I WAS running around the rim of the toadstool cap, knocking off the slimy things that sought to drink our blood, and Princess Loralie was crouching fearfully in the center, when suddenly I heard a crashing and splashing through the marsh behind me, accompanied by queer noises that sounded much like a combination of a bleat and a bellow.
Glancing back for a moment between gasps, I saw coming toward us an immense humpbacked reptile sinking flankdeep in the watery ooze with each step as it crashed through the reeds in its apparent endeavor to escape from some mortal enemy, and uttering the queer cries of distress I had heard. I could see its long snakelike neck curved back as, with its small jaws it would jerk the swamp creatures first from one side then the other.
Coincident with the appearance of this huge reptile, the heads of the swamp dwellers stopped reappearing above the edge of our toadstool cap. They had abandoned their attack on us in favor of the larger quarry.
Thicker and thicker they swarmed around the great dinosaur. For every blood-hungry thing the giant lizard tossed in the air, at least ten squirmed up to fasten their sucker mouths on its heaving sides, until the reptile’s back resembled the wave-tossed bottom of a capsized ship covered with immense barnacles.
Gradually the speed of the great beast slowed down. It stopped. Then its struggles grew weaker, and the doomed saurian uttered a final cry and sank down in the ooze.
So absorbed had I been in this titanic battle that I had momentarily forgotten our own danger.
“Our enemies have momentarily forgotten us,” I said then. “Shall we make a dash for liberty?”
“It is our only chance,” she replied.
Swinging over the edge of the toadstool, I dropped to the ground. Loralie swung her small, athletic body over the edge as I had done, and dropped into my waiting arms.
As I stood there, ankle deep in the ooze with that shapely young form close to me, I suddenly forgot our danger—forgot everything except that she lay there in my arms, her head thrown back, glorious dark eyes that were pools of lambent flame looking up into mine. But when, intoxicated with her nearness, I would have crushed her to me, she suddenly twisted free from my arms and ran, leaping lightly as a startled fawn in the direction of the mountains to the southwest.
Club in hand I followed her as closely as I could, meanwhile keeping a sharp lookout for swamp dwellers. But they were too busy feasting.
As we approached the foothills the ground became drier and firmer, and the character of the vegetation once more underwent a gradual change; cycads and low-growing conifers were mostly in evidence. Soon we were climbing steep hillsides, with the ground continually becoming more rugged and the vegetation more sparse.
During our progress Loralie had not addressed a word to me, or noticed my presence in any way. I felt I must have offended her by holding her over-long in my arms. Yet for that fleeting moment I would have sworn I had seen in her starry eyes the reflection of emotions akin to my own, and quite unlike her unnatural aversion to me in the caves of the ape.
When we arrived in a small isolated copse of water ferns, I decided it was time to halt for rest and refreshment.
“Here are food and drink,” I said. “Let us stop for a while.”
Without answering, she sank down wearily on a mound of soft moss and turning, buried her face in her arms. In a moment she began weeping softly.
I broke off a branch of water fern and knelt beside her, trying to get her to sit up.
“Don’t touch me!” she wailed. “Go away.”
“Oh, very well,” I snapped, and ate and drank by myself—without much appetite. Then, I set about equipping myself with more efficient weapons.
I soon fashioned a bow, which I strung with a piece of the tough cord I had brought with me. Some reeds which I had gathered en route I made into arrows by tipping them with slivers of stone bound in place with the cord. I bound bits of fern leaf in place of feathers. A quiver I made from ptang-hide which was wrapped around the piece of meat I had brought with me.
Several hours elapsed in these pursuits, and my too temperamental companion had in the interval sobbed herself to sleep.
I had scarcely finished cooking some ptang meat when I saw the princess stir and open her eyes. For a moment she seemed startled by the strangeness of her surroundings. Then she sat up, and catching the appetizing scent of my roasting meat, looked hungrily toward it—then resolutely away.
“The Prince of Olba,” I said, “would be greatly honored if the Princess of Tyrhana would join him at dinner. The royal butler is about to serve.”
Despite her attempt at severity, I saw a slight smile play around the corners of her adorable little mouth. Then she turned her head away once more.
Placing my roast on some broad, clean leaves which I had spread over the moss for the purpose, I walked over to where she sat.
“I say, young lady,” I remarked severely. “Don’t you think you have carried this foolish perversity of yours about far enough? I can’t imagine what makes you act like a badly spoiled child. I’ve a notion to spank you.”
She tried to maintain her dignity, but I saw her lips quivering.
“Forgive me,” I said. “Perhaps it is I who am wrong. If I have done anything to hurt your feelings, I’m sincerely sorry. I am not desirous of forcing my attentions on you, but I can’t leave you alone in this wilderness. You make it hard, extremely hard for me to be of service to you.”
She looked up at me, her beautiful eyes brimming—tears clinging to the long dark lashes. “You are so kind, and so brave. I wish those other things were not true.”
“What other things?” I asked in surprise, sitting down beside her. “Has someone been talking about me?”
“I cannot betray those who have reposed confidence in me,” she said, “nor can I doubt the testimony of many witnesses. Yet it does not seem possible.”
“I’m sure I don’t understand what you are driving at. Pray tell me of what monstrous crime I am accused, and permit me at least a chance to defend my character.”
“You were accused . . . Oh, I cannot say it!” She looked at me reproachfully, then turned her head away and swallowed bard to keep from crying.
“It must have been horrible. Won’t you tell me what it was?”
“Of making love to that Chixa,” she faltered.
The evidence might seem to point that way, I realized, particularly if it were distorted by someone bent on maligning my character. I quickly told her how I had won the she-ape’s weapons and my freedom. “Do you not believe me?” I demanded at last.
“On this matter I believe you,” she answered with some relief, “but there is still that other affair.”
“What other affair?” I asked.
“Your affair with the young sister of Taliboz. Why did you betray that trusting child—betray her and run away—so that her brother must needs come after you to bring you back at the point of a tork? It was dastardly-cowardly. I denied it—fought against believing it, but there were so many witnesses I was at last convinced.”
“If Taliboz has a sister, I do not know it, nor have I ever seen her. This story was fabricated from whole cloth. There is not even seeming evidence in this case as there was with Chixa.”
“But Taliboz himself told me,” she insisted, “and five of his men substantiated his story at various times. I wanted to disbelieve this thing, but what could I do?”
“You were convinced of a monstrous falsehood, for which Taliboz will one day answer, as he will for his numerous other crimes—if he has not already answered, back there in the fern forest, to some jungle creature. I swear to you that if Taliboz has a sister I do not even know of her existence.”
“It seems strange,” she answered, “that the sister of an illustrious noble of Olba should be unknown to the Crown Prince. Surely she must have been much at court.”
“Perhaps she was. Never having been there myself, I cannot say.”
She looked at me in amazement—unbelief so clearly written on her features that I saw that I had gone too far. I must either tell all now, or have nothing believed.
“In order that you may understand this singular statement,” I said, “I am going to tell you who I really am.”
“No doubt you are a reincarnation of the god Thorth. Pray do not weary me further with lies.”
“The story I am going to tell,” I answered, “will tax your credulity to the uttermost, yet I hope some day to be able to prove it to you. I am not of Olba, nor even of this planet.”
I explained to her, as best I could, how I had been transported from Mars to Earth and thence to Venus-Zarovia. To my surprise, she seemed not only credulous, but actually well versed on the subject.
“You seem to know more about these phenomena than most scientists,” I said.
“There is a reason for my intense interest in the subject,” she replied. “My uncle Bovard is one of the greatest scientists on all Zarovia. There is but one who is considered greater than he.”
“Vorn Vangal?”
“Yes, but how did you know?”
“Vorn Vangal,” I answered, “is Dr. Morgan’s Zarovian ally, the man who made it possible for me to come to this planet.”
“Dr. Morgan? What an uncivilized sound the name has! Vorn Vangal I know well.”
“Then you believe my story?” I asked.
“Implicitly.” And she smiled thrillingly at me.
“And you know Taliboz was lying?”
“Of course. Are you going to sit there and question me all day, or will you have the royal butler serve dinner? I am famished.”
The roast had grown cold but was nonetheless delicious. I carved as best I could with my flint knife, and we made out very well, finishing up with the contents of a few spore pods, washed down with drafts of cold water from the fronds of the water fern.
“And now,” I said, when we had finished dinner, “we must look about for a place of shelter from the night-moving meat-eaters.”
There were many caverns in the rocky hillsides, but the mouths were too large or too numerous to be barricaded. And an unbarricaded cave in the Zarovian wilderness would prove to be a trap.
We traveled far before we found a cave that seemed suited to our purpose. Without taking time to explore its interior—for I knew that the sudden darkness would soon be upon us—made haste to collect heavy rocks for the doorway, delegating Loralie, meanwhile, to gather sticks for fuel which I intended to keep in the cave as a fiery defense against possible attackers.
Darkness caught us with our labors unfinished, and I kindled a small fire just outside the cave mouth that we might complete our work by its light.
I was just rolling up the great stone which was to finish my barricade when the hideous roar of a marmelot sounded near by. It was taken up, a moment later, by others of its kind, until the echoing hills resounded with the thunderous cries of these fierce beasts.
“Quick!” I called to Loralie. “Into the cave with you!”
She started in, then backed out in terror. “There’s something in there now, and it’s coming out after us.”
Then, as the frightened girl cowered against me, I heard a hoarse, booming croak from the cave and saw two glowing, menacing eyes moving toward us from the darkness of the interior.