The Collected SF & Fantasy Works. Abraham Merritt

— but something made me leap to my feet, look behind me.

      “A man was standing just within the glow of firelight, watching me.”

      “A Tibetan?” I asked. She shook her head, trouble in her eyes.

      “Not at all.” Ventnor turned his head. “Ruth screamed and awakened me. I caught a glimpse of the fellow before he vanished.

      “A short purple mantle hung from his shoulders. His chest was covered with fine chain mail. His legs were swathed and bound by the thongs of his high buskins. He carried a small, round, hide-covered shield and a short two-edged sword. His head was helmeted. He belonged, in fact — oh, at least twenty centuries back.”

      He laughed in plain enjoyment of our amazement.

      “Go on, Ruth,” he said, and took up his watch.

      “But Martin did not see his face,” she went on. “And oh, but I wish I could forget it. It was as white as mine, Walter, and cruel, so cruel; the eyes glowed and they looked upon me like a — like a slave dealer. They shamed me — I wanted to hide myself.

      “I cried out and Martin awakened. As he moved, the man stepped out of the light and was gone. I think he had not seen Martin; had believed that I was alone.

      “We put out the fire, moved farther into the shadow of the trees. But I could not sleep — I sat hour after hour, my pistol in my hand,” she patted the automatic in her belt, “my rifle close beside me.

      “The hours went by — dreadfully. At last I dozed. When I awakened again it was dawn — and — and —” she covered her eyes, then: “TWO men were looking down on me. One was he who had stood in the firelight.”

      “They were talking,” interrupted Ventnor again, “in archaic Persian.”

      “Persian,” I repeated blankly; “archaic Persian?”

      “Very much so,” he nodded. “I’ve a fair knowledge of the modern tongue, and a rather unusual command of Arabic. The modern Persian, as you know, comes straight through from the speech of Xerxes, of Cyrus, of Darius whom Alexander of Macedon conquered. It has been changed mainly by taking on a load of Arabic words. Well — there wasn’t a trace of the Arabic in the tongue they were speaking.

      “It sounded odd, of course — but I could understand quite easily. They were talking about Ruth. To be explicit, they were discussing her with exceeding frankness —”

      “Martin!” she cried wrathfully.

      “Well, all right,” he went on, half repentantly. “As a matter of fact, I had seen the pair steal up. My rifle was under my hand. So I lay there quietly, listening.

      “You can realize, Walter, that when I caught sight of those two, looking as though they had materialized from Darius’s ghostly hordes, my scientific curiosity was aroused — prodigiously. So in my interest I passed over the matter of their speech; not alone because I thought Ruth asleep but also because I took into consideration that the mode of polite expression changes with the centuries — and these gentlemen clearly belonged at least twenty centuries back — the real truth is I was consumed with curiosity.

      “They had got to a point where they were detailing with what pleasure a certain mysterious person whom they seemed to regard with much fear and respect would contemplate her. I was wondering how long my desire to observe — for to the anthropologist they were most fascinating — could hold my hand back from my rifle when Ruth awakened.

      “She jumped up like a little fury. Fired a pistol point blank at them. Their amazement was — well — ludicrous. I know it seems incredible, but they seemed to know nothing of firearms — they certainly acted as though they didn’t.

      “They simply flew into the timber. I took a pistol shot at one but missed. Ruth hadn’t though; she had winged her man; he left a red trail behind him.

      “We didn’t follow the trail. We made for the opposite direction — and as fast as possible.

      “Nothing happened that day or night. Next morning, creeping up a slope, we caught sight of a suspicious glitter a mile or two away in the direction we were going. We sought shelter in a small ravine. In a little while, over the hill and half a mile away from us, came about two hundred of these fellows, marching along.

      “And they were indeed Darius’s men. Men of that Persia which had been dead for millenniums. There was no mistaking them, with their high, covering shields, their great bows, their javelins and armor.

      “They passed; we doubled. We built no fires that night — and we ought to have turned the pony loose, but we didn’t. It carried my instruments, and ammunition, and I felt we were going to need the latter.

      “The next morning we caught sight of another band — or the same. We turned again. We stole through a tree-covered plain; we struck an ancient road. It led south, into the peaks again. We followed it. It brought us here.

      “It isn’t, as you observe, the most comfortable of places. We struck across the hollow to the crevice — we knew nothing of the entrance you came through. The hollow was not pleasant, either. But it was penetrable, then.

      “We crossed. As we were about to enter the cleft there issued out of it a most unusual and disconcerting chorus of sounds — wailings, crashings, splinterings.”

      I started, shot a look at Dick; absorbed, he was drinking in Ventnor’s every word.

      “So unusual, so — well, disconcerting is the best word I can think of, that we were not encouraged to proceed. Also the peculiar unpleasantness of the hollow was increasing rapidly.

      “We made the best time we could back to the fortress. And when next we tried to go through the hollow, to search for another outlet — we couldn’t. You know why,” he ended abruptly.

      “But men in ancient armor. Men like those of Darius.” Dick broke the silence that had followed this amazing recital. “It’s incredible!”

      “Yes,” agreed Ventnor, “isn’t it. But there they were. Of course, I don’t maintain that they WERE relics of Darius’s armies. They might have been of Xerxes before him — or of Artaxerxes after him. But there they certainly were, Drake, living, breathing replicas of exceedingly ancient Persians.

      “Why, they might have been the wall carvings on the tomb of Khosroes come to life. I mention Darius because he fits in with the most plausible hypothesis. When Alexander the Great smashed his empire he did it rather thoroughly. There wasn’t much sympathy for the vanquished in those days. And it’s entirely conceivable that a city or two in Alexander’s way might have gathered up a fleeting regiment or so for protection and have decided not to wait for him, but to hunt for cover.

      “Naturally, they would have gone into the almost inaccessible heart of the high ranges. There is nothing impossible in the theory that they found shelter at last up here. As long as history runs this has been a well-nigh unknown land. Penetrating some mountain-guarded, easily defended valley they might have decided to settle down for a time, have rebuilt a city, raised a government; laying low, in a sentence, waiting for the storm to blow over.

      “Why did they stay? Well, they might have found the new life more pleasant than the old. And they might have been locked in their valley by some accident — landslides, rockfalls sealing up the entrance. There are a dozen reasonable possibilities.”

      “But those who hunted you weren’t locked in,” objected Drake.

      “No,” Ventnor grinned ruefully. “No, they certainly weren’t. Maybe we drifted into their preserves by a way they don’t know. Maybe they’ve found another way out. I’m sure I don’t know. But I DO know what I saw.”

      “The noises, Martin,” I said, for his description of these had been the description of those we had heard in the blue valley. “Have you heard them since?”

      “Yes,” he answered, hesitating oddly.

      “And you