Chapter VIII: The Vikings

Terry stared up at those slavering jaws. For a long, ghastly moment she lay motionless with terror, tensing as one does when trying to wake from an unbearable nightmare. Then something slapped against her side.

It was the lashing tail of Tabby, suddenly awakened, and confronted with the largest dog that the poor cat had ever seen in all its nine lives.

Now, when a dog chases a cat, the cat flees.

But when a dog corners a cat, the cat goes absolutely berserk and attacks after the general manner of a rapidly rotating buzz saw.

Tabby, suddenly awakened, imagined himself cornered by the huge hyænodont, and so sprang full in the beast's face, with every hair on end, and four sets of claws rotating at full speed.

The last that Theresa saw of the two animals, the hyænodont, with its tail between its legs, and emitting loud but very doglike yelps, was galloping off for dear life through the woods, with Tabby perched on the beast's back, feet close together, claws digging in, back arched, and inflated tail erect.

Partly through sheer nervous relief, and partly because of the real humor of the situation, Theresa sat up and laughed uncontrollably. Finally she arose, drank and washed at the spring, and ate from another of the huge orange-fruit.

Just as she was finishing her breakfast, she heard voices approaching through the woods. Hastily backing behind some bushes, she lay in their protecting concealment.

In that direction, which was uphill from where she lay, there was a high rocky ledge. As she gazed, a bronze helmet appeared, surmounted with a pair of golden wings. Beneath the helmet, she saw long yellow hair, a rugged, tanned face, blue eyes, and a wavy yellow mustache. A scarlet cape, flung across massive shoulders, was caught at the throat with a gold buckle.

The man's sinewy arms bore bracelets of various metals.

His left hand clasped the wooden shaft of a steel-tipped spear. A shirt of chain-mail hung almost to his knees. A sword-belt, slung across the hips, supported a cross-hilted slender blade. He had long leggings, strapped with criss-crossed leather thongs.

The first Viking was followed by another, somewhat similarly garbed, except that the second wore a yellow cape and a purple shirt, and carried a spiked club and a burnished shield.

After him came an older man, with flowing white beard, and a green cape and scarlet shirt.

Others followed, some with clubs and shields, and some with spears and shields, until about twenty warriors stood on the summit of the rock.

"Gee, ain't they swell!" breathed Terry to herself, lost in admiration for these supermen out of the past. And then, remembering that these were the enemy, the people from whom her expedition intended to wrest the dominion of this continent, a sudden terror swept over her.

Losing all discretion in her fright, she jumped to her feet and fled precipitately, frantically, through the wood.

"_Staap!_" bellowed several lusty voices behind her. It sounded like English, and there was no question as to its meaning. Perhaps, she thought, it really was English. Perhaps these fantastically clothed men were not Vikings after all, but Americans. Perhaps they were only movie actors.

Most illiterates and most young folks have an absolute mental gap on the subject of location and distance. Although they can uncannily find their way around, yet it would not surprise them in the least to discover San Francisco lying a few hours east of New York, or to walk from Boston to London, England, in the course of an afternoon, without crossing any water.

Theresa was both young and illiterate, and so it is not strange that she harbored the idea of meeting a motion picture troupe in the center of the earth.

* * * * *

She turned the possibility over in her mind as she ran on, and was just about to give up anyway when a heavy hand fell on her shoulder and put a stop to her flight.

The hand wheeled her roughly around, and another hand grasped her other shoulder. She looked up, affrighted, into a pair of kind and rather puzzled blue eyes beneath a winged helmet. She was in the grip of the Viking leader, the one of the red cloak and the chain-mail. But he did not seem so formidable, close up. And his intentions appeared to be friendly.

"Gee, but you had me frightened for a moment, sir," said Terry, with her most engaging smile.

In reply, she was deluged with questions in a strange tongue, at which she was able only to shake her head in bewilderment. The chief remarked something significantly to one of his followers.

"Say, do you belong to Eric Redmond?" asked Terry.

"Yah, yah, Eric Redmond," replied the chief and again remarked something significantly to his follower.

After further conversation among the Vikings, the chief turned back to Terry and said, "_Komm!_"

So she came. The party set off briskly into the interior, the girl in her blue and white sailor suit walking proudly by the side of the Viking chief, a strange conjunction of nautical styles, eight hundred years apart.

But the girl soon tired. The young Viking took her by the arm and helped her along. She didn't mind this in the least.

Finally her escort had to call on one of his men to help him, and from then on the two practically carried the poor girl between them.

Hours dragged after hours. The men began grumbling about being hungry, and about the delay. When at last they reached an encampment, Theresa was sound asleep standing up; and the moment they halted she slid to the ground completely oblivious.

The Vikings then cooked and ate and slept, and when Theresa came to her senses she was lying in a skin tent on a pile of furs. Outdoors, her companions--or captors--were busily preparing their morning meal.

The poor child was famished. Her feet hurt her terribly. But, apart from that, she was fresh and rested.

"Hullo, folks," said she, coming to the door of her tent. "Gee, but that breakfast smells good."

"Hullo," they replied with a strange intonation to the word. Then there followed other words, which she was completely at a loss to understand.

"I don't know what you're saying," said she with an engaging smile, "but I accept your kind invitation."

Whereupon she sat down and helped herself to some of the food. Instantly the grim warriors crowded around her, and literally fell over each other in their eagerness to be of service to her.

The most eager was the boy in chain-mail, with the yellow curls and drooping yellow mustache. His helmet was off now, and he appeared even younger, not over twenty, in spite of the mustache. Terry was in her element. And yet, if she had but considered, there was no reason to believe that these Vikings as yet suspected her sex.

* * * * *

Two nights--if one can call them nights, with the central sun hanging ever in the zenith--had passed since the girl had slipped over the side of the Miami, to escape from the clutches of Nick Fratelli and his accomplices.

The baffled gangster, in spite of his certainty that she had been devoured by some sea monster, had run the ship back along the shore in search of her; but, thanks to plenty of misinformation from Charley Loy, Nick had so far misjudged the time of her departure that he didn't run back anywhere near far enough.

Finally the hunt had been abandoned, the Miami had been tied to the shore, and, after another meal, the gang had all turned in for a sleep.

After breakfast, the Rat called a council of war of his cohorts, and announced his plans.

Said he: "I figure, from Eric Redmond's story, that there is some sort of town of these here Skraelings--which is what the savages are called--quite a distance south of the plateau city of the Vikings. I want those Skraelings, and I want them pronto. I have a damn' good idea that our old boss, Scarface, will team up with the Vikings, now that he finds himself without many men. We stand a good chance of getting run out of here if we don't do something quick. Scarface isn't licked yet. Too bad all you bums got lit up, the other time we skipped out on him, or we wouldn't have him to worry about now."

"I tank you make wan beeg mistake call me a boom," replied Swede Johnson. "You ain't ban Scarface Yimmy."

"No, I 'ain't ban Scarface Yimmy,'" retorted Fratelli; "and what's more, if you cut loose another wise-crack like that, you won't be Svede Yohnson any longer; do you get me?"

"Yah," admitted the Swede.

Nick then chained the Chinese to one of the deck rings, by means of the pair of handcuffs which had been Mike Murphy's chief contribution to events aboard the Miami. Leaving food and water within Charley's reach, Nick started inland with Cicero, Swede, Scutari and Friday, all five fully armed and rationed.

The terrain at this point was an open, parklike field, through which they pressed rapidly at right angles to the coast; until after about an hour, they struck a well-marked trail running north and south.

"Are any of youse Boy Scouts?" inquired Nick. "Because if you are, here's your chance to figure out which way this sidewalk runs."

All examined it intently, but with no particular purpose in mind.

Then Swede announced: "I tank it run both vays."

"Of course it does, you dumb-bell," retorted Nick, exasperated.

"I tank you make wan beeg mistake call me doom-bell," said Swede calmly, but he wisely refrained from any comment about Nick's not being Scarface.

"I have it," exclaimed Cicero. "Let's toss for it. Heads we go north. Tails we go south."

He flipped a coin. Nick stooped and picked it up.

"Heads!" said he, putting the coin in his own pocket.

So they started north.

After a time they ate, then trudged on some more, then ate again.

"Time to sleep," announced their leader.

"Say, we forgot our blankets," objected Cicero.

"What do you think this is, anyway," sneered Nick, "a hotel? This is war!"

"Yeah?" asked Cicero. "Well, we had blankets in the last war I was in."

"You must have been in the Audience Department then," retorted Nick, "for there was lots of times in France when we infantry didn't have no blankets at all."

"Shut up!" exclaimed Scutari. "I hear some one coming."

American gangsters may not be woodsmen, but they can certainly take to cover like Indians the moment they sense danger.

Consequently the Viking band coming down the path saw nothing to arouse their suspicion.