A wounded ruhk came staggering down the trail and out upon the wharf. A member of the galley-guard walked casually toward it. It smelled divinity. It staggered feebly toward him, making noises which told of disaster at the slave pen.
The sentry killed it.
Meanwhile the second cutter went on up-river well past the villa, and cut straight across like the first, and landed most of its crew. And Dick’s plan went forward.
It was simple. Men moved through the jungle to make a great half-circle behind the villa, far past the range of human guards. There would be ruhk patrols there. The ruhks would detect the men and instantly become subject to them. In ones or twos, they would be killed as they groveled. In greater numbers, they might be led back to the cutters and their boat-guards on the shore. Or they could simply be commanded to go to the boat guards and obey them. They would do so.
As the night wore on, there were no more ruhks patrolling the forest behind the villa, and it did not matter if there were. There was a single shot from a slave pen where gardener-slaves were imprisoned. And after that a line of freed slaves with a strange smell on them went through the jungle to where a cutter waited with firearms for every man who wanted them. Every man did, and many women, too. But the villa did not take alarm.
In the villa, the master was not disturbed. He was, at worst, annoyed. A man had been found spying upon the villa through an interdimensional window. Later he was found free on Manhattan Island, with arms in his hands. He had escaped capture. He had left a note for someone, pinned to a tree trunk with a dagger-thorn. Apparently some independent experimenter had discovered that there was an Other World and had managed to reach it and arranged to communicate with fellows still on Earth. When this fact was discovered, a note from an Earthling companion could not reach the thorn-pinned message without attracting attention—hence the discovery must still be a secret on Earth. The master of the villa had astutely commanded that this companion be seized. The number of persons in the secret would be learned from him, and where they were to be found. If practicable, they would be brought to this Other World and given to the ruhks as a suitable reward for their meddling. If there were many, the measures long ago decided upon for use in case of a discovery by Earthlings would be used.
No word had reached the villa of the capture of either cutter or even of the capture of the galley—which had taken place with Welfare Island screening the battle from the villa. The master of the villa was merely annoyed. He had not been kept informed by the regular procedure of events as they happened. Some overseers would be given to the ruhks for this inefficiency!
When the galley crossed the river during the last hours of darkness, it was loaded to the limit with beings who had been civilized men one, two, five or seven years before. Now they were half-naked, hairy, murderous incarnations of vengeance. And every man had a modern repeating rifle with ammunition for it, and those with experience in such matters had hand grenades besides.
Runners to the two cutters learned of the number of men they had freed and armed. Strong parties went inland just in case anybody tried to leave the villa on the land side.
Then the sun rose. It lighted a world of green forest and blue waters and seeming infinite peace.
There was the tiny, popping sound of a single shot. Then the army of former slaves moved on the villa.
From nearby, the villa was very splendid and very spacious. It was built of brick in the style of gimcrack magnificence most approved of some sixty or seventy-five years ago in these same United States of America. In a parasitic race such as the slavers from antiquity there would be no racial culture nor racial art in any form. The gardens were vast, intricately laid out and tended with infinite expenditure of labor. There were trees bent and trained into preposterous resemblances to animals and to men. There was statuary looted from Earth, and there were sunken gardens, and reflection pools which reflected nothing in particular.
Over this lawn and into these gardens the freed slaves surged. There were shoutings here and there where a man with past experience in combat led some others toward the villa and guided them so they were not exposed to fire from the windows.
A sudden crackling of rifle fire from the huge mansion. No parley, of course. The slaves could not be treated with. There could be no terms of surrender. In all probability the master of the villa did not even think of it. After all, in five thousand years some slave revolts must have been attempted and one or two may have attained to some success. Certainly overseers knew there could be no surrender for them. They were frightened, to be sure, and they were doomed and knew it. But they made no vain attempts to delay the attack which nothing could delay.
They shot from the upper windows. Slaves fell. But there was instinctive discipline among the attackers. Not everywhere, but in spots. Groups of men flung themselves down behind flower beds and hedges, and a single flash of a gun from a window brought storms of lead. Those volleys smashed the glass and the sash and filled the opening with death. This was a tactic the defenders, who did not know combat but only murder, could not cope with. Many robed men died from these volleys fired by the quite impromptu combat units of the attackers.
The horde of hairy avengers infiltrated the gardens. There was an elaborate maze of clipped hedge in which fifty men crawled to within a hundred yards of the house. There were tall beds of ornamental plants which sheltered dozens more. There were screens of shrubs. There were fountains whose stone basins were bulletproof breastworks. There were graceful terraces which were cover.
The sound of shooting became a steady, popping noise. There was little other sound. The slaves filtered forward here, and trickled closer there, and when a shot came from the house there was a hail of lead in reply.
Presently the forward movement ceased. Every bit of cover near the house was filled with men all ready for the kill. Then, suddenly, it seemed that the ground erupted ruhks— the palace beasts. The animals brought to the villa to see their master and smell the scent of godhead had been filled with ecstasy at his sight and smell. Now he sent them out to disperse the rebel slaves.
They ran into a withering fire. A dozen went down or rolled over, snapping at their wounds. The balance reached the attackers. And then they cowered and quivered in bewilderment, because they could not attack these men ...
A desperate rush of robed men on their heels. If they could cut through the ring of slaves, presumably thrown into confusion by the charge of ruhks, they could swing sidewise about the mansion, taking the attackers in flank and rolling them up before them, while fire from the windows could begin again.
Perhaps against some antagonists it would have served well enough. But there was a leavening of former professional fighting men among the slaves. The charge of the ruhks had been a fiasco. The survivors quivered with uneasiness but made no attack whatever once they were among the slaves. Those hard-bitten men ignored them unless to kill them with scornful satisfaction. So the charge of the overseers was no better. Indeed, it was worse, because as the last of them raced out into the open a lobbed grenade fell among them.
A man with matted red hair stood up, yelling defiantly. He heaved another grenade. It went in a window and exploded inside. Howls of joy arose. Another grenade in another window. A third and fourth—