It took but an instant, yet that instant was my undoing, for the remaining two were already upon me. I turned in time to partially dodge the lance point of the foremost, but it caught me a glancing blow upon the head and that is the last that I remember of immediately ensuing events.
When next I opened my eyes I was jouncing along, lashed to a saddle, belly down across a horse. Within the circumscribed limits of my vision lay a constantly renewed circle of dusty trail and four monotonously moving, gray, shaggy legs. At least I was not on Red Lightning.
I had scarcely regained consciousness when the horse bearing me was brought to a stop, and the two accompanying Kalkars dismounted and approached me. Removing the bonds that held me to the saddle, they dragged me unceremoniously to the ground and when I stood erect they were surprised to see that I was conscious.
“Dirty Yank!” cried one and struck me in the face with his open palm.
His companion laid a hand upon his arm. “Hold, Tav,” he expostulated; “he put up a good fight against great odds.” The speaker was a man of about my own height and might have passed as a full-blood Yank, though, as I thought at the time, doubtless he was a half-breed.
The other gestured his disgust. “A dirty Yank,” he repeated. “Keep him here, Okonnor, while I find Raban and ask what to do with him.” He turned and left us.
We had halted at the foot of a low hill upon which grew tremendous old trees and of such infinite variety that I marveled at them. There were pine, cypress, hemlock, sycamore and acacia that I recognized and many others the like of which I never before had seen, and between the trees grew flowering shrubs, and where the ground was open it was carpeted with flowers—great masses of color; and there were little pools choked with lilies, and countless birds and butterflies. Never had I looked upon a place of such wondrous beauty. Through the trees I could see the outlines of the ruins of one of the stone tents of the ancients sitting upon the summit of the low hill. It was toward this structure that he who was called Tav was departing from us.
“What place is this?” I asked the fellow guarding me, my curiosity overcoming my natural aversion to conversation with his kind.
“It is the tent of Raban,” he replied. “Until recently it was the home of Or-tis the Jemadar—the true Or-tis. The false Or-tis dwells in the great tents of The Capital. He would not last long in this valley.”
“What is this Raban?” I asked.
“He is a great robber. He preys upon all, and to such an extent has he struck terror to the hearts of all who have heard of him that he takes toll as he will, and easily. They say that he eats the flesh of humans, but that I do not know—I have been with him but a short time. After the assassination of the true Or-tis I joined him because he preys upon the Kalkars. He lived long in the eastern end of the valley where he could prey upon the outskirts of The Capital and then he did not rob or murder the people of the valley; but with the death of Or-tis he came and took this place and now he preys upon my people as well as upon the Kalkars, but I remain with him since I must serve either him or the Kalkars.”
“You are not a Kalkar?” I asked, and I could believe it because of his good old American name, Okonnor.
“I am a Yank; and you?”
“I am Julian 20th, The Red Hawk,” I replied.
He raised his brows. “I have heard of you in the past few days,” he said. “Your people are fighting mightily at the edge of The Capital; but they will be driven back—the Kalkars are too many. Raban will be glad of you if the stories they tell of him are true. One is that he eats the hearts of brave warriors that fall into his hands.”
I smiled. “What is the creature?” I asked again. “Where originates such a breed?”
“He is only a Kalkar,” replied Okonnor; “but even a greater monstrosity than his fellows. He was born in The Capital, of ordinary Kalkar parents, they say, and early developed a lust for blood that has increased with the passing years. He boasts yet of his first murder—he killed his mother when he was ten.”
I shuddered. “And it is into the hands of such that a daughter of the Or-tis has fallen,” I said, “and you, an American, aided in her capture.”
He looked at me in startled surprise. “The daughter of an Or-tis?” he cried.
“Of the Or-tis,” I repeated.
“I did not know,” he said. “I was not close to her at any time and thought that she was but a Kalkar woman.”
“What are you going to do? Can you save her?”
He drew his knife and cut the bonds that held my arms behind me. “Hide here among the trees,” he said, “and watch the Raban until I return. It will be after dark, but I will bring help. This valley is almost exclusively peopled by those who have refused to intermarry with the Kalkars and have brought down their strain unsullied from ancient times. There are almost a thousand fighting men of pure Yank blood within its confines. I should be able to gather enough to put an end to Raban for all time, and if the danger of a daughter of Or-tis cannot move them from their shame and cowardice they are hopeless indeed.”
He mounted his horse. “Quick!” he cried, “get among the trees.”
“Where is my horse?” I called as he
