The Emancipatrix | Page 5

as though to come toward her. She
stood ready to dodge, chuckling excitedly, and he evidently gave it up
as a bad job. "Tell me whence cameth the nuts, Cunora!" he begged;
but the girl pretended to be cross, and shut her mouth as firmly as its
contents would allow.
Next moment there was a shout from the thicket, together with a

crashing sound; and shortly the fourth Sanusian appeared. He was by
far the larger; but his size was a matter of width rather than of height.
An artist would have picked him as a model for Ajax himself. His
muscles fairly strained the huge lion's skin in which he was clad, and he
had twice the weight of Dulnop within the same height. Also, to the
doctor's eye, he was nearer Rolla's age.
His face was strong and handsome in a somewhat fierce, relentless way;
his complexion darker than the rest. He carried a huge club, such as
must have weighed all of forty pounds, while his belt was jammed full
of stone weapons. The doctor classed him and the younger girl together
because of their vigor and independence, while Dulnop and Rolla
seemed to have dispositions very similar in their comparative
gentleness and restraint.
"Hail, all of ye!" shouted this latest arrival in a booming baritone. He
strode forward with scarcely a glance at the two younger people; his
gaze was fixed upon Rolla, his expression unmistakable. The woman
quietly turned upon Dulnop and Cunora.
"Look!" she exclaimed, pointing to a spot back of them. "See the
curious bird!" They wheeled instantly, with the unquestioning faith of
two children; and before they had brought their gazes back again, the
big man had seized Rolla, crushed her to his breast and kissed her
passionately. She responded just as warmly, pushing him away only in
order to avoid being seen by the others. They showed only an innocent
disappointment at having missed seeing the "curious bird."
"A simple-minded people, basically good-humored," was the way the
doctor summed the matter up when reporting what he had seen.
However, it was not so easy to analyze certain things that were said
during the time the four Sanusians spent in each other's company. For
one thing--
"Did They give thee permission to go?" Rolla was asked by the big
man. His name, it seemed, was Corrus.
"Yes, Corrus. They seemed to think it a good idea for us to take a little

recreation to-day. I suppose ye left thy herd with thy brother?"
He nodded; and the doctor was left to wonder whom "They" might be.
Were They a small group of humans, whose function was to
superintend? Or were They, as the books from Venus seemed to
indicate, another type of creature, entirely different from the humans,
and yet, because of the peculiar Sanusian conditions, superior to the
humans?
"They have decided to move their city a little farther away from the
forest," Rolla overheard Dulnop telling Cunora; which was the first
indication that the planet boasted such a thing as a city. Otherwise,
things appeared to be in a primitive, rather than a civilized condition.
These four skin-clad savages seemed to be enjoying an aboriginal
picnic. For lunch, they munched on various fruits and nuts picked up en
route, together with handfuls of some wheat-like cereal which the big
man had brought in a goatskin. From time to time they scared out
various animals from the brush, chasing the creatures after the fashion
of dogs and children. Whenever they came to a stream, invariably all
four splashed through it, shouting and laughing with delight.
However, there were but two of these streams, and both of them quite
small. Their banks indicated that either the season was very far
advanced, or else that the streams were at one time vastly larger.
"A rather significant fact," the doctor afterward commented.
Nevertheless, the most impressive thing about all that the doctor
learned that day was the strange manner in which the excursion came to
an end. The quartet was at that moment climbing a small hill,
apparently on the edge of an extensive range of mountains. An
occasional tree, something like an oak, broke the monotony of the
brush at this point, and yet it was not until Rolla was quite at the top of
the knoll that Kinney could see surrounding country with any degree of
clearness. Even then he learned little.
The hill was placed on one edge of a valley about forty miles in width.

A good part of it was covered with dusty vegetation, presumably wild;
but the rest was plainly under cultivation. There were large green areas,
such as argued grain fields; elsewhere were what looked like orchards
and vineyards, some of which were in full bloom--refuting the notion
that the