We laid her down; and to the King she gasped out her news. The half-breeds had risen into revolt. From Rax and all the other Marinoid cities, they had gone to Gahna. The city was in terror. Bloodshed. And the Marinoid girls who resisted the half-breeds were being killed!
The half breed revolt! It had come!
CHAPTER XXVI
Once before, I had been to Gahna. It lay to one side, but fairly close to the entrance to the Water of Wild Things. Like Rax, it was built of marine vegetation—a narrow cylinder standing on end. There was a slight current to the water here. The city sustained upright by its air-pods overhead—nevertheless leaned to one side under pressure of the current. From a distance, it looked like your leaning tower of Pisa.
It was a beautiful city—less densely populated and more beautiful than Rax. Its exterior surfaces—its sides and top—were laid out in parks and gardens. Large houses, many-balconied, with ferns and flowers. And the entire top one broad public garden.
In the King’s sleigh we went there now. The water between the two cities was deserted. We passed straggling figures coming from Gahna—broken, bleeding figures—Marinoid refugees escaping for their lives. They came on, swimming slowly, painfully. We passed a girl, floundering, then sinking inert.
Ahead lay the dim distance. The water was pale green with its glowing, inherent light. Then it began tinting red. Atar gripped me, trembling with the horror of what we knew lay ahead; and the King urged his dolphin faster.
Then, Gahna! The outlines of the city loomed before us. A ring of hovering predatory figures surrounded it! We could see other figures launching themselves out from the streets, desperately; and the waiting figures surging upon them.
We halted our dolphin; and presently, still at a distance, we mounted over the city, to gaze down into its garden roof. A crowd of mermaids were huddled there—huddled in groups, trying to hide in the clumps of ferns.
But the half-breeds sought them out. Swords flashed silver, then red. Faint screams of agony floated up to us.