Up and up he climbed. At last he was on the topmost ladder. Inwardly, Hodon whooped for joy. Now there was a chance. Of course his plan was full of bugs, but there was one chance in a hundred that it might succeed —one wild chance.
Just one little hour of night would have simplified things greatly but Hodon knew nothing of night. From the day of his birth he had known only one long, endless day, with the stationary sun hanging perpetually at zenith. Whatever he did now, as always, would have to be done in broad daylight among a people who had no set hours for sleeping; so that at least a half of them could be depended upon to be awake and watchful at all times.
He watched until he saw David Innes enter the prison cave; then he crawled back to O-aa. She was fast asleep! How lovely she looked. Her slim, brown body was almost naked, revealing the perfection of its contours. Hodon knelt beside her. For a moment he forgot David Innes, duty, honor. He seized O-aa and lifted her in his arms. He pressed his lips to hers. She awakened with a start. With the speed and viciousness of a cat, she struck—she struck him once across the mouth with her hand, and then her dagger sprang from its sheath.
Hodon leaped quickly back, but not quite quickly enough; the basalt blade ripped a six-inch slash in his chest. Hodon grinned.
"Well done," he said. "Some day you are going to be my mate, and I shall be very proud of you."
"I would as soon mate with a jalok," she said.
"You will mate with me of your own free will," said Hodon, "and now come and help me."
V
"YOU THINK you understand perfectly what you are to do?" asked Hodon a few minutes later, after carefully explaining his plan to O-aa.
"You are bleeding," said O-aa.
"It is nothing but a flesh wound," said Hodon.
"Let me get some leaves and stop it."
"Later," said Hodon. "You are sure you understand?"
"Why did you want to kiss me?" asked O-aa. "Was it just because I am so beautiful?"
"If I tell you, will you answer my question?"
"Yes," said O-aa.
"I think it was just because you are O-aa," said Hodon.
O-aa sighed. "I understand all that I am to do," she said. "Let us commence."
Together they gathered several large and small pieces of sandstone from a weathered outcropping, and inched them up to the very edge of the cliff. One very large piece was directly over the ladder which led to the next ledge below; others were above the mouth of the prison cave.
When this was accomplished, Hodon went into the forest and cut several long lianas and dragged them close to the cliff; then he fastened an end of each of them to trees which grew a few yards back.
"Now!" he whispered to O-aa.
"Do not think," she said, "because I have helped you and have not slipped my dagger between your ribs, that I do not hate you. Wait until my brother—"
"Yes," said Hodon. "After we have finished this you may tell me all about your brother. You will have earned the right. You have been splendid, O-aa. You will make a wonderful mate."
"I shall make a wonderful mate," agreed O-aa, "but not for you."
"Come on," said Hodon, "and keep your mouth shut—if you can."
She gave him a venomous look, but she followed him toward the edge of the cliff. Hodon looked over to be sure that everything was as he hoped it would be. He nodded his head at O-aa, and grinned.
He pushed the great stone nearer the edge, and O-aa did the same with some of her smaller ones. She watched Hodon very closely, and when she saw him pushing his over the edge, she stood up and hurled one of hers down.
The big stone struck the two guards squatting at the top of the ladder, carrying them and the ladder crashing down from ledge to ledge, carrying other ladders with them.
Hodon ran to the rocks that O-aa was hurling down, and O-aa ran to the lianas and dropped them over the edge. Hodon was calling David Innes by name. One of the other two guards had been hit and had fallen over the cliff; then David Innes and some of the other prisoners ran from the cave.
Only one guard opposed them. Neither O-aa or Hodon had been able to strike him with a rock. David Innes rushed him, and the guard met him on the narrow ledge with his short spear. As he lunged at Innes, the latter seized the weapon and struggled to wrench it from the Suvian's grasp. The two men wrestled for the weapon on the brink of eternity. At any moment either of them might be precipitated to the foot of the cliff. The other prisoners seemed too stunned or too anxious to escape to go to Innes' assistance, but not Hodon. Sensing the danger to his chief, he slid down one of the lianas and ran to Innes' side. With a single blow he knocked the Suvian over the edge of the cliff; then he pointed to the lianas.
"Hurry!" he said. "They are already starting up the canyon to climb the cliff and head us off."
Each on a different liana, the two men clambered to the summit. Already most of the Kalians had disappeared into the forest. Innes had been the only Sarian confined on the upper ledge. Oose had not run away. He and another Kalian were talking with O-aa. Oose's companion was a squat, bearded fellow with a most unprepossessing countenance. He looked like a throwback to a Neanderthal type. As Hodon and Innes approached the three, they heard O-aa say, "I will not!"
"Yes, you will," snapped Oose. "I am your father and your king. You will do as I tell you. Blug is a mighty hunter, a mighty fighter. He will make a fine mate. He has a large cave and three other women to lighten your labors."
O-aa stamped a sandalled foot. "I tell you I will not. I would just as soon mate with a Sagoth."
Now, the Sagoths are those half human gorilla men who did the strong arm work for the Mahars, the reptiles who dominated Pellucidar before David Innes drove them away—at least away from that portion of the inner world of which he was Emperor. O-aa could scarcely have voiced a more comprehensive insult.
Blug growled angrily. "Enough!" he said. "I take her." He reached for O-aa, but Hodon stepped between them and struck Blug's hand away.
"You do not take her," he said. "O-aa chooses her own mate."
Blug, being more or less of an inarticulate low-brow, with a short temper, replied to words with action. He swung a terrific blow at Hodon that might well have felled a bos, had there been a bos there and had the blow landed; but there was no bos and the blow did not land. Hodon ducked under it, picked Blug up and hurled him heavily to the ground.
Blug was surprised and so was Oose, for Hodon looked like no match for the massive Blug. Hodon's muscles rolled smoothly beneath his bronzed skin—deceptively. They had great strength and they possessed agility. Blug had only strength; but he had courage, too—the courage of stupidity. He scrambled to his feet and charged Hodon-charged like a wild bull. And this time Hodon struck him full in the mouth and dropped him in his tracks.
"Enough of this!" snapped David Innes. "If you stand here fighting, we shall all be captured."
"Enough," said Oose to Blug.
"I shall kill him later, then," said Blug.
"What—again?" asked Hodon. He looked about him.
"Where is O-aa?" he asked.
O-aa had fled. While the two men fought, she had run away. Maybe she thought, as Blug and Oose had thought, that Blug would easily kill Hodon.
"I did not see her go," said Oose. "When I find her, I shall beat her and give her to Blug."
"Not if I'm around," said Hodon.
"You should not interfere in the affairs of others, Hodon," counselled David.
"It is my affair," said Hodon.
Innes shrugged. "Very well," he said; "but if it's your own funeral, too, do not say that I did not warn you. Now we must get away from here."