Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 5 (1927-05).djvu/106

 not. But what was she? His daughter, Rhodes had said. And daughter I had at length decided, and still believed, that she was. In short, we put the relationship as follows, and I may as well say at once that the future was to place its O. K. upon this bit of Sherlock-Holmesing of ours: Narkus was the father of all our Dromans except one, Siris, and to her he was father-in-law.

This little mystery cleared up—at any rate, to our satisfaction—we tackled another, which was this: what was Drorathusa? I think it has been made sufficiently obvious that she was no ordinary woman. But what was she? The only answer that Rhodes and I had been able to find was that Drorathusa was indeed a Sibyl, a priestess or something of the kind. And again I may as well say at once that we were right.

But why had they set out on a journey so strange, so hazardous and so fearful—through the land of the tree-octopi and snakelike cats, through that horrible, unearthly fungoid forest, and up and up, up into the caves of utter blackness, across that frightful chasm, up to Tamahnowis Rocks, into the blaze of the sunshine, out onto the snow and ice on Rainier?

It was as though we suddenly had entered a fairyland, so wonderful was this gliding along on the placid bosom of the river when contrasted with the fatigues, dangers and horrors through which we had passed. There was nothing to do but steer the boat, keep her out in the stream; and so hours, the whole day long was passed in the languorous luxury of resting, in watching the strange tropical trees glide past and in making such progress as we were able in acquiring a knowledge of the Droman language. We found the ladies much better teachers than Thumbra and Narkus. In fact, there was simply no comparison. Why they should have proven so immeasurably superior in this respect to the representatives of the brainy sex, I do not presume to explain. I merely record a fact; its explanation I leave to those who know more about science than I do.

For two days we glided through that lovely land, whose loveliness was a mask, so to speak, and but made the place the more terrible.

Late in the afternoon of this second day—how strange these words seem! But what others can I use? Late in the afternoon of this second day, we entered a swamp. The current became sluggish, our drift even more so, and right glad were we to put out the oars—of which, though, there were only two pairs—and send her along, for that was not a place in which any sane man would want to linger. Besides the oars, however, there were several paddles, and we sent the boat at a good clip through the dark and sullen waters.

Weird masses of moss and weirder filaments hung from the great branches, which at times met over the stream.

We were passing underneath one of these gnarled and bearded arches when there came a piercing shriek from Delphis, accompanied rather than followed by a cry from Drorathusa of "Loopmuke!"

I dropped the oars and reached for my revolver, turned and saw Narkus, standing in the bow, whip out his sword and slash savagely at the winged monster as it came driving down upon him.

was a shock. The boat, I thought, was surely going over. Came a heavy plunge, and she righted, though sluggishly, for water had come pouring over the side in