I stared at this astounding vista with an awe so vast and thrilling as to be beyond description.
No stargazer of ancient Babylon, no great astronomer in his mighty observatory, has ever looked upon such a marvel of the skies as rose before me now. '
Brilliant beyond belief, vast beyond comprehension, beautiful beyond dreams, the titanic globe rose at last fully above the horizon. Its surface was banded with horizontal zones, and an infinity of colors made it radiant with hues. Vast portions of its surface were colored an indescribably beautiful peach. Stripes of brown and glowing amber, rich orange and luminous ocher, brick-red and velvety purplish gray marked off the surface of the colossal glowing shield into ten belts or zones, of which the central or equatorial belt was easily twice the width of the others.
And burning like an unholy blemish, like a colossal pit of flame, the southern hemisphere bore into view a terrible glaring crimson eye.
And I knew now where I was.
This was not the unknown planet of some distant star.
There was no mistaking that brown and yellow-banded giant with his glaring Red Spot.
The mysterious beam of force had transported me to the surface of one of the twelve moons of Jupiter.
Suddenly, a hissing snarl arrested my attention. The bestial sound had come from the edge of the jungle. Although I could see nothing but gnarled, ebon trees and crimson, fanged foliage, I knew that they concealed a prowling predator. I felt the pressure of unseen, burning eyes upon me.
And it came to me that I was in deadly danger. I had been acting like a fool―wandering about this enchanted landscape like an awestruck dreamer, when I would have been far wiser to have sought to return to my own world at once.
That disklike stone that lay amid the ring of columns like some great altar―was it not fashioned of the same sleek, lucent jade as the mouth of the mysterious well in far-off Arangkor? The transporter beam, or whatever it was, must be a link between this strange world and that lost city in the jungles of Cambodia. If I were to stand in the center of that circle of monoliths, would I not make the return journey to the world of my birth?
I turned and began to run for the Gate Between The Worlds, but it was too late.
Again the air resounded to that terrible hissing cry, and now a fantastic beast out of nightmare came crashing through the crimson foliage directly towards me.
Imagine a saber-toothed tiger crossed with some colossal reptile from prehistoric ages, and you will have an image of the thing that came hurtling from the underbrush with eyes of blazing yellow flame. It had a lithe, catlike body that rippled with steely strength. But instead of the striped fur of a jungle cat its sinewy length was clad in serpent scales. Bright emerald green was this scaly hide, paling to tawny yellow at the belly plates. Its feet were armed with bird claws, and a jagged line of sharp-edged spikes ran down its spine to the very tip of the lashing snakelike tail.
The monster's head was a snarling mask of fanged horror. Fierce cold eyes of lambent yellow flame were riveted upon my running figure. Giving voice to another hissing roar, the incredible thing flashed after me. And I was running for my life!
Strange unlikely thoughts pass through a man's mind when he stands on the brink of eternity. The thought that passed through mine was that that fanged horror, that sinewy engine of destruction, armed with that bladed, whiplike tail and saw-toothed spine, must be a predator of dread and all-but-invincible ferocity. Yet how cleverly nature had given a measure of protection to her weaker children on this strange and awful world, for that glittering scaly hide of emerald mail could not well slink hidden through the underbrush of the jungle, whose crimson foliage would clash with the green-scaled cat-thing! Thus the monster must depend, not upon camouflage, but the speed of an irresistible charge to secure its meat.
I later learned that the thing at my heels was the fearsome yathrib, the savage dragon-cat of the Thanatorian jungles―deadlier by far even than the prehistoric sabertooth of my native world.
I ran like the wind, but the yathrib was almost upon me before I had covered half the distance to the circle of stone pillars and the jade disk of the Gate. I could feel the hot breath panting against my bare legs as I ran. Another few yards, and my adventures on this amazing world would come to an abrupt and gory finish
And then, charging up the slope of the hill along whose crest I raced for the haven of the Gate stone came a party of even more incredible beings!
At first, so swiftly were events moving, I had no time to look at them clearly. I cast a hasty glance at strange, pale, attenuated figures clad in some glistening armor and mounted upon weird steeds like wingless and gigantic birds―then the foremost of the gaunt riders reined up in my path and loosed an arrow from the great war bow it held in lean, glistening arms.
Behind me I heard a choking grunt. Then, as I swerved aside to avoid running full into the mounted figures, I struck a root with my bare foot and fell on the crimson turf. At any second I expected to feel the claws of that fanged horror at my heels ripping my flesh. But nothing happened.
I rolled over, sprang nimbly to my feet, and saw the yathrib squirming and wriggling amid the grasses, clawing with its hind legs at a terrible black arrow that thrust from the very base of its soft unprotected throat!
The pale attenuated rider had slain the beast even as it had reared erect to pull me down!
The grim shaft was all of a yard long-hewn, no doubt, from the same black wood as formed the gnarled and twisted trees of the jungle behind me. With incredible skill, the armored rider had struck the yathrib in what I later learned to be its only vulnerable spot―the soft tissues at the base of the throat, where the tough emerald mail did not protect the vital organs.
Even as I watched, the dragon-cat belched a fetid flood of black gore from between its fanged jaws, twitched once or twice, and stiffened in death.
Shakily, I turned to thank my rescuers. And as I did so, something like a lasso settled about my shoulders, slid down my upper arms, and was tightened with a jerk. The leader of the mounted band had flung it from a slim tube. Now lie tightened his grip on the cord and pulled. I was flung prone on the crimson grass, my arms held helplessly at my sides.
Grim irony. I had been rescued from the yathrib's slavering jaws―only to be taken prisoner by my very rescuer!
Dismounting, he bent over me, uttering harsh metallic words in some unknown tongue. I caught a vague glimpse of an inhuman visage―an expressionless mask of glistening silver-gray horn, like the shell of a gigantic crab―huge eyes like flashing black jewels―and a strange, sharp, medicinal odor that seemed vaguely familiar came to my nostrils from his slender form.
He seemed struck with the color of my hair and eyes, for although I could not understand the words of his clacking, guttural speech, his horny hand touched my hair again and again, and one horny finger lightly touched my eyelid.
The next moment I was swung up into the air and found myself face downward behind the saddle, dangling over the feathery cruppers of the strange bird-horse he rode. Then my captor swung astride, jerked the reins about, and the whole party went cantering off.
I cast one despairing glance behind as the jade disk and ring of pillars that represented my only hope of returning to my own world receded and were lost in the distance.
4. KOJA OF THE YATHOON HORDE
Now I entered the first period of my captivity upon Thanator. For two months I was a prisoner among the strange beings who had saved me from the attack of the yathrib. The days passed slowly and without incident, as I learned the curious ways of this jungle world. To relate a day-by-day chronicle of my imprisonment would occupy far too many pages of this manuscript; hence I shall speak only of the discoveries I made in the camp of the Yathoon Horde.