Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 98: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

888 We went up to Lua’s room hurriedly. It was empty, and our loud cries of anxiety throughout the house evoked no response. We entered our own bedroom, and before I could make a move to defend myself I was seized tightly by both elbows from behind. At the same instant an arm hooked around my neck under my chin and jerked my head backward, and another pair of arms clutched me around the knees. I struggled vainly to free myself, shouting to Miela to run. But there were too many holding me. A moment more and my arms were tied be- hind me and a rope was about my legs. I was pushed into a chair, and as I sat down I saw Miela standing quietly near by, with two Mercutians holding her by the arms and shoulders. The man who had pushed me to the seat bent down and struck me across the cheek with the flat of his hand. His grinning, malevolent face was only a few inches from mine. I saw that it was Baar! CHAPTER XVI. REVOLUTION. HERE seemed to be five of our cap- a tors, all of them as evil-looking men as I think I have ever seen. They rummaged about the room, evidently in search for weapons they thought I might have secreted. Then they ordered me to stand up, and without more ado led Miela and me from the house. This was once when I was glad of the interminable daylight. I hoped we might find some early risérs about the streets, for I thought certainly the time of sleep must now be nearly over. But no one was in sight as we left the garden. We turned the first corner and headed toward the base of the mountain. “To Baar’s house they are taking us, I think. It is on the marshland below.” Miela spoke without fear of our captors understanding the English words. We took advantage of this until after a moment we were roughly ordered to be quiet. Lua, we thought, must have been taken ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. away before we arrived; we would find her at Baar’s house when we arrived there. We had come down to the level marshlands now, the outskirts of the city, and were passing along a path between occasional shacks. Before us, standing alone in a rice paddy, I saw a larger, more pretentious house—a weoden structure on stilts, with a thatched roof, which Miela said was where Baar lived. We went in single file up its board in- cline, and entered a squalid room with mat- ting on the floor, a rude charcoal brazier at one side, and the remains of a previous meal lying on a table. Two women were in the room as we entered. I took these to be Baar’s wife and a servant. Two naked little children lay on the floor, one of them crying lustily. Baar glanced around as he came in, and with what I took to be an oath ordered the children removed from the room. The slave woman—I could see she was a slave by the band upon her arm—picked them up. Evidently she did not move fast enough to suit Baar’s temper, for as she straight- ened up the man cuffed her upon the head. She stumbled to one side against Baar’s wife, who was standing there, and the other woman, with a sharp imprecation, struck her full in the breast. Neither of them saw the look she gave as she shuffled away, carrying the infants; but I did. It was a look of the most in- tense hatred, born and nourished, I realized, by long ill-treatment. Miela and I were now bound securely hand and foot, and Miela’s wings were lashed to her body. ‘Thus rendered entire- ly helpless, we were laid together in a corner. From the talk that followed Miela gath- ered that Baar and his men were expecting the arrival of others. He roughly ordered his wife—a woman of the Twilight Coun- try, obviously—to clear away the remains of their last meal and bring other food. She obeyed submissively. This, the first of the Twilight Country People I had seen, was a thick-set woman of perhaps thirty-five, although she me ea been older, for her black. Ties Oe lel Salk encoinil in an unkempt mass to H