The Fire People Part 25

Not more than half an hour had pa.s.sed since he had set the men free on the sh.o.r.e of the Twilight Country. He must go back at once. Under no circ.u.mstances must they be allowed to reach Tao and tell him what had occurred.

Anina was flying near Mercer as before. He leaned over the edge of the platform to talk with her, but the wind of their forward flight and the noise of the girls' wings made conversation difficult.

"Anina! Come up here with me. Sit here. I want to talk to you. It's important. They don't need you flying now."

Obediently the girl sat where he indicated, close beside him. And then as he was about to begin telling her what was in his mind Mercer suddenly remembered that they were still heading toward the Light Country, every moment getting farther away from Tao's men, whose homeward journey he must head off some way.

"We must go back, Anina--back where we came from--at once. Tell them--now!

Then I'll tell you why."

The girl's eyes widened, but she did as he directed, and the platform, making a broad, sweeping turn, headed back toward the Twilight Country sh.o.r.e.

"Anina, how far is it to Tao's city from where we landed?"

"The Lone City? A day, going fast."

"But they won't go fast, will they? Some of them are pretty badly hurt."

"Two days for them," the girl agreed.

Mercer then told her what an error we had made. She listened quietly, but he knew she understood, not only his words, but the whole situation as he viewed it then.

"Most bad," she said solemnly when he paused.

"That's what I want to tell you; it's bad," he declared. "We've got to head them off some way; stop them somehow. I don't see how we're going to capture them again--ten of them against me. But we've got to do something."

Then he asked her about the lay of the country between the sh.o.r.e of the sea and the Lone City.

Anina's English was put to severe test by her explanation; but she knew far many more words than she had ever used, and now, with the interest of what she had to say, she lost much of the diffidence which before had restrained her.

She told him that the trail led back through the forest for some distance, and then ran parallel with a swift flowing river. This river, she explained, emptied into the Narrow Sea a few miles below the end of the trail. It was the direct water route to the Lone City.

The trail, striking the river bank, followed it up into a mountainous country--a metallic waste where few trees grew. There was a place still farther up in a very wild, broken country, where the river ran through a deep, narrow gorge, and the trail followed a narrow ledge part way up one of its precipitous sides.

Anina's eyes sparkled with eagerness as she told of it.

"There, my friend Ollie, we stop them. Many loose stones there are, and the path is very narrow."

Mercer saw her plan at once. They could bar the men's pa.s.sage somewhere along this rocky trail, and with stones drive them back. He realized with satisfaction that he could throw a stone fully twice as large and twice as far as any of the men, and thus, out of range, bombard them until they would be glad enough to turn back.

His plan, then, was to land, and with Anina follow the men. The rest of the girls he would send back to me with the platform, to tell Miela and me to come over the next evening to the end of the trail.

He and Anina meanwhile would keep close behind the men, and then when the canon was neared, get around in front of them, and bar their farther advance. This would be easy since he could walk and run much faster than they, and Anina could fly. He would drive them back out of the gorge, send Anina to keep the appointment with me and bring me up to him with the girls and the platform.

They reached the sh.o.r.e and landed within a few feet of where they had been an hour before. The men were not in sight; nothing remained to show they had been there, save pieces of cut cord lying about.

Anina now instructed the girls what to tell me, and in a moment more, with the blanket and a few pieces of bread, she and Mercer were left standing alone on the rocky beach. Anina was cold. He took off his fur jacket and wrapped it about her shoulders.

She made a quaint little picture standing there, with her two long braids of golden hair, and her blue-feathered wings which the jacket only partly covered. They started up the trail together. It was almost dark in the woods, but soon their eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, and they could see a little better. They walked as rapidly, as Anina was able, for the men had nearly an hour's start, and Mercer concluded they would be far ahead.

They had gone perhaps a mile, climbing along over fallen logs, walking sometimes on the larger tree trunks lying p.r.o.ne--rude bridges by which the trail crossed some ravine--when Anina said: "I fly now. You wait here, Ollie, and I find where they are."

She handed him the coat and flew up over the treetops, disappearing almost immediately in the darkness. Mercer slung the coat around him and sat down to wait. He sat there perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, staring up at the silent, motionless treetops, and thinking all sorts of vague, impossible dangers impending. Then he heard her wings flapping and saw her flitting down through the trees.

"Very near, they are," she said as soon as she reached the ground. "A fire--they have--and they are ready now to sleep."

They went on slowly along the trail, and soon saw the glimmer of a fire ahead. "A camp for the night," whispered Mercer.

"It must be nearly morning now."

He looked about him and smiled as he realized that no light would come with the morning. Always this same dim twilight here--and eternal darkness on ahead. "Good Lord, what a place to live!" he muttered.

They crept on cautiously until they were within sight of the camp. A large fire was burning briskly. Most of the men were wrapped in their blankets, apparently asleep; three were sitting upright, on guard. Mercer and Anina crept away.

"We'd better camp, too," Mercer said when they were well out of hearing.

"They will probably stay there four or five hours, anyway. Lord, I'm tired." He laid his hand on her shoulder gently, almost timidly. "Aren't you tired, too, little girl?"

"Yes," she answered simply, and met his eyes with her gentle little smile.

"Oh, yes--I tired. Very much."

They did not dare light a fire, nor had they any means of doing so. They went back from the trail a short distance, finding a little recess between two fallen logs, where the ground was soft with a heavy moss. Here they decided to sleep for a few hours.

A small pool of water had collected on a barren surface of rock near by, and from this they drank. Then they sat down, together and ate about half the few remaining pieces of bread which Mercer was carrying in the pockets of his jacket. They were both tired out. Anina particularly was very sleepy.

When they had finished eating Anina lay down, and Mercer covered her with the blanket. She smiled up at him.

"Good night, Anina."

"Good night, my friend Ollie."

She closed her eyes, snuggling closer under the blanket with a contented little sigh. Mercer put on his jacket and sat down beside her, his chin cupped in his hand. It seemed colder now. His trousers were thin, his legs felt numb and stiff from his recent exertion.

He sat quiet, staring at the sleeping girl. She was very beautiful and very sweet, lying there with her golden hair framing her face, her little head pillowed on her arms, a portion of one blue-feathered wing peeping out from under the blanket. All at once Mercer bent over and kissed her lightly, brus.h.i.+ng her lips with his, as one kisses a sleeping child.

She stirred, then opened her eyes and smiled up at him again.

"You cold, Ollie," she said accusingly. She lifted an edge of the blanket.

"Here--you sleep, too."

He stretched himself beside her, and she flung a corner of the blanket over him; and thus, like two children lost in the woods and huddled together for warmth under a fallen log, they slept.

CHAPTER XXI.

ANOTHER LIGHT-RAY!