CHAPTER XXVII
My duties at the palace for the moment were over. With Atar, Caan and Nona, I hurried to the Cavern. Atar led us—none of us others had ever been there.
It was not far from Rax—a broad entrance cunningly disguised with removable foliage. A tunnel, short and steeply downward, led us under the sea-bottom. It was dark. Lights at intervals illumined the water—dim, wavering lights, lending to everything a ghostly unreality.
Several times we were stopped; but at sight of Atar the guards let us pass. Ahead of us presently we could see more open water—a broad shallow amphitheatre, artificially lighted. Figures were moving about in it, busy at various tasks. Human figures—most of them, but not all. Some were dolphins. And then I saw a great cage within which two or three hundred of the graceful creatures were swimming idly about.
With Atar to show us the way, we swam slowly the length and breadth of the cavern. Here, he said, were the weapons being made. I looked them over. A thousand of them possibly. Small, dagger-like things; swords; others long as a lance; still others very thin, but heavy in front to be thrown through the water like javelins.
The sight of the weapons standing in racks inspired me. With them, I could equip a thousand fighting men. More perhaps.
Further along we came upon a side cave. In it I saw a dozen sleighs to be drawn through the water by dolphins. They were not unlike the King’s sleigh in which I had already ridden upon two memorable occasions, save that these were smaller—to carry one man only. And slimmer, with streamlines, so that they might offer a minimum of resistance in passing through the water.
I examined them more closely. Each had along its sides, banks of lights—small, torpedo-shaped pods filled with extraordinarily luminous organisms. The lights were shrouded; but Atar uncovered those of one sleigh. A blinding glare, pointing only forward, shot like a search-light beam through the water.
These “light-sleighs,” Atar explained, were designed to precede an advancing army. They would blind the enemy, throw him into clear light. And in the comparative darkness behind them, our Marinoid forces could advance.
We passed along—quickly, for we had little time for these explanations. Atar was giving orders; the workmen were preparing everything for immediate action.
There were other sleighs—“sleighs of darkness.” These were in shape like the others—but larger, for two men. Around them were ink-bags. I remembered the squid which had attacked us in the Water of Wild Things. These bags, when squeezed, emitted an inky fluid—a screen of darkness that could be thrown over the scene of battle at any critical moment of disaster or retreat.
I was enumerating in my mind the forces at my command. I had men famed for their power of giving the electric shock. I would use them in a separate division—to combat the black fishes or the Maagogs.
The black fishes! My heart sank as I thought of them. Fearless! Suicidal little brutes whose only instinct was to fight until death. How many of them would Og have to hurl against us?
But we had dolphins. I demanded of Atar what the dolphins were for. There were several hundred of them, and a score or so were all that could be needed to draw the sleighs.
“Our men will ride them,” said Atar. “Small, slim, very skillful men will have to be chosen. Men without the electric power. It would be useless on a dolphin. We can arm these men with the long, thin spears. They can go swiftly, anywhere.”
Such words on the very eve of battle! How would we have time to select such men, train them? And where were the men? There were no small, slim, skillful men except among the younger group whose electric power would be more valuable to us.
Again had I reckoned without Nona. Her eyes were shining, her beautiful face flushed with excitement.
“We women will ride your dolphins. Small, slim, skillful—without the electric power—we are the ones you need.”
It was then I protested. Indeed, I tried my best to get her to stay with Boy, at home. I failed. And now I realize that in spite of my fears for her, I was more proud of her then than I had ever been before. My Nona!
A single dolphin out of its cage, swam past us—sleek, graceful creature longer than my body, its every line denoting speed. Atar called to it. Like a dog it came and fawned upon us. With her arm about its neck, Nona caressed it.
“This one will I ride,” she exclaimed. “Let me try now. Atar, make him let me try.”
Atar summoned a young Marinoid—one who had helped train the dolphins. He showed Nona how to mount it. She had on an outer garment at the moment, and at the lad’s direction she discarded it.
Then he brought thongs of grass, and bound her hair tightly around her head.
She was ready. Lying flat on the dolphin’s back, her slender body seemed welded to it. A collar was about the dolphin’s head; and into it she thrust an arm to hold herself. The young Marinoid told her how the creature was guided. A kick of the heel, pressure of an arm against its head—or even a whispering word.
She was away! Back and forth through the water before us the dolphin sped; and Nona’s body flat against it caused hardly a ripple. Then they gave her one of the long, lance-like spears. She carried it; held it poised; flashed it above her, below—lunging at imaginary enemies, as the dolphin darted out under her commands.
The grace and skill of it! I was amazed. Woman, with such a thing, learns faster than man. Soon she was twisting her body down to use the dolphin as a shield, lunging with the lance over its back.
Then she dashed over to where we were waiting, and slipped to the cave floor, standing there panting and triumphant—a little jockey, flushed with victory.
“You see, my Nemo? We women can do it! We will ride your dolphins!”
An hour or more had gone by. For another, we talked and planned, Atar, Caan and I. Nona had taken the dolphins with their four trainers—taken them to the palace roof to organize the girls. Soon our messengers would return from the Water of Wild Things with the news of the enemy’s progress.
I went up to the palace to join Nona. The men from the cavern under Caan’s direction were on the roof of the city, distributing weapons to our forces gathered there. I had no sooner reached the palace than one of my couriers came in.
Good news! Good news indeed! The Maagog forces were not coming at once to Rax. Gahna was in the hands of their half-breed allies. It was closer to them than Rax. They were heading for Gahna, occupying it—massing there; and from there, doubtless, would presently attack us.
It was the breathing space we wanted—needed so badly. Now we could organize.
Nona with her dolphin was with me as the courier poured out his news. Quick-witted, fertile-minded woman! Never will I cease to marvel at her. She whispered to me a plan—daring—yet almost certain of success. A plan that she and I alone could execute. A plan. . . . But presently you shall hear it in detail, for we lost no time in attempting it.
Nona and I started, each on a dolphin, and each bearing a short, broad-bladed sword. Only Atar knew where we were going, or what we were about to try and do.
Riding the dolphins, we started slowly at first, for I was inexperienced. The creature’s sleek body was beneath me and I clung to it, stretching myself out along its back, my fingers gripping its woven-grass collar. Nona rode ahead on a dolphin slightly smaller, but, I soon was to learn, equally as fast as my own.
“Nemo, are you all right?” Her sober, earnest little face was turned back toward me.
“All right,” I said. “Yes, of course.”
Would you let a woman know when you were perturbed? Not I.
At once Nona increased the pace, and my own mount followed hers. We were leaving the city, passing out along one of its horizontal streets. It was nearly deserted. The fighters had gone to the city roof; the others were barred in their darkened houses. Occasionally a face would show at a window. A courier came along—returning from one of the other cities. We stopped him. My orders were being obeyed, he reported, the fighters from the other cities were swimming in to join our own men on the roof of Rax.
I sent the courier on to the palace to receive further orders from Atar. We wished to spread the news that the enemy was not attacking at once. And while Nona and I were away on this enterprise, Atar and Caan were to organize the army; and the girl whom Nona had appointed, was to drill the other girls in riding the dolphins.
We passed on, out of Rax. As we left the city—heading for our first objective, the entrance to the Water of Wild Things—I caught a glimpse of the roof of Rax. The open spaces up there were thronged with our men.
Nona increased our pace and very soon Rax with its activities was left out of sight in the dimness behind us. The open water was almost deserted. Refugees were straggling in; occasionally we came upon parties of them—families who had fled from their isolated homes. They all halted and gazed after us curiously as we dashed past them.
“All right, Nemo?”
“Yes. Of course.”
We went faster. The water pressed against me, roared in my ears, blurred my vision. I clung tighter, and bent my head in the crook of my arm.
Then, after a time that seemed ages but was doubtless very brief, we slackened. Nona signalled to me, and I rode my dolphin close alongside of hers.
“See,” she whispered. “We are here.”
Ahead of us in the dim water, moving lights showed. We were almost at the entrance to the Water of Wild Things. The last of the Maagog forces were coming through. We did not dare go close enough to see much. Moving lights disclosed double lines of swimming figures. They were coming out through the passageway they had cut in the coral, and swimming off toward Gahna. The line of their lights extended out of sight in that direction.
We were just in time to see the last of them come through. Og and his black fishes! We assumed it was Og; we had gone closer, but not close enough to distinguish features. A lone male figure carrying a light and surrounded by that swarming pack.
The figure closed the passageway gate at this end carefully. Like ourselves, Og wanted no unruly monsters to get through into Marinoid waters.
We waited until his single light was well on its way to Gahna.
“We can follow now,” I said. “Nona—we will succeed. We can do it, my girl—and it is you who have planned it.”
She did not answer me; she had already started her dolphin. Like shadows in the gloom, silently, without a ripple of the water as we slipped through it, we followed close after the Maagog invading army.