The Face in the Abyss | Page 6

chose the last question to answer.
"I let her go," he said. ^
"You let her go!" snarled Soames. "What the hell did you do that for? Why didn't you tie
her up? We could have held her as a hostage, Graydon--had somethin' to do some tradin'
with when her damned bunch of Indians came."
"She wasn't an Indian, Soames," said Graydon, then hesitated.
"You mean she was white--Spanish?" broke in Dancret, incredulously.
"No, not Spanish either. She was white. Yes, white as any of us. I don't know what she
was."
The pair stared at him, then at each other.
"There's somethin' damned funny about this," growled Soames, at last "But what I want
to know is why you let her go--whatever the hell she was?"
"Because I thought we'd have a better chance if I did than if I didn't." Graydon's own
wrath was rising. "I tell you that we're up against something none of us knows anything
about. And we've got just one chance of getting out of the mess. If I'd kept her there, we
wouldn't have even that chance."
Dancret stooped, and picked up something from the ground, something that gleamed
yellow in the firelight.
"Somet'ing funny is right, Soames," he said. "Look at this!"
He handed the gleaming object over. It was a golden
bracelet, and as Soames turned it over in his hand there was the green glitter of emeralds.
It had been torn from Suarra's arm, undoubtedly, in her struggle with Starrett.

"What that girl give you to let her go, Graydon, eh?" Dancret spat. "What she tell you,
eh?"
Soames's hand dropped to his automatic.
"She gave me nothing. I took nothing," answered Graydon.
"I t'ink you damned liar," said Dancret, viciously. "We get Starrett awake," he turned to
Soames. "We get him awake quick. I t'ink he tell us more about this, oui. A girl who
wears stuff like this--and he lets her go! Lets her go when he knows there must be more
where this come from--eh, Soames! Damned funny is right, eh? Come now, we see what
Starrett tell us."
Graydon watched them go into the tent. Soon Soames came out, went to a spring that
bubbled up from among the trees; returned, with water.
Well, let them waken Starrett; let him tell them whatever he would. They would not kill
him that night, of that he was sure. They believed that he knew too much. And in the
morning--
What was hidden in the morning for them all?
That even now they were prisoners, Graydon was sure. Suarra's warning not to leave the
camp had been explicit Since that tumult of the elfin horns, her swift vanishing and the
silence that had followed, he no longer doubted that they had strayed, as she had said,
within the grasp of some power as formidable as it was mysterious.
The silence? Suddenly it came to him that the night had become strangely still. There was
no sound either of insect or bird, nor any stirring of the familiar after-twilight life of the
wilderness.
The camp was besieged by silence!
He walked away through the algarrobas. There was a scant score of the trees. They stood
like a little leafy island peak within the brush-covered savanna. They were great trees,
every one of them, and set with a curious regularity;
as though they had not sprung up by chance; as though indeed they had been carefully
planted.
Graydon reached the last of them, rested a hand against a bole that was like myriads of
tiny grubs turned to soft brown wood. He peered out. The slope that lay before him was
flooded with moonlight; the yellow blooms of the chiica shrubs that pressed to the very
feet of the trees shone wanly in the silver flood. The faintly aromatic fragrance of the
quenuar stole around him. Movement or sign of life there was none.
And yet--

The spaces seemed filled with watchers. He felt their gaze upon him. He knew that some
hidden host girdled the camp. He scanned every bush and shadow--and saw nothing. The
certainty of a hidden, unseen multitude persisted. A wave of nervous irritation passed
through him. He would force them, whatever they were, to show themselves.
He stepped out boldly into the full moonlight.
On the instant the silence intensified. It seemed to draw taut, to lift itself up whole
octaves of stillnesses. It became alert, expectant--as though poised to spring upon him
should he take one step further.
A coldness wrapped him, and he shuddered. He drew swiftly back to the shadow of the
trees; stood there, his heart beating furiously. The silence lost its poignancy, drooped
back upon its haunches--watchful.
What had frightened him? What was there in that tightening of the stillness that had