who will try to murder us andmake off with the treasure. Providing we _get_ the treasure!"
Jake eyed me, in that maddeningly unreadable cross-eyed expression ofcold ferocity which the scars gave his ugly face. We had agreed onone-third each, the other two to split the other third between them. Iwas footing the bills, Jake was nearly broke. He had found the stuff,and tried to hold out for half, me a quarter, the other two to split aquarter. I said nothing doing.
"No, Jake, this first trip, it's got to be this way. If it's like yousay it is, there'll be more. What we can carry won't be all the value.There'll be more to be gotten out of that ruin than the stuff you found.You'll have the money to do it, after this, and it's your find. We'll beout, after this one trip."
We sailed up the east coast of Korea from Fusan to the village ofLeshin. By native cart from there to the ancient half-ruined city ofMusan. That's close to the Manchurian border. There we hired eightdiminutive Korean ponies and four men to "go along" as Barto put it, forthey didn't want to go, and didn't appear like men of much use foranything but guides. And Barto knew the way. But I didn't want to bewandering around without any native interpreters, without contact of anykind possible with the people we might encounter. None of them had beenmore than a few miles into the wilderness. They were sad looking menwhen we started northward. But Koreans manage to look pretty sad much ofthe time. With their history, that's easy to understand.
Something about the burly, ugly Barto's behavior began to worry me. Hedidn't know where he was going. He had told a lie, but just what the liewas I couldn't figure out. I watched him covertly. Whenever we came tothe end of a march, instead of sighting his landmarks, making sure ofhis bearings--he would go off by himself. Next day, he would knowexactly where he wanted to go--but sometimes the "way" would be acrossan impassable gorge, a rapids, or straight into a cliff.
One night, the fourth day and well into the wilderness, we were movingup a broad valley through a forest of larch. I sighted a deer, andcalled a halt while I stalked it. I got it, and came back ahead of therest, who were cutting up the deer. I moved quietly in the woods--it's agood habit. I came upon Barto, and he was oblivious of me. He had thelittle golden girl in his hands, talking to it.
"Now, tell me the way, girl, tell me the way." Then he held the girlloosely in his hand, as I watched, it gave me an eerie feeling to seethe little figure turn, its outstretched hand pointing northward like acompass. Was Jake Barto a madman? Or _did_ the little figure act as acompass? If so, why did Barto have to rely on the pointing figure's handfor directions? If he didn't get that figure from the place we wereheading, where did he get it? How did he know there was anything ofvalue in the place we were headed for?
These questions tormented me, for I could not ask them without revealingto Jake that I knew he was lying. And that meant a showdown. I mighthave to kill him. Still, I had to get the truth out of him, or let amadman lead us on and on into an untracked wilderness, if that is whathe was.
For several days we did not see a sign of life, after that deer.
The forest became denser at every mile, with more and more swamps andsurface water. Time after time our ponies mired and had to be lifted outof the mud. Lush ferns and rank grass made walking dangerous. The treeswere interlaced with draping festoons of gray "Spanish moss," forming acanopy overhead which let through only a gloomy half-light. No soundsbroke the stillness except the half-awed calls of the men. No birds, noteven a squirrel. Then it began to rain.
That drizzle continued for a week! The men became frightened at thegloomy stillness and exhausted by the strenuous work of keeping theponies moving.
Then in the night my four Koreans deserted. They didn't take any ponies,just what grub they could pack. We all felt better off without them, butI often wonder if they ever found their way out of that morass.
The next day there came a break. We sighted a majestic mountain abouttwo days' march ahead. It looked like a gloomy cloud that had settled toearth for a moment's rest. But no cloud ever managed to look so rocky,so windswept, or so welcome. And no patch of blue sky ever looked sogood as that sky above the mountain, swept clean of the rain curtain bythe updraft.
Jake seemed to recognize that mountain, gave an audible sigh of reliefwhen we sighted it. My suspicions quieted.
We went hunting that day. It was the first dry camp in a long time, thefirst signs of game; we needed a rest. As usual, Barto stayed at camp toguard the ponies and camp equipment.
We were on the trail of a bear when we saw a strange object in the sky.It looked like a doughnut or a saucer, and it settled to the earth onthe far side of the great white mountain at whose foot we had made camp.It seemed only an hour's walk to a point where we could overlook thelanding place of the strange object, and Hank and Frans pushed ahead,curious and a little frightened. I had read in the American newspapersthe accounts of "disk ships" and knew they would not be able to getclose to it, and I wanted to watch Hank. I let them get out of sight,then turned back to camp. Quietly, I was nearing our camp, when thescream of a woman in pain came to me!
It was the answer to all my apprehensions about the ugly Barto, a suddenmaterialization of the vague distrust I had felt all along! I broke intoa run, crashing through the young, white birches and larches, to theclearing.
A chuckle reached me, a gloating heavy laugh of triumph.
Barto had the girl prone, one arm bent near to breaking, her kneescaught beneath his weight. I caught him by the shoulders, heavedbackward, sent him sprawling across the young grass. He sat up, glaredfor an instant, then went for his gun. Before it came out of theholster, my foot caught him beside the jaw. He was too big for anyother method I might have chosen to be effective. The kick stretched himunconscious; my heel had struck the button.
I turned, to see the girl disappearing among the brush. She had dartedaway instantly she was free. That she would bring her people down on usI had no doubt. I did doubt their ability to hurt us. Unless shebelonged to a band of Manchurian bandits hanging out here in thewilderness, they would not have arms. In the case she was of thebandits, we might be wiped out in our sleep.
I bent over Jake, hoping I had not broken his neck. He looked as thoughhe would be out for some time. I picked up his heavy .45, shoved it inmy belt. I wished Hank and Frans would return soon. The four of us mightbe able to handle her people.
I turned--and _she_ stood there, looking at me!
* * *
That such as she existed among the usually ugly Koreans and Manchurianswas impossible! I gasped a little in unbelief. Her clothing was likenothing on this earth.
Soft green leather was clasped low on her hips with a narrow gold band,set with jewels. It was a skirt, I suppose, but it hung with a diagonalhem-line running from hip to knee, it was beaded in an intricatepattern, not Oriental, somehow reminding me of American Indian beadwork.
On her feet leather sandals, laced like the ancient Greek sandal nearlyto the knee. In her hand a bow of horn, small and powerful. Around hershoulders a short leather cape similarly beaded and fringed. Around herbrows a jeweled circlet set like a diadem, and it crowned a young queen,proud and knowing very well her beauty and its power.
Her features were neither Caucasian nor Oriental, certainly not theheavy-boned native stock. I couldn't pin them down to any race. Her nosewas straight, the nostrils neither wide nor narrow, but strong and firm.Her eyes were too wide-set and heavy-lidded to be Aryan, but they werenot tilted; they were level. Her hair was not black, but chestnut andcurled or naturally very wavy. Her glance was tawny and aflame withanger and excitement, furious upon the prostrate Barto. They were verylight-colored eyes, and they caught the sun in a blaze that made themseem yellow.
Striking, she was a figure not of any ordinary kind. Her every aspecttold that she came of a culture unknown to me. She was evidently notignorant, but of a different way of life.
Looking into her eyes, appraising her interest in myself that hadbrought her back, drinking in the immense appeal of her st
rangeness andher evident gentility--the evidences of a past of cultivated living asstrange as her attire--I forgot the unconscious man at my feet.
Her skin was whiter than my own! Her arms were bruised purple whereBarto had clutched her. Then she spoke, in halting Korean:
"Is he dead?"
"No," I answered.
"Then he will live to meet a far worse fate! I know why you are here,stranger, and I warn you! You are on a fool's errand! The Golden Goddessis death for such as you!"
I was bewildered.
"What Golden Goddess?"
"The Golden Goddess whose symbol led him here. He does not know what itis. He stole it by murdering one of our own messengers for it. He didnot _know_ at all; he only heard the tales that some relate about her.They are false tales."
"Did he tell you how he got it?"
"He was boasting