CHAPTER NINE

A cordon of police stopped Fahn and his party at the edge of a grove of palms near the beach. A moment more and they were inside. It was dim under the palms; the white sand a lace pattern of shadow and moonlight. Gay figures were moving about, all the men masked now.

The grove covered perhaps a quarter of a mile. To the right lay the gleaming white beach with the surf rolling up upon it. A tremendous pile of scarlet and white blossoms stood near by under the palm trees. Figures rushed to it, gathered up armfuls and darted away, shouting and laughing.

"We must keep together," Fahn warned. "Come this way."

Half a dozen men had whirled up, pelting Azeela and Dee with flower blossoms, and, under cover of the laughing attack, tried to separate the girls from their escorts and carry them off.

They moved slowly forward, George gripping Dee's arm tightly. They passed a huge, rectangular swimming pool, deserted as yet--glassy, moonlit water a foot or two below the surface of the ground, reflecting the dark outlines of the date palms that curved above it.

The whirling crowd constantly became thicker. There must have been several thousand people within the grove: the white shrouded figure of a woman flinging flowers against the attack of a man; a woman retreating, her ammunition exhausted, to the flower pile to replenish, and being caught in a smothering embrace before she could reach it; a group of laughing girls, their robes torn from them in the fray, pelting a defenseless man, flinging him finally into a huge pile of flower petals, burying him until some other quarry distracted their attention, or a stronger force of men separated them, sometimes carrying them off bodily.

And in nooks behind the hedges of flowers, couples stole silent embraces, alone until marauding bands of men or girls found them out and drove them from their seclusion.

The white sand was thick with trampled flowers. Music came drifting through the warm night air; music near at hand, but blurred by the shouts of the whirling throng. The rich contralto voice of a woman singing--a snatch cut off by laughter.

A large white pavilion lay ahead, brilliant with flashing colored lights--a kaleidoscope of shifting color. It seemed crowded with people, and Fahn now led his little party toward it.

They did not enter the pavilion, but stood in a group on its steps. The music came from within, music that welled and throbbed, unfamiliar in character, but with the age-old appeal to the senses--music sensuous, barbaric. And yet was it barbaric?

Rogers voiced the question in a whisper to Loto, who stood beside him. Was it not rather supermodern, with the centuries of decadence that had put into it that fire of the soul abandoned to the body?

The throng on the floor was battling with flowers, drinking wine from carved bowls of coconut shell, and dancing indiscriminately. The masked men were robed in black and women shrouded in white, but the swinging lights of vivid color stained everything, made the scene shift and blur into fantasy.

At one end of the room a huge circular table was loaded with food and drink, fruits and confections. The table was slowly revolving; half of its circumference was behind a partition--a kitchen where it was constantly being replenished with other dainties.

The visitors found it difficult to keep their place on the pavilion steps. Masked men attacked the two girls with flowers; a black robed figure in mock politeness and humility begged one or the other of them to dance. A trio of girls tore George away, and then, at his resistance, left him abruptly.

"The king," whispered Loto, with a gesture.

At one end of the pavilion, on a small raised platform, the king sat smiling down upon the scene. He was robed in paneled cloth of rich, gaudy colors--a man of middle age whose long, dark hair was shot through with gray.

The scene, with its confusion of shifting incidents, held too much for the visitors to see or to understand. Half an hour went by, with the merrymaking steadily increasing. Abruptly, the music stopped. The throng stopped in its tracks, waiting expectantly. The swinging colored lights died out; others took their place--pure blue-white, and motionless. A solemn bell tolled out over the silence; with almost one motion the masks and the robes were discarded. A woman's laugh rang out, carrying in it the very essence of abandonment. Then the music began again and the throng sprang back into motion.

The riotous color had been supplied by the lights; now with the lights a blue-white, steady glare, it was the riotous color of the costumes themselves. Was it the Baghdad of the Ancients--manikins, with turbaned headdresses, and flowing, vivid draperies with the gleaming white of limbs beneath them? Or were these slave girls, with their wares displayed for the bidders in the market? Or these others, were they desert women, dancing with a pagan lust?

Watching with the others, George's impressions were confused. Yet the thought came to him that this was modern beyond his time--decadence, not barbarism.

Again Rogers murmured something, but his words were lost. A score of figures came leaping from the pavilion, scattering the small group of onlookers on its steps.

Rogers recovered himself, turning to follow them with his gaze; white nymphs with flowing hair, and draperies of gauze that bellowed behind them as they ran for the moonlit beach and the surf.

Loto, pulling at his father's arm, brought his attention back to the pavilion. Through it, the palm grove on the other side was visible.

The bathing pool was now a turmoil of splashing figures--slim white shapes dove into it from the palm-lined banks.

But Loto was indicating the pavilion's interior. The crowd was standing motionless, gazing upward. A small dais was poised in mid-air above the floor in the center of the room. It floated there, seemingly with nothing to sustain it. Standing on tiptoe on the dais was a woman, wrapped to the eyes in scarlet draperies. She was facing the king over a distance of some twenty feet. The music, which had been stilled for a moment, murmured softly from its unseen niche.

Fahn whispered to Rogers, "Our workmen of the League equipped that dais for the king. He begged us--and I feel now that it was a mistake."

Loto added: "It is made from our newly invented war equipment. The dais is covered with a fabric--electrically charged, and repulsive to the earth. It's radio controlled, Father. A workman from the cavern is over there in the corner, behind that drape. We've kept the fabric a secret, but the king wanted to use it for the dais."

The woman was singing in a throbbing contralto, very soft at first, then gradually louder. As she sang, slowly she unwound the draperies, letting them drop from her like quivering flame to a smoldering pile at her feet. Beneath it were other draperies, flame-colored like the rest, but her arms and face were bare--full, rounded, milk-white arms--a heavy face with scarlet lips.

"Helene," Loto whispered. "The Bas call her what means 'Mme. Voluptua.' It is she who rules the king _and the nation_. Look at her!"

The king was standing up. The music grew louder, fiercer, with a thrilling minor cadence. The woman's arms were extended; she stood poised, smiling as she sang to the king. From her outflung arms the gauze drapery hung like quivering wings, with the white of her body gleaming beneath it. The black hair piled high on her head held two spangles of gold trembling at the end of delicate golden wires. She stood, a great scarlet moth, hovering before flight.

Staring in fascination, the king had left his seat and descended to the floor. The crowd parted to make way for him as he slowly moved toward the dais which floated down to meet him. Every eye was on him and on the woman, who now was extending her arms down in invitation.

The music and the song were at their height. The dais reached the floor; the king stepped upon it and, as the woman's hand touched his shoulder, he dropped on one knee before her, his lips at the hem of her scarlet gauze.

A leer of triumph on the woman's face; a murmur of applause from the watching throng. Then a black cloak fell from a figure close beside the dais; a man leaped upon it--the naked figure of a man in loin-cloth. A knife flashed--blue-white steel in the light from above. The song rose to a shuddering scream. The scarlet figure wilted and sank among its draperies at the feet of the kneeling king.

For an instant the colorful throng seemed frozen; then chaos and the struggling, airless confusion of panic. The murderer had flung the king and the body of the woman from the dais. The little platform was rising into the air, carrying him with it. The movement was sidewise; in a moment it would have been outside the pavilion.

Rogers, standing beside Fahn, heard the Scientist leader mutter an oath. Fahn's hand came up from his robe; a pencil-point of flame--a tiny shaft, yellow-red--shot from his weapon. The platform crashed to the floor of the pavilion; the murderer lay still, his body blackened and charred.

In the center of the room, the king had climbed to his feet, trembling. He stood, staring down at the scarlet pile of gauze before him, the crumbled white body stained red as the draperies in which it lay.

The pavilion was emptying. The music was stilled; shouts of men, terrified, hysterical cries of women filled the air. The visitors on the steps were swept back by the crowds from within. Loto, clinging to his father, struggled to hold them together.

White figures were running from the beach; slim shapes were climbing from the bathing pool. A woman hastened by, long black hair plastered wet against her sleek white body. Her face, the allure gone from it, was a white mask of horror; a scarlet mouth with lips parted to yield babbling, terrified cries. She swept past, then disappeared into the confusion of the night.

Loto was still clutching his father; all the rest of their party had disappeared. The pavilion now was empty of Arans, save for that huddled scarlet form, deserted by all its kind.

Fahn came hastening up. "That is one of Toroh's brothers." He pointed to the motionless figure of the man his jet of flame had killed. "The other brother murdered my operator. They planned to steal the fabric, to duplicate it and use it against us in the war. I had no idea they would dare come to the island."

Fahn had found his radio operator lying dead in his place behind the drape. Toroh's other brother had been there, trying to work the radio and get the dais out of the pavilion so that in the confusion they might escape with it. Fahn had caught a glimpse of the man running away as he approached. They had not known of Fahn's presence at the festival; had he not been there, the attempt probably would have succeeded.

There was space around the three men now. The fleeing Aran figures were vanishing through the palms; the confused cries were growing fainter. But George and the two girls could not be found.

"We must go back," Fahn said. "They must have tried to find us and could not. They would go home at once."

With a last search around them, the three men started off through the now almost deserted grove. The cordon of police had disappeared. A few hastening figures were scattered along the streets.

"Come on," Loto cried anxiously. "We have to hurry."

Keeping close together they hastened along. Aran figures scurried here and there; lights twinkled in the houses, then were extinguished as though the concealing darkness might offer protection.

"Curious," murmured Rogers. "The entire city is in terror."

"The guilt that has been within them for generations," Fahn answered. "Toroh planned this well. The Bas will not know it was an attempt to steal the fabric. Instead they will think that one of their own people dared to murder Mme. Voluptua. The Arans think that now. They think the Bas have risen to rebellion at last. It is not this one murder, but the meaning of it that they fear--the confidence it will give the Bas."

And as though to confirm his words, the figure of a Bas man stood motionless on the next street corner. He was partly in shadow, but he did not move as the three men came along; and as they passed, his body seemed to straighten, with the consciousness of his own power sweeping over it.

They hurried across the city. As they went, they passed other Bas--Bas who no longer skulked in the shadows.

At last they came to the shimmering, moonlit garden of Fahn's home. The house was dark. They called, but no one answered. A brief search revealed the truth; Azeela, George and Dee were not to be found. The place was undisturbed; there seemed no evidence of marauders.

"We must wait," Fahn said. But his tone was anxious. "They have not yet arrived from the grove. I cannot believe it is anything but that."

For a time they waited, but none of the missing three appeared. A hum had been growing in the city--a murmur of distant cries that now forced itself on their attention. The murmur grew, resolving itself into shouts and the scuffle of running feet. A mob of Bas rounded a nearby street corner and swept past the house. The crowd might have held a thousand persons. A giant, half-naked man with a curved sword-blade in his hand was leading the way; behind him came hordes of brown-skinned men and women. Most of the men carried curved swords; the women wielded sticks--the heavy butts of palm-fronds with the green stripped off--and a variety of agricultural implements.

"The cane-cutters!" Loto exclaimed softly. "The knives with which they cut the sugar cane. They--"

He broke off, watching the grim mob as it swept by. At every corner it was strengthened by others who joined it; Bas were springing up miraculously from the shadows everywhere.

Fahn's hand had gone to his belt; then it dropped to his side. Rogers met the Scientist's glance with a nod of understanding.

"It is what we of the League have feared for years," Fahn said anxiously. "I cannot kill my own people. I am armed and they are not, yet I cannot kill them--cannot look upon them as enemies. And I think, even in their frenzy, they realize that and play upon it."

The last stragglers had passed; the shouts of the mob were growing fainter as it dashed across the city. The Aran houses were still dark and silent, with only an occasional inmate slinking out to gaze fearfully around. Directly across the street, the white figure of a woman just returned from the grove showed for an instant in a doorway. Then it fled inward, into the darkness.

"_The palace!_" Loto explained abruptly. "_They're going to the palace!_"

The words seemed to bring to Fahn the realization that action by him was needed. For the moment his anxiety over his daughters became secondary.

"Come!" he cried. "We must protect the king."

He hurried them through the garden and along the street. Almost running, the three men headed toward where the mob could still be heard, shouting in the distance.