CHAPTER XVIII
THE CHEMIST AND HIS SON
For an hour or more the three adventurers followed their strange guidein silence through the dense, trackless woods. He walked very rapidly,looking neither to the right nor to the left, finding his way apparentlyby an intuitive sense of direction. Occasionally he glanced back overhis shoulder and smiled.
Walking through the woods here was not difficult, and the party maderapid progress. The huge, upstanding tree-trunks were devoid of limbsfor a hundred feet or more above the ground. On some of them a luxuriantvine was growing--a vine that bore a profusion of little gray berries.In the branches high overhead a few birds flew to and fro, calling outat times with a soft, cooing note. The ground--a gray, finely powderedsandy loam--was carpeted with bluish fallen leaves, sometimes with aspecies of blue moss, and occasional ferns of a like color.
The forest was dense, deep, and silent; the tree branches overheadlocked together in a solid canopy, shutting out the black sky above. Yeteven in this seclusion the scene remained as light as it had beenoutside the woods in the open. Darkness indeed was impossible in thisland; under all circumstances the light seemed the same--neither toobright nor too dim--a comfortable, steady glow, restful, almost hypnoticin its sameness.
They had traveled perhaps six miles from the point where they met theirOroid guide when suddenly the Very Young Man became aware that otherOroids were with them. Looking to one side, he saw two more of thesestrange gray men, silently stalking along, keeping pace with them.Turning, he made out still another, following a short distance behind.The Very Young Man was startled, and hurriedly pointed them out to hiscompanions.
"Wait," called the Doctor to their youthful guide, and abruptly theparty came to a halt.
By these signs they made their guide understand that they wanted theseother men to come closer. The Oroid shouted to them in his own quainttongue, words of a soft, liquid quality with a wistful sound--wordswholly unintelligible to the adventurers.
The men came forward diffidently, six of them, for three others appearedout of the shadows of the forest, and stood in a group, talking amongthemselves a little and smiling at their visitors. They were all dressedsimilarly to Lao--for such was the young Oroid's name--and all of themolder than he, and of nearly the same height.
"Do any of you speak English?" asked the Doctor, addressing themdirectly.
Evidently they did not, for they answered only by shaking their headsand by more smiles.
Then one of them spoke. "The Master welcomes his friends," he said. Andall the others repeated it after him, like children in school repeatingproudly a lesson newly learned.
The Doctor and his two friends laughed heartily, and, completelyreassured by this exhibition of their friendliness, they signified toLao that they were ready again to go forward.
As they walked onward through the apparently endless and unchangingforest, surrounded by what the Very Young Man called their "guard ofhonor," they were joined from time to time by other Oroid men, all ofwhom seemed to know who they were and where they were going, and whofell silently into line with them. Within an hour their party numberedtwenty or more.
Seeing one of the natives stop a moment and snatch some berries from oneof the vines with which many of the trees were encumbered, the VeryYoung Man did the same. He found the berries sweet and palatable, and heate a quantity. Then discovering he was hungry, he took some crackersfrom his belt and ate them walking along. The Doctor and the BigBusiness Man ate also, for although they had not realized it, all threewere actually famished.
Shortly after this the party came to a broad, smooth-flowing river, itsbanks lined with rushes, with here and there a little spot of gray,sandy beach. It was apparent from Lao's signs that they must wait atthis point for a boat to take them across. This they were glad enough todo, for all three had gone nearly to the limit of their strength. Theydrank deep of the pure river water, laved their aching limbs in itgratefully, and lay down, caring not a bit how long they were forced towait.
In perhaps another hour the boat appeared. It came from down the river,propelled close inshore by two members of their own party who had goneto fetch it. At first the travelers thought it a long, oblong raft. Thenas it came closer they could see it was constructed of three canoes,each about thirty feet long, hollowed out of tree-trunks. Over these waslaid a platform of small trees hewn roughly into boards. The boat waspropelled by long, slender poles in the hands of the two men, who, oneon each side, dug them into the bed of the river and walked with themthe length of the platform.
On to this boat the entire party crowded and they were soon well out onthe shallow river, headed for its opposite bank. The Very Young Man,seated at the front end of the platform with his legs dangling over andhis feet only a few inches above the silver phosphorescence of therippling water underneath, sighed luxuriously.
"This beats anything we've done yet," he murmured. "Gee, it's nicehere!"
When they landed on the farther bank another group of natives waswaiting for them. The party, thus strengthened to nearly forty, startedoff immediately into the forest, which on this side of the riverappeared equally dense and trackless.
They appeared now to be paralleling the course of the river a fewhundred yards back from its bank. After half an hour of this travelingthey came abruptly to what at first appeared to be the mouth of a largecave, but which afterwards proved to be a tunnel-like passageway. Intothis opening the party unhesitatingly plunged.
Within this tunnel, which sloped downward at a considerable angle, theymade even more rapid progress than in the forest above. The tunnel wallshere were perhaps twenty feet apart--walls of a glistening, radiant,crystalline rock. The roof of the passageway was fully twice as high asits width; its rocky floor was smooth and even.
After a time this tunnel was crossed by another somewhat broader andhigher, but in general of similar aspect. It, too, sloped downward, moreabruptly from the intersection. Into this latter passageway the partyturned, still taking the downward course.
As they progressed, many other passageways were crossed, theintersections of which were wide at the open spaces. Occasionally thetravelers encountered other natives, all of them men, most of whomturned and followed them.
The Big Business Man, after over an hour of this rapid walking downward,was again near the limit of his endurance, when the party, aftercrossing a broad, open square, came upon a sort of sleigh, with twoanimals harnessed to it. It was standing at the intersection of a stillbroader, evidently more traveled passageway, and in it was an attendant,apparently fast asleep.
Into this sleigh climbed the three travelers with their guide Lao; and,driven by the attendant, they started down the broader tunnel at a rapidpace. The sleigh was balanced upon a broad single runner of polishedstone, with a narrow, slightly shorter outrider on each side; it slidsmoothly and easily on this runner over the equally smooth, metallicrock of the ground.
The reindeer-like animals were harnessed by their heads to a singleshaft. They were guided by a short, pointed pole in the hands of thedriver, who, as occasion demanded, dug it vigorously into their flanks.
In this manner the travelers rode perhaps half an hour more. Thepassageway sloped steeply downward, and they made good speed. Finallywithout warning, except by a sudden freshening of the air, they emergedinto the open, and found themselves facing a broad, rolling stretch ofcountry, dotted here and there with trees--the country of the Oroids atlast.
For the first time since leaving their own world the adventurers foundthemselves amid surroundings that at least held some semblance of anaspect of familiarity. The scene they faced now might have been one oftheir own land viewed on an abnormally bright though moonless evening.
For some miles they could see a rolling, open country, curving slightlyupward into the dimness of the distance. At their right, close by, lay abroad lake, its surface wrinkled under a gentle breeze and gleamingbright as a great sheet of polished silver.
Overhead hung a gr
ay-blue, cloudless sky, studded with a myriad offaint, twinkling, golden-silver stars. On the lake shore lay acollection of houses, close together, at the water's edge and spreadingback thinly into the hills behind. This they knew to be Arite--the cityof their destination.
At the end of the tunnel they left the sleigh, and, turning down thegentle sloping hillside, leisurely approached the city. They were partway across an open field separating them from the nearest houses, whenthey saw a group of figures coming across the field towards them. Thisgroup stopped when still a few hundred yards away, only two of thefigures continuing to come forward. They came onward steadily, the tallfigure of a man clothed in white, and by his side a slender, gracefulboy.
In a moment more Lao, walking in front of the Doctor and his twocompanions, stopped suddenly and, turning to face them, said quietly,"The Master."
The three travelers, with their hearts pounding, paused an instant. Thenwith a shout the Very Young Man dashed forward, followed by his twocompanions.
"It's Rogers--it's Rogers!" he called; and in a moment more the threemen were beside the Chemist, shaking his hand and pouring at himexcitedly their words of greeting.
The Chemist welcomed them heartily, but with a quiet, curious air ofdignity that they did not remember he possessed before. He seemed tohave aged considerably since they had last seen him. The lines in hisface had deepened; the hair on his temples was white. He seemed also tobe rather taller than they remembered him, and certainly he was stouter.
He was dressed in a long, flowing robe of white cloth, gathered in atthe waist by a girdle, from which hung a short sword, apparently of goldor of beaten brass. His legs were bare; on his feet he wore a form ofsandal with leather thongs crossing his insteps. His hair grew long overhis ears and was cut off at the shoulder line in the fashion of thenatives.
When the first words of greeting were over, the Chemist turned to theboy, who was standing apart, watching them with big, interested eyes.
"My friends," he said quietly, yet with a little underlying note ofpride in his voice, "this is my son."
The boy approached deferentially. He was apparently about ten or elevenyears of age, tall as his father's shoulder nearly, extremely slight ofbuild, yet with a body perfectly proportioned. He was dressed in a whiterobe similar to his father's, only shorter, ending at his knees. Hisskin was of a curious, smooth, milky whiteness, lacking the gray, harderlook of that of the native men, and with just a touch of the iridescentquality possessed by the women. His features were cast in a delicatemold, pretty enough almost to be called girlish, yet with a firmsquareness of chin distinctly masculine.
His eyes were blue; his thick, wavy hair, falling to his shoulders, wasa chestnut brown. His demeanor was graceful and dignified, yet with atouch of ingenuousness that marked him for the care-free child he reallywas. He held out his hands palms up as he approached.
"My name is Loto," he said in a sweet, soft voice, with perfectself-possession. "I'm glad to meet my father's friends." He spokeEnglish with just a trace of the liquid quality that characterized hismother's tongue.
"You are late getting here," remarked the Chemist with a smile, as thethree travelers, completely surprised by this sudden introduction,gravely shook hands with the boy.
During this time the young Oroid who had guided them down from theforest above the tunnels, had been standing respectfully behind them, afew feet away. A short distance farther on several small groups ofnatives were gathered, watching the strangers. With a few swift wordsLoto now dismissed their guide, who bowed low with his hands to hisforehead and left them.
Led by the Chemist, they continued on down into the city, talkingearnestly, telling him the details of their trip. The natives followedthem as they moved forward, and as they entered the city others lookedat them curiously and, the Very Young Man thought, with a littlehostility, yet always from a respectful distance. Evidently it wasnight, or at least the time of sleep at this hour, for the streets theypassed through were nearly deserted.