THE THREE SUNS OF EV 159
Death usually occurs after about ten days of your earth time. Sometimes much sooner."
"Poor man," murmured Winifred, as he squirmed in agony with beads of sweat standing out on his dark brow. "Is there anything we can do to ease the pain?"
Neis stared at her. The convulsion was passing. In his eyes was an awed wonder.
"You who are to be a slave of the Keron feel sorry for me, who stole you and brought you here?" he asked in bewilderment. "What strange, unbelievable marvel is this?"
Grant's face contorted with rage. He would have completed the job of killing Neis then and there, if I had not stopped him. There was about Winifred's small, wistful face a poignant, spiritual beauty as she replied:
"Among our people on earth, Neis, we have a saying that comes down to us from One Who was being persecuted unto death. He was speaking to His Father, who is our God, and, although in great agony, He pleaded for His tormentors, saying, ‘Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.’ That is the way I feel about you, Neis. You have done us all a great wrong, have been the cause of all our deaths, but you didn’t realize that you were doing it. And it has cost you your own life. I forgive you, Neis.” “I don’t!” shouted Grant, surging forward in spite of my clinging efforts to hold him back. Neis paid him no heed, for he was wrestling with a new and startling idea — that of forgiveness — something utterly foreign to his own life. CHAPTER IV “A Thin, Desperate Chance!” T HE sky was growing darker. I glanced up to behold a great cloud of smoke and dust from the exploding volcanoes spreading across the heav- ens and sloVly obscuring the bloody light of Mai. Underfoot the ground was vibrating as though a ter- rific diastrophism far down in the bowels of the planet was slowly and relentlessly tearing it to pieces. It is the process or processes by which the earth’s surface is changed, producing ocean beds and mountains and other cosmic features. Suddenly there burst on our ears a strange, terrified squawking, and out of the crimson murk burst a cav- alade of four-legged ostriches, or something very like them, running in pairs, tandem fashion, and carrying between each pair a closed sedan, or covered chair. They drew up with a fearful racket at the prison yard gate. Out of the sedans sprang a company of armed men, headed by a veritable giant of a captain who peered through the bars of the gate and saw us, then began to shake the gate and bellow for the guard. “Keron’s men,” muttered Neis. “They have come for the girl. No danger is too great, or occasion too important to cause the Keron to forget a new and beau- tiful slave. Don’t try to stop them, or they will most certainly kill you.” Grant and I paid no heed. Frenziedly we sought for weapons in the barren prison yard. One of the guards shattered the lock of the gate with a slug gun, and the rest swarmed into the prison yard. The Combat with Keron’s Men G RANT found a broken iron bar in the fence, and I managed to wrench a loose stone from the pav- ing. We charged the guardsmen. Grant’s bar whirled down, smashing the skull of the foremost man. My stone saved Grant from death at the hands of the second. We heard Winifred scream. The huge captain had caught her up, flung her over his shoulder, and was running out of the prison yard in spite of her frantic efforts to free herself. Then we all went down as the ground heaved convulsively with a new ’quake. Slug guns were crashing, but their missiles went wild of us. Next instant the panic-stricken guards were racing out of the prison yard after their sedans which were vanishing in the red murk with the birds squawking terrifically. We plunged for the gate. Neis rose up in our path and halted us. Grant drew back his first, but checked himself in amazement. I could scarcely believe my ears, for of all the marvels that had befallen us on this astounding adventure here was one that outshone them all, this unbelievable change in Neis. Who can say whence it sprung? From my saving of his life a few minutes before? From Winifred’s sweet forgiveness? From some incredible change within himself? Who can say? Whatever caused the metamorphorsis, a strange, new Neis was speaking. A Chance to Escape and to Return to Earth | 'HE special space ship,” he was saying eagerly. “It is still moored at the side of the Council Hall. The Thaks are boarding their other ships. The special ship will not be taken because the provisions are exhausted and fresh water is needed. It would be certain death to ” “But Winifred !” I broke in hoarsely. “I know, I know. You will have to rescue her from the Keron’s seraglio — a thin, desperate chance. There will be the hubbub and flurry of boarding his ship, and you may succeed. I shall show you the way, but I can help but slightly in a fight, for the fungi are at work, and my one arm is nearly useless.” Grant and I seized him between us and dashed pell-mell out of the gate and off through the deepen- ing, crimson murk of dust and smoke, across the wrecked grounds of beautiful estates and winding marble roads, till we came to the edge of the cliff overlooking the raging Lublathon Ocean. At our feet a narrow stairway supported by two
