From time to time he looked through the peephole for guidance through the other-dimensional New York. And then, on the bank of the Hudson as it existed on Earth, he found the answer. There was a small boathouse in a most unlikely place, storing canoes for apartment-house dwellers nearby. The boathouse was locked.
It was two hours after their arrival through the doorway before they reached the Hudson, and it took an hour and a half to make a platform and fix the outboard motor to it and lash it across the two canoes. But then they pushed off. They had a catamaran with a motor driving it from between the two canoes. It was moderately seaworthy, and not even very slow. When it moved out from the shore the ruhks howled at being left behind.
Sam pulled on the cranking-cord of the motor. Rather surprisingly, it caught instantly and ran smoothly. The improvised craft swung out into the river and headed upstream. The ruhks, howling their desolation, crashed through the brushwood, following. But presently they were lost to sight.
The motor made a steady roar. Sam headed out for a longer look up and down the river, and they had not gone far when they saw the galley. It was at anchor off Manhattan Island somewhere near what would be Seventieth Street on Earth. There was no movement visible. The two cutters were tethered to its stern.
The double canoe headed on a straight course for it. The tide was at full flood and the motor roared valiantly. It made excellent speed, but as they drew near men howled defiance at them. Oar-blades waved menacingly.
“Dick ought to recognize me, anyhow,” said Nancy uneasily. “What do you suppose—”
Then Kelly stood up in the bow of the right-hand canoe. He bellowed. His voice rose above the din of shouting and the motor together. The shouting died. There were not too many men on the galley—not many more than a dozen. They stared blankly as the motor cut off and the double canoe floated up to the galley under its own momentum. Kelly matter-of-factly climbed over the side. The other two heard his voice, harsh and argumentative. They saw him strip off his coat and sweater, showing the lash-marks on his skin. But his most convincing argument was the riot-guns he handed over in the most casual way in the world.
He came back to the rail.
“The gang’s gone ashore. Some are dressed up like overseers. They took all the guns an’ spears they had. They’re hopin’ to rush the slave pen and then fight off the ruhks until they find out where a cage-trap is, an’ then they’ll try to get hold of the doorway an’ get guns through that.”
“We’ve got to go after them!” cried Nancy. “With the scent—”
“All right,” snapped Sam. “Come along if you’re coming! Any of you other men who want to come along too, do so. Make it quick!”
Kelly spoke ungently, and climbed down. Half the men on the galley followed. He snapped again, and the rest followed sheepishly.
“They got nothin’ to fight with,” he said tonelessly. “All that have are plenty anxious to come.”
The catamaran’s motor sputtered. It headed for the beach. It touched, and men splashed to the shore. Nancy looked at them and shivered a little. She had seen Kelly naked save for a loincloth and with stripes on his flesh, but he had come as a human being when she was in terror of the ruhks—even though they fawned on her. These men, scarred and gaunt and terrible, were another matter. Kelly said briefly. “Put some scent on ‘em. Better pass out a bottle or two. When they see how it works—”
It was late afternoon, near to sunset. The extraordinarily assorted group started on through the jungle. Kelly and Sam had riot-guns and pistols. Two others had riot-guns. Then Sam brought out the rest of the arsenal he had been carrying. He saw one man caress a stubby pistol as if it were an infinitely precious thing.
They went on. Giant trees. Strange, improbable underbrush. Unfamiliar cries in the treetops. Discordant bellow-ings at unpredictable intervals in the distance.
They had gone perhaps half a mile when they heard shots ahead. Many shots. Then they began to run. The shooting rose in volume. Sam panted to a galley slave:
“How many guns did our gang have?”
“F-Fourteen,” gasped the slave. “The rest were spears.”
“Plenty more’n that up there!” said Sam. “Faster!”
They pelted toward the tumult. The sounds grew louder. They heard shrieks. There must have been fifty weapons in action up ahead.
There were. It was only logical that there should be. Because an expedition specially ordered by the master of the villa had been brought to Manhattan Island early that morning to kidnap Maltby. It had been composed exclusively of overseers and ruhks. It had captured Malt-by, but it couldn’t get back to the villa because the big galley was in revolt. So the party, in very bad temper, had taken refuge in the slave compound ahead.
Dick Blair and his party of pseudo-overseers and the slaves they would pretend they had recaptured—all of them together ran into forty armed men in the slave camp, every man armed with spear and pistol against the fourteen firearms of the attackers. And there were the ruhks.
It was sheer slaughter. It was a retreat from the beginning. It would have been a rout save that no man would turn his back while there remained a chance to kill a ruhk or an overseer with a bullet. So no armed man would run away. And no unarmed slave would actually flee while he hoped for one of the armed men to be killed so that he would have a firearm to use.
Leaping forms in the brush alongside the trail. Snarls and rushings. Then the ruhks stopped short. They tried to fawn on Sam Todd and Nancy and on Kelly. They whimpered and groveled before the slaves who had come from the galley with these three of Earth. The slaves fired vengefully. Ruhks whimpered, and were killed. Some ran away, howling. Five milleniums of breeding to be worshippers of creatures bearing that particular scent made too strong a compulsion. They could not attack or resist a creature that more than two thousand of their generations had learned must be obeyed. Frenzied panic seized the beasts—because godlings slew them.
The tumult came nearer as the smaller party ran. A slave, staggering with two ruhks at his flanks, fell as they came upon him. Sawed-off shotguns freed him. Nancy flicked droplets of the magic odorous stuff upon him. Then he was safe. They ran on. And they came upon pandemonium.
There was shooting ahead where the pitifully few men with firearms fought in the jungle to make a retreat possible. But jungle fighting was the ruhks specialty. The spear-armed slaves had had to close up together, back to back, making a hedge of spear-points against the ruhks, who could creep close and spring almost unseen in the shadowy undergrowth. Ruhks died, to be sure, but men died too. Yet there were many more men than weapons, and no weapon went unused because its owner fell.
It was all stark confusion and lunatic noise. When the newcomers plunged toward the embattled, despairing slaves, ruhks leaped—and then groveled before them. They made yelping sounds which warned off other ruhks.
They plunged into the mass of fighting men. And those who had just come from the galley had come to believe in their immunity from the ruhks. Roaring laughter, they plunged among the animals, killing zestfully. Sam and Nancy forced their way through the close-packed crowd of slaves who waited for spears that they might fight with them. Nancy battled through them to Dick, and drenched him with the master-scent. She panted in his ear. Sam thrust ahead of him and his riot-gun crashed.
“Sprinkle that damned stuff!” he roared over his shoulder at Nancy. “Get busy!”