The Green Odyssey

21

GREEN DREAMED that his mouth and nose were clogged with dirt and that he was suffocating. He woke to find that, while there was no earth upon him, he was having a difficult time getting his breath. Remedying that by removing the cat from his face, he rose.

«What do you want?» he asked her. She was mewing and striking gently at him.

She padded toward the doorway to the outside, so he imagined that she wished him to follow her. Grasping his cutlass, be walked after her and out to the tunnel that led to the cave mouth. Not until then did he hear the booming of cannon, far away.

The cat meowed plaintively. Evidently, she'd heard cannonfire before and had not liked the results.

Once out of the cave he stopped to look up at the sun. It was on its downward path from the zenith. About four o'clock in the afternoon. He'd slept about ten hours.

Unable to see much from where he stood, he climbed up the rocks outside the cave and soon stood upon the very top of the hill, a little tableland about ten feet square. From there he commanded as good a view of the island as anyone could get.

Tacking around the periphery of the island were three long, low, black-hulled 'rollers with over-large wheels and scarlet sails. Occasionally a lance of red spurted from one of the vessel's ports, a boom reached Green's ears a few seconds later and he would see the iron ball climb up and up, then fall toward the village. A tree around the clearing would lose a limb, or a spurt of dust would show where a ball landed in the clearing itself. Two of the long houses had big holes in their roofs. The village itself was deserted, as no one with good sense would have remained there. None of the cannibals were visible, but that wasn't surprising, considering how thick the woods were.

Green hoped the Vings would land soon and clean out the savages. That would leave him and his party a clear field, unless the pirates investigated the cave in the same day. If they didn't, then the refugees could leave the island and take to the plains under cover of the night.

Anxiously, Green traced the path that led from the hilltop where he stood and wound down to the village. It was a narrow trail and he often lost sight of it. But always there was a difference in the shading of the tree tops along the trail and the rest of the forest. With his eye he could follow the shading to the village and beyond, toward the back or western part of the island.

It was here that he came across the first sign of hope he had had since the wreck of the Bird of Fortune. It was a small break in the vegetation, which ran uninterrupted to the very edge of the island, a shelf of seemingly smooth earth, almost hidden from him by the slope of the terrain. Indeed, he could barely make it out and might have missed it altogether, but he saw the masts of three small 'rollers projecting from above the slope and followed them down toward the hulls. All three were yachts, obviously not of islander make. Beyond the stolen craft were the uprights of davits. These were behind a wall of branches, camouflage for anybody outside the island but visible to those on the inside.

It was all Green could do to keep from whooping with joy. Now he and his party wouldn't have to cast themselves on foot on the dangerous plains. They could sail in comparative safety. Now, while the cannibals were cowering helplessly under the bombardment Green could lead his people through the woods to the yachts. When dusk came and the island began moving again they could lower a yacht from the davits and set sail.

He went back to the cave entrance, where he found everybody awake, waiting for him.

He told them what he'd seen and added, «If the Vings come aboard we'll take advantage of the confusion and escape.»

Miran looked at the sun and shook his head. «The Vings won't attack now. It's too close to dusk. They'll want a full day for fighting. They'll follow the island tonight. When dawn comes and the island stops they'll board.»

«I bow to your superior experience,» Green said. «Only I'd like to ask you one thing. Why don't the Vings launch their small craft at night and land boarding parties from them?»

Miran looked surprised. «No one does that! It's unthinkable! Don't you know that at night the plains abound in spirits and demons? The Vings wouldn't think of taking a chance on what the magic of the savages might unloose against them in the darkness.»

«I knew of the general attitude, but it had slipped my mind,» admitted Green. «But if this is so, why did you all wander about this place the night the Bird was wrecked?»

«That was a situation where we preferred the somewhat uncertain possibility of stumbling across demons to the certainty of being killed by the cannibals,» said Miran.

«To be honest,» said Amra, «I was too scared to think of ghosts. If I had I might have stayed where I was…. No, I wouldn't either. I've never seen a ghost, but I had seen those savages.»

«Well,» said Green, «all of you might as well make up your mind that, come ghosts, demons, or men, we're walking through the dark tonight. All those too scared will have to stay behind.»

He began issuing orders, and in a short time he had the sleepy-eyed, bedraggled and dirty-looking party ready. After that, he turned to watch the bombardment.

By then it had largely ceased. Only occasionally did one of the vessels loose a single cannon shot. The rest of the time they spent in tacking back and forth and in running up close to the very edge of the island.

«I think they are trying the temper of the island's inhabitants,» Green said. «They don't know whether the woods conceal a hundred savages or a thousand, or whether they're armed with cannons and muskets or just with spears. They want to draw fire, so they can get an estimate of what they're facing.»

He turned to Miran. «Which reminds me, why is it that the natives don't use guns? They must have a chance to get their hands on many from the wrecks.»

The fat merchant shrugged and rolled his one good eye to indicate that he didn't really know but was making a guess.

«Probably they've a taboo against using firearms. Whatever the reason, they're evidently suffering because they neglect them. Look how few they are. Only fifty men! They must have lost quite a few through raids from other savage tribes, both from those who live upon the plain itself and from those who live on other roaming islands. They're down to the point now where they must die out within a generation, even without help from such as those,» he said, pointing to the Ving 'rollers.

«Yes, and I suppose that during the daytime, when the island is stopped, grass cats and dire dogs board it. These must take their toll of the humans.»

He gazed again at the red sails and wheels of the Vings. «I'd think that those pirates would take every island they could and would use them as bases from which to operate.»

«They do,» said Amra. «For a generation now the Vings have been scouring the plains, locating the islands and exterminating the savages on them. Then they've fortified the islands, so that you might say that today the Xurdimur is dominated by them. But there's a drawback to an island as a harbor. No large 'roller may get very close except in the daylight. They have to put out to grass every night and follow their base at a safe distance until dawn. However, though the Vings are well established on many roamers, they're often attacked by the navies of various nations and sometimes driven off. Then the nation that takes possession of the island has a nice little base. And, of course, quite often they use it to launch heir own piratical ventures against the craft of countries at peace with them.

«Oh, the Xurdimur is a land where every man's hand is against the other, and the devil take the ones with short sail! A man may make his fortune or break his heart, all in a night's work. But, then, you know that only too well.»

Green interrupted, «We'll leave them, and the natives, too, when moonlight gets here. I only hope that there aren't other Ving craft in the neighborhood.»

«What the gods will, happens,» replied Miran. His sad face rejected the belief that if he, the favorite of Mennirox, could come to grief, then Green could expect even worse.

When dusk came, Green walked from the cave into the dark and hard rain. Behind him came Amra, one hand upon his shoulder, the other supporting Paxi. The rest were stretched out in a line behind her, each person's hand on the shoulder of the one ahead.

The black cat was underneath Green's coat, riding in a large pocket of his shirt. She had made it plain to him that where he went, she went. And Green, to avoid a big fuss and also because he was beginning to feel very affectionate toward her, allowed her to come along.

The descent from the hilltop was an anxious and stumbling trip. Green, after ten minutes of groping along the path, had to acknowledge he did not know where he was. So many windings had the path taken that he did not know whether he was going east, north, south, or in the right direction, west.

Actually, it didn't really matter, as long as it brought him to the edge of the island. He could skirt the edge until he arrived at the fleet craft that would give them a chance for flight.

The trouble was in finding that rim. He was afraid that it would be possible to wander in circles and figure eights until moonlight. Then, though they'd be able to orient themselves, they'd also be exposed to the view of the cannibals. And if they found themselves, say, at the eastern edge, their journey around would be perilous indeed.

Occasional lightning flashed, and then he could make out his immediate environment. These brief revelations weren't much help. All he could see were the solid-seeming walls of tree trunks and bushes.

Suddenly Amra spoke. «Do you think we're getting close?»

He stopped so suddenly that the entire line lurched into him. Lightning burst again, quite close by. The cat, curled in his coat pocket, spat and tried to shrink into an even smaller ball. Absently, Green patted her from outside the coat. He said, «Your name is Lady Luck. I just saw the village. Now we're getting some place. I really needed that referent.»

He wasn't worried about the inhabitants of the village. All were undoubtedly cowering under the roofs of their long houses, praying to whatever gods they worshiped that they would not send the lightning their way. There would be little danger if the whole party were to walk through the center of the village. He planned to take no chances at all, however, and ordered everybody to follow him around the clearing.

«It won't be long now!» he said to Amra. «Pass the word back and cheer everybody up.»

Half an hour later he wished he'd kept his mouth shut. It was true that he'd followed the wandering path to the cove where their boats were kept. But he'd at once drawn his breath in pain of surprise.

A lightning bolt had illuminated the gray rock walls of the cove, its broad shelf, and the high black iron davits.

But the yachts were gone!