me.

      The water was warm, as warm as the milk it resembled, and curiously buoyant. The river at this point was about a thousand feet wide. I had covered half of it when I heard a shrill shriek and felt the buffeting of wings about my head. I rolled over, beating up with my hands to drive off whatever it was that had attacked me.

      It was the white falcon of the Wolf-woman, hovering, dropping, rising again, threshing me with its pinions!

      I heard a cry from the bank, a bell-like contralto, vibrant, imperious — in archaic Uighur:

      “Come back! Come back. Yellow-hair!”

      I swung round to see. The falcon ceased its bufferings. Upon the farther bank was the Wolf-woman upon her great black mare, the captive girl still clasped in her ann. The Wolf-woman’s eyes were like sapphire stars, her free hand was raised in summons.

      And all around her, heads lowered, glaring at me with eyes as green as hers were blue, was a pack of snow-white wolves!

      “Come back!” she cried again.

      She was very beautiful — the Wolf-woman. It would not have been hard to have obeyed. But no — she was not a Wolf-woman! What was she? Into my mind came a Uighur word, an ancient word that I had not blown I knew. She was the Salur’da — the Witch-woman. And with it came angry resentment of her summons. Who was she — the Salur’da — to command me! Me, Dwayanu, who in olden time long forgot would have had her whipped with scorpions for such insolence!

      I raised myself high above the white water.

      “Back to your den, Salur’da!” I shouted. “Does Dwayanu come to your call? When I summon you, then see that you obey!”

      She stared at me, stark amazement in her eyes; the strong arm that held the girl relaxed so that the captive almost dropped from the mare’s high pommel. I struck out across the water to the farther shore.

      I heard the Witch-woman whistle. The falcon circling round my head screamed, and flew. I heard the white wolves snarling; I heard the thud of the black mare’s hoofs racing over the blue sward. I reached the bank and climbed it. Only then did I turn. Witch-woman, falcon and white wolves — all of them were gone.

      Across my wake the emerald-headed, emerald-crested serpents swam and swirled and dived.

      The golden pygmies had climbed upon the bank.

      Jim asked:

      “What did you say to her?”

      “The Witch-woman comes to my call — not I to hers,” I answered, and wondered as I did so what it was that compelled the words.

      “Still very much — Dwayanu, aren’t you, Leif? What touched the trigger on you this time?”

      “I don’t know.” The inexplicable resentment against the woman was still strong, and, because I could not understand it, irritating to a degree. “She ordered me to come back, and a little fire-cracker went off in my brain. Then I— I seemed to know her for what she is, and that her command was rank insolence. I told her so. She was no more surprised by what I said than I am. It was like someone else speaking. It was like —”

      I hesitated —“well, it was like when I started that cursed ritual and couldn’t stop.”

      He nodded, then began to put on his clothes. I followed suit. They were soaking wet. The pygmies watched us wriggle into them with frank amazement. I noticed that the angry red around the wound on the little man’s breast had paled, and that while the wound itself was raw, it was not deep and had already begun to heal. I looked at my own hand; the red had almost disappeared, and only a slight tenderness betrayed where the nectar had touched it.

      When we had laced our boots, the golden pygmies trotted off, away from the river toward a line of cliffs about a mile ahead. The vaporous green light half hid them, as it had wholly hidden our view to the north when we had first looked over the valley. For half the distance the ground was level and covered with the blue flowered grass. Then ferns began, steadily growing higher. We came upon a trail little