The Moon Maid

and he saw things as few of my kind, I imagine, ever have seen them. He was a kindly man and very learned, and he came to hate the Kalkars and the horrid wrong the first Or-tis did the world and our people when he brought them hither from the Moon, even as you and yours have hated them always. He knew the wrong and he wished to right it. Already he had planned means whereby he might get into communication with the Julians and join with them in undoing the crime that our ancestor committed upon the world. He was Jemadar, but he would have renounced his throne to be with his own kind again. Our blood strain is as clear as yours⁠—we are Americans. There is no Kalkar or half-breed blood in our veins. There are perhaps a thousand others among us who have brought down their birthright unsullied. These he would have brought with him, for they all were tired of the Kalkar beasts.

“But some of the Kalkar nobles learned of the plan, and among them was he who calls himself Or-tis and Jemadar. He is the son of a Kalkar woman by a renegade uncle of mine. There is Or-tis blood in his veins, but a drop of Kalkar makes one all Kalkar, therefore he is no Or-tis.

“He assassinated my father, and then set out to exterminate every pure-blood Or-tis and all those other uncontaminated Americans who would not swear fealty to him. Some have done so to save their hides, but many have gone to The Butcher. In so far as I know, I am the last of the Or-tis line. There were two brothers and a sister, all younger than I. We scattered and I have not heard of them since, but I am sure that they are all dead.

“Yes, if my father had lived the feud might have been ended; but tomorrow The Butcher will end it. However, the other way would have been better. What think you, Julian?”

I stood meditating in silence for a long time. I wondered if, after all, the dead Jemadar’s way would not have been better.

V

The Sea

It seemed strange indeed to me that I stood conversing thus amicably with an Or-tis. I should have been at his throat, but there was something about him that disarmed me, and after his speech I felt, I am almost ashamed to say, something of friendliness for him. He was an American after all, and he hated the common enemy. Was he responsible for the mad act of an ancestor dead now almost four hundred years? But the hate that was almost a part of my being would not down entirely⁠—he was still an Or-tis. I told him as much. He shrugged his shoulders.

“I do not know that I can blame you,” he said; “but what matters it? Tomorrow we shall both be dead. Let us at least call a truce until then.”

He was a pleasant-faced young fellow, two or three years my senior, perhaps, with a winning way that disarmed malice. It would have been very hard to have hated this Or-tis.

“Agreed!” I said, and held out my hand. He took it and then he laughed.

“Thirty-four ancestors would turn over in their graves if they could see this,” he cried.

We talked there by the opening for a long time, while in the trail below us constant streams of Kalkars moved steadily to the battle front. Faintly, from a great distance, came the booming of the drums.

“You beat them badly yesterday,” he said. “They are filled with terror.”

“We will beat them again today and tomorrow and the next day until we have driven them into the sea,” I said.

“How many warriors have you?” he asked.

“There were full twenty-five thousand when we rode out of the desert,” I replied proudly.

He shook his head dubiously. “They must have ten, twenty times twenty-five thousand,” he told me.

“Even though they have forty times twenty-five thousand we shall prevail,” I insisted.

“Perhaps you will, for you are better fighters; but they have so many youths growing into the warrior class every day. It will take years to wear them down. They breed like rabbits. Their women are married before they are fifteen, as a rule. If they have no child at twenty they are held up to scorn, and if they are still childless at thirty they are killed, and unless they are mighty good workers they are killed at fifty anyhow⁠—their usefulness to the State is over.”

Night came on. The Kalkars brought us no food or water. It became very dark. In the trail below and in some of the surrounding tents flares gave a weird, flickering light. The sky was overcast with light clouds. The Kalkars in the avenue beyond our doorway dozed. I touched the Or-tis upon the shoulder where he lay stretched beside me on the hard floor.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“I am going,” I said. “Do you wish to come?”

He sat up. “How are you going?” he demanded, still in a low whisper.

“I do not know, nor how far I shall go; but I am going, if only far enough to cheat The Butcher.”

He laughed. “Good! I will go with you.”

It had taken me a long time to overcome the prejudices of heredity, and I had thought long before I could bring myself to ask an Or-tis to share with me this attempt to escape; but now it was done. I hoped I would not regret it.

I arose and moved cautiously toward the doorway. A wick, burning from the nozzle of a clay vessel filled with oil, gave forth a sickly light. It shone upon two hulking Kalkars nodding against the wall as they sat upon the stone floor of the avenue. My knife, of course, had been taken from me and I was unarmed; but here was a sword within my reach and another for the Or-tis. The hilt of one protruded from beneath the cloak of