not now. Just give me that gun a minute, and I'll show you. . . . Why don’t you let me?" His quaver sank in sobs and coughing.
"Mainly because I can't stand by and see a white man kill himself. Then, as I said, you must help me. If you haven't got leprosy, though, I can’t imagine why you stay here—or why you want to die. Why is it?"
A light of wild derision gleamed in Bowen's eyes, upturned to the flash. Seizing Roberts' hand he drew the fingers along his bowed ridge of backbone.
"Algae," he gritted. "Algae from Gileshtai the Accursed. Puncture, you know. Scum grows in the spinal fluid. Every month I stoop more and more. The pain, you know. Now when I run I am bent like a question mark. Oh. I tried to escape a dozen times. Always they caught me. Couldn't travel far or fast, you see. And no food to take. They—they did this, They are clever. Damned clever!"
Roberts had no answer for this. He was chilled with horror. Such practices had come to his ears as whispered rumors. yet he had not believed. That his big, silent comrade Christensen, and the youth Porterfield, were this minute in the hands of the devils of the caves, perhaps suffering as Bowen had suffered, and certainty absorbing the awful, infectious dampness of the subterranean passages, undermined his nerve as no certainty of instant destruction could have done. He shuddered.
"See here, Bowen!" he cried. "We must get them out! You know the way. It will be terrible suffering for you, but you are a man—a white man! Even if it costs the life you do not value you must give these men their chance. I will have two of the diggers support you. . . ."
SOME of his intense earnestness caught hold in Bowen's dulled brain.
"You're right," he mumbled. "White men. . . . like you and me. Yes, we can get them out, I think, but not yet. Wait till the sun rises. Then all the Yengi are below ground. They have no firearms. By quick attack through the Wall corridor. . . . yes, we should succeed. But then? Do you know your peril in venturing, even for a moment, below ground?"
"My peril matters not!"
Bowen nodded slowly.
"You are brave," he mumbled. "But perhaps you have not seen them . . . . the Yengi?"
"I can imagine," cut in Roberts shortly. "How many of them are there?"
"Hundreds. One never knows exactly. They are sent each week. Some die, of course, but most live on and on. . . . ."
"Can you shoot?"
Bowen grimaced.
"I used to," he answered. "I'll have to, now. Each of us will take as many guns as he can stow away. And plenty of ammunition. Enough so we can give arms to our friends. Merely reaching them will be simple enough. That will not finish it, though. We must go on."
"Fight our way out, you mean?"
"Oh yes, that of course. But first fight our way further in! It would not do simply to escape."
"Why not?"
Bowen grinned wryly. He fumbled in a hidden pocket, coming out with a flat bit of green stone oddly carved with interlaced dragons—a jade pendant.
"Know anything about this?" he asked.
The light of dawn was not yet sufficient. Roberts turned on the flash again. Then he nodded shortly.
"Interesting," he said. "A jade, probably of the fourteenth century, the Yüan dynasty. A week ago I was searching for things like that, but now. . . . ."
