“A Kalkar!” she whispered. “Oh, Julian, if they find us we are lost.”
“If there is only one of them I can take care of him,” I said.
“There will be more than one,” she replied; “there will be many.”
“Then, let us return the way we came and make our way to the top of the crater’s rim before they discover us. We can throw their hooked poles into the crater, including the one which we use to ascend from the mouth of the tunnel, thus effectually preventing any pursuit.”
“We cannot cross this room again to the tunnel upon the opposite side without being apprehended,” she replied. “Our only hope is in hiding in this other tunnel until they have passed and trusting to chance that we meet no one within it.”
“Come, then,” I said. “I dislike the idea of flying like a scared rabbit, but neither would there be any great wisdom in facing armed men without a single weapon of defense.”
Even as we had whispered thus briefly together, we found the voices from the other tunnel had increased and I thought that I noted a tone of excitement in them, though the speakers were still too far away for us to understand their words. We moved swiftly up the branch tunnel, Nah-ee-lah in the lead, and after passing the first turn we both felt comparatively safe, for Nah-ee-lah was sure that the men who had interrupted our journey were a party of hunters on their way to the outer world by means of the crater through which we had entered the tunnel and that they would not come up the branch in which we were hiding. Thus believing, we halted after we were safely out of sight and hearing of the large cave we had just left.
“That man was a Kalkar,” said Nah-ee-lah, “which means that we are in the wrong tunnel and that we must retrace our steps and continue our search for Laythe upon the surface of the ground.” Her voice sounded tired and listless, as though hope had suddenly deserted her brave heart. We were standing shoulder to shoulder in the narrow corridor and I could not resist the impulse to place an arm about her and comfort her.
“Do not despair, Nah-ee-lah,” I begged her; “we are no worse off than we have been and much better off than before we escaped the Va-gas of Ga-va-go. Then do you not recall that you mentioned one drawback to your return to Laythe—that you might be as well of here as there? What was the reason, Nah-ee-lah?”
“Ko-tah wants me in marriage,” she replied. “Ko-tah is very powerful, He expects one day to be Jemadar of Laythe. This he cannot be while I live unless he marries me.”
“Do you wish to marry him?” I asked.
“No,” she said; “not now. Before—” she hesitated—“before I left Laythe I did not care so very much; but now I know that I cannot wed with Ko-tah.”
“And your father,” I continued, “what of him—will he insist that you marry Ko-tah?”
“He cannot do otherwise,” replied Nah-ee-lah, “for Ko-tah is very powerful. If my father refuses to permit me to marry him Ko-tah may overthrow him, and when my father is dead, should I still refuse to marry Ko-tah he may slay me, also, and then become Jemadar easily, for the blood of Jemadars flows in his veins.”
‘It appears to me, Nah-ee-lah, that you will be about as badly off at home as anywhere else in Va-nah. It is too bad that I cannot take you to my own Earth, where you would be quite safe, and I am sure, happy.”
“I wish that you might, Julian,” she replied simply.
I was about to reply when she placed slim fingers upon my lips. “Hush, Julian!” she whispered, “they are following us up this corridor. Come quickly, we must escape before they overtake us,” and so saying, she turned and ran quickly along the corridor which led neither of us knew whither.
But we were soon to find out, for we had gone but a short distance when we came to the tunnels’s end in a large circular chamber, at one end of which was a rostrum upon which were a massive, elaborately carved desk and a chair of similar design. Below the rostrum were arranged other chairs in rows, with a broad aisle down the center. The furniture, though of peculiar design and elaborately carved with strange figures of unearthly beasts and reptiles, was not, for all of that, markedly dissimilar to articles of the same purpose fabricated upon Earth. The chairs had four legs, high backs and broad arms, seeming to have been designed equally for durability, service, and comfort.
I glanced quickly around the apartment, as we first entered, only taking in the details later, but I saw that there was no other opening than the one through which we had entered.
“We will have to wait here, Nah-ee-lah,” I said. “Perhaps, though, all will be well—the Kalkars may prove friendly.”
She shook her head negatively. “No,” she said, “they will not be friendly.”
“What will they do to us?” I asked.
“They will make slaves of us,” she replied, “and we shall spend the balance of our lives working almost continuously until we drop with fatigue under the cruelest of taskmakers, for the Kalkars hate us of Laythe and will hesitate at nothing that will humiliate or injure us.”
She had scarcely ceased speaking when there appeared in the entrance of the cave the figure of a man about my own height dressed in a tunic similar to Nah-ee-lah’s but evidently made of leather. He carried a knife slung in a scabbard depending from a shoulder belt, and in his right hand he grasped a slender lance. His eyes were close set upon either side of a prominent, hooked nose. They were watery, fishy, blue eyes, and the hair growing profusely above his low forehead was flaxen in color. His physique was admirable, except for a noticeable stoop. His feet were very large and his gait awkward when he moved. Behind him I could see the heads and shoulders of others. They stood there grinning at us for a moment, most malevolently, it seemed to me, and then they entered the cave—a full dozen of them. There were pi several types, with eyes and hair of different colors, the former ranging from blue to brown, the latter from light blonde to almost black.
As they emerged from the mouth of the tunnel they spread out and advanced slowly toward us. We were cornered like rats in a trap. How I longed for the feel of my automatic at my hip! I envied them their slender spears and their daggers. If I could have but these I might have a chance at least to take Nah-ee-lah out of their clutches and save her from the hideous fate of slavery among the Kalkars, for I had guessed what such slavery would mean to her from the little that she had told me, and I had guessed, too, that she would rather die than submit to it. For my own part, Me held little for me; I had long since definitely given up any hope of ever returning to my own world, or of finding the ship and being re-united with West and Jay and Norton. There came upon me at that moment, however, a sense of appreciation of the fact that since we had left the village of the No-vans I had been far from unhappy, nor could I attribute this to aught else than the companionship of Nah-ee-lah—a realization that convinced me that I should be utterly miserable were she to be taken from me now. Was I to submit supinely then, to capture and slavery for myself and worse than death for Nah-ee-lah, with the assurance of consequent separation from her? No. I held up my hand as a signal for the advancing Kalkars to halt.
“Stop!” I commanded. “Before you advance farther I wish to know your intentions toward us. We entered this tunnel, mistaking it for that which led to the city of my companion. Permit us to depart in peace and all will be well.”
“All will be well, anyway,” replied the leader of the Kalkars. “You are a strange creature, such as I have never before seen in Va-nah. Of you we know nothing except that you are not of the Kalkars, and therefore an enemy of the Kalkars, but this other is from Lay the.”