Page:Amazing Stories Volume 07 Number 08.djvu/90

7 a glimpse of his enemies. Suddenly he sensed their presence behind and spun around, crouching. His eyes popped in alarm. Standing close to the thick brush almost at the edge of the abyss, were three grotesque, hostile warriors of the Inner World.

The creatures, unobserved, had for some reason ascended to the rim. They stood side by side, glaring menacingly, taas tubs upraised before them, ready to send him to his death. His blood seemed to freeze in his veins. But he kept his head and returned their unblinking stare. He felt that his death was only a matter of seconds now.

The uncomfortably tickling at the base of his skull continued. He knew that one of the creatures was projecting his powerful thought-waves into his mind. The vibrations grew stronger, impinging on his brain with deadly, menacing force.

"I saw you ascend to the rim, O dog of the Surface!" the Subterranean warrior finally informed him, stamping his thoughts indelibly on his brain. The sting of the vibrations made Bob wince. "You sought to escape from where there is no escape! Death will be your reward!"

"I only sought to learn about a loved one, O brave warrior of the Inner World!" snapped Bob with all the sarcasm he could muster. "I came up merely to see if that loved one was among the skeletons on the rim!"

He clutched his taas tube tightly, thumb hovering over the dread buttons. In an instant, he felt, he could jerk the weapon from behind him and in the same motion send at least one of the warriors to his doom. But his enemies were not to be caught napping. They held their death-tubes in direct line with his torso, ready to release their deadly rays at any instant. Yet he was sure in his mind that he could kill one, maybe two of them, even as they sent him to death.

"You will keep the skeletons company, O dog," the warrior projected ominously. "When we finish with you! Death is the penalty for runaway slaves! You shall die like the others, with the flesh stripped from your bones! But first, O dog of a slave, we shall play with you! We shall make you tell where you obtained the taas flyer!"

Bob Allen, realizing that they meant business, stood his ground like a stone image. The Subterraneans' cobra-like eyes glared at him with unblinking steadiness. They made him feel a bit dizzy as they concentrated their minds on him, like snakes hypnotizing a bird. Certain that they meant to destroy him, he felt reasonably assured that they had not observed that he possessed a taas tube with which he might defend himself. The warrior had as much as said so! Then he found his voice.

"Supposing I refuse to tell you where I got the flyer?" he hissed through clenched teeth. If he was to die, he had suddenly resolved to die in silence, like a man, and tell them nothing. To tell that Larkin had given him the flyer would mean that the engineer would be put to death without ceremony. He was not afraid, he told himself. But if he could, he would take his enemies with him into death.

"There is a way of making you tell, O dog!" the warrior vibrated. "It will not be pleasant! It will be an enjoyable revenge to see you die slowly for having killed one of our brothers to obtain the flyer!"

"Kill one of your brothers?" Bob frowned. "I killed nobody!"

"The Surface creature lies!" the Subterranean hissed. "How else could you obtain a flyer?"

"That is for you to learn, O sons of a snake!" snapped Bob, crouching like a wolf at bay. "I will tell you nothing!"

"Then where, Surface dog, would you like us to begin stripping off your flesh?" the warrior waved his taas tube threateningly "At the feet or at the head?"

"You're a bunch of dirty murderers!" Bob hissed back.

He had his thumb on the last button of his taas tube now. Slowly he was bringing the weapon around to his side for a quick aim. Apparently the Subterraneans had not observed it. Certainly they could not detect its presence by reading his mind, for Bob Allen wisely was thinking of something else. He was thinking only horrible thoughts of ripping out his antagonists' throats with his bared fingers. He continued jeeringly.

"You're a bunch of yellow cowards, afraid to meet a man face to face!" he snarled. "I could kill the three of you with my bare hands!"

"We do not wish to die, O dog!" the warrior projected. "But supposing we should fight you your way, like a savage beast, with teeth and nails?"

"I would tear you limb from body!" snarled Bob, hoping he might taunt them into fighting him his way.

Suddenly he thought he detected a movement in the brush behind the murder-bent warriors. His heart skipped a beat as he thought Patti might be hiding there. But no, it couldn’t be Patti! Only a sleek animal could penetrate that wall of shrubbery. It moved again. He glanced at the Subterraneans. The creatures were glaring at him, tubes ready to send him to death.

The brush behind them parted stealthily. At the same instant there came within Bob's vision, the crouching, Satan-faced figure of a monster jaguar, eying them with a malevolent stare. The great cat, flattened on his belly, eyes gleaming like twin balls of fire, remained motionless except for its twitching tail and snarling lips. It lay not more than a dozen feet behind the menacing Subterraneans who stood close together, side by side.

Bob Allen gulped hard as he stared as if transfixed at the gleaming eyes of the beast. The jaguar began now to creep forward, ears laid back, teeth bared, every muscle taut for a sudden spring. And he knew that particular jaguar, for he had helped Dr. Marsden trap it far up the Amazon! It was no doubt the very same beast that had bounded over the bow of the Scienta as the yacht buried her nose in the sandy beach of the subterranean lake!

He could have recognized that particular jaguar almost anywhere, for it, like its mate which he had killed on the Scienta's deck following its escape from the water-filled hold, was the largest cat of its species ever taken alive. This beast seemed even larger than a full-grown lion. He watched it in awe, purposely keeping his mind on other things, so that the Subterraneans might not penetrate it and read of their impending danger.

Closer and closer the beast wiggled. Driven to madness by starvation it was now ready to attack anything. It had no fear of the Subterraneans. Flesh was flesh whether it be on the bones of Inner World or Surface men.

Suddenly the beast charged forward in great, silent bounds. One of the warriors, sensing the presence of