WHEN Jerry regained consciousness someone was shaking him, calling his name.
“Jerry Morgan, speak to me! O Deza, grant that he still lives!”
He opened his eyes and looked up into the frightened face of Junia, bending over him as he lay on his back in the sand. The slanting rays of the afternoon sun shone brightly down from a clear sky.
“Junia!” he exclaimed. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. And you?”
He sat up and his head throbbed painfully. Exploration with his fingers revealed a lump that was sore, but not dangerous.
“Apparently I collided with something as hard as my head,” he said, getting dizzily to his feet, “but there are no permanent injuries.”
Junia did not reply. As soon as she had learned that he was not badly hurt her manner had altered perceptibly. And Jerry guessed the reason. She could not feel other than antagonistic toward the supposed murderer of her brother.
“Highness,” he said, “I wish I could prove to you in some way that I am not guilty of the—the crime which you seem to think I committed.”
At this she turned on him and said, almost fiercely: “I wish to Deza that you could! But mere assertion proves nothing.”
He walked over to where the bird-beast was lying, half-buried beneath a drift of sand. It was breathing heavily, with its great membranous wings outspread, and its head stretched out upon the ground. He pulled up on the guiding rod, but when he released it the head dropped back as before.
With the flat head of his mace he scooped the sand away from one side. Suddenly he noticed blood in the sand around the wing, close to where it joined the body. An examination revealed the fact that the bone was snapped asunder. The gawr would never fly again, and he realized that it must be suffering horribly.
Resolutely he walked to where the head lay on the ground anal, raising his mace, drove the keen saw-teeth down through the creature’s skull into its brain. “We will have to walk,” he called to Junia.
“Apparently,” she replied, “since you have just destroyed our only other means of transportation.”
“If you will look at the gawr’s left wing, you will see the reason.”
At first she seemed determined to do nothing of the sort, but presently her curiosity got the better of her, and she walked over and looked.
“Oh, the poor creature!” she cried. “And you slew it to end its suffering. Forgive me, Jerry Morgan.”
“Willingly,” he answered. “And now have you any idea where we are?”
“I’m afraid I can be of no help,” she said, “for this terrain is as strange to me as to you. And the desert, after all, is much alike all over Mars.”
He removed the sheaf of javelins from the saddle of the bird-beast and slung it over his shoulder. Then he rolled up the hanging in which he had carried the girl, wrapped the rope about it, and slung it beside the sheaf.
“Come on,” he said. “Let us climb to the highest sand dune we can find. Perhaps we will be able to sight something besides desert.”
The highest dune in sight lay to the northwest of them, and toward this they plodded through the soft sand. Upon mounting to its top they made out, far to the south, a chain of low hills sparsely dotted with vegetation. In every other direction there were only barren dunes of ochre-yellow sand.
“Where there is vegetation there may be food and water,” said Jerry. “Our best plan will be to go south.”
A walk of some five miles brought them to the foot of the hills they had descried from a distance. On close inspection they did not look so inviting. The sparse clumps of vegetation were mostly thorny shrubs that offered neither food nor shelter. And there was no sign of water.
They reached the top after a short climb, and Junia cried out in pleased surprise at the sight which lay before them. They were looking down into a green valley, through which a narrow stream meandered. Here was water, and perhaps food, for plants and shrubs which grew along the banks of the stream made it probable that there would be edible fruits or nuts.
With renewed hope in their hearts they hurried down the hillside, and made straight for the stream. Rinsing his folding cup, Jerry offered it to Junia. But she declined it, and drank from her cupped hands. They remained beside the stream for some time, drinking and bathing their faces in the cold water. Then Jerry arose.
“I think we had best be going,” he said. “The sun is low, and as yet we have found neither food nor shelter.”
Without a word she arose and followed him along the river bank. Presently, he noticed a fin cleaving the water near the shore. He drew a javelin from his sheath and cautiously stalked it. Presently it came close under the bank, and he drove the multibarbed weapon straight down through the water in front of that fin. It struck something solid.
But scarcely had he driven the point home when the haft was wrenched from his hand. An immense and hideous head on a long scaly neck reared itself high above him, taking the javelin with it, and he saw that he had speared the neck of a huge saurian.
The giant water lizard opened an immense mouth that was armed with a triple row of sharp, back-curved teeth, and, with a loud hiss, darted straight for this thing which had had the presumption to annoy it with a javelin.
For a moment Jerry stared, too astounded to move. But when he saw it darting toward him his Earth-muscles carried him straight back in a tremendous flying leap to where Junia stood.
The saurian floundered up out of the water on two immense flippers, hissing angrily, and dragging an amazingly huge body out onto the bank.
Jerry caught Junia up as if she had been a child and, turning, sprinted away at his best speed. The saurian turned back toward the river, still hissing its anger and shaking its neck to dislodge the annoying javelin.
When he had placed a good mile between himself and his pursuer, Jerry stood Junia on her feet once more, and paused for a short breathing spell.
“I thought I had speared our dinner,” he said, “but I came near furnishing a dinner, instead. What do you call that thing?”
“It is a histid,” she replied. “They are quite common in wild marshes and lakes.”
“Well, this histid has made a vegetarian out of me,” said Jerry. “I no longer have the craving for fish that I had a few moments ago.”
They moved on once more, following the curving bank of the stream. Presently the ground grew soft and boggy beneath their feet, the water oozing up around them at each step. Then suddenly, with a peculiar sucking sound, a round trapdoor in the bog flew open just in front of Jerry, and a long, slimy thing as large as a boa constrictor darted out. At the end of the thing was a white sucking disk, which clamped itself to the Earthman’s chest. He was lifted off his feet, then dragged downward to the very rim of the hole beneath the trapdoor, which was about three feet across.
Jerry bridged himself across that hole. The slimy thing that had seized him threshed about beneath him, almost tearing the skin from his chest in its efforts to drag him down. Then he heard a scream from Junia.
Supporting himself with his knees and left hand, he snatched his long dagger from his belt with his right. Then, with the keen edge, he cut through his slimy enemy, just below the sucking disk, and sprang erect. Junia was being fought over by two of the things, which had seized her simultaneously.
Transferring his dagger to his left hand, Jerry whipped out his sword with his right, sprang forward, and simultaneously severed the two snaky necks. Then he sheathed his dagger and, throwing Junia over his shoulder, ran across the sucking ooze toward the higher ground.
The two severed disks still clung to Junia, one on each side of her waist. Drawing his dagger, he slit one from side to side with the point, then peeled it away. Beneath it, the blood had begun to ooze through a thousand little punctures in the soft white skin. Swiftly he removed the other, and then slashed and ripped off the one that clung to his own chest.
Taking a bottle of jembal from his belt pouch, he applied the antiseptic gum to her wounds. Junia was pale and trembling.
“Once again you have saved my life, Jerry Morgan,” she said. “If only . . . ”
“Yes, I know. Somehow, some day, I’m going to prove to you that I am innocent.”
“Deza speed the day!” she said. “And now, let me dress your wound.”
She took the bottle from his hand and deftly applied the liquid gum. She had finished dressing his wounds and was handing him the bottle when suddenly her eyes went wide.
“Look! Look behind you!” she exclaimed.