“Would you like some wine?” asked Vik-yor.
“Yes; very much,” replied the guard.
“Call all your fellows, then,” said Vik-yor, “and we will all drink together.”
Pretty soon, all the guards were gathered there, drinking out of Vik-yor’s jug. It was a horrible experience—hanging there watching wholesale murder being done. I had to ease my conscience by thinking how they had used similar duplicity to lure us to a fate even worse than death; and that, anyway, they were being given a pleasant ending; for soon they were all as drunk as hoot owls and laughing, dancing, and singing; then, one by one, they toppled over, dead. There were twenty of them, and they all died practically at our feet.
Vik-yor was proud as a peacock. “Don’t you think I’m clever?” it asked Duare. “They never guessed that I was poisoning them; even Vik-vik-vik could do no better.”
“You are quite remarkable,” said Duare; “now give me the antidote.”
Vik-yor fished down first into one pouch and then into another. “What did I do with it?” the creature kept repeating.
Duare was getting more and more frightened and nervous. “Didn’t you bring it?” she demanded. “Or was that something else you showed me?”
“I had it,” said Vik-yor. “What in the world did I do with it?”
In spite of myself, I could scarcely keep from hoping that he would never find it. To be separated from Duare under circumstances such as these was unthinkable; death would have been preferable. I had a premonition that if she went away with Vik-yor I should never see her again. I commenced to regret that I had ever been a party to this mad enterprise.
“Look in the one behind,” urged Duare; “you have looked in all the others.”
Vik-yor pulled its belt around until it could reach into the pouch that had been hanging down behind. “Here it is!” it cried. “My belt must have slipped around while I was dancing with the guards. I knew I had it; because I showed it to you. I couldn’t imagine what had become of it.”
“Quick! Give me some!” demanded Duare.
Vik-yor turned the vial upside down and shook it; then he removed the stopper and told Duare to stick out her tongue, which he touched several times with the stopper. I watched, spellbound. Ero Shan was craning his neck to see Duare.
Presently she gasped. “It’s happening!” she said. “I can feel life coming to my body. Oh, Carson, if only you could come with me!”
Vik-yor was watching Duare intently. It reminded me of a big cat watching a mouse—a fat, obscene cat. Presently it stepped up to her and cut her down. It had to support her for a moment; and when I saw its arm about her, it seemed to me that she was being defiled. Almost immediately, however, she was able to stand alone; and then she moved away from him and came to me. She couldn’t reach my lips; I was hung too high on the wall, but she kissed my hand again and again. I could look down and see her doing it, but I could not feel it.
Vik-yor came up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Quit that!” it said.
Duare reached up and removed my r-ray pistol from its holster. I thought she was going to use it on Vik-yor, but she didn’t. “Why don’t you?” I asked her, looking meaningly at Vik-yor.
“Not yet,” she replied.
“Come!” ordered Vik-yor.
“You’d better take the holster, too,” I said. She came and got it; and again she clung to my hand, kissing it. This time Vik-yor jerked her away roughly.
“You may not guess it, Vik-yor,” I said, “but some day you are going to die for what you think you are going to do and what you have done and even for what you never will do; and I am going to kill you.”
The thing just laughed at me, as it dragged Duare away. She was turning her dear face back toward me all the time. “Goodby, my darling!” she called to me, and then Vik-yor spoke.
“You will never see her again,” it taunted me. “She is mine now, all mine.”
“The thing lies!” cried Duare, then: “Goodby, my darling, until I come back to you!”
“Goodby!” I called, and then she was lost to sight behind a great gantor, that elephantine beast of burden such as I had seen in Korva.
I glanced at Ero Shan. There were tears in his eyes.
XXXVI
Vik-yor and Duare had not had time to leave the building before there came a great noise from the entrance—laughing and chattering and the scuffling of many feet; and presently I saw at least a hundred people lurch and stagger into view. It was Vik-vik-vik and the banquet guests, and most of them were quite drunk.
At the sight of the guards strewn about the floor, Vik-vik-vik became violent and abusive. “The lazy beasts!” cried the jong, and went up and kicked one of them. It was then that they discovered that the guards were dead.
“They are all dead!” said one of the creatures. “Who could have killed them?”
“Never mind that now,” said Vik-vik-vik; “I’ll find out later. First, I want to get the woman I came for. Come, Ata-voo-med-ro! Where is the antidote? We’ll have her back to life and take her to the banquet. She’s going to live in the palace with Vik-vik-vik. Other jongs have a vadjong; why shouldn’t I?”
“You should!” cried some sycophant.
Vik-vik-vik and Ata-voo-med-ro searched the wall where Duare should have been. “She’s gone!” exclaimed the latter.
The jong looked at me and demanded, “Where is she, creature?”
“How should I know?” I replied. “She has been gone a long time.”
“How did she get away? Who took her?” demanded Vik-vik-vik.
“I do not know,” I replied. “I had been asleep; when I awoke, she was gone.”
Vik-vik-vik turned to the guests. “Search for her! Search the whole city! Hurry!” Then it said to Ata-voo-med-ro, “Summon all those who were on guard here today,” and Ata-voo-med-ro scampered out after the others.
The jong looked at Ero Shan. “Did you see her go?”
“Yes,” replied Ero Shan.
“Who took her?”
“A man.”
“What man?” demanded the jong.
“Well it wasn’t anyone you know, for the only men in Voo-ad are hanging on these walls.”
“What was it, then?”
“I never saw him before,” said Ero Shan; “he had wings like an angan, but he was not an angan; he was a man—a human man. He flew in and looked at the guards, and they all fell dead; then he cut the woman down and flew away with her. He said that he was coming back to look at you and all the rest of the Vooyorgans; so pretty soon you will all be dead—unless you liberate all the human beings in here. That is what he said.”
“Nonsense!” said Vik-vik-vik; “you are lying to me,” but he looked worried.
Just then I heard the b-r-r-r of an r-ray pistol from the direction of the plaza, and there were screams and shouts mingled with it.
“What was that?” demanded the jong.
“It sounds like the man who came for the woman,” said Ero Shan. “When he thought, his brain made a noise like that. I guess that is what killed the guards.”
Vik-vik-vik left then, and he left on the run—probably for his palace.
“That was Duare!” I said to Ero Shan. “They caught her; she didn’t have time enough.”
“They haven’t got her yet,” said Ero Shan, as the humming of the pistol came to our ears again, mingled with the shouts and screams of the Vooyorgans.
“The whole population of the city must be out there, from the noise they’re making. I wonder if Duare can fight them all off.”
“They’re not very keen on fighting, I should say,” replied Ero Shan. “I think she has an excellent chance, if they don’t succeed in damaging the anotar.”
“Or if Vik-yor doesn’t turn yellow.”
“He couldn’t be any yellower.”
The noise in the plaza continued for some time, punctuated by occasional bursts of r-ray fire. When I heard these, I knew that Duare still lived and that they hadn’t recaptured her yet; but between bursts I was nearly frantic with apprehension.