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With him he took fifteen men, headed by Zangamon, who now insisted he was well enough to go, and ably seconded by Frumuos. Each man carried an automatic, and six had rifles. They bore an average of one hundred cartridges apiece, and in knapsacks of goat-leather, dried rations for a week. Each also carried fish hooks and a stout fiber line.
As he ran he shouted in Merucaan: "Out, my people! Out with you! Out to battle! Out to war!" Half way upward down to Cliff Villa he met Frumuos toiling upward. Him he greeted and quickly informed of the situation. "The bridge is down!" he panted. "I cut it! The further shore is swarming with enemies. Two have reached this side!"
Even with the aid of Frumuos and Zangamon, I have been at work on this nearly two months, for now our outlying farms, villages and settlements have pushed away fifteen or twenty miles from the original focus at the Cliffs, or 'Cliffton, as the capital is becoming generally known. "Population, 5,072, indicating a high birth-rate and an exceptionally low mortality.
He flung it, with the dart still adhering, down over the cliff. "Look, Frumuos!" he commanded. "Search carefully and see if there be any scratch on the skin!" The man obeyed, making a minute inspection through his mica eye-shields. Then he shook his head. "No, Kromno," he answered. "I see nothing. But the arrow came near, near!" Stern, tremendously relieved, gestured toward the caves.
Irregularly the shots barked from the line of sharpshooters; and the little stabs of smoke, drifting out across the river, blent in a thin blue haze. Every moment or two, one of the Horde would writhe, scream, fall or hang there twitching, to the cliff, with terrible, wild yells. Stern greeted the return of Frumuos with eagerness.
Any moment might bring a flicking, stinging messenger of death. Those two, alone, might easily decimate the remaining men of the colony and now each man was incalculably precious. "Go, Frumuos," Allan again commanded. "For the moment we must leave those two up there. Go, muster all the fighting men and bring them up here along the terrace. I must think! Go!"
Never shall you be forgotten. Good-by!" He summoned a huge fellow named Frumuos, now the most intelligent of the Folk remaining, and together they directed the work of carrying the bodies up to the cliff-top and there burying them. By the middle of the afternoon some semblance of order and control had become organized in the colony.
He summoned Zangamon and Frumuos, together with Sivad and the three aviators. "Well done!" said he; and that was all all, yet enough. Then, while the people cheered again and, crowding round, greeted their kinsfolk, he gave orders for the housing and the care of the travel-wearied newcomers. Through the summer air drifted slow smoke.
He returned to Cliff Villa, leaving strict orders for Frumuos to call him in case of need. Very beautiful the world was that afternoon. In the soft south wind the fronded palms across the river were bowing and nodding gracefully. Overhead, dazzling clouds drifted northward.
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