KROTOX and Asgar had killed a goat and were eating it. They squatted at the entrance of their habitation, with the skinned carcass between them, and cut strips of flesh from it with their sharp stone knives. These they toasted over the red flames that flickered up from a crevice in the rocky platform which was their feeding place. Their cave was half-way up the side of a crag, at whose foot, several hundred feet below, ran a hot river from the lake that filled the basin further up the gorge. The path to the cave was a narrow footway formed partly by zigzag cracks in the face of the cliff, and partly of steps or holes made by hand. It was secure even from the big serpents and lizards, but not convenient for ordinary household purposes.
“You forgot the salt. It was your turn to get it,” remarked Krotox.
“I had enough to do, killing the goat,” returned Asgar. “You were down in the gorge and might have fetched up salt enough for a month from the pocket beside the basin. You’d like to doze here and let me run about and wait on you, I suppose!”
Krotox cracked a marrowbone between his jaws. “I had important business,” he said. “You remember Yolgu? Well, he came over from the other side to-day.”
“I didn’t think he had the spirit for it,” remarked Asgar. “Of course, he’s planning to raise and army and capture Torpeon!” he added with a sneer.
“I didn’t ask him. But he brought news.”
The conversation was interrupted by a deep rumbling noise which caused the solid cliff to vibrate and the flame to leap up in the aperture. It was followed by an explosion in the group of mountains over against that on which they were, and a column of smoke and fire climbed heavily into the sky, spread out fountain-wise, and subsided, sending fragments of molten stone and cinders in all directions, some of them falling close to the entrance of the cave, into which Krotox and Asgar had withdrawn. They now resumed their places and their meal, letting the incident, which was far from being a novelty, pass without comment.
“News, eh?” grunted Asgar. “Another raid on Saturn, probably?”
“I said news!” retorted the other. “He has taken a woman!”
“Who? Yolgu?”
“No; Torpeon!”
“Torpeon! I wish I could believe it! When Torpeon takes a woman honest men may hope for their rights! But Yolgu was always a liar.”
“And Asgar will never cease being a fool. Torpeon has taken a woman, and he got her from the little planet down beyond Jupiter.”
Asgar chuckled contemptuously. “Did she bring her little planet with her?”
“She was visiting Lamara,” Krotox continued composedly. “There were details, but nothing of importance. Torpeon got her away, and she is now with him at the castle. Yolgu saw her just before he came here. She’s not like our kind, or the Saturnians either.”
Asgar meditated for a while. “Even if the story were true,” he said at last, “I don’t see how it would help us.”
“I was waiting for you to say that!” observed Krotox with a sardonic glance. “In the first place, she’s a woman; next, she has new magic; thirdly, she came unwillingly. The result is certain! But not so certain as that you are going to ask me how?”
“I question only persons capable of intelligent answers,” rejoined the other. “You spoke of the details of her coming as being unimportant; to my mind they are quite as important as her arrival itself. Whether she came alone; if not, who were her companions; whether she gained access to Saturn through Lamara’s help or independently; what object had she proposed to herself: points such as these might enable us to judge whether the situation warranted our concerning ourselves about the matter. But—”
At this juncture there was another interruption. Though by no means as outrageous and cataclysmic as the other, it produced a much more startling effect on the two troglodytes. They threw themselves flat on their stomachs and peered cautiously over the edge of the rocky shelf. The sound had come from below. The custom of social visiting had never been in vogue on the dark side of Tor, and any invasion of privacy was likely to suggest a hostile intent. “Where are the poison-stones?” whispered Asgar.
“I have three here,” replied Krotox, “but I won’t waste them on you—you couldn’t hit the earth from the top of a pock tree! I see nothing; it must have been a tiger.”
“It was more like a hyena—hark!”
A peculiar call again sounded from below. “Coo-ee!”
The men exchanged an uneasy look, but remained silent. The gorge was deep, and wreaths of smoke from the volcano, yellow and sluggish, were coiling through it.”
“Hello, you dubs!” presently came a shrill voice out of the abyss. “Ain’t yer got no elevator in dis joint? Does yer haul yer patrons up wid a rope? Well, I’s a comin’, anyway; so stick de ham-an’-eggs inter de saucepan an’ a go uv lager on de side! I’s bringin’ me hunger wid me!”
“I see it now!” whispered Asgar; “give me a stone—ah, you missed it! What is it—a goblin? It climbs like a beetle!”
Krotox hurled another stone.
“You guys ain’t even in de class uv de bush-leaguers,” remarked the voice, sounding nearer than before, and in no way discouraged by this reception. “Never seen my spit-ball, did yer? Say, she curves roun’ de batter’s nut and swats him in de off eye! Ef dat’s yer best yer goes back to de bench. Git me?”
“It’s coming straight up the cliff!” exclaimed Krotox in dismay. “It must be a goblin! I never saw one before; we must pretend we’re glad to see it!”
“Get if off its guard and then leave it to me,” muttered Asgar. “It’ll go down faster than it came up!”
This hospitable purpose had no sooner been formulated than the visitor’s head appeared above the level of the ledge, and the next moment he was standing beside the remnants of the goat; a one-legged apparition, supported under his left shoulder by a black crutch. His involuntary hosts regarded him with grimaces of feigned welcome, which ill disguised their fear and amazement. They were crouching on their hams at the mouth of the cavern.
“Home-sweet-home!” called out the apparition cheerfully; he was not even winded by his extraordinary feat. “Git up an’ hustle now, you ginks; yer ain’t in de habit uv meetin’ toffs like me—I kin see dat! So dis is de roof-gard’n; eh? Don’ bodder wid de cabbyrat stuff—my time’s wort’ about ten plunks an inch, an’ dirt cheap at dat! I’s de One-Legged Avenger, an’ I’s campin’ on de trail uv ol’ Torpy! Has eeder o’ you ducks seen him—dat fuzzy-haired geezer wid de red sweater looped round him? Cough up!”
Jim’s dialect was doubtless modified to Toridian ears by planetary conditions; but it was Krotox, who was bony, aquiline, and quicker of apprehension than his lethargic and unwieldy companion, who was first able to decipher the code: for “Torpy” read “Torpeon.”
“The person you mention, worshipful stranger,” he said in his most sugary accents, “does not rule over this side of our planet, and is never seen here. To find him, you must travel east, passing those two ranges of mountains, by way of that volcano which is just now beginning an eruption. Beyond that is a lake, which—”
“Yer kin bite it off right dere, ol’ pal,” interposed Jim; “I ain’t in de g’ography class dis trip. Git me headed right an’ I’m dere—see? Me an’ Torpy has a bone to pick togedder, an’ I’m treatin’ some ginks ter a feed at Delmonniker’s at eight-t’irty, an’ me wid about a billion miles ter cover between dis and dat; so I ain’t loafin’ on me job. I’ll mebbe be back later an’ give t’ings here de once-over. Looks like dere might be a boom in real-estate in dese parts. Got a ticker inside? What’s de quotin’s on city lots in dis block? Gimme de inside an’ den some? I ain’t no piker!”
Krotox and Asgar looked at each other in manifest perplexity. Though not unfamiliar with trouble, some of our modern afflictions were still unknown to them. But they were interested in the allusions to Torpeon; if this supernatural creature had hostile designs against the common enemy the opportunity should be improved.
“Powerful being,” said Asgar, “we are poor exiles and know nothing of the things you speak of, whether they be animals or vegetables. But Torpeon is the author of our misfortunes, and if he has also wronged you, we may be of use to one another.”
“Now yer talkin’, an’ we gits down to brass tacks,” Jim replied with animation. “Dis geezer has swiped de gal uv a frien’ o’ mine; an’ me, I’s figgerin’ to counter on his jaw an’ do de reskoo stunt—see? Ef you ducks has de inside track mapped out, gimme de tip; an’ when I lan’s de goods, I take de gal, an’ what’s left yer stuffs in yer jeans an’ dey won’ be no come-back on it. Mebbe,” he added thoughtfully, “me line o’ talk is some too illegint fer de likes o’ you poor hoboes; but I’s doin’ me best!”
“If your grace condescends to extend protection over us, we are the slaves of your will,” rejoined Asgar, after he and Krotox had conferred for a few moments. “It is known to us that the sinful Torpeon has done this crowning outrage, and plans others, unless prevented. If you will graciously kill him you shall be king of all our country, and we, your ministers, will lay its spoils and its inhabitants at your feet.”
“Lil ol’ N’York is good enough for me, but I reco’nizes yer obligin’ sperrit,” said Jim agreeably. “We plays de Evans’s gambit, an’ I figgers to checkmate de black king in four moves. Dere’ll be glory enough fer all, an’ yer takes de rinsin’s a free gift. Ef dat’s a go, put it dere!”
He extended his hand, which Asgar and Krotox in succession humbly touched to their foreheads.
“Now kids,” Jim proceeded, “yer sees dis here kyar!” He exhibited his crutch, patting it caressingly as if it were a beautiful vehicle of the most luxurious and costly description. “We gets aboard, an’ we steers due east till we sights de stronghold uv de inimy. Nobody don’t see us—’cause why?—I turns de peg here in de neck an’ crack!—we vanishes like blowin’ out de gas in de hotel room-wid-bat’. I mounts de secret back stairs, an’ fust t’ing yer knows yer sees Torpy flyin’ out de top-story winder an’ lightin’ on his nut. Dat’s the signal fer startin’ ‘Hail to der Chief,’ an’ me and de lady appears on de battlemints, an’ waves our han’s gracious to der applaudin’ t’ousands. Dere’s mebbe some t’ings I’s left out o’ de yarn; but yer gits me drift! All you gotta do is yank off yer shirt an’ holler yer heads off, while me and de lady sings ‘Good-by, proud worl’, we’s goin’ home,’ de lights shets off an’ we sinks below de verge ter show music. Are yer on?”
“Mighty emperor, dispose of us as you will!” grunted Asgar and Krotox, bewildered into hypnosis by this rousing exhortation.
“Git astride de stick an’ come on!” Jim ordered; and the monstrous ravines and peaks of Tor sank beneath them.