She recognized the medieval arms and armor,
the ancient helmets, the hairdressing of the two-sworded
men of old Japan. At the belts of two of her captors dangled
grisly trophies of the hunt. In the moonlight she saw that they
were the heads of Miller and Swenson.
The girl was horrified. She had thought her lot before as bad
as it could be, but to be in the clutches of these strange, fierce
warriors of a long-dead age was unthinkably worse. That she
could ever have wished to be back upon the Halfmoon would
have seemed, a few days since, incredible; yet that was precisely
what she longed for now.
On through the night marched the little, brown men--grim
and silent--until at last they came to a small village in a valley
away from the coast--a valley that lay nestled high among
lofty mountains. Here were cavelike dwellings burrowed half
under ground, the upper walls and thatched roofs rising scarce
four feet above the level. Granaries on stilts were dotted here
and there among the dwellings.
Into one of the filthy dens Barbara Harding was dragged.
She found a single room in which several native and half-caste
women were sleeping, about them stretched and curled and
perched a motley throng of dirty yellow children, dogs, pigs,
and chickens.
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