The Fire People Part 29

"A storm! Look at it, Anina, behind us!"

There was nothing in sight now but the gray sea, broken into waves that were beginning to curl, white and angry. Behind them the darkness was split with jagged forks of lightning. The thunder rolled heavily and ominously in the distance, with occasional sharp cracks near at hand.

"Look, Anina--there comes the rain! See it there behind us! I hope it won't be a bad storm. I wouldn't want to be out in this little tub."

The wind veered to the left, increasing steadily. The sea was lashed into foam; its spray swept over the boat, drenching them thoroughly.

The waves, turning now with the wind, struck the boat on its stern quarter. One curled aboard, slos.h.i.+ng an inch or two of water about the bottom of the boat. Mercer feared it would interfere with the mechanism, but Anina rea.s.sured him.

As the waves increased in size, Mercer swung the boat around so as to run directly before them. The stern frequently was lifted clear of the water now, the boat losing headway as a great cloud of hissing steam arose from behind.

After a time the Light Country sh.o.r.e came into sight. They were close upon it before they saw it through the rain and murk. They seemed to be heading diagonally toward it.

"Where are we, Anina?" Mercer asked anxiously.

The girl shook her head.

Steadily they were swept inward. The sh.o.r.e line, as they drew closer, was to Mercer quite unfamiliar. There were no bayous here, no inundated land.

Instead, a bleak line of cliffs fronted them--a perpendicular wall against which the waves beat furiously. They could see only a short distance. The line of cliffs extended ahead of them out of sight in the gray of the sheets of rain.

They were slanting toward the cliffs, and Mercer knew if he did not do something they would be driven against them in a few moments more.

"We'll have to turn out, Anina. We can't land along here. We must keep away if we can."

With the waves striking its stern quarter again, the boat made much heavier weather. It seemed to Mercer incredible that it should stay afloat. He found himself thoroughly frightened now, but when he remembered that Anina was in no danger he felt relieved. He had made her lie down in the boat, where she would be more sheltered from the wind and rain. Now he hastily bade her get up and sit beside him.

"We might be swamped any minute, Anina. You sit there where you won't get caught if we go over."

They swept onward, Mercer keeping the boat offsh.o.r.e as best he could.

"Haven't you any idea where we are, Anina? How far along do these cliffs extend?"

A huge, jagged pinnacle of rock, like a great cathedral spire set in the cliff, loomed into view ahead. Anina's face brightened, when she saw it.

"The way to the Water City," she cried. "A river there is--ahead. Not so very far now."

In spite of all Mercer could do, they were blowing steadily closer to the wave-lashed cliffs.

He began to despair. "If anything happens, Anina--you fly up at once. You hear? Don't you wait. You can't help me any. I'll make out some way. You say good-by to Alan and your mother and sister for me--if--" He fell silent a moment, then said softly: "And, Anina, if that should happen, I want you to know that I think you're the sweetest, most wonderful little girl I ever met. And, Anina dear--"

The girl gripped his arm with a cry of joy.

"See, Ollie! There, ahead, the cliffs end. That is the Water City river!

See it there?"

The mouth of a broad estuary, with the waves rolling up into it, came swiftly into view. They rounded the rocky headland and entered it, running now almost directly before the wind. The river narrowed after a short distance to a stream very much like the one they had left in the Twilight Country.

Mercer turned to the quiet little girl beside him.

"Well, Anina, we've certainly had some trip. I wouldn't want to go through it again."

Mercer thought the situation over. They could stay where they were in the river for an hour or two until the storm was entirely over, and then go back to the Great City. On the other hand, now that they were here, Mercer felt a great curiosity to see this other city where Tao's men had created trouble. Why should they not use these few hours of waiting to see it?

"We might get a line on how things stand up there to tell Alan when we get back," Mercer said when he explained his ideas to Anina. "It won't take long." Very probably it was the light-ray cylinder in his hand which influenced his decision, for he added: "We can't get into any trouble, you know; there's no light-ray here yet."

And so they went on.

There was a perceptible current coming down the river. The water was cold and clear, and in the brighter light now he could see down into it in many places to the bottom, six or eight feet below. The region seemed utterly uninhabited; no sign of a house or even a boat on the river met them as they advanced.

"Mightn't there be boats along here?" Mercer asked once. "How far up _is_ this place?"

"Not far now--beyond there."

The river appeared to terminate abruptly up ahead against the side of a frowning brown cliff, but Mercer saw a moment later that it opened out around a bend to the left.

"Around that next bend?"

She nodded.

It seemed incredible to Mercer that the second largest city in Mercury lay hidden in the midst of this desolation.

"We'll meet boats," he said. "What will the people think of me? Don't let's start anything if we can help it."

"You lie there." Anina indicated the bottom of the boat at her feet. "No one see you then. I steer. They do not notice me. n.o.body care who I am."

Mercer had still the very vaguest of ideas as to what they would do when they got to the Water City. As a matter of fact, he really was more curious just to see it than anything else. But there was another reason that urged him on. Both he and Anina were hungry.

They had eaten very little since leaving the Great City the night before; and now that it was again evening, they were famished. They had rummaged the boat thoroughly, but evidently the men had taken all their supplies ash.o.r.e with them, for nothing was in the boat.

"We'll have to dope out some way to get something to eat," said Mercer.

They came upon the sharp bend in the river Anina had indicated. Following close against one rocky sh.o.r.e, they swept around the bend, and the Water City lay spread out before Mercer's astonished eyes.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE WATER CITY.

It had stopped raining; the sky overhead was luminous with diffused sunlight; the scene that lay before Mercer was plainly visible. The river had opened abruptly into a broad, shallow, nearly circular lake, some five or six miles across. The country here showed an extraordinary change from that they had pa.s.sed through. The lake appeared to occupy a depression in the surrounding hills, like the bottom of a huge, shallow bowl. From the water's edge on all sides the ground sloped upward. It was no longer a barren, rocky land, but seemingly covered with a rich heavy soil, dotted with tropical trees. That it was under a high state of cultivation was evident. Mercer saw tier upon tier of rice terraces on the hillsides.

But what astonished him most was the city itself. It covered almost the entire surface of the lake--a huge collection of little palm-thatched shacks built upon platforms raised above the water on stilts. Some of the houses were larger and built of stone, with their foundations in the water.

Off to one side were two or three little islands, an acre or less in extent, fringed with palms and coconut trees. In nearly the center of the lake stood a stone castle, two stories in height, with minarets ornamenting its corners. An open stretch of water surrounded it.

There was little of regularity about this extraordinary city, and no evidence of streets, for the houses were set down quite haphazard wherever open s.p.a.ce afforded. In some places they were more crowded together than others, although seldom closer than twenty or thirty feet.