Page:Astounding Stories of Super Science (1930-12).djvu/129

Rh to cleats on the poles. Then they turned to the Duca and the giant king who stood behind them, executed a queer, lumbering bow, and fell back to the rear.

The next moment it seemed as though every creature in the clearing—men and those who were only half men—had gone crazy. The king flung himself into the air as if he were a mass of bounding rubber. Following his lead, the whole assembly let out howls that drowned even the drums, and then began to sway, to squirm, to leap, even as their king was doing before them.

The caciques and the Duca joined in the madness of foul dancing as heartily as any there. Their eyes were flaming, their long robes flapping, their beards streaming.

On his perch in the tree Kirby muttered an oath which was lost, swept away like a breath, in the shrieking turmoil of sound. Then he turned to Ivana.

"They've brought Naida here to sacrifice her."

"But why?" Ivana's sweet face was frozen in lines of horror. "I've been able to guess what was going to happen to her. But—sacrifice. Why will it be that?"

"Don't you see?" Looking up to include Nini, Kirby found his hands quivering against his rifle. "It is easy to understand. In the temple yesterday, what the Duca hoped to do was to kidnap most, or all, of the girls for the ape-people. But he was able to get only Naida. The first result was that the ape-men started to quarrel over the one girl. From what Gori says, trouble started on all sides at once. It became inadvisable to let Naida live. So the Duca, in his shrewdness, planned a sacrifice. By sacrificing Naida, he rids himself of a source of contention amongst the ape-men. He also hopes his act will win favor from his Gods, and make them help him when he is ready to launch a new attempt to capture all the girls."

VANA and Nini looked at each other, then at Kirby, and horror was etched deeper into their faces.

"I think," gulped Ivana, "that you—are right. I—begin to understand."

Nini leaned close to them.

"Tell us, then, how this sacrifice is to be made."

Silent at that, Kirby presently made a heavy gesture toward the maelstrom of howling, leaping animals below them.

"I couldn't guess at first. Now I think I can. They have placed her in that cage and swung it high above the black hole you were afraid of. What can that mean except that she is to be offered to—to—"

It was a monstrous theory which had stunned his hope and courage, and to voice the thing in words was too gruesome.

His bare suggestion, however, made Ivana pass a hand limply over her forehead and look at him with blank, stricken eyes. Nini tottered so uncertainly that Gori, who had remained motionless and silent throughout, had to steady her with muscular arms. If it was impossible for Kirby to utter his fears aloud, he had no need to speak to make them understood.

"And—and we can do nothing?" Nini choked at last.

"You can see for yourself how she is surrounded. If we had been able to get here sooner, we might have done something. Now—"

Kirby's voice trailed off, and he gave an agonized look at his rifle.

HE terrific dance in the clearing was going forward with madness which increased second by second. It had been a general debauch at first, with the whole thousand of the apes bellowing and squirming. Now a change was becoming apparent. Red eyes which had caught the glare of ultimate madness, focused upon the caciques, the Duca, and the great king, all of whom were swaying together on the central stage. As they looked,