Argosy: The Short Story Magazine — page 119: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CHRYSALIDS 11g I straightened up slowly. My bow was back with Rosalind and Petra. Rosalind had caught the order too. “Who is it?’ she was asking. Then there was a sudden flash of alarm. *€ What’s that? ”’ I asked her. | “I was reaching for the bow. An arrow struck just by my hand.” *“‘ Better stay still,” came the rough thought-shape, warningly. I looked at the trees round the glade, but could see nothing in the shadow. ‘Then, to the left, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. Four men came out into the dim starlight, all with bows drawn and arrows aimed; two at me, two at Rosalind and Petra. “Who are you? ”’ Rosalind and I sent to them simultaneously. Whether there was any reply or not we couldn’t tell, for at that moment Petra set up the alarm-pattern, and blotted everything. The party of four split up. Soon I could see that the two who came my way were dressed in rags. I knew that they must be Fringes people. I looked at them harder as they came close, but if there was anything visible amiss with them, there was too little light for me to see it. One of them stopped a few yards away, keeping his arrow trained on me; the other came round behind me and patted my waist and pockets. He discovered my knife and transferred it into his own pocket. ‘That done, they allowed their caution to relax, and studied the greathorses with astonishment. Petra’s alarm diminished. I was able to get through to Rosalind. She told me, ‘‘ He’s telling Petra it’s all right, and nobody’s going to. hurt her.”’ Who?’ put in Michael. ‘‘ What on earth’s going on? What was Petra howling about? ”’ A roughly shaped, weakly projected thought cut in, ‘‘ No need to be scared. Just do as we tell you.” “What was that? ”’ asked Michael, startled. ‘‘ Something just outside my range...” I explained, as far as I could. The other two men came across, helping Rosalind and Petra to carry our possessions. One of them said, ‘‘ How do you get up on these brutes? ” Presently we moved off. Rosalind and Petra were in their former pannier, but they had one of the men in the other, and another on the saddle-board between them. I was in the left-hand pannier of the led horse, with the other two men similarly disposed. All four men were holding their bows ready. As we came out of the copse into the coarse-grass country again I caught a clumsy thought-shape, ‘‘ If you make any noise, you'll bring them after us.” This time I managed to place it as coming from the man on the saddle-board beside me. I asked him who he was, and where he was taking us, but there was no response. Ina low voice, in words, I asked, “‘ Can’t you reach me? ”’ : comiclbooks.comn