'Now, the rocks,' he directed; and the slaves commenced to pelt their antagonists with small missiles until they took refuge in the caves on the level below. 'Don't let them come out,' ordered von Horst. 'Dangar, you take five men and let every Bastian that shows his head get a rock on it; the rest of you men raise the ladders.'
When the ladders, rickety and sagging, were leaned against the cliff they just topped its summit; and von Horst breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the success of his plan thus more nearly assured. He turned to Thorek. 'Take three men and go to the top of the cliff. If the way is clear, tell me; and I will send up the women and the rest of the men.'
As Thorek and the three climbed aloft, the ladders creaked and bent; but they held, and presently the Mammoth Man called down that all was well.
'Now, the women,' said von Horst; and all the women but one started up the ladders. That one was La-ja. She ignored the ladders as she had ignored von Horst, and again the man paid no attention to her. Soon all but Dangar and his five men, von Horst, and La-ja had climbed safely to the cliff top. One by one, von Horst sent the five up; and he and Dangar kept the Bastians below confined in the caves where they might not know what was going on upon the ledge above; for he knew that they could bring other ladders from the caves in which they were hiding and enough of them reach the ledge that he and Dangar were defending to overcome them easily.
La-ja, now, was his greatest problem. Had she been a man, he would have left her; and his better judgment told him that he should leave her anyway, but he could not. Perhaps she was a stubborn little fool; but he realized that he could not know what strange standards of pride, custom, environment, and heredity had bequeathed her. How might he judge her? Her attitude might seem right and proper to her, no matter how indefensible it appeared to him.
'I wish you would go up with the others, La-ja,' he said. 'We three may be recaptured if you don't.'
'Go yourself, if you wish,' she retorted. 'La-ja will remain here.'
'Do not forget Skruf,' he reminded her.
'Skruf will never have me. I can always die,' she replied.
'You will not come, then?' he asked.
'I would rather stay with Skruf than go with you.'
Von Horst shrugged and turned away. The girl was watching him intently to see what effects her insult had upon him, and she flushed with anger when he showed no resentment.
'Give them a few more rocks, Dangar,' directed von Horst; 'then get to the cliff top as fast as you can.'
'And you?' asked the Sarian.
'I shall follow you.'
'And leave the girl?'
'She refuses to come,' replied von Horst.
Dangar shrugged. 'She needs a beating,' he said.
'I would kill any man that laid a hand on me,' said La-ja, belligerently.
'Nevertheless, you need a beating,' insisted Dangar; 'then you would have more sense.' He gathered up several rocks and hurled them at a head that appeared from one of the caves below; then he turned and swarmed up one of the ladders.
Von Horst walked toward the other ladder. It took him close to La-ja. Suddenly he seized her. 'I am going to take you with me,' he said.
'You are not,' she cried, and commenced to strike and kick him.
Without great difficulty he carried her as far as the ladder; but when he tried to ascend it, she clung to it. He struggled upward and gained a couple of rounds, but she fought so viciously and clung so desperately that he soon saw they must be overtaken if the Bastians reached this ledge.
Already he heard their voices raised more loudly from below, indicating that they had come from the caves. He heard Frug directing the raising of a ladder. In a moment they would be upon them. He looked down at the beautiful face of the angry girl. He could drop her and leave her to the tender mercies of the Bastians. There was still time for him to gain the summit of the cliff alone. But there was another way, a way he shrank from; yet he saw no alternative if he were to save them both. He drew back a clenched fist and struck her heavily on the side of the head, and instantly she went limp in his arms; then he climbed upward as rapidly as he could with the dead weight of the unconscious girl hampering his every movement. He had almost reached the top when he heard a shout of triumph below him. Glancing downward, he saw a Bastian just clambering onto the ledge upon which the ladder rested. If the fellow could lay hands upon the ladder he could drag them down to death or recapture. Von Horst shifted the weight of the girl so that her body hung balanced over his left shoulder. This freed his left hand so that he could cling to the ladder as he drew his pistol with his right. He had to swing out and backward to get a bead on the Bastian; and he had to do all this in a fraction of the time it takes to tell it; for if the first man reached the ledge, there would be another directly behind him; and one shot would not stop them both.
He fired just as the Bastian was about to step from the ladder to the ledge. The fellow toppled backward. There were yells and curses from below; and though von Horst could not see what happened, he was certain that the falling body had knocked others from the ladder. Once again he hastened upward, and a moment later Dangar and Thorek reached down and dragged him and the girl to the summit of the cliff.
'Your luck is with you,' said Thorek. 'Look; they are right behind you.'
Von Horst looked down. The Bastians had raised other ladders and were clambering rapidly onto the ledge below. Some of them were already climbing the ladders that the slaves had raised to the cliff top. Others of the slaves were standing near von Horst looking down at the Bastians. 'We had better run,' said one. 'They will soon be up here.'
'Why run?' demanded Thorek. 'Are we not armed even better than they? We have most of their spears.'
'I have a better plan,' said von Horst. 'Wait until the ladders are full.'
He called other slaves to him then, and waited. It was but a matter of seconds when the ladders were both filled with climbing Bastians; then von Horst gave the word, and a score of hands pushed the ladders outward from the face of the cliff. Screams of terror broke from the lips of the doomed Bastians as the slaves toppled the ladders over backward, and a dozen bodies hurtled down the face of the cliff to fall at the feet of the women and children.
'Now,' said von Horst, 'let's get out of here.' He looked down at the girl still lying on the sward where they had placed her, and he was suddenly stunned by the realization that she might be dead—that the blow he had struck her had killed her. He dropped to his knees beside her and placed an ear over her heart. It was beating, and beating strongly. With a sigh of relief, he lifted the inanimate form to his shoulder again.
'Where to now?' he asked, addressing the entire gathering of escaped slaves.
'At first we'd better get out of the Bastian country,' counselled Thorek. 'After that, we can plan.'
The way led through hills and mountain gorges, and finally out into a lovely valley teeming with wild life; but though they often encountered fierce beasts they were not attacked.
'There are too many of us,' explained Dangar when von Horst commented upon their apparent immunity. 'Occasionally you'll find a beast that will attack a whole tribe of men, but ordinarily they are afraid of us when we are in numbers.'
Long before they reached the valley, La-ja regained consciousness. 'Where am I?' she demanded. 'What has happened?'
Von Horst lowered her from his shoulder and steadied her until he saw that she could stand. 'I brought you away from Basti,' he explained. 'We are free now.'
She looked at him, knitting her brows as though trying to recall a fleeting memory that eluded her. 'You brought me!' she said. 'I said I would not come with you. How did you do it?'
'I—er—I put you to sleep,' he fumbled hesitatingly.
The thought that he had struck her humiliated him.
'Oh, I remember,' she said; 'you struck me.'
'I had to,' he replied. 'I am very sorry, but there was no other way. I could not leave you there among those beasts.'
'But you did strike me.'
'Yes, I struck you.'
'Why did you wish to bring me? Why did you care whether or not I was left to Skruf?'
