Page:Weird Tales volume 33 number 04.djvu/78

 horned helmets, Ninth Century North-men at sight of whom Swain Njallson shouted loudly!

A troop of three hundred mail-clad, mounted Crusaders; a host of white-robed Arab horsemen out of the armies of Abu Bekr; and a full eight hundred of Genghis Khan's Mongol riders, wiry, swarthy little men on shaggy ponies—these three forces appeared swiftly after one another.

Yet still Kim Idim reached back into the past with the potent band of the time-ray, first for a regiment of Napoleon's infantry, tall men in cocked hats and blue and white uniforms, bayonets glinting in the sun; and then for a band of several hundred mounted Indian braves, copper-skinned savages in brilliant feathers and war paint.

"That's a Sioux war party!" cried Hank Martin excitedly as this last force materialized on the plain.

"Can you talk their language, Hank?" Ethan asked tensely, and the trapper nodded.

"Sure can, seein' as how I was a prisoner in one of their villages a hull winter."

"But look!" cried Ptah in consternation. "The armies attack each other!"

Ethan cried out in dismay. Out on the plain, the hosts from the past were wheeling to give battle. Romans, Assyrians and Spartans, Northmen, Crusaders and Arabs, Mongols and French and Sioux—all of them, at first stunned by their sudden transition to this new scene, now seemed to hold the others responsible for the phenomenon.

The buccinas, or great curved trumpets of the Romans, were bellowing hoarsely and the legion was moving like a ponderous, irresistible machine toward the Assyrians, who with wolf-like battle cries were marching to meet the Romans. The Spartans stood their ground like a rock, ready for any attacker, but Crusaders and Arabs, seeing in each other well-known foes, were riding full tilt toward each other. The French regiment still stood bewildered, but the Vikings were on the march toward it, their axes gleaming wickedly. And, far out on the plain, Mongols and red Sioux were circling.

"We've got to stop them from fighting each other!" Ethan cried desperately. "We'll never separate them once they get tangled in battle."

"Hank, fire your rifle into the air," he ordered urgently.

The trapper obeyed instantly. And the ringing report of the rifle brought the eyes of all the thousands out on the plain toward the hillock.

Ethan cupped his hands and shouted to them with ail the force of his lungs, first in French and Arabic, then in stumbling, half-forgotten Latin and Greek.

"Do not attack each other!" he yelled to the dazed hosts. "It is we who have brought you into this world. Send your leaders here to us, and we will explain!"

Hank Martin and Swain repeated his cry, the first in the harsh Sioux tongue and the second in his native Northland language. And Ptah added his version for the Assyrians.

"They understood!" Pedro Lopez cried. "See, the leaders come."

"Thank heaven!" Ethan muttered. "Even the Mongols must have understood my Arabic—they're all coming."

From every one of the armies out on the plain, a single man was approaching the hillock. An unspoken truce had been declared between the hosts.

Mongol chieftain, Roman commander, French colonel and mailed Crusader leader—these