Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 10.djvu/84

84 number one great fighting champion king. Follow me. I show you how to fight. I make you win. I show you how to kill many humans."

And because his way of thinking was, after all, not so very different from theirs, he actually succeeded in getting them to understand a plan of campaign.

They were to creep into the town, not in a pack but singly. When one of them met one of Bommelsmeth's soldiers the ape was to bow humbly and raise his hand in the usual salute. (There were murmurs of disagreement at this.) At close range there was to be a swift attack. The idea was to capture deathray boxes. The boxes already in the boat Vans had captured would do to begin with.

The apes began to lope toward the town. One old ape saw a guard who was alone. The ape went up, bowed and saluted. The soldier gave a contemptuous kick. In an instant he was a dead soldier, and another raybox had been captured.

The other apes, watching from behind rocks, noted carefully how it had been done. They practiced the humble approach, the bow, the servile salute, and the sudden, swift tearing out of the victim's throat. These tactics were tried out several times on the way to the town. Watching apes roared with laughter.

The apemen had tasted blood.

ON HARGREAVES and Princess Wimpolo had landed about half a mile beyond the city. The city was a blaze of light. It ended in a high stone wall on the top of which were set what Don judged to be ray generators of various sorts, as well as searchlights that restlessly roved over the country beyond the town. Uniformed soldiers patrolled the top of the wall.

Outside the wall, scattered about, were miserable huts where apemen lived.

Don wondered why Bommelsmeth had taken such care to guard his city. What could he be afraid of here in his own secret lair, so far beyond the reach of his enemies? But Don saw enough to tell him that Bommelsmeth's own apemen were the danger. A harsh discipline kept them down, as well as the fact that Bommelsmeth's men controlled the food supply.

An apeman approaching one of Bommelsmeth's soldiers had to bow and salute. If he did not a deathray struck him down instantly. And the hand producers of the thread-rays that looked, and felt, like threads of red fire, were freely and painfully employed to liven up apemen who were slow in carrying out orders.

Don tried to bring down one of the soldiers on the distant wall with a deathray. The man was not hurt, but a searchlight turned at once in Don's direction.

So Bommelsmeth's sentries were shielded against deathrays. There must be a wall of special impervious glass protecting them. And automatic direction-finders located the source of deathrays that attacked the shield. Don was glad that he had turned his death- ray off promptly.

Through the darkness a host of stealthy figures was creeping, widely scattered and carefully avoiding the flashing searchlights. He discovered them suddenly, with a shock. Quite close to him an apeman bowed in servile manner to one of Bommelsmeth's soldiers. Suddenly, the ape's long arms shot out. Taken completely unawares, the soldier was killed instantly. The apeman went on with the strap of the soldier's deathray over its shoulder.

Other soldiers fell. Shaggy figures