"All right," he murmured. He grinned. "That was some crack somebody or something gave me."
Her face lighted with relief. "One of my goths," she said. "He's sorry.... No, you lie quiet now." He was trying to struggle up on one elbow, but she shoved him back. Beside him there was a cracked old china wash basin. The water in it with which she was sponging his head was red with his blood.
"Guess I'm all right now," he muttered. His hand went to his belt. His gun was gone.
"Just lie quiet. You'll be all right in a few minutes."
He was weak and dizzy; his body bathed in cold sweat. For another minute he closed his eyes and she went on silently sponging his head. He remembered now, vaguely, that he had been conscious enough to realize that he had been dragged here by the weird red-haired animals. It had evidently not been far. Dimly he seemed to recall that they had plunged underground, where there were phosphorescent rocks to light up the subterranean passages with an eerie glow.
He opened his eyes again. He could see that phosphorescent glow through the window-openings here. He was in a room—a little grotto with tattered, faded fabric drapes on its walls, a rug on its floor. And two or three pieces of weird-looking, old-fashioned earth-style furniture.
Presently he was sitting up. "I'm all right," he declared. "Thanks, Nada." His hand went to his head. "I guess it's stopped bleeding."
"Yes. I think so." She was gazing at him with interest now, and Morgan realized he was the only man she had ever seen, except her father. Her bosom rose and fell under the bodice of her tattered dress with her emotion.
Morgan understood that faded, old-fashioned earth-dress now. They had been her mother's clothes. And he understood the furnishings. He saw now that a bookcase in a corner of the cave-room contained half a dozen shelves of books. And on a rickety table stood a small portable sewing machine; a hoop with embroidery; needles and thread and a garment in process of mending.
Her little world. Solo Morgan gazed around him, from where he lay on a camp cot, and was astonished at the thoughts he was thinking and the emotion he was feeling.