SHORTLY after Jan returned to his quarters a page entered and bowed before him.
“Your highness’s slave by combat awaits leave to come into your presence,” he said.
“My slave by combat? What do you mean?”
“It is the one your highness overcame in the arena. Shall I send him in?”
“Yes.”
A moment later a slender, stately individual, whose iron-gray beard was trimmed to a sharp point, and whose neat court attire and well-groomed person proclaimed his gentility, walked into the apartment. Wrapped around his head was a clean white bandage. Jan, who had expected to see the hairy wild man he had vanquished at the games, was astounded. Yet on close scrutiny, there seemed to be a slight resemblance between this man and the one he had stunned with his club.
“Who are you?” asked Jan.
“I am Sir Henry Westgate of the outer world,” replied the man, accenting his Satmuan speech as if unfamiliar with its use yet understanding it. “I have been told you came here from the outer world. What language did you speak there?”
“English,” replied Jan. “Also a few Indian and Spanish words.
“I am English,” said Sir Henry. “These people tell me I become your slave since you vanquished me in the arena. I do not remember fighting you. Can you tell me about it?”
Jan told him how he had first seen him in a cage next to his beneath the seats of the amphitheater and of the fights that followed.
When he had finished, the Englishman said:
“This is terrible tragic! I must have lost my memory for years. No doubt that blow in the arena restored it. They tell me I was captured, quite naked, with a band of hairy men, who were brought in for the games.
“I was exploring the jungle, looking for a way to this very city, the existence of which I suspected. As I wandered through the wilds I lost many members of my expedition. Some fell prey to wild beasts, some to the long arrows and poisonous darts of the savages, and some to the fever. Finally, when I was reduced to but four followers, I left camp one morning on a lone trip of exploration. After traveling several miles I came to a tall cliff. I am a trained climber, and had brought a rope. After hours of effort I succeeded in reaching the top of that cliff, and found that I was on the top of a long ridge about five hundred feet wide, enclosing a vast green valley. With my field glasses I made out what looked like a good-sized city about fifteen miles from where I stood. I was sure this was the city for which I had been searching.
“There was a shelf about fifty feet below, and beneath this a number of other shelves. I had a sixty-foot rope, and this I made fast about the base of a stunted tree that grew on the cliff top. Then I let myself down over the cliff. I reached the first shelf without mishap, and the second.
“As I was descending to the third I heard shouts below me—sounds manlike and yet beast-like. Looking down; I saw a score of primitive beast-men, bearded, whose bodies were covered with hair. They began to hurl sticks and stones up at me. I tried to scramble back up on the shelf, but a missile struck the side of my head, and all went black.
“I remember nothing more that happened until I returned to consciousness here in the palace three days ago. I know only that years must have passed, because my hair and beard grew so long and turned so gray.”
“And now you wish to go back to the outer world?” asked Jan.
“No. I prefer to remain here in Satmu, to study its people. It is a privilege for which I would give many years of my life.”
“Then do so,” said Jan. “If the fact that I knocked you unconscious made you my slave, you are free from now on,” and extended his hand, as he had seen white men do. The English scientist took it gratefully.
As the days passed, lengthened into weeks and months, Jan grew tired of the luxury and splendor of his life in the palace, and longed for the simplicity and freedom of his former jungle life. He often thought of Ramona, and wished that he could revisit the plantation to see if she had returned from her journey. But he had come to Satmu by such a devious way that he had no idea where to look for the underground passageway through which he had entered the valley.
Mena had given orders that he be instructed in reading and writing, in the arts and sciences, and in the use of arms. He progressed rapidly with his studies, and still more rapidly in the use of weapons, which he took to as naturally as a duck to water, thanks to his jungle-trained skill and coordination. In a few months he could fence as well as his master. The best archer in the army could not send an arrow or hurl a javelin straighter or farther than he.
As for riding the fierce three-horned steeds, he had a way with the brutes that even the most experienced riders could not duplicate.
Having learned to ride and to fence, he was taught tilting, a sport in which long lances and shields were used by the two rivals in each match. In the practice bouts, blunt lances were used, the object being to unseat an opponent. But in jousting matches and duels, lances with needle-sharp points were employed.
He often went on hunting excursions, sometimes with small parties, and sometimes, when the Emperor went, with large forces of hunters. The valley abounded in big game, and the hunters riding their swift, three-horned steeds usually found excellent sport. Following the hunters came the mastodons with their drivers and attendants. The attendants cleaned and cut up the game, and loaded it on the backs of the huge woolly pachyderms, to be conveyed back to Satmu.
One day when Jan was out with a small party of hunters, he sighted a giant ground sloth some distance away, squatting on its haunches and eating the leaves of a tree. The party had been following a herd of deer, but when Jan saw this immense creature, he left the others and hurried his mount toward it.
He had not gone far when the mylodon must have decided that the leaves were more luscious farther on, and lumbered away with considerable speed, for despite its awkwardness and immense bulk it could travel quite swiftly. Soon it was leading Jan across a stretch of marsh land, dotted with little clumps of trees. And here the sloth made swifter progress than the pursuing triceratops, as its broad pads were better adapted to this travel than those of Jan’s steed.
It took more than two hours to cross the marsh. By this time, Jan had lost sight of his quarry. But the trail was plain enough, and he urged his mount along this at top speed. Soon he emerged from the tree-sprinkled country onto a broad grassy plain. Less than a half mile away he saw the mylodon.
Here, with the advantage all in favor of the triceratops, he gained rapidly on the monster. As he came up behind it, it turned, and rearing itself on its thick tail and sturdy hind legs, awaited his coming.
Jan couched his long lance and charged. He had aimed for the left breast, and the lace point struck and entered the target unswervingly. With a terrible screaming roar, the mylodon swung its two powerful forefeet in retaliation. An immense paw struck Jan with a terrific impact, and sent him rolling in the tall grass fully twenty feet away from his saddle. For a moment he lay there, half stunned.
The mylodon, apparently mortally wounded, was bellowing, moaning and threshing about in the grass. But the triceratops, having lost its rider, was galloping back toward Satmu by the way it had come, as fast as its stout legs would carry it.
Jan shouted to his runaway steed at the top of his voice, but with no effect.
Had he been a city-bred man, confronted by the prospect of being left alone in this wilderness, Jan might have sunk to the utmost depths of despair. But to this man of the jungle being alone in the wilds was a pleasure. It was easy for him to slip back into the old ways.
He waited until the great sloth lay still. Then, with his keen dagger, he carved a steak from the rump and ate until his hunger was satisfied. Nor did he neglect carving off another piece and wrapping it in a strip of tough hide as a provision against future needs.
After he had eaten, Jan was thirsty, and the breeze from the south carried the scent of water. He accordingly set out in that direction. As he did so, there came to him the howling of a hyaenodon that had scented the kill, answered by a score of canine throats from all directions.
A half hour’s walk brought him to the bank of a river that meandered between low, willow-fringed banks. After he had drunk his fill, he looked downstream, and noticed that there was something strangely familiar about the locality in which he found himself. An unbroken line of tall, perpendicular cliffs confronted him, and the river disappeared into the face of one of these, not two miles from where he stood. On the left bank of the stream stood the temple ruins and the great stone images that he had seen when he first entered the valley.
Here, then, was the lost passageway! The gateway to his beloved jungle, and perhaps to that beautiful creature beyond the jungle who had gone on a long journey, but who had promised she would return and wait for him.
Hungry for a sight of his jungle once more, and thrilled at the prospect of finding Ramona, Jan lost no time in getting to the temple ruins. As it was impossible for him to swim weighted down with his armor and weapons, he made a light raft from pieces of driftwood bound together with strands of twisted grass. Then he stripped, and after piling his clothing, armor and weapons on the raft, pushed out into the stream.
Inside the cavern, he dragged his craft up on the bank, and dressed once more. Then he followed the dark passageway to the opening beneath the falls, descended the cliff face, plunged through the sheet of falling water and waded ashore.
A glance upward revealed that his tree house was still there. Joyously climbing the bank, he made for the base of the great tree that had been his home for so long.
But he came to a sudden halt, as two rifles cracked almost in unison. At the impact of the two projectiles, Jan spun halfway round, then fell.