“They suppose that the arrows have destroyed you already, but they are cautious, and will continue to shoot till their ammunition is ended. The smaller Killers, who have gone round to the side, are well provided with strangling-cords, and have also many javelins. They have fetched a quantity from one of the other buildings. They are elaborately made, and have red shafts. Probably they were of a sacred or ornamental character, and have been acquired for fighting purposes only in this emergency.
“The javelins are not dangerous to you at present, as they turn in the air when thrown, and the window bars are too narrow for them to pass.
“There is no guard here now, and the bat-winged victims are greatly excited by the hope of escape, but they appear to have no means of releasing themselves. … I think the arrows are ended.”
We thought so too, for they had now ceased to enter. If our enemies hoped or supposed that we had been disabled, they must advance to investigate, and I had the sense of relief which comes when you can at last strike back, after being exposed to an attack which there is no means of resisting. I had a moment’s inclination to unbar the door, and rush out upon them when they pushed it open, with such axe-blows as might scatter them, and win our freedom at a moment.
I had the thought that if the archers could be cut down, the rest would be panic-stricken to see it, and that without their bows they might not be very formidable, but the recollection of the strangling-cords was enough to check this impulse effectually.
Then I thought that if they expected that they had killed us, they would not suppose that the door had been unbarred, and how would they endeavour to enter?
The light had increased now, so that the whole extent of the hall was visible. It showed nothing that we had not already seen or imagined, except that in the roof there were slits of an oblong shape, and of a regular occurrence, and over the sides of these we saw the heads of small lizard-like creatures protruding—bright yellow, snout-like heads, with small emerald eyes, that watched us fearfully, but with an impression of malevolence, and of an intelligence that gave me a feeling of actual discomfort as I gazed, so that I looked elsewhere, and then remembered how an animal will turn uneasily from a man’s eyes, and was ashamed, and looked back, and found my gaze was reluctant.
My comrade followed my thought, and surveyed them with her usual coolness. “They are more intelligent than the Killers, of whom they are not afraid. The Killers serve them. They must have built that roof for their dwelling. They fear us, and therefore hate us. It might be well if you sent an arrow to frighten them.”
But as the thought came, the yellow heads shot back, and the openings were quiet and vacant.
“I thought so,” she smiled, “they can read our thoughts, while they watch us. They are dangerous and might do us mischief, but I think the Killers are too stupid to use them.”
Meanwhile, I had again secured the bow, which I had used the night before with such unmerited success.
When I had drawn it once or twice, and felt that I could control it to some purpose, though it was almost beyond my strength to handle, I stepped to one of the windows on a sudden impulse, and saw the ground before me was pink with advancing Killers. Swiftly and silently they came, having appeared again from the side which had hidden them from the sight of our Leader. There was no whistling from the suckers, but they were waving them from right to left, and tossing them in the air in their excitement, as does an elephant when he trumpets. Many of them had the red-stemmed javelins. All had their strangling-cords in readiness.
The archers moved beside them, one on each flank, bow in hand, but I saw that there were no arrows on the strings.
There was no need to aim. I bent the bow to my strength’s limit, and sent the long shaft into the hideous crowd that confronted me. I think that it might only have dented the slimy bladder-like skin of the first it struck, without puncturing it, had it been able to throw him back without striking any solid substance behind him, but—perhaps because they were advancing so closely—it went through him and two others before it spent its force, and left them heaped and squealing. In a moment the whistling cries arose to a point which I cannot hope to tell, for I lack words for any possible comparison. Right and left ran the Killers, the archers first in flight, and in a few seconds were beyond my range and seeing, beneath the side walls of the arsenal that was at once our jail and our safety.
My comrade, looking from the other window, gazed at the stricken, struggling heap with eyes that danced in triumph. Her age-long wandering in the ocean ways had familiarised her to death and cruelty in a hundred forms. Her repugnance had been to doing things herself which she regarded as natural only to a lower order of creation. I suppose in all her life she had never knowingly done harm to any sentient thing. But she loved adventure as a child loves it.
Then her eyes clouded to an instant’s blankness, and turned to me again, and this was the thought she gave.
“My Leader says, ‘Tell that animal not to shoot again, and if it does so, leave it entirely. We are not Killers, nor do we practise their ways. Besides, it may cause trouble with the Dwellers, of which we have prepared sufficient already.’ ”
I answered in anger at such perversity. “Tell her that if she is not a Killer, neither am I an
