As our thoughts crossed, I had felt along the wall, and found the bow. It was five feet in length or more, bent for use, and of such strength that I doubted whether I could handle it. I found the shafts, and fixing one on the cord, I stepped to the left-hand window, risking any missile they might throw, but protected somewhat by the darkness behind me. It was about four feet from the ground, and about four feet broad, but not more than a foot high, and with two horizontal bars crossing it, about four inches apart.
As the ordinary Killers were about three feet high, they were below its level as they crowded round the door. There was an excited hubbub of whistling and whining noises, their suckers waggling in every direction as they all talked at once and found no listeners—or so I thought.
Then they were silenced by the higher note of the archer behind them. Evidently he gave them an order to move aside, for they quickly cleared on either hand, till the space was bare before him. With his five supporters beside him, their javelins in readiness, he advanced, bow in hand, toward the window.
I thought that I had better get my shot in first, if I wished to have any further interest in the adventure. I noticed with a flicker of amusement that my companion’s mind was of the same opinion. I thought she was learning fast—or was she coming down to my level?
It was a very bow of Ulysses. I pulled it back with difficulty, and the arrow leapt from the cord with little aiming. It rose high over the heads of the advancing line, and—amazing fluke!—it struck the other archer—(there were only two of these monsters who were adult and vigorous)—who was coming up behind them, and whom I had not seen at all till the shaft hit him.
He was not seriously hurt, as we learnt afterwards, but had that one arrow ended half the pack the immediate result could not have been more decisive. Right and left they scattered, with a discordant clamour of whistling signals, till the whole space was empty before us.
I was feeling the relief natural to a timid nature at the withdrawal of an instant danger, and an illogical satisfaction at the result of my clumsy shot, when my mood was changed by the realisation of the laughing gaiety of my companion’s mind.
If I were in a world of strange sights and chances, it was in many ways more native to me than to her, and a condition of existence in which you directed your body to do something within its capacity and it did quite differently, had a weirdness beyond her experience or imagination.
“It seems to me,” she thought, still mirthfully, “that your life in any world must be a succession of unexpected happenings, and I begin to understand why you seem to me both so brave and so cowardly. I would gladly give a hundred years of my life for a day in your company. But we may give more than either of us wish, if we disregard what the Killers are doing. You should judge their ways better than I, being more nearly of their kind; do you think they will attack us again, and how?”
I answered, “They are not of my kind at all, but very loathsome vermin. I don’t think they will attack us again very quickly. I suppose we have most of their weapons here. Also, this place seems to be designed for defence—though against what we have no means of knowing. The bars on the inside show its intention. I suppose they kept their arms here because they would retire here in any emergency. Then, we are in a world which is not used to action in the night. They may feel the cold more than we do. The fact that we have wounded or killed one of their leaders at the first attempt will dispirit them. Unless there be another entrance, which is our greatest danger, I think we shall be safe till the light comes.”
She replied, “But shall we wait till dawn without action? How will that help us? At least, if you are right, we shall have time for clearer thinking. Let us go to the farther end.”
She led the way, for it seemed that her sight was little less in the dark than in the daytime, telling me, as she did so, that she saw no sign of any entrance, and we rested at the farther end.
Even if we decided to wait till dawn, the prospect was not pleasant. It could not be a less space away than three nights of my familiar time. I became aware that my left foot was very painful, and that the boot was full of blood. I was hungry also, tired, and very thirsty. The night, even in this shelter, was very cold. Outside, it was fine again, and the moon still shone through the windows.
I knew that my companion felt no need of food or drink, and the thin striped body seemed indifferent to heat or cold, and while I had held her hand, and shared her vitality, the call for food had been dormant in myself also. But I had fought out this last struggle unaided, and it was long since I had eaten, though I had drunk deeply at a spring on the hillside as the dusk was falling.
“Your foot is hurt,” she thought, “can we mend it?” I took off the boot—what was left of it—and pulled away the remains of
