The flaming torment of my hand and arm was almost intolerable. By it, I knew what the pygmy must be suffering. I tore away the staples that fettered him. I lifted the little man, and passed him over to Jim. He weighed no more than a baby.
I snapped the staples from the slab on which lay the little woman. There was no fear nor hatred in her eyes. They were filled with wonder and unmistakable gratitude. I carried her over and set her beside her man.
I looked back, up the face of the black cliff. There was movement all over it; the reddish ropes of the vines writhing, the white flowers swaying, raising and lowering their cups.
It was rather hideous…
The little man lay quietly, yellow eyes turning from me to Jim and back to me again. The woman spoke, in trilling, bird–like syllables. She darted away across the meadow, into the forest.
Jim was staring down upon the golden pygmy like a man in a dream. I heard him whisper:
"The Yunwi Tsundi! The Little People! It was all true then! All true!"
The little woman came running out of the fern brake. Her hands were full of thick, heavily veined leaves. She darted a look at me, as of apology. She bent over her man. She squeezed some of the leaves over his breast. A milky sap streamed through her fingers and dropped upon the black, corroded spot. It spread over the spot like a film. The little man stiffened and groaned, relaxed and lay still.
The little woman took my hand. Where the nectar had touched, the skin had turned black. She squeezed the juice of the leaves upon it. A pang, to which all the torment that had gone before was nothing, ran through hand and arm. Then, almost instantly, there was no pain.
I looked at the little man's breast. The black corrosion had disappeared. There was a wound like an old burn, red and normal. I looked at my hand. It was inflamed, but the blackness was no longer there.
The little woman bowed before me. The little man arose. He looked at my eyes and ran his gaze along my bulk. I watched suspicion grow, and the return of bitter hate. He spoke to his woman. She answered at some length, pointing to the cliff, to my inflamed hand, and to the ankles and wrists of both of them. The little man beckoned to me; by gesture asked me to bend down to him. I did, and he touched my yellow hair; he ran it through his tiny fingers. He laid his hand on my heart… then laid his head on my heart, listening to its beat.
He struck me with his small hand across my mouth. It was no blow; I knew it for a caress.
The little man smiled at me, and trilled. I could not understand, and shook my head helplessly. He looked up at Jim and trilled another question. Jim tried him in the Cherokee. This time it was the little man who shook his head. He spoke again to his woman. Clearly I caught the word ev–ah–lee in the bird–like sounds. She nodded.
Motioning us to follow, they ran across the meadow, toward the further brake of fern. How little they were—hardly to my thighs. They were beautifully formed. Their long hair was chestnut brown, fine and silky. Their hair floated behind them like cobwebs.
They ran like small deer. We were hard put to keep up with them. They entered the fern brake toward which we had been heading, and here they slowed their pace. On and on we went through the giant ferns. I could see no path, but the golden pygmies knew their way.
We came out of the ferns. Before us was a wide sward covered with the flowerets whose blue carpet ran to the banks of a wide river, to the banks of a strange river, a river all milky white, over whose placid surface hovered swirls of opalescent mist. Through the swirls I caught glimpses of green, level plains upon the white river's further side, and of green scarps.
The little man halted. He bent his ear to the ground. He leaped back into the brake, motioning us to follow. In a few minutes we came across a half–ruined watch tower. Its entrance gaped open. The pygmies slipped within it, beckoning.
Inside the tower was a crumbling flight of stones leading to its top. The little man and woman danced up them, with us close behind them. There was a small chamber at the tower's top through the chinks of whose stones the green light streamed. I peered through one of the crevices, down upon the blue sward and the white river. I heard the faint trampling of horses' feet and the low chanting of women; closer they drew, and closer.
A woman came riding down the blue sward. She was astride a great black mare. She wore, like a hood, the head of a white wolf. Its pelt covered her shoulders and back. Over that silvery pelt her hair fell in two thick braids of flaming red. Her high, round breasts were bare, and beneath them the paws of the white wolf were clasped like a girdle. Her eyes were blue as the cornflower and set wide apart under a broad, low forehead. Her skin was milky–white flushed with soft rose. Her mouth was full–lipped, crimson, and both amorous and cruel.
She was a strong woman, tall almost as I. She was like a Valkyrie, and like those messengers of Odin she carried on her saddle before her, held by one arm, a body. But it was no soul of a slain warrior snatched up for flight to Valhalla. It was a girl. A girl whose arms were bound to her sides by stout thongs, with head bent hopelessly on her breast. I could not see her face; it was hidden under the veil of her hair. But the hair was russet red and her skin as fair as that of the woman who held her.
Over the Wolf–woman's head flew a snow–white falcon, dipping and circling and keeping pace with her as she rode.
Behind her rode a half–score other women, young and strong–thewed, pink–skinned and blue–eyed, their hair of copper–red, rust–red, bronzy–red, plaited around their heads or hanging in long braids down their shoulders. They were bare–breasted, kirtled and buskined. They carried long, slender spears and small round targes. And they, too, were like Valkyries, each of them a shield–maiden of the Aesir. As they rode, they sang, softly, muted, a strange chant.
The Wolf–woman and her captive passed around a bend of the sward and out of sight. The chanting women followed and were hidden.
There was a gleam of silver from the white falcon's wing as it circled and dropped, circled and dropped. Then it, too, was gone.
Chapter VIII
Evalie
The golden pygmies hissed; their yellow eyes were molten with hatred.
The little man touched my hand, talking in the rapid trilling syllables, and pointing over the white river. Clearly he was telling me we must cross it. He stopped, listening. The little woman ran down the broken stairs. The little man twittered angrily, darted to Jim, beat at his legs with his fists as though to arouse him, then shot after the woman.
"Snap out of it, Indian!" I said, impatiently. "They want us to hurry."
He shook his head, like a man shaking away the last cobwebs of some dream.
We sped down the broken steps. The little man was waiting for us; or at least he had not run away, for, if waiting for us, he was doing so, in a most singular manner. He was dancing in a small circle, waving his arms and hands oddly, and trilling a weird melody upon four notes, repeated over and over in varying progressions. The woman was nowhere in sight.
A wolf howled. It was answered by other wolves farther away in the flowered forest—like a hunting pack whose leader has found the scent.
The little woman came racing through the fern brake; the little man stopped dancing. Her hands were filled with small purplish fruits resembling fox–grapes. The little man pointed toward the white river, and they set off through the screening brake of ferns. We followed.