Brood of the Dark Moon
where the altar rock stood. To step out there in full view would bring
the whole pack upon them; to drop down to another level would expose
them as plainly. Only in the dark shelter of the projecting capstone
were they hidden from the upturned faces now massed solidly about.
Their problem was solved for them by the sight of a savage body, black,
ragged with unkempt tufts of hair--another!--a score of them! They were
rounding the corner of the pyramid and walking stiffly toward them,
pressing upon them.
And the arrow on the drawn bow in Chet's hand was never loosed, for each
savage face was wide-eyed and devoid of expression; the ape-men neither
saw nor felt them. They were hypnotized, as Chet was suddenly aware;
they knew only that they must follow the mental instructions that were
guiding them on.
The black, animal bodies were upon them. Chet came from the stupefying
wonder that had claimed them all and sprang to shield the group from the
steady advance. Harkness was beside him, and an instant later, Kreiss;
Diane was at their backs. And the weight of the advancing bodies swept
them irresistibly backward, out into the light, along the wide step
toward the passage that yawned darkly under the projecting cap.
* * * * *
There was no checking the avalanche of bodies--no resisting them: the
men were carried along; it was all they could do to keep their footing.
Harkness sprang backward to take Diane in his arms and retreat with her
before the advancing horde. Chet was waiting for an outcry from below,
for some indication that despite the mass of bodies that smothered them,
their presence had been observed. But only the wailing cry persisted.
There was another advancing column that had circled the other side, and
now both groups were meeting at the passageway. Chet gripped at the
figure of Kreiss who was being swept helpless toward the dark vault and
he dragged him back. The two fought their way out toward the front and
saw Harkness doing the same.
"The altar," gasped Chet; "up on the altar!" And he saw Harkness swing
Diane up on the stone, then turn and extend a helping hand toward the
two men.
Safe in the sanctuary of this altar dedicated to some deity that they
could never imagine, they crouched close to its blood-clotted surface,
and still there was no change in the cry from below.
"Let them all go in," Harkness whispered. "Then follow them into the
shadow. There will no more come up here, I imagine. We will make our
escape after a bit."
The black mouth of the passage had swallowed the ape-men by solid
scores, and now only some stragglers were left. Harkness was speaking in
quick, whispered orders:
"Follow the last ones. Keep stooped over so they won't spot us from
below. Wait in the darkness of the entrance."
Chet saw him crouch low as he crept from the stone. Diane followed, then
Kreiss; and Chet next, close behind a shambling ape-figure that slunk
into the darkness of the passageway.
* * * * *
That it was a passage Chet had not the least doubt. It had taken in
these scores of savage figures, taken them somewhere; but where it led
or why these poor stunned creatures had been chosen he could not know.
Yet he remembered the one message he had caught: "Flesh! Bring flesh!"
It had meant only one thing: it was food that was wanted--human food!
And the fetid stench that was wafted from the darkness of this place of
mystery and horror, that made him reel back and put a hand to his
revolted lips, would not have encouraged him, even had he had any desire
to learn the answer to the puzzle.
Diane was half-crouching; she was choking with the foul air. Harkness
spoke gaspingly as he took her by the arm:
"Outside, for God's sake!... Horrible!... Get Diane outside--try lying
down--we may be out of sight!"
But this time he did not follow his own instructions. He rose erect,
instead, and stood swaying as if dazed; and Chet saw that before him,
outlined against the lighted opening in the rock, was the messenger he
had seen.
Black against the bright Earth-light, his features were lost; no
expression could be seen. But his eyes, that were dead and white like
the upturned belly of a fish, came suddenly to life. They glared from
the dark face with a light that came almost visibly from them to the
staring eyes of Walt Harkness. Chet saw Harkness stiffen, one upraised
hand falling woodenly to his side; a cry of warning was strangled in his
throat, and then the glaring eyes passed on to the face of Diane.
Chet had forgotten this messenger from the pyramid's hidden horror. If
he had thought of him at all he had assumed that he had passed in with
the other crowding ape-men; he was one like them, undistinguishable from
the rest. And now the savage figure was before them in terrifying
reality.
* * * * *
The eyes passed on to Kreiss. Then the ugly face swung toward Chet, and,
as their eyes met, it seemed to Chet that a blow had crashed stunningly
upon his brain. He tried to move--he knew that he must move. He must
reach for his bow, must leap upon this hulking brute and beat at the
glaring eyes with his bare fists. And his muscles that he tried to rouse
to action might have changed to stone, so unresponsive were they, and
unmoving.
The hairy hands reached out and touched Harkness. They passed on and
lingered upon the blanched features of the girl, and Chet raged inwardly
at his inability to resist and her utter helplessness to draw away. Then
Kreiss; and again Chet's turn. And, with the touching of those rough
animal hands, he felt that a contact had been established with some
distant force--a something that communicated with him, that sent
thoughts which his brain phrased in words.
"Curious!" said those thoughts. "How exceedingly curious! We shall be
interested in learning more. We shall learn all we can in one way and
another of this new race. We shall dismember them slowly, all but the
woman: we find her strangely attractive.... You will bring them to us at
once."
And Chet knew that the instructions were for the messenger whose hands
came stiffly upward to point the way; while, with a portion of his mind
that was functioning freely, Chet raged as he saw Diane take the first
stiff, involuntary step forward. Then Harkness and Kreiss! and he knew
that he too must follow, knew himself to be as helpless as the driven
brutes he had seen herded down below. And then, with the same mind that
was still able to comprehend the messages of his own eyes and ears, he
knew that from behind the savage figure there had come a sound.
* * * * *
His senses were alert, sharpened to an abnormal degree; the almost
silent footfall otherwise could never have been heard.
The raised hand swung toward him; he knew that he must turn and follow
the others to whatever awaited.... But the hand paused! Then swiftly the
savage figure swung to face toward the entrance, and those blazing eyes,
as Chet knew, were a match for any opponent.
But the eyes never found what they looked for and the quick swing of the
big ape-body was never completed. In the portal of light there was
framed a naked figure which sprang as if from nowhere, squat, savage and
ape-like, but hairless. Its arms were upraised; the hands held a bow;
and the twang of the bowstring came as one with the ripping thud of a
shaft that was tearing through flesh.
The savage fell in mid-turn; and it seemed as if the blazing light of
the terrible eyes must have flicked out before the breath of Death. And,
protruding from the thick neck, was the shaft of a crude arrow.... There
were others that flashed, thudding and quivering, into the body that
jerked with each impact, then lay still, a darker blot on the floor of a
dark cave.
Chet was breathless; it was an instant before he realized that he was
free, that the hypnotic bonds that had bound him were loosed. It was
another instant before he sensed that his companions were still
marching--trudging stiffly, woodenly off through the dark. He bounded
after, heedless of bruising walls; he followed where the sound of their
scuffling feet marked their progress to a sure doom.
There were stairs; how he sensed them Chet could not have told. But he
paused, hesitated a moment, then found the first step and half ran, half
fell, through the utter darkness of the pit into which they had gone.
* * * * *
The odors that had seemed the utmost of vileness now came to him a
hundred times worse. They tore at his throat with a strangling grip, and
he was weak with nausea when he crashed upon a figure that he knew, was
Kreiss. Then on, to grasp at Diane and Harkness; to drag them to a
standstill in the darkness that pressed upon them smotheringly, while he
shook them, beat at them, shouted their names.
"Diane! Walt! Wake up! Wake up, I tell you! We're going back!"
He swung them around; forced them to face about.
"Walt, for God's sake, wake up! Diane! Kreiss!" The deep, sobbing breath
of Diane was the first encouraging response.
Then: "Free!" she gasped. "I'm free!" And Harkness and Kreiss both
mumbled incoherently as they came from their hypnotic stupor.
"How--" began Harkness, "how did you--" But Chet waited for no
explanation of the seeming miracle that had just taken place.
"Go back," he told them, "--back up the steps!" And a babble of cries
that were terrifying in their inhuman savagery welled up from the depths
of the pyramid to urge them on.
The body of their captor was prone on the floor above: they stepped over
it to reach the entrance. No figure showed there now; Chet stooped low
and stepped forth cautiously that the surging horde on the ground might
not see him. The others followed. He felt Harkness' hand in a sudden
warning grip upon him.
"Chet!" said Harkness, "there is something there in the shadow--there!"
And Chet saw, even before Walt pointed, a wriggling figure that crept
toward them.
He struck down the bow that Kreiss had raised, and a ray of light came
through a jagged niche in the rock above to fall upon the face of the
one who drew near.
Abjectly, in utmost humility, the naked figure crept toward their feet,
and the savage face that was raised to theirs was wreathed in a
distorted smile.
Beside him, Chet felt Harkness struggling to speak. In wondering tones
that were almost unbelieving, Harkness choked out one word.
"Towahg!" he said. "Towahg!"
And the thick lips in that upraised face echoed proudly:
"Towahg! Me come!"
CHAPTER XIII
_Happy Valley_
"Towahg!" Chet marveled; "you little devil! It's you who has been
following us all this time!"
"I wish he hadn't been so bashful," Harkness added. "If he had come out
and showed himself he would have saved us a lot of trouble." But
Harkness stepped forward and patted the black shoulder that quivered
with joy beneath his touch. "Good boy, Towahg!" he told the grinning
ape-man.
Monkey-like, Towahg had to imitate, and this time he gave a reproduction
of his own acts. He wriggled toward the entrance of the passage, peered
around the edge, and seemed to see something that made him draw back.
Then he fitted an arrow to his bow and springing upright, let it fly.
So realistic was the performance that Chet actually expected to see
another enemy transfixed, but the squat figure of Towahg was doing a
dance of victory beside the prostrate figure of the first and only
victim. Chet reached out with one long arm and swung the exulting savage
about. He heard Herr Kreiss expressing his opinion in accents of
disgust.
"Ugly little beast!" Kreiss was saying. "And murderous!"
There was no time to lose: the sound of scrambling bodies was coming