Herland
though not as deftly as a pair of scissors.
The broad moonlight streamed in through four of our windows--we had not
dared leave our lights on too long--and we worked hard and fast at our
task of destruction.
Hangings, rugs, robes, towels, as well as bed-furniture--even the
mattress covers--we left not one stitch upon another, as Jeff put it.
Then at an end window, as less liable to observation, we fastened one
end of our cable, strongly, to the firm-set hinge of the inner blind,
and dropped our coiled bundle of rope softly over.
“This part’s easy enough--I’ll come last, so as to cut the rope,” said
Terry.
So I slipped down first, and stood, well braced against the wall; then
Jeff on my shoulders, then Terry, who shook us a little as he sawed
through the cord above his head. Then I slowly dropped to the ground,
Jeff following, and at last we all three stood safe in the garden, with
most of our rope with us.
“Good-bye, Grandma!” whispered Terry, under his breath, and we crept
softly toward the wall, taking advantage of the shadow of every bush
and tree. He had been foresighted enough to mark the very spot, only a
scratch of stone on stone, but we could see to read in that light. For
anchorage there was a tough, fair-sized shrub close to the wall.
“Now I’ll climb up on you two again and go over first,” said Terry.
“That’ll hold the rope firm till you both get up on top. Then I’ll go
down to the end. If I can get off safely, you can see me and follow--or,
say, I’ll twitch it three times. If I find there’s absolutely no
footing--why I’ll climb up again, that’s all. I don’t think they’ll kill
us.”
From the top he reconnoitered carefully, waved his hand, and whispered,
“OK,” then slipped over. Jeff climbed up and I followed, and we rather
shivered to see how far down that swaying, wavering figure dropped, hand
under hand, till it disappeared in a mass of foliage far below.
Then there were three quick pulls, and Jeff and I, not without a joyous
sense of recovered freedom, successfully followed our leader.
CHAPTER 4.
Our Venture
We were standing on a narrow, irregular, all too slanting little ledge,
and should doubtless have ignominiously slipped off and broken our rash
necks but for the vine. This was a thick-leaved, wide-spreading thing, a
little like Amphelopsis.
“It’s not _quite_ vertical here, you see,” said Terry, full of pride
and enthusiasm. “This thing never would hold our direct weight, but I
think if we sort of slide down on it, one at a time, sticking in with
hands and feet, we’ll reach that next ledge alive.”
“As we do not wish to get up our rope again--and can’t comfortably stay
here--I approve,” said Jeff solemnly.
Terry slid down first--said he’d show us how a Christian meets
his death. Luck was with us. We had put on the thickest of those
intermediate suits, leaving our tunics behind, and made this scramble
quite successfully, though I got a pretty heavy fall just at the end,
and was only kept on the second ledge by main force. The next stage
was down a sort of “chimney”--a long irregular fissure; and so with
scratches many and painful and bruises not a few, we finally reached the
stream.
It was darker there, but we felt it highly necessary to put as much
distance as possible behind us; so we waded, jumped, and clambered down
that rocky riverbed, in the flickering black and white moonlight and
leaf shadow, till growing daylight forced a halt.
We found a friendly nut-tree, those large, satisfying, soft-shelled nuts
we already knew so well, and filled our pockets.
I see that I have not remarked that these women had pockets in
surprising number and variety. They were in all their garments, and the
middle one in particular was shingled with them. So we stocked up with
nuts till we bulged like Prussian privates in marching order, drank all
we could hold, and retired for the day.
It was not a very comfortable place, not at all easy to get at, just
a sort of crevice high up along the steep bank, but it was well veiled
with foliage and dry. After our exhaustive three- or four-hour scramble
and the good breakfast food, we all lay down along that crack--heads and
tails, as it were--and slept till the afternoon sun almost toasted our
faces.
Terry poked a tentative foot against my head.
“How are you, Van? Alive yet?”
“Very much so,” I told him. And Jeff was equally cheerful.
We had room to stretch, if not to turn around; but we could very
carefully roll over, one at a time, behind the sheltering foliage.
It was no use to leave there by daylight. We could not see much of the
country, but enough to know that we were now at the beginning of the
cultivated area, and no doubt there would be an alarm sent out far and
wide.
Terry chuckled softly to himself, lying there on that hot narrow little
rim of rock. He dilated on the discomfiture of our guards and tutors,
making many discourteous remarks.
I reminded him that we had still a long way to go before getting to
the place where we’d left our machine, and no probability of finding it
there; but he only kicked me, mildly, for a croaker.
“If you can’t boost, don’t knock,” he protested. “I never said ‘twould
be a picnic. But I’d run away in the Antarctic ice fields rather than be
a prisoner.”
We soon dozed off again.
The long rest and penetrating dry heat were good for us, and that night
we covered a considerable distance, keeping always in the rough forested
belt of land which we knew bordered the whole country. Sometimes we were
near the outer edge, and caught sudden glimpses of the tremendous depths
beyond.
“This piece of geography stands up like a basalt column,” Jeff said.
“Nice time we’ll have getting down if they have confiscated our
machine!” For which suggestion he received summary chastisement.
What we could see inland was peaceable enough, but only moonlit
glimpses; by daylight we lay very close. As Terry said, we did not wish
to kill the old ladies--even if we could; and short of that they
were perfectly competent to pick us up bodily and carry us back, if
discovered. There was nothing for it but to lie low, and sneak out
unseen if we could do it.
There wasn’t much talking done. At night we had our marathon-obstacle
race; we “stayed not for brake and we stopped not for stone,” and swam
whatever water was too deep to wade and could not be got around; but
that was only necessary twice. By day, sleep, sound and sweet. Mighty
lucky it was that we could live off the country as we did. Even that
margin of forest seemed rich in foodstuffs.
But Jeff thoughtfully suggested that that very thing showed how careful
we should have to be, as we might run into some stalwart group of
gardeners or foresters or nut-gatherers at any minute. Careful we were,
feeling pretty sure that if we did not make good this time we were not
likely to have another opportunity; and at last we reached a point from
which we could see, far below, the broad stretch of that still lake from
which we had made our ascent.
“That looks pretty good to me!” said Terry, gazing down at it. “Now, if
we can’t find the ‘plane, we know where to aim if we have to drop over
this wall some other way.”
The wall at that point was singularly uninviting. It rose so straight
that we had to put our heads over to see the base, and the country below
seemed to be a far-off marshy tangle of rank vegetation. We did not have
to risk our necks to that extent, however, for at last, stealing along
among the rocks and trees like so many creeping savages, we came to that
flat space where we had landed; and there, in unbelievable good fortune,
we found our machine.
“Covered, too, by jingo! Would you think they had that much sense?”
cried Terry.
“If they had that much, they’re likely to have more,” I warned him,
softly. “Bet you the thing’s watched.”
We reconnoitered as widely as we could in the failing moonlight--moons
are of a painfully unreliable nature; but the growing dawn showed us
the familiar shape, shrouded in some heavy cloth like canvas, and no
slightest sign of any watchman near. We decided to make a quick dash as
soon as the light was strong enough for accurate work.
“I don’t care if the old thing’ll go or not,” Terry declared. “We can
run her to the edge, get aboard, and just plane down--plop!--beside our
boat there. Look there--see the boat!”
Sure enough--there was our motor, lying like a gray cocoon on the flat
pale sheet of water.
Quietly but swiftly we rushed forward and began to tug at the fastenings
of that cover.
“Confound the thing!” Terry cried in desperate impatience. “They’ve got
it sewed up in a bag! And we’ve not a knife among us!”
Then, as we tugged and pulled at that tough cloth we heard a sound that
made Terry lift his head like a war horse--the sound of an unmistakable
giggle, yes--three giggles.
There they were--Celis, Alima, Ellador--looking just as they had when
we first saw them, standing a little way off from us, as interested, as
mischievous as three schoolboys.
“Hold on, Terry--hold on!” I warned. “That’s too easy. Look out for a
trap.”
“Let us appeal to their kind hearts,” Jeff urged. “I think they will
help us. Perhaps they’ve got knives.”
“It’s no use rushing them, anyhow,” I was absolutely holding on to
Terry. “We know they can out-run and out-climb us.”
He reluctantly admitted this; and after a brief parley among ourselves,
we all advanced slowly toward them, holding out our hands in token of
friendliness.
They stood their ground till we had come fairly near, and then indicated
that we should stop. To make sure, we advanced a step or two and they
promptly and swiftly withdrew. So we stopped at the distance specified.
Then we used their language, as far as we were able, to explain our
plight, telling how we were imprisoned, how we had escaped--a good deal
of pantomime here and vivid interest on their part--how we had traveled
by night and hidden by day, living on nuts--and here Terry pretended
great hunger.
I know he could not have been hungry; we had found plenty to eat and
had not been sparing in helping ourselves. But they seemed somewhat
impressed; and after a murmured consultation they produced from their
pockets certain little packages, and with the utmost ease and accuracy
tossed them into our hands.
Jeff was most appreciative of this; and Terry made extravagant gestures
of admiration, which seemed to set them off, boy-fashion, to show their
skill. While we ate the excellent biscuits they had thrown us, and while
Ellador kept a watchful eye on our movements, Celis ran off to some
distance, and set up a sort of “duck-on-a-rock” arrangement, a big
yellow nut on top of three balanced sticks; Alima, meanwhile, gathering
stones.
They urged us to throw at it, and we did, but the thing was a long way
off, and it was only after a number of failures, at which those elvish
damsels laughed delightedly, that Jeff succeeded in bringing the whole
structure to the ground. It took me still longer, and Terry, to his
intense annoyance, came third.
Then Celis set up the little tripod again, and looked back at us,
knocking it down, pointing at it, and shaking her short curls severely.
“No,” she said. “Bad--wrong!” We were quite able to follow her.
Then she set it up once more, put the fat nut on top, and returned
to the others; and there those aggravating girls sat and took turns
throwing little stones at that thing, while one stayed by as a
setter-up; and they just popped that nut off, two times out of three,
without upsetting the sticks. Pleased as Punch they were, too, and we
pretended to be, but weren’t.
We got very friendly over this game, but I told Terry we’d be sorry if
we didn’t get off while we could, and then we begged for knives. It was