She did as I bid, but after a few steps she glanced back. 'Why don't you come, too?' she demanded.
'Don't argue,' I snapped a little shortly. 'Do as I bid you.'
She stopped and waited for me. 'I shall do as I please,' she informed me, 'and it does not please me to let you make this sacrifice for me. If you are to be killed, I shall be killed with you. Furthermore, Carson Napier, please remember that I am the daughter of a jong and am not accustomed to being ordered about.'
'If there were not more pressing matters to occupy me I would spank you,' I growled.
She looked at me, horrified; then she stamped one little foot in rage and commenced to cry. 'You take advantage of me because there is no one to protect me,' she sputtered. 'I hate you, you—you—'
'But I am trying to protect you, Duare; and you are only making it harder for me.'
'I don't want any of your protection; I would rather be dead. It is more honorable to be dead than to be talked to like that—I am the daughter of a jong.'
'I think you have mentioned that several times before,' I said, coldly.
She threw up her head and walked stiffly on without looking back at me. Even her little shoulders and back radiated offended dignity and stifled rage.
I glanced behind me. The mighty beast was scarce fifty feet away; ahead of us the forest was about the same distance. Duare could not see me. I stopped and faced the colossus. By the time it had dispatched me, Duare would probably be close to the safety of the branches of the nearest tree.
I held my bow in one hand, but my arrows remained in the crude quiver I had fashioned to hold them behind my right shoulder. I had sense enough to realize that the only effect they might have upon this mountain of hairy sinew would be to enrage it.
After I stopped, the beast approached more slowly, almost warily. Two little eyes, set far apart, regarded me intently; two large, mulish ears pricked forward; quivering nostrils dilated.
On it came, very gradually now. A bony protuberance extending from its snout to its forehead commenced to rise until it revealed itself to my astonished gaze as a sharp-pointed horn. The horn rose until it pointed fiercely at me, a terrible weapon of offense.
I did not move. My experience of earthly animals had taught me that few will attack without provocation, and I staked my life on the chance that the same rule prevailed on Venus. But there are other provocations besides those that arouse fear or anger; a most potent one is hunger. However, this creature looked herbivorous; and I hoped that it was a vegetarian. But I could not forget the basto; that somewhat resembled an American bison, yet would eat meat.
Closer and closer came the remarkable beast, very, very slowly, as though its mind were assailed by doubts. It towered above me like a living mountain. I could feel its warm breath upon my almost naked body; but, better still, I could smell its breath—the sweet, inoffensive breath of a grass eater. My hopes rose.
The creature stuck out its muzzle toward me; a low rumbling issued from its cavernous chest; that terrible horn touched me; then the cool, moist muzzle. The beak sniffed at me. Slowly the horn subsided.
Suddenly, with a snort, the animal wheeled about and went galloping off, bucking and jumping as I have seen a playful steer buck and jump, its little tail stiffly erect. It presented a most ludicrous appearance—as would a steam locomotive skipping rope. I laughed, possibly a little hysterically, for my knees were suddenly weak and wobbly. If I had not been near death, I had at least thought that I was.
* * * * *
As I turned back toward the forest I saw Duare standing there looking at me, and as I approached her I perceived that she was wide-eyed and trembling.
'You are very brave, Carson ,' she said with a little catch in her throat. Her anger seemed to have departed. 'I know that you remained there so that I might escape.'
'There really wasn't much else that I could do,' I assured her. 'And now that that's over, let's see if we can't find something to eat—something a few sizes smaller than that mountains of steaks and roasts. I think we'll go on until we strike the stream that flows through this forest. We may find a drinking place or a ford that the animals are accustomed to coming to.'
'There are many animals out there on the plain that are small,' suggested Duare. 'Why don't you hunt there?'
'There are plenty of animals, but there are not enough trees,' I replied with a laugh. 'We may need some trees in our hunting. I don't know enough about these Amtorian beasts as yet to warrant me in taking unnecessary risks.'
We moved on into the wood beneath the delicate foliage and among the strangely beautiful boles with their lacquer-like bark of white and red and yellow and blue.
Presently we came in sight of a little river winding leisurely between its violet banks, and at the same instant I saw a small creature drinking. It was about the size of a goat, but it didn't look like a goat. Its sharply pointed ears were constantly moving, as though on the alert for the slightest sound of danger; its tufted tail switched nervously. A collar of short horns encircled its neck just where it joined the head. They pointed slightly forward. There must have been a dozen of them. I could not but wonder what their specific purpose might be until I recalled the vere from whose horrible maw I had so recently escaped. That necklace of short horns would most certainly have discouraged any creature that was in the habit of swallowing its prey whole.
Very gently, I pushed Duare behind a tree and crept forward, fitting an arrow to my bow. As I was preparing to shoot, the creature threw up its head and turned half around. Probably it had heard me. I had been creeping on it from behind, but its change of position revealed its left side to me, and I planted my first arrow squarely in its heart.
So we made our camp beside the river and dined on juicy chops, delicious fruits, and the clear water from the little stream. Our surroundings were idyllic. Strange birds sang to us, arboreal quadrupeds swung through the trees jabbering melodiously in soft sing-song voices.
'It is very lovely here,' said Duare, dreamily. ' Carson —I wish that I were not the daughter of a jong.'
Chapter 9—The Gloomy Castle
WE WERE both loath to leave this lovely spot, and so we tarried there for two days while I made weapons for Duare and a new spear for myself.
I had constructed a little platform in a tree that overhung the river; and there at night we were comparatively safe from predatory animals while the soft music of the purling water lulled us to sleep, a sleep that might be suddenly broken by the savage roars of hunting beasts or the screams of their victims, to which the distant lowing and bellowing of the vast herds upon the plain furnished a harmonious undertone in this raw aria of life.
It was our last night in this pleasant camp. We were sitting on our little platform watching the fish leaping and jumping in the river below.
'I could be happy here forever—with you, Duare,' I said.
'One may not think of happiness alone,' she replied; 'there is duty also.'
'But what if circumstances make us helpless to perform our duties? Aren't we warranted in making the best of our fate and making the most of the chance for happiness where we find it?'
'What do you mean?' she asked.
'I mean that there is practically no possibility that we can ever reach Vepaja. We do not know where it is, and if we did it seems to me that there is not even the remotest chance that we should survive the dangers that must lie along that unknown trail that leads back to the house of Mintep, your father.'
'I know that you are right,' she replied a little wearily, 'but it is my duty to try; and I may never cease to seek to return, to the end of my life, no matter how remote I may know the chance of success may be.'
'Isn't that being a little unreasonable, Duare?'
'You do not understand, Carson Napier. If I had a brother or sister it might make a difference; but I have neither, and my father and I are the last of our line. It is not for myself nor for my father that I must return but for my country—the royal line of the jongs of Vepaja must not be broken, and there is none to perpetuate it but myself.'
'And if we do return—what then?'
