Korree immediately showed relief. He had a profound faith in Robin's
magical abilities. To him, therefore, Robin's lack of fright was enough
evidence that all was really well.
The band gathered before the chief's cave was waiting. Presently a
voice came from the cave darkness. It questioned one of the captors,
who turned and repeated the query to Korree. Korree answered at length,
and his answer in turn was repeated into the cave.
At Robin's query, Korree said that he had just informed the hidden
chief that Robin was a great man-beast who would destroy them all if he
was not immediately released and placated.
More cave talk and interchange. There was a delay for a while and
Robin could faintly hear voices within the cave, as if the chief were
discussing the matter with someone else. Then a command was issued. The
captors pulled on the ropes and urged Korree and Robin to the door of
another cave. They pushed them into this and rolled a large boulder in
front of the cave mouth to block their exit.
It was dark inside the cave but not so dark that they could not see
that it was about twenty feet long and that there were a number of
piles of stuff around, food possibly, or remnants of things. Korree and
Robin eased themselves down on the hard floor.
Robin studied the vegetable cords that bound him. He twisted his hands
and pulled until he got his elbow up where he could exert pressure.
Then he strained against one of the bonds. In a few seconds it parted
and broke. In this way he snapped bond after bond until he was free. He
was sticky from them, for the stalks had been soaked in some sort of
adhesive substance which had made them so effective. But the strength
of Earth muscles was more than they had ever held before.
Next Robin went to work on Korree's bonds and broke them off one by
one. The two silently stretched their cramped bodies. Korree glanced
back at the dark end of the cave and his headlight organ glowed
brightly for a moment. Something among the bundles was stirring
slightly. Korree said quietly, "Another prisoner or a listener?"
Robin looked. Yes, there was something over there, apparently tied up
also. It might be a Glassie prisoner, or it might be some one of his
captors trying to spy on them. He shrugged. Let them try. They couldn't
understand English.
The two sat down near the entrance, conversed quietly. Korree was of
the opinion that the Glassies would eventually kill them in some sort
of ceremony. Robin never had found out how different tribes of Glassies
acted toward each other. Evidently they did not make war, but neither
did they have much contact or exchange. In general, they treated each
other like suspicious strangers, avoiding contact whenever possible.
But it seemed now that when strangers did force their way into
unwelcome tribal caverns, death was the result. This was fairly typical
of the most primitive savages on Earth and it was evidently a rule for
that level of culture anywhere in the universe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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