Abraham Merritt

“ THE raptness vanished, her eyes cleared.
"Then," said Larry, "we have the Akka; and we have the four men of us, and among us three guns and about a hundred cartridges—an'—an' the power of the Three— But what about the Shining One. Fireworks—"
"I do not know." Again the indecision that had been in her eyes when Yolara had launched her defiance crept back. "The Shining One is strong, and he has his slaves!"
"Well, we'd better get busy good and quick!" the O'Keefe's voice rang. But Lakla, for some reason of her own, would pursue the matter no further. ”

“ Their bracelets and anklets of jewels were tinkling; their middles covered with short kirtles of woven cloth studded with the sparkling ornaments.
And here let me say that if I have given the impression that the Akka are simply magnified frogs, I regret it. Frog-like they are, and hence my phrase for them. But they are as unlike the frog, as we know it, as man is unlike the chimpanzee. Springing, I hazard, from the stegocephalia, the ancestor of the frogs, these batracians followed a different line of evolution and acquired the upright position just as man did from the four-footed folk. ”

“ They bridled, looked at O'Keefe with fantastic coquetry, clacked and boomed softly among themselves.
"They say they like you better than any of the men of Muria," laughed Lakla.
"Did I ever think I'd be swapping compliments with lady frogs!" he murmured to me. "Buck up, Larry. Keep your eye on the captive Irish princess!" he muttered to himself.
"Rador goes to meet one of the ladala who is slipping through with news," said the Golden Girl as we addressed ourselves to the food. "Then, with Nak, he and Olaf go to muster the Akka, for there will be battle, and we must prepare. ”

“ And certainly they know love. For I saw the way they looked at Lakla; and sorrow—for there was no mistaking that in their faces."
"I consider that a frivolous objection, Larry," I answered, a bit nonplused.
"You scientists are an inhuman lot, sometimes," he said. "That's why I like you to be superstitious now and then. It shows you're not fossilized!"
Just then the curtains parted, and in walked Rador.
"You have rested well," he smiled. "I can see. The handmaiden bade me call you. You are to eat with her in her garden."
O'Keefe was hustling into his clothes. ”

“ I said cautiously, "that we face an evolution of highly intelligent beings from ancestral sources radically removed from those through which mankind ascended. These half-human, highly developed batracians they call the Akka, prove that evolution in these caverned spaces has certainly pursued one different path than on earth.
"What I think, since you have asked me, Larry O'Keefe," I went on, "is that the Three are of a race which came up from a lizard form. ”

“ Hence their knowledge and command of energies unfamiliar to us—and hence, also, the grave question whether they may not have an entirely different sense of justice, of values—and that is rather terrifying! ”

“ Two great tears rolled from the golden eyes of Lakla.
"Not even the Shining One can heal those the Shining One has taken," she said. "He asked me, and it was better that I tell. It is part of the Three's—punishment—but of that you will soon learn," she went on hurriedly. "Ask me no questions now of the Silent Ones. I thought it better for Olaf to go with Rador, to busy himself, to give his mind other than sorrow upon which to feed."
UP THE path came five of the frog women, bearing platters and ewers. ”