The A. Merritt MEGAPACK ®. Abraham Merritt
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wait a bit, then.”
“But why are you staying here? Why didn’t you make for the road up the mountain? What are you watching for, anyway?” asked Drake.
“Go to it, Ruth,” Ventnor grinned. “Tell ’em. After all—it was your party you know.”
“Mart!” she cried, blushing.
“Well—it wasn’t me they admired,” he laughed.
“Martin!” she cried again, and stamped her foot.
“Shoot,” he said. “I’m busy. I’ve got to watch.”
“Well”—Ruth’s voice was uncertain—“we’d been hunting up in Kashmir. Martin wanted to come over somewhere here. So we crossed the passes. That was about a month ago. The fourth day out we ran across what looked like a road running south.
“We thought we’d take it. It looked sort of old and lost—but it was going the way we wanted to go. It took us first into a country of little hills; then to the very base of the great range itself; finally into the mountains—and then it ran blank.”
“Bing!” interjected Ventnor, looking around for a moment. “Bing—just like that. Slap dash against a prodigious fall of rock. We couldn’t get over it.”
“So we cast about to find another road,” went on Ruth. “All we could strike were—just strikes.”
“No fish on the end of ’em,” said Ventnor. “God! But I’m glad to see you, Walter Goodwin. Believe me, I am. However—go on, Ruth.”
“At the end of the second week,” she said, “we knew we were lost. We were deep in the heart of the range. All around us was a forest of enormous, snow-topped peaks. The gorges, the canyons, the valleys that we tried led us east and west, north and south.
“It was a maze, and in it we seemed to be going ever deeper. There was not the slightest sign of human life. It was as though no human beings except ourselves had ever been there. Game was plentiful. We had no trouble in getting food. And sooner or later, of course, we were bound to find our way out. We didn’t worry.
“It was five nights ago that we camped at the head of a lovely little valley. There was a mound that stood up like a tiny watch-tower, looking down it. The trees grew round like tall sentinels.
“We built our fire in that mound; and after we had eaten, Martin slept. I sat watching the beauty of the skies and of the shadowy vale. I heard no one approach—but something made me leap to my feet, look behind me.
“A man was standing just within the glow of firelight, watching me.”
“A Tibetan?” I asked. She shook her head, trouble in her eyes.
“Not at all.” Ventnor turned his head. “Ruth screamed and awakened me. I caught a glimpse of the fellow before he vanished.
“A short purple mantle hung from his shoulders. His chest was covered with fine chain mail. His legs were swathed and bound by the thongs of his high buskins. He carried a small, round, hide-covered shield and a short two-edged sword. His head was helmeted. He belonged, in fact—oh, at least twenty centuries back.”
He laughed in plain enjoyment of our amazement.
“Go on, Ruth,” he said, and took up his watch.
“But Martin did not see his face,” she went on. “And oh, but I wish I could forget it. It was as white as mine, Walter, and cruel, so cruel; the eyes glowed and they looked upon me like a—like a slave dealer. They shamed me—I wanted to hide myself.
“I cried out and Martin awakened. As he moved, the man stepped out of the light and was gone. I think he had not seen Martin; had believed that I was alone.
“We put out the fire, moved farther into the shadow of the trees. But I could not sleep—I sat hour after hour, my pistol in my hand,” she patted the automatic in her belt, “my rifle close beside me.
“The hours went by—dreadfully. At last I dozed. When I awakened again it was dawn—and—and—” she covered her eyes, then: “Two men were looking down on me. One was he who had stood in the firelight.”
“They were talking,” interrupted Ventnor again, “in archaic Persian.”
“Persian,” I repeated blankly; “archaic Persian?”
“Very much so,” he nodded. “I’ve a fair knowledge of the modern tongue, and a rather unusual command of Arabic. The modern Persian, as you know, comes straight through from the speech of Xerxes, of Cyrus, of Darius whom Alexander of Macedon conquered. It has been changed mainly by taking on a load of Arabic words. Well—there wasn’t a trace of the Arabic in the tongue they were speaking.
“It sounded odd, of course—but I could understand quite easily. They were talking about Ruth. To be explicit, they were discussing her with exceeding frankness—”
“Martin!” she cried wrathfully.
“Well, all right,” he went on, half repentantly. “As a matter of fact, I had seen the pair steal up. My rifle was under my hand. So I lay there quietly, listening.
“You can realize, Walter, that when I caught sight of those two, looking as though they had materialized from Darius’s ghostly hordes, my scientific curiosity was aroused—prodigiously. So in my interest I passed over the matter of their speech; not alone because I thought Ruth asleep but also because I took into consideration that the mode of polite expression changes with the centuries—and these gentlemen clearly belonged at least twenty centuries back—the real truth is I was consumed with curiosity.
“They had got to a point where they were detailing with what pleasure a certain mysterious person whom they seemed to regard with much fear and respect would contemplate her. I was wondering how long my desire to observe—for to the anthropologist they were most fascinating—could hold my hand back from my rifle when Ruth awakened.
“She jumped up like a little fury. Fired a pistol point blank at them. Their amazement was—well—ludicrous. I know it seems incredible, but they seemed to know nothing of firearms—they certainly acted as though they didn’t.
“They simply flew into the timber. I took a pistol shot at one but missed. Ruth hadn’t though; she had winged her man; he left a red trail behind him.
“We didn’t follow the trail. We made for the opposite direction—and as fast as possible.
“Nothing happened that day or night. Next morning, creeping up a slope, we caught sight of a suspicious glitter a mile or two away in the direction we were going. We sought shelter in a small ravine. In a little while, over the hill and half a mile away from us, came about two hundred of these fellows, marching along.
“And they were indeed Darius’s men. Men of that Persia which had been dead for millenniums. There was no mistaking them, with their high, covering shields, their great bows, their javelins and armor.
“They passed; we doubled. We built no fires that night—and we ought to have turned the pony loose, but we didn’t. It carried my instruments, and ammunition, and I felt we were going to need the latter.
“The next morning we caught sight of another band—or the same. We turned again. We stole through a tree-covered plain; we struck an ancient road. It led south, into the peaks again. We followed it. It brought us here.
“It isn’t, as you observe, the most comfortable of places. We struck across the hollow to the crevice—we knew nothing of the entrance you came through. The hollow was not pleasant, either. But it was penetrable, then.
“We crossed. As we were about to enter the cleft there issued out of it a most unusual and disconcerting chorus of sounds—wailings, crashings, splinterings.”
I started, shot a look at Dick; absorbed, he was drinking in Ventnor’s every word.
“So unusual, so—well, disconcerting