On the other hand, we were operating under conditions which were in some respects as strange to them as to myself, and for which they might be said to be even more unfit. I was, at least, the only one who carried anything that could be used as an offensive weapon, and there was some justice in the reflection that I came from conditions of life from which the argument of violence was less alien than it was from theirs. Also, the fact that I could not pass the dangers of the mountain way, if it were really so, was unanswerable, and the fact that our opponents could not expect an attack from that direction for so long a time, certainly suggested that I could best be used in the interval in the way they had planned. Whether they expected me to succeed, or regarded me simply as a forlorn hope, or even as a feint attack to disguise a deeper purpose, I could not know. I considered that if I should be successful in effecting the rescue undetected, we might be far on the return journey before the dawn, but that they would arrive after it had certainly been discovered, and with their enemies between them and their retreat, in which case they would have their full share of the peril.
I had, at least, no better plan to propose, and I shortly signified that I had no further questions. I was then told that I must restrain any impulse of violence which I might feel, unless there were no alternative possible, as it developed action on a plane which they despised, and on which they were unaccustomed to operate, and might bring us into additional and incalculable trouble with the Dwellers also, if they should become aware of our expedition, or were already cognisant of it. It was to descend to the level of the Killers themselves.
I write “Killers” as the nearest word I have in which to describe the thought with which she defined our opponents, but it is quite inadequate. Scorn was in it, and loathing, if such feelings can be entirely passionless and judicial, and in it was the whole summary of what they were and did, but centrally there was the conception of them as things that killed continually, and that enjoyed killing, and as such I translate it. These worm-pink horrors with the sucking mouths were too low for any emotion to stir in regarding them. She looked on them as I, whom she regarded as a beast only, look upon one of my own kind who can kill birds for pleasure.
XVI
The Sentry
We now came to a place at which another trench extended on the right hand, at right angles to the one we followed, and striking upward toward the mountainside that now rose above us with an abruptness that appeared unscalable. Looking up the straight line of the trench we could not see the defile by which those heights were entered, nor was it easy to imagine that this bleak forbidding precipice was only the first of a wilderness of loftier ridges, from the top of which it would appear almost as low and flat as the plain around us.
We watched the long column of our companions as it proceeded up the narrow trench, at the end of which we saw it emerging on the open hillside, where it must have been visible for many miles to any watchers on the plains below. Then we turned, not without a feeling of loneliness which increased the intimacy of our companionship, and went on at a gentle walk—for the time at our disposal required no haste—in the direction which had been indicated.
Yet the leisured pace had a consequence which might have been disastrous, and the exact result of which I am still unable to determine.
We were engaged in a pleasant intercourse, in which I was realising that the apparent apathy of my companion’s mind in regard to the issue of an expedition for which her Leaders were responsible, which had previously surprised me, did not preclude a keen adventurous delight in an enterprise which had now been entrusted to our own initiative, when I was conscious of a shadow that fell for a moment across the floor of the trench before me, into which the midday sun shone directly downward.
Looking up sharply, I caught sight of an egg-shaped body and two jovially derisive eyes that withdrew at the instant of their detection. Instant also was my thought of the consequences if the news of our coming should go before us, and with that thought I loosed my companion’s hand, and jumped for the side of the trench. The abundant vitality which that grasp supplied me lasted long enough after I had loosed my hold to enable me to grip the edge of the ground two feet above my head, and swing myself on to the surface.
Rising here, I confronted the detected spy not ten feet distant, gazing at me with a glance of humorous contempt, from which doubt and even consternation were not entirely absent. Its body was less round than that of the panther’s victim, being like an egg balanced on two legs, with the thicker end in front, from which the twinkling eyes looked out, with the long trunk curled beneath them.
I realised suddenly that I was not beyond reach of this weapon, and that I was likely to be swept back into the trench with little ceremony, even if no worse befell me. But the next moment I was aware that my companion was beside me.
Whatever brain was in that blue-black body, or courage for the facing of meaner things, it had no will to meet its new antagonist. Nor did the order which she gave it to avoid us even disturb the quietness of the mind
