Murray Leinster

“ It was breathless work because at any instant a liquid little glitter in the moonlight—a throwing-knife—might be the only herald of a silent and desperate attack.
But they made their way on and upward. It seemed as if they had passed through the ring of sentries. The trees grew thinner. The wind roared more loudly above their heads. And suddenly they saw the glow of many fires before them.
If they had gone carefully before, now they moved with infinite pains to make no noise. A single voice was chanting above the wind’s screaming. Gray listened and shook his head. ”

“ This was where Cunningham was going. Where the prettiest girl in the world had smiled unconsciously at a camera just four months before. Where a magnificent unknown race was represented in the hodgepodge of New England’s later day. Where inquisitive strangers might mysteriously disappear, where certain hostility awaited too much questioning—and where the prettiest girl in the world might possibly be induced to smile. ”

“ And very suddenly an arm reached out from the thick brushwood and seized the horse’s bridle. One of the Strangers stepped into view and gazed steadily up into the muzzle of Cunningham’s revolver.
From all about them men materialized as if by magic. No man laid a hand on any weapon. They looked at the pair upon the horse gravely, without rancor but with infinite resolution.
And Stephan, Maria’s father, came into view and regarded them with weary, hopeless eyes. ”

“ And there was Vladimir’s servant, staring stupidly about him in sudden fright at the sound of many voices. He was waist-high in brushwood. He swerved in panic at the sound of Cunningham’s rush; then his face lighted with ferocity. With lightning quickness he had leveled a weapon and fired.
Cunningham’s life was due to the fact that he had just tripped upon one of the innumerable small boulders strewn all over the slopes. He was falling as the bullet left the gun. He felt a searing pain in his left shoulder and crashed to the ground. Maria’s voice shrilled in anguish.
“Dead! He is killed!” ”

“ And the running line of men broke and milled. Cunningham saw a hundred hands flash to as many knife-hilts. He saw the sheriff and four frightened-looking constables come plunging out of the brushwood, shouting something inane about halting in the name of the law. There was a shout and a scream, and then a man’s voice raised itself in a wild yell of command and entreaty. ”

“ One man was sobbing in rage and humiliation, begging leave to plunge into the mob and die fighting—alone, if need be.
Stephan refused him gently.
“I think we die,” he said grimly, “but he”—Stephan pointed at Cunningham—“has promised that help will come. I do not believe it, but we can miss no chance. We have women with us, and children. We must hold ourselves for them. While the least chance remains, we must live.” ”

“ But the thought of finding her involved in such an unpleasant mess as the killing of the foreigner; that was different.
A tidy-minded person would have abandoned the quest at once. He would have abandoned the clearly marked trail to romance and high adventure and gone home. A man who acted upon sober common sense would have done the same thing. But such persons do not ever find romance and very rarely even the mildest of adventures. It takes folly and belief to come at romance!—such folly as enabled Cunningham presently to see his duty clear before him. ”

“ Cunningham dwelt upon her image in his memory with increasing contentment. Sometimes a man sees a woman and without even any feeling of surprize realizes that it is she whom he has been waiting for all his life. It is more of a recognition than a meeting. Cunningham felt that way about Maria.
But he forced his brain to a last effort to understand the mystery into which he had dropped. Vladimir offering bribes to keep other people from the Strangers he hated, and the Strangers with their incredible lack of knowledge of American commonplaces. ”

“ The sheriff, acting on his orders, broke up every group of wild-talking men as soon as it formed. But Vladimir held the Strange People in the hollow of his palm. Half a dozen murmured words, and the men who had taken his lavished money would stand aside and let the simmering terror of the countryside burst out into the frenzy of a mob. And then the hills would be invaded by Christian men who would ferret out the Strangers and kill them one by one in the firm belief that they were exterminating the agents of Satan and the killers of innumerable children. ”

“ And they had surged into the hills in quest of the Strange People. All had forgotten that the only thing genuinely proved against the Strangers was the death of Valdimir’s brother. All were hysterically convinced that the Strangers made a practise of kidnaping children and sacrificing adults in devilish orgies by their fires.
The belief was not unparalleled. To be peculiar is to invite suspicion. The Strangers were peculiar. Suspicion is always based on fear. What fear is more terrible than that of harm to one’s children? Every unknown man or race of men has been accused of the one crime. ”

“ I refused offers of bribes. That man”—he pointed at Vladimir’s servant—“tried to kill me only today, only because I am your friend. And what have I asked of you? If Maria tells me to go, I will go. But otherwise——”
Stephan put his hand on Cunningham’s shoulder.
“You must not come again,” he said quietly, “because Maria loves you also. Our people know such things quickly. She has said that she loves you. And we dare not let our women marry any man but one of ourselves. It is not that we hate you. We kept that man from killing you today, and we would have killed him if you said so. ”

“ Stephan’s voice was gentle and quaintly sympathetic.
“We have killed one man who knew the answer to that question,” he said in the teasing soft unfamiliar accent that all the Strange People had. “We do not wish to kill you. And you are not unfit to marry my daughter. My daughter, or any of us, is not fit to marry you.”
Cunningham shook his head.
“Let me be the judge of that.”
Again Stephan made a gesture of negation.
“I think you are our friend,” he said heavily. “We need a friend of those who are not like us. We may die because we have not such a friend. But you must come here no more. ”

“ Get up in the hills and keep the Strangers moving! The planes may not get here until dark, and they can’t land in the hills in the darkness. I’m going to meet them at Hatton Junction and guide them here. You get up in the hills and keep the Strangers moving or there’ll be a massacre! That mob will even wipe out the children! Everybody’s crazy! You’ve got to save them, Cunningham! You’ve got to!”
And Cunningham knew that he was telling the truth. The Strange People might not fight, if he begged them not to. To desert them would mean a tragedy in the hills. ”

“ Cunningham caught her hand and laughed shortly.
“No, my dear,” he said grimly. “We won’t be separated. It’s a choice between being shot like mad dogs or facing your people. We’ll ride up into the hills. We’ll tell your people that help is coming to hold off the mob. Their lives will be safe and their secret too, for all of me. And if we die, it will be decently. I’ve two guns for the pair of us.”
He found himself laughing as he waved his hand at Gray and drove his horse at the steep slopes that led upward to the tree-clad heights in which the Strangers lurked. ”

“ But they were not like any gold-pieces Cunningham had ever seen before. They were hammered from nuggets or bars by hand. They were square, about the size of a double-eagle and twice as thick, and still showed the marks of the hammer that had formed them.
“We will give you these,” he said quietly, “if you will get us gats like the one you showed my people today.”
“Gats? Oh ... guns. Pistols.”
Stephan nodded and swept the gold-pieces into a shining array. The sight of them sobered Cunningham abruptly.
“But what will you do with them?” he asked. “How will you use them? What do you want them for?” ”

“ As it was, Cunningham was in a cold, clear-headed rage. He went to his own room and packed his pockets with cartridges.
Vladimir was right in one respect. The natives were in no mood to listen to the truth. They would believe nothing that he told them. He was suspect, in any event. They classed him with the Strangers, and they classed the Strangers with the beasts. Fighting such men was not fighting law and order. The sheriff was bribed. The rest were wild with rage and terror. They did not know they were catspaws for Vladimir. Even the sheriff probably knew but little of Vladimir’s plans. ”

“ And in less than two minutes from the time Vladimir had ridden up to the peak where the Strangers lay barricaded, he had died and the Strangers were again lying in wait for the attack that they were sure would result in their annihilation.
But the great airplanes came coasting down heavily. Their motors shut off one by one and they zoomed to lose speed and pancaked with sudden awkwardness to the earth. ”

“ For another hour they scrambled up stiff slopes among thorny brushwood and small trees. Cunningham was already trying to sort out the hodgepodge of events. Adventure—or mystery at any rate—crowded about him. Romance must inevitably follow. That seemed so certain that he was almost able to discount it. He was sure by now that Gray was not in the hills for any study of dialects, and he contentedly ran over the list to date. A killing and the offer of a bribe. A corrupted sheriff and the threat of ‘unspeakable revenge. ”

“ It is always dangerous to be a mystery. The story of what the sheriff and his four constables had seen among the fires on the heights became enlarged to a tale of unspeakable things. It would have required no more than a leader with a loud voice to mobilize a mob of farmers who would have invaded the hills with pitchforks and shotguns to wipe out the Strange People entirely.
They did not fear the Strangers as witches, but as human beings. They feared them as possible kidnapers of children to be killed in the inhuman orgies the fire-ceremony had become in the telling. ”

“ However, as he boarded the accomodation train he inspected his fellow passengers carefully. One upon a quest like Cunningham’s likes to feel that his secret is his alone.
At first glance the passenger coach was reassuring. There were a dozen or more passengers, but with two exceptions they were plainly people of the countryside. New England farmers. Two women who had been shopping at the Junction and were comparing their bargains. A swarthy French-Canadian mill-hand with his dark-eyed sweetheart. Odds and ends of humanity; the “characters” one finds in any New England village. ”

“ Cunningham followed as the Strangers moved on. Little bands of them were constantly appearing unexpectedly from the woods and joining the main body. There were quite two hundred in all when they passed over a hill-crest and settled themselves in the valley beyond.
The mob had appeared from Bendale. On horse-back, in motor-cars and in wagons drawn by teams, what seemed to be the whole population had come raging out to Coulters. The farmers of the valley had put their women-folk together and come armed with weapons, from shotguns to pitchforks. ”

“ You mustn’t blame them, Gray.”
“I don’t.” Gray grinned. “But I do want to study their dialect, Cunningham.”
“Go ahead. It’s disappearing. We’re going in for politics, and boy scouts, and radios. We are a long way from a railroad, but our mine has built a road to it, and we have a motor-truck line that’s as good as a trolley any day. We’re highly civilized now, Gray.”
He opened the door into the house. And there was Maria to smile and give Gray her hand.
“Your husband,” said Gray, “has been boasting outrageously about what’s happened in the valley since you people came back.” ”

“ Vladimir beamed at him.
“Ah, yes! You are a young man. Adventure? There are pretty girls in the hills. I will give them orders. You will find them fascinating. And five thousand dollars in addition to smiles——”
“Suppose you talk plainly,” said Gray shortly, before Cunningham could speak.
“You will find my brother among the Strangers,” Vladimir told them eagerly. “You saw him on the train. Find him and tell him of the bargain I have just made with you. And he will tell you just what you may repeat or speak of what you see. And if you agree to work with us I will give you more money. ”

“ He reared up and yelled to the surrounding forest: “Dun’t ye try any o’ your knife-throwin’ tricks! This feller we got, if we dun’t get down safe, he dun’t neither! Dun’t ye try any rescuin’!”
He bent down to jerk his prisoner upright. And Cunningham heard him gasp. He chattered in sudden stillness and the others huddled about him.
“Dead!” gasped one of them.
“He stabbed hisself, I tell ye,” shrilled the sheriff. “He stuck his own knife in hisself!”
The five ungainly figures stared at each other, there amidst the roaring, deserted bonfires. One of them began to whimper suddenly. ”

“ The single Stranger who had been killed became another human sacrifice, confusingly intermingled with the other and more horrible tale, and there was no doubt in the mind of any of the local farmers that the Strangers planned unspeakable things to all not of their own kind. ”

“ Then he heard a snarl, as of one who has contained himself until he can do so no longer. His head jerked around and he found himself staring at the foreigner who had seemed so angry. The man had the Geographic Magazine in his hand. It was open at the page—the very page—on which the girl was pictured. But the foreigner was looking at the type. Otherwise Cunningham as one in quest of romance and adventure would have felt it necessary to interfere an instant later. ”

“ Adventure was all very well, and romance was all very well, but this was different and in deadly earnest. And Cunningham could not feel any sense of superiority to them, as most men feel toward most uninformed foreigners. ”

“ Cunningham’s heart stopped. Vladimir laughed at his expression.
“Oh, she was met,” murmured Vladimir. “She was met—and arrested. She is held fast. And tonight a story will go about and the women of the neighborhood will learn where she is. She is in the hotel here, safely bound. With such a tale as will be spread about, do you not think the women will pull down the whole hotel to tear her in bits? Now do you go and tell the secret of the Strangers! No one will believe you. ”

“ On it was written in awkward letters:
“Someone follows to kill you. What will happen if we kill him?”
Cunningham started. Vladimir! He’d sent his servant to bushwhack him.
“They’ll hang,” he said grimly. “Tell them not to do it.”
The boy nodded and started off.
“Wait!” called Cunningham. “Will they stop, since I’ve said so?”
“No,” panted the boy. “They kill him already, I think.”
He sped away, down toward the spot where the thrashing in the bushes sounded as if someone were trying to head Cunningham off. Cunningham clenched his fists and ran after him, determined to stop the foolishness. ”