Chapter 3

Half-stunned, Bradley lay for a minute as he had fallen and then slowly

and painfully wriggled into a less uncomfortable position. He could

see nothing of his surroundings in the gloom about him until after a

few minutes his eyes became accustomed to the dark interior when he

rolled them from side to side in survey of his prison.

He discovered himself to be in a bare room which was windowless, nor

could he see any other opening than that through which he had been

lowered. In one corner was a huddled mass that might have been almost

anything from a bundle of rags to a dead body.

Almost immediately after he had taken his bearings Bradley commenced

working with his bonds. He was a man of powerful physique, and as from

the first he had been imbued with a belief that the fiber ropes were

too weak to hold him, he worked on with a firm conviction that sooner

or later they would part to his strainings. After a matter of five

minutes he was positive that the strands about his wrists were

beginning to give; but he was compelled to rest then from exhaustion.

As he lay, his eyes rested upon the bundle in the corner, and presently

he could have sworn that the thing moved. With eyes straining through

the gloom the man lay watching the grim and sinister thing in the

corner. Perhaps his overwrought nerves were playing a sorry joke upon

him. He thought of this and also that his condition of utter

helplessness might still further have stimulated his imagination. He

closed his eyes and sought to relax his muscles and his nerves; but

when he looked again, he knew that he had not been mistaken--the thing

had moved; now it lay in a slightly altered form and farther from the

wall. It was nearer him.

With renewed strength Bradley strained at his bonds, his fascinated

gaze still glued upon the shapeless bundle. No longer was there any

doubt that it moved--he saw it rise in the center several inches and

then creep closer to him. It sank and arose again--a headless,

hideous, monstrous thing of menace. Its very silence rendered it the

more terrible.

Bradley was a brave man; ordinarily his nerves were of steel; but to be

at the mercy of some unknown and nameless horror, to be unable to

defend himself--it was these things that almost unstrung him, for at

best he was only human. To stand in the open, even with the odds all

against him; to be able to use his fists, to put up some sort of

defense, to inflict punishment upon his adversary--then he could face

death with a smile. It was not death that he feared now--it was that

horror of the unknown that is part of the fiber of every son of woman.

Closer and closer came the shapeless mass. Bradley lay motionless and

listened. What was that he heard! Breathing? He could not be

mistaken--and then from out of the bundle of rags issued a hollow

groan. Bradley felt his hair rise upon his head. He struggled with

the slowly parting strands that held him. The thing beside him rose up

higher than before and the Englishman could have sworn that he saw a

single eye peering at him from among the tumbled cloth. For a moment

the bundle remained motionless--only the sound of breathing issued from

it, then there broke from it a maniacal laugh.

Cold sweat stood upon Bradley's brow as he tugged for liberation. He

saw the rags rise higher and higher above him until at last they

tumbled upon the floor from the body of a naked man--a thin, a bony, a

hideous caricature of man, that mouthed and mummed and, wabbling upon

its weak and shaking legs, crumpled to the floor again, still

laughing--laughing horribly.

It crawled toward Bradley. "Food! Food!" it screamed. "There is a

way out! There is a way out!"

Dragging itself to his side the creature slumped upon the Englishman's

breast. "Food!" it shrilled as with its bony fingers and its teeth, it

sought the man's bare throat.

"Food! There is a way out!" Bradley felt teeth upon his jugular. He

turned and twisted, shaking himself free for an instant; but once more

with hideous persistence the thing fastened itself upon him. The weak

jaws were unable to send the dull teeth through the victim's flesh; but

Bradley felt it pawing, pawing, pawing, like a monstrous rat, seeking

his life's blood.

The skinny arms now embraced his neck, holding the teeth to his throat

against all his efforts to dislodge the thing. Weak as it was it had

strength enough for this in its mad efforts to eat. Mumbling as it

worked, it repeated again and again, "Food! Food! There is a way

out!" until Bradley thought those two expressions alone would drive him

mad.

And all but mad he was as with a final effort backed by almost maniacal

strength he tore his wrists from the confining bonds and grasping the

repulsive thing upon his breast hurled it halfway across the room.

Panting like a spent hound Bradley worked at the thongs about his

ankles while the maniac lay quivering and mumbling where it had fallen.

Presently the Englishman leaped to his feet--freer than he had ever

before felt in all his life, though he was still hopelessly a prisoner

in the Blue Place of Seven Skulls.

With his back against the wall for support, so weak the reaction left

him, Bradley stood watching the creature upon the floor. He saw it

move and slowly raise itself to its hands and knees, where it swayed to

and fro as its eyes roved about in search of him; and when at last they

found him, there broke from the drawn lips the mumbled words: "Food!

Food! There is a way out!" The pitiful supplication in the tones

touched the Englishman's heart. He knew that this could be no Wieroo,

but possibly once a man like himself who had been cast into this pit of

solitary confinement with this hideous result that might in time be his

fate, also.

And then, too, there was the suggestion of hope held out by the

constant reiteration of the phrase, "There is a way out." Was there a

way out? What did this poor thing know?

"Who are you and how long have you been here?" Bradley suddenly

demanded.

For a moment the man upon the floor made no response, then mumblingly

came the words: "Food! Food!"

"Stop!" commanded the Englishman--the injunction might have been barked

from the muzzle of a pistol. It brought the man to a sitting posture,

his hands off the ground. He stopped swaying to and fro and appeared

to be startled into an attempt to master his faculties of concentration

and thought.

Bradley repeated his questions sharply.

"I am An-Tak, the Galu," replied the man. "Luata alone knows how long

I have been here--maybe ten moons, maybe ten moons three times"--it was

the Caspakian equivalent of thirty. "I was young and strong when they

brought me here. Now I am old and very weak. I am cos-ata-lu--that is

why they have not killed me. If I tell them the secret of becoming

cos-ata-lu they will take me out; but how can I tell them that which

Luata alone knows?

"What is cos-ata-lu?" demanded Bradley.

"Food! Food! There is a way out!" mumbled the Galu.

Bradley strode across the floor, seized the man by his shoulders and

shook him.

"Tell me," he cried, "what is cos-ata-lu?"

"Food!" whimpered An-Tak.

Bradley bethought himself. His haversack had not been taken from him.

In it besides his razor and knife were odds and ends of equipment and a

small quantity of dried meat. He tossed a small strip of the latter to

the starving Galu. An-Tak seized upon it and devoured it ravenously.

It instilled new life in the man.

"What is cos-ata-lu?" insisted Bradley again.

An-Tak tried to explain. His narrative was often broken by lapses of

concentration during which he reverted to his plaintive mumbling for

food and recurrence to the statement that there was a way out; but by

firmness and patience the Englishman drew out piece-meal a more or less

lucid exposition of the remarkable scheme of evolution that rules in

Caspak. In it he found explanations of the hitherto inexplicable. He

discovered why he had seen no babes or children among the Caspakian

tribes with which he had come in contact; why each more northerly tribe

evinced a higher state of development than those south of them; why

each tribe included individuals ranging in physical and mental

characteristics from the highest of the next lower race to the lowest

of the next higher, and why the women of each tribe immersed themselves

each morning for an hour or more in the warm pools near which the

habitations of their people always were located; and, too, he

discovered why those pools were almost immune from the attacks of

carnivorous animals and reptiles.

He learned that all but those who were cos-ata-lu came up cor-sva-jo,

or from the beginning. The egg from which they first developed into

tadpole form was deposited, with millions of others, in one of the warm

pools and with it a poisonous serum that the carnivora instinctively

shunned. Down the warm stream from the pool floated the countless

billions of eggs and tadpoles, developing as they drifted slowly toward

the sea. Some became tadpoles in the pool, some in the sluggish stream

and some not until they reached the great inland sea. In the next

stage they became fishes or reptiles, An-Tak was not positive which,

and in this form, always developing, they swam far to the south, where,

amid the rank and teeming jungles, some of them evolved into

amphibians. Always there were those whose development stopped at the

first stage, others whose development ceased when they became reptiles,

while by far the greater proportion formed the food supply of the

ravenous creatures of the deep.

Few indeed were those that eventually developed into baboons and then

apes, which was considered by Caspakians the real beginning of

evolution. From the egg, then, the individual developed slowly into a

higher form, just as the frog's egg develops through various stages

from a fish with gills to a frog with lungs. With that thought in mind

Bradley discovered that it was not difficult to believe in the

possibility of such a scheme--there was nothing new in it.

From the ape the individual, if it survived, slowly developed into the

lowest order of man--the Alu--and then by degrees to Bo-lu, Sto-lu,

Band-lu, Kro-lu and finally Galu. And in each stage countless millions

of other eggs were deposited in the warm pools of the various races and

floated down to the great sea to go through a similar process of

evolution outside the womb as develops our own young within; but in

Caspak the scheme is much more inclusive, for it combines not only

individual development but the evolution of species and genera. If an

egg survives it goes through all the stages of development that man has

passed through during the unthinkable eons since life first moved upon

the earth's face.

The final stage--that which the Galus have almost attained and for

which all hope--is cos-ata-lu, which literally, means no-egg-man, or

one who is born directly as are the young of the outer world of

mammals. Some of the Galus produce cos-ata-lu and cos-ata-lo both; the

Wieroos only cos-ata-lu--in other words all Wieroos are born male, and

so they prey upon the Galus for their women and sometimes capture and

torture the Galu men who are cos-ata-lu in an endeavor to learn the

secret which they believe will give them unlimited power over all other

denizens of Caspak.

No Wieroos come up from the beginning--all are born of the Wieroo

fathers and Galu mothers who are cos-ata-lo, and there are very few of

the latter owing to the long and precarious stages of development.

Seven generations of the same ancestor must come up from the beginning

before a cos-ata-lu child may be born; and when one considers the

frightful dangers that surround the vital spark from the moment it

leaves the warm pool where it has been deposited to float down to the

sea amid the voracious creatures that swarm the surface and the deeps

and the almost equally unthinkable trials of its effort to survive

after it once becomes a land animal and starts northward through the

horrors of the Caspakian jungles and forests, it is plainly a wonder

that even a single babe has ever been born to a Galu woman.

Seven cycles it requires before the seventh Galu can complete the

seventh danger-infested circle since its first Galu ancestor achieved

the state of Galu. For ages before, the ancestors of this first Galu

may have developed from a Band-lu or Bo-lu egg without ever once

completing the whole circle--that is from a Galu egg, back to a fully

developed Galu.

Bradley's head was whirling before he even commenced to grasp the

complexities of Caspakian evolution; but as the truth slowly filtered

into his understanding--as gradually it became possible for him to

visualize the scheme, it appeared simpler. In fact, it seemed even

less difficult of comprehension than that with which he was familiar.

For several minutes after An-Tak ceased speaking, his voice having

trailed off weakly into silence, neither spoke again. Then the Galu

recommenced his, "Food! Food! There is a way out!" Bradley tossed him

another bit of dried meat, waiting patiently until he had eaten it,

this time more slowly.

"What do you mean by saying there is a way out?" he asked.

"He who died here just after I came, told me," replied An-Tak. "He

said there was a way out, that he had discovered it but was too weak to

use his knowledge. He was trying to tell me how to find it when he

died. Oh, Luata, if he had lived but a moment more!"

"They do not feed you here?" asked Bradley.

"No, they give me water once a day--that is all."

"But how have you lived, then?"

"The lizards and the rats," replied An-Tak. "The lizards are not so

bad; but the rats are foul to taste. However, I must eat them or they

would eat me, and they are better than nothing; but of late they do not

come so often, and I have not had a lizard for a long time. I shall

eat though," he mumbled. "I shall eat now, for you cannot remain awake

forever." He laughed, a cackling, dry laugh. "When you sleep, An-Tak

will eat."

It was horrible. Bradley shuddered. For a long time each sat in

silence. The Englishman could guess why the other made no sound--he

awaited the moment that sleep should overcome his victim. In the long

silence there was born upon Bradley's ears a faint, monotonous sound as

of running water. He listened intently. It seemed to come from far

beneath the floor.

"What is that noise?" he asked. "That sounds like water running

through a narrow channel."

"It is the river," replied An-Tak. "Why do you not go to sleep? It

passes directly beneath the Blue Place of Seven Skulls. It runs

through the temple grounds, beneath the temple and under the city.

When we die, they will cut off our heads and throw our bodies into the

river. At the mouth of the river await many large reptiles. Thus do

they feed. The Wieroos do likewise with their own dead, keeping only

the skulls and the wings. Come, let us sleep."

"Do the reptiles come up the river into the city?" asked Bradley.

"The water is too cold--they never leave the warm water of the great

pool," replied An-Tak.

"Let us search for the way out," suggested Bradley.

An-Tak shook his head. "I have searched for it all these moons," he

said. "If I could not find it, how would you?"

Bradley made no reply but commenced a diligent examination of the walls

and floor of the room, pressing over each square foot and tapping with

his knuckles. About six feet from the floor he discovered a

sleeping-perch near one end of the apartment. He asked An-Tak about

it, but the Galu said that no Weiroo had occupied the place since he

had been incarcerated there. Again and again Bradley went over the

floor and walls as high up as he could reach. Finally he swung himself

to the perch, that he might examine at least one end of the room all

the way to the ceiling.

In the center of the wall close to the top, an area about three feet

square gave forth a hollow sound when he rapped upon it. Bradley felt

over every square inch of that area with the tips of his fingers. Near

the top he found a small round hole a trifle larger in diameter than

his forefinger, which he immediately stuck into it. The panel, if such

it was, seemed about an inch thick, and beyond it his finger

encountered nothing. Bradley crooked his finger upon the opposite side

of the panel and pulled toward him, steadily but with considerable

force. Suddenly the panel flew inward, nearly precipitating the man to

the floor. It was hinged at the bottom, and when lowered the outer

edge rested upon the perch, making a little platform parallel with the

floor of the room.

Beyond the opening was an utterly dark void. The Englishman leaned

through it and reached his arm as far as possible into the blackness

but touched nothing. Then he fumbled in his haversack for a match, a

few of which remained to him. When he struck it, An-Tak gave a cry of

terror. Bradley held the light far into the opening before him and in

its flickering rays saw the top of a ladder descending into a black

abyss below. How far down it extended he could not guess; but that he

should soon know definitely he was positive.

"You have found it! You have found the way out!" screamed An-Tak.

"Oh, Luata! And now I am too weak to go. Take me with you! Take me

with you!"

"Shut up!" admonished Bradley. "You will have the whole flock of birds

around our heads in a minute, and neither of us will escape. Be quiet,

and I'll go ahead. If I find a way out, I'll come back and help you,

if you'll promise not to try to eat me up again."

"I promise," cried An-Tak. "Oh, Luata! How could you blame me? I am

half crazed of hunger and long confinement and the horror of the

lizards and the rats and the constant waiting for death."

"I know," said Bradley simply. "I'm sorry for you, old top. Keep a

stiff upper lip." And he slipped through the opening, found the ladder

with his feet, closed the panel behind him, and started downward into

the darkness.

Below him rose more and more distinctly the sound of running water.

The air felt damp and cool. He could see nothing of his surroundings

and felt nothing but the smooth, worn sides and rungs of the ladder

down which he felt his way cautiously lest a broken rung or a misstep

should hurl him downward.

As he descended thus slowly, the ladder seemed interminable and the pit

bottomless, yet he realized when at last he reached the bottom that he

could not have descended more than fifty feet. The bottom of the

ladder rested on a narrow ledge paved with what felt like large round

stones, but what he knew from experience to be human skulls. He could

not but marvel as to where so many countless thousands of the things

had come from, until he paused to consider that the infancy of Caspak

dated doubtlessly back into remote ages, far beyond what the outer

world considered the beginning of earthly time. For all these eons the

Wieroos might have been collecting human skulls from their enemies and

their own dead--enough to have built an entire city of them.

Feeling his way along the narrow ledge, Bradley came presently to a

blank wall that stretched out over the water swirling beneath him, as

far as he could reach. Stooping, he groped about with one hand,

reaching down toward the surface of the water, and discovered that the

bottom of the wall arched above the stream. How much space there was

between the water and the arch he could not tell, nor how deep the

former. There was only one way in which he might learn these things,

and that was to lower himself into the stream. For only an instant he

hesitated weighing his chances. Behind him lay almost certainly the

horrid fate of An-Tak; before him nothing worse than a comparatively

painless death by drowning. Holding his haversack above his head with

one hand he lowered his feet slowly over the edge of the narrow

platform. Almost immediately he felt the swirling of cold water about

his ankles, and then with a silent prayer he let himself drop gently

into the stream.

Great was Bradley's relief when he found the water no more than waist

deep and beneath his feet a firm, gravel bottom. Feeling his way

cautiously he moved downward with the current, which was not so strong

as he had imagined from the noise of the running water.

Beneath the first arch he made his way, following the winding

curvatures of the right-hand wall. After a few yards of progress his

hand came suddenly in contact with a slimy thing clinging to the

wall--a thing that hissed and scuttled out of reach. What it was, the

man could not know; but almost instantly there was a splash in the

water just ahead of him and then another.

On he went, passing beneath other arches at varying distances, and

always in utter darkness. Unseen denizens of this great sewer,

disturbed by the intruder, splashed into the water ahead of him and

wriggled away. Time and again his hand touched them and never for an

instant could he be sure that at the next step some gruesome thing

might not attack him. He had strapped his haversack about his neck,

well above the surface of the water, and in his left hand he carried

his knife. Other precautions there were none to take.

The monotony of the blind trail was increased by the fact that from the

moment he had started from the foot of the ladder he had counted his

every step. He had promised to return for An-Tak if it proved humanly

possible to do so, and he knew that in the blackness of the tunnel he

could locate the foot of the ladder in no other way.

He had taken two hundred and sixty-nine steps--afterward he knew that

he should never forget that number--when something bumped gently

against him from behind. Instantly he wheeled about and with knife

ready to defend himself stretched forth his right hand to push away the

object that now had lodged against his body. His fingers feeling

through the darkness came in contact with something cold and

clammy--they passed to and fro over the thing until Bradley knew that

it was the face of a dead man floating upon the surface of the stream.

With an oath he pushed his gruesome companion out into mid-stream to

float on down toward the great pool and the awaiting scavengers of the

deep.

At his four hundred and thirteenth step another corpse bumped against

him--how many had passed him without touching he could not guess; but

suddenly he experienced the sensation of being surrounded by dead faces

floating along with him, all set in hideous grimaces, their dead eyes

glaring at this profaning alien who dared intrude upon the waters of

this river of the dead--a horrid escort, pregnant with dire forebodings

and with menace.

Though he advanced very slowly, he tried always to take steps of about

the same length; so that he knew that though considerable time had

elapsed, yet he had really advanced no more than four hundred yards

when ahead he saw a lessening of the pitch-darkness, and at the next

turn of the stream his surroundings became vaguely discernible. Above

him was an arched roof and on either hand walls pierced at intervals by

apertures covered with wooden doors. Just ahead of him in the roof of

the aqueduct was a round, black hole about thirty inches in diameter.

His eyes still rested upon the opening when there shot downward from it

to the water below the naked body of a human being which almost

immediately rose to the surface again and floated off down the stream.

In the dim light Bradley saw that it was a dead Wieroo from which the

wings and head had been removed. A moment later another headless body

floated past, recalling what An-Tak had told him of the

skull-collecting customs of the Wieroo. Bradley wondered how it

happened that the first corpse he had encountered in the stream had not

been similarly mutilated.

The farther he advanced now, the lighter it became. The number of

corpses was much smaller than he had imagined, only two more passing

him before, at six hundred steps, or about five hundred yards, from the

point he had taken to the stream, he came to the end of the tunnel and

looked out upon sunlit water, running between grassy banks.

One of the last corpses to pass him was still clothed in the white robe

of a Wieroo, blood-stained over the headless neck that it concealed.

Drawing closer to the opening leading into the bright daylight, Bradley

surveyed what lay beyond. A short distance before him a large building

stood in the center of several acres of grass and tree-covered ground,

spanning the stream which disappeared through an opening in its

foundation wall. From the large saucer-shaped roof and the vivid

colorings of the various heterogeneous parts of the structure he

recognized it as the temple past which he had been borne to the Blue

Place of Seven Skulls.

To and fro flew Wieroos, going to and from the temple. Others passed

on foot across the open grounds, assisting themselves with their great

wings, so that they barely skimmed the earth. To leave the mouth of

the tunnel would have been to court instant discovery and capture; but

by what other avenue he might escape, Bradley could not guess, unless

he retraced his steps up the stream and sought egress from the other

end of the city. The thought of traversing that dark and horror-ridden

tunnel for perhaps miles he could not entertain--there must be some

other way. Perhaps after dark he could steal through the temple

grounds and continue on downstream until he had come beyond the city;

and so he stood and waited until his limbs became almost paralyzed with

cold, and he knew that he must find some other plan for escape.

A half-formed decision to risk an attempt to swim under water to the

temple was crystallizing in spite of the fact that any chance Wieroo

flying above the stream might easily see him, when again a floating

object bumped against him from behind and lodged across his back.

Turning quickly he saw that the thing was what he had immediately

guessed it to be--a headless and wingless Wieroo corpse. With a grunt

of disgust he was about to push it from him when the white garment

enshrouding it suggested a bold plan to his resourceful brain.

Grasping the corpse by an arm he tore the garment from it and then let

the body float downward toward the temple. With great care he draped

the robe about him; the bloody blotch that had covered the severed neck

he arranged about his own head. His haversack he rolled as tightly as

possible and stuffed beneath his coat over his breast. Then he fell

gently to the surface of the stream and lying upon his back floated

downward with the current and out into the open sunlight.

Through the weave of the cloth he could distinguish large objects. He

saw a Wieroo flap dismally above him; he saw the banks of the stream

float slowly past; he heard a sudden wail upon the right-hand shore,

and his heart stood still lest his ruse had been discovered; but never

by a move of a muscle did he betray that aught but a cold lump of clay

floated there upon the bosom of the water, and soon, though it seemed

an eternity to him, the direct sunlight was blotted out, and he knew

that he had entered beneath the temple.

Quickly he felt for bottom with his feet and as quickly stood erect,

snatching the bloody, clammy cloth from his face. On both sides were

blank walls and before him the river turned a sharp corner and

disappeared. Feeling his way cautiously forward he approached the turn

and looked around the corner. To his left was a low platform about a

foot above the level of the stream, and onto this he lost no time in

climbing, for he was soaked from head to foot, cold and almost

exhausted.

As he lay resting on the skull-paved shelf, he saw in the center of the

vault above the river another of those sinister round holes through

which he momentarily expected to see a headless corpse shoot downward

in its last plunge to a watery grave. A few feet along the platform a

closed door broke the blankness of the wall. As he lay looking at it

and wondering what lay behind, his mind filled with fragments of many

wild schemes of escape, it opened and a white robed Wieroo stepped out

upon the platform. The creature carried a large wooden basin filled

with rubbish. Its eyes were not upon Bradley, who drew himself to a

squatting position and crouched as far back in the corner of the niche

in which the platform was set as he could force himself. The Wieroo

stepped to the edge of the platform and dumped the rubbish into the

stream. If it turned away from him as it started to retrace its steps

to the doorway, there was a small chance that it might not see him; but

if it turned toward him there was none at all. Bradley held his breath.

The Wieroo paused a moment, gazing down into the water, then it

straightened up and turned toward the Englishman. Bradley did not

move. The Wieroo stopped and stared intently at him. It approached

him questioningly. Still Bradley remained as though carved of stone.

The creature was directly in front of him. It stopped. There was no

chance on earth that it would not discover what he was.

With the quickness of a cat, Bradley sprang to his feet and with all

his great strength, backed by his heavy weight, struck the Wieroo upon

the point of the chin. Without a sound the thing crumpled to the

platform, while Bradley, acting almost instinctively to the urge of the

first law of nature, rolled the inanimate body over the edge into the

river.

Then he looked at the open doorway, crossed the platform and peered

within the apartment beyond. What he saw was a large room, dimly

lighted, and about the side rows of wooden vessels stacked one upon

another. There was no Wieroo in sight, so the Englishman entered. At

the far end of the room was another door, and as he crossed toward it,

he glanced into some of the vessels, which he found were filled with

dried fruits, vegetables and fish. Without more ado he stuffed his

pockets and his haversack full, thinking of the poor creature awaiting

his return in the gloom of the Place of Seven Skulls.

When night came, he would return and fetch An-Tak this far at least;

but in the meantime it was his intention to reconnoiter in the hope

that he might discover some easier way out of the city than that

offered by the chill, black channel of the ghastly river of corpses.

Beyond the farther door stretched a long passageway from which closed

doorways led into other parts of the cellars of the temple. A few

yards from the storeroom a ladder rose from the corridor through an

aperture in the ceiling. Bradley paused at the foot of it, debating

the wisdom of further investigation against a return to the river; but

strong within him was the spirit of exploration that has scattered his

race to the four corners of the earth. What new mysteries lay hidden

in the chambers above? The urge to know was strong upon him though his

better judgment warned him that the safer course lay in retreat. For a

moment he stood thus, running his fingers through his hair; then he

cast discretion to the winds and began the ascent.

In conformity with such Wieroo architecture as he had already observed,

the well through which the ladder rose continually canted at an angle

from the perpendicular. At more or less regular stages it was pierced

by apertures closed by doors, none of which he could open until he had

climbed fully fifty feet from the river level. Here he discovered a

door already ajar opening into a large, circular chamber, the walls and

floors of which were covered with the skins of wild beasts and with

rugs of many colors; but what interested him most was the occupants of

the room--a Wieroo, and a girl of human proportions. She was standing

with her back against a column which rose from the center of the

apartment from floor to ceiling--a hollow column about forty inches in

diameter in which he could see an opening some thirty inches across.

The girl's side was toward Bradley, and her face averted, for she was

watching the Wieroo, who was now advancing slowly toward her, talking

as he came.

Bradley could distinctly hear the words of the creature, who was urging

the girl to accompany him to another Wieroo city. "Come with me," he

said, "and you shall have your life; remain here and He Who Speaks for

Luata will claim you for his own; and when he is done with you, your

skull will bleach at the top of a tall staff while your body feeds the

reptiles at the mouth of the River of Death. Even though you bring

into the world a female Wieroo, your fate will be the same if you do

not escape him, while with me you shall have life and food and none

shall harm you."

He was quite close to the girl when she replied by striking him in the

face with all her strength. "Until I am slain," she cried, "I shall

fight against you all." From the throat of the Wieroo issued that

dismal wail that Bradley had heard so often in the past--it was like a

scream of pain smothered to a groan--and then the thing leaped upon the

girl, its face working in hideous grimaces as it clawed and beat at her

to force her to the floor.

The Englishman was upon the point of entering to defend her when a door

at the opposite side of the chamber opened to admit a huge Wieroo

clothed entirely in red. At sight of the two struggling upon the floor

the newcomer raised his voice in a shriek of rage. Instantly the

Wieroo who was attacking the girl leaped to his feet and faced the

other.

"I heard," screamed he who had just entered the room. "I heard, and

when He Who Speaks for young, reproduction and kindred subjects shall have heard--" He paused and made a

suggestive movement of a finger across his throat.

"He shall not hear," returned the first Wieroo as, with a powerful

motion of his great wings, he launched himself upon the red-robed

figure. The latter dodged the first charge, drew a wicked-looking

curved blade from beneath its red robe, spread its wings and dived for

its antagonist. Beating their wings, wailing and groaning, the two

hideous things sparred for position. The white-robed one being unarmed

sought to grasp the other by the wrist of its knife-hand and by the

throat, while the latter hopped around on its dainty white feet,

seeking an opening for a mortal blow. Once it struck and missed, and

then the other rushed in and clinched, at the same time securing both

the holds it sought. Immediately the two commenced beating at each

other's heads with the joints of their wings, kicking with their soft,

puny feet and biting, each at the other's face.

In the meantime the girl moved about the room, keeping out of the way

of the duelists, and as she did so, Bradley caught a glimpse of her

full face and immediately recognized her as the girl of the place of

the yellow door. He did not dare intervene now until one of the Wieroo

had overcome the other, lest the two should turn upon him at once, when

the chances were fair that he would be defeated in so unequal a battle

as the curved blade of the red Wieroo would render it, and so he

waited, watching the white-robed figure slowly choking the life from

him of the red robe. The protruding tongue and the popping eyes

proclaimed that the end was near and a moment later the red robe sank

to the floor of the room, the curved blade slipping from nerveless

fingers. For an instant longer the victor clung to the throat of his

defeated antagonist and then he rose, dragging the body after him, and

approached the central column. Here he raised the body and thrust it

into the aperture where Bradley saw it drop suddenly from sight.

Instantly there flashed into his memory the circular openings in the

roof of the river vault and the corpses he had seen drop from them to

the water beneath.

As the body disappeared, the Wieroo turned and cast about the room for

the girl. For a moment he stood eying her. "You saw," he muttered,

"and if you tell them, He Who Speaks for Luata will have my wings

severed while still I live and my head will be severed and I shall be

cast into the River of Death, for thus it happens even to the highest

who slay one of the red robe. You saw, and you must die!" he ended

with a scream as he rushed upon the girl.

Bradley waited no longer. Leaping into the room he ran for the Wieroo,

who had already seized the girl, and as he ran, he stooped and picked

up the curved blade. The creature's back was toward him as, with his

left hand, he seized it by the neck. Like a flash the great wings beat

backward as the creature turned, and Bradley was swept from his feet,

though he still retained his hold upon the blade. Instantly the Wieroo

was upon him. Bradley lay slightly raised upon his left elbow, his

right arm free, and as the thing came close, he cut at the hideous face

with all the strength that lay within him. The blade struck at the

junction of the neck and torso and with such force as to completely

decapitate the Wieroo, the hideous head dropping to the floor and the

body falling forward upon the Englishman. Pushing it from him he rose

to his feet and faced the wide-eyed girl.

"Luata!" she exclaimed. "How came you here?"

Bradley shrugged. "Here I am," he said; "but the thing now is to get

out of here--both of us."

The girl shook her head. "It cannot be," she stated sadly.

"That is what I thought when they dropped me into the Blue Place of

Seven Skulls," replied Bradley. "Can't be done. I did it.--Here!

You're mussing up the floor something awful, you." This last to the

dead Wieroo as he stooped and dragged the corpse to the central shaft,

where he raised it to the aperture and let it slip into the tube. Then

he picked up the head and tossed it after the body. "Don't be so

glum," he admonished the former as he carried it toward the well;

"smile!"

"But how can he smile?" questioned the girl, a half-puzzled,

half-frightened look upon her face. "He is dead."

"That's so," admitted Bradley, "and I suppose he does feel a bit cut up

about it."

The girl shook her head and edged away from the man--toward the door.

"Come!" said the Englishman. "We've got to get out of here. If you

don't know a better way than the river, it's the river then."

The girl still eyed him askance. "But how could he smile when he was

dead?"

Bradley laughed aloud. "I thought we English were supposed to have the

least sense of humor of any people in the world," he cried; "but now

I've found one human being who hasn't any. Of course you don't know

half I'm saying; but don't worry, little girl; I'm not going to hurt

you, and if I can get you out of here, I'll do it."

Even if she did not understand all he said, she at least read something

in his smiling countenance--something which reassured her. "I do not

fear you," she said; "though I do not understand all that you say even

though you speak my own tongue and use words that I know. But as for

escaping"--she sighed--"alas, how can it be done?"

"I escaped from the Blue Place of Seven Skulls," Bradley reminded her.

"Come!" And he turned toward the shaft and the ladder that he had

ascended from the river. "We cannot waste time here."

The girl followed him; but at the doorway both drew back, for from

below came the sound of some one ascending.

Bradley tiptoed to the door and peered cautiously into the well; then

he stepped back beside the girl. "There are half a dozen of them

coming up; but possibly they will pass this room."

"No," she said, "they will pass directly through this room--they are on

their way to Him Who Speaks for Luata. We may be able to hide in the

next room--there are skins there beneath which we may crawl. They will

not stop in that room; but they may stop in this one for a short

time--the other room is blue."

"What's that go to do with it?" demanded the Englishman.

"They fear blue," she replied. "In every room where murder has been

done you will find blue--a certain amount for each murder. When the

room is all blue, they shun it. This room has much blue; but evidently

they kill mostly in the next room, which is now all blue."

"But there is blue on the outside of every house I have seen," said

Bradley.

"Yes," assented the girl, "and there are blue rooms in each of those

houses--when all the rooms are blue then the whole outside of the house

will be blue as is the Blue Place of Seven Skulls. There are many such

here."

"And the skulls with blue upon them?" inquired Bradley. "Did they

belong to murderers?"

"They were murdered--some of them; those with only a small amount of

blue were murderers--known murderers. All Wieroos are murderers. When

they have committed a certain number of murders without being caught at

it, they confess to Him Who Speaks for Luata and are advanced, after

which they wear robes with a slash of some color--I think yellow comes

first. When they reach a point where the entire robe is of yellow,

they discard it for a white robe with a red slash; and when one wins a

complete red robe, he carries such a long, curved knife as you have in

your hand; after that comes the blue slash on a white robe, and then, I

suppose, an all blue robe. I have never seen such a one."

As they talked in low tones they had moved from the room of the death

shaft into an all blue room adjoining, where they sat down together in

a corner with their backs against a wall and drew a pile of hides over

themselves. A moment later they heard a number of Wieroos enter the

chamber. They were talking together as they crossed the floor, or the

two could not have heard them. Halfway across the chamber they halted

as the door toward which they were advancing opened and a dozen others

of their kind entered the apartment.

Bradley could guess all this by the increased volume of sound and the

dismal greetings; but the sudden silence that almost immediately ensued

he could not fathom, for he could not know that from beneath one of the

hides that covered him protruded one of his heavy army shoes, or that

some eighteen large Wieroos with robes either solid red or slashed with

red or blue were standing gazing at it. Nor could he hear their

stealthy approach.

The first intimation he had that he had been discovered was when his

foot was suddenly seized, and he was yanked violently from beneath the

hides to find himself surrounded by menacing blades. They would have

slain him on the spot had not one clothed all in red held them back,

saying that He Who Speaks for Luata desired to see this strange

creature.

As they led Bradley away, he caught an opportunity to glance back

toward the hides to see what had become of the girl, and, to his

gratification, he discovered that she still lay concealed beneath the

hides. He wondered if she would have the nerve to attempt the river

trip alone and regretted that now he could not accompany her. He felt

rather all in, himself, more so than he had at any time since he had

been captured by the Wieroo, for there appeared not the slightest cause

for hope in his present predicament. He had dropped the curved blade

beneath the hides when he had been jerked so violently from their

fancied security. It was almost in a spirit of resigned hopelessness

that he quietly accompanied his captors through various chambers and

corridors toward the heart of the temple.