CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

For the reason that Munzo-D7D and Pilwin-C6P had kept their suspicions secret—Avanah-F3B had already entered the furnace—the appearance of Vinetta was a matter of blank surprise to all but these two, but it didn’t require that they should be—as they were—the best brains of that dying world for them to be able to guess what its meaning was. They saw the whole declared purpose for which they, with five millions of their fellows, had undertaken that procession of death reduced to mockery by the treacherous defiance of a single woman. It was not surprising that murmurs rose.

It may be hard to guess to what these would have led had they been left to their own courses, but Pilwin asked, “Shall I warn him of what he does?” And Munzo, having replied, “It would be an act of kindness, which he would thank,” moved among his companions with reassuring words, so that they continued the orderly process of that on which they were engaged, only turning curious eyes to where Pilwin-C6P could be seen in conversation with Colpeck-4XP, which, from earnestness, developed an evident anger, and then a sight so unprecedented and incredible that men might ask themselves whether they had not already passed from the living world to such vivid dreams as dissolution by fire may give.

“I have come,” Pilwin-C6P commenced, looking at Vinetta as he spoke, though the words might be meant for both, “to warn you in friendly words, while there is still time to avoid the horror to which you go.”

“As to that,” Wyndham replied, with deliberation, feeling that every passing second was gain to him, both to fill his lungs, and for the number of those who might obstruct his purpose to reduce themselves, “we thank you, being content to believe that your purpose is friendly to us, but we have made our choice, and ask no more than to be left alone to bring it to the best end that we can.”

“I am not greatly concerned for you,” Pilwin replied, with no friendliness in his voice. “You have made deliberate choice, knowing what you do, which had the council’s assent. But you have persuaded Vinetta to attempt that which will bring her to a most dreadful death, which there is still time to avoid, if she will go the way which wisdom points, and which her honour requires.”

Hearing this, Wyndham was moved both to anger and fear on behalf of the woman he had come so nearly to save, for he resented the implication that he had persuaded her to dishonour herself, and knew Pilwin-C6P well enough to judge that he would not have said what he did without confident belief in the warning his words conveyed. He replied, “As to her honour, I should say it would be hard to find, if she should join you in the most craven act that the earth has known. And will you tell me what your laws will be worth by tomorrow’s dawn? It will be for the living to make their own. But I am more concerned to know what you may mean when you talk of Vinetta being near to a dreadful death, which we must know how to avoid. Having said so much, I will ask you to tell me that.”

“That is more than I have permission to do.”

“Permission from whom? The council could have resolved nothing without our knowledge and there can be no other permission you need to have.”

Pilwin did not argue this. He replied, “It would make no difference if I did, for it is a death impossible to avoid, and too late to change.”

“I prefer to judge that for myself. Having said so much, you must say more.”

“What I say is that Vinetta must go the way of her kind, or a time will soon come when she will curse you for persuading her to a worse end.”

“You have done, I suppose, some devilish thing, and I will know what it is though I pull the tongue from your mouth.”

Pilwin-C6P did not actually think of being personally assaulted. The man who confronted him was Colpeck-4XP, whom he had known from childhood, and the idea of a violent scuffle developing between them seemed—as it should have been a week earlier—too grotesque for a waking dream. But he did not like the look in his antagonist’s eyes, and instinct, stronger than reason or experience, caused him to take a backward step even as this threat was spoken, and that step was the signal for Wyndham’s leap.

It was not a fight. It was rather an all-in wrestling match of great energy and supreme incompetence. The two bodies, superbly gymnasium-trained, were yet utterly without practice in any contests or trials of skill with those of their own kind, which had been prohibited by law, as involving the element of competition and the necessary consequence that some would be defeated, as others won.

The course of events would have been by a different route to the same end, had Wyndham remembered his Roman sword, but he was not seeking to kill. He aimed to force confession from reluctant lips, and he obeyed blind, primitive instinct when he leaped at his opponent’s throat, as his barbarous ego would be likely to do.

Instinct, equally atavistic, prompted Pilwin’s resistance, but strength of purpose, and impulses of anger and fear, were on Wyndham’s side, as was the fact that his body, for several days, had been releasing itself from the tyranny of the deadening drug. For the first moments, the advantage was his.

He brought Pilwin to the ground. He caught him by the hair, striking his face. “Will you speak now?”

Pilwin felt no pain from the blows he took. He might not yet be experiencing the full effects of the final draught which he and his companions had just taken, but his daily dosage gave him sufficient immunity against superficial pains. His answer was to clutch at a foot which was driven sharply into his ribs. He pulled Wyndham down. The two men rolled on the floor.

Pilwin tried to rise, and Wyndham to beat him back. Their single garments were torn away. Pilwin was left nearly naked: purple shreds of cloth trailed grotesquely from the sword-belt which Wyndham wore. The sword itself had slipped from a sheath where it had only loosely lain, and fallen upon the ground.

Vinetta watched the struggle without offering assistance. She did not stand back either from timidity or reluctance to interfere, or because she thought it a man’s part to fight in a woman’s cause. The etiquette of the event did not enter her mind. She was, in fact, more completely freed, even than Wyndham, from any sense of loyalty to her kind, or their customs, or dying laws. Her loyalty was to him alone, her thought was single that she fought for her life against desperate odds, and if it should be lost in the end, it would be through no foolish scruple of hers. But she thought shrewdly that if she should make any motion to interfere, others might do the same, and the odds would be no better for that. Only, when she saw Wyndham’s leg move on the floor perilously near to the bare blade, she stepped forward and picked it up.

She hated Pilwin-C6P, as she had reason to do; there was only Munzo-D7D whom she hated more. She would have been glad to see Wyndham break him in some fatal way, but she understood that they must aim at a smaller thing. They must make him tell, if they could, that which it was vital for her to know.

So, having confidence in her companion, she looked on for the first minute, quietly content; but the next waked her to an unwelcome sight. She was cool-witted enough to see that Wyndham was not having the best of the bout. The fact was that his experiences of the last seven hours, the swallowing of that foul water, the vomiting, the enervating endurance of the scent-laden atmosphere of the hot-house, had rendered him less fit than his opponent for a prolonged struggle, of which he became aware as the first impulse of anger spent itself on one whom it had battered, but who did not yield.

Less drugged than Pilwin in another way, he felt the pain of the hurts he took, though it may be doubted whether there were disadvantage in that. He became aware that, in spite of his utmost effort, Pilwin would be likely to break away, and with this realization his purpose changed. He remembered that Munzo-D7D was looking on. Doubtless he also knew of the trap which had been set for Vinetta’s life. Let him see an example of what befell one who refused to speak!

He looked up at Vinetta; their eyes met, and she understood that he asked her aid. There came to his mind what the curator of the museum had told him of how the Roman soldier was taught to thrust upward under his convex shield. With a supreme effort, he dragged Pilwin down. He got his knee sideways across his throat. “In his belly,” he gasped. “Push it up.” Would she never do it? Every second it seemed impossible that he could retain his grip of the writhing man. He was breaking loose. He was down again. Wyndham knew it to be the last supreme effort that he could make. Frantic hands grappled and strained and tore.

Vinetta was not aware of any slowness in what she did. She was instant to catch the meaning of the glance, and the gasped words. Coolly watching her chance, as her feet moved slightly at the side of the writhing man, she pushed in the short broad blade with so firm a thrust that there was little but the hilt that remained in view.

Pilwin felt no pain. He did not know the nature of his own hurt. But he gave a terrible choking cry. His body moved convulsively, and Wyndham felt its muscles relax. Breathing hard, he relaxed himself from an effort such as is only possible when the issue is life or death. He heard Vinetta’s voice asking, in a controlled excitement, “Is it enough? Shall I pull it out?”