CHAPTER IV.

It was during the morning of July 6, 2137, that we entered the mouth of

the Thames—to the best of my knowledge the first Western keel to cut

those historic waters for two hundred and twenty-one years!

But where were the tugs and the lighters and the barges, the lightships

and the buoys, and all those countless attributes which went to make up

the myriad life of the ancient Thames?

Gone! All gone! Only silence and desolation reigned where once the

commerce of the world had centered.

I could not help but compare this once great water-way with the waters

about our New York, or Rio, or San Diego, or Valparaiso. They had

become what they are today during the two centuries of the profound

peace which we of the navy have been prone to deplore. And what, during

this same period, had shorn the waters of the Thames of their pristine

grandeur?

Militarist that I am, I could find but a single word of

explanation—war!

I bowed my head and turned my eyes downward from the lonely and

depressing sight, and in a silence which none of us seemed willing to

break, we proceeded up the deserted river.

We had reached a point which, from my map, I imagined must have been

about the former site of Erith, when I discovered a small band of

antelope a short distance inland. As we were now entirely out of meat

once more, and as I had given up all expectations of finding a city

upon the site of ancient London, I determined to land and bag a couple

of the animals.

Assured that they would be timid and easily frightened, I decided to

stalk them alone, telling the men to wait at the boat until I called to

them to come and carry the carcasses back to the shore.

Crawling carefully through the vegetation, making use of such trees and

bushes as afforded shelter, I came at last almost within easy range of

my quarry, when the antlered head of the buck went suddenly into the

air, and then, as though in accordance with a prearranged signal, the

whole band moved slowly off, farther inland.

As their pace was leisurely, I determined to follow them until I came

again within range, as I was sure that they would stop and feed in a

short time.

They must have led me a mile or more at least before they again halted

and commenced to browse upon the rank, luxuriant grasses. All the time

that I had followed them I had kept both eyes and ears alert for sign

or sound that would indicate the presence of Felis tigris; but so far

not the slightest indication of the beast had been apparent.

As I crept closer to the antelope, sure this time of a good shot at a

large buck, I suddenly saw something that caused me to forget all about

my prey in wonderment.

It was the figure of an immense grey-black creature, rearing its

colossal shoulders twelve or fourteen feet above the ground. Never in

my life had I seen such a beast, nor did I at first recognize it, so

different in appearance is the live reality from the stuffed, unnatural

specimens preserved to us in our museums.

But presently I guessed the identity of the mighty creature as Elephas

africanus, or, as the ancients commonly described it, African elephant.

The antelope, although in plain view of the huge beast, paid not the

slightest attention to it, and I was so wrapped up in watching the

mighty pachyderm that I quite forgot to shoot at the buck and

presently, and in quite a startling manner, it became impossible to do

so.

The elephant was browsing upon the young and tender shoots of some low

bushes, waving his great ears and switching his short tail. The

antelope, scarce twenty paces from him, continued their feeding, when

suddenly, from close beside the latter, there came a most terrifying

roar, and I saw a great, tawny body shoot, from the concealing verdure

beyond the antelope, full upon the back of a small buck.

Instantly the scene changed from one of quiet and peace to

indescribable chaos. The startled and terrified buck uttered cries of

agony. His fellows broke and leaped off in all directions. The elephant

raised his trunk, and, trumpeting loudly, lumbered off through the

wood, crushing down small trees and trampling bushes in his mad flight.

Growling horribly, a huge lion stood across the body of his prey—such a

creature as no Pan-American of the twenty-second century had ever

beheld until my eyes rested upon this lordly specimen of “the king of

beasts.” But what a different creature was this fierce-eyed demon,

palpitating with life and vigor, glossy of coat, alert, growling,

magnificent, from the dingy, moth-eaten replicas beneath their glass

cases in the stuffy halls of our public museums.

I had never hoped or expected to see a living lion, tiger, or

elephant—using the common terms that were familiar to the ancients,

since they seem to me less unwieldy than those now in general use among

us—and so it was with sentiments not unmixed with awe that I stood

gazing at this regal beast as, above the carcass of his kill, he roared

out his challenge to the world.

So enthralled was I by the spectacle that I quite forgot myself, and

the better to view him, the great lion, I had risen to my feet and

stood, not fifty paces from him, in full view.

For a moment he did not see me, his attention being directed toward the

retreating elephant, and I had ample time to feast my eyes upon his

splendid proportions, his great head, and his thick black mane.

Ah, what thoughts passed through my mind in those brief moments as I

stood there in rapt fascination! I had come to find a wondrous

civilization, and instead I found a wild-beast monarch of the realm

where English kings had ruled. A lion reigned, undisturbed, within a

few miles of the seat of one of the greatest governments the world has

ever known, his domain a howling wilderness, where yesterday fell the

shadows of the largest city in the world.

It was appalling; but my reflections upon this depressing subject were

doomed to sudden extinction. The lion had discovered me.

For an instant he stood silent and motionless as one of the mangy

effigies at home, but only for an instant. Then, with a most ferocious

roar, and without the slightest hesitancy or warning, he charged upon

me.

He forsook the prey already dead beneath him for the pleasures of the

delectable tidbit, man. From the remorselessness with which the great

Carnivora of modern England hunted man, I am constrained to believe

that, whatever their appetites in times past, they have cultivated a

gruesome taste for human flesh.

As I threw my rifle to my shoulder, I thanked God, the ancient God of

my ancestors, that I had replaced the hard-jacketed bullets in my

weapon with soft-nosed projectiles, for though this was my first

experience with Felis leo, I knew the moment that I faced that charge

that even my wonderfully perfected firearm would be as futile as a

peashooter unless I chanced to place my first bullet in a vital spot.

Unless you had seen it you could not believe credible the speed of a

charging lion. Apparently the animal is not built for speed, nor can he

maintain it for long. But for a matter of forty or fifty yards there

is, I believe, no animal on earth that can overtake him.

Like a bolt he bore down upon me, but, fortunately for me, I did not

lose my head. I guessed that no bullet would kill him instantly. I

doubted that I could pierce his skull. There was hope, though, in

finding his heart through his exposed chest, or, better yet, of

breaking his shoulder or foreleg, and bringing him up long enough to

pump more bullets into him and finish him.

I covered his left shoulder and pulled the trigger as he was almost

upon me. It stopped him. With a terrific howl of pain and rage, the

brute rolled over and over upon the ground almost to my feet. As he

came I pumped two more bullets into him, and as he struggled to rise,

clawing viciously at me, I put a bullet in his spine.

That finished him, and I am free to admit that I was mighty glad of it.

There was a great tree close behind me, and, stepping within its shade,

I leaned against it, wiping the perspiration from my face, for the day

was hot, and the exertion and excitement left me exhausted.

I stood there, resting, for a moment, preparatory to turning and

retracing my steps to the launch, when, without warning, something

whizzed through space straight toward me. There was a dull thud of

impact as it struck the tree, and as I dodged to one side and turned to

look at the thing I saw a heavy spear imbedded in the wood not three

inches from where my head had been.

The thing had come from a little to one side of me, and, without

waiting to investigate at the instant, I leaped behind the tree, and,

circling it, peered around the other side to get a sight of my would-be

murderer.

This time I was pitted against men—the spear told me that all too

plainly—but so long as they didn’t take me unawares or from behind I

had little fear of them.

Cautiously I edged about the far side of the trees until I could obtain

a view of the spot from which the spear must have come, and when I did

I saw the head of a man just emerging from behind a bush.

The fellow was quite similar in type to those I had seen upon the Isle

of Wight. He was hairy and unkempt, and as he finally stepped into view

I saw that he was garbed in the same primitive fashion.

He stood for a moment gazing about in search of me, and then he

advanced. As he did so a number of others, precisely like him, stepped

from the concealing verdure of nearby bushes and followed in his wake.

Keeping the trees between them and me, I ran back a short distance

until I found a clump of underbrush that would effectually conceal me,

for I wished to discover the strength of the party and its armament

before attempting to parley with it.

The useless destruction of any of these poor creatures was the farthest

idea from my mind. I should have liked to have spoken with them, but I

did not care to risk having to use my high-powered rifle upon them

other than in the last extremity.

Once in my new place of concealment, I watched them as they approached

the tree. There were about thirty men in the party and one woman—a girl

whose hands seemed to be bound behind her and who was being pulled

along by two of the men.

They came forward warily, peering cautiously into every bush and

halting often. At the body of the lion, they paused, and I could see

from their gesticulations and the higher pitch of their voices that

they were much excited over my kill.

But presently they resumed their search for me, and as they advanced I

became suddenly aware of the unnecessary brutality with which the

girl’s guards were treating her. She stumbled once, not far from my

place of concealment, and after the balance of the party had passed me.

As she did so one of the men at her side jerked her roughly to her feet

and struck her across the mouth with his fist.

Instantly my blood boiled, and forgetting every consideration of

caution, I leaped from my concealment, and, springing to the manl’s

side, felled him with a blow.

So unexpected had been my act that it found him and his fellow

unprepared; but instantly the latter drew the knife that protruded from

his belt and lunged viciously at me, at the same time giving voice to a

wild cry of alarm.

The girl shrank back at sight of me, her eyes wide in astonishment, and

then my antagonist was upon me. I parried his first blow with my

forearm, at the same time delivering a powerful blow to his jaw that

sent him reeling back; but he was at me again in an instant, though in

the brief interim I had time to draw my revolver.

I saw his companion crawling slowly to his feet, and the others of the

party racing down upon me. There was no time to argue now, other than

with the weapons we wore, and so, as the fellow lunged at me again with

the wicked-looking knife, I covered his heart and pulled the trigger.

Without a sound, he slipped to the earth, and then I turned the weapon

upon the other guard, who was now about to attack me. He, too,

collapsed, and I was alone with the astonished girl.

The balance of the party was some twenty paces from us, but coming

rapidly. I seized her arm and drew her after me behind a nearby tree,

for I had seen that with both their comrades down the others were

preparing to launch their spears.

With the girl safe behind the tree, I stepped out in sight of the

advancing foe, shouting to them that I was no enemy, and that they

should halt and listen to me. But for answer they only yelled in

derision and launched a couple of spears at me, both of which missed.

I saw then that I must fight, yet still I hated to slay them, and it

was only as a final resort that I dropped two of them with my rifle,

bringing the others to a temporary halt. Again, I appealed to them to

desist. But they only mistook my solicitude for them for fear, and,

with shouts of rage and derision, leaped forward once again to

overwhelm me.

It was now quite evident that I must punish them severely,

or—myself—die and relinquish the girl once more to her captors. Neither

of these things had I the slightest notion of doing, and so I again

stepped from behind the tree, and, with all the care and deliberation

of target practice, I commenced picking off the foremost of my

assailants.

One by one the wild men dropped, yet on came the others, fierce and

vengeful, until, only a few remaining, these seemed to realize the

futility of combating my modern weapon with their primitive spears,

and, still howling wrathfully, withdrew toward the west.

Now, for the first time, I had an opportunity to turn my attention

toward the girl, who had stood, silent and motionless, behind me as I

pumped death into my enemies and hers from my automatic rifle.

She was of medium height, well formed, and with fine, clear-cut

features. Her forehead was high, and her eyes both intelligent and

beautiful. Exposure to the sun had browned a smooth and velvety skin to

a shade which seemed to enhance rather than mar an altogether lovely

picture of youthful femininity.

A trace of apprehension marked her expression—I cannot call it fear

since I have learned to know her—and astonishment was still apparent in

her eyes. She stood quite erect, her hands still bound behind her, and

met my gaze with level, proud return.

“What language do you speak?” I asked. “Do you understand mine?”

“Yes,” she replied. “It is similar to my own. I am Grabritin. What are

you?”

“I am a Pan-American,” I answered. She shook her head. “What is that?”

I pointed toward the west. “Far away, across the ocean.”

Her expression altered a trifle. A slight frown contracted her brow.

The expression of apprehension deepened.

“Take off your cap,” she said, and when, to humor her strange request,

I did as she bid, she appeared relieved. Then she edged to one side and

leaned over seemingly to peer behind me. I turned quickly to see what

she discovered, but finding nothing, wheeled about to see that her

expression was once more altered.

“You are not from there?” and she pointed toward the east. It was a

half question. “You are not from across the water there?”

“No,” I assured her. “I am from Pan-America, far away to the west. Have

you ever heard of Pan-America?”

She shook her head in negation. “I do not care where you are from,” she

explained, “if you are not from there, and I am sure you are not, for

the men from there have horns and tails.”

It was with difficulty that I restrained a smile.

“Who are the men from there?” I asked.

“They are bad men,” she replied. “Some of my people do not believe that

there are such creatures. But we have a legend—a very old, old legend,

that once the men from there came across to Grabritin. They came upon

the water, and under the water, and even in the air. They came in great

numbers, so that they rolled across the land like a great gray fog.

They brought with them thunder and lightning and smoke that killed, and

they fell upon us and slew our people by the thousands and the hundreds

of thousands. But at last we drove them back to the waterl’s edge, back

into the sea, where many were drowned. Some escaped, and these our

people followed—men, women, and even children, we followed them back.

That is all. The legend says our people never returned. Maybe they were

all killed. Maybe they are still there. But this, also, is in the

legend, that as we drove the men back across the water they swore that

they would return, and that when they left our shores they would leave

no human being alive behind them. I was afraid that you were from

there.”

“By what name were these men called?” I asked.

“We call them only the ‘men from there,’” she replied, pointing toward

the east. “I have never heard that they had another name.”

In the light of what I knew of ancient history, it was not difficult

for me to guess the nationality of those she described simply as “the

men from over there.” But what utter and appalling devastation the

Great War must have wrought to have erased not only every sign of

civilization from the face of this great land, but even the name of the

enemy from the knowledge and language of the people.

I could only account for it on the hypothesis that the country had been

entirely depopulated except for a few scattered and forgotten children,

who, in some marvelous manner, had been preserved by Providence to

re-populate the land. These children had, doubtless, been too young to

retain in their memories to transmit to their children any but the

vaguest suggestion of the cataclysm which had overwhelmed their

parents.

Professor Cortoran, since my return to Pan-America, has suggested

another theory which is not entirely without claim to serious

consideration. He points out that it is quite beyond the pale of human

instinct to desert little children as my theory suggests the ancient

English must have done. He is more inclined to believe that the

expulsion of the foe from England was synchronous with widespread

victories by the allies upon the continent, and that the people of

England merely emigrated from their ruined cities and their devastated,

blood-drenched fields to the mainland, in the hope of finding, in the

domain of the conquered enemy, cities and farms which would replace

those they had lost.

The learned professor assumes that while a long-continued war had

strengthened rather than weakened the instinct of paternal devotion, it

had also dulled other humanitarian instincts, and raised to the first

magnitude the law of the survival of the fittest, with the result that

when the exodus took place the strong, the intelligent, and the

cunning, together with their offspring, crossed the waters of the

Channel or the North Sea to the continent, leaving in unhappy England

only the helpless inmates of asylums for the feebleminded and insane.

My objections to this, that the present inhabitants of England are

mentally fit, and could therefore not have descended from an ancestry

of undiluted lunacy he brushes aside with the assertion that insanity

is not necessarily hereditary; and that even though it was, in many

cases a return to natural conditions from the state of high

civilization, which is thought to have induced mental disease in the

ancient world, would, after several generations, have thoroughly

expunged every trace of the affliction from the brains and nerves of

the descendants of the original maniacs.

Personally, I do not place much stock in Professor Cortoranl’s theory,

though I admit that I am prejudiced. Naturally one does not care to

believe that the object of his greatest affection is descended from a

gibbering idiot and a raving maniac.

But I am forgetting the continuity of my narrative—a continuity which I

desire to maintain, though I fear that I shall often be led astray, so

numerous and varied are the bypaths of speculation which lead from the

present day story of the Grabritins into the mysterious past of their

forbears.

As I stood talking with the girl I presently recollected that she still

was bound, and with a word of apology, I drew my knife and cut the

rawhide thongs which confined her wrists at her back.

She thanked me, and with such a sweet smile that I should have been

amply repaid by it for a much more arduous service.

“And now,” I said, “let me accompany you to your home and see you

safely again under the protection of your friends.”

“No,” she said, with a hint of alarm in her voice; “you must not come

with me—Buckingham will kill you.”

Buckingham. The name was famous in ancient English history. Its

survival, with many other illustrious names, is one of the strongest

arguments in refutal of Professor Cortoranl’s theory; yet it opens no

new doors to the past, and, on the whole, rather adds to than

dissipates the mystery.

“And who is Buckingham,” I asked, “and why should he wish to kill me?”

“He would think that you had stolen me,” she replied, “and as he wishes

me for himself, he will kill any other whom he thinks desires me. He

killed Wettin a few days ago. My mother told me once that Wettin was my

father. He was king. Now Buckingham is king.”

Here, evidently, were a people slightly superior to those of the Isle

of Wight. These must have at least the rudiments of civilized

government since they recognized one among them as ruler, with the

title, king. Also, they retained the word father. The girl’s

pronunciation, while far from identical with ours, was much closer than

the tortured dialect of the Eastenders of the Isle of Wight. The longer

I talked with her the more hopeful I became of finding here, among her

people, some records, or traditions, which might assist in clearing up

the historic enigma of the past two centuries. I asked her if we were

far from the city of London, but she did not know what I meant. When I

tried to explain, describing mighty buildings of stone and brick, broad

avenues, parks, palaces, and countless people, she but shook her head

sadly.

“There is no such place near by,” she said. “Only the Camp of the Lions

has places of stone where the beasts lair, but there are no people in

the Camp of the Lions. Who would dare go there!” And she shuddered.

“The Camp of the Lions,” I repeated. “And where is that, and what?”

“It is there,” she said, pointing up the river toward the west. “I have

seen it from a great distance, but I have never been there. We are much

afraid of the lions, for this is their country, and they are angry that

man has come to live here.

“Far away there,” and she pointed toward the south-west, “is the land

of tigers, which is even worse than this, the land of the lions, for

the tigers are more numerous than the lions and hungrier for human

flesh. There were tigers here long ago, but both the lions and the men

set upon them and drove them off.”

“Where did these savage beasts come from?” I asked.

“Oh,” she replied, “they have been here always. It is their country.”

“Do they not kill and eat your people?” I asked.

“Often, when we meet them by accident, and we are too few to slay them,

or when one goes too close to their camp. But seldom do they hunt us,

for they find what food they need among the deer and wild cattle, and,

too, we make them gifts, for are we not intruders in their country?

Really we live upon good terms with them, though I should not care to

meet one were there not many spears in my party.”

“I should like to visit this Camp of the Lions,” I said.

“Oh, no, you must not!” cried the girl. “That would be terrible. They

would eat you.” For a moment, then, she seemed lost in thought, but

presently she turned upon me with: “You must go now, for any minute

Buckingham may come in search of me. Long since should they have

learned that I am gone from the camp—they watch over me very

closely—and they will set out after me. Go! I shall wait here until

they come in search of me.”

“No,” I told her. “I’ll not leave you alone in a land infested by lions

and other wild beasts. If you won’t let me go as far as your camp with

you, then I’ll wait here until they come in search of you.”

“Please go!” she begged. “You have saved me, and I would save you, but

nothing will save you if Buckingham gets his hands on you. He is a bad

man. He wishes to have me for his woman so that he may be king. He

would kill anyone who befriended me, for fear that I might become

anotherl’s.”

“Didn’t you say that Buckingham is already the king?” I asked.

“He is. He took my mother for his woman after he had killed Wettin. But

my mother will die soon—she is very old—and then the man to whom I

belong will become king.”

Finally, after much questioning, I got the thing through my head. It

appears that the line of descent is through the women. A man is merely

head of his wife’s family—that is all. If she chances to be the oldest

female member of the “royal” house, he is king. Very naively the girl

explained that there was seldom any doubt as to whom a childl’s mother

was.

This accounted for the girl’s importance in the community and for

Buckinghaml’s anxiety to claim her, though she told me that she did not

wish to become his woman, for he was a bad man and would make a bad

king. But he was powerful, and there was no other man who dared dispute

his wishes.

“Why not come with me,” I suggested, “if you do not wish to become

Buckinghaml’s?”

“Where would you take me?” she asked.

Where, indeed! I had not thought of that. But before I could reply to

her question she shook her head and said, “No, I cannot leave my

people. I must stay and do my best, even if Buckingham gets me, but you

must go at once. Do not wait until it is too late. The lions have had

no offering for a long time, and Buckingham would seize upon the first

stranger as a gift to them.”

I did not perfectly understand what she meant, and was about to ask her

when a heavy body leaped upon me from behind, and great arms encircled

my neck. I struggled to free myself and turn upon my antagonist, but in

another instant I was overwhelmed by a half dozen powerful, half-naked

men, while a score of others surrounded me, a couple of whom seized the

girl.

I fought as best I could for my liberty and for hers, but the weight of

numbers was too great, though I had the satisfaction at least of giving

them a good fight.

When they had overpowered me, and I stood, my hands bound behind me, at

the girl’s side, she gazed commiseratingly at me.

“It is too bad that you did not do as I bid you,” she said, “for now it

has happened just as I feared—Buckingham has you.”

“Which is Buckingham?” I asked.

“I am Buckingham,” growled a burly, unwashed brute, swaggering

truculently before me. “And who are you who would have stolen my

woman?”

The girl spoke up then and tried to explain that I had not stolen her;

but on the contrary I had saved her from the men from the “Elephant

Country” who were carrying her away.

Buckingham only sneered at her explanation, and a moment later gave the

command that started us all off toward the west. We marched for a

matter of an hour or so, coming at last to a collection of rude huts,

fashioned from branches of trees covered with skins and grasses and

sometimes plastered with mud. All about the camp they had erected a

wall of saplings pointed at the tops and fire hardened.

This palisade was a protection against both man and beasts, and within

it dwelt upward of two thousand persons, the shelters being built very

close together, and sometimes partially underground, like deep

trenches, with the poles and hides above merely as protection from the

sun and rain.

The older part of the camp consisted almost wholly of trenches, as

though this had been the original form of dwellings which was slowly

giving way to the drier and airier surface domiciles. In these trench

habitations I saw a survival of the military trenches which formed so

famous a part of the operation of the warring nations during the

twentieth century.

The women wore a single light deerskin about their hips, for it was

summer, and quite warm. The men, too, were clothed in a single garment,

usually the pelt of some beast of prey. The hair of both men and women

was confined by a rawhide thong passing about the forehead and tied

behind. In this leathern band were stuck feathers, flowers, or the

tails of small mammals. All wore necklaces of the teeth or claws of

wild beasts, and there were numerous metal wristlets and anklets among

them.

They wore, in fact, every indication of a most primitive people—a race

which had not yet risen to the heights of agriculture or even the

possession of domestic animals. They were hunters—the lowest plane in

the evolution of the human race of which science takes cognizance.

And yet as I looked at their well shaped heads, their handsome

features, and their intelligent eyes, it was difficult to believe that

I was not among my own. It was only when I took into consideration

their mode of living, their scant apparel, the lack of every least

luxury among them, that I was forced to admit that they were, in truth,

but ignorant savages.

Buckingham had relieved me of my weapons, though he had not the

slightest idea of their purpose or uses, and when we reached the camp

he exhibited both me and my arms with every indication of pride in this

great capture.

The inhabitants flocked around me, examining my clothing, and

exclaiming in wonderment at each new discovery of button, buckle,

pocket, and flap. It seemed incredible that such a thing could be,

almost within a stone’s throw of the spot where but a brief two

centuries before had stood the greatest city of the world.

They bound me to a small tree that grew in the middle of one of their

crooked streets, but the girl they released as soon as we had entered

the enclosure. The people greeted her with every mark of respect as she

hastened to a large hut near the center of the camp.

Presently she returned with a fine looking, white-haired woman, who

proved to be her mother. The older woman carried herself with a regal

dignity that seemed quite remarkable in a place of such primitive

squalor.

The people fell aside as she approached, making a wide way for her and

her daughter. When they had come near and stopped before me the older

woman addressed me.

“My daughter has told me,” she said, “of the manner in which you

rescued her from the men of the elephant country. If Wettin lived you

would be well treated, but Buckingham has taken me now, and is king.

You can hope for nothing from such a beast as Buckingham.”

The fact that Buckingham stood within a pace of us and was an

interested listener appeared not to temper her expressions in the

slightest.

“Buckingham is a pig,” she continued. “He is a coward. He came upon

Wettin from behind and ran his spear through him. He will not be king

for long. Some one will make a face at him, and he will run away and

jump into the river.”

The people began to titter and clap their hands. Buckingham became red

in the face. It was evident that he was far from popular.

“If he dared,” went on the old lady, “he would kill me now, but he does

not dare. He is too great a coward. If I could help you I should gladly

do so. But I am only queen—the vehicle that has helped carry down,

unsullied, the royal blood from the days when Grabritin was a mighty

country.”

The old queenl’s words had a noticeable effect upon the mob of curious

savages which surrounded me. The moment they discovered that the old

queen was friendly to me and that I had rescued her daughter they

commenced to accord me a more friendly interest, and I heard many words

spoken in my behalf, and demands were made that I not be harmed.

But now Buckingham interfered. He had no intention of being robbed of

his prey. Blustering and storming, he ordered the people back to their

huts, at the same time directing two of his warriors to confine me in a

dugout in one of the trenches close to his own shelter.

Here they threw me upon the ground, binding my ankles together and

trussing them up to my wrists behind. There they left me, lying upon my

stomach—a most uncomfortable and strained position, to which was added

the pain where the cords cut into my flesh.

Just a few days ago my mind had been filled with the anticipation of

the friendly welcome I should find among the cultured Englishmen of

London. Today I should be sitting in the place of honor at the banquet

board of one of Londonl’s most exclusive clubs, feted and lionized.

The actuality! Here I lay, bound hand and foot, doubtless almost upon

the very site of a part of ancient London, yet all about me was a

primeval wilderness, and I was a captive of half-naked wild men.

I wondered what had become of Delcarte and Taylor and Snider. Would

they search for me? They could never find me, I feared, yet if they

did, what could they accomplish against this horde of savage warriors?

Would that I could warn them. I thought of the girl—doubtless she could

get word to them, but how was I to communicate with her? Would she come

to see me before I was killed? It seemed incredible that she should not

make some slight attempt to befriend me; yet, as I recalled, she had

made no effort to speak with me after we had reached the village. She

had hastened to her mother the moment she had been liberated. Though

she had returned with the old queen, she had not spoken to me, even

then. I began to have my doubts.

Finally, I came to the conclusion that I was absolutely friendless

except for the old queen. For some unaccountable reason my rage against

the girl for her ingratitude rose to colossal proportions.

For a long time I waited for some one to come to my prison whom I might

ask to bear word to the queen, but I seemed to have been forgotten. The

strained position in which I lay became unbearable. I wriggled and

twisted until I managed to turn myself partially upon my side, where I

lay half facing the entrance to the dugout.

Presently my attention was attracted by the shadow of something moving

in the trench without, and a moment later the figure of a child

appeared, creeping upon all fours, as, wide-eyed, and prompted by

childish curiosity, a little girl crawled to the entrance of my hut and

peered cautiously and fearfully in.

I did not speak at first for fear of frightening the little one away.

But when I was satisfied that her eyes had become sufficiently

accustomed to the subdued light of the interior, I smiled.

Instantly the expression of fear faded from her eyes to be replaced

with an answering smile.

“Who are you, little girl?” I asked.

“My name is Mary,” she replied. “I am Victoryl’s sister.”

“And who is Victory?”

“You do not know who Victory is?” she asked, in astonishment.

I shook my head in negation.

“You saved her from the elephant country people, and yet you say you do

not know her!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, so she is Victory, and you are her sister! I have not heard her

name before. That is why I did not know whom you meant,” I explained.

Here was just the messenger for me. Fate was becoming more kind.

“Will you do something for me, Mary?” I asked.

“If I can.”

“Go to your mother, the queen, and ask her to come to me,” I said. “I

have a favor to ask.”

She said that she would, and with a parting smile she left me.

For what seemed many hours I awaited her return, chafing with

impatience. The afternoon wore on and night came, and yet no one came

near me. My captors brought me neither food nor water. I was suffering

considerable pain where the rawhide thongs cut into my swollen flesh. I

thought that they had either forgotten me, or that it was their

intention to leave me here to die of starvation.

Once I heard a great uproar in the village. Men were shouting—women

were screaming and moaning. After a time this subsided, and again there

was a long interval of silence.

Half the night must have been spent when I heard a sound in the trench

near the hut. It resembled muffled sobs. Presently a figure appeared,

silhouetted against the lesser darkness beyond the doorway. It crept

inside the hut.

“Are you here?” whispered a childlike voice.

It was Mary! She had returned. The thongs no longer hurt me. The pangs

of hunger and thirst disappeared. I realized that it had been

loneliness from which I suffered most.

“Mary!” I exclaimed. “You are a good girl. You have come back, after

all. I had commenced to think that you would not. Did you give my

message to the queen? Will she come? Where is she?”

The childl’s sobs increased, and she flung herself upon the dirt floor

of the hut, apparently overcome by grief.

“What is it?” I asked. “Why do you cry?”

“The queen, my mother, will not come to you,” she said, between sobs.

“She is dead. Buckingham has killed her. Now he will take Victory, for

Victory is queen. He kept us fastened up in our shelter, for fear that

Victory would escape him, but I dug a hole beneath the back wall and

got out. I came to you, because you saved Victory once before, and I

thought that you might save her again, and me, also. Tell me that you

will.”

“I am bound and helpless, Mary,” I replied. “Otherwise I would do what

I could to save you and your sister.”

“I will set you free!” cried the girl, creeping up to my side. “I will

set you free, and then you may come and slay Buckingham.”

“Gladly!” I assented.

“We must hurry,” she went on, as she fumbled with the hard knots in the

stiffened rawhide, “for Buckingham will be after you soon. He must make

an offering to the lions at dawn before he can take Victory. The taking

of a queen requires a human offering!”

“And I am to be the offering?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, tugging at a knot. “Buckingham has been wanting a

sacrifice ever since he killed Wettin, that he might slay my mother and

take Victory.”

The thought was horrible, not solely because of the hideous fate to

which I was condemned, but from the contemplation it engendered of the

sad decadence of a once enlightened race. To these depths of ignorance,

brutality, and superstition had the vaunted civilization of twentieth

century England been plunged, and by what? War! I felt the structure of

our time-honored militaristic arguments crumbling about me.

Mary labored with the thongs that confined me. They proved

refractory—defying her tender, childish fingers. She assured me,

however, that she would release me, if “they” did not come too soon.

But, alas, they came. We heard them coming down the trench, and I bade

Mary hide in a corner, lest she be discovered and punished. There was

naught else she could do, and so she crawled away into the Stygian

blackness behind me.

Presently two warriors entered. The leader exhibited a unique method of

discovering my whereabouts in the darkness. He advanced slowly, kicking

out viciously before him. Finally he kicked me in the face. Then he

knew where I was.

A moment later I had been jerked roughly to my feet. One of the fellows

stopped and severed the bonds that held my ankles. I could scarcely

stand alone. The two pulled and hauled me through the low doorway and

along the trench. A party of forty or fifty warriors were awaiting us

at the brink of the excavation some hundred yards from the hut.

Hands were lowered to us, and we were dragged to the surface. Then

commenced a long march. We stumbled through the underbrush wet with

dew, our way lighted by a score of torchbearers who surrounded us. But

the torches were not to light the way—that was but incidental. They

were carried to keep off the huge Carnivora that moaned and coughed and

roared about us.

The noises were hideous. The whole country seemed alive with lions.

Yellow-green eyes blazed wickedly at us from out the surrounding

darkness. My escort carried long, heavy spears. These they kept ever

pointed toward the beast of prey, and I learned from snatches of the

conversation I overheard that occasionally there might be a lion who

would brave even the terrors of fire to leap in upon human prey. It was

for such that the spears were always couched.

But nothing of the sort occurred during this hideous death march, and

with the first pale heralding of dawn we reached our goal—an open place

in the midst of a tangled wildwood. Here rose in crumbling grandeur the

first evidences I had seen of the ancient civilization which once had

graced fair Albion—a single, time-worn arch of masonry.

“The entrance to the Camp of the Lions!” murmured one of the party in a

voice husky with awe.

Here the party knelt, while Buckingham recited a weird, prayer-like

chant. It was rather long, and I recall only a portion of it, which

ran, if my memory serves me, somewhat as follows:

Lord of Grabritin, we

Fall on our knees to thee,

This gift to bring.

Greatest of kings are thou!

To thee we humbly bow!

Peace to our camp allow.

God save thee, king!

Then the party rose, and dragging me to the crumbling arch, made me

fast to a huge, corroded, copper ring which was dangling from an

eyebolt imbedded in the masonry.

None of them, not even Buckingham, seemed to feel any personal

animosity toward me. They were naturally rough and brutal, as primitive

men are supposed to have been since the dawn of humanity, but they did

not go out of their way to maltreat me.

With the coming of dawn the number of lions about us seemed to have

greatly diminished—at least they made less noise—and as Buckingham and

his party disappeared into the woods, leaving me alone to my terrible

fate, I could hear the grumblings and growlings of the beasts

diminishing with the sound of the chant, which the party still

continued. It appeared that the lions had failed to note that I had

been left for their breakfast, and had followed off after their

worshippers instead.

But I knew the reprieve would be but for a short time, and though I had

no wish to die, I must confess that I rather wished the ordeal over and

the peace of oblivion upon me.

The voices of the men and the lions receded in the distance, until

finally quiet reigned about me, broken only by the sweet voices of

birds and the sighing of the summer wind in the trees.

It seemed impossible to believe that in this peaceful woodland setting

the frightful thing was to occur which must come with the passing of

the next lion who chanced within sight or smell of the crumbling arch.

I strove to tear myself loose from my bonds, but succeeded only in

tightening them about my arms. Then I remained passive for a long time,

letting the scenes of my lifetime pass in review before my mindl’s eye.

I tried to imagine the astonishment, incredulity, and horror with which

my family and friends would be overwhelmed if, for an instant, space

could be annihilated and they could see me at the gates of London.

The gates of London! Where was the multitude hurrying to the marts of

trade after a night of pleasure or rest? Where was the clang of tramcar

gongs, the screech of motor horns, the vast murmur of a dense throng?

Where were they? And as I asked the question a lone, gaunt lion strode

from the tangled jungle upon the far side of the clearing. Majestically

and noiselessly upon his padded feet the king of beasts moved slowly

toward the gates of London and toward me.

Was I afraid? I fear that I was almost afraid. I know that I thought

that fear was coming to me, and so I straightened up and squared my

shoulders and looked the lion straight in the eyes—and waited.

It is not a nice way to die—alone, with one’s hands fast bound, beneath

the fangs and talons of a beast of prey. No, it is not a nice way to

die, not a pretty way.

The lion was halfway across the clearing when I heard a slight sound

behind me. The great cat stopped in his tracks. He lashed his tail

against his sides now, instead of simply twitching its tip, and his low

moan became a thunderous roar.

As I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of the thing that had aroused

the fury of the beast before me, it sprang through the arched gateway

and was at my side—with parted lips and heaving bosom and disheveled

hair—a bronzed and lovely vision to eyes that had never harbored hope

of rescue.

It was Victory, and in her arms she clutched my rifle and revolver. A

long knife was in the doeskin belt that supported the doeskin skirt

tightly about her lithe limbs. She dropped my weapons at my feet, and,

snatching the knife from its resting place, severed the bonds that held

me. I was free, and the lion was preparing to charge.

“Run!” I cried to the girl, as I bent and seized my rifle. But she only

stood there at my side, her bared blade ready in her hand.

The lion was bounding toward us now in prodigious leaps. I raised the

rifle and fired. It was a lucky shot, for I had no time to aim

carefully, and when the beast crumpled and rolled, lifeless, to the

ground, I went upon my knees and gave thanks to the God of my

ancestors.

And, still upon my knees, I turned, and taking the girl’s hand in mine,

I kissed it. She smiled at that, and laid her other hand upon my head.

“You have strange customs in your country,” she said.

I could not but smile at that when I thought how strange it would seem

to my countrymen could they but see me kneeling there on the site of

London, kissing the hand of Englandl’s queen.

“And now,” I said, as I rose, “you must return to the safety of your

camp. I will go with you until you are near enough to continue alone in

safety. Then I shall try to return to my comrades.”

“I will not return to the camp,” she replied.

“But what shall you do?” I asked.

“I do not know. Only I shall never go back while Buckingham lives. I

should rather die than go back to him. Mary came to me, after they had

taken you from the camp, and told me. I found your strange weapons and

followed with them. It took me a little longer, for often I had to hide

in the trees that the lions might not get me, but I came in time, and

now you are free to go back to your friends.”

“And leave you here?” I exclaimed.

She nodded, but I could see through all her brave front that she was

frightened at the thought. I could not leave her, of course, but what

in the world I was to do, cumbered with the care of a young woman, and

a queen at that, I was at a loss to know. I pointed out that phase of

it to her, but she only shrugged her shapely shoulders and pointed to

her knife.

It was evident that she felt entirely competent to protect herself.

As we stood there we heard the sound of voices. They were coming from

the forest through which we had passed when we had come from camp.

“They are searching for me,” said the girl. “Where shall we hide?”

I didn’t relish hiding. But when I thought of the innumerable dangers

which surrounded us and the comparatively small amount of ammunition

that I had with me, I hesitated to provoke a battle with Buckingham and

his warriors when, by flight, I could avoid them and preserve my

cartridges against emergencies which could not be escaped.

“Would they follow us there?” I asked, pointing through the archway

into the Camp of the Lions.

“Never,” she replied, “for, in the first place, they would know that we

would not dare go there, and in the second they themselves would not

dare.”

“Then we shall take refuge in the Camp of the Lions,” I said.

She shuddered and drew closer to me.

“You dare?” she asked.

“Why not?” I returned. “We shall be safe from Buckingham, and you have

seen, for the second time in two days, that lions are harmless before

my weapons. Then, too, I can find my friends easiest in this direction,

for the River Thames runs through this place you call the Camp of the

Lions, and it is farther down the Thames that my friends are awaiting

me. Do you not dare come with me?”

“I dare follow wherever you lead,” she answered simply.

And so I turned and passed beneath the great arch into the city of

London.