17

“Planes had to land at the Junction last night,” said Gray curtly to Cunningham. “Didn’t get here until sunset and couldn’t land in unfamiliar territory after dark, particularly this kind of territory. I went on and met them last night. We took off at sunrise. What happened? Any fighting?”

“Several of us shot,” said Cunningham grimly. “Nobody killed that I know of. But every house in the hills has been looted and burnt.”

“Fools!” snapped Gray. “But they’d do that.—What’s that?”

He was staring at a sprawled heap on the ground.

“That was Vladimir,” said Cunningham calmly. “He’d just shot his servant for failing to kill me, and was shooting me down in cold blood when the Strangers jumped him. You don’t get a murder case out of this, Gray. They killed him to save my life.”

“Glad of it,” said Gray restlessly. “Now——”

“By the badge you’ve stuck on your coat,” said Cunningham grimly, “you’re a detective of some sort. And I suppose those chaps who came in the planes are Federal men. What do you want with the Strangers, Gray?”

Gray stirred uneasily. Then he faced Cunningham squarely.

“I’m in the immigration service,” he said flatly. “These people are aliens, smuggled in. You can guess the rest of it yourself.”

“I can’t,” said Cunningham savagely. “There’s more to it than that, and they won’t tell me; not even Maria.”

Stephan spoke quietly. “Do you know who and what we are?”

“I do,” said Gray curtly. “You’re——”

Stephan stopped him with an upraised palm. His face was the color of ashes.

“Then you know,” he said tonelessly, “why we prefer to die here. And since our young friend will not leave us of his own will, my young men will carry him, bound——”

“Try it,” said Cunningham briefly. “If there’s fighting, I fight. If Maria dies, I die. That’s all.”

He brought his remaining weapon into view and held it grimly.

Gray stared from one to the other.

He shrugged his shoulders almost up to his ears and waved his hands helplessly. And then he said quickly, “Since I know, and the soldiers know, there’s no harm in telling Cunningham.”

Maria, her lips bloodless, whispered, “Tell him. It is best.”

But it was to Gray that Stephan turned. His back was toward Cunningham as he made a gesture for Gray’s benefit alone. Cunningham could not see, but it seemed as if Stephan had thrust up the wide sleeve of his embroidered jacket. And Gray licked his lips and said, “Oh, my God!”

“I tell you my own story,” said Stephan quietly. “The others are much the same. Twenty years ago I was the son of a village headman in Daghestan, which is in southern Russia. And there came upon me suddenly this—this thing which has made me one of the Strangers.”

Gray, shuddering, nodded. Cunningham raised his head.

“What thing?” he demanded.

“My own people would have stoned me when they knew,” said Stephan grimly. “My own father would have killed me. And I was a fool then. I desired still to live. I had heard whispers of this America, in which the son of the Governor of Daghestan had found a mine of gold so rich that he must work it secretly. It lay in a hidden valley, unknown to other men, and it was worked by—Strangers, who were safe in that one small valley so long as they served the lord Vladimir, while anywhere else in the world all men would kill them.”

“Why?” demanded Cunningham fiercely.

Stephan did not answer directly.

“I went down from the mountains that I loved, away from all my kin, and I went to the Governor of Daghestan and said that I wished to work in the mine of his son. And he sent me to a place, closely guarded, where there were others who were—as I was. And a long time later a boat came, and it took us many days upon the sea, and landed us secretly by night, and we traveled secretly, hiding, for many more days. And we came to the hidden valley ruled by the lord Vladimir and found two hundred other Strangers turned to slaves and working in the gold-mine he had discovered. They told us we would have done better to be stoned in our own villages than to come. We were driven to work with whips. If we rebelled we were shot down by the guards, who carried guns.”

Gray moved suddenly.

“This was twenty years ago?” he demanded. “And you were kept a prisoner in that valley all that time, by guards with guns?”

“All of us,” said Stephan quietly. He thrust with his foot at the body of Vladimir, lying in the dust before him. “That was our master. He had us taught the English language so that if other people came upon the valley we would seem to be of this nation. Three times—no, four times—wandering men came into the valley. None of them ever left it. They were killed by the guards....”

Gray stirred, his eyes moving fascinatedly from one to another of the Strange People.

“But we had been free men, once,” said Stephan proudly. “We wept at first because we were—Strangers. Then we grew ready to fight because we were men. Many times, in those twenty years, we planned revolt. There were two or three Strangers among us who were from this nation. One of them became my wife and the mother of Maria. She had been a teacher in the schools, and she taught us much. But Vladimir seemed to hear our secret thoughts. Every time he forestalled our plans and punished us horribly for daring to think of revolt. Men said that he stretched threads of metal to our houses and that our words traveled to him along those threads, so that he knew always what we planned.”

“Telephones,” said Gray, fascinated, “but in the walls. Of course he could listen in.”

“So at last we made our plans in the woods of the valley.” Stephan spread out his hands. “We stole of the gold we dug. We gave it to five of our number, and they fled away. They bought horses and food—many horses and much food. They found a hiding-place for us. And while they were doing that, Vladimir was torturing us to learn where they had gone and why. But though four men and a woman died, they did not tell. And suddenly, in a night, we Strangers who were slaves of Vladimir, we fled from the valley. We killed the guards with our knives and vanished, hiding in the secret place the first five men had found. It was secret and secure. And then——”

Stephan hesitated.

“My wife, who was of this nation, had been born in these hills here. She told us of these hills as of Paradise. So we sent again a few of our number here. With the gold we had brought away, we bought ground. Then, a little by a little, all of us came. We kept far from other people. We did them no harm. Now they want to kill us, because Vladimir doubtless told them before he died that we were lepers, and because we are lepers, we must die.”

He turned grimly to Cunningham and bared his forearm. And the skin of that forearm was silvery.

Cunningham’s tongue would not move. Gray shivered.

“I’ll—I’ll admit,” he said shakenly, “I didn’t bargain for this. Good God!” He stared at the somber-faced Strangers with a queer terror. Then he shook himself suddenly. “But look here——!”

Cunningham found himself speaking hoarsely. “Not Maria!” he gasped. “Not Maria!”

Stephan’s face, the color of ashes, had only compassion upon it as he watched Cunningham.

“Wait a bit,” cried Gray. “Wait a bit! Stephan! That—that thing on your arm. It comes first on the elbows and knees, where the clothing rubs! Redness first, then this?”

“That is it,” said Stephan quietly. “We have seen our children appear so. We have tried—ah, how we have tried!—to keep them from being Strangers too. But it is in the blood. Maria has showed it not even yet. But in time to come——”

“Nobody,” panted Gray excitedly, “ever got it over fifty years of age!”

“Those who have come to us,” said Stephan, “have always been young.”

Gray struck his hands together.

“But it shouldn’t be that way!” he cried. “It should take all ages. It should show on the face and hands! Not one of you shows it on the face or hands. There should be a dark band across the forehead. The fingertips should be silver, and the fingers should be twisted and bent. . . . Have you ever seen a doctor?”

Stephan smiled grimly. “That”—he pointed again to Vladimir’s body—“when that was our master, he had a doctor to keep us alive. And there was never any doubt.”

“I was at Ellis Island,” said Gray excitedly. “I know what I’m talking——”

“It is finished,” said Stephan grimly. “We die. Go and send your soldiers or your people to kill us.”

“Cunningham, make him listen——”

“Go on, Gray,” said Cunningham hoarsely. His face was ashen. “They’d only put us in some—some horrible colony somewhere. I—I don’t want to live after this. If they want to die, let them. I’m going to stay and—and get killed with them, if I can.”

“Idiot!” snapped Gray. “I’ve been telling you for half an hour that the symptoms are all wrong. And I was on Ellis Island and I know what they have got! And I know how they got it. Why, you idiot, don’t you see that Vladimir was getting his father to send him slaves to work that damned mine? That the only way they could be kept as slaves would be to make them think they’d be killed if anybody else knew what he knew about them? They didn’t get that thing naturally. They were deliberately inoculated with psoriasis, a sub-tropical skin affection that looks enough like leprosy to give anybody a start, but doesn’t make a person unfit to work! These poor devils thought they were lepers, and they had a skin affection that is about as serious as dandruff! Creosote ointment or arsenic taken internally will cure it in ten days, and without one of those two things it lasts for years. Cooped up as they were, they reinfected each other. Believing themselves pariahs, they were afraid to run away from Vladimir until they had to. And he was trying to bluff them back to work in his mine. Don’t you see, you idiot? Don’t you see? It was a trick to get workers for his mine, workers who wouldn’t dare be disloyal to him. And when they had run away, why, he had to get them back or they might find out themselves what he’d done and tell where his mine was and about all the crimes he’s committed these twenty years back. Don’t you see, Cunningham, don’t you see?”

He turned to Stephan, who was staring at him incredulously.

“If you don’t think I’m telling the truth,” he snapped, “I’ll go and kiss every pretty girl in camp to prove it! You’ve been here twenty years. I can’t touch you. I can’t deport you. And I’m mighty glad of it! As for killing Vladimir and his brother, I’m going to do my best to get you medals for the performance. I’m going to set my men on these fool farmers and chase ’em home. We’ll sue them for the houses they’ve burnt. We’ll put that sheriff in jail. We’ll—we’ll—— Cunningham, you lucky son-of-a-gun, I’m going to be best man and kiss the bride!”

But Cunningham was already preceding him in that occupation.