"We’ll soon be there," he announced after a long sleep. "You're going to see a tribe of fine people, and you're going to be surprised by the reception you'll get. Basti is a fine country; you'll never leave it."
On that march, they left the low country and the river they had been following and entered low hills beyond which loomed mountains of considerable height. Eventually Skruf led them into a narrow gorge between chalk cliffs. It was a winding gorge along which they could see but a short distance either ahead or behind. A little stream of clear water leaped and played in the sunlight on its way down to some mysterious, distant sea. Waving grasses grew upon thin topsoil at the summit of the cliffs; and there was some growth at the edges of the stream where soil, washing down from above, had lodged—some flowering shrubs and a few stunted trees.
Skruf was in the lead. He appeared quite excited, and kept repeating that they were almost at the village of the Bastians. "Around the next turn," he said presently, "the lookout will see us and give the alarm."
The prophesy proved correct, for as they turned a sharp corner of the cliff upon their left, a voice boomed out from above them in a warning that reverberated up and down the gorge. "Some one comes!" it shouted, and then to those below him, "Stop! or I kill. Who are you who come to the land of the Bastians?"
Von Horst looked up to see a man standing upon a ledge cut from the face of the chalk cliff. Beside him were a number of large boulders that he could easily shove off onto anyone beneath.
Skruf looked up at the man and replied, "We are friends. I am Skruf."
"I know you," said the lookout, "but I do not know the others. Who are they?"
"I am taking them to Frug, the chief," replied Skruf. "One is Dangar, who comes from a country he calls Sari; the other comes from another country very far away."
"Are there more than three?" asked the lookout.
"No," replied Skruf; "there are only three."
"Take them to Frug, the chief," directed the lookout.
The three continued along the gorge, coming at length to a large, circular basin in the surrounding walls of which von Horst saw many caves. Before each cave was a ledge, and from one ledge to the next ladders connected the different levels. Groups of women and children clustered on the ledges before the mouths of the caves, staring down at them questioningly, evidently having been warned by the cry of the lookout. A row of warriors stretched across the basin between them and the cliffs where the caves lay. They, too, appeared to have been expecting the party, and were ready to receive them in whatever guise they appeared, whether as friends or foes.
"I am Skruf," cried that worthy. "I wish to see Frug. You all know Skruf."
"Skruf has been gone for many sleeps," replied one. "We thought he was dead and would come no more."
"But I am Skruf," insisted the man.
"Come forward then, but first throw down your weapons."
They did as they were bid; but Skruf, who was in the lead, did not observe that von Horst retained his pistol. The three men advanced, and as they did so they were completely surrounded by the warriors of Basti who were now pressing forward.
"Yes, he is Skruf," remarked several as they drew nearer; but there was no cordiality in their tones, no slightest coloring of friendship. They halted presently before a huge man, a hairy man. He wore a necklace of the talons of bears and tigers. It was Frug.
"You are Skruf," he announced. "I see that you are Skruf, but who are these?"
"They are prisoners," replied Skruf, "that I have brought back to be slaves to the Basti. I have also brought the head of a tarag that I killed. I shall place it before the cave of the woman I would mate with. Now I am a great warrior."
Von Horst and Dangar looked at Skruf in amazement. "You have lied to us, Skruf," said the Sarian. "We trusted you. You said that your people would be our friends."
"We are not the friends of our enemies," growled Frug, "and all men who are not Bastians are our enemies."
"We are not enemies," said von Horst. "We have hunted and slept with Skruf as friends for many sleeps. Are the men of Basti all liars and cheats?"
"Skruf is a liar and a cheat," said Frug; "but I did not promise that I would be your friend, and I am chief. Skruf does not speak for Frug."
"Let us go our way to my country," said Dangar. "You have no quarrel with me or my people."
Frug laughed. "I do not quarrel with slaves," he said. "They work, or I kill them. Take them away and put them to work," he ordered, addressing the surrounding warriors.
Immediately several Bastians closed in on them and seized them. Von Horst saw that resistance would be futile. He might kill several of them before he emptied his pistol; but they would almost certainly overpower him in the end; or, more probably, run a half dozen spears through him. Even though they did not, and he escaped temporarily, the lookout in the gorge below would but have to topple a couple of boulders from his ledge to finish him as effectually.
"I guess we're in for it," he remarked to Dangar.
"Yes," replied the Sarian. "I see now what Skruf meant when he said that we would be surprised by the reception we got and that we would never leave Basti."
The guards hustled them to the foot of the cliff and herded them up ladders to the highest ledge. Here were a number of men and women working with crude stone instruments chipping and scraping away at the face of the chalk cliff, scooping out a new ledge and additional caves. These were the slaves. A Bastian warrior, squatting upon his heels in the shadow of the entrance to a new cave that was being excavated, directed the work. Those who had brought Dangar and von Horst to the ledge turned them over to this man.
"Was it Skruf who took these men prisoners?" asked the guard. "It looked like him from here, but it doesn't seem possible that such a coward could have done it."
"He tricked them," explained the other. "He told them they would be received here as friends and be well treated. He brought back the head of a tarag, too; he is going to put it at the entrance to the cave where the slave girl, La-ja, sleeps. He asked Frug for her, and the chief told him he could have her if he brought back the head of a tarag. Frug thought that was a good joke—the same as saying no."
"Men of Basti do not mate with slaves," said the guard.
"They have," the other reminded him; "and Frug has given his word, and he will keep it—only I'd have to see Skruf kill a tarag before I'd believe it."
"He didn't kill it," said Dangar.
The two men looked at him in surprise. "How do you know?" asked the guard.
"I was there," replied Dangar, "when this man killed the tarag. He killed it with a spear while Skruf climbed a tree. After it was dead he came down and cut off its head."
"That sounds like Skruf," said the warrior who had accompanied them to the ledge; then the two turned their attention to von Horst.
"So you killed a tarag with a spear?" one demanded, not without signs of respect.
Von Horst shook his head. "Dangar and I killed it together," he explained. "It was really he who killed it."
Then Dangar told them how von Horst had faced the beast alone and impaled it on his spear. It was evident during the recital that their respect for von Horst was increasing.
"I hope that I am lucky enough to get your heart," said the guard; then he found tools for them and set them to work with the other slaves.
"What do you suppose he meant when he said that he hoped he would be lucky enough to get my heart," asked von Horst after the guard had left them.
"There are men who eat men," replied Dangar. "I have heard of them."