Edgar Burroughs - The Moon Men

Mother had supper ready by the time Juana and I arrived. Father said they had seen nothing of the Kash Guard, nor had we; but we could guess at what had happened at the church. The door must finally have given it their blows. We could imagine their rage when they found that their prey had flown, leaving no trace. Even if they found the hidden tunnel, and we doubted that they had, the discovery would profit them but little. We were very sad, though, for we had lost our church. Never again in this generation could it be used. We added another mark to the growing score against Johansen.

The next morning as I was peddling milk to those who live about the market place, Old Samuels came out of his little cottage, and hailed me.

“A little milk this morning, Julian!” he cried, and when I carried my vessel over to him he asked me inside. His cottage was very small, and simply furnished as were all those that made any pretense to furniture of any sort, some having only a pile of rags or skins in one corner for a bed and perhaps a bench or two which answered the combined purposes of seats and table. In the yard behind his cottage he did his tanning, and there also was a little shed he called his shop where he fashioned various articles from the hides he tanned-belts, head bands, pouches, and the like.

He led me through the cottage, and out to his shed, and when we were there he looked through the windows to see that no one was near.

“I have something here,” he said, “that I meant to bring to Juana for a wedding gift yesterday; but I am an old man, and forgetful, and so I left it behind. You can take it to her, though, with the best wishes of Old Samuels the Jew. It has been in my family since the Great War in which my people fought by the side of your people. One of my ancestors was wounded on a battlefield in France, and later nursed back to health by a Roman Catholic nurse, who gave him this token to carry away with him that he might not forget her. The story is that she loved him; but being a nun she could not marry. It has been handed down from father to son-it is my most prized possession, Julian; but being an old man, and the last of my line I wish it to go to those I love most dearly, for I doubt that I have long to live. Again yesterday, I was followed from the church.”

He turned to a little cupboard on the wall, and removing a false bottom took from the drawer beneath a small leather bag which he handed to me.

“Look at it,” he said, “and then slip it inside your shirt so that none may know that you have it.”

Opening the bag I brought forth a tiny image carved from what appeared to be very hard bona—the figure of a man nailed to a cross-a man with a wreath of thorns about his head. It was a very wonderful piece of work-I had never seen anything like it in my life.

“It is very beautiful,” I said. “Juana will be thankful, indeed.”

“Do you know what it is?” he asked, and I had to admit that I did not.

“It is the figure of the Son of God upon the cross,” he explained, “and it is carved from the tusk of an elephant. Juana will-” But he got no farther. “Quick!” he whispered, “hide it. Someone comes!”

I slipped the little figure inside my shirt just as several men crossed from Samuels’s cottage to his shop. They came directly to the door, and then we saw that they were Kash Guards. A captain commanded them. He was one of the officers who had come with Or-tis, and I did not know him.

He looked first at me and then at Samuels, finally addressing the latter.

“From the description,” he said, “you are the man I want-you are Samuels the Jew?”

Moses nodded affirmatively.

“I have been sent to question you,” said the officer, “and if you know when you are well off you will tell me nothing but the truth, and all of that.”

Moses made no reply-he just stood there, a little, dried-up old man who seemed to have shrunk to even smaller proportions in the brief moments since the officer had entered. Then the latter turned to me, and looked me over from head to foot.

“Who are you, and what do you here?” he asked.

“I am Julian 9th,” I replied. “I was peddling milk when I stopped in to speak with my friend.”

“You should be more careful of your friends, young man,” he snapped. “I had intended letting you go about your business; but now that you say you are a friend of his we will just keep you, too. Possibly you can help us.”

I didn’t know what he wanted; but I knew that whatever it was he would get precious little help from Julian 9th. He turned to Moses.

“Do not lie to me! You went to a forbidden meeting yesterday to worship some god, and plot against the Teivos. Four weeks ago you went to the same place. Who else was there yesterday?”

Samuels looked the captain straight in the eye, and remained silent.

“Answer me, you dirty Jew!” yelled the officer, “or I will find a way to make you. Who was there with you?”

“I will not answer,” said Samuels.

The captain turned to a sergeant standing behind him. “Give him the first reason why he should answer,” he directed.

The sergeant, who carried his bayonet fixed to his rifle, lowered the, point until it rested against Samuels’s leg, and with a sudden jab ran it into the flesh. The old man cried out in pain, and staggered back against his little bench. I sprang forward, white with rage, and seizing the sergeant by the collar of his loose tunic hurled him across the shop. It was all done in less than a second, and then I found myself facing as many loaded rifles as could crowd into the little doorway. The captain had drawn his pistol, and levelled it at my head.

They bound me, and sat me in a corner of the shop, and they were none too gentle in the way they did it, either. The captain was furious, and would have had me shot on the spot had not the sergeant whispered something to him. As it was he ordered the latter to search us both for weapons, and when they did so they discovered the little image on my person. At sight of it a sneer of triumph curled the lip of the officer.

“So-ho!” he exclaimed. “Here is evidence enough. Now we know one at least who worships forbidden gods, and plots against the laws of his land!”

“It is not his,” said Samuels. “It is mine. He does not even know what it is. I was showing it to him when we heard you coming, and I told him to hide it in his shirt. It is just a curious relic that I was showing him.”

“Then you are the worshiper after all,” said the captain.

Old Samuels smiled a crooked smile. “Who ever heard of a Jew worshiping Christ?” he asked.

The officer looked at him sharply. “That is right,” he admitted, “you would not worship Christ; but you have been worshiping something-it is all the same-they are all alike. This for all of them,” and he hurled the image to the earthern floor, and ground it, in broken fragments, into the dirt with his heel.

Old Samuels went very white then, and his eyes stared wide and round; but he held his tongue. Then they started in on him again, asking him to name those who were with him the day before, and each time they asked him they prodded him with a bayonet until his poor old body streamed blood from a dozen cruel wounds. But he would not give them a single name, and then the officer ordered that a fire be built and a bayonet heated.

“Sometimes hot steel is better than cold,” he said. “You had better tell me the truth.”

“I will tell you nothing,” moaned Samuels in a weak voice. “You may kill me; but you will learn nothing from me.”

“But you have never felt red-hot steel before,” the captain taunted him. “It has wrung the secrets from stouter hearts than that in the filthy carcass of a dirty old Jew. Come now, save yourself the agony, and tell me who was there, for in the end you will tell.”