GODS of the JUNGLE

By NELSON S. BOND

Deep in the ruined temple was a strange
room; and when Ramey came out of it, many
centuries of time had been wiped out....

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories June and July 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

A dizzy whirl of events spun around them; a vast cyclorama of all the scenes of history.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

In the darkness before the dawn, the sky was a vault of purple-black, hoarfrosted with the spangles of innumerable stars. The moon, in its dying quarter, was a silver scimitar dangling low on the horizon; the earth below, from this lofty eyrie, was a shadowy disc more sensed than seen.

Ramey Winters, glancing briefly from the illuminated instrument panel into the tree-spired obscurity over which he flew, felt once more, as ofttimes before during these last few weeks, the tugging hand of beauty at his heart, and a curious wonderment that Night's jet mask could so completely disguise the grim world slumbering below.

Burma by day was beautiful—but its beauty was that of the wakened Amazon, bronze-girdled and strident, riding to battle with breasts straitlaced, with soft hands gripping the sword. Steel monsters, heavy-laden, groaned endlessly up the ancient Road which sprawls from Mandalay to Bhamo and Momein, thence, over tortuous ways ripped from sheer precipice by the naked hands of a million unpaid patriots, to Tai-fu and Chunking, carrying arms and supplies to a beleaguered Dragon. Of late there were other rumblings, too. The tramp of shuttling troops, the ominous rasp of mechanized units, the hornet-tone of aircraft winging bases.

So Burma by day; a Burma not yet actively in the War but perilously close. But Burma by night—ah, that, thought Ramey Winters, was another story Burma by night ... seen from the sky. A new land: a sweet, wild land of mystery and charm ... of silver and shadow ... cool, chaste, serene! As untouched and untouchable as the brooding gods of its people. Burma—a land of stirring song and stranger story. Even up here, in these thin heights where the air should be fresh and cool, it seemed to Ramey that his nostrils scented wisps of sandalwood and musk. And beneath the persistent drone of his own motors seemed to tremble the faint, exotic pleading of native pipes.

It was a night of magic. Barrett felt it, too. Red Barrett, hard-boiled and devil-may-care as they come, Ramey's chum and co-pilot—even he felt it. He flashed his teeth at Ramey in an approving grin.

"Pretty, eh, keed?"

"Swell!" said Ramey. "Terrific! Kipling was right. Burma is the most beautiful country in the world."[1]

"Burma?" chuckled Red. "Don't look now, pal, but we ain't in Burma any more. This kite we're flying eats mileage—or didn't you know? See that hunk of silver ribbon below? Well, that ain't a ribbon; it's the Mekong River. We're over either Thailand or Indo-China, or both."

Ramey glanced down swiftly. Barrett was right. The sullen blackness below had suddenly been laced with a shining spiral of silver; the mighty Mekong, boundary-line separating Siam (now Thailand) and French Indo-China for more than 1,000 miles, coiled through the jungle like a gigantic serpent, its scales drenched with moonlight.

Winters' dreaminess vanished instantly. One look at the instrument panel and he shot into action. A tug and kick swung the old Curtis into a lifting, southward arc, following the twisting river. His words to Red Barrett were unhurried, but there was a tenseness in his voice.

"Okay. This is it, then. Keep 'em peeled, Red!"

"If I peel 'em any finer," Barrett grunted, "I won't have any eyelids. Think we'll see anything?"

"I know damn well we will. Those Japs aren't moving south for a clam-bake. They poured forty divisions into Indo-China—thanks to Vichy! Thailand is next on the hit parade; then Burma, back door to India. They want to close the Burma Road. So long as it's open, old Chiang Kai-shek will keep on giving them fits. Our job is to find out where they are concentrating their troops, so we'll be ready for them when they prance into Thailand."

Red looked hungrily at the trigger-press before him.

"If there's troops," he said hopefully, "there'll be enemy 'planes, huh, Ramey? Supposing one of them comes up to meet us? Can I—?"

"No! Definitely not!"

"But just by accident, like? I mean, if he attacked us first—"

"No, Red. Don't you see, all they're waiting for is an excuse to invade Thailand? Let us shoot down a single Jap 'plane tonight, and tomorrow their bombers will be over Bangkok. So—no shooting! Even if they fire on us."

"We-e-ell—" grumbled Barrett—"okay! But I think it's a hell of a way to fight a war. They bombed the Tetuila and sank the Panay, and all we got was: 'So sorry! Accidents will happen!' We're not even supposed to defend ourselves."

Ramey grinned at him; a lean, knowing grin.

"Don't you worry about that, pal. Your Uncle Samuel knows what he's doing. You and I were in the U.S. Army airforce till the bewhiskered old gentleman in the striped pants graciously permitted us to 'resign' and fly for China. But I notice our paychecks still bear Yankee signatures. And don't forget—there are a thousand more like us. Neutral soldiers of fortune, learning the ropes 'just in case.'

"But we've got to keep our noses clean tonight. Get all the pictures and information we can, but don't get in any scrapes—them's our orders. Well, where are we now?"

As they talked, Red had been deciding, as well as he could, their route on the scroll-map before him. Now he drew a dubious circle.

"Here, maybe. Or here. About Kiang-khan."

"Good enough. And nothing stirring yet, hey? Well, we'll keep looking for a few more minutes, then head back before dawn—Hey! Get a load of that! Campfires! A bivouac! Mark it, Red!"

The command was unnecessary. Barrett had also seen the encampment, scored it on his chart. But now, as the pair craned intently into the flame-dotted dark below, striving to guess the strength of the enemy outpost, there leaped to life that which startled both of them to awareness of a new peril. Searchbeams burst suddenly from the ground, snaring them in a dazzling web; floodlights blazed a golden square in the black jungle; there came the first, frantic coughs of anti-aircraft fire—phum-phum!—from invisible guns, and the biting snarl of hastily-revving motors. And:

"Get going!" roared Barrett. "We hit the jack-pot! It's an enemy airfield!"

Ramey needed no prodding. The first slashing finger of light had quickened into action the trained reflexes of an airman; already the small pursuit 'plane was lifting, bobbing and weaving away from the telltale beams. Now he gave it the gun; the snub-nosed Curtis flattened and streaked away like a startled swallow.

None too soon. Whatever shortcomings the Japs might have as warriors, they were speedy little devils. The Yankee fliers gained but a few minutes, a few short miles, advantage before their pursuers were in the air.

Even so, it should not have been difficult to escape in the dark. If it had only stayed dark as it should at this time of year, as it would have in any other place imaginable. But—this was the Orient, the semi-tropical topsy-turvy Land that skirts the China Seas.

Over the eastward horizon toward which they fled, an edge of ochre crept. Thin haze and hesitant; then deepening, widening, spreading, into a pearly, crepuscular veil. A cold and cheerless light against the backdrop of which their ship, both men knew, loomed as a perfect target!

Ramey gasped his dismay.

"Dawn! But—but that's impossible! It's only four o'clock. The sun shouldn't rise until—"

"False dawn!" corrected Barrett with sudden, comprehending savagery. "The famous 'dawn-before-sunrise'—that's what it is! I've read about it. It's possible anywhere, but it happens mostly in this part of the Orient. Result of flat country ... heat ... wide expanse of Pacific ... refraction. You're heading the wrong way, pal."

Ramey nodded tightly.

"I know. I headed southeast to confuse them; didn't want to tip off our base. I thought we could swing back when they gave up. But now—"

"Now what?"

"We can't turn back or they'd nab us, sure," gritted Ramey. "Our only chance is to outrun them. Maybe we can get to Singapore or—"

"On what?" queried Barrett. "Marsh-gas from passing swamps? This crate's only fueled for a thousand miles, keed. We've used half of that. And Singapore's a good nine hundred south."

"We might make Bangkok—"

"Or Australia," suggested Barrett drily, "or Hawaii? All right, chum—pull the cork. You ain't kidding me. This is the payoff, huh?"

Ramey, glancing up from the panel, met his comrade's calm, untroubled eyes levelly for a moment. In that instant, it occurred to him that Red Barrett was a hell of a fine guy. He wanted to say so, but men can't say such things. Sometimes they don't have to. He just nodded.

"I guess so, redhead."

"I won four bucks from Jimmy Larkin yesterday," said Red irrelevantly, "playing rummy. I should have collected it then." Again his eyes sought the machine-gun hopefully. "As long as we're in for it, we might just as well use up our old ammunition, huh, Ramey? We—" he hinted virtuously—"don't want to let no matériel fall into enemy hands—"

Ramey shook his head decisively.

"We won't fire on them. Not even if they fire on us first. Not even if they shoot us down. We can't risk causing the 'incident' they want. Our only chance is to outrun them, Red."

"Then we're in a hell of a pickle," Barrett told him gloomily. "Because they're faster than us. They're catching us now. Hold your hat, keed! Here it comes!"

And with his warning, it came! The first chattering snarl of machine-gun fire from the foremost of their pursuers. Lead ripped and slashed at the fleeing Curtis; above the roar of the motor shrilled the spang! of metal on metal; Ramey saw a crazy, zigzag line appear miraculously in the cowling above him, heard the thin, high, disappointed whine of ricochetting bullets. Again he tugged, kicked. His 'plane leaped, darted to the right. Red grunted.

"Whew! That was close! One more like that—"

As if his words were an omen, another burst screamed about their ears. And the lethal cacophony was doubled, now; the second of their three attackers had found the range. The little ship seemed to jerk like a live thing as fiery pellets pierced its skin. It was only a matter of minutes before one of those bullets would find a vital spot, Ramey knew. No use continuing this unequal battle. Knuckles white on the stick, he yelled to his companion:

"Okay, Red—bail out! They can't land here. Maybe we can get away on the ground. Red! Red!"

Then, as there came neither answering word nor movement, he shot a quick glance at his buddy. One look told the story. Red did not move because he could not. Limp as a bag of sodden meal, he lay slumped in his seat, eyes closed, arms dangling uselessly at his sides. And in horrible contrast to the pallor of his cheeks, his face was mottled with a spreading nastiness that matched the color of his hair!

It was at that moment a sort of madness seized Ramey Winters.

He was a soldier, aware of, and daily accepting, the hazards of his calling. He had seen death often; had several times heard whispering within inches of his own ears the sigh of the ancient scythe. It did not sicken him to see men die, nor was he afraid to die himself....

But this—this was different! This time the reaper had struck down Red Barrett, his chum, his more-than-brother. Struck him down traitorously and from behind without a chance to defend himself. Red, who had asked nothing more than to go down fighting—and had not been granted that break!

It did not even occur to Ramey that as he sat there, stunned, stricken, about him still hammered the blazing darts of enemy fire. There was welling within him a great flame, a torrential, all-consuming fire of rage that burned through his veins like vitriol. And suddenly it no longer seemed to matter that he was under orders to avoid all fights; the problem of an "international incident" was a hollow legality in which he had no concern.

If he thought at all, his thoughts were mere rationalization. Three Japanese flyers—and himself! Lost in the clouds above a wild, green jungle. Unspied upon, unseen. If none of the three were ever to return to his base, who was to report this episode? Who accuse the Thais of violating their neutrality? And did it make much difference, anyway? Everyone knew the Sons of Heaven—on some excuse or other—would march into Siam when they were ready. So—

Ramey decided. His hand found the trigger-press for which Red's fingers had yearned. A kick on the rudder ... knee to the gun ... and the tiny Curtis came up and over like a wild bird soaring. And it was no longer a startled swallow, but a killer-shrike, vengeance-bent and striking with the pent fury of boundless wrath. The butcher-bird darting on its prey.

And finding it! Before the foremost of his pursuers could analyze and parry this unexpected maneuver, Winters was upon him. In the circular machine-gun sight the Jap airplane loomed nearer, larger, more solid. Then—the gun bucked and kicked against his palms. The vision before him quivered and seemed to crumple, sheered off and away, spun giddily....

"One!" said Ramey Winters, and did not know he spoke aloud. "That's one!"

He kicked over, sensing a danger behind him, and in that one motion became attacker rather than attacked. It was a closer thing this time. His foeman's gun bore squarely upon him for a brief, unguarded moment. Ramey felt something like the jerk of a hand on his sleeve, and glancing down, saw with mild astonishment that his leather flying coat was split from wristband to elbow, spilling powdery fleece.

Then his 'plane righted itself, his own gun answered and—it was a most amazing thing! Before his eyes the enemy ship blossomed into a crimson bloom with burgeoning petals of black! A flower which suddenly burst asunder and spiraled to earth in a host of flaming motes.

And that, he thought grimly, was two! The third—?

Swiftly he scanned the ever-lightening skies, but he could not locate the missing 'plane. For a breathless moment he feared that in the melee it had escaped; then the voice of his old Combat Instructor at Kelly Field seemed to whisper an old, almost forgotten warning:

"If you can't see it, look out! It's on your tail!"

Once more, and this time with frantic haste, he shot the ship into a climb, a wingover turn. But not before a hot hail, punching on metal behind him like the vibrant tattoo of pounding rivets, rasped a song of death in his ears. Then he was on a level with his enemy—and driving headlong at him!

For a yearlong moment it seemed inevitable they must crash head on, collide and destroy each other and go hurtling to earth locked in flaming, loveless embrace! But not for an instant did Ramey's finger relax its pressure on the trigger. And when scant yards separated their whirling propellers, his bullets found their mark. The enemy pilot suddenly collapsed in his seat; his body, pitching forward, was a dead weight on the stick. And with a shuddering groan, the last Jap fighter nosed earthward in a streaking dive!

It was a moment of triumph. But Ramey Winters never found time to savor that victory. For even as he pulled back on the stick to lift himself clear of the falling 'plane, the stick went dead in his hands! From somewhere deep within the entrails of the gallant little Curtis came the grinding clash of metals. At the last moment, a dying foeman had evened the score. Ramey's motors spluttered and died, and the thin song of wind lashing the fuselage was the only audible sound in an awful silence as the ship, like a dancing leaf, glided earthward out of control.

There was but one thing to do. Ramey plucked at the buckle of his safety belt, prepared to go overside. And Red? Well—it was an airman's burial. A moment of flame, then an unmarked grave in the jungle. Ramey glanced once more at his chum. "So long, Red," he whispered. "See you again, pal—"

Then he gasped. For Red's lips had fallen open, and a bubble of bloody spittle was leaking from one corner of his mouth—but this tiny spume pulsated faintly! Breathing! He was still alive!

And—it was no longer possible for Ramey to take to his 'chute. Somehow, somehow! he must get this crippled ship to earth. He stared down wildly. Trees ... trees ... an endless tangle of foliage towering high, bayonet-tipped. But—Ramey trembled with sudden, feverish eagerness—over there a patch of lighter green! And something that looked like gray walls, a manmade building! A cleared field. If he could—

Once more and desperately he wrestled with the unresponsive stick. No good! The rudders, then? If the aileron wires were undamaged he might be able to control, to some extent, the direction of their glide. Ease the brutal shock of landing.

But now the ground was a vast, blunt bulwark rushing up to meet them. Like an organist treading the pedals of his instrument, Ramey played the only controls he had. Composing out of urgency and stress a symphony which, when the ultimate note was scored, must be either a paean or a dirge!

And the ship responded. Weakly, true! But its nose lifted a trifle, the ailerons caught and gripped the air, the drifting leaf spun lazily toward the clearing. Earth looming larger, and the indistinguishable whole of the jungle sharpened to single trees and tangled groves of bamboo and liana. Gray of swamp water and brown of soil; sudden pink of a frightened flamingo racing for leafy covert. Almost down, now ... and the wind howling through the motionless propeller like a taunting fiend. His own voice, strange in his ears, calling senseless encouragement to his unhearing companion:

"All right, Red! Hold tight, boy! In a minute—"

Then one wheel touched the ground, bounced; the ship reeled shuddering forward. Clear of the trees, but careening wildly, drunkenly, across a furrowed field. Rocking, swaying madly.

Then—the crash! The moment of slashing pain ... the dancing light ... the numb despair. Then nothing....

CHAPTER II

The Mystery of Angkor

When you are dead, the little demons gather and make merry. They will not let you rest. Huddled about your weary soul they chatter in bee-thin voices; they lift your head and force open your lips and pour molten fire down your throat, a liquid fire that chokes and strangles.

Ramey strangled on liquid fire, and opened his eyes. He—he was not dead, after all, but alive! The sweetness of native brandy was on his lips, the far voices waxed nearer as consciousness returned, and he was surrounded by the familiar figures of not scarlet imps but human beings!

Or—wait a minute! Maybe his first hunch was right after all. For most of those staring down at him looked like people, but surely the vision bent closest was that of an angel? A golden-haired angel with heaven-blue eyes, warm lips, a cool, white skin which the sun seemed never to have burned, but only to have endowed with a memory of its own inner glow.

"Lovely!" said Ramey drowsily, and the vision's face colored most unecclesiastically. Behind Ramey someone chuckled. Ramey, turning painfully, saw a tall, mahogany-skinned, nice-looking youngster with brown hair and eyes, dancing eyes crow's-footed with the wrinkles of perpetual mirth. This lad and the girl, he saw now, were the only whites in the circle. All the others were natives. The young man laughed again.

"Well, Sheila, there doesn't seem to be anything the matter with this one! Or with his emotional reflexes."

Recollection seeped slowly back upon Ramey. He made an effort to rise.

"The—the 'plane," he said confusedly. "Went dead. I tried to set 'er down in a field. Crashed—"

The girl restrained him gently but firmly. The cool touch of her hands was soothing.

"You must lie still, now. Everything is going to be all right. You did crash, yes. But fortunately we were here to drag you and your friend out before the 'plane caught fire. After you've rested for a moment, we'll take you to camp—"

It all came back to Ramey now. This time the girl's hands could not prevent him from raising himself.

"Red! Is—is he all right, too?"

The young man answered.

"Your buddy? I suppose so, or Syd would be chanting a funeral march by now. Hey, Syd! How's your patient?"

The huddle encircling Ramey split, admitting a third white man. Ramey glanced at him casually, then started, took another good look, and turned to peer over his shoulder again at the one who had called. The two young men were as like as two peas in a pod. Same height, build, coloring. Only their facial expressions differed. The newcomer's face was as dour as the first chap's was jovial. He commented acidly, "I wish you wouldn't be so boisterous, Lake! I guess he has a chance to recover—if complications don't set in. Of course, these head injuries are dangerous. It may be a fractured skull, or he may lose his sight—"

"Blind!" gasped Ramey. "Red? Oh, Lord—"

For the third time, the girl quieted him. This time with a smile. "Don't get excited, soldier. Your companion's apparently in fine shape. That's just Syd's nice, optimistic way of viewing things. 'Fractured skull or loss of sight' is a favorable prognosis—coming from him! If it were anything really serious, Syd would have the workmen digging a grave by now. Are you sure you feel well enough to get up?"

Ramey nodded, not daring to risk speech as he got to his feet. His head throbbed like a concrete mixer, and there were rubber pipes where his shin-bones should be. But somehow he managed it, and once off the ground, began to feel better. He strode to Barrett's side. The blood had been sponged from the redhead's face, and his head was rudely, but efficiently, bandaged. He grinned at Ramey.

"Hyah, Sunday-driver! Next time holler before we go under a low bridge. I forgot to duck!"

Ramey said, "You're lucky that bullet bounced itself off your bean. If it had hit anything less solid you'd be on a slab now. How's the head feel?"

"Like a wisdom tooth stuffed with sugar," complained Red. "If it's not too much trouble, keed, how's for bringing me up to date on the news? Where are we? And how did we get here?"

It was the smiling young man who supplied the answer to the first question. He said, "You're at Angkor, Cambodia, French Indo-China. I'm Lake O'Brien. The walking scowl over there is my brother, Syd, and to save time, yes, we're twins. The young lady is Miss Sheila Aiken; her father is the leader of our expedition. We're Americans. Southeastern University Archeological Expedition, if that means anything to you. But how about you? You're from the U.S.A., too, aren't you?"

Ramey nodded. "Flying for the Republic. That is—we were until the Japs tagged us this morning. The reclining ex-airman with the bandaged dome is Bob Barrett, 'Red' to all but his colorblind friends. I'm Ramey Winters. We're greatly indebted to you for your help."

"Forget it!" grinned Lake. But the less genial twin shook his head gloomily.

"This is a nasty mess. Indo-China is under Japanese 'protection,' you know. If any of the Japs saw that dogfight from their camp down the river, there'll be troops up here in an hour or so to investigate."

"Dogfight?" echoed Barrett. He stared at Ramey with sudden understanding. "So that's it! That's where they disappeared to? Why, you scrapping son-of-a-gun! Get all three of them?"

Ramey nodded guiltily.

"I—I sort of blew my conk. I thought you—I mean—Oh, hell! What's the difference? O'Brien's right. I got us all in a jam. The only thing for us to do, Red, is to get the hell out of here, but quick! Before we implicate a bunch of innocent bystanders. So, friends, if you'll point the way to the Thai border—"

But it was the girl, Sheila, who this time spoke up.

"Nothing of the sort! You're in no fit condition to head into the jungle, either of you! Besides, you'll have to have food, water, blankets. And Daddy will want to see you."

Lake O'Brien voiced agreement.

"Sheila's right, Winters. This is a pretty secluded spot. Chances are no one but us saw you crash. Even if they did, it'll take them quite a while to get up the river."

"We-e-e-ll—" hesitated Ramey. It was Red's obvious weakness that decided him. First aid was all right, but rest was what the scarlet-top needed. "If you think it's safe—" he said.

So they started across the field. Only Syd O'Brien, frowning uncertainly, ventured any unfavorable comment on the move. The sour-visaged twin offered Barrett a supporting arm but grumbled even as he did so.

"I don't like it!" he muttered forebodingly. "We're doing a foolish thing. And no good will come of it...."

What sort of camp Ramey Winters had expected to see, he did not clearly know. Something, perhaps, like the tented digs at Petra—Ramey had once visited the rose-red cliffs in Arabia—or the shacks at Ur-of-the-Chaldees. Archeology led men into strange, wild places. There would be ruins here, no doubt; Ramey dimly remembered having glimpsed gray buildings, or something of the sort, in the hectic moments preceding the crash.

But never in the world had he dreamed of seeing that which he actually beheld! Beyond the field sprawled a narrow grove of cane and palm; when they had eased their way through this, they stood on the edge of a wide, sluggish stream, once more looking out across flat terrain. And—

Ramey's eyes widened. Speech died at the incredible sight before him. Because the stream was not a stream, but a seven hundred foot moat, circling to left and right as far as the eye could see, spanned by a tremendous paved causeway of sandstone which arched into the central portico of a gigantic structure!

And what a structure! Roughly rectangular, at least one mile long on every side, comprised of one massive central building and numberless, smaller, flanking ones. The central edifice consisted of three stages connected by numerous outer staircases, decreasing in dimension as they rose, culminating in a lofty, pyramidal tower.

Red Barrett was popeyed, too. But the redthatch was never speechless. He croaked, "Holy potatoes, Ramey—what's that? Do you see what I see?"

"If I don't," answered Ramey, "we're both that way!" And he turned to Lake O'Brien helplessly. "What—?"

Lake grinned.

"Temple of Angkor," he explained. "Angkor Vat. You mean to say you've never heard of it?"

"Never! Who lives here?"

"Nobody," chuckled Lake, "but us archeologists. You see—But never mind! Here comes Dr. Aiken. I'll let him do the explaining. It's his pigeon."

Having met Sheila, Ramey would have known without an explanation her relationship to the man now approaching. The scientist's hair was iron-gray where hers was golden, and his shoulders were hunched with long years of poring over pottery shards from obscure kitchen-maidens, but they shared the same fine, small-boned structure, the same wide brows, startlingly identical mist-blue eyes. He was accompanied by two natives, aides of superior rank, evidently, since they were dressed in European clothing.

Dr. Ian Aiken was an efficient man. In what sounded to Ramey like one, continuous sentence, he introduced himself and his two Asiatic assistants—"Sirabhar and Tomasaki; very fine boys, very!"—sent the gaping workmen about their jobs, and herded the group toward the temple. As they walked along he sated his own apparently boundless curiosity with a resume of the important facts; by the time they had reached the camp headquarters, a group of sheltered chambers within the temple proper, he had appraised the situation and formed a decision.

"Sheila was correct!" he snapped brusquely. "Arrant nonsense to even consider leaving here! Barrett's wound will need attention. You're both tired. Need a good rest."

"But the Japs?" reminded Ramey. "Syd says they have a camp several hours down the river?"

"Blast the Japs!" retorted Aiken pettishly. "Greedy little yellow beasts, anyway. Never did like 'em! Don't you worry about the Japs. Needn't know you're here. You two get out of those uniforms, burn 'em. If they come sticking their dirty little snub-noses in here, you'll be two junior members of my party. Diplomatic immunity. Won't dare touch you!"

Barrett nodded to Ramey.

"That's so, pal. The Japs ain't looking for no more trouble with Uncle Sam just now; not till Hitler turns on the green light, anyhow. Even if they do see our crashed 'plane, they'll think we burned up in it."

"Unless one of the laborers spills the beans," Ramey reminded. "But if Dr. Aiken thinks it's safe—?"

"Think? I know it! My men won't say a word. Not a word. Absolutely loyal, every one of them. Furthermore, the Cambodians hate the Japs as much as we do. More! Isn't that right, Tomasaki? All right, now—get along with you! Clean clothes and a shower. Then we'll all have a bite to eat."

So, smiling, the two young airmen left their peppery host for the time being. Clothes were donated to them, khaki shirts and whipcord breeches from the wardrobes of their new-found friends. Barrett was clothed from the locker of Johnny Grinnell, only member of the expedition they had not yet met; Ramey found the duds of either of the tall O'Briens a perfect fit.

Thus it was that, feeling like new men, a short time later they sat down to breakfast. The meal, as American as a World Series, was a feast to two who had taken their fare for months in a Chinese Republic messhall. Cereal, ham and eggs, griddle-cakes with maple syrup, coffee—hot, black, aromatic coffee instead of green tea!—tempted Ramey into over-eating till the waistband of Lake O'Brien's breeches strained like a sausage skin.

It was then, after the empty dishes had been removed and he dragged the luxurious fragrance of American-cigarette-smoke into his lungs, that Ramey brought up the subject which had perplexed him ever since he first saw this place.

"Dr. Aiken," he said, "if I weren't sitting right in this building, seeing it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it could exist. I never dreamed there was such a place! How long has it been here?"

The archeologist quirked an eyebrow at Lake O'Brien, who grinned back. The others—Sheila, Grinnell, even Syd—seemed to share his amusement. Dr. Aiken shook his head.

"I don't know, Winters," he said.

"But then—who built it?"

Again an arch grin. "I don't know that, either."

For a moment Ramey stared at him bewilderedly. Then a slow flush stained his cheeks. Oh, that was it? They were poking fun at him; mocking his ignorance? Well, all right—if they wanted to act that way—

"Excuse me!" he said stiffly. "I didn't understand. Sorry to be so stupid. Red, perhaps we'd better get ready to run along, after all. We seem to be in the way here."

But Ian Aiken stayed him with a hand on the arm. He was still grinning, but his grin was warm and friendly. "Sit down, Ramey, and don't be an ass. We're not laughing at you. We're amused because the situation is what it is: so baffling that we must either smile it off or surrender.

"The answers I just gave you were absolutely true—and no man alive can tell you more. The mystery of Angkor is this: that here in the depths of an aboriginal jungle we find a temple dwarfing the greatest architectural work of present-day Man, and a city large enough to hold thirty million souls—yet not a man in the world knows who built this marvel, or when it was built, or where the builders came from, or where, above all, vanished the mighty race which once lived here!"

CHAPTER III

The Vanished Race

For a moment Ramey Winters stared at the gray-haired scientist incredulously. Then he laughed. "All right, sir," he said. "I'll bite. What's the gag?"

But there was no twinkle of amusement in Dr. Aiken's eyes now. He leaned forward over the table, his manner sober and abruptly serious.

"It's no joke, Ramey. It's the cold truth." In his voice was a strange note, a sort of angry helplessness. "For years men have been pondering this problem, but still the answer eludes us.

"In the year 1860, the French naturalist, A. Mouhot, came up the Mekong River in search for flora and fauna, and by sheer chance stumbled upon the massive, walled city of Angkor Thom, about one mile from here. I used the word, 'stumbled'; actually, only the toe of a giant could trip over such an obstacle. For Angkor Thom is a rectangular enclosure two miles in each direction, surrounded by a wall thirty feet high; within these walls are more than fifty towers, averaging two hundred feet in height! Altogether, the wall encloses something like a hundred and seventy-six acres of palaces, terraces, temples and galleries!

"That was the city proper. For miles about were the ruins of smaller abodes. This building in which we have made our headquarters, Angkor Vat, is supposed to have been Angkor Thom's chief temple. You have already exclaimed at its size. Let me point out that you cannot completely grasp how huge it is because there exists here no basis for comparison but palm trees, fromager, cane. The façade of this single building is five times as wide as the Cathedral of Notre Dame!

"Naturally, Mouhot was greatly excited. The records of mankind did not even hint at there ever having been such a civilization in this part of the world. He asked his native guides whence came these structures, who built them?

"Their answer was—the Gods!"

Ramey Winters nodded, fascinated. "I can understand that. Whatever men conceived and fashioned this edifice were of godlike stature. Before the world went crazy, I studied a smattering of architecture. Enough to realize the tremendous effort expended here—"

"Ah, but you haven't begun to see the wonders! Look at the walls and ceilings of this room, my boy."

"I been looking at them," spoke up Barrett. "Darned things is simply lousy.—'scuse me, Miss Sheila!—I mean the walls and ceilings is covered from top to bottom with carving and stuff. Pictures and wiggly scrolls and everything. What was this? Part of the art gallery?"

Dr. Aiken smiled distantly.

"Yes, Red. A very, very small portion of the hugest art gallery ever known. Because every square inch of wall in both Angkor Thom and Angkor Vat is covered with similar stone sculpturing! There are murals two hundred ... three hundred ... feet long emblazoned with the images of thousands of warriors in battle! A statue of a naga, or seven-headed serpent, more than one hundred feet long. Figures of gods and men, of evil demons, of creature unlike anything known to Man. About the grounds are single stones a hundred feet high, hand-carven to represent gods whose names we do not know."

Ramey frowned.

"Now, wait a minute, Doctor. That's impossible, you know! I mean, a hundred feet high—"

"I quite agree with you, Ramey. Such sculpturing is impossible to present-day civilization. My colleague, Alfred Maynard, once wrote: 'To transport these monoliths and erect the colossi, strength was wielded that our machinery does not supply.' A true statement of the case. The nearest quarries of the stone of which Angkor was built are twenty miles away! Modern engineering could no more duplicate the feat of building this structure than it could match the Pyramid of Cheops!

"Yet even if this gigantic task of transportation of materials could be accomplished—what craftsmen today could match the stone-engraving of these walls? The ancient workmen used no cement. With what incredible tools they pierced this stone into delicate images, we cannot guess. The pillars are as painstakingly filigreed as if wrought by a goldsmith. In a chamber I shall show you—a subterranean niche discovered by Lake, here—is something even more remarkable. A cabinet of metal, inscribed with hieroglyphs eroded just enough to be indecipherable!"

Lake answered Ramey's questioning glance with a nod.

"That's right. Damnedest thing I ever saw. Sort of a cube, about twelve feet square. Hollow, too. But I can't find any way to open it. The inscription probably tells what it's all about, but as the Doc says, you can't quite read it. Almost, but not quite. It's tantalizing. Like a picture out of focus, or—"

"Probably just as well." That was Syd O'Brien voicing his gloomy opinion. "Don't like the looks of the thing. Sinister."

"I'd like to see it," said Ramey. "I'd like to take a week or so and see everything about this place—What's up, Red?"

The redhead, seated nearest the doorway of the room, had come suddenly to his feet with a warning gesture. Now he whispered hoarsely, "Doc—outside! A spy! Somebody's found out about me and Ramey being here!"

In a single motion, Ramey was on his feet, his automatic in his hand, was gliding to his friend's side. Red was right. Ramey was just in time to see a furtive figure, scar-faced, yellow-robed, Oriental, slip behind one of the numberless pillars supporting the corridor. He spun.

"Red's right! They're on to us. I knew we couldn't get away with this. Everybody sit tight; Red and I are going to pull out before we get you all in trouble...."

Then Johnny Grinnell was at his shoulder, and he was snorting amused relief.

"It's all right, Winters. Put your pistol up. It's only poor old Sheng-ti. He's probably hungry again, daft old devil!" He called quietly in a tongue that Ramey—though he did not speak the language—recognized as Cantonese. Slowly the figure emerged from behind the pillar. Ramey saw a lean, shaven-pated Oriental of indeterminate age clad in the filthy yellow robe of a Buddhist bonze, or priest.

The bonze moved forward hesitantly, his eyes darting suspicion at the two strangers. As he approached, his mumble became English words.

"Food! The child of Buddha hungers."

"Very well, Sheng-ti," said Grinnell soothingly, "We share with thee." Aside, to Ramey, he explained, "Sheng-ti's a ku'an-chu, Most Holy One. Not quite right up here. Not an ounce of harm in him, though. We feed him, and he calls down Buddha's blessing on us. Fair enough, eh? Behold, Sheng-ti, we have guests! The bird-men from the sky have come to visit us."

The priest glowered at the two strangers malevolently.

"Later we shall show them the wonders of the temple," continued Grinnell. "They would see the statues of the gods, the fountains and the hidden crypt—"

At his last words, a spasm of something akin to terror passed over the face of the yellow man. His eyes clouded and he thrust long-taloned hands before his face as if fending off a blow. His voice lifted in a discordant croak.

"Aie, doom!" he cried. "Doom ... doom ... doom!"

And turning swiftly, he fled, ragged skirts trailing behind him, sandals slip-slopping on the stone floor. Ramey grunted.

"Well! Pleasant little harbinger of spring, isn't he? That last crack of yours went over big."

Dr. Aiken smiled.

"I shouldn't let that worry you, my boy. Sheng-ti's a dire prophet, but a poor one. He warned me three years ago that if I did not leave this temple I would 'vanish into yesteryear', never to return. Cheerful thought, wasn't it? But I'm still here.

"Now, sit down, both of you, and stop worrying about nonexistent troubles. Have you forgotten we are on an island surrounded by a moat? Our watchmen guard every approach. If anyone comes near, we'll be given ample warning. Now, let me see—what were we talking about?"

"The chamber Lake discovered."

"Oh, yes! Well, that's but one of the thousand mysteries of Angkor, Ramey. There are many more. I might point out some of the peculiarities of the sculpture itself. Oddly mingled with painstaking representations of ordinary men, are the figures of incredible, fabulous monsters. Dragons, great nagas, hypogrifins, monkeys garbed in human clothing, acting like men, apparently talking to each other and to humans.

"You might reasonably say that these representations are figments of the creative imagination, a sort of 'artistic license,' so to speak. But here's the rub! Whenever men are depicted, they are reproduced with elaborate fidelity. Not a single effort is made to aggrandize or conventionalize, as is the case in the artistry of other ancient races. The Minoan, for instance, or the Egyptian. The builders of Angkor seemed to pride themselves on faithful portrayal.

"But why, then, did they detract from their accuracy by delineating the figures of nonexistent creatures? And the colors they used—why did they portray some human figures as white, others yellow, and still others blue? Unless—" Ian Aiken's voice throbbed with eagerness—"these were creatures and men they knew?"

The older man's excitement communicated itself as an uneasy chill to Ramey. He said, "You mean—?"

"I don't know what I mean, Winters—yet. I'm still studying, still trying to unite in coherent oneness the facts imperishably carven here for someone to discern.

"All I know is that Angkor Vat is old—considerably older than baffled science has hitherto been willing to admit. By the eyes and the feet of the statuary we judge its period. Blank, staring eyes, unfocussing; feet carven by artists so unaware of perspective that they exposed the soles of a walking person.

"I know, too, that the explanation is written here on these walls for him who can solve the Angkor script. We have not yet found the key. The letters seem to resemble the elder Siamese, which itself resembled Sanskrit. Perhaps we'll never unlock that lingual door.

"But there is one universal language, Ramey Winters! The language of science, mathematics, astronomy! And here we have a whole city written in that language. The arrangement of Angkor is as truly symbolic, as truly based on the mystic science of numbers, as is the famed King's Chamber of Cheops' pyramid.[2] And there are certain astronomical carvings—"

"But, look, Doc—" That was Red Barrett cudgelling his brow—"if this here place was discovered about 1860, the scientists ought to been able to figure it out by now. Ain't they no histories at all, no ideas how it come?"

Dr. Aiken's smile was scornful.

"Too many," he answered, "and too poor! For want of a better explanation, experts have decided that a race known as the 'Khmers' inhabited Angkor. They have even presumed to establish the period of occupancy: from about the 5th Century B.C. to the 14th Century of our Christian reckoning. Some of the more daring savants have attempted to trace the 'lineage' of Khmerian royalty.

"Gentlemen, believe me—these explanations are rank nonsense! Based on no valid records, facts, or suppositions! The learned M. Groslier, attempting to explain why Angkor Vat should lie deserted and forgotten for five hundred years in a jungle grave, presents the theory that the Khmers waged a war with the neighboring Thais, were defeated and forcibly driven from their national stronghold.

"Stupid poppycock! The weak Acadians of Nova Scotia were expelled from their homeland by armed force—yet within two generations seventy percent of them had drifted back—to tiny farms and wretched hamlets. But we are asked to believe that a great race meekly left its capital and never attempted to return!

"Yet—suppose that were true? A faint possibility, but let us grant it. Then why did not the conquerors move into occupy what must have been the most magnificent city on the face of the earth. Remember, at the height of its glory, Angkor Thom must have been prouder than Augustus' Rome ... more alive with swaggering splendor than Hannibal's Carthage ... gay and rich as the Golden Chersonese of fable!"

Ramey nodded.

"Sounds whacky," he agreed. "Any more theories?"

"One even more implausible. That a plague destroyed the entire population of Angkor."

Ramey shook his head. "Well, that could have been, sir. Before the advance of medicine, plagues used to ravage whole countries periodically. The Black Death is supposed to have killed more than twenty-five million persons in Europe in the Renaissance period. The bubonic killed ten thousand a day in Constantinople during the Interregnum. Even today the Orient is swept by raging plagues—"

"I realize that, my boy. But tell me—you've heard of the Great Plague of London? What did the city look like?"

"It was a charnel-house. Death-carts ... dead bodies in the streets ... graveyards filled to overflowing...."

"Exactly! Now, listen here! In all of Angkor Thom, there are no human remains to be found!

"You will say this merely indicates that the Khmers did not inter their dead. Perhaps they had no sepulchers, no graveyards or tombs. True. But shouldn't there be human remains somewhere in or near these structures? Even if age did rot the carcasses, there should be bones! But—there are no bones in Angkor!

"Not only that, but there are no weapons, no pottery fragments, no accoutrements! If I die, one of thirty million souls simultaneously stricken by death, my body can decay, my crumbling bones may be swept away by the winds, yes! But the Khmers wore metal bracelets, belts, buckles; used utensils of metal. Their pictures tell us so.

"Yet there is not one piece of wearing apparel to be found in all Angkor! Not a single pin, not a scrap of household furniture, not one old, discarded cooking-pot! Now, how do you account for that?"

Ramey, staring at the old archeologist, slowly shook his head. "I—I can't, sir. Can you?"

Ian Aiken's eyes were strangely introspective.

"I see but one possible solution, my boy. There was a mass emigration, purposeful, determined, complete. That—until a more satisfactory theory presents itself—is the way I am forced to explain it. And it is an explanation at least halfway in accord with the symbolic drawing I mentioned a few minutes ago. The drawing that shows—Yes, Sirabhar?"

He broke off suddenly as the small Cambodian bustled into the room, dark eyes wide and frightened.

"Pardon, master Doctor, sir! But warriors approach. Armed forces of the Island Ones cross the South bridge."

"This time it ain't no false alarm, Ramey. It's the Japs. They did see our 'plane crash, after all!"

CHAPTER IV

Attack

Syd O'Brien said glumly, "I knew it! Now we're in a mess. I guess I'll write my thesis in a Saigon prison!" But the expedition leader turned on him testily. "Nonsense, Sydney! There is absolutely no cause for alarm. Naturally, the Japanese had to investigate a falling 'plane. But they can't possibly know the aviators are safe, and masquerading as members of our party—" He turned to the others—"Shall we go out to meet them? It will look better. No, Sheila—I think you'd better stay here!"

The girl's shoulders stiffened defiantly. A strange admiration brightened Ramey's eyes. Or perhaps it was not so strange, after all. Many times, during the preceding hour of conversation, he had found his gaze wandering toward her. In a happier, more peaceful world, perhaps—

"Why should I, Daddy?"

"Sydney—" Dr. Aiken ignored the question—"you'd better go down and speak to the workmen. Reassure them. Get Tomasaki to help you. Ramey, you and Lake and I will talk to our visitors. All right, Sirabhar, you may come, too."

"How about me, Doc?"

Dr. Aiken glanced meaningfully toward the bandage on Barrett's head. "I think you'd better stay here and keep out of sight," he said wryly. "That—er—turban you're wearing is the weak spot in our story!"

A few minutes later they were moving forward to meet the Japanese scouting detail. Despite Dr. Aiken's assurance, Ramey's confidence was bolstered by the comforting heft of an automatic in his hip pocket. The Nipponese, over-cautious in this as all things, had sent a sizable investigating party to Angkor. Thirty squat, brown, dusty men; truculent; ready for any emergency.

Their captain made his mission known in a faltering, school-book English. An airplane had been seen to descend of the sky, please. Did the gentlemens opportune to see—?

Good gracious—an airplane? How alarming! No, the gentlemens had not seen anything out of the ordinary. Would the honorable captain care to look around for himself?

It struck Ramey that Dr. Aiken was sticking his neck out unnecessarily far. The captain barked commands, his company split into details of two and three men, wandered off in different directions. Then Ramey realized Aiken had followed the proper course. With such a wide area to cover ... with the burned ship lying a half mile off, in a field concealed by an arras of tangled bamboo ... with the Japanese not even sure the 'plane had landed in this vicinity ... the chances of their stumbling across it were extremely remote. And to have seemed any less willing to help would have been to invite suspicion.

Having done his duty, the little leader was inclined to be friendly. He stared about him with awed respect. This was a great marvel, not so? He had not known there were such sights in Cambodia. One would not suppose it from seeing the miserable hovels at Pnompenh, down the river. It was not, of course, to be comparison with the beautiful, modern buildings of Tokio and Kobe, still—

He sucked his teeth politely. "Who makes this great structures, please?"

"We're not sure," Dr. Aiken told him. "It was built many, many years ago. By a race now vanished."

The small captain looked excited.

"Many years? A—a ber-oo race, perhaps?"

Now it was the doctor whose eyes widened.

"Blue! Did you say a blue race?"

"But, yes!" answered the Jap. Everyone knew that long ago there dwelt on earth the blue-skinned gods. "The legends of my peoples speak of them," he said. "The Kojiki tells how they brought to mankind wisdom, and—" he continued serenely—"when they departed, it was ordained that my people should henceforth rule the world."

"Stop!" shouted Ramey, leaping from behind the idol.

Dr. Aiken had completely forgotten, now, why the Jap was here. This was another precious piece fitting the jigsaw puzzle he was striving to put together. He cried to Lake and Ramey, "Hear that? In the Kojiki, too! The ancient Japanese Book of Records! That makes four places I've found reference to blue ones.[3] The Hindu folklore tells of them; the Druidic ritual worships blue warriors. I tell you, lads, Angkor is a vital link in the chain of Man's past! We must find a way to read the writing. When we do—"

Then his words died abruptly. A call had risen from across the moat. Soldiers, standing at the edge of the cane-grove, were gesturing, shouting. As he listened, the smiling captain ceased to smile; Dr. Aiken, who apparently understood at least part of the message, glanced suddenly, worriedly, at Ramey. In an undertone he breathed, "Your airplane! They've found it! And—and somehow they know you're one of—Hurry! We've got to get out of here!"

He tugged at Ramey's sleeve. But even as they edged away, the little captain turned, his eyes hard and angry, his friendliness vanished.

"A moment, please! You have lied to me. Halt! or it is necessary to—"

His revolver was already halfway out of its holster. But swiftly as he moved, Lake O'Brien was even quicker. With a sudden twist, Lake wrenched the gun from his hand, shoved a leg behind his knees and shoved violently. The small captain went sprawling and—

"Come on!" cried Lake, "up to the temple."

He cried a needless warning. For even as he shouted the Jap leader's voice screamed a shrill command. Soldiers came running from every section of the court, and the brooding silence of Angkor was shattered with the sharp, explosive crack of a modern rifle.

In that moment, when it seemed impossible the racing four could cover four hundred vulnerable yards, relief came from an unexpected source. From around the corner of the temple charged two uniformed warriors of Nippon. Beyond them lay temporary safety but—how to pass them? Already one was raising rifle to shoulder, his finger tense on the trigger. Then from the building itself snarled the bark of an automatic. The Jap jerked as though sledged with the blow of an invisible ramrod. His jaw dropped suddenly and the gun flew clattering from his hands as he doubled and pitched forward. Then another shot from the same source; another, and yet another. The familiar voice of Red Barrett boomed from the portico.

"Keep coming, keed! We're covering you!"

Four hundred yards is a meager distance, but it seemed like miles. Ramey Winters gasped to his comrades, "Duck! Zigzag! Bad target!" and set the example, hunching, shifting his course like a frightened crab, as he scuttled for the gateway.

His own pistol was in his hands. He used it once to take a flying potshot at a brown-clad figure emerging on an upper terrace, and had the satisfaction of seeing the figure duck hastily out of sight, howling with pain and dismay as the riflestock splintered in his hands.

Lake, too, was emptying his commandeered pistol at such targets as presented themselves. With what success Ramey had no time to judge, for a bedlam of gunfire howled about them now; hot lead glanced screaming off ancient stone.

How they won through that maelstrom of seething death, Ramey could not afterward say. He was only conscious of his own plunging motion, dimly aware that all three of his companions were still on their feet and racing forward with him. Once a puff of glittering powder leaped from the causeway inches before him, and coarse, stony granules lashed his face stingingly. Once a voice beside him grunted, and glancing up he saw that Lake O'Brien's shirt was redly plastered to his shoulder.

Then suddenly the heat of the day, the dancing sunlight, were gone. Grateful murkiness engulfed them, and friendly hands tugged them to shelter. Red Barrett's voice bellowed in his ear, "Nice, going, pal! I thought for a minute you wouldn't make it. Them damn yellow devils!"

Then a cooler, grimmer voice crisped orders. "No place to stop. This spot's too vulnerable. They'll shoot us down like trapped rats. Below, everybody!"

And again they were running, this time down a shadowy ramp to the entrails of the temple, to the bulwarked suite of chambers wherein Dr. Aiken had established his headquarters. Behind them the spang! of rifle fire died away, but there followed them down the corridor the shrill cry of the Japanese captain rallying his men.

Dr. Aiken seized a moment of respite to offer thanks.

"You saved our lives, boys," he panted. "But—but how did you happen to be up there? I ordered you to stay below—"

"It was his idea," claimed Red.

Syd O'Brien grunted gloomily, "Knew there'd be trouble. Got out the guns. Left Johnny with Sheila. Figured Red and I better go topside to make sure everything was all right."

His brother chuckled appreciatively. "Well, this was once your dismal hunches paid off, Cassandra.[4] Now wait a minute, Sheila—don't get excited!"

They had reached their refuge. From it Sheila Aiken rushed forward to greet them, exclaiming at the twin's wound. "You're shot, Lake! What happened? Did they—?"

"I'm all right," Lake assured her. "Just barely grazed me. Everybody in? Watch that door, Ramey. What happened? Why, those damned, stinking little Japs spotted Ramsey's plane, that's what."

"But we knew there was a possibility they might do that," said the girl. "That's why we dressed Red and Ramey as members of our party. Why should that cause them to—?"

Dr. Aiken said gravely, "I can't understand it myself, Sheila. But somehow the soldiers learned Ramey was one of the aviators. That's what they called to their captain. Wait a minute! What's that? I hear footsteps!"

"It's all right," called Syd. "It's just Johnny. He's got Sheng-ti with him. This way, Johnny. You all right? Where've you been?"

Grinnell entered, his face serious. "I ducked down to the digs when the shooting started, told the workmen to head for Pnompenh, get a message to the consul there. Lake! Your shoulder!"

"Only a flesh wound. Where did he come from?"

"Sheng-ti? Oh, I bumped into him in the causeway. I told him to beat it but he insisted on shuffling along. Look, Sheng-ti, you'd better get out of here. This is bad. Trouble. Danger. Savvy?"

The bonze was paying no attention to him. His eyes had lighted upon Ramey Winters. Now he raised both arms high above his head in a jeremiac gesture. His voice rolled stridently through the vaulted chambers. "Aiee! Doom! Doom! When the bird man drops from the skies—"

"Very well, Sheng-ti. That will do," Dr. Aiken silenced him curtly. He turned to the others, frowning. "Well, there's your answer."

"Answer?"

"How the Japs found out about Ramey. Sheng-ti must have shouted his mad prophecies in their hearing, pointed Ramey out. Well, what's done is done. We might as well make the best of it."

Ramey's brows were knotted anxiously. "This has gone far enough, Dr. Aiken. Red and I can't stay here a minute longer. We've gotten you into trouble as it is. We're pulling out, now!"

The archeologist shook his head. "Thanks, boy, but it's no use. We're all in the same boat now. Have been ever since we defied their orders, returned their fire. They're resentful little beasts, the Japs. And don't condemn yourself. It's not altogether your fault. Our work here was finished the day they marched into Indo-China. If it hadn't been this they would have found other excuses to close in on us.

"No, the only thing we can do now is hold the fort. Try to defend ourselves until one of the coolies gets word to the American consul about what's going on up here. And I'm afraid our future actions will be determined entirely by our little yellow friends. Whether it is to be truce or war is a decision they must make—"

"A decision," interrupted Syd O'Brien from the vantage-point over which he stood guard, "they've already made. It's war, Doctor! Because here they come now!"

CHAPTER V

Flight

It was not strange that in this moment of peril, when the chips were down, Ramey Winters should be the one to seize the reins of command. He was a soldier, a trained fighting man. It was sheer instinct that spurred him into action. Once, several hours before, he had studied this room with the wondering eyes of one baffled by mystery. Now he studied it again, this time with the sharp, critical gaze of a fighter appraising a salient.

The hall in which they stood was a closed square, roughly, fifty by fifty, on the lowest level of the temple. Its walls were two feet thick, and it had no windows, but it was still precariously vulnerable because at the center of each of three walls gaped wide, arched doorways, and the fourth wall was fed by a smaller entrance.

Ramey asked swiftly, "These doorways—where do they lead?"

Syd O'Brien pointed to each in turn. "North wall—outer staircases from the moat. West wall—terrace. The south entrance is the way we came in. The little door leads to the inner court. They'll come from the west and south."

"Okay. That's where we'll concentrate our defense. Red—you and Lake and Dr. Aiken guard the west entrance. Syd and Grinnell and I will hold the south."

"How about me?" demanded Sheila Aiken angrily. "I'm as good a shot as—"

"You have the most important job of all," Ramey told her grimly. "Keeping the guns loaded for us. Put all the guns and ammunition on the table between us. Here—" With a heave he cleared the surface of a massive laboratory desk. Dr. Aiken winced as piles of carefully sorted ceramics, heaps of precious notes, spilled helter-skelter to the floor. "Sirabhar will help you. I suppose we can't count on Sheng-ti. No? Then you and Sirabhar will have to keep an eye on the north and east entrances. Not much chance of their getting in that way, but—"

Red said, "Lot of furniture in this room, Ramey. Chairs and tables and stuff. Make good barricades."

"Good idea! All right, everybody, hop to it! Time's getting short."

Time was getting short. So treacherously short, in fact, that working feverishly they had barely succeeded in setting the rude beginning of their barricades before the vulnerable doorways when the attackers hove in view. Johnny Grinnell gave the alarm.

"Here they come, Ramey! Around the edge of the terrace wall. Six ... a dozen of them. I don't see the captain, though."

"You won't," bellowed Red. "'Cause he's over here. They done what you figured, Ramey; split up. They're coming at us from both sides. Well—"

"Wait!" snapped Ramey. "Don't shoot unless they do!"

Red lowered his rifle reluctantly. "Damn if you ain't the—the pacificest guy I ever saw! Always letting the other guy get the drop on you. It gives me a pain in the—Wow! There it comes! Well, I can shoot, now!"

For his sentence had been punctuated by a simultaneous opening fire from both attack parties. His own gun barked answer. And this time, more ruthlessly, more determinedly than it had waged before the battle begun on the upper causeway continued.

There was no time for the details of that fight to register coherently upon Ramey Winters' brain. But later he found etched in his memory sharp, indelible highlights of those frenzied moments.

His own gun, spluttering and coughing against his cheek as he crouched at the edge of the doorway, firing at figures that slipped, wraithlike, through the murky corridor. The incessant, crashing echo of what seemed like a thousand guns; here in these vaulted depths sound smashed back upon itself thunderously, seemed to merge with the thickening, acrid smoke and roll about the room in reverberant waves. Red Barrett, holding his heavy rifle pistol-wise in one hamlike paw, dripping curses in a loud, prolific stream as with his free hand he tucked into place the edge of a raveling bandage. Syd O'Brien, scowling at his side, methodically pumping his shots where they would do the most good. Lake O'Brien, across the room, achieving the same result with roars of boisterous glee.

Other details. Dr. Aiken's plaintive moan rising above the crash of gunfire. "Those carvings! Those priceless carvings! Ruined!" A glimpse of Sheila Aiken, an angel yet, but an avenging angel now; face smudged and sweating, white hands flying like shuttles as she reloaded the hot, empty rifles and lined them again within reach of the fighters. The whining sing-song of Sheng-ti, stalking up and down the room, invoking something of his placid, contemplative god; whether a blessing or a curse Ramey could not tell.

Then Sheila's voice rose, shrill, alarmed. "Johnny! Ramey! At the court gate!"

Ramey spun to the small east doorway, rifle leveled. But even as his sights centered on a yellow face, Syd O'Brien's arm knocked up his gun. The bullet gouged flecks from a priceless mosaic. "Don't! It's Tomasaki! Call him, Sirabhar! Get him to help!"

Sirabhar slipped from table to doorway, called to his companion in their native tongue. An answer quavered back, highpitched with terror. Sirabhar turned.

"He say he no dare, Master sahib. He say he do not wish to fight the Little Ones. They too many and too strong."

There was anger and contempt in the loyal aide's voice. He called again to his fellow-countryman, his words a liquid blur in the tumult. An answer piped back. Sirabhar's small frame stiffened, his soft brown eyes were suddenly dark bits of flinty shale. His face contorted; he spat into the gloom and whirled to Dr. Aiken, his voice shrill, accusing.

"Tomasaki no good friend, Master Doctor. Him coward. Him—"

His words ended suddenly. Too suddenly. Ramey, who had turned again to the defense of his post, risked a backward glance—and was in time to see the staunch little Cambodian reel and topple forward, clutching, with fingers that seemed to spurt blood, at a gaping hole in his chest. Sheila screamed, and beside Ramey, Syd O'Brien growled a thick curse. They were the brown man's obsequies. He was dead before he hit the floor.

But there was no time to mourn him now. For Barrett, who had swung from doorway to table for a recharged weapon, roared suddenly, "The ammunition! Is that all we have left?"

The girl nodded. "That's all here. There's more in storage, but—"

Ramey, sweeping the table with a glance, saw that their supply had dwindled to a lone container of cartridges. Enough to account for every one of their attackers, yes—if every shot could be trusted to take its toll. But with six people firing steadily, indiscriminately, against a diverse attack—

"We can't defend this place any longer," he roared. "They'll take us in five minutes. Too many entrances. Doc, is there any other—?"

It was Lake who answered. "Yes! That underground chamber I found. It has only one entrance. One armed man could defend that for a week."

"But—can we get there?"

"Through the court exit."

"That's the ticket, then," shouted Ramey. "Lake, you lead the way. Then Sheila and Dr. Aiken. Somebody grab Sheng-ti and take him along. They'll murder him if we leave him behind. Ready, everybody? Go, now. Orderly. We'll all make it."

There came one contradictory voice. Out of a sudden, ominous hush that descended as briefly no rifle anywhere was barking, came the faint, dissenting voice of Johnny Grinnell.

"Not ... all of us, Winters."

Ramey, swiveling, saw with horror that the youngster was no longer on his feet. He lay asprawl on the hard stone floor behind the barricade. His rifle was still clenched in one white-knuckled hand, but his other hand gripped his belt as if to stifle a gnawing fire there. And the fingers of that hand were dark with a slowly spreading stain.

In a flash Ramey was on his knees beside the younger man. Dr. Aiken, too, and Sheila.

"Johnny, what's the matter? You're not—"

Grinnell tried to grin. An unfortunate attempt, for with the effort suddenly he coughed and the corners of his lips leaked blood. He spat and shook his head angrily.

"Lucky ... shot! But I guess ... it did ... the trick."

"You'll be okay," Ramey told him gruffly. "Barrett! Syd! Give me a hand here—"

But even as he gave the order his eyes found Dr. Aiken's, and the old man's head shook slowly from side to side. His lips formed soundless words.

"No use, Ramey."

The voice of Grinnell echoed. "It's no ... use, Ramey. I was a ... med student once." His eyes hardened to a granite doggedness. "You others ... beat it! Get out of here while ... you can!" Again a paroxysm of coughing seized him. When it ended his shirtfront was not pretty. He wiped at his lips with a grimy forearm, cried feverishly, "Get out ... damn it! Get out ... I say!"

Then a sudden thought struck him. He turned to Ramey. "No, wait! Lift me ... to the doorway there—"

Red spoke warningly from the west entrance. "They're closing in, Ramey. I think they're going to rush the joint."

Ramey bent, raised, and cradling the mortally wounded Grinnell in his arms like a gangling child, carried him to the spot he had begged to be taken. Grinnell's lips twitched in a feeble smile. "This is ... swell. Now give me a ... rifle, Winters ... and get the hell ... out of here. All of you."

Ramey looked at Aiken—the doctor nodded. One by one they abandoned their posts, slipped into the narrow corridor beyond the prostrate figure. Sheila was sobbing softly. Syd O'Brien's face was a mask of pain and rage; even Lake was grim as he stopped to wring Grinnell's hand in last farewell.

Only over Grinnell's white lips hovered the ghost of a smile. Ramey and Dr. Aiken were the last to pass him. He searched their faces with eyes already uncertain. "Don't worry about ... me ... Doc," he whispered. "Just get even." A shudder trembled through him; he drew a faltering breath. "Wish I could go with you ... though. It's ... a strange journey ... you're going on. A strange journey...."

Dr. Aiken tapped his forehead significantly. "Delirium," he whispered.

Then Red's voice boomed from the background. "Ramey! Doc! Come on! They'll be busting through in a minute."

And he was right. Already figures were closing in on the abandoned barricade. Ramey gripped the old man's arm, propelled him by sheer force down the corridor. They had covered perhaps a hundred yards when they heard the lone, explosive crack of a rifle, Johnny's rifle. Then another shot ... then a volley. Then silence....

Their way led them from wide corridors to smaller ones, then down a slow ramp to a passageway narrower still and almost completely lightless. The only illumination came through squares of stone fretwork high on the walls.

Ramey judged they were below ground level now. Sheila Aiken, behind whom he stumbled, verified his guess.

"We're beneath the main altar room. Ventilation ducts at bases of statues there. That's how Lake discovered this place."

Then abruptly they turned a corner and the subterranean chamber lay before them. It, unlike any of the other chambers Ramey had seen at Angkor Vat, was doored with a great barrier of bronze. They tumbled into the room, Syd O'Brien and Tomasaki, Red Barrett and the still bleating bonze, Sheng-ti, Lake and Sheila, Ramey and Dr. Aiken bringing up the rear. Ramey shut the huge door after them, clanged into place a ponderous lock-bar, and with a sigh of relief, turned to view his new surroundings.

This was a small room, barely more than twenty feet on a side and of equal height. A pallid light filtered down from a grilled mosaic at roof level. Lake O'Brien augmented this illumination by igniting a flambeau ensconced on the wall. The torch crackled and flamed high, casting a fitful, tawny gleam over carven walls, and—something else. The object Dr. Aiken had mentioned. The inexplicable cube of wrought metal standing in the middle of the room.

Ramey stared at the thing incredulously.

"Why, that—that thing's modern!"

Dr. Aiken nodded somberly. "By all laws of reason and logic," he assented, "it should be. But its location and the inscriptions argue differently, Winters."

Ramey tapped the thing with his pistol. It echoed metallically, hollowly. "But the ancients didn't know how to work with metals like this. This isn't silver or brass or even iron. It's—it's steel!"

"Guess again," grunted Syd. "It's not even steel. We haven't been able to figure what it is. Some unknown alloy."

He was, Ramey thought suddenly, getting almost as bad as Dr. Aiken. Fretting over archeological problems at a time like this. He abandoned the question for the time being.

"Well, no time to worry about it now. We've given the Japs the skip for the time being, but we're still not out of the woods. Now that we're down here, what do we do next?"

Lake grinned at him. "We sit," he said, "tight. And wait for them to get tired looking for us. We hightailed it down here so fast, Ramey, you probably didn't notice the passageway we came through was a veritable labyrinth. It took me months to locate this place, and then I only stumbled across it by accident. The Japs are nervous, impatient little devils. They'll never find us here. In a few hours, a day at the most, they'll decide we must have somehow escaped from the temple grounds, beat it back to ask their base commandant what they should do next. When we're sure they're gone, we'll lam out of here."

"Sounds good. Meanwhile, what do we do about food and drinking water?"

"We do without, I guess," admitted Lake.

For the first time since their flight from the room above, the little native spoke up.

"Excuse, please, Master sahib, sir. I will go topside. Bring back food and water."

Ramey stared at him in astonishment. A little while ago Tomasaki had been limp with terror. Now he was offering to take a foolhardy risk on their behalf. It didn't make sense. The little man had undergone a complete change of heart or—

Suddenly Ramey thought he understood. For his keen gaze detected jittering nerves in the native's hopeful offer. The rising intonation of Sheng-ti supplied the missing clue.

"Aiee! Doom!" the shaven bonze was crying. "Woe to all men when the chamber of change be violated; when the gods of the past shall walk!"

Lake, too, understood, and stopped the little man as he edged toward the doorway. "No, come back here, Tomasaki! It's too risky. They might see you." He grinned at his friends. "I don't know how the rest of you feel, but me, I'd rather have an empty belly than a full carcass."

Red Barrett had been staring in awed wonderment at the mysterious metal cube ever since Ramey had tapped it. Red was a great guy, but he was not the world's fastest thinker. Now comprehension seemed to dawn on him with an almost audible sound of gears meshing. He said to Ramey, "Hey, Ramey! That thing's hollow!"

Dr. Aiken said, "Yes, Barrett, we know that. But so far we have been unable to find any way to open it."

Red started to scratch his brick pate automatically, winced as his hand touched bandages. "You know what? I bet I know what that thing is. I seen a picture once, back in the States. Bela Lugosi in The Wife of the Werewolf. He was one of them whacky scientists—'scuse me, Doc—and he had a cabinet something like this. Only it really wasn't no cabinet at all. It was a secret entrance to an underground tunnel.

"I betcha that's what this is, too. A passageway which goes down under the moat, maybe, and out beyond the temple. Them old priests used to be keen on things like that. Course they didn't mess around with keys or nothing. They had trick doors you had to work out on like an osteopath. Like you'd punch on this little knob here, and maybe wriggle this hunk of carving—Holy cow! Lookit, Ramey!"

He leaped back, startled. Nor was he the only one whose jaw dropped in sudden wonder. Call it coincidence, call it Fate, call it an incredible permutation of chance—but while explaining, Red's fingers had fumbled upon the combination required to unlock the gate of this ancient mystery. With a groan of protest, one outer face of the strange cube was swinging open!

CHAPTER VI

Across Time

Red Barrett was the first to break the silence that blanketed the little group.

"See, Ramey?" he cried. "Look at that! What did I tell you! Now, I bet there's steps in that thing. A trapdoor or something."

But womanlike, it was Sheila Aiken who, obeying the Pandora impulse, stepped forward into the open cubicle. Darkness swallowed her like an engulfing maw. Dr. Aiken cried out in swift alarm, "Sheila! Be careful!"

Her voice came back, excited but unfearful, "I'm all right, Daddy. And—Barrett was right! There is a ladder in here. But it goes up instead of down! Come and bring the torch! This is the strangest room!"

Syd had already torn the flambeau from its bracket. Now he and the others crowded forward eagerly into the metal chamber. But if they had hoped a view of its interior would solve their questions, they were doomed to disillusionment. For the mystery of the cube was heightened, rather than decreased, by that which the flickering torch revealed.

An interior fashioned and equipped like a small room; for all the world, Ramey thought confusedly, like one of those efficiently compact cabins on ocean liners. A metal bench or working table. Two wooden chair frames, now seatless. In one corner a stiff pallet. Everywhere mouldering dust that fumed upward as their feet scuffed the floor; dust that must be, Ramey realized suddenly, the detritus of ages. The wheezy puff they had heard as the door swung open was proof that the cubicle was nearly airtight. That which eddied about them now, tickling their nostrils, must be the dust of less permanent materials than metal and wood, disintegrated by slow years. Those whorls beneath the seatless chairs might once have been rush or tapestry; the thick, powdery fluff on the pallet be the residue of vanished bedsilks.

But it was foolish to conjecture on things vanished when so many tangible wonders greeted the eye. For as Sheila had said, a ladder climbed the near wall to the ceiling; on the wall before one of the chairs was a panel, and on this panel—

Ramey's eyes bulged.

"Doctor!" he cried. "Those dials! Those levers!"

Dr. Aiken was staring at the panel like one who sees a lifetime of reason and learning collapse before him. "I—I can't understand it!" he stammered weakly. "Machinery? But the ancients had no knowledge—"

Ramey, moving forward, kicked something. He bent and picked it up. It was as incomprehensible as the panel. It was a metal arch about three feet long, supported by a cross-brace upon which was mounted a sealed cylinder, also of metal. The instrument was equipped with a rest carven to fit the shoulder. Its semi-circular portion was pierced on the outer rim at one-eighth inch intervals with tiny holes, and where the hoop joined the cylinder there were what seemed to be two handgrips equipped with finger-studs.

Instinctively Ramey raised it to his shoulder. It balanced like an archer's crossbow, except that it had neither stock nor projectile grooves. That it was a weapon of some sort he had no doubt. An impulse stirred him to press the stud beneath his trigger finger, but he subdued it. It would be folly to test a weapon of unguessed nature in such confined quarters.

In this weird moment he had forgotten everything save his own excitement. Now a cry dragged him back from the world of wonder to the world of actuality.

"The door!" roared Lake O'Brien. "It's closing!"

Whirling, Ramey saw the unguarded metal shield swinging shut. With a hoarse cry he leaped toward it. His shoulder and that of Lake smashed it at the same time. But the bruising impact was in vain. Even as they struck it there came the snick! of clasping locks. They were sealed in the metal cube. And Syd O'Brien's voice told why.

"It didn't close!" roared Syd. "It was closed on us—intentionally! Tomasaki!"

Ramey, glancing about him, realized that of their number all were present but the little brown man. Suspicion, latent until now, flared into sudden understanding.

"Then he's the one! The one who showed the Japs the 'plane, told them who I was! He's been with them since the beginning. Sneaked around to betray us at the east gate, and probably shot Sirabhar himself when Sirabhar tried to warn us."

Lake boomed, "By God! That's why he offered to go after supplies! So he could reveal our hiding place. He's probably gone to fetch the Japs now, the traitorous little—"

As ever, Dr. Aiken's head was levelest in a crisis.

"There are Quislings in all races," he said sadly. "It's too bad we discovered the enemy in our midst so late. But we have no time to waste in recriminations. We must get out of here before the soldiers come. The ladder—where does it go?"

Red had mounted the rungs, was fumbling above him. Now he called down, "It's a trapdoor of some kind, Doc. Just a minute and—Ouch! This damn catch is stuck. There it comes—oh-oh!"

Hastily he let drop back into place the yard-square sheet of metal he had pried open. Ramey looked at him anxiously. "What's the matter, Redhead?"

"This thing opens right smack into the main altar room," whispered Barrett. "There's a bunch of Japs up there snooping around. They almost seen me."

"Then we—we're trapped?" asked Sheila faintly.

Ramey's eyes narrowed. "Not yet! That trap door gives us a chance. When Tomasaki leads the Japs down here, emptying the courts above, we'll beat it out that way!"

He glanced at Dr. Aiken commiseratingly. "Tough luck, Doc! Just when you make the greatest find of your career, we have to duck out. But maybe someday we can come back and figure out this mystery. Meanwhile we ought to try to find some way to lock this door from the inside. Tomasaki's just clever and treacherous enough to have seen how Red opened it. We've got to try to stall the Japs for an hour or so to give us a head start. One of these levers might be the answer."

He stared at the wall panel dubiously. Dr. Ian Aiken said, "I don't know, Ramey. It's foolhardy to experiment with things we don't understand. I'd be careful if I were you."

"It's now or never," Ramey reminded him. "In a few minutes it'll be too late to experiment."

He stepped toward the largest of several levers. As he did so a shrill cry sounded behind him. A mournful cry of terror.

"Aiee! Out of the chamber of the past comes doom! Doom to the men of the earth and of not-earth!"

"Will somebody please gag that perambulating wailing-wall?" demanded Ramey irately. "All right, everybody—look sharp! I'm going to try it easy. If you see anything happening, holler! And be careful no trap doors open beneath you. Okay! Here we go!"

He laid his hand on the upright strip of metal and pulled it slowly toward him. But nothing happened. So long had it rested unused that it seemed welded to the plate on which it stood. Ramey tried again, more forcibly. Still no result. He hunched his shoulders, took a good grip. This time he wrenched at the lever with every ounce of power in his six-foot frame. And—

The rod gave suddenly, jolting back in its groove, burying its handle in the pit of Ramey's stomach, jarring the wind out of him. Ramey sat down, abruptly. A startled "Ooph!" burst from his lips. Then as he caught his wind, a grin overspread his features. "Did it!" he claimed triumphantly. Then as he stared about him, seeing no change in either the room or his companions' expressions, his eyebrows raised. "But now that I did it," he demanded plaintively, "what did I do?"

"You pulled a little stick," said Red genially. "Only nothing happened. I'll give you a recommend if you ever need one. Chief stick-puller and nothing-happened."

But one at least did not share his mirth. "Wait!" Sheila Aiken cried suddenly. "Something did happen! Listen—a humming noise—"

It was so. Singing so faintly through the cubicle as to be almost inaudible was the thin, far moan as of a diminutive motor heard from a vast distance. And where Ramey's hand touched the floor, he thought he could detect just the faintest, the barest, tingle of vibration coursing through the metal. Nor was this just an hallucination. Because—

"It is a motor!" cried Dr. Aiken. "We must be moving! For, see? The panel!"

Ramey's eyes followed the archeologist's finger. On the curious instrument panel before them was a circular dial. And the pointer of this dial was slowly revolving!

Red Barrett, who had clambered down the ladder, took one startled look at the spinning needle and started up again. "Excuse me, folks," he gulped, "I just remembered I got to see a guy about nine million miles away from here!" His hands fumbled for the latch of the ceiling trap door.

Dr. Aiken stayed him with a sharp command. "No, Red! Don't!"

"H-huh? Why not?"

"Because something is happening to us. Obviously, we are moving in some direction or other. It might be perfectly safe to open that trap door, but on the other hand—well, I think it would be better to wait until the needle reaches the end of its circuit."

"If you ask me," vouchsafed Syd O'Brien gloomily, "we've probably marched ourselves right into some sort of ancient torture chamber. An Iron Maiden, or something like that. We'll probably end up under the moat or being cooked in boiling mud—" He stared about him suspiciously. "Do these walls look like they're closing in on us?"

His brother chuckled. "Cheerful little cherub, isn't he? I agree with the doctor; you shouldn't open that trap door just yet, Barrett. But I don't think we're in any danger. Evidently this chamber was a secret of the ancient priesthood. They wouldn't build anything to hurt themselves. Wherever it's taking us—"

"Taking us?" interrupted Ramey. "What's all this talk about movement? We don't seem to be going anywhere."

Dr. Aiken permitted himself a thin smile. "Spoken like a true airman, Ramey. I'm afraid your profession has accustomed you to judge motion by external appearances. Within this closed chamber we have no object relative to which we can judge speed or direction. But by the hum of the motors, movement of these several dials, it is perfectly obvious we are doing something. Just what, I cannot say." Here a frown flickered across the forehead of the older man. "It is quite true that if we move either up or down there should be a visceral sensation similar to that experienced in elevators. Similarly, were we moving in a lateral direction we should have felt the shock of over-balanced inertia when we started in one or another direction. Since we did not feel these things there is only one other possibility, but it is so fantastic—"

"It ain't fantastic," broke in Red Barrett. "It's whacky. We ain't going up or down; we ain't going sideways. That's all the directions there is."

"All the common directions known to man," corrected Dr. Aiken slowly. "There is one other about which we know absolutely nothing. A direction of flight which is, at best, but a mathematical concept—"

This time Sheila Aiken stared at her father. "Daddy, it's unbelievable. You can't mean—?"

"I venture no opinion," said the old man mildly. "I am simply trying to apply to a most unusual situation the rules of logic."

Ramey gave up. He looked at the girl helplessly.

"What does he mean, Sheila?"

There was equal helplessness, and for the first time, an expression of uncertainty, in the girl's eyes as she answered. "He means—we may be moving across Time, Ramey!"

"Time!" For a moment Ramey was jarred completely out of his self-possession. Then his sense of humor came to his rescue. "Oh, come now! We are letting ourselves go hogwild! It's been a hell of a day, I know. And we've had some unnerving experiences, but—Time!"

Syd O'Brien did not share his scorn. The more sober twin nodded moodily. "Nevertheless, it's a possibility, Winters. Time is a dimension just as truly as height, breadth, depth. Some have called it the Fourth Dimension and evolved the concept of a Space-Time continuum wherein all things past and present exist side by side. Even the man-in-the-street acknowledges the dimension of Time in his everyday life. When he says he will meet a friend at Broad and Main Streets, his directions are inadequate unless he specifies the floor, for if he is on the tenth floor and his friend waits at ground level they will not meet. The third dimension, height, must be taken into consideration.

"Similarly, if he tells his friend he will meet him on the tenth floor of a building at Broad and Main, and he is there at ten o'clock but his friend does not arrive until two, they will still not meet—for they did not take into consideration the Fourth extension, Time."

"I understand that," acknowledged Ramey impatiently. "But to speak of crossing Time or 'traveling through' Time—that's absurd. Sheer nonsense for imaginative fictioneers to toy with."

The old scientist stared at him quizzically. "I wish I could be as sure of that as you, Ramey. Unfortunately, science is forced to admit too many contradictory points of evidence to make such bold statements. I might mention the strange case of the two Twentieth Century American lady-tourists who, strolling in the gardens at Versailles, found themselves suddenly translated, incomprehensibly face to face with members of the Eighteenth Century royal French Court. This record is, unhappily, too well authenticated to ignore. I might also point to the accuracy of the prophecies of Michel de Nostradamus who claimed that by means of his magic he was able to move forward into the future and see those things which were to be.[5]

"Many other instances. An Italian record of a stranger who appeared mysteriously in Sicily some two hundred years ago in a machine, the description of which shows a marked resemblance to a rocket-propelled airship. Legend relates that this wise man, who spoke a curiously distorted English, made his home with the natives for several months, taught them new and better methods of husbandry, instructed them in the construction of mechanical devices, and stayed an incipient plague by medical means unknown to that era."

"Still," expostulated Ramey, "to travel across Time—"

"As a hazard," pursued the old man, "let us suppose the continuum of Space-Time may be likened to a huge volume in which is inscribed all the history of past, present, and future. All things are written there—all. From man's darkest beginnings till the last feeble flutter of a dying sun stills in cold death a forlorn earth. Man, reading this volume, must perforce turn the pages one by one. He has memory of that which he has read, comprehension of that upon which his eyes presently rest—but no knowledge whatsoever of what lies before.

"But there is another pathway through this volume. The creeping pathway of the bookworm. This is the shortest route between era and era. Through this infinitesimal tunnel the bookworm—or let us say a 'time machine' constructed by one who knows the manner of its making—can skip from epoch to epoch in the twinkling of an eye."

Ramey stared at him incredulously. "And you—you think this thing we're in may be a sort of mechanical bookworm piercing the pages of Time?"

"I do not know," Dr. Aiken told him again. "I simply point out that at least hypothetically these things could be. I do not know; no. But we will learn in a minute. For, see? The needle has stopped. And if I am not mistaken, the humming, too, has ended."

He pointed. The moving needle had indeed completed its circuit and come to rest; the vibration was gone. Whatever had been the nature of the metal chamber's movements, it was motionless now. Red fidgeted impatiently above them.

"All right now, Doc? Okay for me to lift the trap now?"

"Yes. By all means, Barrett."

Red raised the trapdoor gingerly. But no sunlight filtered into the inch-wide slit. He lifted it still farther, glanced anxiously down at his companions. "Hey, lookit! This is funny! It's dark! No, wait a minute—there's a little spot of light. And there's another wall here and another ladder."

"Give him the torch, Syd," cried Dr. Aiken. "There.... Got it, Barrett? Go on up. Climb the ladder. See if you can find out where we are, and what—"

The flaming brand bobbed upward ten, twenty feet, for a few seconds weaved in uncertain circles, its light reflecting to those below only a gray formlessness and the foreshortened outlines of the climbing Barrett. Then:

"Ramey! Doc!" cried Red.

"What is it?"

"Come on up here, everybody, quick! Look! There's a platform up here and a couple of peepholes, and—and it's the damnedest thing you ever seen. We ain't moved an inch. We're still in the temple. But—but it ain't empty now. There's about three billion people gathered in it!"

CHAPTER VII

Gods of the Jungle

Red's hyperbole achieved at least one result. That of creating an immediate scramble for the ladder. Within a very few minutes all the party, including even the muttering Sheng-ti, had joined him on the platform before the circular openings he had mentioned. Of these there were approximately a dozen, spaced at irregular intervals around the chamber in which they now found themselves. Ramey, standing beside the girl Sheila, stared down upon a sight to stagger the wildest imagination.

He looked from an elevated vantage post out across a tremendous hall of Angkor Vat. But there was a subtle difference between this room and those which Dr. Aiken had shown him hours—or was it centuries—ago? At first Ramey could not name that change. Then, with a start, he realized what it was.

Everything looked newer, cleaner, brighter. The pillars supporting the high, vaulted roof were more sharply incised, the carving more clearly cut, undulled by the leveling file of age. Furthermore, not just a few, but all the murals, the carvings, the multifold bits of statuary were painted, not in dull, faded hues, but in gaudy color, freshly radiant!

These things were evidence enough that a change had been wrought in their lives. But if anyone needed more, the court below stirred with living proof. "Three billion" was a typical Barrett estimate, but there were, Ramey saw swiftly, easily three, perhaps four hundred people gathered in the altar room.

And what people! From every lurking corner of earth they must have sprung. Ramey gasped to identify representatives of every race, creed and color known to man. For the most part they were Asiatics, saffron of skin, oblique-eyed. But here stood a little group of gigantic Nubians, ebony-hued and strong, draped in jewel-encrusted girdles of samite; over there gathered a band two-score strong of golden-haired, pale-fleshed warriors, fur-garbed and armed with gleaming halberds; elsewhere, anxiously whispering amongst themselves, huddled a knot of dark-haired, hawk-nosed captains with rich beards that curled to their breasts!

Dr. Aiken whispered hoarsely, "Then—then it is true! We have traversed Time! Come back to the period of Angkor's glory. For, see? Syd, those bearded men—"

"Assyrians," acknowledged Syd O'Brien, "or I'm stark, staring mad. But—but that means, Doctor, Angkor is centuries older than we thought. Their era was around 2500 B.C."

Red Barrett gulped, "You mean that there bellywash you was talking a little while ago is true? We actually have come back through Time? I don't believe it!"

"I know just how you feel," assented Lake O'Brien. "I hate to admit it myself. It makes me feel like a candidate for the padded-cell brigade. But you've got eyes, Barrett. There's the proof before you. How else can you explain it?"

"I can't," snorted Barrett stubbornly, "and I ain't going to try to. This is a dream, that's what. A dream or a hally-soosynation. For all I know, maybe I got conked in the fight, and I'm delirial. Yeah—that's what it is! I'm off my button and seeing things. I don't believe none of this. You hear me—?" He swung suddenly to the peephole, raised his voice in a roar. "I don't believe in you! Get it? You guys are spooks, dreams, nightmares! Go 'way! And—Oh, my golly! Ramey!"

HIS words ended in an agonized howl. For his shout had brought an unexpected result. Real or unreal, the "hallucinations" thronging the hall below had an auditory sense. At Red's bellow, all murmurs, all motion, suddenly stopped—and every eye turned upward toward the source of those cries. Now something like a shudder coursed through the assemblage. Voices rose shrilly, a dozen figures raced bleating from the room ... and to the last man, those left behind fell to their knees in attitudes of abject worship!

Ramey turned in confusion to the girl beside him.

"Now what?" he demanded helplessly.

"I think I know!" said Sheila. "This chamber we're in is the interior of one of their idols. These peepholes must be the eyes in the image. Or perhaps they are just concealed in the carving. Look underneath this opening. See that funnel-shaped pipe? That's a speaking-tube, magnifying the voice. No wonder they're excited. When Red shouted, it must have seemed their god was bellowing orders to them."

"That's it!" agreed Lake. "That was a fairly common trick of ancient priesthoods. Hollow gods from which they could spy on their followers, deliver oracular utterances. Hand me that torch, Syd. I'm going down again and look for a doorway out of this image. There must be one."

He ducked below. As he did so, there came a second concerted moan from the throng. This time Ramey guessed the reason. The flickering of the torch across the viewholes must have seemed to the watchers like the glint of life winking in their idol's eyes.

Then there rose a commotion from the far end of the hall, the babble of excited voices, and Ramey understood where had gone those who had fled the temple. To fetch someone in authority. For now there sounded the dry scrape of marching feet, the clank of metal upon metal, and into the altar room tramped a company of—

"Holy potatoes!" exclaimed Red awefully. "Giants!"

For giants indeed the newcomers were. An armed band of men, the shortest of whom towered a full head and shoulders above any other man in the hall. Ramey was six foot two. Red and the O'Brien brothers each also topped the six foot mark. But Ramey knew that all of them would appear as striplings if ranged beside this file of yeomanry. Six nine seemed a fair guess as to their average height, and he who marched at their head, a raven-haired, amber-skinned mountain of a man in the rich trappings of rank, assuredly topped the seven foot mark!

A mutter passed through the crowd as he entered, and Ramey, whose eye was trained to note the psychological reactions of men, thought he could detect in the attitude of those gathered a poorly veiled hostility, a resentment and will to rebellion held in check only by fear.

Then the newcomer spoke, his voice harsh, imperious, demanding. The natives answered, pointing fearfully at the idol housing Ramey and his companions. The giant captain's brow darkened, his eyes flashed scornful fire, and once more he raised his voice. Ramey turned to Dr. Aiken eagerly.

"What's he saying, Doc? Can you—?"

"No. It's no language I know. It sounds slightly like Sanskrit, but the syllablation and intonation are oddly different."

And then, surprisingly, Sheng-ti spoke beside them.

"Aie, doom!" he moaned softly. "Lo, the day of our judgment is at hand. For the gods walk again and speak their ancient tongues!"

Sheila gripped the old priest's arm tightly.

"Sheng-ti—you understand? Translate for us!"

"They speak of mysteries too holy for humble ears," groaned the priest. "They tell the Mighty One the idol has spoken. He laughs and says it is untrue. But they insist. Now he mocks them, calls them fearful fools."

Red Barrett snorted.

"Oh! A wise guy, huh? A know-it-all? Well, watch me take him down a peg!" And again his lips found the tube. His voice rolled in a hollow roar. "Tally-ho, smart-aleck! Brooklyn-dodgers ... officeofproductionmanagement ... gadzooks.... How do you like them apples?" He fell away from the opening, chuckling, as the giant's blanched face whirled toward the idol. "Guess that'll hold His Nibs for a while! What's he saying now, Sheng-ti?"

The bonze listened intently as again the saffron-hued commander spoke. But Red's gag had backfired. For—

"The Great One admits," relayed Sheng-ti, "that the idol did speak. Now he is affrighted lest the god may have been offended. He would make atonement. Lo, he bids his warriors seize a virgin, and bear her to the altar."

At their leader's command, two of the giant yoemen had thrust forward into the throng, striking with the flat of their swords any who would hinder them. Now they tore from the arms of an aged man a young, white-skinned girl, and bore her, struggling and screaming, to the dais beneath Ramey.

And:

"Ramey!" cried Sheila in sudden horror. "We've got to stop them! They're going to sacrifice her—to us!"

Red Barrett gasped, "Omi-gawd!" in a stricken voice, and spun to Ramey. "Why can't I learn to keep my big feeder shut? What—what'll we do, Ramey?"

The solution came from below, where Lake O'Brien's voice suddenly raised in a shout. "Found it, gang! I knew there'd be a door somewhere. Well, you Jonahs—any of you want out of this whale's belly?"

Ramey cried, "Come on, Red!" and flung himself down the ladder. Then, as the trio stood before the portal Lake had discovered, a sudden idea struck him. "Wait a minute! This is our chance to make an imprint on the natives!" He craned his neck, shouted to those still above. "Sheila, tell Sheng-ti to forbid the sacrifice! Tell him to say that the children of the god come forth to claim their victim."

The priest's words boomed above them, prefacing their entrance into this strange world. And—it was a great success. As the door swung open, and Ramey and his fellows burst forward onto a raised dais, it was to find all action abruptly frozen. The slave girl, her simple toga-like garment torn and disarranged, her wealth of red-chestnut hair, loosed by the violence of her efforts to escape, cascading to her waist, stood motionless in the grasp of two stricken fighting-men. Elsewhere a silence born of terror gripped the room. An awed paralysis which was shattered by the terrified screams of a hundred throats as the adventurers appeared.

It was, Ramey could not help thinking with a sort of detached amusement, a most dramatic entrance. A super-extra, whipper-dipper of an entrance. Like all men with a sense of humor, he had an instinct for showmanship. Striding forward he realized with a little shock that throughout the excitement of the past half hour he had continued to clench in his left hand the object over which he had stumbled in the time-traveling cabinet. What it was, he did not know. But it might mean something to his audience. So as he stepped forward he lifted it proudly, melodramatically, above his head.

The reaction was swifter and more astonishing than he had hoped for. A concerted gasp swept through the crowd. The two giant guards released their captive and tumbled to their knees, and a great cry shook the temple. Ramey's eyebrows lifted; he tossed a swift query over his shoulder. "I struck pay dirt that time! What are they saying, Sheila?"

And apparently from the lips of the idol—for Ramey saw now that it was a gigantic, hideously leering statue in which they had hidden—came the answer.

"They're hailing you as a god, Ramey! And they are crying out in fear because that thing you're carrying is the Bow of—of Rudra!"

Now the slave girl, whimpering prayerful entreaties, slipped from the two who held her and threw herself at Ramey Winters' feet. It was swell stuff. Very godlike, flattering stuff. But also very embarrassing. Ramey touched the girl's shoulder, disturbed to find that she was trembling violently, gently lifted her and turned to Barrett.

"Take care of her, Red. Maybe these overstuffed guys will try to make another pass at her."

Red grinned from ear to ear. "Who, me? Oh, boy—did I say no? Come here, sugar!" He took the girl into the shelter of his arm. She didn't seem to mind it a bit.

Then from the back of the hall moved the majestically dark-visaged one who had commanded the sacrifice. He walked erect and proud, as befitted a noble, but his eyes were cautiously humble. Though he towered a full head above Winters, his attitude was respectful. To the edge of the dais he approached, stopped there and addressed the quartet. This time Sheila forwarded Sheng-ti's translation without prompting.

"He is Ravana, Ramey. Lord of Lanka, and appointed Overseer of—of something. Sheng-ti doesn't understand all he says. He bows before you and begs acceptance of the sacrifice he offered."

Ramey said grimly, "Tell him that for two cents I'd yank off his leg and stuff it down his throat. I don't like this sacrifice stuff." He motioned to Lake and Red. "Let's get back into the idol. We've saved the redhead, here. Now we'd better save ourselves. Hop back into the time-machine and go back where we came from—"

From above came the voice of Dr. Aiken, alarmed and piteously eager.

"Oh, no, Winters! Not yet! Not quite yet! We can return to our own time later. But this is the opportunity of a lifetime! We can't leave until we've learned more about this magnificent culture ... this period! Besides—in our own era, the Japs are still hunting for us. We must allow several hours to pass before we return."

Ramey sought his companions' eyes. Lake grinned and nodded. Red tightened his arm about the shoulders of his new and welcome responsibility. "Okay with me, chum. I'm just beginning to enjoy this Cooks' Tour." Ramey surrendered reluctantly.

"All right, then. Come on down. But before you do, better tell this guy to take us to the Kingfish around here."

Words rolled from the idol's motionless lips, and the giant chieftain nodded obeisance. And a few minutes later, the remainder of the time-traveling group spilled from their refuge within the statue.

It Was all strange terrain to Ramey, the way through which the amber-skinned Ravana led them, but their course was apparently familiar enough to Dr. Aiken and his assistants.

Across an open court, up a long staircase, and into the most central of the ziggurats which comprised Angkor Vat. Lake O'Brien said excitedly, "By golly, Sheila, your guess was right! You said this building was the Big Shot's council hall—remember? And Syd and I thought—Well, I'll be jiggered!" His voice choked to a hollow whisper. "Golly, look! The—the carvings come to life! Apes! Warrior apes!"

For standing before the door of the chamber they approached, garbed in the trappings of men, casqued and helmed sandaled and bucklered, gripping their bronze-tipped spears in altogether humanoid fashion, stood two huge apes who snapped their arms to attention as the group neared!

But even this marvel paled into insignificance in a moment. For now the great, carven doors of the council chamber swung open, exposing a throne-room of inconceivable grandeur. Ramey's first staggered gaze described trappings of fabulous wealth. Gold and ivory, teak and silver, ebony and the sparking luster of priceless gems. These things he saw and noted subconsciously. But at the moment they roused no wonder in him for there was—something else! A presence in the room that utterly robbed him of his breath.

A man, seated on the golden throne. A man of Ramey's own height. An older man, gray of hair and lined of visage, now leaning forward curiously to greet them. A grave, quiet, kindly man, in all respects like the millions of humans living on the earth of Ramey's era. But for one thing. The flesh of this ruler was—hyacinthine blue!

CHAPTER VIII

Rakshasi

With a sort of detached wonder, Ramey noticed that the blue man did not rise from his throne to greet them.

Even a ruler of men, the young airman thought dimly, should humble himself before gods. Then the conviction came to him that the ruler of Angkor did not consider them gods! Of their origin he had, could have, no knowledge. But it was obvious that he recognized them, somehow, for exactly what they were: human beings caught in a web of circumstances inexplicable even to themselves.

So the blue lord's preoccupation was with the giant Ravana. To the amber-skinned one he addressed his questions. The spate of their conversation sped back and forth between them so swiftly that there was not even time for the attentive Sheng-ti to translate for his companions.

But though the words of a conversation may be unintelligible, its tenor is ofttimes obvious to the careful witness. It became clear to Ramey that Ravana, at first polite in his salutation to the blue lord of Angkor, was becoming more presumptious and argumentative every minute.

His shoulders became stiffer, straighter, more bold. Once he glanced back as if to assure himself that behind him ranged the solid phalanx of his warriors. His voice assumed a belligerent stridency, and an arrogant light emboldened his eyes.

Nor was Ramey the only one to notice this gathering insolence. The blue ruler frowned, and his tone developed an edge of asperity.

Now, however, the amber giant exhibited startling rudeness. Boldly he interrupted the azure-tinted emperor in midsentence, and cried what sounded like a loud demand. A brief, startled silence fell upon the court room. In that silence, Dr. Aiken prodded the bonze for information.

Scanty as it was, it verified Ramey's suspicions.

"The Tall One says the gods appeared to him; he therefore claims the right to house their mortal avatars whilst they visit. The Blue One reminds him he is but a guest at the palace, and that he, Sugriva, is emperor of Angkor."

Lake chuckled. "Huh! Talk about your southern hospitality! It's peanuts compared to this! Scrapping over who's going to put us up for the night!"

"Scrapping" was a bit of an exaggeration. It did not quite reach that stage. But in the moment following the silence it looked very much as though it might. The tall lord, Ravana, concluding his defiant demands, turned and snapped an order to his followers. Their hands leaped to their swords, they moved as though to surround the little party of time-exiles.

But now the Emperor Sugriva had reached the end of his patience, and with a swift decision exposed the hand of steel beneath the velvet glove. He cried a word. It might have been a title or a name.

"Kohrisan!"

The cry brought an instant response. From one of the arched doorways of the council room, as if he had been waiting on hair-trigger for the call to catapult him forward, sprang a strange figure. A short, gnarled figure so elaborately adorned, cap-a-pied, in the glittering habiliments of a warrior that Ramey had to look twice to see it was no man at all, but another of the weirdly humanoid apes.

The monkey-captain sized up the situation at a glance, lifted his voice in a cry that bore little resemblance to the shrill chattering of ordinary banderlogs. The apparently tenantless court sprang to life. Through every portal flooded troops of the armed monkey-men to arraign themselves grimly behind their leader. The furry captain spoke, this time directly to Ravana, who scowled at him.

For a moment it seemed Ravana trembled on the brink of a decision. His right hand yearned toward his sword. Then he shrugged and forced a smile to his lips. He made a perfunctory, almost insulting, bow to the blue-skinned lord of the jungle, then crisped a word to his followers. They turned and marched from the room. As Ravana passed the squat ape-man, he sneered a mocking taunt; the gaudily garbed little creature flinched as if struck with a blow. Then Ravana and his bullies were gone, and Sugriva beckoned Ramey's party to advance toward him.

Ramey's first impression of the emperor had been that Sugriva was a wishy-washy sort. Now he was forced to alter that opinion. There was no nervousness, no uncertainty in the blue lord's manner. He seemed to have weighed carefully the problem and arrived at a conclusion. He was a gentle man but he could act when action was required. And he was a man of penetrating intellect. He had already recognized that Sheng-ti was the only one to whom his words held meaning. He addressed himself to the bonze. Sheng-ti answered with a new note of humility in his voice, then relayed the message.

"The Blue One says to follow him. He would understand and be understood."

Wonderingly the little group followed Sugriva to a small privy chamber beyond the throne-room. As they entered this Ramey's eyes widened to behold another metal cabinet somewhat similar to that in which they had been borne here, but of hemispherical shape. Into this the ruler motioned them. Red Barrett looked dubious.

"Hey, what's he going to do, Ramey? Send us back where we come from? So soon? Aw, gee! Me and Toots here ain't hardly got acquainted yet."

Syd offered warningly, "Look out. It's a trick of some sort. I don't trust—"

"I think it's all right," Ramey reassured them. "Yes, I know it is. See, he's going in it himself. Come on. We'll never find out what this is all about if we don't take a chance."

He stepped into the chamber behind Sugriva. The others followed. The blue lord closed the door.

This chamber, too, had a control panel on one wall. To this the emperor went, adjusted small dials and pressed a plunger. Sheila screamed. Cries of alarm ripped the throats of Lake and Dr. Aiken. Ramey Winters was conscious that he, too, had cried aloud under the impact of a lance of fiery pain piercing his brain. From the ceiling of the chamber a radiation terrible to look upon blazed down upon them, its intangible beam of light seemed to smash them with tangible force. Ramey staggered a step forward, clutching for Sugriva. But even as he did so, he was aware that the ruler pressed another button, that the radiation had died, and the pain was suddenly gone.

His head throbbed and burned. He cried, "Damn you! What's the big idea? What are you trying to do to us?" But there was disarming candor in the blue man's smile. "Peace, my friend," he soothed. "There will be no more pain. It is over now."

"Over?" repeated Ramey. "It had damned well better be over. You can't—" Then he halted, his mouth foolishly agape, as realization of what had happened dawned upon him.

He had spoken to the Lord of Angkor. And the blue lord had answered. And each of them had understood the other!

Sheila Aiken stared at their new acquaintance wildly.

"You—you're speaking English!"

He shook his head, a quiet smile on his lips. "No, on the contrary, it is you who speak my tongue. Not that it matters. We can converse in either. Now that we have undergone the ministration of the vilyishna, each of us possesses the other's language." He turned to the yellow-skinned bonze who, heretofore, had been his sole interpreter. There was a curious comprehension and sympathy in his eyes. "And you, my friend—your brain has cleared?"[6]

The surly Sheng-ti was surly no longer. An amazing change had come over him; his eyes, which had ever been dark and cloudy with half-mad suspicion, were now gleaming. Ramey knew, even before the old priest spoke, what this meant. The mysterious vilyishna had performed for Sheng-ti the greatest of all possible services. It had lifted from his brain the cloud of insanity which had veiled it for years!

Sheng-ti cried out, a choking little cry of joy, and dropped to his knees. "It is, O my Lord! Thou knowest it is indeed clear and strong again!"

Sugriva laid a hand on his shoulder, raising him.

"I am sorry it was necessary to subject you to even a moment's pain. But there was no other way. The patterns of the brain are not rearranged without a modicum of discomfort." As he spoke he opened the door again, they returned to the room whence they had come. "You are all recovered now?"

Dr. Aiken's eyes were those of a new Balboa staring out across uncharted seas of knowledge.

"The vilyishna! Transference of knowledge by machine! Learning by superimposition of brain patterns!" he whispered. "Lord, what an achievement! Where did it come from?"

"It is an invention of my people," Sugriva told him.

"Your people?" repeated Ramey. "Who are your people, my Lord? In the world from which we came there are no men of your pigmentation. Who on earth are your people?"

It was then the blue lord Sugriva smiled. There was a touch of sadness in his voice. "My people are not of Earth, my young friend. They are of—another world altogether!"

"Venus!" cried Dr. Aiken suddenly. "Venus—that is your homeland! I knew it! Ramey, do you remember just as the Japanese attacked I was about to tell you of one of the oddest carvings we had discovered? That mural was a representation of the solar system, showing at the center the mother Sun, then, circling about her in their orbits, the planets of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the other spheres.

"Two things about this mural perplexed us. One, that there was a definite line scored between the planets Venus and Earth, such a line as experience in deciphering Angkor's symbolism had taught us always represented 'contact' of some sort.

"The second point was that immediately beneath this diagram were a series of smaller carvings. One showing a forest of lush vegetation unlike anything known to Man, another showing a cylindrical, shiplike object surrounded by heavenly bodies, a third showing a troup of earthmen kneeling before a man like Sugriva. A man with blue skin. My Lord—you know the carving whereof I speak?"[7]

Sugriva nodded. "Indeed, I know it well. Did I not cause it to be made? In the long years that have elapsed since I assumed the protectorate of this Earth colony I have had my subjects carve much of the history of our people into the walls of this citadel. But more of that later. I would hear now of yourselves. You came hither in the cabinet of Rudra?"

Ramey said, "Then you knew of the time-machine?"

"Of a certainty, my son. Was it not built by my own blood-brother, Rudra, who, until he grew restless and fretful, ruled this colony with me? Ah, he was a brilliant one, Rudra, and a great scientist. It was he who designed the vilyishna, aye, and even the Bow of Death which now you bear. Important things might he and I have accomplished had he been content to stay here with me. But a score of years ago, dissatisfied and impatient, he built in the chamber beneath the altar room the cabinet which flies backward in Time. In this cabinet he made many trips into the past, returning ever and anon to amuse me with tales of marvels seen. But ever longer and more daring grew his trips, until finally there was one from which he returned not ever, nor the cabinet in which he had gone. Tell me—and saw you my blood-brother Rudra in the era whence you came?"

Dr. Aiken shook his head sorrowfully. "No, my Lord. We saw him not. The cabinet was thick with dust, and Rudra's bow lay on the floor. The machine itself had lain hidden in its chamber from the sight of man for countless centuries."

Sugriva sighed.

"Then he is indeed perished. But tell me—how came you to find the cabinet? And from what ancient era came you? Rudra found many signs of life in the ages he traversed, but never a race of Earthmen cultured as yourselves."

"We are not from the Past, my Lord, but the Future."

"Future! But my brother's machine could not safely move forward in Time! He told me so. Only into the Past—"

"Nevertheless, he must have tried. For we found his cabinet in an age five thousands of years later than this."

Sugriva nodded dolefully.

"Now I can guess why he returned not. He was daring, my brother. Too daring. But—the future, you say? Tell me, then—is my small colony a great and beautiful metropolis in the period whence you came hither?"

"Not so, my Lord Sugriva," answered Dr. Aiken regretfully. "Somewhere in the centuries which span between now and our era, an evilness has befallen this colony of yours. For in the world we left behind us, these mighty halls and temples are but a haunting wonder lost in the slumbering sea of leafy jungles."

Sugriva's sadness deepened.

"This is grievous news you bring me, my friends. If what you say is true, if fifty centuries hence this colony is vanished, its people scattered, then my labors here are of no avail. And my mission on Earth has failed. But—why?"

It was a question for which the time-exiles knew no answer. Its solution lay yet in Sugriva's future, and was so far buried in their world's past as to be a forgotten secret. But they were spared the necessity of answering. For at that moment came an interruption. There wakened a flurry of action at the central gate, the doorway opened, and through its great portals swept a woman.

And what a woman! She was tall ... much taller than the average man, almost as tall as Ramey himself. But there was no gangling awkwardness to her height. Her figure was perfectly proportioned to her stature. She walked with the slow and lithe and languorous grace of a jungle creature. A panther, perhaps, thought Ramey, with rapt approval watching her move nearer. Yes, assuredly a panther. For she was neither white nor Mongolian. Her skin was the soft, fine ivory of the Eurasian. Ivory, shading to tawny gold with the contours of her body, deepening with the curve of her thigh, the round of her elbow, the shadowy cup of her breasts. Pantherine, too, were her eyes. Triangular eyes, long-lashed and lazy, with pupils of dusty emerald.

Captain Kohrisan sprang to attention as she approached, saluted and cried introduction:

"My lords—the Lady Rakshasi!"

CHAPTER IX

"—Or Not to Be"

The Lady Rakshasi spoke, and her voice was just what Ramey thought it would be. Throaty and mellow, caressing-low with a throbbing undertone of promise. She addressed Sugriva, and her words included all present, but there was that in her tone, her manner, the sidelong appraisal of her eyes, which made Ramey feel her welcome was for him alone.

"Greetings, Sire. My brother tells me the Children of the Gods favor us with a visit. I come to welcome them."

Red Barrett made no attempt to conceal his frank admiration. He said, "Don't mention it, baby. Boy, Ramey, I'm getting gladder we come every minute. They grow 'em terrific around these parts! First little carrot-top, here, then this Ziegfeld doll—"

The Lady Rakshasi looked confused.

"I am sorry," she apologized. "The red-haired god no doubt speaks words of great wisdom. But his humble maid-servant does not understand."

"It is nothing," Ramey assured her hastily. "The red-haired god but expresses his pleasure." Aside to Barrett he whispered, "Utcay the ackscray, opeday!" and Lake O'Brien guffawed loudly.

The interview was brief. That was Sugriva's doing. Politely, but with gentle firmness, he told her, "You have done well, Lady Rakshasi. The gods are pleased with your attendance. But now you must leave, for they would rest. They have come from afar to visit their worshippers, and they are weary."

The lovely Rakshasi bowed obedience. "Yes, Sire. I hear and obey. But ere I go, my brother bids me tender unto you his humblest apology for that which transpired in this hall. He bitterly rues his hastiness. He was confused, he bids me say, and overcome with awe by the presence of gods."

"It is forgotten," said Sugriva graciously. "Go now in peace, my lady. Convey to your brother our forgiveness."

Rakshasi left, but Ramey's eyes followed her to the door. And the golden creature knew it, for just as she slipped from the chamber she turned once more, and for a fleeting instant her green eyes met Ramey's fascinated gray ones. And the look that passed between them held little of piety.

Then she was gone, and with her departure it was as if a disturbing fever had left the room. Ramey, feeling the gaze of Lake O'Brien curious upon him, felt a stab of warmth in his cheeks, and wondered just how much an ass he had made of himself. Apparently he had done a pretty fair job of it, for the one person whose eyes would not meet his was Sheila. And strangely, now that Rakshasi was gone, it was the clear, mist-blue sanity of Sheila's eyes that Ramey wanted most to look upon. He shook himself angrily and turned to Sugriva.

"Sire, you permitted the Lady Rakshasi to believe we are gods. Why? When you know we are not."

The Venusian overlord nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, my friend, I did not disabuse her belief. But it was no useless deceit. What I did, I did for your own safety."

"Our safety, my Lord?"

"You have probably already guessed that Ravana is no more of this earth than am I. As my people come from Gaanelia, that planet which you know as the morning or evening star, he and his giant underlings spring from the red desert planet of Videlia."

"Videlia?" repeated Dr. Aiken. "You mean—Mars?"

Sugriva searched his brain, nodded.

"Yes. That is its name in your language."

Lake O'Brien moaned.

"Sweet saints, 'what fools we mortals be'! And men think they are intelligent. Yet here, five thousand years before our time, the civilizations of our two neighboring worlds have simultaneously developed spaceflight—"

"No, my friend. It was we, and only we, who learned the secret of spaceflight. And like fools, we gave it away."

"Gave it to the Videlians?"

"Yes. We Gaanelians are a quiet, peaceloving people. For centuries our culture has been great. Our cities dwarf anything you humans know. Our commerce, agriculture and industry are great. We want for nothing. Thus we have turned our leisure hours to the pursuit of knowledge and the refinement of art.

"Our science discovered the secret of flight amongst the stars. Our expeditions flew to all the children of the Sun; to the planets you know as Mercury, Mars, even massive Jupiter and far, frozen Pluto.

"Only on three other planets, however, did we find life. Here on Earth—crude, nomadic barbarism for the most part, with only in one or two places the rude beginnings of a social culture—on the second moon of Jupiter, and on Mars.

"The Martian, or Videlian, culture alone was in any way equal to our own. In our blind altruism we freely gave the videlian giants our great secret—" Sugriva smiled ruefully—"and now we regret it. For we have learned that the Videlians are not such lovers of peace as we. They are hard cruel people, greedy and grasping, predatory. Their space-vessels, like ours, have brought colonists to Earth. And of these interlopers, Lord Ravana is ruler. Lately it has became increasingly clear that he has not the same benevolent designs on the people of Earth that I was sent here to bring about."

"You mean he wants Earth for himself?"

"That is what I suspect and fear. Consider. With a whole wide world of pleasant hills and valleys in which to establish himself, Ravana chose to construct his fortressed capital on an inaccessible island sixty miles off this mainland—the Isle of Lanka.

"While he has pretended friendship, visiting me here and occasionally inviting me to his island stronghold, I have heard strange rumors about his over-lordship. Where as it has ever been the Gaanelian desire to achieve harmony between our race and yours, it is hinted that the humans who serve Ravana do so not as willing subjects but as—slaves! We have tried to pass on to our neighbors something of our learning and culture, exhibiting good will and friendliness. But I am told that what Ravana wants he exacts by forceful means.

"It was to investigate these rumors that I recently sent for representatives of all Earth's governments to meet here at Chitrakuta. You saw these representatives, I believe, in the altar room?"

Ramey nodded. "They didn't seem to be particularly fond of Ravana. I don't blame them much. There's a brutal streak in the guy. His first idea, when the idol spoke, was to pacify it with a human sacrifice. If we hadn't spiked that deal, I'm afraid this young lady—" He nodded toward the chestnut-haired beauty clinging close to Barrett's side—"wouldn't be with us now.

"Well, Sugriva, I'm beginning to understand the setup now. It's not so unusual. The world we left behind was being sadly muddled by a mob with pretty much the same idea as the Videlians. They want to be top-dogs or nothing. So, now that we're here, what can we do to help you out? You want us to continue playing gods while you hold your round table conferences with the boys in the back room?"

But Sugriva shook his head. "Not now, my friend. I shall explain that later. First you must have food, rest, time to collect your thoughts. Meanwhile, guard carefully the Bow. It is of vital importance. Kohrisan—" The ape-captain saluted smartly—"Show our guests to chambers where they may rest and refresh themselves."

The time-farers allowed themselves to be led away.

So began the incredible adventure, the "strange journey" of which Johnny Grinnell, in the prescience of life's ending, had spoken.

It was Syd O'Brien's idea when, that evening, after having bathed, napped or refreshed themselves as each saw fit, they gathered again in the garden-close outside their quarters, that they should bring this episode to a close. The gloomy twin looked—if such a thing were possible—more disgruntled than ever.

"If you ask me," he said, "we ought to get going."

"Going?" repeated his brother.

"That's what I said. I don't like this business of messing around in things that happened five thousand years before we were born. It's not normal and it's not right. No good will come of it. I'm for getting back to the time-cabinet and pulling out of there before something happens and we can never get back."

Sheila gasped, "And miss this marvelous opportunity to discover the truth about things men have always wondered about, argued over? Why, Syd, we haven't even begun to discover the marvels of Angkor!"

Dr. Aiken said seriously, "Yes, Sydney, Sheila is right. Fate has granted us an opportunity to solve more of the mysteries of Man's beginnings than all earth's savants have been able to uncover in two thousand years. It is more than an opportunity; it is an obligation! We cannot leave yet. Why—" His fine old eyes glowed—"this afternoon as the rest of you slept, I wandered through the courts and the temples, conversing in their ancient tongues with men whose races were vanished before the first recorded history was written! Already I have learned enough to establish an entirely new chronology of history. And I have merely skimmed the surface!"

"Just the same—" grumbled Syd.

"Just the same," snapped his brother, "you're nuts! Back in our time, these temples are probably crawling with a regiment of vengeful Japs, wondering where the hell we disappeared to. It would be suicidal to go back now. We'd better just sit tight for a week or so ... take advantage of our opportunity, and return to our own time with a real contribution to science."

So it was decided. And somehow a week passed. Where fled those warm days and even more languorous nights, Ramey Winters could never afterward tell. For there was much to be seen and done, and once the weird comprehension of their actually being here established itself in his mind, Ramey, like all the others, dipped eagerly into the garnering of new knowledge.

With the Lord Sugriva they spent many hours. Even feeling sure, as they did, that everything the blue lord of Angkor told them was true, some of his statements were so fantastic as to be almost incredible. As when Dr. Aiken queried him on the extent of Gaanelian colonization.

"I do not know, exactly," admitted Sugriva. "But there must be five, six, perhaps more colonies. One of my compatriots, I know, governs an outpost south and west of here. A desolate territory bordered on the north by vast desertland. Another bears the light of culture to jungle natives on a far continent, a hemisphere removed. Still a third has established himself on a tiny island to the west, where the mighty sea begins."

"Lower Egypt!" cried Dr. Aiken raptly. "Its culture, differing sharply from that of the Upper Kingdom, has always puzzled archeologists. The lost Merouvian civilization which left great paved roads and cities where now is Peru. And a tiny island—?"

"England!" cried Sheila. "Daddy, that explains why the legend of the 'blue gods' persists in ancient Anglo-Saxon history. The Druids worshipped 'men from the skies.' They had their 'sky-blue heaven' of Tir-n'a-nog. And as late as 1,000 A.D. the Picts went forth to battle with their bodies painted with blue pigment!"

But again, as before, arose the question: if these colonies now existed, into what darkness had they disappeared that those of the Twentieth Century knew them only as legend? This was a cause of great sadness to Sugriva.

"I can only confess," he conceded regretfully, "that somehow our mission, the bringing of culture to your less enlightened Earth races, must have failed. Why, I do not know."

Here a great thought struck Ramey Winters.

"But if we could only find out what destroyed your attempt, perhaps we could do something to prevent it!" His eyes glowed. "What a glorious thing for mankind! Already you have converted men from nomadic wanderers into a semi-cultured people. If that cause which destroyed—or is to destroy—your tutorship were to be removed—" Ramey faltered over the use of tense, feeling keenly the anomaly of their position as men of a future age, living in a past, being part of that past, yet knowing inerrably that which was to come—"Why, then, the whole history of mankind could be changed! There would be no decay in Egyptian culture, no Rome rising mightily, then toppling, no long Dark Ages. There would be only steady progress, ever forward, upward, to greater knowledge!"

Syd sniffed, "You're day-dreaming, Ramey. The fact that we exist proves that the history of mankind took a certain channel. There's no way of changing that. Is there, Doctor?"

"I don't know, Sydney. There is much to be said on either side. It may be that history is, as you say, unchangeable. But there is the problem of causality. Once this era was. We, having not been born then, were not here. Causes developed effects new causes—and a course of history was written leading to the world we know.

"But a new factor enters an old equation. This era again is, but we who do not properly belong here have entered into the picture by way of a time-machine. It is conceivable that our very being here is sufficient of a cause to change and divert the entire sequence of events which would otherwise have been the 'future.'"

"Rot!" snorted Syd. "Excuse me, Doctor, but that's not logical. For if our being here were to change history in any slightest way—then we would automatically cease to exist! Because the exact and precarious chain of circumstances which brought us into being would have been altered."

CHAPTER X

Exposure

So they dropped the matter there, completely unable to solve the problem, each convinced that his theory was correct, none without a lingering doubt but that the other's might be true. And the days sped by.

They were fruitful days. Lake, who had a flair for the philological, spent much time studying the Gaanelian language. To Red and Ramey, as professional airmen, what was of particular interest was the matter of spaceflight. Gaanelian ships, Sugriva told them, called regularly at every inferior conjunction of Earth and Venus, Videlian craft less frequently. "But often enough," the blue lord admitted ruefully.

"And these ships—" demanded Ramey eagerly. "Their method of propulsion? What is it?"

Sugriva frowned. "I am not sure I can tell you, my friend. I have searched my brain for the words in your tongue with which to explain—but they do not exist. It is a concept utterly foreign to your culture. The nearest I can come to an explanation is to say there are 'fields of force' between the planets, and on these fields the ships feed and ride."

"An electrical transmission of some sort, perhaps?"

But again the protector of Chitrakuta looked baffled. "Now there is a word in your tongue," he apologized, "which is foreign to me. A concept of your civilization I cannot grasp."

And Ramey realized suddenly that despite its many magnificent scientific achievements, the Gaanelian race was apparently in total ignorance of electricity! It was used nowhere; not for heating, lighting, communication. He tried to explain the phenomenon to Sugriva, but it was a hopeless task.

"I am sorry, Ramey. But that is a study in which I am not adept. If you will but wait until the next spacecraft arrives, a matter of but a few months, there will be those on board with whom you can talk more understandingly."

And with this Ramey had to be content.

But if the blue lord's knowledge of mechanical science was deficient, he lacked few other qualifications of leadership. During the stay of the time-exiles was held the grand parlay for which representatives had been summoned from every corer of the civilized eastern world.

Sugriva proved superbly his right to rule. To the gratification of the assembled humans and the disgruntlement of the Lord Ravana he laid down the Law. That there should be at all times peace and amity between the natives of Earth and their foreign visitors. That Earthmen should feel always free to call upon those of Venus for information and aid in new projects. That the chosen of Earth's youth should gather annually in the nearest Gaanelian colony for instruction in knowledge and culture. That Gaanelians and Videlians should at all times respect the territorial rights of Earth's races, and should at no time make any demands upon persons or services of terrestrial subjects for which the Earthmen did not receive complete and satisfactory compensation.

There had to be teeth in this pronouncement. Sugriva bared them plainly, for the second time exhibiting the sternness which underlay his placid nature when he thundered determination to make all abide by this covenant, under pain of the displeasure and (if need be) the armed reprisal of the Gaanelian overlord. He did not hint what nature these sanctions might assume except to Ramey Winters, and then on only one occasion.

"Guard well the Bow of Rudra, Ramey Winters. The day may yet dawn when we will have need of it."

Ramey said, "But what is it supposed to do, Sire? I have experimented with it, but nothing seems to happen when I finger the grips. It's a pretty useless hunk of ordnance, if you ask me."

Sugriva said, "I am quite content that you do not know how to operate the Bow, my son. It is too dreadful a weapon to be lightly exploited. But if the time ever should come for its use—"

So the pact was drawn up, and the several races became signatories. It was a direct and challenging blow to the ambitions of the Lord Ravana, one that he swallowed with difficulty. But swallow it he did—though perhaps one of the greatest contributing factors to his signing was the fact that at the final meeting were ranged beside Sugriva the time-exiles—and that in Ramey's ready hand dangled nonchalantly the dreaded Bow of Rudra.

But the days at Chitrakuta, for such by now they had all learned to be the Gaanelian name for the temple they had known as Angkor Vat, were not all concerned with study or the grim business of government. There were hours of relaxation, too.

Red Barrett, for one, was thoroughly enjoying the championship of the beautiful damsel who had been placed in his care days before. Of course she proved a baffling bundle of loveliness in some respects. As on the first day, when Ramey chanced upon the duo in time to hear Red demanding perplexedly, "How? How's that? Come again, Toots!"

And: "Ich hight Evavne ab Daffydd y Marwnadd, mihr gneight," repeated his lovely charge demurely.

Red moaned. "Hey, Doc!" he yelled, "Hey, Sheila! Anybody got any spirits of ammonia with them? Toots, here, has the hiccups!"

Ramey went to his chum's aid. "What's wrong, Red?"

"It's Toots, here," complained Red aggrievedly. "I said to her, 'Look, Toots, I can't keep calling you "Toots" all the time. What's your real name?' So instead of giving me a straight answer, she makes with the double talk."

Dr. Aiken, who had been listening with amusement, now spoke up. "But the young lady did answer you, Barrett. She said she was 'Evavne, daughter of David and Marian.' And—" The old man smiled slyly—"I believe you've made something of an impression, my boy. She called you her—er—'knight'!"

"Yeah?" grinned Barrett. "Well, gee! That's okay, ain't it? Evavne, huh? Not a bad handle, Toots. But after this, you better talk English."

"She is talking English, Red."

"Huh? Aw, now, Doc—"

"Well, let us say, then, she is speaking the ancient tongue from which modern English derives. I fancy—" said Dr. Aiken speculatively—"our charming friend is a daughter of one of those races which first settled the British Isles. A Pict, or a Celt."

"All I got to say," grumbled Red, "is that going in the vilyishna with us didn't do much good if that's the best English she can talk. Come on, Toots. You and me is going to see Sugriva and have him arrange another language-exchange in the recording booth."

And together they left on the expedition which was to remove their last lingual difficulty. They had no other kind.

Ramey Winters, too, was finding the soft, moonbright nights of Chitrakuta conducive to thoughts far removed from the grim ones of hatred, war and death that had governed his life until his translation into this elder world.

In Sheila Aiken he had found a woman who, after all these years of avowed misanthropy, had the power of arousing within him strange sensations. New sensations to Ramey Winters, perhaps, but sensations which any wise men could have told him were as old as humankind.

There was about her a something—a peace, a quietude, a gentleness—which filled a vital need in his makeup, which calmed and complemented the flamelike restlessness of his own nature. With propinquity came greater admiration for Sheila Aiken. And as the days and nights, especially the nights, threw them into ever increasingly intimate contact, admiration deepened into something Ramey thought, believed, feared he could name—but dared not.

Vainly he reminded himself that he was a fighting man, a soldier. That all this madness was a strange interlude out of which sooner or later he must return to take his ordained place in the world he had left. That he must neither pledge himself nor demand pledges of one whose world was so far removed from his own.

But these decisions were more easily made than kept. And if, strolling at her side in the moonlight, Ramey never actually swept Sheila into his arms as he wished and knew he could, if he never actually spoke the words that with increasing frequency trembled on his lips, perhaps it was not necessary after all. For Sheila Aiken, though she had spent her twenty years living with men in wild, mannish places, was still inherently a woman. And she understood these things, and gloried in them.

And the days and the nights were sweet, and Chitrakuta was an Eden. But even Eden had its serpent....

Rakshasi had almost slipped from Ramey's memory. A week or more had passed since he had met her in the council hall of Sugriva when late one night there came to him a Videlian warrior bearing the message that the Lady Rakshasi awaited him in her apartment. He was urged to come, pleaded the messenger. A matter of grave importance.

Wondering, Ramey followed the man through darkened corridors to that section of the imperial city which housed the Videlian visitors.

If it were business the Lady Rakshasi wished to discuss, the manner of her approach to the subject would have been a revelation to the financial tycoons of Ramey's day. For when he entered her apartment it was to find a small chamber, intimately draped, warmly scented with the breath of perfume, and exotically furnished with a tumbled pile of silks and furs upon which gracefully reclined the golden woman of Mars.

In that room, enticingly dark save for small wicks guttering in corner niches, the Lady Rakshasi was more than ever the sleek, slumbrous cat of the jungles. The dusty emerald of her eyes lighted with invitation as he entered. She purred a word of command and the servant vanished. She and Ramey were alone.

"My Lord is gracious," she whispered in her husky voice, "to answer thus the plea of his humble servant." She touched the soft pillows beside her invitingly. "Would my Lord tarry and rest?"

He was, an inner consciousness warned Ramey, playing with fire. But an instinct stronger than reason lowered him beside her. This woman had something! The Hollywood of the world he had left behind would call it "oomph." More strictly rhetorical admirers would call it charm, fascination, allure. But he would have been a poor man indeed who could go without learning what the Lady Rakshasi wanted.

"Yes, my Lady?" asked Ramey. "What would you of me?"

The Lady Rakshasi turned slowly on one elbow, studied him long and lazily before answering. When she spoke her tone was servile still, but there was a question in her voice, and the suspicion of a challenge in her curious, heavy-lidded eyes.

"I called thee, my Lord," she replied, "to warn thee of an evil rumor which has of late gathered boldness in the temples. Believe truly that thy servant means no ill, nor doubts thy glory. But there are those who whisper that thou and thy companions are not gods at all—but only men! Some strangely say, men of another day."

"But, of course—" began Ramey. Then stopped, remembering the necessary deceit by which Sugriva hoped to maintain peace in the colony. He finished lamely—"But of course they jest! Surely all saw us come from the heart of the holy image?"

Rakshasi smiled. "Aye, even so, my Lord. Thus told I them. But there be ever those who doubt. And they murmur that ofttimes the actions of thy companions are strangely ungodlike. They eat, they sleep like mortals. From place to place they transport themselves on foot rather than by instantaneous translation, as all men know is the way of gods. And many are the questions they ask, when all know the gods are omniscient."

It was not, Ramey had to concede ruefully, not just a chink in the armor. It was a gaping hole, big enough to drive a Mack truck through. He and his friends were touring around Chitrakuta like a bevy of wide-eyed schoolkids, and certainly putting on one hell of an unecclesiastical show!

"When the gods walk amongst men," he told her firmly, "they conduct themselves in the fashion of their worshippers. It is no man's right to question these things."

"Aye, my Lord!" This time Rakshasi's agreement was more swift. He had, Ramey thought, pulled a successful sandy. "So told I them, yea, and even my brother Ravana which lent an ear to their impious murmurings. These are in truth the gods, spake I, come to mete justice and right to their children. Still—" Here her voice took on a plaintive, querulous tone—"Still cannot we of Videlia understand why the gods should show favor to the blue lord of Gaanelia, when it is our people which have ever been their most ardent followers. All know that the blue ones of Gaanelia are a cynical, impious race. Theirs is a culture of agnostic science. Many, indeed, have declared there are no gods at all, but only primal causes—"

"Hold, my Lady!" interrupted Ramey. "The protector Sugriva is a good man—"

A note of passionate rebellion throbbed in the golden one's voice. "A good man, aye!" she cried witheringly. "In his feeble way! But they are a decadent, dying race, the Gaanelians! Where as we of Videlia—" A tenseness gripped her figure, and the shadowy amber of her breast rose and fell with her emotion—"are a great and growing race, young and strong. As the gods," she cried challengingly, "have much to offer men, so have their followers much to offer the gods! Allegiance and devotion, aye, and sacrifice!

"Speak you, Lord Ramey—were it not to the gods' own benefit that they should cast down these weaklings of Gaanelia, and raise to the heights those who are their own true believers?"

Her meaning was clear. Ramey stared at her with sudden sharp intentness, a warning bell chiming in his ears. Here was open proof of the faithlessness Sugriva had feared. A plea for divine approval of Videlian ambitions. It was a good thing he had come here tonight. He must nip this movement in the bud.

"The gods, my Lady Rakshasi," he said sternly, "desire naught but peace. They will neither sponsor nor permit the elevation of one race over another. All must live in amity."

The golden amazon's excitement died. Her voice lost its challenging note and became softer, throatier, more insinuating. She stirred nearer him, and the silk rustled languid invitation. The warmth of her body touched his own, hip and thigh, and the scent of her hair was a titillation to his nostrils.

"But, say, my Lord," she whispered, "do not even the gods look with favor upon those who please them?"

The warning bell was clamoring brassily now. It rose and fell with the pound of Ramey's pulse. His temples hammered, his lips were parched, and forgotten now were Sugriva and Dr. Aiken, Red, the O'Briens, all those who had accompanied him into this strange adventure.

Even the mist-blue eyes of Sheila Aiken were a far memory, colorless and without warmth.

He choked, "It is ... true ... that even a god might look with longing upon ... one like you, Lady Rakshasi."

And she was closer still, the warmth of her tempting-near, her sleek, golden body yielding to his own, her breath upon his lips.

"Thou and I, if I delight thee, my Lord," she whispered. "Together might we raise Videlia into the power and glory which is rightly its own. With thy mighty arm, and with the strong Bow of Rudra, we will sweep all others before us. Nor shall we stand alone. For, lo—there is even my brother Ravana, whose heart sickens with hunger for the goddess Sheilacita who is in thy train."

Now the warning bell, which had become a faint tolling whisper almost submerged beneath the waves that engulfed Ramey Winters, burst suddenly into full, reverberant cry! With one shrugging movement he had thrust the tawny temptress from him and was on his feet.

"What!" he cried. "Ravana—and Sheila? You mean he dares—" His brow flamed with a sudden, red rage; anger that was darker still with the realization of the trap into which he had almost let his senses betray him. "No, Rakshasi! That cannot be! Sheila belongs to me! No other man—"

Then he stopped. For the Lady Rakshasi, too, was on her feet, panting and furious. The dusty emerald of her eyes was now the cold, burning green of glacial ice. Even in her outrage, her quick mind grasped the implication of his words.

"No other man, my Lord? Then they were right! Thou are no god, but only a pretender! And Sugriva has lied. Well, he shall pay for his deceit. And you, too, poor mortal thing who prefers a pallid shadow to Rakshasi, you, too, shall regret this night. Go!"

She pointed a rage-trembling finger to the door. With a sick helplessness Ramey realized he had spoiled everything. To stay here now, to argue with this unreasoning amazon, would only make matters worse. He left.

In the late morning he woke from a tortured slumber to find Red Barrett leaning over him, shaking him. The brick-top was grinning mockingly.

"Boy, you sure were knocking 'em off. Know what time it is? Almost ten. Stir your stumps, keed; we got stuff and things to do today. Golly, your eyes look like a pair of frayed button-holes! If we was back in our own, honest-to-gosh time, I'd say you was out on a bender last night."

Ramey said drowsily, "Not a bad idea at that. When we do get back to our own time, which I hope will be soon, we'll have to give it a try, Red. A good one."

"Here's your pants," said Red. "Got good news this morning, anyhow. Know what happened during the night? That big, overgrown hunk of yellow nastiness and his gang pulled up stakes and scrammed out of here. I'm sure glad to see the last of him, ain't you? Though I got to admit that sister of his was a snappy looking—what's the matter, Ramey?"

Ramey, fully conscious now, was pawing anxiously through the tumbled silks and furs that were his bed. "Where is it?" he demanded. "Have you seen it?"

"Seen what?"

"The Bow!" rasped Ramey. "Rudra's weapon! It was here last night. Now I can't find it anywhere. And—" His eyes suddenly widened—"Ravana left Chitrakuta! Damnation! If he—Come on!"

With the now equally alarmed Red at his heels, Ramey dashed from the chamber. He hadn't far to go. He found the others—Dr. Aiken, both O'Briens, Sheng-ti, Sugriva—in the central court on which his room abutted. They were gathered in a tight knot; as one man they turned at his cry.

"Sugriva!" he called, "Order out the troops! There's trouble afoot. Red says Ravana left last night—and the Bow of Rudra is gone with him! Well, don't just stand there like that, staring at me! Do something!"

But it was Dr. Aiken who answered. There were white lines about the old man's lips that Ramey had never seen there before. His eyes were hard and worried. "The Bow!" he cried. "The Bow, too, Ramey? You hear that, Sugriva—?"

Despair seemed to settle like a black cloud over the Gaanelian's eyes; his shoulders sagged, and his voice was ominous. "I hear, indeed! And now is our plight truly perilous. For if they have the Bow, too—"

"What's this all about?" roared Ramey. "What do you mean, 'the Bow, too'? What else is missing?"

Syd O'Brien stared at him morbidly.

"We don't know how they did it, Ramey," he said, "or why. But when Ravana and his gang pulled out of here before dawn, they not only took with them the Bow of Rudra. They also—kidnapped Sheila!"

The two factions met on the causeway in furious combat.

CHAPTER XI

The Isle of Slaves

"Sheila!" cried Ramey Winters. "Sheila—kidnapped! But Ravana wouldn't dare! And why should he—?" He stopped suddenly, the full and terrible import of Syd's words dawning upon him. Again he seemed to hear the soft voice of the Lady Rakshasi purring in his ears. "'Thou and I, my Lord ... sweeping all others before us. Nor shall we stand alone. For, lo—there is even my brother Ravana, whose heart hungers after the goddess Sheilacita....'"

And Ramey saw, now, the full price he was paying for one careless slip of the tongue last night. So long as he and his companions were considered gods by the superstitious Videlians, none would have dared lay a hand on any of them. But he had dispelled that illusion, and the bold Ravana, aware at last that it was only men with whom he had to deal, had moved toward the accomplishment of his ambitions.

Ramey's fists knotted at his sides. He cried harshly, "Well, what are we waiting for? After them! Sugriva—surely you know which way they went?"

"Without a doubt," admitted the blue lord of Chitrakuta, "to Ravana's island stronghold of Lanka. And—Kohrisan was organizing a company to pursue them. But now he cannot."

"Cannot? Why not?"

"The Bow! Did you not say the Bow had been stolen?"

"Yes, but—"

"If Ravana turns it against us," declared the Gaanelian sombrely, "then are we all destroyed. And the plight of Sheila Aiken is an hundredfold worse."

"But the Bow ain't working," pointed out Red Barrett swiftly. "Ramey and me tried it out. Nothing happened."

Sugriva turned to the young airman eagerly. "Is this true, Ramey Winters?"

Ramey nodded. "I told you about it, my lord, remember? And you said it was just as well it wasn't operating. I pressed all the triggers, or grips, or whatever they are, but nothing happened. Nothing that Red and I could see, anyway. As a matter of fact, we couldn't even figure out what was supposed to happen."

Sugriva said, "You would have seen, my friend, had a charge fueled the Bow. I know not where you made this experiment, but believe me, had its chamber been munitioned, every living thing within range of the Bow's tremendous arc would have instantly withered and flamed in sudden death. Never in the world was there ever a more terrible weapon than that invented by my brother Rudra."

Red said, "You mean the Bow is a sort of a—a heatray, or something?"

"You might call it that," agreed the blue lord. "It might more accurately be termed a projector of cold heat."

"Cold heat?" snorted Lake O'Brien. "That's rhetorical jabberwocky! Sounds like 'dark light'!"

Dr. Aiken raised a thoughtful head. "Yes, Lake, but don't forget—there is such a thing as dark light. Rays that span distances invisible, and remain unseen until they touch the object upon which they are focussed. I can conceive of a cold heat which might be similar. A fierce, burning ray which does not expend its force until it touches the living object on which it has been aimed. Is this what you mean, Sugriva?"

The blue lord nodded. "Exactly, my friend. But not necessarily must the Bow be aimed at its target. Whatever it touches, that it consumes. Once—" His eyes clouded and he shook his head sorrowfully—"once, some decades ago when our colonies were first established, we were constrained to employ force against a camp of rebel Earthlings who seized and held one of our citadels. The destruction was—horrible. The entire fortress was seared clean of life. The very stones in the walls melted and ran together."

The maid Evavne spoke. "Yes, my lords, the governor Sugriva speaks truly. This happened even in my own land. There on a lifeless hill still stands the molten fortress, desolate and parched as if stricken by the lightnings."[8]

Ramey Winters was chafing with inactivity. Now he growled, "All right! But even granting the Bow is a frightful weapon, why should that stop us if it is not charged?"

"That is just the point," Sugriva told him. "It may be charged by now. There is no doubt but that the lord Ravana knows the manner of its fueling."

"Manner? You mean it requires some strange kind of ammunition?"

"Even so. That which must be fed into the operating chambers is a rare and obscure metal. I doubt that in all Chitrakuta there is sufficient of this precious element to charge the Bow a single time. But Ravana, having plotted this move for a long time, will have secretly stored fuel to gorge its lethal maw. We have no way of knowing, of course. But it would be suicidal to move against Ravana until we do know."

Red grunted, "Then we've got to find out, that's all! If he ain't got ammunition for the Bow, we've got to close in on him. If he has, somehow we got to get the Bow back. That right, Ramey?"

But it was not Ramey who answered. The reply sprang from an unexpected source. From the bonze, Sheng-ti, who now moved forward thoughtfully.

This was a different Sheng-ti from him who had eked out a squalid existence in the labyrinths of Angkor Vat. The elderly priest was clean, erect; eyes which had once veiled lurking mists of insanity now gleamed with shrewd reason.

"I am a man of peace, O my friends," he said. "Yea, even a priest of the very God of Peace. Yet much have I seen and learned in this strange world, much thought since my brain was swept clear of its fog by the lord Sugriva.

"And methinks the Way of Peace, which is the way of the lord Sugriva, now trembles under the blows of the Way of Darkness. Surely my Lord Buddha would advise that in a time like this a man must make a choice.

"So—mark ye! The Lord Ravana knows me not. I have been hid from his sight throughout the days of our stay here. My skin is yellow as that of the natives of these parts. Is there not some way in which I might gain entrance to Ravana's stronghold and there, perchance, regain the stolen weapon?"

Sugriva said slowly. "That might be possible. Yes ... it is possible...."

"Where is this Isle of Lanka?" demanded Ramey hotly.

"Not far from here. But a few hours' journey. It is a tiny island securely situated in the center of a great lake which lies to the south."

"Tonlé Sap!" cried Lake O'Brien with sudden comprehension. "That's the only great lake around these parts!" But Ramey was still pressing the ruler of Chitrakuta breathlessly.

"Your people are artists in many ways, my lord. Say, do they not also know the art of disguise? You have paints and pigments. Can you not darken my skin, make me seem like a wanderer from the Indies, and let me accompany Sheng-ti?"

Sugriva nodded. "Yes, it could be done, my son."

Dr. Aiken cried, "But, no, Ramey! We need you here with us. Let Sheng-ti go alone—"

"I got us into this mess," gritted Ramey, "and it's up to me to get us out again. There's no use talking, Doc, I've made up my mind. The rest of you stay here and plan a campaign against Lanka. Sheng-ti and I are going to get the Bow—and Sheila!"

Thus it was that before the sultry tropic sun hung high in the heavens, two seeming native coolies shuffled down the road that stretched beside the grey and greasy Siem-Reap to the lake called Tonlé Sap. Scuffed sandals shod their feet, loose hats of woven rush shadowed their faces, and the rudest of garments, tattered and begrimed, hung from their shoulders. Only, hot and heavy next to his skin, concealed by the folds of his coolie wrapper, Ramey Winters felt the reassuring bulk of an Army automatic; sole note, in this strange, forgotten world, of a civilization left behind—a civilization not yet born.

The scenery about him was not unfamiliar. The slow years work few changes in areca and coconut. Great, writhing diptocarpus trees flung air-roots ten feet in diameter across laboring branches; the sluggish river swelled into stagnant pools aflame with hyacinth and lily; from the all-engulfing jungle whispered the furtive sounds of hotland life. Once a mild, incurious water buffalo rose, snorting, from its muddy wallow to watch their passage; once a gaunt crane rose before them, lifting awkwardly on wings that flailed the sodden air as if too weak to bear their burden.

The scenery was not unfamiliar—save in one respect. The road on which they walked. It was not the typical baked-clay road of the Cambodia Ramey Winters had known. It was a broad and well-paved highway, sturdy enough to bear even the transport of a highly mechanized era. Treading its solid surface, Ramey marveled aloud, as oft before, that such a civilization should have been lost to man's very memory in the mists of time.

"I can't understand, Sheng-ti, what can have brought this great Gaanelian culture to an end. These roads ... those mighty temples at Chitrakuta ... the city itself! Why, it is a city of millions!"

The aged bonze said quietly. "The jungle is life-in-death, my friend. It is the mother who destroys her young."

"I know, but—"

"Let Man desert his cities for a decade," said Sheng-ti sombrely, "and the jungles will reclaim her own. The hardy grass will shatter these roads, impervious to wheel and boot. The tendril will bruise the rock, the soft shoot bring ruin to walls which withstand the battering-ram. Thus ever Nature reclaims such little space as Man borrows for his brief moment."

Ramey said, "I guess you're right. It doesn't take long either, does it? Even in our young country, the United States, we have ghost-towns. Abandoned cities, now overgrown with weeds, already crumbling into decay." And then, because his soldier instincts always lay closer to the front of his mind than any other, his thoughts returned to the main problem confronting them. "What I can't see is just what we're going to do about Ravana, anyway. If that bodyguard is any sample of his army, he has a tough force to overcome. Giants, every one of them. And Sugriva's 'militia' is nothing but a few, scantily-armed companies of trained apes!"

The Buddhist priest glanced at him searchingly. "I should not dismiss them so lightly, Ramey Winters."

"But that's all they are! Monkeys masquerading as men. Talking baboons, dressed in mens' clothing—"

His companion made a swift, indecipherable gesture. It might have been one of annoyance; it might have held some unknown religious symbolism. His voice was sharp, reproving.

"You know not whereof you speak, child of a younger culture! Hark ye! We of China are old; much lore had we forgotten before your white-skinned forebears built their first hopeful empire. In our ancient annals are tales ... legends of those jungle-bred warriors you call 'ape-men.' And great is the honor our elders paid to them. The Chu-King tells of a day when their prowess saved all earth for mankind—"

"Maybe so," said Ramey dubiously, "but they don't look much like fighters to me. Their captain—what's his name?—Kohrisan; a posing little jackanapes if I ever saw one."

"And what is Man himself," asked Sheng-ti, "but an ape bereft of his tail? No, Ramey Winters, you have not read aright the character of Kohrisan. I have talked with him. I know that beneath that hairy breast, beneath those over-gaudy habiliments, there beats a heart as warmly human as mine—or yours. It was a great thing the governor Sugriva did when he created out of the beasts of the jungle these new men."

It was Ramey's turn to stare. This was something he had not known before. A marvel it had not occurred to him to question.

"Created! Sugriva created—?"

"But, yes; did you not know? Sugriva is a wise man. He realized that the difference between man and the lower ape is slight. And he is a brilliant technician in matters pertaining to the brain. Kohrisan and the troops he leads are jungle creatures educated by Sugriva, given human thought and a knowledge of human tongues by the vilyishna.[9] The governor Sugriva's dream brought to fruition ... a proud, new race of intelligent beings hand-forged from Nature's rawest materials. A race of new men."

"New men!" repeated Ramey. "A race of new men!"

"Yes. But, now—" They had rounded a curve in the road; Sheng-ti's voice assumed a note of warning—"Quiet, my son! For we have come to the ferry-port!"

And Ramey saw that the sluggish stream beside which they walked had now widened, disgorging into a gigantic body of water. Its name he knew. It was the Tonlé Sap, the Great Lake of Indo-China. A tremendous expanse of brazen blue, 70 miles long and fifteen wide. And in its center, secure as if surrounded by barrier walls of steel, nestled a mist-veiled island which Ramey knew must be the stronghold of the Martian lord, Ravana. The citadel isle of Lanka.

But scant was the attention he could give this place now. For there was great activity before them. On the shore of the lake, but a few hundred yards distant, were numberless quais and wharves. These landing-docks were aswarm with the warriors of Ravana—and others! Small, frightened Annamese, bewildered little yellow men huddled together in tiny groups—no, not merely huddled! Chained! Chained in long queues, saw Ramey, and being herded into an endless stream of ferries shuttling back and forth across the lake!

He turned to Sheng-ti. "Sugriva was right! Ravana is enslaving the natives! These men do not want to be taken to Lanka. They're being forced there!"

"Quiet!" warned Sheng-ti. A frown creased his forehead; he moved as if to draw Ramey back with him into the shadow of overhanging brush. "This ruins our plan, Ramey Winters. We dare go to Lanka as freemen, but not as slaves—"

His warning, his change of heart, came too late. For interrupting him there came a loud cry from one of the Videlian soldiers. "Over there! Two more of them!" And before the pair could move a step, they were surrounded and seized by giant sons of the desert planet.

CHAPTER XII

An Enemy's Life

It mattered little to Ramey Winters that the smallest of the followers of Ravana towered a good head and shoulders above himself. Given a moment's time to prepare for trouble, an opportunity to set himself, he would have gladly matched his wits and strength against that of his captors. If brute power alone were to be considered, neither he nor any Earthman could stand against the giant Videlians. But he had in his belt a Twentieth Century weapon that was, indeed, as the gangsters of Ramey's era had termed it, an "equalizer"....

But he did not draw his automatic. The attack was too sudden and too unexpected ... and by the time he felt hard Videlian hands upon him he did not need the mutely warning glance of Sheng-ti to remind him that this was one time the adage about discretion being the better part of valor well applied.

Meekly he permitted himself to be hauled forward to the quai-side, where waited one apparently captain of those who were shipping the new slaves to Lanka. This one scowled as he eyed the new captives.

"Well," he roared in a voice of thunder, "and how did you two get away?"

It was Sheng-ti who answered, smoothly, calmly, ingratiatingly. "We did not 'get away,' my Lord. We have but just arrived. My friend and I are voyagers from distant Penang, come to seek employment in the establishment of the mighty Lord Ravana, whose fame has reached our ears."

"Employment!" The overseer stared at him blankly for a second. Then his laughter burst in a great guffaw. "You'll find employment, all right! Thalakka—chain these fools with the others!"

The one to whom he spoke, himself an officer of rank to judge by his trappings, said, "Chain them, Seshana?"

"Those were my orders."

"Forgive me, sir, but—do you think that is necessary in this case? These men are not captive slave, being taken to Lanka against their will. They came here of their own volition ... freely offered their services." Then, hastily, as his superior's brow darkened: "I am returning to the island on the next boat myself, sir. If you wish, I shall see that they are transported thither and turned over to whomever judges such cases."

Seshana said mockingly, "I had not dreamed there was such tenderness within your bosom, Captain Thalakka. Be careful your noble sentiments do not someday send you to languish in the dungeons with that chicken-hearted fool, Vibhishana. But—" He shrugged—"I suppose there's no harm in it. Very well, then. Take them away!"

And he went back to his work with lash and cry as the friendly Videlian led Ramey and Sheng-ti to a boat just preparing to pull out from the wharf. A boatswain cried the command, a dozen oars spidered the surface of the blue water, and the great, awkward transport ferry set forth across the lake. Thus, free men still, but under sufferance only, Ramey and his friend embarked for the island fortress of Ravana.

It was on the journey across the lagoon that Ramey realized for the first time just how great was the problem of defeating the lord Ravana.

His island citadel lay a good four miles from the shore. Four miles which, in an era that knew no motorboats, no sea-sleds, must necessarily be laboriously traversed in open skiffs propelled by man-power. Even had Ravana not the ammunition wherewith to charge the Bow of Rudra, his archers would find the occupants of invading craft easy prey. And if he had, by now, charged the Bow—

In any event, invasion seemed a complete impossibility. For even should a score, a hundred boatloads of fighters gain the shores of Lanka, the problem still confronted them of gaining entrance to the fortress itself. And as the boat in which they were passengers drew nearer, Ramey saw the high, gray walls of the citadel, the buttressed stanchions lined with watchful warriors, the mighty gates and ramparts, and he knew that never in this world could the ape-soldiers of Sugriva successfully storm this salient.

The single hope remained that he and Sheng-ti could somehow get back the Bow from Ravana. Then battle might not be necessary. Before the threat of its use, the giant leader would be forced to capitulate.

As Ramey pondered thus, Sheng-ti was skillfully prodding the friendly Videlian captain for information that might be of some value. Admiringly he commented on the greatness of the fort toward which they oared. The Martian was pleased.

"It is the mightiest fortress on this strange planet," he boasted pridefully. "Oh, not so strong, perhaps as some on our lovely Videlia. But strong enough to withstand the attack of any enemy here. Moreover—" He leaned forward confidentially—"Our lord Ravana has just returned from Chitrakuta with a new and mighty weapon which assures our lasting invulnerability. A magic bow with the power to destroy anything which offends its archer!"

Ramey struggled to mask the eagerness in his eyes, drew an expression of incredulity to his lips.

"A magic bow?" he repeated. "How—how know you it is magic? Have you seen it shoot?"

"No-o-o," answered the garrulous Videlian reluctantly. "Not as yet. Our Lord has not seen fit to demonstrate its powers yet. There are certain spells he must cast upon it yet, I understand. But we know its power. Our spies have long time told us—"

Ramey heaved an inward sigh of relief. Then so far the Martian overlord had not yet found the time, or the ammunition to feed the Bow's lethal chamber. But his moment of relief passed as the Videlian continued.

"Not only that, but we have won to our cause even the very gods of this planet! Know you who returned this morn to Lanka with the lord Ravana? An Earth goddess!"

"Sheila!" cried Ramey.

But fortunately the Videlian misinterpreted his cry. He smiled serenely. "Ah, then she is a goddess of your race?"

Ramey said slowly, "She is ... of my race ... yes. And where is this goddess now?"

Captain Thalakka smiled slyly. "Where else but in the apartment next to that of Lord Ravana? They say she and our Lord are to be wed. You hear that, Earthmen? That will convince you that we of Videlia are a superior race, will it not? When your very gods mate with our people?"

It was well he expected no answer, and well he was not looking at Ramey as he spoke. For the young airman's eyes were ablaze with anger, his fists had knotted; he looked very little, at this moment, like the humble laborer he pretended to be. But the trip was almost finished, now, and the boat was drawing awkwardly into a slip before the citadel of Lanka. Wharf, dock and landing-place were aswarm with bustling figures. Slaves disgorged from their vessels now being driven to their quarters, oarsmen readying for a return trip to the mainland, warriors watching the excitement with amused interest ... even courtiers looking down from an overhanging balcony on the busy scene below. Captain Thalakka called an order to the boatswain, the craft wheeled slowly, stirred into its slip.

And as it did so, another boat, sliding from an adjacent dock, swung with the stream and began to edge lazily toward their own. In an instant, Ramey saw the danger of collision. He cried, "Look out, there! Hard a-port—!"

His cry came too late. The second craft nudged into them; not violently, but with turgid insistence. The oarsmen were caught off balance; there came the snap! of splintering wood as oars shattered like matchsticks, a cry of pain as one rower was rammed brutally into the thwarts. Then another cry ... a shrill scream of terror....

Ramey whirled just in time to see Captain Thalakka, who had risen in his place, hurtle out of the boat. Asprawl he hit the water, kicking, flailing frantically.

Ramey's first impulse was to laugh. Captain Thalakka was far from an imposing figure now. Dripping like a rain-drenched rat, he came up spluttering. And then—

Went down again! With a bubbling cry of fear!

The laughter died on Ramey's lips as, glancing about him swiftly, he saw that not a companion of Thalakka's had moved a muscle to help their brother-at-arms! Instead, their faces were as pallid as that of the struggling man ... and every one of them seemed to shrink from doing anything to help.

It took but a word from Sheng-ti to clarify the situation. The single word, "Drowning! He's drowning, Ramey!"

And suddenly Ramey realized that, incredible as it sounded to an Earthman, this was the absolute truth! Thalakka was a Martian, born of a race whose planet had long been well-nigh waterless, a race whose sluggish canals barely supplied sustenance to the few, hardy plants that sucked their moisture. And the Videlians did not know how to swim! Even in a situation like this, where an Earth child could have paddled his way to safety in the twinkling of an eye, Captain Thalakka's life was in deadly peril!

To think, with Ramey Winters, was to act. It barely mattered that Thalakka was of another race, aye, even of another world. In a flash, the young Earthman was on his feet; then, with a splash, he was diving after the submerged body of the Martian.

His hands, groping for a hold, found Thalakka at the same moment the Videlian's frantic clutch found him. Desperate arms wrapped around his neck, engulfing, swaddling him, choking the breath from his lungs. The Martian's weight was like a leaden anchor, dragging him to the bottom. But there came to Ramey memory of lifesaving drill learned in a college. Instinctively his hands did the proper thing.

Right hand so—on Thalakka's left elbow. Left hand thus, on the Martian's right wrist. A twist ... a shrug ... and he was behind the Martian, treading water, holding the other man's right arm in a straining hammerlock, gulping in great life-giving draughts of air.

After that, his task was simple. With the Martian's face cupped in his left hand, he kicked out strongly for the boat. Sheng-ti was at the boat-side to grip his burden, lift him over the thwarts. And seconds later, rescued and rescuer were being put safely ashore, ears dinning under the cascading roars of an excited group of on-lookers.

Then it was that Captain Thalakka turned to Winters, held forth his hand in a gesture that meant one thing on any world.

"I thank you, man of Earth," he said gratefully. "I owe my life to you. And Thalakka, Captain of the Torthian Guard, will not forget."

"That's all right, chum," grinned Ramey. "A little swim goes good on a hot day like this. But I'd take a few lessons in the Australian crawl, if I were you."

He reached up to brush his dripping hair from his forehead. And as he did so, on his fingers he saw that which brought a sudden spasm of fear to his heart. For the fingers which had brushed his forehead were—yellow-brown! The dye! The dye with which he had been painted had streaked and run!

Even as the knowledge struck him, came corroboration in a cry from the overhanging balcony above his head. A call in tones that Ramey Winters recognized all too well, the vibrant, bell-like voice of the Lady Rakshasi.

"Warriors! Seize that man! Seize him and guard him well! He is a spy from the camp of our enemy, Sugriva!"

CHAPTER XIII

Vibhishana

After that, the tide of events welled almost too fast for Ramey's comprehension, certainly too fast for his peace of mind. Again—as on the opposite shore, but this time grimly, tightly—he found himself imprisoned by the powerful arms of Videlian soldiers. He was aware of tossing a mute, apologetic glance in Sheng-ti's direction, and of seeing the old Buddhist bow his head, hearing the bonze mutter, "It is the Will of Him Who watches. You could not have done otherwise, my son."

Then the Lady Rakshasi herself, a great, golden panther with eyes glinting triumphantly, was before him.

"We meet again—so soon, my Lord Ramaíya?" she asked mockingly. Then to the soldiers, "Take him to my brother!"

Ravana sat in his council hall, imperiously enthroned on a dais ornamented, Ramey could not help but think dazedly, with all the wealth of the Indies. The Gaanelian lord Sugriva held court in a chamber rich and luxurious, too, but never had its pomp and circumstance compared with such ostentation as this. The richness of Sugriva's throne-room was that of painstaking artistry, hand-wrought by craftsmen whose hearts were in their work, whose hands loved the tools with which they labored. But Ravana's throne-room was one vast blaze of opulence! Rarest gems from the far-flung corners of the globe ... tapestries that seem to flow with restless life ... teakwood and burnished ebony ... sandalwood, mother-of-pearl encrusted ... ivory from tushes so huge one could scarcely conceive the size of the beast which had borne them.

No single man, Ramey Winters knew with swift positiveness, could have gathered together such a display save at the cost of other men's blood! Each gem that lent its hue to the array seemed to cry a horrid tale of death and sorrow; even the fragrance of rare scents wafting through the room seemed coarsened by an underlying reek of blood and death. Thus the great hall in which the Lord Ravana held court.

The Videlian overlord was toying with an oddly shaped instrument as the captives were brought into his presence. A metal arch about three feet long, supported by a cross-brace upon which was mounted a sealed cylinder, also of metal. He laid this aside as Ramey and Sheng-ti were prodded before him, but not so swiftly that Ramey could not recognize it. It was the Bow—the Bow of Rudra! And—Ramey's spirits lifted—the very fact that Ravana toyed with it, studying it curiously, was evidence that so far it had not been charged.

For a fleeting instant the Videlian's eyes shadowed with fear as he identified the pair thrust before him. Then his eyes lighted with an expression of unpleasant amusement.

He said mockingly, "And what have we here? It is a swill-drenched alley-cat—No! By my faith, 'tis a man-god! The one who called himself the Lord Ramaíya!" He touched his forehead in a sign of taunting obeisance. "Welcome, my Lord! We had not expected to greet thee so soon in our humble palace."

Poker, thought Ramey suddenly. The good old Yankee game of bluff. There was a bare possibility—

He took a step forward, his head proud, eyes coldly judicial.

"We have come, Lord Ravana," he declared boldly, "to reclaim our Bow. Now I offer you a last and fair opportunity. Return it and the goddess Sheilacita, and we will leave without exacting vengeance for your impiety."

It was a sandy ... a four-flush sandy with the wrong colored card in the hole ... but it almost worked. The overlord of Lanka stopped smiling; his eyes darted troubledly toward his sister. But the Lady Rakshasi merely laughed, her voice a golden throbbing in the golden room.

"If my Lord Ramaíya be indeed a god," she challenged, "let him prove his omnipotence! Let the Bow return itself to his hand of its accord. Nay, brother. Methinks there be little godlike in this paint-smeared, skulking spy, nor even in his cringing goddess love."

She almost spat the last words. Hearing the spiteful note in her voice, Ramey realized that hell, indeed, has no fury like a woman scorned. The Lady Rakshasi was exacting her vengeance, now, for the moment of ignominy she had experienced when Ramey had rejected her caresses for the gentler love of Sheila Aiken. But he said nothing. There was nothing to say. Ravana, his confidence restored, leaned forward arrogantly.

"And how came these would-be gods hither?"

It was Captain Thalakka who answered. Plainly he did not understand a tithe of what was going on. He said, "They approached our ferry-port on the mainland shore, my Lord, and said they were wayfarers from distant Penang, come to seek employment in thy service. The—" He nodded toward Ramey uncertainly—"the white-skinned one saved thy servant's life."

"So?" Ravana chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound to hear. "We wonder if he can so easily save his own? Well, Earthman—have you anything to say?"

"One thing," said Ramey. "Have a care, Lord Ravana, lest your lust for power destroy you. The Lord Sugriva knows your plans, and he will not stand idly by to watch their accomplishment."

"Thinks he not? And how, pray, does he plan to stay them? You forget, Lord Ramaíya, that I have now the Weapon. The Bow of Rudra, which burns and destroys."

"You hold its empty shell," stated Ramey assuredly. "The gods alone can waken it to power."

"Then," chuckled Ravana, "must I be one of the gods. For already my captains are gathering the ammunition to feed its chamber. Within the space of days, the Bow will carry a full belly. And when that moment comes—then let the Gaanelian weakling, Sugriva, approach Lanka—if he dares!" Ravana nodded to Captain Thalakka. "Very well, Captain. Take these swine away—"

"A moment!" cried Ramey. "Ravana—the Lady Sheilacita! Where is she?"

Again the Videlian laughed. This time there was a note of pleased anticipation in his voice. "Concern yourself not about the woman, my Lord Ramaíya," he gibed. "She awaits my pleasure. Nor shall I keep her waiting long. As soon as these slight matters of state have been cleared up, the Lady Sheilacita will receive the great honor of becoming one of my mates. It is only right and proper, is it not, that the Videlian colony on your earth should some day be peopled with a race born half of earthling blood? You see—" he chuckled coarsely—"I have higher aspirations for the future of your world than has the Lord Sugriva, who would raise to mock manhood the hairy apes of the jungle. Careful, earthman! Dare not my wrath!" His warning halted Ramey's impulsive forward movement. Ravana motioned again to the waiting captain. "I weary of my guests, Captain Thalakka. Take them away. Place them in the dungeons to await my later decision."

He lolled back in his throne, signifying the audience at an end. Captain Thalakka gestured his captives toward the door. As they left the room, there floated high and clear above the nervous hubbub of palace movement, the mocking, bell-like laughter of the Lady Rakshasi....

Ramey had guessed, from its exterior, that the citadel on Lanka was a tremendous place. He had not been able to appraise its full enormity from the outside, though. That he realized as Captain Thalakka led him and the silent Sheng-ti through corridor after lofting corridor, past mighty chambers and halls; down, down and ever down into the entrails of the citadel, into the dungeons festering below.

Ever, as they pressed onward and downward, Ramey had an eye peeled for the likely spot, the strategic moment, that might offer escape. But he found none. Lanka was more than a palace, more than mere bulwarked ramparts of stone. It was an armed camp, seething with a seemingly endless host of Videlian giants, its population swelled to thousands by slaves impressed from the children of earth.

So he resigned himself, as he had once before, to a principle of "watchful waiting." Incarceration was not to be his ultimate fate. The Lord Ravana had made that point clear and emphatic. So however deep he might burrow beneath Lanka now, there would come a time when he would again see day. If he waited, laid his plans for that time....

Curiously enough, it was Captain Thalakka who waxed gloomiest as the trio descended interminable stairs into the black depths of Lanka. The tall, golden-skinned warrior fumed with brooding restlessness, a torment that finally would not be restrained. He turned to Ramey, his eyes haggard.

"Now, Lord Ramaíya," he cried angrily, "am I, Thalakka, Captain of the Torthian Guard, a shamed and sorrowed man! It is iron to my soul that I, who owe you my life, should be the one to lead you to a foul and certain doom!"

Ramey said quietly, "You're just doing your duty, my captain. I don't hold this against you. But—thanks. It's nice to know that all Videlians are not brutes."

"Then I hold it against myself!" groaned the Martian soldier. "As for we of Videlia—" There was a note of bitter savagery in his voice—"Do not judge us all by him who has seized the throne of Lanka. Many of us there are who rue the day he usurped the rulership of this colony, hurling into the dungeons his own brother. Aye, many there are who would gladly live in peace with you earthmen. Had we but the courage and strength to do so—"

Ramey glanced at him swiftly, appraisingly. "Go on, Thalakka!" he encouraged. "What do you mean?"

But the Videlian's jaw had set, as if he feared that already he had said too much. His eyes darted about the gray corridors anxiously, and he whispered, "Speak softly, man of earth. These very walls have wagging tongues. But, hark ye! In the foul pits we now approach you will find another. One named Vibhishana, blood-brother of the Lord Ravana. Gain him to your cause and—who knows what may transpire?

"For you, even though you are my friend and the one to whom I owe my life, I can do little. But were Lord Vibhishana your pledged ally, much might be done on your behalf."

"You mean—?"

"I mean," continued the Videlian hurriedly, "that at the middle watch this night I will come to the dungeon gates. If that third one whose name I have already told is with you, I can pledge that there will be guards in the corridors who will turn a blind eye to your passage. And now—" His tone changed abruptly, became harsh, commanding—"Cease thy noisy bleating, serfs! Thank your stupid earth gods thy lives have been spared—Ah! warder, open your doors and rid me of these earthling scum!"

They had stopped, at last, before a huge bronze door at what must be, thought Ramey, judging from the clammy dampness moisturing the walls, the stale and foetid air, the very bottom of the fortress. And at Captain Thalakka's call, came shuffling to them a gnarled, coarse figure bearing on a great ring the key to the donjon-keep. He squinted at the captives suspiciously.

"Scum indeed, Captain Thalakka! Why sent our leader these earth dogs hither?"

"For safekeeping," answered Thalakka, "until he finds time to decide their fate."

The warder grinned evilly. "Then I shall not have to bother with them long," he hazarded. "Our Lord Ravana is not one to delay his decisions. Well, filth—in with you!" His key grated in the lock; with a scraggly hand he thrust Sheng-ti and Ramey through the portal. "And mind you disturb me not, or I'll come a-visiting with the lash!"

Again he turned the clef, securing the doorway after them. Then, still chuckling, he shuffled away. But Thalakka pressed his lips once to the grill before he, too, disappeared. And the words he whispered were, "Courage! Tonight!"

Being thrust into these dungeons, Ramey discovered, was unlike being imprisoned in the cell-block of a modern—a 20th Century—jail. Here were no neat, ordered individual cells, no runways with pacing guards, no blazing lights, no clean, steel avenues astringent with the odor of disinfectant. When the gate clanged shut behind him, darkness surged in to engulf him in a maw of ebon velvet; his feet slipped on damp masonry, and for a moment a sense of panic fear, instinctive, unreasoning, gripped him.

In that moment he was glad of the presence of Sheng-ti. For nothing could disturb the smooth complaisance of the aged bonze. His hand, upholding Ramey, was warm and serene, his voice reassuring.

"Peace, my son! We are at least alone, and in solitude is strength."

Ramey grinned at him, an invisible grin to an invisible companion. "Thanks, old man," he said. "I guess it's the dark. I went into a tail-spin for a second."

"It is written," said Sheng-ti, "that darkness is naught but the shadow of the gods. Yet, behold! Even now it is not dark. See—in the distance?"

Now that his eyes had accustomed themselves to gloom Ramey saw that, indeed, there was a faint smudge of light before him. By it he recognized that they stood at the threshold of but one of a numberless series of connected chambers; high, vaulted caverns, sturdywalled and windowless, supported by massive columns which might have been hewn from solid rock. Now, completely in possession of himself again, it was Ramey who took the initiative. He gripped his friend's arm, propelling him forward.

"Where there is light," he said, "there must be men. These dungeons are not tenantless. Come on!"

And together they picked their way, on feet rapidly growing more sure, toward the faraway smudge.

As they drew nearer its source, they discovered that the illumination came from guttering candles, and from small bonfires over which, like so many wraiths huddling from the frightful chill of Limbo, hunkered the figures of other prisoners. Many were these, and of all races. Earthmen and Videlians alike were the exiles of this abandoned gaol. They did not mingle together, but in little clans: groups similar in color or in creed, in physiognomy or faith. Although they shared an identical fate, it was evident by the angry glances which passed between one group and another, by the bickering of individual leaders, that there was strife and distrust between these companies.

An example of this smouldering hatred showed itself as Ramey and Sheng-ti considered which of the groups it were best they should approach.

The apparent leader of one tiny clan, a tall, strong-thewed earthman whose race Ramey would have identified tentatively as Coptic, had been muttering to himself audibly. Now he rose to his full height, swift decision seeming to fan to a blaze the long-contained flame within him.

"Like dogs! Like mangy dogs filthy with vermin they cage us in this stinking hole! And do we rebel? Nay! Like whipped curs we bow before the cursed Videlians—when even our food and drink must be shared with the castoffs of their race!"

He glowered across the room to another fire, gathered about which was a tiny knot of Videlians. An elderly man looked to be leader of these, for as the Coptic chieftain let loose his blast, one of the Martian prisoners stirred, would have risen to reply had not the older man stayed him.

Fellow of the Copt's clan muttered hoarse approval of his words; from other groups came rumblings of encouragement. But one prisoner—an Erse, Ramey guessed, or perhaps a Cym—laughed sardonically.

"And what would you do about it, Tauthus of Cush?"

The mighty one's eyes glinted in the firelight like shards of flint. "I would talk less," he bellowed in reply, "and act more! I would regain a vestige of my lost manhood, beginning by wreaking vengeance on those who are of the race of our oppressors. Like this!"

And like a cat leaping, so swiftly that none could move to deter him, he rushed from his own fire to that where gathered the Videlians. With one blow he felled a startled Martian youth jumping up to meet him. Then, gripping the old man in strong hands, he yanked him to his feet. Light shone on a scrap of metal in his hands, a rude knife painstakingly wrought from a forgotten file.

"Thus," he roared, "to all Videlians!" The raw blade descended....

But if all others stood too stunned to move, not so Ramey Winters. A fighting-man himself, he had recognized instantly that there was no-acting in the defi of Tauthus of Cush. The Copt was in deadly earnest. And even as his arm upraised, Ramey thrust forward boldly into the chamber. His voice ringing unexpectedly loud in the echoing vaults, had the explosive vigor of lightning.

"Hold!" he cried. "Strike not, son of Earth!"

As a moment frozen in imperishable pigments, everything stopped! The cry of blood-lusting voices dwindled into shocked silence ... the upraised arm fell not ... the straining figures locked in fantastic poses as if carven so. Then with infinite slowness the head of Tauthus turned. His eyes sought and found his accoster, narrowed menacingly.

"And who are you," he rumbled, "to give commands?"

There was still an automatic beneath Ramey's girdle, a weapon which the Videlians, unsuspecting of its nature, had not taken from him. But he made no move to use it. Instead, he stepped forward still farther that the light might shine upon his features. His face was grave and anxious, his tone beseeching.

"An earthman like yourself, Tauthus of Cush. And a prisoner. But one who realizes that in wanton destruction of each other does not lie the way of our salvation."

"The Videlians," said Tauthus grimly, "are our captors and our foes. This aged stick is a Videlian—"

"—and a prisoner," argued Ramey desperately, "like ourselves. Is that not proof enough he is no ally of the Lord Ravana? Evidence that his foe is our foe? If you kill this man, you do a service to the lord we hate. Can you not hear the laughter of Ravana at learning his prisoners fight amongst themselves, destroy each other?"

And—the battle of words was won! Tauthus of Cush dropped his blade into his belt, released his captive sheepishly and moved away. A man of spirit he was, but he was a man of logic, too. He said thoughtfully, "There is wisdom in what you say, stranger. But, mind you—" And he glared at those who were now circling about them curiously—"let none think cowardice stayed the wrath of Tauthus, or that fellow's guts shall feed the rats!"

"None shall think that, Tauthus," Ramey assured him. "If I read not the future wrongly, the time comes, and it not far removed, when each and every man in this dungeon shall be given the chance to prove his valor."

An eager light flashed in the other man's eyes. He said hoarsely, "What mean you, newcomer?"

"I shall tell you. But first—how many prisoners dwell in these caverns?"

Tauthus shrugged.

"Who knows? Three score, perhaps? Maybe more?"

"Can you gather their group leaders, their captains, for a council?"

The Coptic chieftain nodded. "That I can, and will." To decide, with Tauthus of Cush, was to act. He wheeled away abruptly, began shouting orders. "You ... and you ... and you! Haste into the farthest reaches of the dungeon. Gather here all who dare die that they might live again. Hurry—"

Now the white-haired Videlian, who had stood quietly at Ramey's side throughout this interlude, turned to his protector.

"Man of Earth," he said gravely, "I thank you. Not for myself, because my life is of little importance. But for having quelled an act which might have destroyed us all. Can I repay you in any way? What can I do to help this plan you have?"

"Nothing just now, thanks," said Ramey. "Later, perhaps—Wait a minute! You can help me. Point out which of the Videlians is known as Vibhishana."

The old man smiled sadly.

"That will not be hard, my friend," he said. "For I am—or once was—the Lord Vibhishana."

CHAPTER XIV

Escape

Ramey stared at the claimant incredulously. Surely this man could not be the brother of Lord Ravana! Father or uncle, perhaps. But—

Then, peering more closely at the older man he realized it was not so much age that had whitened Vibhishana's hair, bowed his shoulders, creased and lined his cheeks, as it was privation. Privation, worry and sorrow. And studying the Martian he now could trace a family resemblance. Vibhishana had a nose as aquiline and proud as that of the arrogant Ravana, lips full and delicately-turned as those tempting ones of the Lady Rakshasi. He differed from his younger brother and sister in that his eyes were warm and friendly, where theirs were intense as a wind-swept flame, his manner was gentle and self-effacing, where theirs was haughty. Said Ramey:

"It is so! Yes, I see it now. You are Vibhishana."

"Once Regent," said the older man sorrowfully, "of Videlia's colony on Earth. Now a prisoner in the citadel I once dreamed would be a refuge and gathering-place for every race that treads this planet. Aye, it is a sad end to which my dreams have come, stranger. But who are you? Whence came you here, and why?"

Ramey told him then, briefly, that which had gone before. Vibhishana listened eagerly and—what was more surprising—comprehendingly. Not even was he amazed when Ramey told of the time-machine. He but nodded.

"Ah, yes! That would be the invention of the Gaanelian lord, Rudra. He was a brilliant one. He invented also a Bow. A frightful weapon. Had it been mine, never would Ravana have dared rise against me. Where is the Bow now? Does not Sugriva have it?"

"It is here," Ramey told him grimly, "at Lanka. So far it has done Ravana no good, because it isn't charged for operation. But he has sent his men out to find the precious element which operates it. If he gets the ammunition before we can invade Lanka, I'm afraid the fight will be over. What is this ammunition, anyway?" It was a question that had long puzzled Ramey. "Some rare type of explosive?"

"A metal," explained Vibhishana. "What your tongue would call it, I do not know. We know it as the element banaratha. A metal more rare than perfect gold; yea, even rarer than the dull platinum of Earth's frigid poles. You are indeed undone, Ramey Winters, if my brother has located enough of it to fuel the Bow of Rudra." He shook his head sadly. "It is a shame he brings down upon the fair name of Videlia, my power-greedy brother. Whether he win or lose, for ages to come shall the name of my home planet be associated with the thoughts of war, death and conquest."

He spoke, thought Ramey with a strange tingling in his spine, more truly than he knew. And a dim wonderment grew in Ramey that he, a Twentieth Century man, should listen to a prediction made centuries before his birth, and recognize that prophecy to have been fulfilled. For in the world from which Ramey had come, the name of Vibhishana's homeland, Mars, was invariably, inevitably, associated with thoughts of war, death and conquest. And this for no reason known to the memory of living man....

But he said, "Then you shared not Ravana's desire?"

"Shared it!" Vibhishana's voice deepened angrily. "You dare accuse me—I am sorry, Ramey Winters. You did not mean to offend, I know. But believe me, never for an instant did I, when I ruled Lanka, harbor any lust for dominion over your people. With the Gaanelian lord I cherished the dream that we of the more advanced cultures might help improve your planet, make it a finer world for your people. All I asked of earthmen was their allegiance, small territorial rights on which to base a sound commerce and a solid economy between our two homelands.

"Perhaps—" he continued almost wistfully—"even more than Sugriva I cherished this hope. For his race, the blue ones of Gaanelia, are after all of a different stock. We of Videlia, and you of Earth, are of the same seed. Behold your companion, Ramey Winters. Can you deny that from the same source sprang the root which was to nourish us both?"

There was, indeed, a great similarity between Sheng-ti and Vibhishana. Both were tall, both almost beardless by nature, both ochre-skinned. And the "Mongolian fold," that small, peculiarly creased fold of flesh which lends obliquity to the typical Oriental eye, was common to both men.

Ramey said, perplexed, "But—but that would indicate that ages before this your world must have had intercourse with ours. Yet Sugriva said his planet was the first to develop space-travel—"