CHAPTER VIII
How long we slept I do not know. Nona brought me back to consciousness; she was twitching at my arm and whispering in my ear frantically.
“What?” I demanded; but she silenced me. She was pointing with a trembling hand. I saw what it was. Half a mile away perhaps, over the sand hills, I could see figures moving. Living things were advancing toward us along the water-bottom!
I sat up, alert. Living things! I would capture and kill one for food.
But as they came steadily closer, I saw that each of them was nearly as large as ourselves—and there were ten or more of them. I trembled; and Nona and I drew back into the fern to hide.
The things continued to advance. Soon I saw that they were upright, coming along the sand as though walking, slowly but steadily. I thought they had not seen us. Nona and I lay very quiet, with our hearts pounding with fright. Soon the things were so close that I could examine them in detail. They were apparently human as ourselves—made after a general plan like our own.
I have since named them Marinoids—a name that may serve as well as any other. The males—or shall I call them men?—were some five feet in height. Their bodies were pink-white, smooth, with a glistening skin. They were clothed—crude greenish garments wrapped around them tightly. They had feet and jointed legs, which, however, were connected by a flapping membrane. Their chests were over-large. There were four arms, two at each shoulder. The arms waved in the water sinuously, like the tentacles of an octopus. At the ends of the arms were fingers—very long and slim—and a huge pincer, like that of a crab.
Yet for all that, these beings seemed in human form. The heads were hairy and round, with two eyes only slightly protruding, a nose, and a mouth not much different from my own save that it was larger.
The women were slightly shorter and more slender than the men, with long dark hair that floated habitually above them.
In this party which now approached us were ten individuals—four of them women. In spite of their size, there was about them—both women and men—a curious aspect of unsolidity. I felt less afraid of them as I realized it. They looked as though I could crush them in my arms. Their chests especially seemed no more than thin, inflated membranes, expanding and contracting with extraordinary rapidity.
I wondered, with a sudden flush of triumph, if these things would be good to eat. I whispered it to Nona.
“I can capture one,” I said confidently.
“Wait!” she cautioned.
The Marinoids were still walking toward us along the sand—slow dragging footsteps combined with a sort of waddle for their legs were hampered by the membrane which connected them. Their arms were waving back and forth. The backs of most of them were bent, with their faces downward as though they were examining the sand.
I must have made some movement. They saw us! They stopped, and seemed to grow suddenly alert. The men consulted together, pointing at us; the women drew partially behind them as though for protection.
I struggled upright, in spite of Nona’s warning and her restraining hold. I would fight these things—kill them for our food. It would be a glorious feast; my Nona was hungry.
I plunged forward. The Marinoids were alarmed—startled would describe their aspect better. The men stood their ground; the women darted upward through the water, swimming on one side with legs waving the connecting membrane like a great fish’s tail.
One of the Marinoid men had shouted something. I could hear his voice plainly—words seemingly—a rasping order. Nona was behind me, following me closely, ready to help me fight.
“Quick!” I shouted. “Catch one, Nona!”
It was so futile! The Marinoid men left the sand and darted at us so quickly that we could not have eluded them had we tried. They were upon us in an instant: I was helpless as they threw me down and with surprising strength in those three-foot long tentacles, wrapped them around me and held me.
Three of the men were thus engaged with me; and two were holding Nona. But they did not attempt to hurt us; indeed, they seemed to avoid doing so.
The sixth Marinoid—he who had shouted the order—was hastily gathering long, rope-like segments of the vegetation. At his command, Nona and I were raised upright. The women came down to the sand and they all inspected us curiously, talking among themselves with words to us unintelligible, but gestures which seemed wholly rational.
At last they bound our arms tightly against our sides and started us walking along the sand. They were leading us away, out over the sandy open spaces toward a line of hills in the distance.
The women swam above us; the men walked in a group, pushing Nona and me in front. We could run faster than they, and once we broke away. But they swam after us and caught us in an instant. And one of them warned us with a gesture which was unmistakable.
Soon I saw what this party had been doing before they encountered us. We passed occasionally, huge receptacles made seemingly of woven sea-vegetation. Into these baskets they had gathered various living, shell-backed creatures of the water-bottom. And these baskets in turn would be gathered up and carted away by other Marinoids.
I learned this later; Nona and I understood none of it at the time.
As we advanced, the aspect of things around us changed continually. The vegetation grew thicker, until soon we were in a veritable forest of it. And we seemed to be following a road—a pathway which had been cleared.
Abruptly I heard a shout ahead. The Marinoid women swimming above us came suddenly down. Our leader said something, and they all drew back from the road, pulling us with them.
The shout ahead of us grew louder. A moving object came into view—a sort of sleigh made of a huge shell. It was gliding over the sandy road toward us, pulled by a strange swimming animal.
In the sleigh were two Marinoid men—the larger of them elaborately clothed. The sleigh halted abreast of us. The smaller of its occupants stood up and shouted vehemently. And suddenly I realized that he was shouting at me! My captors were lying prone on the sand, and had pulled Nona down with them. But in their excitement and awe—for this was the ruler of their world—they had left me standing alone.
I stared stupidly at the angry figure in the sleigh; and suddenly, in his wrath at the effrontery of my upright posture before his Monarch, he launched something at me. I saw it leave his hand. It was long, thin and pointed. It came through the water like a spear thrown through the air. It hit my head a glancing blow.
I sank down to the sand. I heard shouts around me—Nona was screaming. Then my senses faded into blackness.