The girl stood listening to our conversation, and when I at last insisted that I must go because, having no knowledge of the trails anyhow, I would be as well off by night as by day, she offered to guide me.
“I know the valley from end to end,” she said. “Tell me where you would go and I will lead you there as well by night as by day.”
“But how would you return?” I asked.
“If you are going to your people perhaps they would let me remain, for am I not an American, too?”
I shook my head. “I am afraid that they would not,” I told her. “We feel very bitterly toward all Americans that cast their lot with the Kalkars-even more bitterly than we feel toward the Kalkars themselves.”
“I did not cast my lot with the Kalkars,” she said proudly. “I have hated them always-since I was old enough to hate. If four hundred years ago my people chose to do a wicked thing, is it any fault of mine? I am as much an American as you, and I hate the Kalkars more because I know them better.”
“My people would not reason that way,” I said. “The women would set the hounds on you, and you would be torn to pieces.”
She shivered. “You are as terrible as the Kalkars,” she said bitterly.
“You forget the generations of humiliation and suffering that we have endured because of the renegade Americans who brought the Kalkar curse upon us,” I reminded her.
“We have suffered, too,” she said, “and we are as innocent as you,” and then suddenly she looked me squarely in the eyes. “How do you feel about it? Do you, too, hate me worse than if I were a Kalkar? You saved my life, perhaps, to-day. You could do that for one you hate?”
“You are a girl,” I reminded her, “and I am an Americana Julian,” I added.
“You saved me only because I am a girl?” she insisted.
I nodded.
“You are a strange people,” she said, “that you could be so brave and generous to one you hate, and yet refuse the simpler kindness of forgiveness-forgiveness of a sin that we did not commit.”
I recalled the Or-tis, who had spoken similarly, and I wondered if perhaps they might not be right; but we are a proud people and for generations before my day our pride had been ground beneath the heels of the victorious Kalkar.
Even yet the wound was still raw. And we are a stubborn people-stubborn in our loves and our hatreds.
Already I had regretted my friendliness with the Or-tis, and now I was having amicable dealings with another Kalkar-it was difficult for me to think of them as other than Kalkars. I should be hating this one-I should have hated the Or-tis-but for some reason I found it not so easy to hate them.
Saku had been listening to our conversation, a portion of which at least he must have understood.
“Wait until morning,” he said, “and then she can at least go with you as far as the top of the hills and point out the way for you; but you will be wise to take her with you. She knows every trail, and it will be better for her to go with you to your own people. She is not Kalkar, and if they catch her they will kill her.
“Were she Kalkar we would hate her and chase her away; but though she is welcome among us it would be hard for her to remain. We move camp often, and often our trails lead where one so large as she might have difficulty in following, nor would she have a man to hunt for her, and there are times when we have to go without food because we cannot find enough even for our own little people.”
“I will wait until morning,” I said; “but I cannot take her with me; my people would kill her.”
I had two motives in remaining over the night. One was to go forth early in the morning and kill game for the little Nipons in payment for their hospitality, and the other was to avail myself of the girl’s knowledge of the trails, which she could point out from some lofty hilltop. I had only a general idea of the direction in which to search for my people, and as I had seen from the summit that the valley beyond was entirely surrounded by hills I realized that I might gain time by waiting until morning, when the girl should be able to point out the route to the proper pass to my destination.
After the evening meal that night I kept up a fire for the girl, as the air was chill and she was not warmly clad. The little people had only their tents and a few skins for their own protection, nor was there room in the former for the girl, so already overcrowded were they. The Nipons retired to their rude shelters almost immediately after eating, leaving the girl and me alone. She huddled close to the fire and she looked very forlorn and alone.
“Your people are all gone?” I asked.
“My own people-my father, my mother, my three brothers-all are dead, I think,” she replied. “My mother and father I know are dead. She died when I was a little girl. Six months ago my father was killed by the Kalkars. My three brothers and I scattered, for we heard that they were coming to kill us also.
“I have heard that they captured my brothers; but I am not sure. They have been killing many in the valley lately, for here dwell nearly all the pure descendants of Americans, and those of us who were thought to favor the true Or-tis were marked for slaughter by the false Or-tis.
“I had been hiding in the home of a friend of my father, but I knew that if I were found there it would bring death to him and his family, and so I came away, hoping to find a place where I might be safe from them; but I guess there is no place for me-even my friends, the Nipons, though they would let me stay with them, admit that it would be a hardship to provide for me.”
“What will you do?” I asked. Somehow I felt very sorry for her.
“I shall find some nearly inaccessible place in the hills and build myself a shelter,” she replied.
“But you cannot live here in the hills alone,” I remonstrated.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Where may I live, then?”
“For a little while, perhaps,” I suggested, “until the Kalkars are driven into the sea.”
“Who will drive them into the sea?” she asked.
“We,” I replied proudly.
“And if you do, how much better off shall I be? Your people will set their hounds upon me-you have said so yourself. But you will not drive the Kalkars into the sea. You have no conception of their numbers. All up and down the coast, days’ journeys north and south, wherever there is a fertile valley, they have bred like flies. For days they have been coming from all directions, marching toward the Capitol. I do not know why they congregate now, nor why only the warriors come. Are they threatened, do you think?” A sudden thought seemed to burst upon her. “It cannot be,” she exclaimed, “that the Yanks have attacked them! Have your people come out of the desert again?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Yesterday we attacked their great camp; to-day my warriors must have eaten their evening meal in the stone tents of the Kalkars.”
“You mean the Capitol?”
“Yes.”
“Your forces have reached the Capitol? It seems incredible! Never before have you come so far. You have a great army?”
“Twenty-five thousand warriors marched down out of the desert beneath the Flag,” I told her, “and we drove the Kalkars from the pass of the ancients back to the Capitol, as you call their great camp.”
“You have lost many warriors?”
“Many fell,” I replied; “thousands.”
“Then you are not twenty-five thousand now, and the Kalkars are like ants. Kill them, and more will come. They will wear you down until your few survivors will be lucky if they can escape back to their desert.”
“You do not know us,” I told her. “We have brought our women, our children, our flocks and herds down into the orange groves of the Kalkars, and there we shall remain. If we cannot drive the Kalkars into the sea to-day, we shall have to wait until to-morrow. It has taken us three hundred years to drive them this far, but in all that time we have never given back a step that we have once gained; we have never retreated from any position to which we have brought our families and our stock.”