Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1930 27091 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Astounding Stories of Super-
Science January 1930
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
using this eBook.

Title: Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1930

Editor: Harry Bates

Contributor: Ray Cummings
V. R. Emanuel
Murray Leinster
S. P. Meek
Anthony Pelcher
M. L. Staley
C. V. Tench

Release date: November 25, 2012 [eBook #41481]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41481

Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASTOUNDING
STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE JANUARY 1930 ***

ASTOUNDING STORIES OF
SUPER-SCIENCE
VOL. I No. 1 JANUARY, 1930

W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher

HARRY BATES, Editor

DOUGLAS M. DOLD, Consulting Editor
COVER DESIGN
H. W. WESSOLOWSKI

Painted in Water-colors from a Scene in "The Beetle Horde."

On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month

The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees:
That the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid; by leading writers
of the day and purchased under conditions approved by the Authors'
League of America;
That such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by American
workmen;
That each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit;
That an intelligent censorship guards their advertising pages.

The other Clayton magazines are:
ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES,
CLUES, FIVE-NOVELS MONTHLY, WIDE WORLD ADVENTURES,
ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, FLYERS, RANGELAND LOVE
STORY MAGAZINE, WESTERN NOVEL MAGAZINE, BIG STORY
MAGAZINE, MISS 1930, and FOREST AND STREAM
More Than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand for
Clayton Magazines.

Issued monthly by Publishers' Fiscal Corporation, 80 Lafayette St., New
York, N. Y. W. M. Clayton, President; Nathan Goldmann, Secretary.
Application for entry as second-class mail pending at the Post Office at New
York, under Act of March 3, 1879. Application for registration of title as
Trade Mark pending in the U.S. Patent Office. Member Newsstand Group—
Men's List. For advertising rates address E. R. Crowe & Co., Inc., 25
Vanderbilt Ave., New York; or 225 North Michigan Ave., Chicago.

CONTENTS
EDITORIAL THE EDITOR 7

An Introduction to a New and Unique Magazine.

THE BEETLE HORDE VICTOR ROUSSEAU 8

Only Two Young Explorers Stand in the Way of the Mad Bram's Horrible
Revenge—the Releasing of His Trillions of Man-sized Beetles upon an
Utterly Defenseless World. (Part One of a Two-part Novel.)

THE CAVE OF HORROR CAPTAIN S. P. MEEK 32

Screaming, the Guardsman Was Jerked Through the Air. An Unearthly
Screech Rang Through the Cavern. The Unseen Horror of Mammoth Cave
Had Struck Again!

PHANTOMS OF REALITY RAY CUMMINGS 46

Red Sensua's Knife Came up Dripping—and the Two Adventurers Knew that
Chaos and Bloody Revolution Had Been Unleashed in that Shadowy
Kingdom of the Fourth Dimension. (A Complete Novel.)

THE STOLEN MIND M. L. STALEY 75

What Would You Do, If, Like Quest, You Were Tricked, and Your Very Mind
and Will Stolen from Your Body?

COMPENSATION C. V. TENCH 92

Professor Wroxton Had Disappeared—But in the Bottom of the Mysterious
Crystal Cage Lay the Diamond from His Ring!

TANKS MURRAY LEINSTER 100

Two Miles of American Front Had Gone Dead. And on Two Lone
Infantrymen, Lost in the Menace of the Fog-gas and the Tanks, Depended
the Outcome of the War of 1932.

INVISIBLE DEATH ANTHONY PELCHER 118

On Lees' Quick and Clever Action Depended the Life of "Old Perk"
Ferguson, the Millionaire Manufacturer Threatened by the Uncanny,
Invisible Killer.

Introducing— Astounding Stories
What are "astounding" stories?
Well, if you lived in Europe in 1490, and someone told you the earth was
round and moved around the sun—that would have been an "astounding"
story.
Or if you lived in 1840, and were told that some day men a thousand miles
apart would be able to talk to each other through a little wire—or without
any wire at all—that would have been another.
Or if, in 1900, they predicted ocean-crossing airplanes and submarines,
world-girdling Zeppelins, sixty-story buildings, radio, metal that can be
made to resist gravity and float in the air—these would have been other
"astounding" stories.
To-day, time has gone by, and all these things are commonplace. That is the
only real difference between the astounding and the commonplace—Time.
To-morrow, more astounding things are going to happen. Your children—or
their children—are going to take a trip to the moon. They will be able to
render themselves invisible—a problem that has already been partly solved.
They will be able to disintegrate their bodies in New York and reintegrate
them in China—and in a matter of seconds.
Astounding? Indeed, yes.
Impossible? Well—television would have been impossible, almost
unthinkable, ten years ago.
Now you will see the kind of magazine that it is our pleasure to offer you
beginning with this, the first number of Astounding Stories.
It is a magazine whose stories will anticipate the super-scientific
achievements of To-morrow—whose stories will not only be strictly accurate
in their science but will be vividly, dramatically and thrillingly told.

Already we have secured stories by some of the finest writers of fantasy in
the world—men such as Ray Cummings, Murray Leinster, Captain S. P.
Meek, Harl Vincent, R. F. Starzl and Victor Rousseau.
So—order your next month's copy of Astounding Stories in advance!—The
Editor.

The Beetle Horde
A TWO-PART NOVEL

By Victor Rousseau

Dodd and Tommy realised that they were powerless against the
monstrous beetles.

CHAPTER I
Dodd's Discovery

Out of the south the biplane came winging back toward
the camp, a black speck against the dazzling white of the Only two young
explorers stand in
vast ice-fields that extended unbroken to the horizon on the way of the mad
every side. Bram's horrible
revenge—the
It came out of the south, and yet, a hundred miles further releasing of his
trillions of man-
back along the course on which it flew, it could not have sized beetles upon
proceeded in any direction except northward. For a an utterly
hundred miles south lay the south pole, the goal toward defenseless world.
which the Travers Expeditions had been pressing for the
better part of that year.
Not that they could not have reached it sooner. As a matter of fact, the pole
had been crossed and re-crossed, according to the estimate of Tommy
Travers, aviator, and nephew of the old millionaire who stood fairy uncle to
the expedition. But one of the things that was being sought was the exact site
of the pole. Not within a couple of miles or so, but within the fraction of an
inch.
It had something to do with Einstein, and something to do with terrestrial
magnetism, and the variations of the south magnetic pole, and the reason
therefore, and something to do with parallaxes and the precession of the
equinoxes and other things, this search for the pole's exact location. But all
that was principally the affair of the astronomer of the party. Tommy
Travers, who was now evidently on his way back, didn't give a whoop for
Einstein, or any of the rest of the stuff. He had been enjoying himself after
his fashion during a year of frostbites and hard rations, and he was beginning
to anticipate the delights of the return to Broadway.
Captain Storm, in charge of the expedition, together with the five others of
the advance camp, watched the plane maneuver up to the tents. She came

down neatly on the smooth snow, skidded on her runners like an expert
skater, and came to a stop almost immediately in front of the marquee.
Tommy Travers leaped out of the enclosed cockpit, which, shut off by glass
from the cabin, was something like the front seat of a limousine.
"Well, Captain, we followed that break for a hundred miles, and there's no
ground cleft, as you expected," he said. "But Jim Dodd and I picked up
something, and Jim seems to have gone crazy."

Through the windows of the cabin, Jim Dodd, the young archaeologist of the
party, could be seen apparently wrestling with something that looked like a
suit of armor. By the time Captain Storm, Jimmy, and the other members of
the party had reached the cabin door, Dodd had got it open and flung himself
out backward, still hugging what he had found, and maneuvering so that he
managed to fall on his back and sustain its weight.
"Say, what the—what—what's that?" gasped Storm.
Even the least scientific minded of the party gasped in amazement at what
Dodd had. It resembled nothing so much as an enormous beetle. As a matter
of fact, it was an insect, for it had the three sections that characterize this
class, but it was merely the shell of one. Between four and five feet in
height, when Dodd stood it on end, it could now be seen to consist of the
hard exterior substance of some huge, unknown coleopter.
This substance, which was fully three inches thick over the thorax, looked as
hard as plate armor.
"What is it?" gasped Storm again.

Tommy Travers made answer, for James Dodd was evidently incapable of
speech, more from emotion than from the force with which he had landed
backward in the snow.

"We found it at the pole, Captain," he said. "At least, pretty near where the
pole ought to be. We ran into a current of warm air or something. The snow
had melted in places, and there were patches of bare rock. This thing was
lying in a hollow among them."
"If I didn't see it before my eyes, I'd think you crazy, Tommy," said Storm
with some asperity. "What is it, a crab?"
"Crab be damned!" shouted Jim Dodd, suddenly recovering his faculties.
"My God, Captain Storm, don't you know the difference between an insect
and a crustacean? This is a fossil beetle. Don't you see the distinguishing
mark of the coleoptera, those two elytra, or wing-covers, which meet in the
median dorsal line? A beetle, but with the shell of a crustacean instead of
mere chitin. That's what led you astray, I expect. God, what a tale we'll have
to tell when we get back to New York! We'll drop everything else, and spend
years, if need be, looking for other specimens."
"Like fun you will!" shouted Higby, the astronomer of the party. "Lemme
tell you right here, Dodd, nobody outside the Museum of Natural History is
going to care a damn about your old fossils. What we're going to do is to
march straight to the true pole, and spend a year taking observations and
parallaxes. If Einstein's brochure, in which he links up gravitation with
magnetism, is correct—"
"Fossil beetles!" Jim Dodd burst out, ignoring the astronomer. "That means
that in the Tertiary Era, probably, there existed forms of life in the antarctic
continent that have never been found elsewhere. Imagine a world in which
the insect reached a size proportionate to the great saurians, Captain Storm!
I'll wager poor Bram discovered this. That's why he stayed behind when the
Greystoke Expedition came within a hundred miles of the pole. I'll wager
he's left a cairn somewhere with full details inside it. We've got to find it. We
—"

But Jim Dodd, suddenly realizing that the rest of the party could hardly be
said to share his enthusiasm in any marked degree, broke off and looked
sulky.

"You say you found this thing pretty nearly upon the site of the true pole?"
Captain Storm asked Tommy.
"Within five miles, I'd say, Captain. The fog was so bad that we couldn't get
our directions very well."
"Well, then, there's going to be no difficulty," answered Storm. "If this fair
weather lasts, we'll be at the pole in another week, and we'll start making our
permanent camp. Plenty of opportunity for all you gentlemen. As for me, I'm
merely a sailor, and I'm trying to be impartial.
"And please remember, gentlemen, that we're well into March now, and
likely to have the first storms of autumn on us any day. So let's drop the
argument and remember that we've got to pull together!"

Tommy Travers was the only skilled aviator of the expedition, which had
brought two planes with it. It was a queer friendship that had sprung up
between him and Jim Dodd. Tommy, the blasé ex-Harvard man, who was
known along Broadway, and had never been able to settle down, seemed as
different as possible from the spectacled, scholarly Dodd, ten years his
senior, red-haired, irascible, and living, as Tommy put it, in the Age of Old
Red Sandstone, instead of in the year 1930 A. D.
It was generally known—though the story had been officially denied—that
there had been trouble in the Greystoke Expedition of three years before.
Captain Greystoke had taken the brilliant, erratic Bram, of the Carnegie
Archaeological Institute, with him, and Bram's history was a long record of
trouble.
It was Bram who had exploded the faked neolithic finds at Mannheim,
thereby earning the undying enmity of certain European savants, but
brilliantly demolishing them when he smashed the so-called Mannheim
stone pitcher (valued at a hundred thousand dollars) with a pocket-axe, and
caustically inquired whether neolithic man used babbit metal rivets to fasten
on his jug handles.

Bram's brilliant work in the investigation of the origin of the negrito Asiatic
races had been awarded one of the Nobel prizes, and Bram had declined it in
an insulting letter because he disapproved of the year's prize award for
literature.
He had been a storm center for years, embittered by long opposition, when
he joined the Greystoke Expedition for the purpose of investigating the
marine fauna of the antarctic continent.
And it was known that his presence had nearly brought the Greystoke
Expedition to the point of civil war. Rumor said he had been deliberately
abandoned. His enemies hoped he had. The facts seemed to be, however, that
in an outburst of temper he had walked out of camp in a furious snowstorm
and perished. For days his body had been sought in vain.
Jimmy Dodd had run foul of Bram some years before, when Bram had
published a criticism of one of Dodd's addresses dealing with fossil
monotremes, or egg-laying mammals. In his inimitable way, Bram had
suggested that the problem which came first, the egg or the chicken, was
now seen to be linked up with the Darwinian theory, and solved in the
person of Dodd.
Nevertheless, Jimmy Dodd entertained a devoted admiration for the memory
of the dead scientist. He believed that Bram must have left records of
inestimable importance in a cairn before he died. He wanted to find that
cairn.
And he knew, what a number of Bram's enemies knew, that the dead scientist
had been a morphine addict. He believed that he had wandered out into the
snow under the influence of the drug.

Dodd, who shared a tent with Tommy, had raved the greater part of the night
about the find.
"Well, but see here, Jimmy, suppose these beetles did inhabit the antarctic
continent a few million years ago, why get excited?" Tommy had asked.

"Excited?" bellowed Dodd. "It opens one of the biggest problems that
science has to face. Why haven't they survived into historic times? Why
didn't they cross into Australia, like the opossum, by the land bridge then
existent between that continent and South America? Beetles five feet in
length, and practically invulnerable! What killed them off? Why didn't they
win the supremacy over man?"
Jimmy Dodd had muttered till he went to sleep, and he had muttered worse
in his dreams. Tommy was glad that Captain Storm had given them
permission to return to the same spot next morning and look for further
fossils, though his own interest in them was of the slightest.
The dogs were being harnessed next morning when the two men hopped into
the plane. The thermometer was unusually high for the season, for in the
south polar regions the short summer is usually at an end by March. Tommy
was sweating in his furs in a temperature well above the freezing point. The
snow was crusted hard, the sky overcast with clouds, and a wind was
blowing hard out of the south, and increasing in velocity hourly.
"A bad day for starting," said Captain Storm. "Looks like one of the autumn
storms was blowing up. If I were you, I'd watch the weather, Tommy."

Tommy glanced at Dodd, who was huddled in the rear cockpit, fuming at the
delay, and grinned whimsically. "I guess I can handle her, Captain," he
answered. "It's only an hour's flight to where he found that fossil."
"Just as you please," said Storm curtly. He knew that Tommy's judgment as a
pilot could always be relied upon. "You'll find us here when you return," he
added. "I've counter-manded the order to march. I don't like the look of the
weather at all."
Tommy grinned again and pressed the starter. The engine caught and
warmed up. One of the men kicked away the blocks of ice that had been
placed under the skids to serve as chocks. The plane taxied over the crusted
snow, and took off into the south.

The camp was situated in a hollow among the ice-mountains that rose to a
height of two or three thousand feet all around. Tommy had not dreamed
how strongly the gale was blowing until he was over the top of them. Then
he realized that he was facing a tougher proposition than he had calculated
on. The storm struck the biplane with full force.
A snowstorm was driving up rapidly, blackening the sky. The sun, which
only appeared for a brief interval every day, was practically touching the
horizon as it rose to make its minute arc in the sky. A star was visible
through a rift in the clouds overhead, and the pale daylight in which they had
started had already become twilight.
Tommy was tempted to turn back, but it was only a hundred miles, and
Jimmy Dodd would give him no peace if he did so. So he put the plane's
nose resolutely into the wind, watching his speed indicator drop from a
hundred miles per hour to eighty, sixty, forty—less.
The storm was beating up furiously. Of a sudden the clouds broke into a
deluge of whirling snow.
In a moment the windshield was a frozen, opaque mass. Tommy opened it,
and peered out into the biting air. He could see nothing.... The plane, caught
in the fearful cross-currents that swirl about the southern roof of the world,
was fluttering like a leaf in the wind. The altimeter was dropping
dangerously.
Tommy opened the throttle to the limit, zooming, and, like a spurred horse,
the biplane shot forward and upward. She touched five thousand, six, seven
—and that, for her, was ceiling under those conditions, for a sudden
tremendous shock of wind, coming in a fierce cross-current, swung her
round, tossed her to and fro in the enveloping white cloud. And Tommy
knew that he had the fight of his life upon his hands.

The compasses, which required considerable daily adjusting to be of use so
near to the pole, had now gone out of use altogether. The air speed indicator
had apparently gone west, for it was oscillating between zero and twenty.
The turn and bank indicator was performing a kind of tango round the dial.

Even the eight-day clock had ceased to function, but that might have been
due to the fact that Tommy had neglected to wind it. And the oil pressure
gauge presented a still more startling sight, for a glance showed that either
there was a leak or else the oil had frozen.
Tommy looked around at Dodd and pointed downward. Dodd responded
with a vicious forward wave of his hand.
Tommy shook his head, and Dodd started forward along the cabin,
apparently with the intention of committing assault and battery upon him.
Instead, the archaeologist collapsed upon the floor as the plane spun
completely around under the impact of a blast that was like a giant's slap.
The plane was no longer controllable. True, she responded in some sort to
the controls, but all Tommy was able to do was to keep her from going into a
crazy sideslip or nose dive as he fought with the elements. And those
elements were like a devil unchained. One moment he was dropping like a
plummet, the next he was shooting up like a rocket as a vertical blast of air
caught the plane and tossed her like a cork into the invisible heavens. Then
she was revolving, as if in a maelstrom, and by degrees this rotary
movement began to predominate.
Round and round went the plane, in circles that gradually narrowed, and it
was all Tommy could do to swing the stick so as to keep her from skidding
or sideslipping. And as he worked desperately at his task Tommy began to
realize something that made him wonder if he was not dreaming.

The snow was no longer snow, but rain—mist, rather, warm mist that had
already cleared the windshield and covered it with tiny drops.
And that white, opaque world into which he was looking was no longer
snow but fog—the densest fog that Tommy had ever encountered.
Fog like white wool, drifting past him in fleecy flakes that looked as if they
had solid substance. Warm fog that was like balm upon his frozen skin, but
of a warmth that was impossible within a few miles of the frozen pole.

Then there came a momentary break in it, and Tommy looked down and
uttered a cry of fear. Fear, because he knew that he must be dreaming.
Not more than a thousand feet beneath him he saw patches of snow, and
patches of—green grass, the brightest and most verdant green that he had
ever seen in his life.
He turned round at a touch on his shoulder. Dodd was leaning over him, one
hand pointing menacingly upward and onward.
"You fool," Tommy bellowed in his ear, "d'you think the south pole lies over
there? It's here! Yeah, don't you get it, Jimmy? Look down! This valley—
God, Jimmy, the south pole's a hole in the ground!"
And as he spoke he remembered vaguely some crank who had once insisted
that the two poles were hollow because—what was the fellow's reasoning?
Tommy could not remember it.
But there was no longer any doubt but that they were dropping into a hole.
Not more than a mile around, which explained why neither Scott nor
Amundsen had found it when they approximated to the site of the pole. A
hole—a warm hole, up which a current of warm air was rushing, forming the
white mist that now gradually thinned as the plane descended. The plateau
with its covering of eternal snows loomed in a white circle high overhead.
Underneath was green grass now—grass and trees!

The fog was nearly gone. The plane responded to the controls again. Tommy
pushed the stick forward and came round in a tighter circle.
And then something happened that he had not in the least expected. One
moment he seemed to be traveling in a complete calm, a sort of clear funnel
with a ring of swirling fog outside it—the next he was dropping into a void!
There was no air resistance—there seemed hardly any air, for he felt a
choking in his throat, and a tearing at his lungs as he strove to breathe. He
heard a strangled cry from Dodd, and saw that he was clutching with both
hands at his throat, and his face was turning purple.

The controls went limp in Tommy's hands. The plane, gyrating more slowly,
suddenly nosed down, hung for a moment in that void, and then plunged
toward the green earth, two hundred feet below, with appalling swiftness.
Tommy realized that a crash was inevitable. He threw his goggles up over
his forehead, turned and waved to Dodd in ironic farewell. He saw the earth
rush up at him—then came the shattering crash, and then oblivion!

CHAPTER II
Beetles and Humans

How long he had remained unconscious, Tommy had no means of
determining. Of a sudden he found himself lying on the ground beside the
shattered plane, with his eyes wide open.
He stared at it, and stared about him, without understanding where he was,
or what had happened to him. His first idea was that he had crashed on the
golf links near Mitchell Field, Long Island, for all about him were stretches
of verdant grass and small shrubby plants. Then, when he remembered the
expedition, he was convinced that he had been dreaming.
What brought him to a saner view was the discovery that he was enveloped
in furs which were insufferably hot. He half raised himself and succeeded in
unfastening his fur coat, and thus discovered that apparently none of his
bones was broken.
But the plane must have fallen from a considerable height to have been
smashed so badly. Then Tommy discovered that he was lying upon an
extensive mound of sand, thrown up as by some gigantic mole, for burrow
tracks ran through it in every direction. It was this that had saved his life.
Something was moving at his side. It was half-submerged in the sand-pile,
and it was moving parallel to him with great rapidity.
A grayish body, half-covered with grains of sand emerged, waving two
enormously long tentacles. It was a shrimp, but fully three feet in length, and
Tommy had never before had any idea what an unpleasant object a shrimp is.
Tommy staggered to his feet and dropped nearer the plane, eyeing the
shrimp with horror. But he was soon relieved as he discovered that it was
apparently harmless. It slithered away and once more buried itself in the pile
of sand.

Now Tommy was beginning to remember. He looked into the wreckage of
the plane. Jim Dodd was not there. He called his name repeatedly, and there
was no response, except a dull echo from the ice-mountains behind the veil
of fog.

He went to the other side of the plane, he scanned the ground all about him.
Jimmy had disappeared. It was evident that he was nowhere near, for
Tommy could see the whole of the lower scope of the bowl on every side of
him. He had walked away—or he had been carried away! Tommy thought of
the shrimp, and shuddered. What other fearsome monsters might inhabit that
extraordinary valley?
He sat down, leaning against the wreck of the fuselage, and tried to adjust
his mind, tried to keep himself from going mad. He knew now that the flight
had been no dream, that he was a member of his uncle's expedition, that he
had flown with Jim toward the pole, had crashed in a vacuum. But where
was Jim? And how were they going to get out of the damn place?
Something like a heap of stones not far away attracted Tommy's attention.
Perhaps Jim Dodd was lying behind that. Once more Tommy got upon his
feet and began walking toward it. On the way, he stumbled against the sharp
edge of something that protruded from the ground.
It cut his leg sharply, and, with a curse, he began rubbing his shin and
looking at the thing. Then he saw that it was another of the fossil shells, half-
buried in the marshy ooze on which he was treading. The ground in this
lower part of the valley was a swamp, on account of the very fine mist
falling from the fog clouds that surrounded it impenetrably on every side.
Then Tommy came upon another shell, and then another. And now he saw
that there were piles of what he had taken to be rock everywhere, and that
this was not rock but great heaps of the shells, all equally intact.
Hundreds of thousands of the prehistoric beetles must have died in that
valley, perhaps overcome by some cataclysm.

Tommy examined the heap near which he stood; he yelled Dodd's name, but
again no answer came.
Instead, something began to stir among the heaps of shells. For a moment
Tommy hoped against hope that it was Dodd, but it wasn't Dodd.
It was a living beetle!
A beetle fully five feet high as it stood erect, a pair of enormous wings
outspread. And the head, which was larger than a man's, was the most
frightful object Tommy had ever seen.
Jim Dodd would have said at once that this was one of the Curculionidae, or
snout beetles, for a prolongation of the head between the eyes formed a sort
of beak a foot in length. The mouth, which opened downward, was armed
with terrific mandibles, while the huge, compound eyes looked like
enormous crystals of cut glass. Immediately in front of the eyes were two
mandibles as long as a man's arms, with feathery processes at the ends. In
addition to these there were three pairs of legs, the front pair as long as a
man's, the hind pair almost as long as a horse's.

Paralyzed with horror, Tommy watched the monster, which had apparently
been disturbed by the vibrations of his voice, extract itself from among the
shells. Then, with a bound that covered fifteen feet, it had lessened the
distance between them by half.
And then a still more amazing thing happened. For of a sudden the hard shell
slipped from the thorax, the wing-cases dropped off, the whole of the bony
parts slipped to the ground with a clang, and a soft, defenseless thing went
slithering away among the rocks.
The beetle had moulted!
Tommy dropped to the ground in the throes of violent nausea.
Then, looking up again, he saw the girl!

She was about a hundred yards away from him, very close to the fallen
plane, and she must have emerged from a large hole in the ground which
Tommy could now see under a ledge of overhanging rock.
She seemed to be dressed in a single garment which fell to her knees, and
appeared to fit tightly about her body, but as she came nearer, Tommy,
watching her, petrified by this latest apparition, discovered that it was woven
of her own hair, which must have been of immense length, for it fell
naturally to her shoulders, and thence was woven into this close-fitting
material, a fringe an inch or two in length extending beneath the selvage.
She was about six feet tall, and apparently made after the normal human
pattern. She moved with a slow, majestic swing, and if ever any female had
seemed to Tommy to have the appearance of an angel, this unknown woman
did.
She was so fair, in that flossy, flaxen covering, she moved with such easy
grace, that Tommy, gaping, gradually crept nearer to her. She did not seem to
see him. She was stooping over the very sand heap into which he had fallen.
Suddenly, with lightning-like rapidity, her arms shot out, her hands began
tunneling in the sand. With a cry of triumph she pulled out the shrimp
Tommy had seen, or another like it, and, stripping it off the shell, began
devouring it with evident relish.
In the midst of her meal the girl raised her head and looked at Tommy. He
saw that her eyes were filmed, vacant, dead. Then of a sudden a third
membrane was drawn back across the pupils, and she saw him.
She let the shrimp drop to the ground, uttered a cry, and moved toward him
with a tottering gait. She groped toward him with outstretched arms. And
then she was blind again, for the membrane once more covered her pupils. It
was as if her eyes were unable to endure even the dim light of the valley,
through whose surrounding mists the low sun, setting just above the horizon,
was unable to diffuse itself save as a brightening of the fog curtain.

Tommy stepped toward the girl. His outstretched hand touched hers. It was
unquestionably a woman's hand he held, delicately warm, with exquisitely

moulded fingers, in whose touch there seemed to be, for the girl, some tactile
impression of him.
Again that membrane was drawn back from the girl's pupils for a fleeting
flash. Tommy saw two eyes of intense black, their color contrasting
curiously with the flaxen color of her hair and her white skin, almost the tint
of an albino's. Those eyes had surveyed him, and appeared satisfied that he
was one of her kind. She could not have seen very much in that almost
instantaneous flash of vision. Queer, that membrane—as if she had been
used to living in the dark, as if the full light of the day was unbearable!
She drew her hand away. Soft vocals came from her lips. Suddenly she
turned swiftly. She could not have seen, but before Tommy had seen, she had
sensed the presence of the old man who was creeping out of the hole in the
mountainside.
He moved forward craftily, and then pounced upon the sand pile, and in a
moment had pulled out another of the big shrimps, which he proceeded to
devour with greedy relish. The girl, leaving Tommy's side, joined him in that
unpleasant feast.
And in the midst of it a flood came pouring from the hole—a flood of living
beetles, covering the ground in fifteen-foot leaps as they dashed at the two.
To his horror, Tommy saw Jimmy Dodd among them, wrapped in his fur
coat like a mummy, and being pushed and rolled forward like a football.
For a moment Tommy hesitated, torn between his solicitude for Jim Dodd
and that for the girl. Then, as the foremost of the monsters bounded to her
side, he ran between them. The vicious jaws snapped within six inches of
Tommy's face, with a force that would have carried away an ear, or shredded
the cheek, if they had met.

Tommy struck out with all his might, and his fist clanged on the resounding
shell so that the blood spurted from his bruised knuckles. He had struck the
monster squarely upon the thorax, and he had not discommoded it in the
least. It turned on him, its glassy, many-faceted eyes glaring with a cold,

infernal light. Tommy struck out again with his left hand, this time upon the
pulpy flesh of the downward-opening mouth.
An inch higher, and he would have impaled his hand upon the beak, with a
point like a needle, and evidently used for purposes of attack, since it was
not connected with the mandibles. The blow appeared to fall in the only
vulnerable place. The monster dropped upon its back and lay there, unable to
reverse itself, its antenna and forelegs waving in the air, and the rear legs
rasping together in a shrill, strident shriek.
Instantly, as Tommy darted out of the way, the swarm fell upon the helpless
monster and began devouring it, tearing strips of flesh from the lower shell,
which in the space of a half-minute was reduced simply to bone. The most
horrible feature of this act of cannibalism was the complete silence with
which it was performed, except for the rasping of the dying monster's legs. It
was evident that the huge beetles had no vocal apparatus.
For the moment left unguarded, Jim Dodd flung down the collar of his fur
coat, stared about him, and recognized Tommy.
"My God, it's you!" he yelled. "Well, can you—?"
He had no time to finish his sentence. A pair of antenna went round his neck
from behind. At the same instant Tommy, the old man, and the girl were
gripped by the monsters, which, forming a solid phalanx about them, began
hustling them in the direction of the hole. Resistance was utterly impossible.
Tommy felt as if he was being pushed along by a moving wall of stone.
Inside the opening it was completely dark. Tommy shouted to Dodd, but the
strident sounds of the moving legs drowned his cries. He was being pushed
forward into the unknown.

Suddenly the ground seemed to fall away beneath his feet. He struggled,
cried out, and felt himself descending through the air.
For a full half-minute he went downward at a speed that constricted his
throat so that he could hardly draw breath. Then, just as he had nerved

himself for the imminent crash, the speed of his descent was checked. In
another moment he found that he was slowing to a standstill in mid-air.
He was beginning to float backward—upward. But the wall of moving
shells, pushing against him, forced him on, downward, and yet apparently
against the force of gravitation.
Then of a sudden Tommy was aware of a dim light all about him. His feet
touched earth and grass as softly as a thistledown alighting.
He found himself seated in the same dim light upon red grass, and staring
into Jimmy's face.

CHAPTER III
Ten Miles Underground

"What I was going to say when we were interrupted, was, 'Can you beat it?'"
Jimmy Dodd observed, with admirable sang-froid.
They were still seated on the red grass, gazing about them at what looked
like an illimitable plain, and upward into depths of darkness. It was warm,
and the light, furnished by what appeared to be luminous vegetation, was
about that of twilight.
On every side were clumps of trees and shrubs, which formed centers of
phosphorescent illumination, but for the most part the land was open, and
here and there human figures appeared, moving with head down and arms
hanging earthward.
"No, I'm damned if I can," said Tommy. "What happened to you after we
crashed?"
"Why, first thing I knew, I found myself riding on the back of a fossil beetle,
apparently one of the curculionidae," said Dodd.
"Never, mind being so precise, Jimmy. Let's call it a beetle. Go on."
"They set me down inside the hole and seemed to be investigating me, the
whole swarm of them. Of course, I thought I was dead, and come to my just
reward, especially when I saw those beaks. Then one of them began tickling
my face with its antenna, and I drew up my fur collar. They didn't seem to
like the feel of the fur, and after a while the whole gang started hustling me
back again, like a nest of ants carrying something they don't want outside
their hill. And then you bobbed up."
"Well, my opinion is you saved your life by pulling up your collar," said
Tommy. "Looks to me as if it's a case of the survival of the fittest, said fittest
being the insect, and the human race taking second place. You know what
the humans here live on, don't you?"

"No, what?"
"Shrimps as big as poodles. If you'd seen that girl and the old man getting
outside them, you'd realize that there seems to be a food shortage in this part
of the world. Say, where in thunder are we, Jimmy?"
"Haven't you guessed yet, Travers?" asked Dodd, a spice of malice in his
voice.
"I suppose this is some sort of big hole on the site of the south pole, with
warm vapors coming up. Maybe a great fissure in the earth, or something."

Jimmy Dodd's grin, seen in the half-light, was rather disconcerting. "How far
do you think we dropped just now?" Dodd asked.
"Why, I'd say several hundred yards," replied Tommy. "What's your
estimate?"
"Just about ten miles," answered Dodd.
"What? You're still crazy! Why, we slowed up!"
"Yeah," grinned Dodd, "we slowed up. We're inside the crust of the world.
That's the long and short of it. The earth we've known is just a shell over our
heads."
"Yeah? Walking head downward, are we? Then why don't we drop to the
center of the earth, you damn fool?"
"Because, my dear fellow, you can swing a pailful of water round your head
without spilling any of it. In other words, our old friend, centrifugal force.
The speed with which the earth is rotating, keeps us on our feet, head
downward. To be precise, the center of the earth's gravity lies in the middle
of the hollow sphere, of course, but the counteraction of centrifugal force
throws it outward to the middle of the ten-mile crust. That's why we slowed
down after we were half-way through. We were moving against gravity."

"And what's up there, or down there, or whatever you call it?" asked Tommy,
pointing to what ought to have been the sky.
"Nothing. It's the center of the tennis ball, though I imagine it's pretty near a
vacuum when you get up a mile or so, owing to the speed of the earth's
rotation, which forces the heat into the shell."
"You mean to say you actually believe that stuff you've been handing me?"
asked Tommy, after a pause. "Then how did human beings get here, and
those damn beetles? And why's the grass red?"

"The grass is red because there's no sunlight to produce chlorophyll. The
inhabitants of the deep sea are red or black, almost invariably. In the case of
the humans, they've become bleached. My belief is that that man and woman
we saw, and those"—he pointed to the vague forms of human beings, who
moved across the grass, gathering something—"are survivors of the
primitive race that still exists as the Australians. Undoubtedly one of the
branches of the human stock originated in antarctica at a time when it
enjoyed a tropical temperature, and was the land bridge between Australia
and South America."
"And the—beetles?" asked Tommy.
"Ah, they go back to the days when nature was in a more grandiose mood!"
replied the archaeologist enthusiastically. "That's the most wonderful
discovery of the ages. The world will go crazy over them when we bring
back the first living specimens to the zoological parks of the great cities.
"But," Dodd went on, speaking with still more enthusiasm, "of course, this is
only the beginning, Tommy. There are ten million species of insects,
according to Riley, and it is inevitable that there must be hundreds of
thousands of other survivals from the age of the great saurians, perhaps even
some of the saurians themselves. Who knows but that we may discover the
ancestor of the extinct monotremes, the rhynchocephalia, the pterodactyls,
hatch a brood of aepyornis eggs—"

"And," said Tommy tartly, "how are we going to get them back, apart from
the little problem of getting out of here ourselves?"
"Don't let's worry about that now," answered Dodd. "It will take ten years of
the hardest kind of labor even to begin a classification of the inhabitants of
this inner world. I could sit down for ever, and—"
But Jimmy Dodd rose to his feet as a pair of antenna whipped round his neck
and jerked him bodily upward.

One of the monster beetles was standing upright behind them, and by its
gestures it evidently meant that Dodd and Tommy were to join the crowd of
humans in the offing. As Dodd turned upon it with an indignant show of
fists, one of the antennae whipped off his fur coat and stung him painfully
with the bristle-like attachment at the end.
It was a painful moment when Dodd and Tommy realized that they were
powerless against the monstrous beetles. Tommy tried the uppercut with
which he had knocked out the deceased monster, but the quick jerks of the
present beetle's head were infinitely faster than the movements of his fists,
while the antenna had a whiplike quality about them that speedily convinced
him that discretion was the card to play.
Under the threat of the curling antenna, Tommy and Dodd moved in the
direction of the slowly circulating humans. Numerous tiny rodents, which
evidently kept the red grass short, scampered away under their feet. The
beetles made no further effort to force them on, but now they could see that a
number of the monsters were stationed at intervals around a wide circle,
keeping the humans in a single body.
"Good Lord!" ejaculated Tommy, stopping. "See what they're doing, Dodd?
They're herding us, like cowboys herd steers. Look at that!"

One of the herd, a male with a long beard, suddenly broke from the herd,
bawling, and flung himself upon a beetle guard. The antenna shot forth,
coiled around his neck, and hurled him a dozen feet to the ground, where he
lay stunned for a moment before arising and rejoining his companions.
"But what are they looking for?" demanded Dodd.
Tommy had not heard him. He had stopped in front of one of the luminous
trees and was plucking a fruit from it.
"Jimmy, ever see an apple before?" he asked. "If this isn't an apple, I'll eat
my head."
It certainly was an apple, and one of the largest and juiciest that Tommy had
ever tasted. It was the reddest apple he had ever seen, and would have won
the first prize at any agricultural fair.
"And look at this!" shouted Tommy, plucking an enormous luminous peach
from another tree.
They began munching slowly, then, seeing one of the beetle guards
approaching them, they moved into the midst of the crowd.
"Did you notice anything strange about those fruit trees?" inquired Dodd, as
he munched. "I'll swear they were monocotyledonous, which, after all, is
what one would expect. Still, to think that the monocotyledons evolved the
familiar drupes, or stone fruits, on a parallel line to the dicotyledons is—
amazing!"
A box on the ear like the kick of a mule's hoof jerked the last word from his
lips as he went sprawling. He got up, to see the girl standing before him,
intense disgust and anger on her face.
She snatched the fruits from the hands of the two Americans and hurled
them away. It was evident from her manner that she considered such diet in
the highest degree unclean and disgusting; also that she considered herself
charged with the duty of superintending Tommy's and Dodd's education, but
especially Dodd's.

Taking him by the arm, she propelled him into the midst of the groping
humans. She released him, stooped, and suddenly stood up, a shrimp about
eighteen inches long in her hand.
Towering over Dodd by six inches, she took his face in her hands and began
caressing him; then, seizing his jaws in her strong fingers, she pried them
apart, and popped the tail end of the shrimp into his mouth.
Dodd let out a yelp, and spat out the love-gift, to be rewarded with another
box on the ear by the young Amazon, while Tommy stood by, convulsed
with laughter, and yet in considerable trepidation, for fear of being forced to
share Dodd's fate.
For the girl was again holding out the tail end of the crustacean, and Jim
Dodd's jaws were slowly and reluctantly approaching it.
But suddenly there came an intervention as the strident rasping of beetle legs
was heard in the distance. Panic seized the human herd, grovelling for
shrimps in the sandy soil with its tufts of red grasses. Milling in an uneasy
mob, they cowered under the lashes of the antenna of the beetle guards,
which sacrificed their backs through their hair garments whenever any of
them tried to bolt.
Nearer and nearer came the beetles, louder and more penetrating the shriek
of their rasping legs. Now the swarm came into sight, rank after rank of the
shell-clad monsters, leaping fifteen feet at a bound with perfect precision,
until they had formed a solid phalanx all around the humans.

Tommy heard sighs of despair, he heard muttering, and then he realized,
with deep thankfulness, that these human beings, degraded though they
were, had a speech of their own.
In the middle of the front line appeared a beetle a foot taller than the rest.
That it was either a king or queen was evident from the respect paid it by the
rest of the swarm. At its every movement a bodyguard of beetles moved in
unison, forming themselves in a group before it and on either side.

There would have been something ludicrous about these movements, but for
the impression of horror that the swarm made upon Tommy and Jim Dodd.
Hitherto both had supposed that the hideous insects acted by blind instinct,
but now there could no longer be any doubt that they were possessed of an
organized intelligence.

The strident sounds grew louder. Already Tommy was beginning to discover
certain variations in them. It was dawning upon him that they formed a
language—and a perfectly intelligible one. For, as the note changed about a
half-semitone, two of the monsters left the side of their ruler and reached the
two men with three successive leaps.
Their movements left no doubt in either Tommy's or Dodd's mind what was
required. The two strode hastily toward the assemblage, and stopped as the
antenna of their guards came down in menacing fashion.
It was light enough for Tommy to see the face of the ruler of the hellish
swarm. And it required all his powers of will to keep from collapsing from
sheer horror at what he saw.
For, despite the close-fitting shell, the face of the beetle king was the face of
a man—a white man!
Jim Dodd's shriek rang out above the shrilling of the beetle-legs, "Bram! It's
you, it's you! My God, it's you, Bram!"

CHAPTER IV
Bram's Story

A sneering chuckle broke from Bram's lips. "Yes, it's me, James Dodd," he
answered. "I'm a little surprised to see you here, Dodd, but I'm mighty glad.
Still insane upon the subject of fossil monotremes, I suppose?"
The words came haltingly from Bram's lips, as from those of a man who had
lost the habit of easy speech. And Tommy, looking on, and trying to keep in
possession of his faculties, had already come to the conclusion that the
sounds were inaudible to the beetles. Probably their hearing apparatus was
not attuned to such slow vibrations of the human voice.
Also he had discovered that Bram was wearing the discarded shell of one of
the monsters: he had not grown the shell himself. It was fastened about his
body by a band of the hair-cloth, fastened to the two protuberances of the
elytra, or wing-cases, on either side of the dorsal surface.
The discovery at least robbed the situation of one aspect of terror. Bram,
however he had obtained control of the swarm, was still only a man.
"Yes, still insane," answered Dodd bitterly. "Insane enough to go on
believing that the polyprotodontia and the dasyuridae, which includes the
peramelidae, or bandicoots, and the banded ant-eaters, or myrmecobidae, are
not to be found in fossil form, for the excellent reason that they were not
represented before the Upper Cretaceous period."
"You lie! You lie!" screamed Bram. "I have shown to all the world that
phascalotherium, amphitherium, amblotherium, spalacotherium, and many
other orders are to be found in the Upper Jurassic rocks of England,
Wyoming, and other places. You—you are the man who denied the existence
of the nototherium, of the marsupial lion, in pleistocene deposits! You denied
that the dasyuridae can be traced back beyond the pleistocene. And you
stand there and lie to me, when you are at my mercy!"

"For God's sake don't aggravate him," whispered Tommy to Dodd. "Don't
you see that he's insane? Humor him, or we'll be dead men. Think what the
world will lose, if you are never able to go back with your specimens," he
added craftily.

But Dodd, whose eyes were glaring, said a sublime thing: "I have given my
life to science, and I will never deny my master!"
With a screech, which, however, was evidently inaudible to the beetles,
Bram leaped at Dodd and seized him by the throat. The two men fell to the
ground, the ponderous beetle-shell completely covering them. Underneath it
they could be seen to be struggling desperately. All the while the beetle
horde remained perfectly motionless. Tommy thought afterward that in this
fact lay their brightest chances of escape, if Bram's immediate vengeance did
not fall on them.
Either because Bram was not himself a beetle, or because in some other way
the swarm instinct was not stirred, the monsters watched the struggle with
complete indifference.
At the moment, however, Tommy was only concerned with saving Dodd
from the madman. He got his foot beneath the shell, then inserted his leg;
using his whole body as a lever, he succeeded in turning Bram over on his
back.
Then, and only then, the swarm rushed in upon them. Then Tommy realized
that he had touched one of the triggers that regulated the beetle's
automatism. In another instant Bram would have been torn to pieces. The
needle-beaks were darting through the air, the hideous jaws were snapping.
Bram's yells rang through the cavern.

Dodging beneath the avalanche of the monsters, Tommy got Bram upon his
feet again. The beetles stopped, every movement arrested. Bram's hand went

to the pocket of his tattered coat, there came a snap, a flash. Bram had
ignited an automatic cigarette-lighter!
Instantly the monsters went scurrying away into the distance. And Tommy
had another clue. The beetles, living in the dimness of the underworld, could
not stand light or fire!
He ran to where Jimmy was lying, face upward, on the ground. His face was
badly scarred by Bram's nails, and the blood was spurting from a long gash
in his throat, made by the sharp flint that was lying beside him.
He had some time before discarded his fur coat. Now he pulled off his coat,
and, tearing off the tail of his shirt, he made a pad and a bandage, with which
he attempted to staunch the blood and bind the wound. It must have taken
ten minutes before the failing heart force enabled him to get the bleeding
under control. Dodd had nearly bled to death, his face was drawn and waxen,
but, because the pulsation was so feeble, the artery had ceased to spurt.
Then only did Tommy take notice of Bram. He had been squatting near, and
Tommy realized that he had unconsciously observed Bram put some sort of
pellets into his mouth. Now he realized that Bram was a drug fiend. That
was what had made him walk out of the Greystoke camp in the storm.
Bram got up and came toward them. "Is he dead?" he whispered hoarsely. "I
—I lost my temper. You two—I don't intend to kill you. There—there's room
for the three of us. I've got—plans of the utmost importance to humanity."
"I don't think much of the way you've started to carry them out," answered
Tommy bitterly. "No, he's not dead yet, but I wouldn't give much for his
chances, even in the best hospital. The best thing you can do now is to go to
hell, and take your beetles with you," he added.

Bram, without replying, raised his head and emitted from his throat the
shrillest whistle that Tommy had ever heard. The response was amazing.
Rasping out of the darkness came eight beetles in pairs. Instead of leaping
from an upright position, they trotted in the manner of horses, on all fours,

their shells, which touched at the edges, forming a solid surface, gently
rounded in the center so that a man's body could lie there and fit snugly into
the groove.
"Help me get him up," said Bram. "Trust me! I'll do my best for him. If we
leave him here they may kill and eat him. I can't trust all those beetle
guards."
Tommy hesitated a moment, then decided to follow Bram's suggestion.
Together they raised the unconscious man to the beetle-shell couch. Bram
seated himself upon the boss of one of the beetle-shells in front, and Tommy
jumped up behind.
Next moment, to his amazement, the trained steeds were flying smoothly
through the air, at a rate that could not have been less than seventy-five to
eighty miles an hour.
Tommy's shell seat was not a bed of roses, but he hardly noticed that. He
was thinking that if Dodd lived they should be able to turn the tables.
For, unknown to Bram, he was in possession of the cigarette-lighter which
he had picked up, and which Bram, in his agitation, had forgotten. It was full
of petrol, or some other fluid of a similar nature, which Bram must have
obtained from some natural source within the earth. And, in an emergency,
Tommy knew that he had the means of keeping the beetles at bay.

They had traveled for perhaps an hour when a faint light began to glow in
the distance. It grew brighter, and a roaring sound became audible. A turn of
the track that they were traversing, and the light became a glare. A terrific
sight met Tommy's eyes.
Out of the bowels of the earth—actually out of the crust beneath their feet—
there shot a pillar of roaring flame, of intense white color, and radiating a
heat that was perceptible even at a distance of several hundred yards. The
beetle steeds dropped gently to the ground; they halted. Bram got down,
grinning.

"Nicely trained horses, what?" he asked. "By the way, you have the
advantage of me in names. Who and what are you?"
Tommy told him.
"Well, Travers, it looks as if we're going to be companions for some time to
come, and I quite admit you saved my life back there. So we don't want to
start with secrets. This is a natural petrol spring, which has probably been
burning undiminished for ages. My trained beetles are blind—you didn't
happen to notice I'd cut off their antenna? But the rest of the swarm daren't
come near it. So that makes me their master.
"Pretty trick, what, Travers? I'm the Lord of the Flame down here, and I'm
using my advantage. But don't get the idea of supplanting me. There are lots
of other tricks you don't know anything about, and I'll have to trust you
better before—"
He broke off and slipped another pellet into his mouth.
"Help me get Dodd down, if this is our destination," answered Tommy.
They lifted Dodd to the ground. He was conscious now, and moaning for
water. The two men carried him into a sort of large cavern, at the farther end
of which the fire was roaring. Bram went to a spring that trickled down one
side, filled something that looked like a petrified lily calyx, and brought it to
Dodd, who drained it.

Tommy looked about him. He was astonished to see that the place was, in a
way, furnished. Bram had carved out a very creditable couch, and several
low chairs, evidently with a stone ax, for by the light of the fire, which cast a
fair illumination even at that distance, Tommy could see the marks of the
implement, rough and irregular, in the wood.
On the ground were thick rugs, woven of hair, and two or three more rugs of
the same material lay on the couch. It was evident that the human herd was
expected to furnish textile materials as well as meat.

"Sit down, and make yourself comfortable," said Bram, when they had
raised Dodd to the couch. "We'll have dinner, and then we'll talk. I can give
you a fine vegetarian meal. Those dirty shrimp-eating savages look on me as
a cannibal because I eat the fruits of the trees." He grinned. "There's a bad
shortage of food in Submundia, as I've named this part of the world," he
went on, "for until I came the beetles simply devoured the humans
wholesale, instead of breeding them, like I taught them. And there's another
of the hundred-and-fifty year swarms due to hatch out soon. However, we'll
talk about that later. And all those fine fruits going to waste! Excuse me,
Travers."

He disappeared, and returned in a minute or two with a small table, piled
high with luscious fruits unknown to Tommy, though among them were
some that looked like loaves of natural bread.
Tommy, whose appetite never failed him even in the worst circumstances,
fell to with a will. He was enjoying his meal when he happened to look up,
and saw that the penumbra at the edge of the lighted zone was dense with
beetles.
Thousands—perhaps millions, for they stretched away as far as the eye
could see, were packed together, their antenna waving in unison, their heads,
beneath the shells, directed toward the fire.
Bram saw Tommy's look of disgust, and laughed. "The fire seems to
intoxicate them, Travers," he said. "They always throng the entrance when
I'm here. It's as far as they dare go. They're quite blind in the least light. Care
to smoke? I've learned the art of making some quite decent cigars." He
produced a handful. "Oh, by the way, you didn't see my lighter anywhere,
did you?" he went on, with a pretense of carelessness.
"No," lied Tommy. "I was surprised you—"
"Oh, there's a supply of petrol in the rocks. No matter," answered Bram
carelessly. "Your friend looks bad," he added, glancing at Dodd, who had
fallen asleep. "Travers, I'm sorry I lost my temper. The—the shock of
meeting men from the upper world, you know."

Dodd opened his eyes and tried to whisper. Tommy bent over him and
listened.
"He wants to know whether he can have that girl to take care of him," he
said.
"What, the one I saw you with? Why, she's a cull, Travers."
"What d'you mean?" asked Tommy.
"Why—useless, you know. There's several of them running loose, and
waiting to be rounded up. We raise two breeds, one for replenishing the
stock, and one for meat. She's just a cull, a reversion, no use for either
purpose. I'll have her brought by all means. I—I like Dodd. I want to get him
to like me," Bram went on, with a sort of penitence that had a pathetic touch.
"Our little differences—quite absurd, and I can prove he's wrong in his
ideas.
"Make yourself comfortable as long as you're here, Travers, and don't mind
me. Only, don't try to escape. The beetles will get you if you do, and there's
no way out of here—none that you'll find. And don't try to follow me. But
you're a sensible man, and we'll all get along famously, I'm sure, as soon as
Dodd recovers."

CHAPTER V
Doomed!

There were no means known to Tommy of reckoning time in that strange
place of twilight. His watch had been broken in the airplane fall; and Dodd
never remembered to wind his, but they estimated that about two weeks had
passed, judging from the number of times they had slept and eaten.
In those two weeks they had gradually begun to grow accustomed to their
surroundings. Haidia, the girl, had arrived on beetle-back within an hour
after Bram's departure, apparently into a cleft of the rocks—how he had
communicated his order to the beetle steeds Tommy had no idea. And under
the girl's ministrations Dodd was making good progress toward recovery.
That Haidia was in love with Dodd in quite a human way was evident. To
please the girl, both Dodd and Tommy had learned to eat the raw shrimps,
which, being bloodless, were really no worse than oysters, and had a flavor
half-way between shrimp and crawfish. To please the men, Haidia tried not
to shudder when she saw them devouring the breadfruit and nectarines of
which Bram always had a plentiful supply. Bram was solicitous in his
inquiries for Dodd's health.
"Jim, I've been thinking about our chances of getting away," said Tommy
one morning. "It's evident Bram's only waiting for your recovery to put some
proposition up to us. Suppose you were to feign paralysis."
"How d'you mean? What for?" demanded Dodd.
"If he thinks you're helpless, he'll be less on his guard. You haven't walked
about in his presence." That was true, for the activities of the two had been
nocturnal, when Bram had vanished. "Let him think a nerve's been severed
in your neck, or something of the sort. If it doesn't work, you can always get
better."

Dodd's realistic portrayal of a man with a partly paralyzed right side brought
cries of horror from Bram next morning. Solicitously he helped Dodd back
to the couch. Bram, when not under the influence of his drug, had moments
of human feeling.
"Can't you move that arm and leg at all, Dodd?" he asked. "No feeling in
them?"
"There's plenty of feeling," growled Dodd, "but they don't seem to work,
that's all."
"You'll get better," said Bram eagerly. "You must get better. I need you,
Dodd, in spite of our differences. There's work for all of us, wonderful work.
A new humanity, waiting to be born, Dodd, not of the miserable ape race, but
of—of—"
He checked himself, and a cunning look came over his face. He turned away
abruptly.
At the end of two weeks or so, an amazing thing happened. One day Haidia,
with a look of triumph in her eyes, addressed Dodd with a few English
words!
Her brain, which had probably developed certain faculties in different
proportions from those of the upper human race, had registered every word
that either of the two men had ever spoken, and remembered it. As soon as
Dodd ascertained this, he began to instruct her, and, with her abnormal
faculties of memory, it was not long before she could talk quite intelligently.
The obstacle that had stood between them was swept away. She became one
of themselves.
In the days that followed the girl told them brokenly something of the
history of her race, of the legend of the universal flood that had driven them
down into the bowels of the earth, of the centuries-long struggle with the
beetles, and of the insects' gradual conquest of humanity, and the final
reduction of the human race to a miserable, helpless remnant.

Everywhere, Haidia told them, were beetle swarms, everywhere humanity
had been reduced to a few handfuls. Bram, by breeding mankind from
prolific strains, and using the new-born progeny for food, had temporarily
averted universal starvation. But a new swarm of beetles was due to hatch
out shortly, and then—
The girl, with a shudder, put her hand to her bosom, and brought out a little
bright-eyed lizard.
"The old man you saw with me, who is one of our wise elders, has told our
people that these things feed upon the beetle larvae," she said. "We are
putting them secretly into the nests. But what can a few lizards do against
millions." She looked up. "In the earth above us, the beetle larvae extend for
miles, in a solid mass," she said. "When they come out as beetles, it will be
the end of all of us."
Bram had grown less suspicious as the time passed. His sudden visits to the
cavern had ceased. Dodd and Tommy knew that he spent the nights—if they
could be termed nights—lying in a drugged slumber somewhere among the
rocks. They had asked Haidia whether there was any way of escape into the
upper world.
"There are two ways from here," answered the girl. "One is the way you
came, but it is impossible to pass the beetle guards without being torn to
pieces. The other—"
She shuddered, and for an instant drew back the film from across her pupils,
then uttered a little cry of pain at the light, dim though it was.
"There is a bridge across that terrible monster that devours all it touches,"
she said, shuddering, meaning the fire.
Suddenly Dodd had an inspiration. He still had the fur coat that he had worn,
and, reaching into a pocket he drew out a pair of snow goggles, which he
adjusted over Haidia's nose.
"Now look!" he said.
Haidia looked, blinked and, with an effort kept her eyes open. She gazed at
Dodd in amazement. Dodd laughed, and pulled her toward him. He kissed
her, and Haidia's eyes closed.

"What is this?" she murmured. "First you give me medicine that opens my
eyes, and then you give me medicine that closes them."
"That's nothing," grinned Dodd. "Wait till you understand me better."

Bram's eyes were preternaturally bright. It was evident that he had been
increasing his dose of late, and that he was fully under the influence of it
now.
"Well, gentlemen, the time has come for us to be frank with one another," he
said, as the three were gathered about the little table, while Haidia crouched
in a far corner of the cave. "I want you to work for me in my plans for the
regeneration of humanity. The time for which I have long labored is almost
at hand. Any day now the new swarm of beetles may emerge from the pupal
stage. But before I speak further, come and see them, gentlemen!"
He rose, and Dodd and Tommy rose too, Tommy supporting Dodd, who let
his arm and leg trail awkwardly as he moved.
Bram led the way into the cleft among the rocks into which he had been in
the habit of passing. Beyond this opening the two men saw another smaller
cavern, with a beetle guard standing on either side, antenna waving.
Bram shrilled a sound, and the antenna dropped. The three passed through.
Tommy saw a hair-cloth pallet set against the rocks, a table, and a chair.
Beyond was a sloping ramp of earth. Overhead was a rock ceiling.
Bram led the way up the ramp, and the three stepped through a gap in the
rocks and found themselves on an extensive prairie. But in place of the red
grass there was a vast sea of mud.
By the light cast by the petrol fire, which roared up in the distance, a
veritable fiery fountain, the two Americans could see that the mud was filled
with huge encysted forms, grubs three or four feet long, motionless in the
soil.

Bram scooped up one of them and tossed it into the air. It thudded to their
feet and remained motionless.
"As far as you can see, and for miles beyond, these pupae of the beetles lie
buried in the decaying vegetation in which the eggs were hatched," said
Bram. "Every century and a half, so far as I have been able to judge from
comparative anatomy, a fresh swarm emerges. See!"
He pointed to the pupa he had unearthed, which, as if stirred into activity by
his handling, was now beginning to move. Or, rather, something was moving
inside the cocoon.
The shell broke, and the hideous head and folded antenna of a beetle
appeared. With a convulsive writhing, the monster threw off the covering
and stepped out. It extended its wings, glistening, with moisture, from the
still soft and pliant carapace, or shell, and suddenly zoomed off into the
distance.

Tommy shuddered as the boom of its flight grew softer and subsided.
"Any day now the entire swarm will emerge," cried Bram. "How many
moultings they undergo before they undergo the finished state, I do not
know, but already, as you see, they are prepared for the battle of life. They
emerge ravenous. That beetle will fall upon the man-herds and devour a full
grown man, unless the guards destroy it."
He raised his arms with the gesture of an ancient prophet. "Woe to the
human race," he cried, "the wretched ape spawn that has cast out its teachers
and persecuted those who sought to raise it to higher things!"

Tommy knew that Bram was referring to himself. Bram turned fiercely upon
Dodd.

"When I joined the Greystoke expedition," he cried, "it was with the express
intention of refuting your miserable theories as to the fossil monotremes. I
could not sleep or eat, so deeply was I affronted by them. For, if they were
true, the dasyuridae are an innovation in the great scheme of nature, and
man, instead of being a mere afterthought, a jest of the Creative Force, came
to earth with a purpose.
"That I deny," he yelled. "Man is a joke. Nature made him when she was
tired, as the architect of a cathedral fashions a gargoyle in a sportive
moment. It is the insect, not man, who is the predestined lord of the ages!"
And for once in his life, perhaps because at this point Tommy dug him
violently in the ribs, Dodd had the sense to remain silent. Bram led the way
swiftly back into the larger cave.
"When this swarm hatches out," he said, "I calculate that there will be a
trillion beetles seeking food. There is no food for a tithe of them here
underneath the earth. What then? Do you realize their stupendous power,
their invincibility?
"No, you don't realize it, because your minds, through long habit, are only
attuned to think in terms of man. All man's long history of slaughter of the
so-called lower creatures obsesses you, blinds your understanding. A beetle?
Something to be trodden underfoot, crushed in sport! But I tell you,
gentlemen, that nature—God, if you will—has designed to supplant the man-
ape by the beetle.
"He has resolved to throw down the wretched so-called intelligence of your
kind and mine, and supplant it by the divine instinct of the beetle, an instinct
that is infinitely superior, because it arrives at results instantaneously. It
knows where man infers. Attuned closely to nature, it alone is able to fulfil
the divine plan of Creation."

Bram was certainly under the influence of his drug; nevertheless, so violent
were his gestures, so inspired was his utterance, that Tommy and Dodd
listened almost in awe.

"They are invincible," Bram went on. "Their fecundity is such that when the
new swarm is hatched out their numbers alone will make them irresistible.
They do not know fear. They shrink from nothing. And they will follow me,
their leader—I, who know the means of controlling them. How, then, can
puny man hope to stand against them?
"Join me, gentlemen," Bram went on. "And beware how you decide rashly.
For this is the supreme moment, not only of your own lives, but for all
humanity and beetledom. Upon your decision hangs the future of the world.
"For, irresistible as the beetles are, there is one thing they lack. That is the
sense of historic continuity. If they destroy man, they will know nothing of
man's achievements, poor though these are. My own work on the fossil
monotremes—"
"Which is a tissue of inaccuracies and half-baked deductions!" shouted
Dodd.
Bram started as if a whip had lashed him. "Liar!" he bawled. "Do you think
that I, who left the Greystoke expedition in a howling blizzard because I
knew that here, in the inner earth, I could refute your miserable impostures
—do you think that I am in the mood to listen to your wretched farrago of
impossibilities?"
"Listen to me," bawled Dodd, advancing with waving arms. "Once and for
all, let me tell you that your deductions are all based upon fallacious
premises. No, I will not shut up, Tom Travers! You want me to aid your
damned beetles in the destruction of humanity! I tell you that your
phascalotherium, amphitherium, and all the rest of them, including the
marsupial lion, are degenerate developments of the age following the
pleistocene. I say the whole insect world was made to fertilize the plant
world, so that it should bear fruit for human food. Man is the summit of the
scale of evolution, and I will never join in any infamous scheme for his
destruction."
Bram glared at Dodd like a madman. Three times he opened his mouth to
speak, but only inarticulate sounds came from his throat. And when at last he
did speak, he said something that neither Dodd nor Tommy had anticipated.

"It looks as if you're not so paralysed as you made out," he sneered. "You'll
change your mind within what used to be called a day, Dodd. You'll crawl to
my feet and beg for pardon. And you'll recant your lying theories about the
fossil monotremes, or you die—the pair of you—you die!"

CHAPTER VI
Escape!

"I heard what he said. You shall not die. We shall go away to your place,
where there are no beetles to eat us, even if"—Haidia shuddered—"even if
we have to cross the bridge of fire, beyond which, they tell me, lies
freedom."
High over and a little to one side of the petrol flame Dodd and Tommy had
seen the slender arch of rock leading into another cleft in the rocks. They
had investigated it several times, but always the fierce heat had driven them
back.
Both Dodd and Tommy had noticed, however, that at times the fire seemed
to shrink in volume and intensity. Observation had shown them that these
times were periodical, recurring about every twelve hours.
"I think I've got the clue, Tommy," said Dodd, as the three watched the fiery
fountain and speculated on the possibility of escape. "That flow of petrol is
controlled, like the tides on earth, by the pull of the moon. Just now it is at
its height. I've noticed that it loses pretty nearly half its volume at its
alternating phase. If I'm right, we'll make the attempt in about twelve hours."
"Bram's given us twenty-four," said Tommy. "But how about getting Haidia
across?"
"I go where you go," said Haidia, sidling up to Dodd and looking down upon
him lovingly. "I do not afraid of the fire. If it burn me up, I go to the good
place."
"Where's that, Haidia?" asked Dodd.
"When we die, we go to a place where it is always dark and there are no
beetles, and the ground is full of shrimps. We leave our bodies behind, like
the beetles, and fly about happy for ever."

"Not a bad sort of place," said Dodd, squeezing Haidia's arm. "If you think
you're ready to try to cross the bridge, we'll start as soon as the fire gets
lower."
"I'll be on the job," answered Haidia, unconsciously reproducing a phrase of
Tommy's.

The girl glided away, and disappeared through the thick of the beetle crowd
clustered about the entrance to the cavern. Tommy and Dodd had already
discovered that it was through her ability to reproduce a certain beetle sound
meaning "not good to eat" that the girl could come and go. They had once
tried it on their own account, and had narrowly escaped the lashing tentacles.
After that there was nothing to do but wait. Three or four hours must have
passed when Bram returned from his inner cave.
"Well, Dodd, have you experienced a change of heart?" he sneered. "If you
knew what's in store for you, maybe you'd come to the conclusion that
you've been too cocksure about the monotremes. We're slaughtering in the
morning."
"That so?" asked Dodd.
"That's so," shouted Bram. "The beetles are beginning to emerge from the
pupae, and they'll need food if they're to be kept quiet. We're rounding up
about threescore of the culls—your friend Haidia will be among them. We've
got some caged ichneumon flies, pretty little things only a foot long, which
will sting them in certain nerve centers, rendering them powerless to move.
Then we shall bury them, standing up, in the vegetable mould, for the beetles
to devour alive, as soon as they come out of the shells. You'll feel pretty,
Dodd, standing there unable to move, with the new born beetles biting
chunks out of you."

Tommy shuddered, despite his hopes of their escaping. Bram, for a scientist,
had a grim and picturesque imagination.
"Dodd, there is no personal quarrel between us," Bram went on. Again that
note of pathetic pleading came into his voice. "Give up your mad ideas.
Admit that the banded ant-eater, at least, existed before the pleistocene
epoch, and everything can be settled. When you see what my beetles are
going to do to humanity, you'll be proud to join us. Only make a beginning.
You remember the point I made in my paper, about spalacotherium in the
Upper Jurassic rocks. It would convince anybody but a hardened fanatic."
"I read your paper, and I saw your so-called spalacotherium, reconstructed
from what you called a jaw-bone," shouted Dodd. "That so-called jaw-bone
was a lump of chalk, made porous by water, and the rest was in your
imagination. Do your worst, Bram, I'll never crucify truth to save my life.
And I'll laugh at your spalacotherium when your beetles are eating me."
Bram yelled and shrieked, he stamped up and down the cavern, shaking his
fists at Dodd. At last, with a final torrent of objurgation, he disappeared.
"A pleasant customer," said Tommy. "We'll have to make that bridge, Jim, no
question about it, even if it means death in the petrol fire."
"Fire's dying down fast," answered Dodd. "Haidia ought to be here soon."
"If Bram hasn't got her."
"Bram got—that girl? If Bram harms a hair of her head I'll kill him with
worse tortures than he's ever dreamed of," answered Dodd, leaping up, white
with rage.
"You mean you—?" Tommy began.
"Love her? Yes, I love her," shouted Dodd. "She's a girl in a million. Just the
sort of helpmate I need to assist me in my work when we get back. I tell you,
Tommy, I didn't know what love meant before I saw Haidia. I laughed at it
as a romantic notion. 'Oh lyric love, half angel and half bird!'" he quoted,
beginning to stride up and down the cavern, while Tommy watched him in
amazement.

And at this moment a complete beetle entered the cave. Complete, because it
had a plastron, or breast-shell, as well as a back-shell, or carapace.

A double breast-shell! A new species of beetle? An executioner beetle, sent
by Bram to summon them to the torture? Tommy shuddered, but Dodd, lost
in his love ecstasy, was ignorant of the creature's advent.
"'Oh lyric love—'" he shouted again, as he twirled on his heel, to run smack
into the monster. The crack of Dodd's head against the beetle-shell re-echoed
through the cave.
The double plastron dropped, the carapace fell down: Haidia stood revealed.
The lovers, folded in each other's arms, passed momentarily into a trance.
It was Tommy who separated them. "We'll have to make a move," he said. "I
think the fire's as low as it ever gets. Why did you bring the shells, Haidia?"
"To save us all from the beetles," answered the girl. "When they see us in the
shells, they will not know we are human. That is what makes it so hard to
have to be eaten by those beetles, when they are such dumb-bells," she
added, reproducing another of Tommy's words.
"Come," she continued bravely, "let us see if we can pass the fire."

The roaring fountain made the air a veritable inferno. Overhead the rocks
were red-hot. A cascade of sparks tumbled in a fiery shower from the rock
roof. Dodd, holding Haidia in his arms, to protect her, staggered ahead, with
Tommy in the rear. Only the beetle-shells, which acted as non-conductors of
the heat, made that fiery passage possible.
There was one moment when it seemed to Tommy as if he must let go, and
drop into that raging furnace underneath. He heard Dodd bawling hoarsely in
front of him, he nerved himself to a last effort, beating fiercely at his blazing

hair—and then the heat was past, and he had dropped unconscious upon a
bed of cool earth beside a rushing river.
He was vaguely aware of being carried in Dodd's arms, but a long time
seemed to have passed before he grew conscious again. He opened his eyes
in utter darkness. Dodd was whispering in his ear.
"Tommy, old man, how are you feeling now?" Dodd asked.
"All—right," Tommy muttered. "How's Haidia?"
"Still unconscious, poor girl. We've got to get out of here. I heard Bram
yelling in the distance. He's discovered our flight. There may be another way
out of the cave, and, if so, he'll stop at nothing to get us. See if you can
stand, but keep your head low. There's a low roof of rock above us."
"There's water," said Tommy, listening to the roar of a torrent that seemed to
be rushing past them.
"It's a stream, and I believe these shells will float and bear our weight. We've
got to try. We've got to put everything to the touch now, Tommy. I'm going to
lay Haidia on one of the shells, poor girl, and start her off. Then I'll follow,
and you can bring up the rear."
"I'm with you," said Tommy, getting upon his feet, and uttering an
exclamation of pain as, forgetful of Dodd's injunction, he let his head strike
the rock roof overhead.

In the darkness he felt the outlines of his beetle-shell lying beside the torrent.
He could hear Dodd in front of him, grunting as he raised Haidia's
unconscious form in his arms and deposited her in her shell. Tommy got his
own shell into the stream, and held it there as the waters swirled around it.
"Ready?" he heard Dodd call.
Before he could answer, there sounded from not far away, yet strangely
muffled by the rocks, Bram's bellow of fury. Bram was evidently fully

drugged and beside himself. Inarticulate threats came floating through the
rocky chamber.
"Bram seems to have lost his head temporarily," called Dodd, laughing. "A
madman, Tommy. He insists that the marsupial lion—"
"Yes, I heard you telling him about it," answered Tommy. "You handed it to
him straight. However, more about the marsupial lion later. I'm ready."
"Then let 'er go," called Dodd, and his words were swallowed up by the
sound of the hollow shell striking against the rocky bank as he launched his
strange craft into the water.
Tommy set one foot into the hollow of his shell, and let himself go.
Instantly the shell shot forward with fearful velocity. It was all Tommy could
do to balance himself, for it seemed more unstable than a canoe. Once or
twice he thought he heard Dodd shouting ahead of him, but his cries were
drowned in the rush of the torrent.

Suddenly a light appeared in the distance. Tommy thought it was another of
the petroleum fountains, and his heart seemed to stand still. But then he gave
a gasp of relief. It was a cluster of luminous fungi, ten or twelve feet tall,
emitting a glow equal to that of a dozen 40-watt electric bulbs.
By that infernal light Tommy could see that the stream curved sharply. It was
about fifty feet in width, and the low rock roof had receded to some fifteen
feet overhead. Instead of a tunnel, there was nothing on either side of them
but a vast tract of marshy ground thinly coated with the red grass.
As Tommy looked, he saw the shell that carried the unconscious body of
Haidia strike the bank beside the phosphorescent growth. He could see the
girl lying in the hollow of the shell, as pale as death, her eyes closed. Dodd
was close behind. As the swirl of the current caught his shell, he turned to
shout a warning to Tommy.
And Tommy noticed a singular thing, of which his sense of balance had
already warned him, though he had hardly given conscious thought to the

matter. The river was running up-hill!
Of course it was, since the center of gravity was in the shell of the earth, and
not in the center!
But, again, the shell of the earth was under their feet!
Then Tommy hit on the solution to the problem. If the river was running up-
hill, that meant that they must be near the exterior of the earth. In other
words, they had passed the center of gravity: they must be within a mile or
so of the exit from Submundia!

Tommy was about to shout his discovery to Dodd when his shell grounded
beside the two others, at the base of the clump of fungi.
Huge, straight, hollow stems they were, with mushroom caps, and, like all
fungi, fly-blown, for Tommy could see worms nearly a foot in length
crawling in and out of the porous stalks. The stench from the growth was
nauseating and overpowering, utterly sickening.
"Push off and let's get out of here!" Tommy called to Dodd, who was
balancing his shell against the bank, and trying to peer into Haidia's face.
At that moment he caught sight of something that made his blood turn cold!
It was an insect fully fifteen feet in height, three times that of a beetle,
lurking among the fungi. He saw a hugely elongated neck, a three-cornered
head with a pair of tentacles, and two pairs of legs as long as a giraffe's. But
what gave the added touch of horror was that the monster, balancing itself on
its hind legs, had its forelegs extended in the attitude of one holding a
prayer-book!
That attitude of devotion was so terrible that Tommy uttered a wild cry of
terror. At the same time another cry broke from Dodd's lips.
"God, a praying mantis!" he shouted, struggling madly to push off his shell
and Haidia's.

The next moment, as if shot from a catapult, the hideous monster launched
itself into the air straight toward them.
(To be concluded in the February Number.)

The Cave of Horror

By Captain S. P. Meek

"Suddenly, for no apparent reason at all, one of the men on guard
was jerked into the air feet upwards."

Dr. Bird looked up impatiently as the door of his private
laboratory in the Bureau of Standards swung open, but Screaming, the
guardsman was
the frown on his face changed to a smile as he saw the jerked through the
form of Operative Carnes of the United States Secret air. An unearthly
Service framed in the doorway. screech rang
through the cavern.
The unseen horror
"Hello, Carnes," he called cheerfully. "Take a seat and of Mammoth Cave
make yourself at home for a few minutes. I'll be with you had struck again.
as soon as I finish getting this weight."
Carnes sat on the edge of a bench and watched with admiration the long
nervous hands and the slim tapering fingers of the famous scientist. Dr. Bird
stood well over six feet and weighed two hundred and six pounds stripped:
his massive shoulders and heavy shock of unruly black hair combined to
give him the appearance of a prize-fighter—until one looked at his hands.
Acid stains and scars could not hide the beauty of those mobile hands, the
hands of an artist and a dreamer. An artist Dr. Bird was, albeit his artistry
expressed itself in the most delicate and complicated experiments in the
realms of pure and applied science that the world has ever seen, rather than
in the commoner forms of art.
The doctor finished his task of weighing a porcelain crucible, set it carefully
into a dessicator, and turned to his friend.
"What's on your mind, Carnes?" he asked. "You look worried. Is there
another counterfeit on the market?"
The operative shook his head.
"Have you been reading those stories that the papers have been carrying
about Mammoth Cave?" he asked.
Dr. Bird emitted a snort of disgust.
"I read the first one of them part way through on the strength of its being an
Associated Press dispatch," he replied, "but that was enough. It didn't exactly
impress me with its veracity, and, from a viewpoint of literature, the thing
was impossible. I have no time to pore over the lucubrations of an inspired
press agent."
"So you dismissed them as mere press agent work?"

"Certainly. What else could they be? Things like that don't happen
fortuitously just as the tourist season is about to open. I suppose that those
yarns will bring flocks of the curious to Kentucky though: the public always
responds well to sea serpent yarns."
"Mammoth Cave has been closed to visitors for the season," said Carnes
quietly.
"What?" cried the doctor in surprise. "Was there really something to those
wild yarns?"

"There was, and what is more to the point, there still is. At least there is
enough to it that I am leaving for Kentucky this evening, and I came here for
the express purpose of asking you whether you wanted to come along.
Bolton suggested that I ask you: he said that the whole thing sounded to him
like magic and that magic was more in your line than in ours. He made out a
request for your services and I have it in my pocket now. Are you
interested?"
"How does the secret service cut in on it?" asked the doctor. "It seems to me
that it is a state matter. Mammoth Cave isn't a National Park."
"Apparently you haven't followed the papers. It was a state matter until the
Governor asked for federal troops. Whenever the regulars get into trouble,
the federal government is rather apt to take a hand."
"I didn't know that regulars had been sent there. Tell me about the case."
"Will you come along?"
Dr. Bird shook his head slowly.
"I really don't see how I can spare the time, Carnes," he said. "I am in the
midst of some work of the utmost importance and it hasn't reached the stage
where I can turn it over to an assistant."
"Then I won't bother you with the details," replied Carnes as he rose.

"Sit down, confound you!" cried the doctor. "You know better than to try to
pull that on me. Tell me your case, and then I'll tell you whether I'll go or
not. I can't spare the time, but, on the other hand, if it sounds interesting
enough...."

Carnes laughed.
"All right, Doctor," he said, "I'll take enough time to tell you about it even if
you can't go. Do you know anything about it?"
"No. I read the first story half way through and then stopped. Start at the
beginning and tell me the whole thing."
"Have you ever been to Mammoth Cave?"
"No."
"It, or rather they, for while it is called Mammoth Cave it is really a series of
caves, are located in Edmonson County in Central Kentucky, on a spur
railroad from Glasgow Junction on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.
They are natural limestone caverns with the customary stalactite and
stalagmite formation, but are unusually large and very beautiful. The caves
are quite extensive and they are on different levels, so that a guide is
necessary if one wants to enter them and be at all sure of finding the way
out. Visitors are taken over a regular route and are seldom allowed to visit
portions of the cave off these routes. Large parts of the cave have never been
thoroughly explored or mapped. So much for the scene.
"About a month ago a party from Philadelphia who were motoring through
Kentucky, entered the cave with a regular guide. The party consisted of a
man and his wife and their two children, a boy of fourteen and a girl of
twelve. They went quite a distance back into the caves and then, as the
mother was feeling tired, she and her husband sat down, intending to wait
until the guide showed the children some sights which lay just ahead and
then return to them. The guide and the children never returned."
"What happened?"

"No one knows. All that is known is the bare fact that they have not been
seen since."
"A kidnapping case?"
"Apparently not, in the light of later happenings, although that was at first
thought to be the explanation. The parents waited for some time. The mother
says that she heard faint screams in the distance some ten minutes after the
guide and the children left, but they were very far away and she isn't sure
that she heard them at all. At any rate, they didn't impress her at the time.

"When half an hour had passed they began to feel anxious, and the father
took a torch and started out to hunt for them. The usual thing happened; he
got lost. When he failed to return, the mother, now thoroughly alarmed,
made her way, by some uncanny sense of direction, to the entrance and gave
the alarm. In half an hour a dozen search parties were on their way into the
cave. The father was soon located, not far from the beaten trail, but despite
three days of constant search, the children were not located. The only trace
of them that was found was a bracelet which the mother identified. It was
found in the cavern some distance from the beaten path and was broken, as
though by violence. There were no other signs of a struggle.
"When the bracelet was found, the kidnapping theory gained vogue, for John
Harrel, the missing guide, knew the cave well and natives of the vicinity
scouted the idea that he might be lost. Inspired by the large reward offered
by the father, fresh parties began to explore the unknown portions of the
cave. And then came the second tragedy. Two of the searchers failed to
return. This time there seemed to be little doubt of violence, for screams and
a pistol shot were faintly heard by other searchers, together with a peculiar
'screaming howl,' as it was described by those who heard it. A search was at
once made toward the spot where the bracelet had been picked up, and the
gun of one of the missing men was found within fifty yards of the spot
where the bracelet had been discovered. One cylinder of the revolver had
been discharged."
"Were there any signs on the floor?"

"The searchers said that the floor appeared to be rather more moist and slimy
than usual, but that was all. They also spoke of a very faint smell of musk,
but this observation was not confirmed by others who arrived a few
moments later."
"What happened next?"

"The Governor was appealed to and a company of the National Guard was
sent from Louisville to Mammoth Cave. They took up camp at the mouth of
the cave and prevented everyone from entering. Soldiers armed with service
rifles penetrated the caverns, but found nothing. Visitors were excluded, and
the guardsmen established regular patrols and sentry posts in the cave with
the result that one night, when time came for a relief, the only trace that
could be found of one of the guards was his rifle. It had not been fired.
Double guards were then posted, and nothing happened for several days—
and then another sentry disappeared. His companion came rushing out of the
cave screaming. When he recovered, he admitted that both he and the
missing man had gone to sleep and that he awoke to find his comrade gone.
He called, and he says that the answer he received was a peculiar whistling
noise which raised all the hair on the back of his neck. He flashed his electric
torch all around, but could see nothing. He swears, however, that he heard a
slipping, sliding noise approaching him, and he felt that some one was
looking at him. He stood it as long as he could and then threw down his rifle
and ran for his life."
"Had he been drinking?"
"No. It wasn't delirium either, as was shown by the fact that a patrol found
his gun where he had thrown it, but no trace of the other sentry. After this
second experience, the guardsmen weren't very eager to enter the cave, and
the Governor asked for regulars. A company of infantry was ordered down
from Fort Thomas to relieve the guardsmen, but they fared worse than their
predecessors. They lost two men the first night of their guard. The regulars
weren't caught napping, for the main guard heard five shots fired. They
rushed a patrol to the scene and found both of the rifles which had been
fired, but the men were gone.

"The officer of the day made a thorough search of the vicinity and found,
some two hundred yards from the spot where the sentries had been posted, a
crack in the wall through which the body of a man could be forced. This
bodycrack had fresh blood on each side of it. Several of his men volunteered
to enter the hole and search, but the lieutenant would not allow it. Instead, he
armed himself with a couple of hand-grenades and an electric torch and
entered himself. That was last Tuesday, and he has not returned."
"Was there any disturbance heard from the crack?"
"None at all. A guard was posted with two machine-guns pointed at the crack
in the wall, and a guard of eight men and a sergeant stationed there. Last
night, about six o'clock, while the guard were sitting around their guns, a
faint smell of musk became evident. No one paid a great deal of attention to
it, but suddenly for no apparent reason at all one of the men on guard was
jerked into the air feet upwards. He gave a scream of fear, and an unearthly
screech answered him. The guard, with the exception of one man, turned tail
and ran. One man stuck by his gun and poured a stream of bullets into the
crack. The retreating men could hear the rattle of the gun for a few moments
and then there was a choking scream, followed by silence. When the officer
of the day got back with a patrol, there was a heavy smell of musk in the air,
and a good deal of blood was splashed around. The machine-guns were both
there, although one of them was twisted up until it looked like it had been
through an explosion.
"The Officer commanding the company investigated the place, ordered all
men out of the cave, and communicated with the War Department. The
Secretary of War found it too tough a nut to crack and he asked for help, so
Bolton is sending me down there. Do you think, in view of this yarn, that
your experiments can wait?"

The creases on Dr. Bird's high forehead had grown deeper and deeper as
Carnes had told his story, but now they suddenly disappeared, and he jumped
to his feet with a boyish grin.
"How soon are we leaving?" he asked.

"In two hours, Doctor. A car is waiting for us downstairs and I have
reservations booked for both of us on the Southern to-night. I knew that you
were coming; in fact, the request for your services had been approved before
I came here to see you."
Dr. Bird rapidly divested himself of his laboratory smock and took his coat
and hat from a cupboard.
"I hope you realize, Carnsey, old dear," he said as he followed the operative
out of the building, "that I have a real fondness for your worthless old
carcass. I am leaving the results of two weeks of patient work alone and
unattended in order to keep you out of trouble, and I know that it will be
ruined when I get back. I wonder whether you are worth it?"
"Bosh!" retorted Carnes. "I'm mighty glad to have you along, but you needn't
rub it in by pretending that it is affection for me that is dragging you
reluctantly into this mess. With an adventure like this ahead of you, leg-irons
and handcuffs wouldn't keep you away from Mammoth Cave, whether I was
going or not."
It was late afternoon before Dr. Bird and Carnes dismounted from the special
train which had carried them from Glasgow Junction to Mammoth Cave.
They introduced themselves to the major commanding the guard battalion
which had been ordered down to reinforce the single company which had
borne the first brunt of the affair, and then interviewed the guards who had
been routed by the unseen horror which was haunting the famous cave.
Nothing was learned which differed in any great degree from the tale which
Carnes had related to the doctor in Washington, except that the officer of the
day who had investigated the last attack failed to entirely corroborate the
smell of musk which had been reported by the other observers.
"It might have been musk, but to me it smelled differently," he said. "Were
you ever near a rattlesnake den in the west?"

Dr. Bird nodded.

"Then you know the peculiar reptilian odor which such a place gives off.
Well, this smell was somewhat similar, although not the same by any manner
of means. It was musky all right, but it was more snake than musk to me. I
rather like musk, but this smell gave me the horrors."
"Did you hear any noises?"
"None at all. The men describe some rather peculiar noises and Sergeant
Jervis is an old file and pretty apt to get things straight, but they may have
been made by the men who were in trouble. I saw a man caught by a boa in
South America once, and the noises he made might very well have been
described in almost the same words as Jervis used."
"Thanks, Lieutenant," replied the Doctor. "I'll remember what you have told
me. Now I think that we'll go into the cave."
"My orders are to allow no one to enter, Doctor."
"I beg your pardon. Carnes, where is that letter from the Secretary of War?"
Carnes produced the document. The lieutenant examined it and excused
himself. He returned in a few moments with the commanding officer.
"In the face of that letter, Dr. Bird," said the major, "I have no alternative to
allowing you to enter the cave, but I will warn you that it is at your own
peril. I'll give you an escort, if you wish."
"If Lieutenant Pearce will come with me as a guide, that will be all that I
need."
The lieutenant paled slightly, but threw back his shoulders.
"Do you wish to start at once, sir?" he asked.
"In a few moments. What is the floor of the cave like where we are going?"
"Quite wet and slimy, sir."
"Very slippery?"
"Yes, sir."

"In that case before we go in we want to put on baseball shoes with cleats on
them, so that we can run if we have to. Can you get us anything like that?"
"In a few moments, sir."
"Good! As soon as we can get them we'll start. In the meantime, may I look
at that gun that was found?"

The Browning machine-gun was laid before the doctor. He looked it over
critically and sniffed delicately at it. He took from his pocket a phial of
liquid, moistened a portion of the water-jacket of the weapon, and then
rubbed the moistened part briskly with his hand. He sniffed again. He looked
disappointed, and again examined the gun closely.
"Carnes," he said at length, "do you see anything on this gun that looks like
tooth marks?"
"Nothing, Doctor."
"Neither do I. There are some marks here which might quite conceivably be
finger-prints of a forty-foot giant, and those two parallel grooves look like
the result of severe squeezing, but there are no tooth marks. Strange. There is
no persistent odor on the gun, which is also strange. Well, there's no use in
theorizing: we are confronted by a condition and not a theory, as someone
once said. Let's put on those baseball shoes and see what we can find out."
Dr. Bird led the way into the cave, Carnes and the lieutenant following
closely with electric torches. In each hand Dr. Bird carried a phosphorus
hand-grenade. No other weapons were visible, although the doctor knew that
Carnes carried a caliber .45 automatic pistol strapped under his left armpit.
As they passed into the cave the lieutenant stepped forward to lead the way.
"I'm going first," said the doctor. "Follow me and indicate the turns by
pressure on my shoulder. Don't speak after we have started, and be ready for
instant flight. Let's go."
Forward into the interior of the cave they made their way. The iron cleats of
the baseball shoes rang on the floor and the noise echoed back and forth

between the walls, dying out in little eerie whispers of sound that made
Carnes' hair rise. Ever forward they pressed, the lieutenant guiding the
doctor by silent pressure on his shoulder and Carnes following closely. For
half a mile they went on until a restrainable pressure brought the doctor to a
halt. The lieutenant pointed silently toward a crack in the wall before them.
Carnes started forward to examine it, but a warning gesture from the doctor
stopped him.

Slowly, an inch at a time, the doctor crept forward, hand-grenades in
readiness. Presently he reached the crack and, shifting one of the grenades
into his pocket, he drew forth an electric torch and sent a beam of light
through the crack into the dark interior of the earth.
For a moment he stood thus, and then suddenly snapped off his torch and
straightened up in an attitude of listening. The straining ears of Carnes and
Lieutenant Pearce could hear a faint slithering noise coming toward them,
not from the direction of the crack, but from the interior of the cave.
Simultaneously a faint, musky, reptilian odor became apparent.
"Run!" shouted the doctor. "Run like hell! It's loose in the cave!"
The lieutenant turned and fled at top speed toward the distant entrance to the
cave, Carnes at his heels. Dr. Bird paused for an instant, straining his ears,
and then threw a grenade. A blinding flash came from the point where the
missile struck and a white cloud rose in the air. The doctor turned and fled
after his companions. Not for nothing had Dr. Bird been an athlete of note in
his college days. Despite the best efforts of his companions, who were
literally running for their lives, he soon caught up with them. As he did so a
weird, blood-curdling screech rose from the darkness behind them. Higher
and higher in pitch the note rose until it ended suddenly in a gurgling grunt,
as though the breath which uttered it had been suddenly cut off. The
slithering, rustling noise became louder on their trail.
"Faster!" gasped the doctor, as he put his hand on Carnes' shoulder and
pushed him forward.

The noise of pursuit gained slightly on them, and a sound as of intense
breathing became audible. Dr. Bird paused and turned and faced the
oncoming horror. His electric torch revealed nothing, but he listened for a
moment, and then threw his second grenade. Keenly he watched its flight. It
flew through the air for thirty yards and then struck an invisible obstruction
and bounded toward the ground. Before it struck the downward motion
ceased, and it rose in the air. As it rose it burst with a sharp report, and a wild
scream of pain filled the cavern with a deafening roar. The doctor fled again
after his companions.
By the time he overtook them the entrance of the cave loomed before them.
With sobs of relief they burst out into the open. The guards sprang forward
with raised rifles, but Dr. Bird waved them back.
"There's nothing after us, men," he panted. "We got chased a little way, but I
tossed our pursuer a handful of phosphorus and it must have burned his
fingers a little, judging from the racket he made. At any rate, it stopped the
pursuit."
The major hurried up.
"Did you see it, Doctor?" he asked.
"No, I didn't. No one has ever seen it or anything like it. I heard it and, from
its voice, I think it has a bad cold. At least, it sounded hoarse, so I gave it a
little white phosphorus to make a poultice for its throat, but I didn't get a
glimpse of it."
"For God's sake, Doctor, what is it?"
"I can't tell you yet, Major. So far I can tell, it is something new to science
and I am not sure just what it looks like. However, I hope to be able to show
it to you shortly. Is there a telegraph office here?"
"No, but we have a Signal Corps detachment with us, and they have a
portable radio set which will put us in touch with the army net."
"Good! Can you place a tent at my disposal?"

"Certainly, Doctor."
"All right, I'll go there, and I would appreciate it if you would send the radio
operator to me. I want to send a message to the Bureau of Standards to
forward me some apparatus which I need."
"I'll attend to it, Doctor. Have you any special advice to give me about the
guarding?"
"Yes. Have you, or can you get, any live stock?"
"Live stock?"
"Yes. Cattle preferred, although hogs or sheep will do at a pinch. Sheep will
do quite well."
"I'll see what I can do, Doctor."
"Get them by all means, if it is possible to do so. Don't worry about paying
for them: secret service funds are not subject to the same audit that army
funds get. If you can locate them, drive a couple of cattle or half a dozen
sheep well into the cave and tether them there. If you don't get them, have
your sentries posted well away from the cave mouth, and if any disturbance
occurs during the night, tell them to break and run. I hope it won't come out,
but I can't tell."

A herd of cattle was soon located and two of the beasts driven into the cave.
Two hours later a series of horrible screams and bellowings were heard in
the cave. Following their orders the sentries abandoned their posts and
scattered, but the noise came no nearer the mouth, and in a few minutes
silence again reigned.
"I hope that will be all that will be needed for a couple of days," said the
doctor to the commanding officer, "but you had better have a couple more
cattle driven in in the morning. We want to keep the brute well fed. Is there a
tank stationed at Fort Thomas?"
"No, there isn't."

"Then radio Washington that I want the fastest three-man tank that the army
has sent here at once. Don't bother with military channels, radio direct to the
Adjutant General, quoting the Secretary of the Treasury as authority. Tell
him that it's a rush matter, and sign the message 'Bird' if you are afraid of
getting your tail twisted."
Twice more before the apparatus which the doctor had ordered from
Washington arrived cattle were driven into the depths of the cave, and twice
were the screams and bellowings from the cave repeated. Each time
searching parties found the cattle gone in the morning. A week after the
doctor's arrival, a special train came up, carrying four mechanics from the
Bureau of Standards, together with a dozen huge packing cases. Under the
direction of the doctor the cases were unpacked and the apparatus put
together. Before the assembly had been completed the tank which had been
requested arrived from Camp Meade, and the Bureau mechanics began to
install some of the assembled units in it.
The first apparatus which was installed in the tank consisted of an electric
generator of peculiar design which was geared to the tank motor. The
electromotive force thus generated was led across a spark gap with points of
a metallic substance. The light produced was concentrated by a series of
parabolic reflectors, directed against a large quartz prism, and thence
through a lens which was designed to throw a slightly divergent beam.
"This apparatus," Dr. Bird explained to the Signal Corps officer, who was an
interested observer, "is one which was designed at the Bureau for the large
scale production of ultra-violet light. There is nothing special about the
generator except that it is highly efficient and gives an almost constant
electromotive force. The current thus produced is led across these points,
which are composed of magnalloy, a development of the Bureau. We found
on investigation that a spark gave out a light which was peculiarly rich in
ultra-violet rays when it was passed between magnesium points. However,
such points could not be used for the handling of a steady current because of
lack of durability and ease of fusion, so a mixture of graphite, alundum and
metallic magnesium was pressed together with a binder which will stand the
heat. Thus we get the triple advantages of ultra-violet light production,
durability, and high resistance.

"The system of reflectors catches all of the light thus produced except the
relatively small portion which goes initially in the right direction, and directs
it on this quartz prism where, due to the refractive powers of the prism, the
light is broken up into its component parts. The infra-red rays and that
portion of the spectrum which lies in the visible range, that is, from red to
violet inclusive, are absorbed by a black body, leaving only the ultra-violet
portion free to send a beam through this quartz lens."
"I thought that a lens would absorb ultra-violet light," objected the signal
officer.
"A lens made of glass will, but this lens is made of rock crystal, which is
readily permeable to ultra-violet. The net result of this apparatus is that we
can direct before us as we move in the tank a beam of light which is
composed solely of the ultra-violet portion of the spectrum."
"In other words, an invisible light?"
"Yes. That is, invisible to the human eye. The effect of this beam of ultra-
violet light in the form of severe sunburn would be readily apparent if you
exposed your skin to it for any length of time, and the effects on your
eyesight of continued gazing would be apt to be disastrous. It would produce
a severe opthalmia and temporary impairment of the vision, somewhat the
same symptoms as are observed in snow blindness."
"I see. May I ask what is the object of the whole thing?"
"Surely. Before we can successfully combat this peculiar visitant from
another world, it is necessary that we gain some idea of the size and
appearance of it. Nothing of the sort has before made its appearance, so far
as the annals of science go, and so I am forced to make some rather wild
guesses at the nature of the animal. You are probably aware of the fact that
the property of penetration possessed by all waves is a function of their
frequency, or, perhaps I should say, of their wave-length?"

"Certainly."

"The longer rays of visible light will not penetrate as deeply into a given
substance as the shorter ultra-violet rays. This visitor is evidently from some
unexplored and, indeed, unknown cavern in the depths of the earth where
visible light has never penetrated. Apparently in this cavern the color of the
inhabitants is ultra-violet, and hence invisible to us."
"You are beyond my depth, Doctor."
"Pardon me. You understand, of course, what color is? When sunlight, which
is a mixture of all colors from infra-red to ultra-violet inclusive, falls on an
object, certain rays are reflected and certain others are absorbed. If the red
rays are reflected and all others absorbed, the object appears red to our eyes.
If all the rays are reflected, the object appears white, and if all are absorbed,
it appears black."
"I understand that."
"The human eye cannot detect ultra-violet. Suppose then, that we have an
object, either animate or inanimate, the surface of which reflects only ultra-
violet light, what will be the result? The object will be invisible."
"I should think it would be black if all the rays except the ultra-violet were
absorbed."
"It would, but mark, I did not say the others were absorbed. Are you familiar
with fluorescein?"
"No."
"I think you are. It is the dye used in making changeable silk. If we fill a
glass container with a fluorescein solution and look at it by reflected light it
appears green. If we look at it by transmitted light, that is, light which has
traversed the solution, it appears red. In other words, this is a substance
which reflects green light, allows a free passage to red light, and absorbs all
other light. This creature we are after, if my theory is correct, is composed of
a substance which allows free passage to all of the visible light rays and at
the same time reflects ultra-violet light. Do I make this clear?"

"Perfectly."
"Very well, then. My apparatus will project forward a beam of ultra-violet
light which will be in much greater concentration than exists in an
incandescent electric light. It is my hope that this light will be reflected by
the body of the creature to a sufficient to allow me to make a photograph of
it."
"But won't your lens prevent the ultra-violet light from reaching your plate?"
"An ordinary lens made of optical glass would do so, but I have a camera
here equipped with a rock crystal lens, which will allow ultra-violet light to
pass through it practically unhindered, and with very slight distortion. When
I add that I will have my camera charged with X-ray film, a film which is
peculiarly sensitive to the shorter wave-lengths, you will see that I will have
a fair chance of success."
"It sounds logical. Would you allow me to accompany you when you make
your attempt?"
"I will be glad of your company, if you can drive a tank. I want to take
Carnes with me, and the tank will only hold two besides the driver."
"I can drive a tractor."
"In that case you should master the tricks of tank driving in short order. Get
familiar with it and we'll appoint you as driver. We'll be ready to go in to-
night, but I am going to wait a day. Our friend was fed last night, and there is
less chance he'll be about."

The early part of the next evening was marked by howls and screams
coming from the mouth of the cave. As the night wore on the noises were
quite evidently coming nearer and the sentries watched the cave mouth
nervously, ready to bolt and scatter according to their orders at the first
alarm. About two A. M. the doctor and Carnes climbed into the tank beside
Lieutenant Leffingwell, and the machine moved slowly into the cave. A

search-light on the front of the tank lighted the way for them and, attached to
a frame which held it some distance ahead of them, was a luckless sheep.
"Keep your eye on the mutton, Carnes," cautioned the doctor. "As soon as
anything happens to it, shut off the search-light and let me try to get a
picture. As soon as I have made my exposures I'll tell you, and you can snap
it on again. Lieutenant, when the picture is made, turn your tank and make
for the entrance to the cave. If we are lucky, we'll get out."
Forward the tank crawled, the sheep bleating and trying to break loose from
the bonds which held it. It was impossible to hear much over the roar of the
motor, but presently Dr. Bird leaned forward, his eyes shining.
"I smell musk," he announced. "Get ready for action."
Even as he spoke the sheep was suddenly lifted into the air. It gave a final
bleat of terror, and then its head was torn from its body.
"Quick, Carnes!" shouted the doctor.
The search-light went out, and Carnes and the lieutenant could hear the slide
of the ultra-violet light which Dr. Bird was manipulating open. For two or
three minutes the doctor worked with his apparatus.
"All right!" he cried suddenly. "Lights on and get out of here!"
Carnes snapped on the search-light and Lieutenant Leffingwell swung the
tank around and headed for the cave mouth. For a few feet their progress
was unhindered and then the tank ceased its forward motion, although the
motor still roared and the track slid on the cave floor. Carnes watched with
horror as one side of the tank bent slowly in toward him. There was a
rending sound, and a portion of the heavy steel fabric was torn away. Dr.
Bird bent over something on the floor of the tank. Presently he straightened
up and threw a small object into the darkness. There was a flash of light, and
bits of flaming phosphorus flew in every direction. The anchor which held
the tank was suddenly loosed and the machine crawled forward at full speed,
while a roar as of escaping air mingled with a bellowing shriek burdened the
smoke-laden air.
"Faster!" cried the doctor, as he threw another grenade.

Lieutenant Leffingwell got the last bit of speed possible out of the tank and
they reached the cave mouth without further molestation.
"I had an idea that our friend wouldn't care to pass through a phosphorus
screen," said Dr. Bird with a chuckle as he climbed out of the tank. "He must
have been rather severely burned the other day, and once burned is usually
twice shy. Where is Major Brown?"
The commanding officer stepped forward.
"Drive a couple of cattle into the cave, Major," directed Dr. Bird. "I want to
fill that brute up and keep him quiet for a while. I'm going to develop my
films."
Lieutenant Leffingwell and Carnes peered over the doctor's shoulders as he
manipulated his films in a developing bath. Gradually vague lines and
blotches made their appearance on one of the films, but the form was
indistinct. Dr. Bird dropped the films in a fixing tank and straightened up.
"We have something, gentlemen," he announced, "but I can't tell yet how
clear it is. It will take those films fifteen minutes to fix, and then we'll
know."
In a quarter of an hour he lifted the first film from the tank and held it to the
light. The film showed a blank. With an exclamation of disappointment he
lifted a second and third film from the tank, with the same result He raised
the fourth one.
"Good Lord!" gasped Carnes.

In the plate could be plainly seen the hind quarters of the sheep held in the
grasp of such a monster as even the drug-laden brain of an opium smoker
never pictured. Judging from the sheep, the monster stood about twenty feet
tall, and its frame was surmounted by a head resembling an overgrown frog.
Enormous jaws were opened to seize the sheep but, to the amazement of the

three observers, the jaws were entirely toothless. Where teeth were to be
expected, long parallel ridges of what looked like bare bone, appeared,
without even a rudimentary segregation into teeth. The body of the monster
was long and snakelike, and was borne on long, heavy legs ending in feet
with three long toes, armed with vicious claws. The crowning horror of the
creature was its forelegs. There were of enormous length, thin and attenuated
looking, and ended in huge misshapen hands, knobby and blotched, which
grasped the sheep in the same manner as human hands. The eyes were as
large as dinner plates, and they were glaring at the camera with an
expression of fiendish malevolence which made Carnes shudder.
"How does that huge thing ever get through that crack we examined?"
demanded the lieutenant.
Dr. Bird rubbed his head thoughtfully.
"It's not an amphibian," he muttered, "as is plainly shown by the shape of the
limbs and the lack of a tail, and yet it appears to have scales of the true fish
type. It corresponds to no recovered fossil, and I am inclined to believe it is
unique. The nervous organisation must be very low, judging from the lack of
forehead and the general conformation. It has enormous strength, and yet the
arms look feeble."
"It can't get through that crack," insisted the lieutenant.
"Apparently not," replied the doctor. "Wait a moment, though. Look at this!"
He pointed to the great disproportion between the length and diameter of the
forelegs, and then to the hind legs.
"Either this is grave distortion or there is something mighty queer about that
conformation. No animal could be constructed like that."

He turned the film so that an oblique light fell on it. As he did so he gave a
cry of astonishment.
"Look here!" he said sharply. "It does get through that crack! Look at those
arms and hands! There is the answer. This creature is tall and broad, but

from front to rear it can measure only a few inches. The same must be true
of the froglike head. That animal has been developed to live and move in a
low roofed cavern, and to pass through openings only a few inches wide. Its
bulk is all in two dimensions!"
"I believe you're right," said Carnes as he studied the film.
"There is no doubt of it," answered the doctor. "Look at those paws, too,
Carnes. That substance isn't bone, it's gum. The thing is so young and
helpless that it hasn't cut its teeth yet. It must be a baby, and that is the
reason why it made its way into the cave when no other of its kind ever has."
"How large are full grown ones if this is a baby?" asked the lieutenant.
"The Lord alone knows," replied Dr. Bird. "I hope that I never have to face
one and find out. Well, now that we know what we are fighting, we ought to
be able to settle its hash."
"High explosive?" suggested the lieutenant.
"I don't think so. With such a low nervous organization, we would have to
tear it practically to pieces to kill it, and I am anxious to keep it from
mutilation for scientific study. I have an idea, but I'll have to study a while
before I am sure of the details. Send me the radio operator."
The next day the Bureau mechanics began to dismount the apparatus from
the tank and to assemble another elaborate contrivance. Before they had
made an end of the work additional equipment arrived from Washington,
which was incorporated in the new set-up. At length Dr. Bird pronounced
himself ready for the attempt.

Under his direction, three cattle were driven into the cave and there tethered.
They were there the next morning unharmed, but the second night the now
familiar bellowing and howling came from the depths of the cave and in the
morning two of the cattle were gone.
"That will keep him quiet for a day or two," said the doctor, "and now to
work!"

The tank made its way into the cave, dragging after it two huge cables which
led to an engine-driven generator outside the cave. These cables were
attached to the terminals of a large motor which was set up in the cave near
the place where the cattle were customarily tethered. This motor was the
actuating force which turned two generators, one large and one small. The
smaller one was mounted on a platform on wheels, which also contained the
spark gaps, the reflectors and other apparatus which produced the beam of
ultra-violet light which had been used to photograph the monster.
From the larger generator led two copper bars. One of these was connected
to a huge copper plate which was laid flat on the floor of the cave. The other
led to a platform which was erected on huge porcelain insulators some
fifteen feet above the floor. Huge condensers were set up on this platform,
and Dr. Bird announced himself in readiness.
A steer was dragged into the cave and up a temporary runway which led to
the platform containing the condensers, and there tied with the copper bus
bar from the larger generator fastened to three flexible copper straps which
led around the animal's body. When this had been completed, everyone
except the doctor, Carnes, and Lieutenant Leffingwell left the cave. These
three crouched behind the search-light which sent a mild beam of ultra-violet
onto the platform where the steer was held. The engine outside the cave was
started, and the three men waited with tense nerves.
For several hours nothing happened. The steer tried from time to time to
move and, finding it impossible, set up plaintive bellows for liberty.
"I wish something would happen," muttered the lieutenant. "This is getting
on my nerves.
"Something is about to happen," replied Dr. Bird grimly. "Listen to that
steer."

The bellowing of the steer had suddenly increased in volume and, added to
the note of discontent, was a note of fright which had previously been
absent. Dr. Bird bent over his ultra-violet search-light and made some

adjustments. He handed a helmetlike arrangement to each of his companions
and slipped one on over his head.
"I can't see a thing, Doctor," said Carnes in a muffled voice.
"The objects at which you are looking absorb rather than reflect ultra-violet
light," said the doctor. "This is a sort of a fluoroscope arrangement, and it
isn't perfect at all. However, when the monster comes along, I am pretty sure
that you will be able to see it. You may see a little more as your eyes get
accustomed to it."
"I can see very dimly," announced the lieutenant in a moment.
Dimly the walls of the cave and the platform before them began to take
vague shape. The three stared intently down the beam of ultra-violet light
which the doctor directed down the passageway leading deeper into the cave.
"Good Lord!" ejaculated Carnes suddenly.
Slowly into the field of vision came the hideous figure they had seen on the
film. As it moved forward a rustling, slithering sound could be heard, even
over the bellowing of the steer and the hum of the apparatus. The odor of
musk became evident.
Along the floor toward them the thing slid. Presently it reared up on its hind
legs and its enormous bulk became evident. It turned somewhat sideways
and the correctness of Dr. Bird's hypothesis as to its peculiar shape was
proved. All of the bulk of the creature was in two dimensions. Forward it
moved, and the horrible human hands stretched forward, while the mouth
split in a wide, toothless grin. Nearer the doomed steer the creature
approached, and then the reaching hands closed on the animal.
There was a blinding flash, and the monster was hurled backward as though
struck by a thunderbolt, while a horrible smell of musk and burned flesh
filled the air.
"After it! Quick!" cried the doctor as he sprang forward.

Before he could reach the prostrate creature it moved and then, slowly at
first, but with rapidly gaining speed, it slithered over the floor in retreat. Dr.
Bird's hand swung through an arc, and there was a deafening crash as a
hand-grenade exploded on the back of the fleeing monster.
An unearthly scream came from the creature, and its motion changed from a
steady forward glide to a series of convulsive jerks. Leffingwell and Carnes
threw grenades, but they went wide of their mark, and the monster began to
again increase its speed. Another volley of grenades was thrown and one hit
scored, which slowed the monster somewhat but did not arrest the steady
forward movement.
"Any more bombs?" demanded the doctor.
"Damn!" he cried as he received negative answers. "The current wasn't
strong enough. It's going to get away."
Carnes jerked his automatic from under his armpit and poured a stream of
bullets into the fleeing monster. Slower and slower the motion of the
creature became, and its movements again became jerky and convulsive.
"Keep it in sight!" cried the doctor. "We may get it yet!"
Cautiously the three men followed the retreating horror, Leffingwell pushing
before him the platform holding the ultra-violet ray apparatus. The chase led
them over familiar ground.
"There is the crack!" cried the lieutenant.
"Too late!" replied the doctor.
He rushed forward and seized the lower limb of the monster and tried with
all his strength to arrest its flight, but despite all that he could do it slid
sideways through the crack in the wall and disappeared. A final backward
kick of its leg threw the doctor twenty feet against the far wall of the cave.
"Are you hurt, Doctor?" cried Carnes.
"No, I'm all right. Put on your masks and start the gas! Quick! That may stop
it before it gets in far!"

The three adjusted gas masks and thrust the mouths of two gas cylinders
which were on the light truck into the crack, and opened the valves. The
hissing of the gas was accompanied by a thrashing, writhing sound from the
bowels of the earth for a few minutes, but the sound retreated and finally
died away into an utter silence.
"And that's that!" cried the doctor half an hour later as they took off their gas
masks outside the cave. "It got away from us. Carnes, how soon can we get a
train back to Washington?"
"What kind of a report are you going to make to the Bureau, Doctor?" asked
Carnes as they sat in the smoker of a southern train, headed for the capital.
"I'm not going to put in any report, Carnes," replied the doctor. "I haven't got
the creature or any part of it to show, and no one would believe me. I am
going to maintain a discreet silence about the whole matter."
"But you have your photograph to show, Doctor, and you have my evidence
and Lieutenant Leffingwell's."
"The photograph might have been faked and I might have doped both of
you. In any case, your words are no better than mine. No, indeed, Carnes,
when I failed to make the current strong enough to kill it outright I made the
first of the moves which bind me to silence, although I thought that two
hundred thousand volts would be enough.
"The second failure I made was when I missed him with my second grenade,
although I doubt if all six would have stopped him. My third failure was
when we failed to get a sufficient concentration of cyanide gas into that hole
in a hurry. The thing is so badly crippled that it will die, but it may take
hours, or even days, for it to do so. It has already made its way so far into the
earth that we couldn't reach it by blasting without danger of bringing the
whole place down on our heads. Even if we could blast our way into the
place it came from I wouldn't dare open a path which would allow Lord only
knows what terrible monsters to invade the earth. When the soldiers have
finished stopping that crack with ten feet of solid masonry, I think the barrier
will hold, even against that critter's papa and mamma and all its relatives.

Then Mammoth Cave will be safe for visitors again. That latter fact is the
only report which I will make."
"It is a dandy story to go to waste," said Carnes soberly.
"Tell it then, if you wish, and get laughed at for your pains. No, Carnes, you
must learn one thing. A man like Bolton, for instance, will implicitly believe
that a four leaf clover in his watch-charm will bring him good luck, and that
carrying a buckeye keeps rheumatism away from him; but tell him a bit of
sober fact like this, attested by three reliable witnesses and a good
photograph, and you'll just get laughed at for your pains. I'm going to keep
my mouth shut."
"So be it, then!" replied Carnes with a sigh.

Phantoms of Reality
A COMPLETE NOVEL

By Ray Cummings

The office room faded.... I was lying on another floor.... New walls
sprang around me.

CHAPTER I
Wall Street—or the Open Road?

When I was some fifteen years old, I once made the
remark, "Why, that's impossible." Red Sensua's knife
came up dripping—
and the two
The man to whom I spoke was a scientist. He replied adventurers knew
gently, "My boy, when you are grown older and wiser that chaos and
you will realize that nothing is impossible." bloody revolution
had been unleashed
in that shadowy
Somehow, that statement stayed with me. In our swift- kingdom of the
moving wonderful world I have seen it proven many fourth dimension.
times. They once thought it impossible to tell what lay
across the broad, unknown Atlantic Ocean. They thought the vault of the
heavens revolved around the earth. It was impossible for it to do anything
else, because they could see it revolve. It was impossible, too, for anything
to be alive and yet be so small that one might not see it. But the microscope
proved the contrary. Or again, to talk beyond the normal range of the human
voice was impossible, until the telephone came to show how simply and
easily it might be done.
I never forgot that physician's remark. And it was repeated to me some ten
years later by my friend, Captain Derek Mason, on that memorable June
night of 1929.
My name is Charles Wilson. I was twenty-five that June of 1929. Although I
had lived all of my adult life in New York City, I had no relatives there and
few friends.

I had known Captain Mason for several years. Like myself, he seemed one
who walked alone in life. He was an English gentleman, perhaps thirty years

old. He had been stationed in the Bermudas, I understood, though he seldom
spoke of it.
I always felt that I had never seen so attractive a figure of a man as this
Derek Mason. An English aristocrat, he was, straight and tall and dark, and
rather rakish, with a military swagger. He affected a small, black mustache.
A handsome, debonair fellow, with an easy grace of manner: a modern
d'Artagnan. In an earlier, less civilized age, he would have been expert with
sword and stick, I could not doubt. A man who could capture the hearts of
women with a look. He had always been to me a romantic figure, and a
mystery that seemed to shroud him made him no less so.
A friendship had sprung up between Derek Mason and me, perhaps because
we were such opposite types! I am an American, of medium height, and
medium build. Ruddy, with sandy hair. Derek Mason was as meticulous of
his clothes, his swagger uniforms, as the most perfect Beau Brummel. Not so
myself. I am careless of dress and speech.
I had not seen Derek Mason for at least a month when, one June afternoon, a
note came from him. I went to his apartment at eight o'clock the same
evening. Even about his home there seemed a mystery. He lived alone with
one man servant. He had taken quarters in a high-class bachelor apartment
building near lower Fifth Avenue, at the edge of Greenwich Village.
All of which no doubt was rational enough, but in this building he had
chosen the lower apartment at the ground-floor level. It adjoined the cellar. It
was built for the janitor, but Derek had taken it and fixed it up in luxurious
fashion. Near it, in a corner of the cellar, he had boarded off a square space
into a room. I understood vaguely that it was a chemical laboratory. He had
never discussed it, nor had I ever been shown inside it. Unusual, mysterious
enough, and that a captain of the British military should be an experimental
scientist was even more unusual. Yet I had always believed that for a year or
two Derek had been engaged in some sort of chemical or physical
experiment. With all his military swagger he had the precise, careful mode of
thought characteristic of the man of scientific mind.

I recall that when I got his note with its few sentences bidding me come to
see him, I had a premonition that it marked the beginning of something
strange. As though the portals of a mystery were opening to me!
Nothing is impossible! Nevertheless I record these events into which I was
plunged that June evening with a very natural reluctance. I expect no
credibility. If this were the year 2000, my narrative doubtless would be tame
enough. Yet in 1929 it can only be called a fantasy. Let it go at that. The
fantasy of to-day is the sober truth of to-morrow. And by the day after, it is a
mere platitude. Our world moves swiftly.
Derek received me in his living-room. He admitted me himself. He told me
that his man servant was out. It was a small room, with leather-covered easy
chairs, rugs on its hardwood floor, and sober brown portieres at its door and
windows. A brown parchment shade shrouded the electrolier on the table. It
was the only light in the room. It cast its mellow sheen upon Derek's lean
graceful figure as he flung himself down and produced cigarettes.
He said, "Charlie, I want a little talk with you. I've something to tell you—
something to offer you."
He held his lighter out to me, with its tiny blue alcohol flame under my
cigarette. And I saw that his hand was trembling.

"But I don't understand what you mean," I protested.
He retorted, "I'm suggesting that you might be tired of being a clerk in a
brokerage office. Tired of this humdrum world that we call civilization.
Tired of Wall Street."
"I am, Derek. Heavens, that's true enough."
His eyes held me. He was smiling half whimsically: his voice was only half
serious. Yet I could see, in the smoldering depths of those luminous dark
eyes, a deadly seriousness that belied his smiling lips and his gay tone.
He interrupted me with, "And I offer you a chance for deeds of high
adventuring. The romance of danger, of pitting your wits against villainy to

make right triumph over wrong, and to win for yourself power and riches—
and perhaps a fair lady...."
"Derek, you talk like a swashbuckler of the middle ages."
I thought he would grin, but he turned suddenly solemn.
"I'm offering to make you henchman to a king, Charlie."
"King of what? Where?"
He spread his lean brown hands with a gesture. He shrugged. "What matter?
If you seek adventure, you can find it—somewhere. If you feel the lure of
romance—it will come to you."
I said, "Henchman to a king?"
But still he would not smile. "Yes. If I were king. I'm serious. Absolutely. In
all this world there is no one who cares a damn about me. Not in this world,
but...."
He checked himself. He went on, "You are the same. You have no relatives?"
"No. None that ever think of me."
"Nor a sweetheart. Or have you?"
"No," I smiled. "Not yet. Maybe never."
"But you are too interested in Wall Street to leave it for the open road?" He
was sarcastic now. "Or do you fear deeds of daring? Do you want to right a
great wrong? Rescue an oppressed people, overturn the tyranny of an evil
monarch, and put your friend and the girl he loves upon the throne? Or do
you want to go down to work as usual in the subway to-morrow morning?
Are you afraid that in this process of becoming henchman to a king you may
perchance get killed?"
I matched his caustic tone. "Let's hear it, Derek."

CHAPTER II
The Challenge of the Unknown

Incredible! Impossible! I did not say it, though my thoughts were written on
my face, no doubt.
Derek said quietly, "Difficult to believe, Charlie? Yes! But it happens to be
true. The girl I love is not of this world, but she lives nevertheless. I have
seen her, talked with her. A slim little thing—beautiful...."
He sat staring. "This is nothing supernatural, Charlie. Only the ignorant
savages of our past called the unknown—the unusual—supernatural. We
know better now."
I said, "This girl—"
He gestured. "As I told you, I have for years been working on the theory that
there is another world, existing here in this same space with us. The Fourth
Dimension! Call it that it you like. I have found it, proved its existence! And
this girl—her name is Hope—lives in it. Let me tell you about her and her
people. Shall I?"
My heart was pounding so that it almost smothered me. "Yes, Derek."
"She lives here, in this Space we call New York City. She and her people use
this same Space at the same time that we use it. A different world from ours,
existing here now with us! Unseen by us. And we are unseen by them!
"A different form of matter, Charlie. As tangible to the people of the other
realm as we are to our own world. Humans like ourselves."
He paused, but I could find no words to fill the gap. And presently he went
on:
"Hope's world, co-existing here with us, is dependent upon us. They speak
what we call English. They shadow us."

I murmured, "Phantoms of reality."
"Yes. A world very like ours. But primitive, where ours is civilized."

He paused again. His eyes were staring past me as though he could see
through the walls of the cellar room into great reaches of the unknown. What
a strange mixture was this Derek Mason! What a strange compound of the
cold reality of the scientist and the fancy of the romantic dreamer! Yet I
wonder if that is not what science is. There is no romantic lover gawping at
the moon who could have more romance in his soul, or see in the moonlit
eyes of his loved one more romance than the scientist finds in the wonders of
his laboratory.
Derek went on slowly:
"A primitive world, primitive nation, primitive passions! As I see it now,
Charlie—as I know it to be—it seems as though perhaps Hope's world is
merely a replica of ours, stripped to the primitive. As though it might be the
naked soul of our modern New York, ourselves as we really are, not as we
pretend to be."
He roused himself from his reverie.
"Hope's nation is ruled by a king. An emperor, if you like. A monarch, beset
with the evils of luxury and ease, and wine and women. He is surrounded by
his nobles, the idle aristocracy, by virtue of their birth proclaiming
themselves of too fine a clay to work. The crimson nobles, they are called.
Because they affect crimson cloaks, and their beautiful women, voluptuous,
sex-mad, are wont to bedeck themselves in veils and robes of crimson.
"And there are workers, toilers they call them. Oppressed, down-trodden
toilers, with hate for the nobles and the king smoldering within them. In
France there was such a condition, and the bloody revolution came of it. It
exists here now. Hope was born in the ranks of these toilers, but has risen by
her grace and beauty to a position in the court of this graceless monarch."

He leaped from his chair and began pacing the room. I sat silent, staring at
him. So strange a thing! Impossible? I could not say that. I could only say,
incredible to me. And as I framed the thought I knew its incredibility was the
very measure of my limited intelligence, my lack of knowledge. The vast
unknown of nature, so vast that everything which was real to me,
understandable to me, was a mere drop in the ocean of the existing
unknown.
"Don't you understand me now?" Derek added vehemently. "I'm not talking
fantasy. Cold reality! I've found a way to transport myself—and you—into
this different state of matter, into this other world! I've already made a test. I
went there and stayed just for a few moments, a night or so ago."
It made my heart leap wildly. He went on:—
"There is chaos there. Smoldering revolution which at any time—to-night
perhaps—may burst into conflagration and destroy this wanton ruling class."
He laughed harshly. "In Hope's world the workers are a primitive, ignorant
people. Superstitious. Like the peons of Mexico, they're all primed and ready
to shout for any leader who sets himself up. My chance—our chance—"
He suddenly stopped his pacing and stood before me. "Don't you feel the
lure of it? The open road? 'The road is straight before me and the Red Gods
call for me!' I'm going, Charlie. Going to-night—and I want you to go with
me! Will you?"
Would I go? The thing leaped like a menacing shadow risen solidly to
confront me. Would I go?
Suddenly there was before me the face of a girl. White. Apprehensive. It
seemed almost pleading. A face beautiful, with a mouth of parted red lips. A
face framed in long, pale-golden hair with big staring blue eyes. Wistful
eyes, wan with starlight—eyes that seemed to plead.
I thought, "Why, this is madness!" I was not seeing this face with my eyes.
There was nothing, no one here in the room with me but Derek. I knew it.
The shadows about us were empty. I was conjuring the face only from
Derek's words, making real that which existed only in my imagination.

Yet I knew that in another realm, with my thoughts now bridging the gap,
the girl was real. Would I go into the unknown?
The quest of the unknown. The gauntlet of the unknown flung down now
before me, as it was flung down before the ancient explorers who picked up
its challenge and mounted the swaying decks of their little galleons and said,
"We'll go and see what lies off there in the unknown."
That same lure was on me now. I heard my voice saying, "Why yes, I guess
I'll go, Derek."

CHAPTER III
Into the Unknown

We stood in the boarded room which was Derek's laboratory. Our
preparations had been simple: Derek had made them all in advance. There
was little left to do. The laboratory was a small room of board walls, board
ceiling and floor. Windowless, with a single door opening into the cellar of
the apartment house.
Derek had locked the door after us as we entered. He said, "I have sent my
man servant away for a week. The people in the house here think I have
gone away on a vacation. No one will miss us, Charlie—not for a time,
anyway."
No one would miss me, save my employers, and to them I would no doubt
be small loss.
We had put out the light in Derek's apartment and locked it carefully after us.
This journey! I own that I was trembling, and frightened. Yet a strange
eagerness was on me.
The cellar room was comfortably furnished. Rugs were on its floor.
Whatever apparatus of a research laboratory had been here was removed
now. But the evidence of it remained—Derek's long search for this secret
which now he was about to use. A row of board shelves at one side of the
room showed where bottles and chemical apparatus had stood. A box of
electrical tools and odds and ends of wire still lay discarded in a corner of
the room. There was a tank of running water, and gas connections, where no
doubt bunsen burners had been.

Derek produced his apparatus. I sat on a small low couch against the wall
and watched him as he stripped himself of his clothes. Around his waist he

adjusted a wide, flat, wire-woven belt. A small box was fastened to it in the
middle of the back—a wide, flat thing of metal, a quarter of an inch thick,
and curved to fit his body. It was a storage battery of the vibratory current he
was using. From the battery, tiny threads of wire ran up his back to a wire
necklace flat against his throat. Other wires extended down his arms to the
wrists. Still others down his legs to the ankles. A flat electrode was
connected to the top of his head like a helmet. I was reminded as he stood
there, of medical charts of the human body with the arterial system outlined.
But when he dressed again and put on his jaunty captain's uniform, only the
electrode clamped to his head and the thin wires dangling from it in the back
were visible to disclose that there was anything unusual about him.
He said smilingly, "Don't stare at me like that."
I took a grip on myself. This thing was frightening, now that I actually was
embarked on it. Derek had explained to me briefly the workings of his
apparatus. A vibratory electronic current, for which as yet he had no name,
was stored in the small battery. He had said:
"There's nothing incomprehensible about this, Charlie. It's merely a
changing of the vibration rate of the basic substance out of which our bodies
are made. Vibration is the governing factor of all states of matter. In its
essence what we call substance is wholly intangible. That is already proven.
A vortex! A whirlpool of nothingness! It creates a pseudo-substance which is
the only material in the universe. And from this, by vibration, is built the
complicated structure of things as we see and feel them to be, all dependent
upon vibration. Everything is altered, directly as the vibratory rate is
changed. From the most tenuous gas, to fluids to solids—throughout all the
different states of matter the only fundamental difference is the rate of
vibration."

I understood the basic principle of this that he was explaining—that now
when this electronic current which he had captured and controlled was
applied to our physical body, the vibration rate of every smallest and most
minute particle of our physical being was altered. There is so little in the vast
scale of natural phenomena of which our human senses are cognisant! Our

eyes see the colors of the spectrum, from red to violet. But a vast invisible
world of color lies below the red of the rainbow! Physicists call it the infra-
red. And beyond the violet, another realm—the ultra-violet. With sound it is
the same. Our audible range of sound is very small. There are sounds with
too slow a vibratory rate for us to hear, and others too rapid. The differing
vibratory rate from most tenuous gas to most substantial solid is all that we
can perceive in this physical world of ours. Yet of the whole, it is so very
little! This other realm to which we were now going lay in the higher, more
rapid vibratory scale. To us, by comparison, a more tenuous world, a shadow
realm.
I listened to Derek's words, but my mind was on the practicality of what lay
ahead. An explorer, standing upon his ship, may watch his men bending the
sails, raising the anchor, but his mind flings out to the journey's end....

We were soon ready. Derek wore his jaunty uniform, I wore my ordinary
business suit. A magnetic field would be about us, so that in the transition
anything in fairly close contact with our bodies was affected by the current.
Derek said, "I will go first, Charlie."
"But, Derek—" A fear, greater than the trembling I had felt before, leaped at
me. Left here alone, with no one on whom to depend!
He spoke with careful casualness, but his eyes were burning me. "Just sit
there, and watch. When I am gone, turn on the current as I showed you and
come after me. I'll wait for you."
"Where?" I stammered.
He smiled faintly. "Here. Right here. I'm not going away! Not going to
move. I'll be here on the couch waiting for you."
Terrifying words! He had lowered the couch, bending out its short legs until
the frame of it rested on the board floor. He drew a chair up before it and
seated me. He sat down on the couch.

He said, "Oh, one other thing. Just before you start, put out the light. We
can't tell how long it will be before we return."
Terrifying words!
His right hand was on his left wrist where the tiny switch was placed. He
smiled again. "Good luck to us, Charlie!"
Good luck to us! The open road, the unknown!
I sat there staring. He was partly in shadow. The room was very silent. Derek
lay propped up on one elbow. His hand threw the tiny switch.
There was a breathless moment. Derek's face was set and white, but no
whiter than my own, I was sure. His eyes were fixed on me. I saw him
suddenly quiver and twitch a little.
I murmured, "Derek—"
At once he spoke, to reassure me. "I'm all right, Charlie. That was just the
first feel of it."

There was a faint quivering throb in the room, like a tiny distant dynamo
throbbing. The current was surging over Derek; his legs twitched.
A moment. The faint throbbing intensified. No louder, but rapid, infinitely
more rapid. A tiny throb, an aerial whine, faint as the whirring wings of a
humming bird. It went up the scale, ascending in pitch, until presently it was
screaming with an aerial microscopic voice.
But there seemed no change in Derek. His uniform was glowing a trifle, that
was all. His face was composed now; he smiled, but did not speak. His eyes
roved away from me, as though now he were seeing things that I could not
see.
Another moment. No change.
Why, what was this? I blinked, gasped. There was a change! My gaze was
fastened upon Derek's white face. White? It was more than white now! A

silver sheen seemed to be coming to his skin!
I think no more than a minute had passed. His face was glowing,
shimmering. A transparent look was coming to it, a thinness, a sudden
unsubstantiality! He dropped his elbow and lay on the couch, stretched at
full length at my feet. His eyes were staring.
And suddenly I realized that the face that held those staring eyes was erased!
A shimmering apparition of Derek was stretched here before me. I could see
through it now! Beneath the shimmering, blurred outlines of his body I could
see the solid folds of the couch cover. A ghost of Derek here. An apparition
—fading—dissipating!
A gossamer outline of him, imponderable, intangible.
I leaped to my feet, staring down over him.
"Derek!"
The shape of him did not move. Every instant it was more vaporous, more
unreal.
I thought, "He's gone!"
No! He was still there. A white mist of his form on the couch. Melting,
dissipating in the light like a fog before sunshine. A wisp of it left, like a
breath, and then there was nothing.

I sat on the couch. I had put out the light. Around me the room was black.
My fingers found the small switch at my wrist. I pressed it across its tiny arc.
The first shock was slight, but infinitely strange. A shuddering, twitching
sensation ran all over me. It made my head reel, swept a wave of nausea
over me, a giddiness, a feeling that I was falling through darkness. I lay on
the couch, bracing myself. The current was whining up its tiny scale. I could
feel it now. A tiny throbbing, communicating itself to my physical being.

And then in a moment I realized that my body was throbbing. The vibration
of the current was communicating itself to the most minute cells of my body.
An indescribable tiny quivering within me. Strange, frightening, sickening at
first. But the sickness passed, and in a moment I found it almost pleasant.
I could see nothing. The room was wholly dark. I lay on my side on the
couch, my eyes staring into the blackness around me. I could hear the
humming of the current, and then it seemed to fade. Abruptly I felt a sense of
lightness. My body, lying on the couch, pressed less heavily.
I gripped my arm. I was solid, substantial as before. I touched the couch. It
was the couch which was changing, not I! The couch cover queerly seemed
to melt under my hand!
The sense of my own lightness grew upon me. A lightness, a freedom,
pressed me, as though chains and shackles which all my life had
encompassed me were falling away. A wild, queer freedom.
I wondered where Derek was. Had I arrived in the other realm? Was he here?
I had no idea how much time had passed: a minute or two, perhaps.
Or was I still in Derek's laboratory? The darkness was as solid, impenetrable
as ever. No, not quite dark! I saw something now. A glowing, misty outline
around me. Then I saw that it was not the new, unknown realm, but still
Derek's room. A shadowy, spectral room, and the light, which dimly
illumined it, was from outside.

I lay puzzling, my own situation forgotten for the moment. The light came
from overhead, in another room of the apartment house. I stared. Around me
now was a dim vista of distance, and vague, blurred, misty outlines of the
apartment building above me. The shadowy world I had left now lay bare.
There was a moment when I thought I could see far away across a spectral
city street. The shadows of the great city were around me. They glowed, and
then were gone.
A hand gripped my arm in a solid grip. Derek's voice sounded.

"Are you all right?"
"Yes," I murmured. The couch had faded. I was conscious that I had floated
or drifted down a few inches, to a new level. The level of the cellar floor
beneath the couch. Cellar floor! It was not that now. Yet there was something
solid here, a solid ground, and I was lying upon it, with Derek sitting beside
me.
I murmured again, "Yes, I'm all right."
My groping hand felt the ground. It was soil, with a growth of vegetation
like a grass sward on it. Were we outdoors? It suddenly seemed so. I could
feel soft, warm air on my face and had a sense of open distance around me.
A light was growing, a vague, diffused light, as though day were swiftly
coming upon us.
I felt Derek fumbling at my wrist. "That's all, Charlie."
There was a slight shock. Derek was pulling me up beside him. I found
myself on my feet, with light around me. I stood wavering, gripping Derek.
It was as though I had closed my eyes, and now they were suddenly open. I
was aware of daylight, color, and movement. A world of normality here,
normal to me now because I was part of it. The realm of the unknown!

CHAPTER IV
"Hope, I Came...."

I think I was first conscious of a queer calmness which had settled upon me,
as though now I had withdrawn contact with the turmoil of our world!
Something was gone, and in its place came a calmness. But that was a mere
transition. It had passed in a moment. I stood trembling with eagerness, as I
know Derek was trembling.
A radiant effulgence of light was around us, clarifying, growing. There was
ground beneath our feet, and sky overhead. A rational landscape, strangely
familiar. A physical world like my own, but, it seemed, with a new glory
upon it. Nature, calmly serene.
I had thought we were standing in daylight. I saw now it was bright starlight.
An evening, such as the evening we had just left in our own world. The
starlight showed everything clearly. I could see a fair distance.
We stood at the top of a slight rise. I saw gentle, slightly undulating country.
A brook nearby wound through a grove of trees and lost itself. Suddenly,
with a shock, I realized how familiar this was! We stood facing what in New
York City we call West. The contour of this land was familiar enough for me
to identify it. A mile or so ahead lay a river; it shimmered in its valley, with
cliffs on its further side. Near at hand the open country was dotted with trees
and checkered with round patches of cultivated fields. And there were
occasional habitations, low, oval houses of green thatch.
The faint flush of a recent sunset lay upon the landscape, mingled with the
starlight. A road—a white ribbon in the starlight—wound over the
countryside toward the river. Animals, strange of aspect, were slowly
dragging carts. There were distant figures working in the fields.
A city lay ahead of us, set along this nearer bank of the river. A city! It
seemed a primitive village. All was primitive, as though here might be some
lost Indian tribe of our early ages. The people were picturesque, the field

workers garbed in vivid colors. The flat little carts, slow moving, with
broad-horned oxen.

This quiet village, drowsing beside the calm-flowing river, seemed all very
normal. I could fancy that it was just after sundown of a quiet workday.
There was a faint flush of pink upon everything: the glory of the sun just set.
And as though to further my fancy, in the village by the river, like an
angelus, a faint-toned bell was chiming.
We stood for a moment gazing silently. I felt wholly normal. A warm,
pleasant wind fanned my hot face. The sense of lightness was gone. This was
normality to me.
Derek murmured, "Hope was to meet me here."
And then we both saw her. She was coming toward us along the road. A
slight, girlish figure, clothed in queerly vivid garments: a short jacket of blue
cloth with wide-flowing sleeves, knee-length pantaloons of red, with tassels
dangling from them, and a wide red sash about her waist. Pale golden hair
was piled in a coil upon her head....
She was coming toward us along the edge of the road, from the direction of
the city. She was only a few hundred feet from us when we first saw her,
coming swiftly, furtively it seemed. A low pike fence bordered the road. She
seemed to be shielding herself in the shadows beside it.
We stood waiting in the starlight. The nearest figures in the field and on the
road were too far away to notice us. The girl advanced. Her white arm went
up in a gesture, and Derek answered. She left the road, crossing the field
toward us. As she came closer, I saw how very beautiful she was. A girl of
eighteen, perhaps, a fantastic little figure with her vivid garments. The
starlight illumined her white face, anxious, apprehensive, but eager.
"Derek!"
He said, "Hope, I came...."

I stood silently watching. Derek's arms went out, and the girl, with a little
cry, came running forward and threw herself into them.

CHAPTER V
Intrigue

"Am I in time, Hope?"
"Yes, but the festival is to-night. In an hour or two now. Oh Derek, if the
king holds this festival, the toilers will revolt. They won't stand it—"
"To-night! It mustn't be held to-night! It doesn't give me time, time to plan."
I stood listening to their vehement, half-whispered words. For a moment or
two, absorbed, they ignored me.
"The king will make his choice to-night, Derek. He has announced it. Blanca
or Sensua for his queen. And if he chooses the Crimson Sensua—" She
stammered, then she went on:
"If he does—there will be bloodshed. The toilers are waiting, just to learn his
choice."
Derek exclaimed, "But to-night is too soon! I've got to plan. Hope, where
does Rohbar stand in this?"
Strange intrigue! I pieced it together now, from their words, and from what
presently they briefly told me. A festival was about to be held, an orgy of
feasting and merrymaking, of music and dancing. And during it, this young
King Leonto was to choose his queen. There were two possibilities. The
Crimson Sensua, a profligate, debauched woman who, as queen, would
further oppress the workers. And Blanca, a white beauty, risen from the
toilers to be a favorite at the Court. Hope was her handmaiden.
If Blanca were chosen, the toilers would be appeased. She was one of them.
She would lead this king from his profligate ways, would win from him
justice for the workers.
But Derek and Hope both knew that the pure and gentle Blanca would never
be the king's choice. And to-night the toilers would definitely know it, and

the smoldering revolt would burst into flame.

And there was this Rohbar. Derek said, "He is the king's henchman,
Charlie."
I stood here in the starlight, listening to them. This strange primitive realm.
There were no modern weapons here. We had brought none. The current
used in our transition would have exploded the cartridges of a revolver. I had
a dirk which Hope now gave me, and that was all.
Primitive intrigue. I envisaged this chaotic nation, with its toilers ignorant as
the oppressed Mexican peons at their worst. Striving to better themselves,
yet, not knowing how. Ready to shout for any leader who might with
vainglorious words set himself up as a patriot.
This Rohbar, perhaps, was planning to do just that.
And so was Derek! He said, "Hope, if you could persuade the king to
postpone the festival—if Blanca would help persuade him—just until to-
morrow night...."
"I can try, Derek. But the festival is planned for an hour or two from now."
"Where is the king?"
"In his palace, near the festival gardens."
She gestured to the south. My mind went back to New York City. This
hillock, where we were standing in the starlight beside a tree, was in my
world about Fifth Avenue and Sixteenth Street. The king's palace—the
festival gardens—stood down at the Battery, where the rivers met in the
broad water of the harbor.

Derek was saying, "We haven't much time: can you get us to the palace?"

"Yes. I have a cart down there on the road."
"And the cloaks for Charlie and me?"
"Yes."
"Good!" said Derek. "We'll go with you. It's a long chance; he probably
won't postpone it. If he does not, we'll be among the audience. And when he
chooses the Red Sensua—"
She shuddered, "Oh, Derek—" And I thought I heard her whisper, "Oh,
Alexandre—" and I saw his finger go to his lips.
His arm went around her. She huddled, small as a child against his tall,
muscular body.
He said gently, "Don't be afraid, little Hope."
His face was grim, his eyes were gleaming. I saw him suddenly as an
instinctive military adventurer. An anachronism in our modern New York
City. Born in a wrong age. But here in this primitive realm he was at home.
I plucked at him. "How can you—how can we dare plunge into this thing?
Hidden with cloaks, yes. But you talk of leading these toilers."
He cast Hope away and confronted me. "I can do it! You'll see, Charlie." He
was very strangely smiling. "You'll see. But I don't want to come into the
open right away. Not to-night. But if we can only postpone this accursed
festival."
We had been talking perhaps five minutes. We were ready now to start away.
Derek said:
"Whatever comes, Charlie, I want you to take care of Hope. Guard her for
me, will you?"
I said, "Yes, I will try to."
Hope smiled as she held out her hand to me. "I will not be afraid, with
Derek's friend."

Her English was of different intonation from our own, but it was her native
language, I could not doubt.
I took her cold, slightly trembling hand. "Thank you, Hope."
Her eyes were misty with starlight. Tender eyes, but the tenderness was not
for me.
"Yes," I repeated. "You can depend upon me, Derek."
We left the hillock. A food-laden cart came along the road. The driver, a boy
vivid in jacket and wide trousers of red and blue, bravely worn but tattered,
ran alongside guiding the oxen. When they had passed we followed, and
presently we came to the cloaks Hope had hidden. Derek and I donned them.
They were long crimson cloaks with hoods.
Hope said, "Many are gathering for the festival shrouded like that. You will
not be noticed now."
Further along the road we reached a little eminence. I saw the river ahead of
us, and a river behind us. And a few miles to the south, an open spread of
water where the rivers joined. Familiar contours! The Hudson River! The
East River. And down at the end of the island, New York Harbor.
Hope gestured that way. "The king's palace is there."
We were soon passing occasional houses, primitive thatched dwellings. I
saw inside one. Workers were seated over their frugal evening meal. Always
the same vivid garments, jaunty but tattered. We passed one old fellow in a
field, working late in the starlight. A man bent with age, but still a tiller of
the soil. Hope waved to him and he responded, but the look he gave us as we
hurried by shrouded in our crimson cloaks was sullenly hostile.
We came to an open cart. It stood by the roadside. An ox with shaggy coat
and spreading horns was fastened to the fence. It was a small cart with small
rollers like wheels. Seats were in it and a vivid canopy over it. We climbed
in and rumbled away.

And this starlit road in our own world was Broadway! We were presently
passing close to the river's edge. This quiet, peaceful, starlit river! Why, in
our world it was massed with docks! Great ocean liners, huge funneled, with
storied decks lay here! Under this river, tunnels with endless passing
vehicles! Tubes, with speeding trains crowded with people!
The reality here was so different! Behind us what seemed an upper city was
strung along the river. Ahead of us also there were streets and houses, the
city of the workers. A bell was tolling. Along all the roads now we could see
the moving yellow spots of lights on the holiday carts headed for the festival.
And there were spots of yellow torchlight from boats on the river.
We soon were entering the city streets. Narrow dirt streets they were, with
primitive shacks to the sides. Women came to the doorways to stare at our
little cart rumbling hastily past. I was conscious of my crimson cloak, and
conscious of the sullen glances of hate which were flung at it from every
side, here in this squalid, forlorn section where the workers lived.
Along every street now the carts were passing, converging to the south. They
were filled, most of them, with young men and girls, all in gaudy costumes.
Some of them, like ourselves, were shrouded in crimson cloaks. The carts
occasionally were piled with flowers. As one larger than us, and moving
faster rumbled by, a girl in it stood up and pelted me with blossoms. She
wore a crimson robe, but it had fallen from her shoulders. I caught a glimpse
of her face, framed in flowing dark hair, and of eyes with laughter in them,
mocking me, alluring.
We came at last to the end of the island. There seemed to be a thousand or
more people arriving, or here already. The tip of the island had an esplanade
with a broad canopy behind it. Burning torches of wood gave flames of
yellow, red and blue fire. A throng of gay young people promenaded the
walk, watching the arriving boats.

And here, behind the walk at the water's edge, was a garden of trees and
lawn, shrubs and beds of tall vivid flowers. Nooks were here to shelter

lovers, pools of water glinted red and green with the reflected torchlight. In
one of the pools I saw a group of girls bathing, sportive as dolphins.
To one side at a little distance up the river, banked against the water, was a
broad, low building: the palace of the king. About it were broad gardens,
with shrubs and flowers. The whole was surrounded by a high metal fence,
spiked on top.
The main gate was near at hand; we left our cart. Close to the gate was a
guard standing alert, a jaunty fellow in leather pantaloons and leather jacket,
with a spiked helmet, and in his hand a huge, sharp-pointed lance. The
gardens of the palace, what we could see of them, seemed empty—none but
the favored few might enter here. But as I climbed from the cart, I got the
impression that just inside the fence a figure was lurking. It started away as
we approached the gate. The guard had not seen it—the drab figure of a man
in what seemed to be dripping garments, as though perhaps he had swum in
from the water.
And Derek saw him. He muttered, "They are everywhere."
Hope led us to the gate. The guard recognized her. At her imperious gesture
he stood aside. We passed within. I saw the palace now as a long winged
structure of timber and stone, with a high tower at the end of one wing. The
building fronted the river, but here on the garden side there was a broad
doorway up an incline, twenty feet up and over a small bridge, spanning
what seemed a dry moat. Beyond it, a small platform, then an oval archway,
the main entrance to the building.
Derek and I, shrouded in our crimson cloaks with hoods covering us to the
eyes, followed Hope into the palace.

CHAPTER VI
The King's Henchman

The long room was bathed in colored lights. There was an ornate tiled floor.
Barbaric draperies of heavy fabric shrouded the archways and windows. It
was a totally barbaric apartment. It might have been the audience chamber of
some fabled Eastern Prince of our early ages. Yet not quite that either. There
was a primitive modernity here. I could not define it, could not tell why I felt
this strangeness. Perhaps it was the aspect of the people. The room was
crowded with men and gay laughing girls in fancy dress costumes. Half of
them at least were shrouded in crimson cloaks, but most of the hoods were
back. They moved about, laughing and talking, evidently waiting for the
time to come for them to go to the festival. We pushed our way through
them.
Derek murmured, "Keep your hood up, Charlie."
A girl plucked at me. "Handsome man, let me see." She thrust her painted
lips up to mine as though daring me to kiss them. Hope shoved her away.
Her parted cloak showed her white, beautiful body with the dark tresses of
her hair shrouding it. Exotically lovely she was, with primitive, unrestrained
passions—typical of the land in which she lived.
"This way," whispered Hope. "Keep close together. Do not speak!"
We moved forward and stood quietly against the wall of the room, where
great curtains hid us partly from view. Under a canopy, at a table on a raised
platform near one end of the apartment, sat the youthful monarch. I saw him
as a man of perhaps thirty. He was in holiday garb, robed in silken hose of
red and white, a strangely fashioned doublet, and a close-fitting shirt. Bare-
headed, with thick black hair, long to the base of his neck.
He sat at the table with a calm dignity. But he relaxed here in the presence of
his favored courtiers. He was evidently in a high good humor this night,
giving directions for the staging of the spectacle, despatching messengers. I

stood gazing at him. A very kingly fellow this. There was about him, that
strange mingled look of barbarism and modernity.

Hope approached him and knelt. Derek and I could hear their voices,
although the babble of the crowd went on.
"My little Hope, what is it? Stand up, child."
She said, "Your Highness, a message from Blanca."
He laughed. "Say no more! I know it already! She does not want this
festival. The workers,"—what a world of sardonic contempt he put into that
one word!—"the workers will be offended because we take pleasure to-
night. Bah!" But he was still laughing. "Say no more, little Hope. Tell Blanca
to dance and sing her best this night. I am making my choice. Did you know
that?"
Hope was silent. He repeated, "Did you know that?"
"Yes, Your Highness," she murmured.
"I choose our queen to-night, child. Blanca or Sensua." He sighed. "Both are
very beautiful. Do you know which one I am going to choose?"
"No," she said.
"Nor do I, little Hope. Nor do I."
He dismissed her. "Go now. Don't bother me."
She parted her lips as though to make another protest, but his eyes suddenly
flashed.
"I would not have you annoy me again. Do you understand?"
She turned away, back toward where Derek and I were lurking. The
chattering crowd in the room had paid no attention to Hope, but before she
could reach us a man detached himself from a nearby group and accosted
her. A commanding figure, he was, I think, quite the largest man in the room.

An inch or two taller than Derek, at the least. He wore his red cloak with the
hood thrown back upon his wide heavy shoulders. A bullet-head with close-
clipped black hair. A man of about the king's age, he had a face of heavy
features, and flashing dark eyes. A scoundrel adventurer, this king's
henchman.
Hope said, "What is it, Rohbar?"
"You will join our party, little Hope?" He laid a heavy hand on her white
arm. His face was turned toward me. I could not miss the gleaming look in
his eyes as he regarded her.
"No," she said.

It seemed that he twitched at her, but she broke away from him.
Anger crossed his face, but the desirous look in his eyes remained.
"You are very bold, Hope, to spurn me like this." He had lowered his voice
as though fearful that the king might hear him.
"Let me alone!" she said.
She darted away from him, but before she joined us she stood waiting until
he turned away.
"No use," Hope whispered. "There is nothing we can do here. You heard
what the king said—and the festival is already begun."
Derek stood a moment, lost in thought. He was gazing across the room to
where Rohbar was standing with a group of girls. He said at last:
"Come on, Charlie. We'll watch this festival. This damn fool king will
choose the Red Sensua." He shrugged. "There will be chaos...."
We shoved our way from the room, went out of the main doorway and
hurried through the gardens of the palace. The red-cloaked figures were
leaving the building now for the festival grounds. We waited for a group of
them to pass so that we might walk alone. As we neared the gate, passing

through the shadows of high flowered shrubs, a vague feeling that we were
being followed shot through me. In a moment there was so much to see that I
forgot it, but I held my hand on my dirk and moved closer to Hope.
We reached the entrance to the canopy. A group of girls, red-cloaked, were
just coming out. They rushed past us. They ran, discarding their cloaks.
Their white bodies gleamed under the colored lights as they rushed to the
pool and dove.
We were just in time. Hope whispered, "The king will be here any moment."

Beneath the canopy was a broad arena of seats. A platform, like a stage, was
at one end. It was brilliantly illuminated with colored torches held aloft by
girls in flowing robes, each standing like a statue with her light held high.
The place was crowded. In the gloom of the darkened auditorium we found
seats off to one side, near the open edge of the canopy. We sat, with Hope
between us.
Derek whispered, "Shakespeare might have staged a play in a fashion like
this."
A primitive theatrical performance. There was no curtain for interlude
between what might have been the acts of a vaudeville. The torch girls, like
pages, ranged themselves in a line across the front of the stage. They were
standing there as we took our seats. The vivid glare of their torches
concealed the stage behind them.
There was a few moments wait, then, amid hushed silence, the king with his
retinue came in. He sat in a canopied box off to one side. When he was
seated, he raised his arm and the buzz of conversation in the audience began
again.
Presently the page girls moved aside from the stage. The buzz of the
audience was stilted. The performance, destined to end so soon in tragedy,
now began.

CHAPTER VII
The Crimson Murderess

Hope murmured. "The three-part music comes first. There will first be the
spiritual."
An orchestra was seated on the stage in a semi-circle. It was composed of
men and women musicians, and there seemed to be over a hundred of them.
They sat in three groups; the center group was about to play. In a solemn
hush the leaderless choirs, with all its players garbed in white, began its first
faint note. I craned to get a clear view of the stage. This white choir seemed
almost all wood-wind. There were tiny pipes in little series such as Pan
might have used. Flutes, and flageolets; and round-bellied little instruments
of clay, like ocarinas. And pitch-pipes, long and slender as a marsh reed.
In a moment I was lost in the music. It began softly, with single muted notes
from a single instrument, echoed by the others, running about the choir like a
will-o'-the-wisp. It was faint, as though very far away, made more sweet by
distance. And then it swelled, came nearer.
I had never heard such music as this. Primitive! It was not that. Nor barbaric!
Nothing like the music of our ancient world. Nor was it what I might
conceive to be the music of our future. A thing apart, unworldly, ethereal. It
swept me, carried me off; it was an exaltation of the spirit lifting me. It was
triumphant now. It surged, but there was in its rhythm, the beat of its every
instrument, nothing but the soul of purity. And then it shimmered into
distance again, faint and exquisite music of a dream. Crooning, pleading, the
speech of whispering angels.
It ceased. There was a storm of applause.
I breathed again. Why, this was what music might be in our world but was
not. I thought of our blaring jazz.
Hope said, "Now they play the physical music. Then Sensua will dance with
Blanca. We will see then which one the king chooses."

On the stage all the torches were extinguished save those which were red.
The arena was darker than before. The stage was bathed with a deep
crimson. Music of the physical senses! It was, indeed, no more like the other
choir than is the body to the spirit.
There were stringed instruments playing now; deep-toned, singing zithers,
and instruments of rounded, swelling bodies, like great viols with sensuous,
throbbing voices. Music with a swift rhythm, marked by the thump of
hollow gourds. It rose with its voluptuous swell into a paean of
abandonment, and upon the tide of it, the crimson Sensua flung herself upon
the stage. She stood motionless for a moment that all might regard her. The
crimson torchlight bathed her, stained crimson the white flush of her limbs,
her heavy shoulders, her full, rounded throat.
A woman in her late twenties. Voluptuous of figure, with crimson veils half-
hiding, half-revealing it. A face of coarse, sensuous beauty. A face wholly
evil, and it seemed to me wholly debauched. Dark eyes with beaded lashes.
Heavy lips painted scarlet. A pagan woman of the streets. One might have
encountered such a woman swaggering in some ancient street of some
ancient city, flaunting the finery given her by a rich and profligate eastern
prince.
She stood a moment with smoldering, passion-filled eyes, gazing from
beneath her lowered lids. Her glance went to the king's canopy, and flashed a
look of confidence, of triumph. The king answered it with a smile. He leaned
forward over his railing, watching her intently.
With the surge of the music she moved into her dance. Slowly she began,
quite slowly. A posturing and swaying of hips like a nautch girl. She made
the rounds of the musicians, leering at them. She stood in the whirl of the
music, almost ignoring it, stood at the front of the stage with a gaze of
slumberous, insolent passion flung at the king. A knife was in her hand now.
She held it aloft. The red torchlight caught its naked blade. With shuddering
fancy I seemed to see it dripping crimson. She frowned, and struck it at a
phantom lover. She backed away. She stooped and knelt. She knelt and
seemed with her empty arms to be caressing a murdered lover's head. She
kissed him, rained upon his dead lips her macabre kisses.

And then she was up on her bare feet, again circling the stage. Her anklets
clanked as she moved with the tread of a tigress. The musicians shrank from
her waving blade.

A girl in white veils was suddenly disclosed standing at the back of the
stage.
Derek whispered, "Is that Blanca?"
"Yes," whispered Hope.
Blanca stood watching her rival. The crimson Sensua passed her, took her
suddenly by the wrist, drew her forward. For an instant I thought it might
have been rehearsed. I saw Blanca as a slim, gentle girl in white, with a
white head-dress. A dancer who could symbolize purity, now in the grip of
red passion.
An instant, and then horror struck us. And I could feel it surge over the
audience. A gasp of horror. The frightened girl in white tried to escape. The
musicians wavered and broke. I stared, stricken, with freezing blood. Upon
the stage the knife went swiftly up; it came down; then up again. The red
Sensua stood gloating. The knife she waved aloft was truly dripping crimson
now.
With a choked, gasping scream the white girl of the toilers crumpled and
fell.... She lay motionless, at the feet of the crimson murderess.

CHAPTER VIII
"Why, This Is Treason!"

There was a gasp. The audience sat frozen. On the stage, with no one lifting
a hand to stop her, the crimson murderess made a leap and vanished. A
moment, and then the spell broke. A girl in the audience screamed. Some one
moved to stand up and overturned a seat with a crash.
The amphitheater under the canopy broke into a pandemonium. Screams and
shouts, crashing of seats, screaming, frightened people struggling to get out
of the darkness. The torches on the stage were dropped and extinguished.
The darkness leaped upon us.
Derek and I were gripping Hope. We were struck by a bench flung backward
from in front. People were rushing at us. We were swept along in the panic
of the crowd.
I heard Derek shout, "We must keep together!"
We fought, but we were swept backward. We found ourselves outside the
canopy. Torchlight was here. It glimmered on the pool of water. People were
everywhere rushing past us, some one way, some another. Aimless, with the
shock of terror upon them. Under the canopy they were still screaming.
I was momentarily separated from Derek and Hope. I very nearly stumbled
into the pool. A girl was here, crouched on the stone bank. Her wet crimson
veils clung to her white body. Her long, wet hair lay on her. I stumbled
against her. She raised her face. Eyes, wide with terror. Mute, painted red
lips....
I heard Derek calling again, "Charlie!" I shoved my way back to him. The
crowd was thinning out around us. Girls were climbing from the pool,
rushing off in terror, to mingle with the milling throng. Among the crowd
now, down by the edge of the bay, I saw the sinister figures of men come
running. The toilers, miraculously appearing everywhere! I saw, across the
pool, a terrified girl crouching. A huge man in a black cloak came leaping.

The colored lights in the trees glittered on his upraised knife blade as it
descended. The girl fell with a shuddering scream. The murderer turned and
whirled away into the crowd.
"Charlie!"
I was back with Derek and Hope. Hope stood trembling, with her hand
pressed against her mouth. Derek gripped me.
"That cloak, get it off!" He ripped his crimson cloak from him and tossed it
away. He jerked mine off. "Too dangerous! That's the crimson badge of
death to-night."
We stood revealed in the clothes of our own world. My business suit, in
which that day I had worked in Wall Street. Derek in his swagger uniform.
He stood drawn to his full height, a powerful figure. The wires of our
mechanism showed at his wrists. They dangled at the back of his neck,
mounting to that strangely fashioned electrode clamped to his head. Strange,
awe-inspiring figure of a man!
We were momentarily alone under the colored lights of the trees. Hope
murmured, "But they will see us—see you...."
Derek's face was grim, but at her words he laughed harshly. "See us! What
matter?" He swung on me. "It forces our hand; we've got to come out in the
open now! This murder—this king! My God, what a fool to let himself get
into such a condition as this! His people—this chaos—what a fool!"
He had drawn his dirk. I realized that I was holding mine. Near us the body
of a crimson noble was lying under a tree. A sword was there on the ground.
Derek sprang for it, waved it aloft.
I think that no more than a minute or two had passed since the murder. Down
by the water the boats were hastily loading and leaving the dock. One of
them overturned. There were screams everywhere. Red forms lay inert upon
the ground where they had been trampled, or stabbed. But the prowling
figures of the toilers now seemed to have vanished.
Derek gestured. "Look at the palace! The garden!"

Beyond the canopy I could see the dim gardens surrounding the palace. I
glimpsed the high fence, and the gateway in front. A mob of toilers was
there. The guard at the gate had fled. The mob was surging through. Men
and women in the vivid garments of the fields, armed with sticks and clubs
and stones and the implements of agriculture. They milled at the gate; rushed
through; scattered over the garden. Their shouts floated back to us in a
blended murmur.
We were standing only a dozen feet from the edge of the pavilion. No one
seemed yet to have noticed us. A few straggling lights had come on under
the canopy. I could see the dead lying there in the wreckage of overturned
seats.
Derek said, "We can't help it—it's done. Look at them! They're attacking the
palace!"
This mob springing miraculously into existence! I realized that the toilers
had planned that if Sensua were chosen they would attack the festival. The
murder of Blanca had come as big a surprise to them as to us....
"Come on! Can you get into the palace, Hope? The king must have gotten
back there. Get your wits, girl!" Derek stood gripping her, shaking her.
"Yea, there's an underground passage. He probably went that way."
From the palace gardens the shouts of the mob sounded louder now. And
from within the building there was an alarm bell tumultuously clanging.
Hope gasped, "This way."
She led us back into the pavilion. We clambered over its broken seats, past
its grewsome huddled figures. Some were still moving.... We went to a small
door under the platform. A dim room was here, deserted now. Against the
wall was a large wardrobe closet; stage costumes were hanging in it. The
closet was fully twenty feet deep. We pushed our way through the hanging
garments. Hope fumbled at the blank board wall in the rear. Her groping
fingers found a secret panel. A door swung aside and a rush of dank cool air
came at us. The dark outlines of a tunnel stretched ahead.
"In, Charlie!"

I crouched and stepped through the door. Hope closed it behind us. The
tunnel passage was black, but soon we began to see its vague outlines.
Derek, sword in hand, led us. I clutched my dirk. We went perhaps five
hundred feet. Down at first, then up again. I figured we were under the
palace gardens now, as the tunnel was winding to the left. There were
occasional small lights.
Derek whispered to Hope, "The toilers don't know of this?"
"No."
"Where does it bring us out?" I whispered.
"Into the lower floor of the castle. The king must have gone this way. There
might be a guard, Derek. What will you do?"
He laughed. "I can handle this mob. Disperse it! You'll see! And handle the
king." He laughed again grimly. "There is no Blanca to choose now."
The tunnel went round a sharp angle and began steeply ascending. Derek
stopped.
"How much further, Hope?"
"Not far," she whispered.
We crept forward. The tunnel was more like a small corridor now. Beyond
Derek's crouching figure, in the dimness I could see a doorway. Derek turned
and gestured to us to keep back. A palace guard was standing there. His pike
went up.
"Who are you?"
"A friend."
But the man lunged with his pike. Derek leaped aside. His sword flashed; the
flat of it struck the fellow in the face. Derek, with incredible swiftness, was
upon him. They went down together and before the man could shout, Derek
had struck him on the head with the sword hilt. The guard lay motionless.
Derek climbed up as we ran forward to join him.

I noticed now, for the first time, that in his left hand Derek held a small
metal cylinder. A weapon, strange to me, which he had brought with him. He
had not mentioned it. He had produced it, when menaced by this guard. Then
he evidently decided not to use it.
He shoved it back in his pocket. He whirled on us, panting. "Hurry! Close
that door!"
We closed the door of the tunnel.
"Charlie, help me move him!"
We dragged the prostrate figure of the unconscious guard aside into a
shadow of the wall. We were in a lower room of the palace. It seemed
momentarily unoccupied. Overhead we could hear the footsteps of running
people. A confusion in the palace, and outside in the garden the shouts of the
menacing throng of toilers. And above it all, the wild clanging of the alarm
bell from the palace tower.
Derek said swiftly, "Get us to the king!"
Hope led us through the castle corridors, and up a flight of steps to the main
floor. The rooms here were thronged with terrified people—crimson nobles
in their bedraggled finery of the festival. In all the chaos no one seemed to
notice us.
We mounted another staircase. We found a vacant room; through its
windows we looked a moment, gazing into the garden. It was jammed with a
menacing mob, which milled about, leaderless, waving crude weapons,
shouting imprecations at the palace. At the foot of the main steps the throng
stood packed, but none dared to mount. A group of the palace guards stood
on the platform over the moat.
Derek turned away impatiently. "Let's get to the king."
We mounted to the upper story. The castle occupants stared at Derek and me
as we passed them. A group of girls at the head of the staircase fled before
us.
"The king," Derek demanded, "Which is his apartment? Hurry, Hope, we've
no time now!"

We found the frightened king seated on a couch with his counsellors around
him. It was a small room in this top story of the castle, with long windows to
the floor. I saw that they gave onto a balcony which overlooked the gardens.
There were perhaps twenty or thirty people huddled in the room. A
confusion existed here as everywhere else—no one knowing what to do in
this crisis. And that cursed alarm bell wildly adding to the turmoil. We
paused at the doorway.
"Now," whispered Derek. He drew himself to his full height. His eyes were
flashing. It was a Derek I had not seen before; he wore an air of mastery. As
though he, and not the frightened, trembling monarch on the couch, were
master here. And as I stared at him that instant in this primitive chaotic
environment, the power of him swept me. A conqueror. The strange
electrode clamped to his head gave him an aspect miraculous, awe inspiring.
He strode forward across the apartment. The king was just giving some
futile, vague command to be transmitted to his guards down below. A hush
fell over the room at our appearance. The king half stood up, then sank back.
"Why—why—who—"
I saw Rohbar here. His long crimson cloak hung from his shoulders, with its
hood thrown back. Beneath it, as it parted in front, his leather uniform was
visible. A sword was strapped to his waist. He was striding back and forth
with folded arms, frowning, but his gaze was very keen. Rohbar was not
frightened. He seemed rather to be gauging the situation, pondering how he
might turn it to his own ends. He stopped short and swung about to face us.
His jaw dropped with surprise, amazement, at our strangeness.
Derek confronted him. His bulk, and huge weight towered even over Derek.
The king gasped and sat helplessly staring.
Rohbar spoke first. "Who are you?"
"This mob must be dispersed. Don't stand looking at me like that, man!"
Derek spoke in friendly fashion, but vehemently. "This is no time for
explanations."
They were menacing each other. Rohbar's heavy hand fell to his sword, but
Derek boldly pushed him away. He faced the king.

"Your Majesty...."
The king stared blankly at him. The title was no doubt strange to this realm,
but no stranger than Derek's aspect.
"Your Majesty...."
But the noise from the garden, the confusion which now broke out in the
room, and that damnable clattering bell, drowned his words.
The king found his voice. "Be quiet, all of you!" He was on his feet. He
demanded of Derek again, "Who are you?"
Derek said swiftly, "I'll show you. I can disperse this mob! Charlie, come."
It seemed as though the gaze of everyone in the room went to me. I drew
myself up and flashed defiance back at them. And I followed Derek to one of
the balcony windows. He went through it, with me after him. I stood at the
threshold, watchful of the room behind us. Rohbar was standing aside, and I
saw now the woman Sensua with him. They were whispering, staring at me
and Derek.
I had been wondering why, when Sensua must have known that the king
would choose her—why she had dared to murder her rival. I thought now—
as I saw her with Rohbar—that I could guess the reason. She loved Rohbar,
not the king. Rohbar was plotting to put himself on the throne, using Sensua
as a lover to that end. He had doubtless persuaded her to this murder,
knowing it would arouse the toilers, precipitate this chaos which was what
he wanted. Scheming scoundrel! I could not forget the look of desire on his
face as he had accosted Hope....
And now Derek appeared, to add an unknown element to Rohbar's plans.
There was no way he could guess who or what we were. I saw that he was
puzzled, was whispering to Sensua about us, doubtless wondering how to
handle us.
I saw too, that there were half a dozen crimson cloaked men here who were
not frightened. They had gathered in a group. They stood with hands upon
their swords, eyeing me, and watching Rohbar—as though at a sign from
him they would rush me.

On the balcony Derek stood with the light from the room upon him. The
crowd saw him. The main gateway of the palace was just under his balcony.
The crowd had now started up the steps to where the guards were standing at
the top. At the sight of Derek the mob let out a roar, and those on the steps
retreated down again.
Derek stood at the balcony rail, silent, with upraised arms, gazing down
upon the menacing throng. There was a moment of startled silence as he
appeared. Then the shout broke out louder than before. The crowd was
milling and pushing, but still leaderless. An aimless activity. Someone threw
a stone. It came hurtling up. It missed Derek and struck the castle wall,
falling almost at my feet.
Derek did not move. He stood calmly gazing down; stood like an orator
waiting for the confusion to die before he would speak.
From the platform, just beneath Derek, the guards were staring wonderingly
up, awed, startled. To the right a wing of the building turned an angle. The
castle tower was there: it rose perhaps a hundred feet higher than our
balcony. On the railed platform-balcony girding its top I saw the figures of
other guards standing, gazing down at Derek. The clanging bell up there was
suddenly stilled.
I became aware of the king close behind me. His voice rang out: "What are
you doing? How dare you?"
Derek whirled, "You fool! To what a pass you have come! Your people in
arms against you...."
His violent words brought the king's anger. "How dare you! This is treason!"
I stood alert, with my hand upon my dirk.
There would be conflict here, I felt that we could not hold it off more than a
moment longer. My mind leaped to that metal cylinder Derek had concealed.
A weapon? Then why did he not have it out now? His eyes were flashing.
The aspect of power, of confidence, upon him was unmistakable. It
heartened me. I took a step toward him.
He smiled faintly. "Wait, Charlie."

The king gasped again. "How dare you? Why, this is treason! Rohbar, seize
him!"
Hope was beside me, her eyes watching the room. Rohbar came striding
forward. Derek rasped, "You perhaps have some sense! Lead His Majesty
away. Take care of him until this is over."
They stood with crossing glances. And upon Rohbar's face a look, queerly
sinister, had come. A smile, sardonic.
He said abruptly to the king, "I think we should let him have his way. What
harm?"
He gestured and Sensua came forward. The crimson murderess! Her
voluptuous figure was shrouded in a crimson cloak. Her heavy painted lips
smiled at the King. Her rounded white arms went over his shoulders.
"Leonto, do as Rohbar says. Let this stranger try. It can do no harm."
The king yielded to her; I watched as she and Rohbar urged him through an
archway that gave into the adjoining apartment.
No wonder Rohbar was sardonically smiling! Derek had played into his
hand. We did not know it then, but we were soon to find it out.

CHAPTER IX
"Alexandre—"

Derek turned back to the balcony. It had been a brief interlude. The mob in
the garden, the soldiers at the top of the stairway, and the other guards high
on the bridge of the tower were all standing gazing. Shouts again arose as
Derek appeared. Again he raised his arms. This time his voice rang out.
"Silence all of you! I am a friend! Silence!"
At first they did not heed him; then someone shouted:
"Quiet! Listen to him! Let him talk!"
The crowd was bellowing, and then they ceased. The bell was still. In the
hush came Derek's voice:
"I am a friend. I come from foreign lands, from distant lands of strange
people and strange magic."
For answer the crowd shouted and milled in confusion. A stone came up and
then another. Derek stood immovable, like a statue gazing down at them.
"I command you to disperse. You will not? Then look at me! Look at me, all
of you. My will is law beyond this king—beyond these palace soldiers—
beyond any power you have ever known."
Then I knew a part of Derek's purpose! He had pressed the mechanism at his
wrist. He stood imperious with upraised arms. The garden was in a tumult,
but in a moment it died. A wave of horror swept the crowd. A freezing,
incredulous horror. They stood staring, incredulous, silent, swept with a
widening wave of horror.
The figure of Derek on the balcony was fading, turning luminous. A wraith,
a ghost of his menacing shape standing there. It faded until it was almost
gone, and then, as he reversed the mechanism, it materialized again. A
moment passed, then he stood again solid before them.

His voice rang out, "Will you obey me now? I am a friend of the toilers!"
They were prostrate before him. There is no fear more terrible than the fear
of the supernatural. In all of history there has been in our world no worship
more abject than the worship and fear of a primitive people for its
supernatural God. On the platform beneath the balcony, the palace soldiers
stared up, horrified. Then they too were prostrate before Derek's threatening
gestures and commanding voice.
I stood watching, listening. And suddenly, from the prostrate crowd, a man
leaped up. In the silence his amazed voice carried over the garden.
"Alexandre! It is our Prince Alexandre! Our lost prince!"
He stood staring at Derek, his arms gesturing to his comrade around him. He
shouted it again:
"Our rightful king, come back to us! Don't you recognize him? I saw him
go! He went like that—fading into a ghost. Ten years ago, when Leonto
killed his father and would have killed him had he not escaped!"
The crowd was standing up now. They recognized Derek! There was no
doubt of it. The garden was ringing with the tumultuous shouts,
"Alexandre! Our lost prince has come back to us!"
My head was whirling with it. Derek, prince of this realm? I could see that it
was true. Escaped from here as a young lad, when his throne was usurped.
Returning now, a man, to claim his own.
And suddenly he turned and flashed me his smile.
The din from the garden drowned his words. The crowd was shouting:
"Alexandre! Our lost prince!"
The king's guards on the lower platform stood sullen, confused. I heard
footsteps behind me. I whirled around.
From the room, the group of Rohbar's crimson nobles were rushing toward
me! Their swords were out. One of them shouted, "Kill them now! We must
kill them and have done!"

There were five or six men in the group. They were no more than ten feet
away from me. They came leaping.
I stood in the window opening, with only my dirk to oppose them. I shouted,
"Derek! Derek!"
I think I took a step backward. I was out on the balcony. It flashed over me
—Derek and I were caught out here!
The first of the red cloaked figures came hurtling through the doorway. I
leaped to avoid his sword. I saw the others crowding behind him.
Then I felt Derek shove me violently aside. I half fell, but recovered myself
at the balcony rail. Five of the crimson nobles were on the balcony. Derek
confronted them. His aspect made them pause. They stood, with outstretched
swords. The garden was silent; the crowd stared up. And in the silence Derek
roared,
"Get back! All of you, go back inside! Back, or I'll kill you!"
In Derek's right hand he held the cylinder outstretched, leveled at the
menacing nobles.
"Back, I say!"
But instead they rushed him. There was a flash. From the cylinder it seemed
that a ray spat out, a flash of silver light. It caught the three men who were in
advance of the others. Their swords dropped with a clatter to the balcony
floor. They stood, transfixed.
An instant. Derek's silver ray played upon them. Their red cloaks were
painted with its silver sheen.
They were shimmering! I gasped, staring. The other nobles, beyond the ray,
had fallen back. And they too stood staring in horror.
Another instant The three figures wavered. I saw the face of one of them,
with the shock of incredulous horror still upon it. A face turning luminous! A
face, erased, with only the staring eyes to mark where it had been!
There was a moment when the three stricken men stood like shimmering
ghosts, with Derek's deadly ray upon them. Then they were gone! It seemed,

just as they vanished, that they were falling through the balcony floor....
Derek snapped off his ray. He rasped, "Back into that room, I tell you!"
The remaining nobles fled before him. He turned again to the balcony rail.
"My people—yes, I am Alexandre—I had not thought you would recognize
me so soon. But you are right—the time has come for me to claim my
inheritance. And I will rule you justly."
His cylinder was still in his hand; he swept a watchful glance behind him. I
thought of Rohbar. He was in the next room, with the king. Had they seen
this attack upon Derek? They must have heard the crowd shouting,
"Alexandre!" It seemed strange they did not appear.
I recall now, as I look back to this moment on the balcony, that I suddenly
thought of Hope. She had been beside me just before the nobles attacked. I
did not see her now. I was startled, but thought of her was driven from my
mind. From within the palace a scream sounded. A girl screaming.
But it was not Hope's voice. A girl, screaming, and then shouting:
"The king is dead!"
Derek came rushing at me. "Charlie, that—"
We heard it again. "The king is dead!"
We hurried into the adjoining room. There was no one to stop us—no one up
here now who dared oppose Derek. The terrified nobles in the room fell
cringing before him.
"Alexandre—spare us! We are loyal to you!"
He strode past them. In the adjacent apartment we found the king lying upon
the floor. A wound in his throat welled crimson. He had evidently been lying
here alone, and had just now been found by a girl who had entered. He was
not quite dead. Derek bent over him. He opened his eyes.
He gasped faintly: "Rohbar—killed me. Rohbar and that—accursed crimson
Sensua...."

His voice trailed away. The light went out of his staring eyes. Derek laid him
gently back on the floor.
And as though already the news of his death had miraculously spread, the
bell in the castle tower began tolling. Not clanging now. Tolling, with slow,
solemn accent. The crowd evidently recognized it. We could hear the shouts:
"Death! Death has come!"
Derek's eyes ware blazing as he stood up. "The end, Charlie! I would not
have planned this, and yet...."
He did not finish. He whirled, rushed back to the other room and to the
balcony. The scene was again in confusion the crowd milling, voices
shouting:
"The king is dead!"
At the edge of the garden a woman's shrill, hysterical laughter rose over the
din.
Derek called, "Yes, the king is dead!" He paused. Then he added, "If you
want me—if I have your loyalty—I will claim my throne."
A tumult interrupted him. "Alexandre! King Alexandre!"
He spread his arms, but he could not silence them.
"The king is dead. Long live King Alexandre!"
A wave of it swept over the garden, engulfing the castle. At the main
entrance Leonto's soldiers stood sullen, listening to it.
Derek stood triumphant. His hands were outstretched, palms down. But up
on the circular bridge at the top of the tower there was a sudden commotion.
The soldiers up there had vanished, moved back within the tower to make
room for other figures. I stared amazed, transfixed. A huge man in leather
garments was there, with a sword stuck in his wide belt. A man with a bullet
head, a heavy face, gazing down....
Rohbar!

And held in front of him the slender figure of a girl. Hope! He clutched her,
his thick arm encircling her breast. With sinking heart I realized what had
happened. Hope had moved away from me. Every one in the room had been
intent upon Derek. Rohbar had come quietly in, after murdering the king,
had seized Hope, stifled her outcry, and had taken her up into the tower.
And I had promised Derek that I would shield this girl from harm! The
horror of it—the self-condemnation of it—swept me, froze me to numbness.
I could not think; I could only stand and stare. Rohbar held Hope like a
shield before him. The low railing hardly reached her knees. A sheer drop to
the garden beneath. He held her tightly, and in his free hand I saw his dirk
come up menacingly against her white throat. His voice called:
"Silent, down there! Alexandre, you traitor! Silence!"
Derek stared up. The triumph faded from him. He stared, stricken. The
crowd stared. The soldiers on the lower platform ceased their shouting and
gazed up at these new actors, come so unexpectedly upon the stage. Again
Rohbar called, to the guards this time:
"I represent your King Leonto. This Alexandre is a traitor to us all. And he
cannot harm me! I defy him. Look at him! I defy him to use his evil weapon
upon me!"
Derek was silent. A single adverse move and Rohbar's knife would stab into
Hope's throat. Derek's ray was powerless. A flash from it would have killed
Hope, not Rohbar.
The king's soldiers saw Derek's indecision. One of them shouted, "He cannot
harm us! Look, he is frightened!"
The crowd recognized Hope. They began calling her name. And calling,
"Master Rohbar, do not harm our Hope!"
"I will not harm her! Not if you do what I tell you! Leave the garden—go
quietly! I will deal with this traitor!"
He added to the guards, "Go up and seize him! He cannot hurt you! Traitor!
Seize him! If he does not yield—if any of this crowd attacks you—then I
will kill Hope."

Derek stood clinging to the balcony rail. With Rohbar's watchful gaze upon
him he did not dare turn or move. I was standing back from the balcony,
behind Derek and partly in the room. No one thought of me. No one from
outside could see me. And I, who had played no part in this, save that one I
had neglected, suddenly saw my role. My cue was sounding. My role to
play, here upon this tumultuous stage.
I turned back into the dim room. A few frightened men and girls were here.
They were all crowding forward, gazing through the windows at the scene
outside. No one noticed me, but I saw, with sudden realization, my role to
play.
I darted across the room, out into the dim, deserted corridor of the castle.

CHAPTER X
My Role to Play

I slipped like a shadow through the almost empty corridors. Down on the
lower floor I found that many of the soldiers were on the inside, standing
about the corridors in groups, waiting for word from their comrades on the
platform to indicate what action they should take. My time was short; I knew
that within a few minutes they would be rushing up to overpower Derek.
I stood unseen against the wall near the main entrance. I could not get
outside. There were too many soldiers there.
I tried to keep my sense of direction. The wing upon which the tower stood
was about two hundred feet from me here. If I could not get outside I would
have to try the inside, along this corridor. I prayed that I might not make an
error. I tried to gauge exactly where the tower would be.
The hallway was almost dark and in this wing there chanced to be no one at
the moment. I came to the angle and turned it to the left. I was unarmed save
my dirk. I drew it. But I encountered no one. I passed the doors of many
empty rooms. The windows were all barred on this lower floor. I could hear
the shouts of the crowd outside.
I came at last to the end of the wing. A staircase here led upward. I guessed
that I was directly under the tower now, and that this staircase undoubtedly
led upward into it. I mounted a few steps to verify what I was sure would be
the condition. It was as I thought. Rohbar had won over the soldiers who
were here. He had sent them down from the tower bridge. They were
guarding this staircase.
I crept up another few steps, very cautiously. I could hear their voices on the
stairs. A light was up there. I could see the legs of some of them as they
crowded the stairs. I softly retreated.
There was no way of getting up into the tower here. Alone and armed only
with my dirk, I could not mount these stairs and assail a dozen armed men

standing above me; especially when, if I raised an alarm, Rohbar overhead
might be startled into killing Hope.
I stood another moment, thinking, planning my actions. I was trembling.
Everything depended upon me now. I must get up into the tower. And, above
everything, haste was necessary.
I retreated back to the lower floor. I was still some twenty feet above the
ground, I judged. That was too far. A dozen paces along the hall I saw a
stairway leading downward into the ground level cellar of the castle. I
marked in my mind exactly in which direction I turned, and how far. I went
down the stairs.
There was an empty lower room. It was pitch black. I lay down on its
earthen floor. Above me, a few paces off to one side I could visualize the
tower. A hundred and fifty feet above me, at least, up to that bridge balcony,
where Rohbar stood with Hope. I kept my mind on it and prayed that I might
not be making an error, a miscalculation.
I prayed, too, that luck would be with me. A desperate chance, yet I thought I
knew what was here, or about here, in New York City. I lay on my side,
alone in the blackness, and pressed the switch at my wrist....
The familiar sensation of the transition began. The darkness grew luminous.
Around me shadows were taking form. My body was humming, thrilling
with the vibrations within it. I could feel the ground under me seeming to
melt. My head was reeling. Nausea swept me, but with it all I tried to keep
my wits. I must watch this new Space into which I was going. Space? I
prayed that here on this spot in New York City there would be empty space!
If not, at the first warning, I was prepared to stop my mechanism.
The shadows grew around me. There was a moment or two when I felt as
though I were floating. Weightless. The sense of my body hovering in a void,
intangible, imponderable, with only my struggling mentality holding it
together....
And then I felt myself materializing. Around me walls were taking form. I
floated down a foot or two and came to rest upon a new floor. My hand
brushed it. My physical senses were returning. I could feel a floor of
concrete. A vague, shimmering light was near me. It seemed to outline the

rectangle of a window. All around was darkness. Empty darkness. Soundless,
with only the throbbing hum of the mechanism....
I was indoors, in a room. I felt suddenly almost normal, except for the
whirring vibration. I flung the switch again. There was a shock. A whirling
of my senses. Then I sat up; my head steadied. The nausea passed.
I was back in my own world, in New York City. This was night: I tried to
calculate the time. Derek and I had departed about midnight. This would be,
then some time before dawn. I was in a cellar room, lying on its cement
floor. There was a window, with a faint light outside it. A window up near
the ceiling. A straggling illumination showed me a bin, a few barrels, a door
leading into another room which looked as though it might be a machine
shop.
I sat up, calculating. I was a thousand feet perhaps from the Battery wall,
two hundred feet from the Hudson River. This was an office building, and I
was in one of its cellar rooms, at the ground level.
Near dawn? I tried to calculate what might be overhead. A deserted office
building. Too early yet for the scrub-women. The elevator would not be
running. I laughed to myself. Of what use to me an elevator, if it had been
running? How could I, a midnight prowler, appear from the cellar of this
building, and demand to be taken upstairs! There would be no elevator, but
there would be watchmen. I would avoid them.
I found a door. My heart leaped with a sudden fear that it would be locked,
but it was not. I went through it into a passage and found the staircase. I
made two turns. I tried again to keep my mind on this Space here. I stood,
carefully thinking. I had it clear. I had made no move without careful
thought. The tower with Rohbar was still to my left, and about directly
above me.
I went up the short stone staircase, opened another door carefully. I was in
the dim lower hall of the office building. I found myself beside the deserted
elevator shaft. A light was burning on the night attendant's table in an alcove,
on the other side of the shaft. He sat there with his back to me. I closed the
door soundlessly.

The stairway upward beside the elevator was here. I watched my chance. I
darted around the angle and went up. I met no one. The concrete staircase
had a light at each floor. Four floors up. No, not enough! I opened the fourth
floor door. The marble hall of the office building was empty and silent.
Rows of locked office doors with their gold-leaf names and numbers. A
single dim light to illumine the silent emptiness....
I retreated into the staircase shaft and mounted higher. My dirk was in my
hand. Charlie Wilson, the Wall Street brokerage clerk, prowling here! And
upon what a strange adventure!
I came to what I thought was the proper floor. In the hall I selected a room.
The door was securely locked. I had no way of breaking the lock, but the
panel was of opaque glass. I would have to chance the noise. I rushed the
length of the hall, to where a red fire-ax hung in a bracket. I came back with
it. I smashed the glass panel of the door.
Would a watchman hear me? I did not wait to find out. With the ax I scraped
away the splinters of glass. I climbed through the opening. My hand was cut,
but I did not heed it.
I was in a dim, silent office, with rugs on the floor, desks standing about,
filing cases, a water-cooler, and a safe in the corner. I rushed to one of the
windows. It looked over Battery Park and the upper bay. The stars were
shining, but to the east over Brooklyn I could see them paling with the
coming dawn. I gazed down to try and calculate my height. Yes, this would
be about right. And my position. I could see the outline of the shore, the trees
of Battery Park, the busy harbor, even at this hour before dawn, thronged
with the moving lights of its boats.
I saw all this with my eyes, but with my mind I saw the wrecked, deserted
pavilion, and the gardens of Leonto's castle. The threatening mob would be
below me. The palace entrance would be here to my left, down in the street
where those taxis were parked. There was a commotion down there by the
office building entrance. I know now what caused it, but at the time I did not
notice. The wing of the castle was under me. This would be the tower. Its
upper room, or the balcony, just about where I was standing. I prayed that it
might be so. I seemed with my mind to see it all.

I lay down on the floor by the window. Out in the office building hallway I
heard heavy footsteps come running. One of the night watchmen had
evidently heard the glass crashed.
I laughed. I pressed the switch at my wrist....

CHAPTER XI
The Fight on the Tower Balcony

The sensations swept me again. The room faded. Whether the watchmen
came in to see a ghost of me lying there on the floor I did not know, nor did I
care. I whirled into the shadows. And came in a moment out of the black
silence. The office room was gone. I seemed to have fallen or floated down
—how far I do not know. A triumph swept me. I was lying on another floor. I
could see a doorway materializing. I was not upon the balcony as I had
calculated, but within the tower room. New walls sprang around me.
I did not heed it, this time, the sensation, of the transition. I was too alert to
what new situation might come upon me. The tower room. I could see it. I
could see its oval windows close at hand. The doorway to its balcony.
Sounds flooded me, mingled with the humming within me. Familiar sounds.
The crowd shouting. And a single voice—the voice of Rohbar. Vague and
blurred, but as I materialized it became clearer.
I was suddenly aware that there was a man beside me. One of the palace
soldiers. He saw me materialize. He leaped backward in horror. I flung my
switch. I was on my feet, swaying, and then I leaped upon him. My dirk
plunged downward into his chest.
The thing made me shudder. I reeled with the sickness of it, but as he fell I
clung to the dirk and ripped it out of him. It was dripping with his blood.
I stood trembling. The small tower room had no other occupants. I turned
toward the door. I could see a patch of stars, paling with the coming dawn. I
crouched in the small doorway which gave onto the balcony, staring, swiftly
calculating. The scene had scarcely changed. But, some of the soldiers had
left the entrance platform, gone, no doubt, into the castle on their way
upstairs to seize Derek.
On this upper balcony, no more than ten feet before me, Rohbar still stood
gripping Hope. She was in front of him. His back was to me. A sudden jump,

and I could plunge my dagger into his back.
Rohbar was shouting, "King Leonto is dead. If you should want me to
succeed him, I will take this girl Hope for my queen. You all love her...."
I was tense to spring. Then out in the balcony, to one side, I saw Sensua
crouching. Her crimson robe fell away to bare her white limbs. Her hand
fumbled in her robe. She had been Rohbar's dupe, and now she knew it. Her
knife was in her hand. Frenzied with jealousy and rage she sprang upon
Rohbar's back, trying to stab at Hope.
Perhaps he sensed her coming, heard her; or perhaps she was unskilful. Her
knife only grazed Hope's shoulder. He released Hope. He roared. He turned
and gripped his murderous assailant. A second or two while I stood
watching. He caught Sensua's wrist, twisted the knife from it and plunged
the knife into her breast. She sank with a scream at his feet, and as he
straightened he saw me.
But I had leaped. I was upon him. His own knife had remained in Sensua's
breast. As I raised mine in my leap, he caught at my wrist; twisted it, but I
flung the knife away before he could get it. The knife fell over the balcony
rail. The weight of my hurtling body flung him backward, but the rail caught
him. His arms went around me. Powerful arms, crushing me. I gripped at his
throat.
There was an instant when I thought that we would both topple over the
railing. I felt Hope beside us. I heard her scream. We did not go over the rail,
for Rohbar lurched and flung us back. We dropped to the balcony floor,
rolling, locked together. He was far stronger and heavier than I. He came
uppermost. He lunged and broke my hold upon his throat, but I was agile: I
squirmed from under him. I almost regained my feet. He got up on one knee.
He was trying to draw his sword. Then again I bore into him, kicking and
tearing. He roared like a bull. And ignoring my plucking fingers, my flailing
fists, he lunged to his feet with me gripping again at his throat.
His huge height swung me off the ground. I was aware that he had drawn his
sword, but I was too close for him to use it. He swayed drunkenly with my
weight; he was confused. I felt the rail behind us. We lunged again into it.
Again I heard Hope scream in terror, and saw her leap at us. Rohbar stooped,
trying to clutch the low rail. His bending down brought my feet to the

balcony floor. With a last despairing effort I shoved him backward. And as
he toppled at the rail, I fought to break his hold upon me. I felt us going and
then I felt Hope reach me. Her arms flung about my waist. Her hold tore me
loose. Rohbar's huge body fell away....
For an instant Rohbar seemed balanced upon the rail; then he went over. He
gave a last long, agonized scream as he fell. I did not look down. I crouched
by the rail. The crowd in the garden; Derek standing on the other balcony;
the soldiers who now had appeared behind him—all were silent, and in the
silence I heard the horrible thud of Rohbar's body as it struck....
I clung to Hope for an instant, and she shuddered against me. The scene
broke again into chaos. I cast Hope away and leaped up. I stood at the
balcony rail. My arms went up and gestured to Derek. Amazement was on
his face, but he answered my gesture. Behind him the soldiers who had come
to seize him were standing in a group, stricken at this new tragedy.
Derek swung on them. He was not powerless now! "Away with you!"
His cylinder menaced them, and they fell back in terror before him.
He darted past them and disappeared into the castle.
I felt Hope plucking at me. "I want to talk to the people."
She stood beside me, leaning over the rail. Gentle little figure. Familiar
figure to them all. Their beloved Hope. Her voice rang out clearly through
the hush.
"My people, we all want our beloved Alexandre—he has come back to us.
He is our rightful king."
"King Alexandre! Long live King Alexandre!"
Derek in a moment appeared behind us. "My God, Charlie, I can't
understand—"
I told him how I had done it. He gripped me. "I'll never be able to repay you
for this!"
I pushed him forward and he joined Hope at the rail. Held her, and her arms
went around his neck as she returned his kisses. The crowd gaped, then

cheered.
I shouted, "Hope will be your queen—The reign of the crimson nobles is at
an end!"
The wild cheering of the people, in which now the castle guards were
joining, surged up to mingle with my words.

CHAPTER XII
One Tumultuous Night

I come now with very little more to record.
I returned to my own world. And Derek stayed in his. Each to his own; one
may rail at this allotted portion—but he does not lightly give it up.
The scientists who have examined the mechanism with which I returned
very naturally are skeptical of me. Derek feared a further communication
between his world, and mine. He smiled his quiet smile.
"Your modern world is very aggressive, Charlie. I would not want to chance
having my mechanism duplicated—a conquering army coming in here."
And so he adjusted the apparatus to carry me back and then go dead. I have
wires and electrodes to show in support of my narrative. But since they will
not operate I cannot blame my hearers for smiling in derision.
Yet there is some contributing evidence. Derek Mason has vanished. A
watchman in an office building near Battery Park reports that at dawn of that
June morning he heard splintering glass. He found the office door with its
broken panel, and the ax lying on the hall floor. He even thinks he saw a
ghost stretched out by the window. But he is laughed at for saying it.
And there is still another circumstance. If you will trouble to examine the
newspaper files of that time, you will find an occurrence headed
"Inexplicable Tragedy at Battery Park." You will read that near dawn that
morning, the bodies of three men in crimson cloaks came hurtling down
through the air and fell in the street near where several taxis were parked.
Strange, unidentified men. Of extraordinary aspect. The flesh burned,
perhaps. All three were dead; the bodies were mangled by falling some
considerable height.
An inexplicable tragedy. Why should anyone believe that they were the three
crimson nobles whom Derek attacked with his strange ray?

I am only Charles Wilson, clerk in a Wall Street brokerage office. If you met
me, you would find me a very average, prosaic sort of fellow. You would
never think that deeds of daring were in my line at all. Yet I have lived this
one strange tumultuous night, and I shall always cherish the memory.

The Stolen Mind

By M. L. Staley

The structure, pivoting downward, plunged Quest to his waist in
the osmotic solution.

"What caused you to answer our advertisement?" Owen
Quest felt the steel of the quick gray eyes that jabbed like What would you do,
if, like Quest, you
gimlets across the office table. were tricked, and
your very Mind and
"Why does any man apply for a job?" he bristled. Will stolen from
your body?
Keane Clason gave an impatient smile.
"Come!" he said. "I'm not trying to snare you. But there were unusual
features to my ad, and they were put there to attract an unusual type of man.
To judge your qualifications, I must know just why this proposition appeals
to you."
"I can tell you that," nodded Quest, "but there's nothing unusual about it. In
the first place, I knew that the Clason Research Corporation is the leading
concern of its kind in the country. In the second place, this seemed to offer a
way to obtain a substantial sum of money quickly."
"Good," said Clason. "And you feel that you have all the necessary
qualifications?"
"Decidedly. I am 24 years old, athletic, and of an earnest and determined
nature. Moreover, I have no family ties, and I'm willing to run any
reasonable risk in order to improve the condition of my fellow men."
Clason smiled his approval.
"You say you need money. How much immediately?"
Quest was unprepared for the question.
"A thousand dollars," he ventured.
Without hesitation Clason counted out ten one-hundred-dollar notes from his
wallet and laid them on the table.
"There's your advance fee. You're ready to go to work immediately, I hope?"
"Certainly," stammered Quest.
Stunned by the swiftness of the transaction, he sat staring at the money that
lay untouched before him.

To accept it would be like signing an unread contract. But he had asked for
it; to refuse it was impossible. Even to delay about picking it up might
arouse Clason's suspicion. Already the latter had turned away and was
opening the door of a steel cabinet. Quest had one second in which to reach a
decision.... He crammed the currency into his pocket.

With delicate care Clason set two objects on the table. One looked to Quest
like a miniature broadcasting tower or a mooring mast for lighter than air
craft. The other was a circular vat of some black material, probably carbon.
Within it a series of concentric tissues were suspended from metal rings, and
in a trough outside ranged four stoppered flasks containing liquids of as
many different colors.
"Look at these models carefully," said Clason. "They represent two of the
most remarkable discoveries of all time. The one on your left is the most
destructive weapon known to man. The other I consider the most
constructive discovery in the history of science. It may even lead to an
understanding of the nature of life, and of the future of the spirit after death.
"Both of these were developed by my brother Philip and me together—but
we have disagreed about the use to which they shall be put.
"Philip"—the inventor dropped his voice to a whisper—"wants to sell the
secret of the Death Projector—the tower, there—as an instrument of war. If I
should permit him to do that, it might lead to the destruction of whole
nations!"
"How?" demanded Quest "I've heard of a device called the Death Ray. Is this
it?"
"No, no," said Clason contemptuously. "Even in a perfected state the Ray
would be a child's toy compared to the Projector. This is based on our
discovery that invisible light rays of a certain wave-length, if highly
concentrated, destroy life—and our additional discovery that if these are
synchronized with short radio waves the effect is absolutely devastating.

"We obtain the desired concentration of invisible light by using a tellurium
current-filter under the influence of alternate flashes of red and blue light.
The projector can literally blanket vast areas with death, up to a top range of
at least five hundred miles.
"Just picture to yourself what this means! In a space of ten minutes two men
can lay down a circle of destruction a thousand miles in diameter; or they
can cut a swath five hundred miles long in any desired direction."

"Have you ever proved it?" demanded Quest skeptically.
"Yes, young man, we have," snapped Clason. "Right here in the laboratory—
but on a minute scale, of course. However, there's no time to demonstrate
now. The point is that my brother is determined to sell if he can obtain his
price for the invention. He argues that instead of bringing disaster upon the
world, this machine will forever discourage war by making it too terrible for
any civilized nation to consider. In spite of my opposition he has opened
negotiations with an ambitious Balkan power. He may actually close the sale
at any moment!
"However," Clason drew a deep breath "you see this other device? Simple as
it appears, it is the key to the whole situation. We can use it—you and I—to
overcome Philip's will and prevent this unthinkable transaction. The two of
us can do it. Alone I would be virtually helpless."
"Why not have the Projector confiscated or destroyed by our own
Government?" suggested Quest. "That seems to me the only safe and sure
way out of the difficulty."
"You simply do not understand," frowned Clason impatiently. "Philip is
selling the plans and descriptions of the machine, not the machine itself.
Even if this model and the larger test machine that we have built were
destroyed—even if I were willing to have Philip sent to Leavenworth for life
—he could still sell the Projector.
"But this other invention, our Osmotic Liberator, makes it possible for me to
gain control of Philip and actually change his mind, through the medium of

an agent. I have hired you to act as my Agent, Quest, because I can see that
you are a young man of unusual character and vitality. And by way of
reward I can promise you both money and a brilliant future."

The inventor poised in a tense attitude on the edge of his chair as though his
body were charged with electricity. His eyes seemed to dart out emanations
that set Quest's blood to tingling. Then for a moment the latter lost
consciousness of his physical self. It was as though he had opened a door
and found himself suddenly on the brink of a new and totally strange world.
He dispelled this fancy by a quick effort of the will, for he knew that he had
a delicate problem on his hands and that it must be solved within a very few
minutes. However he proceeded, he must act without disloyalty to his
Government, and at the same time without injustice to Keane Clason.
"Tell me," he said in a husky voice, "how do you intend to use me? I do not
believe in Spiritualism. I would be a poor medium."
Clason gave a short laugh.
"You are not to be a medium in that sense at all. Spiritualism as practiced is
just a blind sort of groping and hoping. Osmotic Liberation, on the other
hand, is an exact and opposite physico-chemical science. Here—I will show
you."
Into the outer cell of the Liberator he emptied the purple vial, and so on to
the innermost, which he filled with a golden-green liquid like old
Chartreuse.
"The separating membranes, you understand, are permeable by these
complicated solutions. Each liquid has a different osmotic pressure and
therefore should, under normal conditions, interchange with the others
through the membranes until all pressures are equalized. I prevent such
interchange, however, by maintaining an anti-electrolysis which retards
ionization and thus builds up what might be called osmotic potential.

"Now if an Agent—yourself for instance—submerges himself in the central
cell, at the same time maintaining a physical contact with his Control at the
surface of the liquid, and if then the osmotic potential is suddenly released
by throwing the electrolytic switch, the host of ions thus turned loose in the
outer compartments make one grand rush for the center solution, which
contains the cathode.
"Under these conditions your body becomes a sort of sixth cell, and your
skin another membrane in the series. Properly speaking, however, you are
not a part of the electrolytic circuit but are merely present in the action. Your
body acts as a catalyser, hastening the chemical action without itself being
affected in any way. Physically you undergo no change whatever; but in
some strange way which is, like life, beyond analysis, your mind flows out
into the solution, while your unaltered body remains at the bottom of the
tank in a state of suspended animation.
"If no Control is present, all that is needed to return your mind into your
body is a throw of the electrolytic switch back to negative, whereupon you
emerge from the tank exactly as you entered it. But with your Control
present and in contact with your submerged body, your mind, instead of
remaining suspended in the solution, flows instantly into his body and
resides there subject to his will.
"This can not be done, however, unless the wills of Control and Agent have
first been brought into accord. To accomplish that, we clasp hands"—Quest
grasped Clason's extended hand—"and look steadily into each other's eyes.
"Now, it is well known that the vibrations of an individual's will are as
distinctive as the sworls of his finger-prints. What is not so well known is
that the frequency of vibration in one person can be brought into accord with
that in another.

"You consciously retract your will by concentrating your mind upon the
thing which you know I wish to accomplish. Gradually while we continue in
this position your vibrations speed up or slow down until they acquire
exactly the same frequency as my own. We are then in accord, and when

your mind is liberated in the tank it is in a state which admits absorption into
my body. And it is subject to my will because you have purposely attuned it
to my peculiar frequency. Immediately after the transfer there will be a brief
conflict, due to the instinctive desire of your will to obtain the ascendancy.
But of course mine will gain the upper hand at once, since both wills will be
in my frequency."
Quest felt, rather than saw, a wall of alarm closing in on him. He tried to
avert his eyes, to withdraw his hand from Clason's grasp. With a nostalgic
pang in the pit of his stomach he suddenly realized that he could not do so.
He had gone too far—farther than any man in his position had a right to go.
Having deliberately weakened his will, it seemed now to have deserted him
entirely. A prickling sensation coursed up his spine, his extended arm went
numb, his hand trembled violently.
"Splendid!" said Clason, suddenly releasing both eye and hand. "Just as I
foresaw, you will be able to attune yourself to my vibration-frequency with
hardly an effort. Now please remain seated; I'll be back in a moment."

For a second after the door closed, Quest remained slumped in his chair.
Then he was on his feet, shaking himself like a wet dog to free himself from
the spell under which he had fallen. Something about Clason attracted and at
the same time repelled him, fraying his nerves like an irritant drug and
confusing his mind at the moment when he needed the full alertness of every
faculty.
Invisible light—disembodied minds—will vibrations! Nothing there to get
hold of. Were these things real or imaginary? Was Keane Clason a great
inventor, or a madman? Would Philip prove to be a real or an imaginary
scoundrel? Should he summon help, or go on alone?
Professional pride said: wait, don't be an alarmist! With his knuckles Quest
tapped the table, half expecting it to melt under his fingers. The feeling and
sound of the contact gave him a peculiar start. On the farther end of the table
stood a letter-box—an invitation. From his pocket Quest snatched a slip of
paper, and wrote:

6 stroke 4—9:45A—Hired. If no report in 48 hours, clamp down hard.

To address a stamped envelope and slip it in with the outgoing mail was the
work of seconds. But he was none too quick. He had just dropped back into
a lounging attitude when the door burst open and Clason flew into the room?
"We must act instantly," hissed the inventor. "Philip plans to close the
transaction within a day."
In spite of himself, Quest jumped upright in his chair. Clason tapped him on
the shoulder reassuringly.
"It's all right," he smiled, "I'm ready for him. We'll make our move this
afternoon and beat him by eighteen hours.
"Let's see." He paused. "Oh! yes. I was about to explain to you that as soon
as the will of the Agent enters the body of his Control, the latter can again
transfer it into the body of still another person.
"Now you understand why I advertised for a man of exceptional character?
As my Agent, I want you to enter the body of Philip, and your will must be
strong enough to conquer his in the battle for mastery which will begin the
instant you intrude into his body. You will still be under my control, but your
will must be strong enough on its own merits to overcome his. I can direct
you, but your strength must be your own. That's clear, isn't it?"

"I think so," said Quest slowly. "But what becomes of me after you have
frustrated Philip's plot?"
"That's the easy part of the process," smiled Clason; "but naturally you feel
some anxiety about it. I simply withdraw your will from Philip, return it to
your own body, and pay you a reward of ten thousand dollars."
"You're sure you can?"
"Perfectly. I have merely to touch Philip's hand to recapture your will. Then I
immerse myself in the tank with the switch at plus. The osmotic action will
extract both wills momentarily from my body. But the presence of two

bodies and two wills in the solution together forces a balance, and each will
seeks out and enters its own body. Then you and I climb out of the tank
exactly as we are this minute."
"If it weren't for my belief that anything is possible," Quest shook his head,
"I'd say that your claims for this invention were ridiculous."
"And you couldn't be blamed," admitted Clason readily. "This toy of a model
is hardly convincing. But come along with me and I'll show you how the
Liberator looks in actual operation."

The office rug concealed a trap door which gave upon a spiral stair. Below,
Clason unlocked another door and led the way through a narrow and
tremendously long passage lighted at intervals by small electric bulbs.
Presently another door yielded to the inventor's deft touch and closed behind
them with a portentous chug. Here the darkness was so utter and intense that
Quest imagined he could feel the weight of it on his shoulders. From the
slope of the passageway and the muffled beat of machinery that had come to
his ears on the way along, he guessed that he was below ground in some
chamber at the rear of the factory.
He gave a low exclamation as Clason switched on the toplight. No wonder
the darkness had seemed of almost supernatural quality! Even the hard white
glare of the daylight arc was grisly. Its rays rebounded from the liquids of
the great circular tank in a blinding dazzle of color, while the dull black
walls and ceiling were so perfectly absorptive that beyond arm's length they
became to all effects invisible. Even the ledge on which he stood—the
shoulder of the vat—gave Quest the feeling that to move would be to step
off into a bottomless pit.
But Clason took his attention at once, pointing here and there in his quick,
nervous way to indicate how faithfully the Liberator had been reproduced
from the model. In all respects the arrangements were the same, with the
addition that here a long plank like a spring-board extended out from a wall-
mount as far as the central compartment of the tank, and that from its end a
narrow ladder hung down to the surface of the Chartreuse liquid. A double-

throw switch fixed to the wall above the base of the plank was evidently the
source of electrolytic control.
"When you throw the switch to plus," said Clason, pointing to the chalk-
marked sign above, "you produce the violent electrolytic action needed to
bring about a liberation. All the rest of the time it should be closed at minus,
in order to maintain the anti-action which I explained to you.
"Now let's rehearse, so that when the time for the real performance arrives
we can be sure of running it off without a hitch."
"All right, sir," nodded Quest, so dazed by the glittering light that he was
hardly conscious of what he said.

"First," said Clason, running lightly up the steps to the plank, "you walk out
to the end, like this, and start down the ladder. Then you lower yourself into
the tank. The liquid is at body temperature; it's neither strongly acid nor
caustic; it will cause you no injury or discomfort whatever.
"Meanwhile I keep in contact with your hand until the instant that you
become submerged. Now your mind is in me, see?—ready for transfer into
Philip, where it will act as my Agent. That's how simple it is! Come on up
and we'll go through the motions."
Quest experienced a shiver as he mounted the bridge. Annoyed with himself,
he shrugged the feeling off. There was no risk here. Moreover, it was a part
of his daily work to take chances; he had done so a hundred times without
hesitation. Now he moved all the more quickly, as if to belie the
squeamishness that possessed him in spite of himself.
Swinging past Clason on the plank, he lowered himself without a pause to
the bottom rung of the ladder, while the inventor, hanging head down,
maintained contact with him.
"No need to stay here," he said in sudden irritation. "I understand perfectly
what I am to do."

"I'm testing my own acrobatic ability," grunted Clason amiably. "Just a
minute now."
He wriggled as if trying to adjust himself to a better balance, but in reality to
mask the motion of his free hand with which he reached up and pressed a
button in the side of the plank. Instantly the structure, pivoting downward on
its wall-socket, plunged Quest to his waist in the osmotic solution.
"For God's sake get out of the way!" he shouted, trying to wrench his hand
out of Clason's sinewy grip. "Let go, I tell you!"
But Clason clung like a leech, his teeth gritted under the strain. Again the
plank lurched downward, and with a violent splash Quest vanished below
the surface.
Quick as a cat, Clason scrambled up the ladder and back to the base of the
plank, where he erased and interchanged the chalk-marked signs with which
he had misled Quest. Then with a sinister twist of a smile he threw the
switch to minus, and turned to watch as the plank slowly righted itself and
the vacant ladder came clear of the liquid.
For some time he stood staring at the gleaming colored rings of his
dissociation-vat like some witch over her cauldron, his lips working, his
hands clasping and unclasping like the tentacles of some sub-sea monster.
Then, as if the spell had suddenly broken, he turned on his heel and switched
off the light. As he hastened down the passageway toward his office, the
airlock sucked the door against its jamb with an ominous whistle.

In a twinkling, as Quest's shackled spirit writhed in its new housing, he knew
that he was in bondage to a scoundrel. Formless and voiceless, he still fought
madly for the freedom which the instinct of ten thousand generations made
necessary to him.
At the same time he was furious at himself for having been tricked like an
innocent schoolboy. The plank socket, the button which had tripped the
supporting spring, the fake rehearsal, the tuning of his will to that of Clason
—step by step the whole cunning scheme unfolded itself to him now.

But what could be the purpose behind this villainy? Only one answer seemed
possible. Keane must be the one bent on selling the Death Projector, Philip
the one who wished to frustrate the fiendish transaction! And Quest of the
Secret Service—he was to be the tool to force the sale.
With the soundless scream of rage Quest's will hurled itself against Keane's.
The two met like infuriated bulls, and for an instant too brief to be pictured
as a lapse of time they poised immovable. But two wills can not exist on
equal terms in a single body, and in this case the vibration of both was that
of Clason. Quest had challenged the Master Will. He could do no more. It
hurled him back, crushed him like foam, compressed him to the proportions
of an atom in the background of his consciousness. So brief and unequal was
the conflict that in the next breath Clason had all but forgotten the presence
of the stolen will within him. When he was ready to use his Agent, that
would be time enough to summon him!
Despite this suppression, Quest began to see dimly through strange eyes, and
to hear vaguely with ears that were not his own. Feelers, tentacles, some
intangible kind of conduits carried thought impulses to him from the Master
Will. He received these impressions vividly, but those which he gave off in
return were so weak, due to the subjection of his will, that Clason was
entirely unconscious of any response. Quest was not enough of a scientist to
be astonished at the ability of a disembodied mind to experience sense
impressions in the body of another. He was only glad that the darkness and
silence were growing less. Very, very slowly he was awakening to a new
kind of consciousness—the consciousness of another person's Self. He hated
and loathed that Self, yet it was better than the awful blankness that had
gone before.

Suddenly, as light grew brighter and sound more clear and definite, a new
element entered—the element of hope. At first it was feeble: its only
suggestion was that sometime, somehow, he might escape this prison. But it
was like water to a parched plant. It caused his will to expand, to extend its
feelers, to press up a little more bravely against the crushing pile of the
Master Will.

Now another surprise sprang upon him. He was moving! That is, Clason's
body was moving in some kind of a conveyance, which was threading its
way through crowded streets. Stores, buildings, buses, people—Quest
remembered them all distantly as things he had known thousands of years
ago. The driver turned his head, and his profile seemed vaguely familiar.
Now a rush of foreign thoughts drowned out his own. They were a sort of
overflow from the mind of Clason. They thronged along the conduits that
bound the two wills together, but only Quest was conscious of the
movement.
Keane's mind was on his brother Philip: that much was particularly clear.
And there was something about a telephone call. Yes, Keane had telephoned
to the police, disguising his voice, refusing to divulge his name. He had said
that a man by the name of Philip Clason was in trouble and had told them
where to find him. Then the police had telephoned the factory, and Keane
had pretended astonishment and alarm at the news. That's why he was here
now—he was on the way to confer with the police. And he was chuckling—
chuckling because he had fooled Quest and the police, and because now the
hundred million dollars was almost in his grasp.
Cutting in close, the car turned a corner and drew up before one of a row of
loft buildings in a section of the city which Quest failed to recognize. As
Clason stepped to the sidewalk, Quest was more painfully aware than ever of
his powerlessness to influence by so much as the twitch of a muscle the
behavior of this hostile body in which he had permitted himself to be
trapped. In his weakness he felt himself shrinking, contracting almost to
nothingness under the careless pressure of the Master Will.

Clason glanced casually at his watch, and three men converged toward him
from as many directions. There was nothing to distinguish them from anyone
else in the street, but along the conduits it came to Quest that they were
detectives and that they were there by appointment with Keane Clason.
"What floor?" asked the latter, with an excitement which Quest felt instantly
was pure pretense. "Are you sure they haven't spirited him away?"

"Don't worry," replied the leader of the detectives. "The alley and roof are
covered. We'll take care of the rest ourselves."
On tiptoe they climbed three long flights of stairs in the half-light. Clason
held back as if in fear. He was a good actor, and Quest felt the shrinking and
hesitation of his body as he crouched and slunk along in the wake of the
detectives, pretending terror at what was about to happen, though he knew—
and Quest knew he knew—that there would be no resistance up there—that
Philip would be found alone exactly as he had been left by Keane's hired
thugs.
On the top landing Burke, the leader, paused to count the doors from front to
rear.
"This is it," he whispered to the bull-necked fellow just behind him.
The other nodded, and crouched back against the opposite wall while his
companions placed themselves in position to cross-fire into the room the
moment the door gave way.

Quest longed for the power to kick his hypocrite of a master as he still held
back, cowering on the stairs, playing his fake to the limit. Then the door flew
in with a splintering shriek under the charge of the human battering ram, and
across it hurtled the other two detectives in a cloud of ancient dust.
"Here he is!" someone shouted.
"Phil! Phil!" Keane Clason's voice fairly quavered with sham emotion as he
ran into the room and threw himself at a man tightly bound to an upholstered
chair, which in turn was wedged in among other articles of stored furniture.
But Philip was too securely gagged to reply, and as Burke slashed the ropes
from across his chest he dropped forward in a state of collapse. Stretched on
a couch, he soon gave signs of response as a brisk massage began to restore
the circulation to his cramped limbs. Suddenly he sat up and thrust his
rescuers aside.
"What time is it?" he demanded with an air of alarm.

"One o'clock," replied Keane before anyone else could answer, patting his
brother affectionately on the shoulder while within him Quest writhed with
indignation. "By Jove! Phil, it's wonderful that we got to you in time. Really,
how—you're not injured?"
"No," grunted Philip, "just lamed up. I'll be as fit as ever by to-morrow."
"If you feel equal to it," suggested Burke, "I wish you'd tell me briefly how
you arrived here. Do you know the motive behind this affair? Did you
recognize any of the body-snatchers?"

Philip frowned and shook his head.
"Yesterday noon," he said slowly, "I took the eight-passenger Airline
Express to Cleveland on business. There were three other passengers in the
cabin—two men and a woman. Right away I got out a correspondence file
and was running over some letters. The next thing I knew I was approaching
the ground in the strangest state of mind I ever experienced. My head was
splitting, and everything looked unreal to me. Seemed as if I was coming
down on some new planet."
"You mean the ship was gliding down to land?"
"No, no. I was dangling from a parachute.... By the way, where am I now?"
"In a Munson Avenue loft."
"In Chicago?"
Burke nodded.
"I guessed as much," frowned Philip. "You see, I came down in a field, and
then before I could free myself from my trappings I was pounced on—
trussed up and blindfolded—by a gang of men. I knew they had taken me a
long distance by automobile, but I saw nothing more until they tore the
blindfold from my eyes when they left me here."
"And they were all strangers to you?"

"Yes—those that I saw."
"Isn't this enough for just now, Burke?" interrupted Keane, and Quest
received an impression of uneasiness that was not apparent in the inventor's
tone. "After a good rest he's sure to recall things that escape him now."
"Just one minute," nodded the detective, turning back to Philip. "Can you
think of no plausible reason for this attack? Is there no one who might
possibly benefit by putting you temporarily out of the way?"
Philip gave a frightened start. Then he was on his feet, clutching at his
brother's arm.
"Keane!" he pleaded, "Keane! What's happened? I know, I know! It's the
Projector."
"Water!" roared Keane, and Quest felt the panic that coursed through him as
he tried to drown out his brother. "Somebody bring water! He needs it!"
At the same time he snatched up Philip's hand in a grip of steel. Instantly the
latter's wild eyes became calm, the flush passed from his relaxing face, and
he slumped down weakly on the couch.

In that fleeting moment Quest surged into the body of Philip and confronted
his will with a fierce and triumphant ardor. For now his will would have
command of a body with which to fight his fiend of a Control.
With a sensation of contempt he met Philip's resistance and buffeted him
ruthlessly backward, crushed down and compressed his feebly struggling
will. And as Philip yielded, Quest felt his own will expanding to normal,
taking possession of the borrowed body with hungry greed, and flashing
from its faded eyes the spark of youth.
Burke stared in amazement at the kaleidoscopic rapidity of the changes in
the rescued man's expression. Strange lights and shadows continued to flit
across Philip's face as Quest's invasion of him proceeded, but with a
diminishing frequency which soon assured Keane that his Agent was
tightening his command.

The younger of Burke's aides stood fascinated, his mouth agape. The other
spoke guardedly to his superior:
"Dope, eh!"
"Nah!" replied Burke, shrugging himself out of his trance. "Shock."
The actual duration of the conflict in Philip was something less than three
seconds. It would have been more brief if Quest had exerted himself to the
utmost. But his sensations as he first surged into this new habitat under
Keane's propulsion were so weird and unearthly that for the moment he was
lost in the wonder of the experience. For that short time, therefore, Philip
was able to fight back against the onrush of the invading will.
In the next second Quest became conscious of the resistance. Urged on by
his Control, he must push Philip back and quell him; but his sympathy for
his opponent and his hatred of Keane roused him to sudden revolt. He
wanted to disobey the Master Will, retreat, leave Philip in command of
himself. But he could only go on, unwillingly thrusting back Philip's will
despite the indescribable torment and confusion in his own. Then, with the
feeling that he was ten times worse than the most inhuman ghoul, he took
full possession of his borrowed body.
"I'll take him home now," said Keane composedly to Burke. "As you see, he
needs a little extra sleep. Meanwhile, if you have any occasion to call me, I
will be at the factory."

To the youthful mind of the Agent, used to the lightness of an athletic
physique, the body in which it moved down the stairs to the limousine
seemed strangely heavy and awkward.
"I'm badly done up, Keane," he said with Philip's lips as the car got under
way.
"Bah!" snorted Keane, "you've had a scare, that's all. Go to bed when you get
home and sleep till nine this evening. At ten a man named Dr. Nukharin will

call for you. He will drive you to a garage, leave the car, and transfer to
another one a few blocks away.
"Out near Marbleton you will find an airplane staked in an open field.
Nukharin is a capable pilot. He will fly back southeast along the lakeshore to
the meeting place. You should arrive about twelve-thirty. The test is set for
one o'clock."
Quest listened in a state of abject rage. Lacking the power to resist his
Control, he could only boil away in Philip's body like a wild creature
hemmed in by bars of steel.
"Bring with you," continued Keane venomously, "the set of papers that you
took from the safe in my office. Hold the other set in readiness to deliver to
Nukharin to-morrow, after he has studied the results of the test and has
notified Paris to release a hundred million dollars in cash for delivery at your
Loop office at 3 p. m."
The murderous greed of the man maddened Quest. He tried to revolt, his will
squirming like a physical thing, threshing the ether like a wounded shark in
the sea. For a moment he felt that he was about to burst the bonds that his
demon of a Control had woven around him. So violently did he resist that
the immured and sporelike will of Philip forged up fitfully out of the
blackness and joined his in the hopeless struggle. But along the attenuated
conduits that still chained Quest to the Master Will Keane caught the
impulse of the mutiny, and his eyes darted flame as he countered with a will-
shock that paralyzed his unruly Agent.
"Listen! you whimpering dog," he snarled. "Think as I tell you—and nothing
more! You are going to apologize to Dr. Nukharin for your previous
unwillingness to sell the Projector. You are going to tell him that I am at fault
—that I held out—but that you found a way to force my compliance. You
understand?"
Quest could find no words. With Philip's head he nodded meekly. Just then
the car stopped and the chauffeur threw open the door.

Dr. Nukharin flew high despite the masses of cumulus cloud which
frequently reduced visibility to zero. He had merely to follow the rim of the
lake to his destination, and an occasional glimpse of the water was sufficient
to hold him on his course.
In the back seat hunched Philip, his body crumbling under the weight of
Quest's despair. For hours the latter had gone on vaguely, hoping somehow
to thwart this horrible transaction that was rushing the world to its doom,
thinking he might grow strong enough to wrench himself free and so liberate
Philip from the dominance of his conscienceless brother. Even though such a
move should leave his own will forever separate from his body, he was ready
and anxious to make the sacrifice.
Suddenly the crash of the motor ceased and Nukharin banked the ship up in
a spiral glide. Quest had never been in the air before, and the long whirl
down into the darkness on this devil's errand was to him as eery as a ride to
perdition in a white-hot projectile.
His mind seemed to trail out in a great nebular helix behind the descending
ship. He felt that he had suddenly crossed some cosmic meridian into a new
plane of existence, where he was changed to a gas, yet continued capable of
thought. But even here his obsession remained the same. Keane Clason—
trickster, traitor, arch-criminal—must be destroyed!
"I'll get him!" vowed Quest in words that were no less real for being
soundless. "I'll trail him to the end of space and bring him to account!"

Then wheels touched earth and the cold, bare facts of his destiny rushed in
on him with redoubled force. He felt the nearness of his Control seconds
before he perceived him through the eyes of Philip. With a sensation like a
stab he realized that now he must speak, play his part, be any bloodless
hypocrite that Keane Clason chose to make him. The silent order surged
down the conduits promptly enough; he responded as an automaton obeys
the pressure of a button.
"Well, Doctor," chuckled Philip with a cunning leer, "here's the magic tower,
just as I promised you. We'll run it up in a jiffy. This test is going to be so

vivid and conclusive that not even a hard-headed skeptic like you can raise a
question."
"You misunderstand me," returned Nukharin in an injured tone. "So far as I
am concerned this procedure is only a formality, but it is none the less
necessary. Suppose that I should spend a hundred million of my
government's money and the purchase prove worthless? You may guess that
my folly would cost me dear."
Keane Clason was waiting on the platform of a giant truck, the motor of
which was idling. All the apparatus was in readiness except that the three
demountable sections of the tower had yet to be run up into position.
"One of the beauties of the D. P.," said Philip gleefully to the Doctor, while
Keane smiled slyly to himself, "is that this pint-size dynamo provides all the
current needed for the test. We pick the power for our radio right out of the
air by means of a wave trap and mensurator invented by this bright little
brother of mine," and he clapped Keane patronizingly on the back.
"Yes, ah—Dr. Nukharin," ventured Keane timidly, and at that moment Quest
experienced the raging red hatred that causes men to murder. "Philip has
promised me that you will employ this device only as a threat to hold the
ambitions of the larger powers in check."
"Of course, of course!" replied the Doctor heartily. "But now let's have the
test. Even at night I'm not too fond of these open-air performances."

The height of the tower as they ran the upper sections into place was forty
feet. When all connections had been inspected, first by Keane, then by
Philip, the former led Nukharin aloft.
As the climax of his plot approached, Keane's excitement bordered on a
cataleptic state, hints of which came confusedly through the conduits to
Quest. With a peculiar satisfaction he felt that Keane was suffering. The
inventor's jaws became rigid, as though his blood had changed to liquid air
and frozen him, and he had difficulty in controlling the movements of his
arms.

Now he was afraid! Genuinely afraid, this time. Quest caught the impulse
too clearly to doubt its meaning. This was no sham! Keane was doubting his
own machine, fearing that in the crisis some element in the finely calculated
mechanism might fail to operate, thus cheating him of the blood-money on
which his heart was set. Then he was speaking, and even Nukharin noticed
the tremor in his voice:
"These nine tubes, which look like a row of gun barrels, are molded from
silicon paste. Each shoots a beam of invisible light and a radio dart of
precisely the same wave length. The destructive effect depends chiefly upon
this exactness of synchronization."
"A question occurs to me," said the Doctor: "will others be able to
manipulate the machine as successfully as you can?"
"It's fool-proof," chattered Keane, almost losing control of his voice,
"absolutely fool-proof. Surely you have scientists in your country who can
follow written directions! Nothing more is necessary."
"Very well," shrugged Nukharin. "I only want to be sure that no unforeseen
difficulties may arise in an emergency."
"See this range-setter?" continued Keane. "The thread on the vertical shaft
enables us not only to limit the range by angling the beams into the ground,
but it can also be disengaged and the Projector revolved in a flat circle for
maximum ranges."
"And is there no danger of the machine going wrong—of destroying itself
and us?" suggested Nukharin.
"None whatever, Doctor. There is no explosive force and no great electrical
voltage involved. As long as we stand back of the muzzles we have nothing
to fear.
"Now look. I have set the micrometer at three hundred yards, which will just
about cover the stretch between ourselves and the lake. I will cut a swath for
you—and every bush, every blade of grass, every insect in this swath will be
withered to ash in the twinkling of an eye. The destruction will be absolute."
"Please proceed," said Nukharin grimly.

Keane pulled a lever in its slot, then pressed it down into its lock as his
projection battery swung lakeward at the desired angle. Then with one hand
poised on another lever, he pressed an electric button.
At the controls below, a bulb flashed on and off. The signal was superfluous,
for already Quest had received his silent command from the Master Will. An
icy dread fastened on him. He must obey the unspoken command; he had no
will of his own with which to resist. The test would be a success; the
Projector would be sold; the world would be turned into a shambles. And he,
Owen Quest, would be the destroyer, the murderer, the weak fool who made
this horror possible.
All this flashed through the Agent's mind in the fraction of a second that it
took him to extend Philip's hand, close the switch of the dynamo, and snap
on the alternating lights in the housing over the tellurium filter.
For an interminable five seconds he waited, in a ferment of revolt which the
paralysis of his will made it impossible to put into action. Then again the
command pulsed within him, the signal bulb flashed, and he reversed his
motions of the moment before.
Cold sweat cascaded down Philip's face as Quest felt the ladder vibrating
under descending feet. He longed for the power to hurl Keane Clason to the
ground and turn the Projector upon him. But with an awful irony the Master
Will forced him to his feet, and to speak in a tone that withered the manhood
within him.
"Come," said Philip in a triumphant tone to Nukharin, "and I will show you
that Clason inventions perform as well as they sound."
Flashlight in hand, he started toward the lake with Nukharin and his brother
close behind him. Twenty paces, and the long meadow grass suddenly
vanished from beneath their feet.
"See that!" whispered Philip excitedly, waving the light from side to side to
show the forty-foot swath that stretched away before them. "Not a trace of
life left, not a blade of grass—nothing but dust!"
The only response was a gurgling sound that issued from Nukharin's throat.

"Look!" Quest formed the word with Philip's lips under the urge of the
Master Will. "Here was a tall bush. What do you see now? Just a teaspoonful
of ash. When you examine the remains by daylight, you will find that even
the root has disintegrated to a depth of two feet."
"Enough of this," croaked Nukharin in horror. "The deal is closed."
His face was convulsed with fear. Without another word he whirled about
and fled toward his airplane. Philip gave a start as if to follow.
"Halt! you slob," growled Keane, whose composure had returned with the
successful outcome of the test. "I have use for your company, even though
you are as great a coward as our Slavic friend."
Coward! The epithet stung Quest like a flaming goad. One of the fine,
intangible lines that bound him under the will of Keane Clason severed, and
his own will exploded into action like a thunderbolt. With startling agility he
whirled Philip about, the flashlight clubbed in his hand. But Keane was
quicker still. A clip on the wrist sent the weapon flying. Then Philip reeled
backward from a kick in the stomach, and his clutching hands beat the air as
he sank unconscious in the dust.

With a violent tug, Quest lifted Philip's body to a sitting posture. The phone
was ringing, and by the pull on the will-fibers he knew that Keane was at the
other end of the wire. Philip's body was failing under the strain of the part it
was forced to play, and the blow of the night before had further weakened it.
Now he sat rocking his head painfully between his hands. But Quest lifted
him to his feet by sheer will, and he staggered across the room.
"Hello!", he said in a hoarse voice.
"Get the hell out here to the factory!" rasped Keane, and the crash of the
receiver emphasized the command.
It was one o'clock as Philip whirled his sedan into Olmstead Avenue. At
three, reflected Quest as the car scorched over the pavements, he must be at
the downtown office to deliver the papers and receive the money.

Then he was face to face with Keane, reeling dizzily at the hatred that blazed
from the latter's accusing eyes.
"Double-crossed me, eh!" The voice was a low snarl, and as he spoke Keane
thumped the extra outspread on his desk. "But you're not going to get away
with it—neither of you!"
Dismay, hope, dread, wonder robbed Quest of the power to speak. But he
whirled around behind the desk with such unexpected violence that Keane
staggered back in alarm. Then he was devouring the screaming headlines of
the newspaper. Three seconds, like a slow exposure, and every word of the
Record's great scoop was etched upon his mind as if with caustic:

DOOM LAUNCH ADRIFT ON LAKE
Physician Baffled by Condition of Five Bodies Found in Craft
Blighted Area on Shore Said to Have Bearing on Tragedy
THAW HARBOR, IND., June 6.—Five Chicago sportsmen, most of
them prominent in business and society, perished in the early hours this
morning while returning in the launch of A. Gaston Andrews from a
weekend camping party near Hook Spit on the Michigan shore.
The boat was towed into this port at daybreak by the Interlake Tug
Mordecai after being found adrift less than a mile off shore. According
to Captain Goff of the Mordecai the death craft carried no lights and he
barely avoided running her down. The weather along the Indiana shore
was perfect throughout the night and there is nothing to indicate that the
launch was in trouble at any time. The bodies are unmarked, and this
little community is agog with rumors ranging all the way from murder
and suicide to the supernatural.
Dr. J. M. Addis of Thaw Harbor, the first physician to examine the
bodies, says that they appear to have suffered some violent electro-
chemical action the nature of which cannot be determined at the
moment. This statement is considered significant in view of the
reported discovery ashore of a large blighted area almost directly
opposite the point where the launch was found. Joseph Sleichert, a
farmer who lives in that vicinity, reports that this patch of ground

extending back from the lakeshore was completely stripped of
vegetation overnight. He ascribes the damage to some unknown insect
pest. Others say that the condition of the ground indicates that it has
been burned at incinerator temperatures. Nothing is left of the soil but a
blue powder.

Philip faced his brother with eyes that were dull with agony.
"You have made me a murderer!" Quest forced out the words in painful
gasps.
But Keane snapped back at him like a rabid dog.
"You did it—you did it yourself! You tampered with the Projector. You tried
to spoil the test. You changed the range. You tried to kill me, and instead you
killed these others. And you're going to pay—both of you. You hear me?—
you're going to pay!"
His voice mounted the scale to a scream. It was a wail of unreasoning terror,
of the dread of exposure, of the fear that he would fail to collect the fortune
now so nearly in his grasp. The accident that had jarred his well-laid plans
had unnerved him.

Frantically Quest strove to answer him, to explain his utter subjection, as
Agent, to say that if he had possessed the will to oppose or trick him he
would have turned him over to the police, or might even have killed him, at
the very outset. But in his frenzy, Keane had so tightened his control that
Quest was speechless. Now he tried to substitute gesture for words, but
Philip was rooted to the spot like a statue; even his hands were immovable.
He might have remained in this state indefinitely had not Keane's fears
withdrawn his mind from his immediate surroundings. Momentarily he
forgot Quest, Philip—everything but himself and his predicament. And in
the instant that his vigilance relaxed, Quest's enslaved will experienced a
sudden lease of strength and hope. Independently of his Control, he found
that he could move Philip's hand, could take a faltering step.

But now, what to do? How might he fan this feeble spark of volition to
sufficient strength for decisive resistance? The idea came to him: if only he
could place distance between himself and Keane, perhaps with one titanic
effort he might launch himself against the Master Will, take him by surprise,
crush him down, and reverse him to the status of Agent instead of Control.
With infinite effort Quest forced Philip's body step by step across the room.
He must reach that window, get a signal of distress to someone in the street.
But Keane began to sense a mutiny. He followed. He crossed the floor with
slinking, tigerish steps and snaking body. His wet lips writhed back over his
teeth, and his contorted features wove the leer of the abyss. Now as his
Control drew physically near, Quest felt his mite of strength ebbing fast.
Slowly Keane reached up with his clawed fingers and grasped his Agent by
the arm.
"Remember!" he hissed, "if these deaths are traced to us, you break down—
you confess—you take the blame—you paint me lily white—you describe
the cowardly means by which you moulded me to your will—you plead only
for a quick trial and the full penalty of the law. You understand?"
Quest made no reply, but he understood all too well the hideous intention of
his betrayer. What a fool he had been to imagine that Keane Clason would
ever restore him to his body! Philip to the chair, Quest a homeless spirit
wandering in space, and for the body at the bottom of the tank, the brief
regrets of the Department!

A sudden rushing sound filled the air with a sense of action and alarm.
Two—three—four speeding automobiles swung in recklessly to the curb and
shrieked to a standstill under smoking brakes. Men leaped out and deployed
on the run to surround the factory. Keane darted to the door and twisted the
key.
"Come on!" he spat at Philip as he snatched back the rug and threw open the
trap door.

The command galvanized Quest to action. In two bounds he had Philip on
the stairs. A heavy impact rattled the office door just as he dropped the trap
into place over his head. Then, infected with Keane's panic, he was running
down the passageway like mad.
Inside the tank chamber the brilliantly colored rings of liquid flashed back
the rays of the arclight. Half crazed with anxiety, Keane danced on the black
ledge like a monkey on a griddle. His face was ashen, drool ran from his
twisted mouth, his eyes were two black pools of terror.
Again Quest experienced the peculiar sensation which came with the
slackening of control. New hope sprang up in his agonized being as heavy
blows boomed against the air-locked door. Great waves of fear poured along
the conduits, betraying to the Agent the state of mind of his Control. Now
what would Keane do? What could he do? Why, of all places, had he fled
down into this blind burrow?
Thud, thud! Then came a series of sharp reports. Outside, they were trying to
shoot away the deep-sunk disk hinges.
Still the door stood fast, but the fury of the assault on it whipped the faltering
Keane to action. In a bound he was on the platform. With a lightning hand he
threw the switch to plus, starting electrolytic action in the tank. Then he
pressed a button concealed under the edge of the switch-mount and a panel
slid silently aside in the wall, revealing a narrow outlet.

To Quest everything went a flaming red. He might have known that this fox
would have something in reserve—a way of escape when danger threatened!
But his Control gave him no time for independent thought. He forced Quest
to turn Philip's eyes up to his own. Without disconnecting that grip of his
glittering eyes, Keane leaped back to the ledge. Quest felt the silent order:
"Get up on that plank! Dive into the tank! Get back into your own body, let
Philip have his! Then come up—the two of you—and face the music. For I'll
be gone, and your story will sound like the ravings of a maniac."

Quest took an obedient step toward the platform. But at the same instant a
tremendous crash shivered the door. It seemed to unnerve Keane Clason.
With a gasp he sank down upon the steps, his body doubled in pain, his hand
clutching at his heart. Another crash followed, and he shuddered and cried
out.
Instantly Quest felt an expansion of the will. Keane's sudden physical
weakness had loosened his control. Philip's lips worked painfully as Quest
forced him to pause, to disobey the command of the Master Will. In a spasm
of will he fought to wrench himself free from the countless clinging tentacles
of his Control. In great surges, Quest's reviving volition pounded against the
walls of his borrowed body. Now he sought to force this sluggish body back
to the wall, so that he might release the airlock and spring the door. But
Philip seemed to ossify, every cord and muscle of his body frozen to stone
by the conflict that raged within him.
Braced against the wall, Keane was rising slowly to his feet. His seizure was
easing, and so he was able to exert a better pressure upon his rebellious
Agent.
"Come!" he gasped, realizing that he lacked the strength to escape alone and
must therefore change his plan. "Lift me—quick! Carry me out! Slide the
panel back into place. We will escape together!"

The spoken command turned the balance against Quest. His will yielded to
the master. At the same instant Philip's body relaxed like an object relieved
of a great excess of electrical potential. Suddenly strong and supple, he lifted
the trembling Keane and tossed him across his shoulder.
For a moment there had been a lull in the assault on the door. Now the
battering resumed with a fury that jarred the whole chamber and sent ripples
dancing across the varicolored liquids in the osmotic tank.
"Quick!" gasped Keane. "Move! I say. Carry me out."
But he was in a fainting condition. Crash after crash rocked the chamber, and
with every blow Quest's will felt a stimulation that enabled him to stand off

the commands of his Control. Then a wave of nausea swept over him and
left him reeling. It seemed that Philip's blood had turned to boiling oil. A
dazzling mist swallowed him up, and with a weird sense of inflation he felt
full strength returning to his will.
A booming blow that bulged the door inward acted upon him like a stage
player's cue. He leaped to the platform. The gurgling sound of remonstrance
rattled from Keane's throat. But Quest paid no heed. Philip was walking the
plank—away from the open panel—out over the tank.
Rapidly he dropped down the ladder to the bottom rung, snatched Keane's
wrist in a gorillalike grip, and hurled him down into the vat.
Then Philip was clinging desperately to the ladder, his strength gone, his
body shivering as if with ague.
"Go on up!" came a strange, impatient voice from below him. "For heaven's
sake let me out of here!"

A downward glance, and with a shout of alarm Philip was scrambling up the
ladder, for there was a head down there, and a pair of naked shoulders, and
the face of a man he had never seen before. Hand over hand Quest followed.
Philip had collapsed and lay prone on the plank. Quest lifted him to his feet
and shook him anxiously.
"Philip!" he urged. "Philip! Can you walk?"
The tattoo on the battered door helped to revive the older man.
"Quick!" whispered Quest, kneading Philip's arms. "There's barely an hour
left. Get to your office. Burn the papers. Refuse the money. Do you hear
me?"
Philip nodded dazedly.
"Hurry!" puffed Quest, thrusting him through the opening that Keane had
reserved for his own escape, and sliding the panel back into place.

Quest was himself now—young, strong, free. Instantly he threw the
electrolytic switch to minus. For Keane had failed to emerge from the tank,
and since he was submerged alone, he could not escape until electrolysis was
halted.
Just as Quest leaped from the platform to release the airlock, the door burst
in and three men with drawn guns rushed into the chamber.
The leader stopped with a startled oath and stood blinking his unbelieving
eyes. Quest was poised like a statue, his naked body gleaming an unearthly
white against the lusterless black of the wall.
"Quest," came from the three in chorus. Then a rush of questions: "What's
the matter? What's happened to you? Where are the Clasons?"
Quest turned toward the platform, expecting to see Keane.
"Something's wrong!" he shouted. "Quick! Somebody get Philip. He's gone
to his Loop office. Keane Clason's at the bottom of this tank. I'm not sure
how this thing works, but Philip can get him out! I'm sure of it!"

Despite the confident predictions of both Quest and Philip Clason, osmotic
association failed to restore Keane to life, and at last the coroner ordered the
removal of the body. The autopsy revealed heart disease as the cause of his
death.
For reasons best understood at Washington, the cause of the five launch
deaths was withheld from the public. Quest's punishment for his part in the
crime consisted of a promotion and a warm personal letter from the
President of the United States.

Compensation

By C. V. Tench

Good God! Was I going mad? Surely this was some awful
nightmare!

"Why, John!" Involuntarily I halted at the entrance to my
snug bachelor quarters as the flood of light my turning of Professor Wroxton
had disappeared—
the switch produced revealed a huddled figure slumped but in the bottom of
in an easy chair. the mysterious
crystal cage lay the
"Aye, sir, 'tis me." The man got to his feet, gnarled hands diamond from his
ring.
rubbing at his eyes. "An' 'tis all day that I've been waiting
for you, sir. The caretaker said you'd be back soon so let me in. I must have

fell asleep, an' no wonder, what with the strain an' no sleep or rest all last
night."
"Strain? No rest?" I stared my bewilderment, trying at the same time to
conceal the vague apprehensions occasioned by the fact that the trusted
servitor of my friend, Professor Wroxton, should wait all day for me.
Hastily shedding my outer things, I bade him again be seated, sat down
facing him, and asked him to explain.
"'Tis the professor, sir." The old chap peered at me with anxious, wrinkled
eyes. "'Tis common enough for him to send me here on messages, sir, but to-
day I've come on my own, because, sir," answering the question in my eyes,
"I haven't seen sight of him since last night."
"Why—" I began.
"That's just it, sir." John took the words out of my mouth. "For twenty years
my wife an' me have looked after the professor at The Grange. In all that
time he's never been away at night. Whenever he had to come to town he'd
tell us. Most times I'd drive him myself in the old car. But that was very
seldom, sir, for Professor Wroxton had few interests outside."

"But, John," I protested "is there no other reason for your agitation? He
might have had an urgent call, or gone out for a walk or drive by himself."
"No, sir. If you'll pardon me, sir, you're wrong. The professor was fixed in
his habits. He would not go away without tellin' me. Think back, sir, you
know the professor as well as me. Better, because you are his friend and I am
only a servant. Although, sir," this proudly, "he always treated me as a
friend."
"Go on," I urged, seeing he was not finished.
"Well, sir, a few minutes back you asked me if there was no other reason for
my being upset like. There is, sir. You know, sir, that for more'n twenty years
the professor has led a retired sort of life; the life of a—a—"

"Recluse," I suggested.
"That's it, sir. He only left The Grange when he had to. He was all wrapped
up in some weird-like thing he was inventing. In all those years, sir, you
were the only visitor who ever went into his laboratory, or stayed at The
Grange for a night or more. That is, sir, until three days ago."
"Go on," I again urged, some of his perturbation communicating itself to me.
"The Grange, sir, lying as it does, fifteen miles from town an' back in its own
grounds away from the road, isn't noted by many. When strangers do get into
the grounds I usually gets 'em out again in short order. Three days ago, sir, a
stranger drove up to the door in a fine car. He told me he was wantin' to
purchase a country home. I told him The Grange was not for sale an' turned
'im away. He was turning his car to leave when my master came out. To my
surprise, sir, he invited the stranger in. An' I'm sure, sir, because he looked so
taken aback like, that the stranger had never seen the professor before."
"And after that?" I asked, now feeling decidedly uneasy.
"The stranger, sir—a Mr. Lathom he called himself—stayed on. He was in
the study with the master last night. This morning there was no trace of
either of them."
"But—good God, John!" I jerked to my feet, a fresh dread clutching at my
heart. "What are you trying to get at? The professor and Mr. Lathom might
possibly have driven away somewhere last night."
"Both cars, sir," the servant answered, "are in the garage. I bolt all the doors
in the house myself every night. They were still fastened this morning. My
wife an' me searched the house from cellar to garret an' hunted all over the
grounds. We couldn't find a trace of the master or his guest."
"You mean to suggest then," I shot at him, "that two full grown men have
completely vanished? It's absurd, John, absurd!"

I paced the floor thinking desperately for a few minutes, conscious of the
ancient's anxious eyes. I half smiled. The thing was too ridiculous for

anything. Old John had grown morbid from living away from the outer
world. Also, I had to admit that the atmosphere of The Grange, impregnated
as it was with the lethal scientific dabblings of my friend, was exactly suited
to the conjuring up of unhealthy forebodings in uneducated minds. I'd drive
out to the home of my friend at once. No doubt I'd find him fit and well. He
had refused to install a phone, so drive it had to be.
"John." I stopped my pacing and patted him on the shoulder. "I'm coming out
to The Grange at once." His face showed his thankfulness. "I am sure," I
went on as I struggled into my coat, "that we shall find the professor and his
guest awaiting us. Anyway, it's time you got back to your wife and had some
food."
"I hope to Heaven, sir, that you're right." With that we left the building and
entered my car.
Although I had tried to dispel my fears, although I had tried to banter John
out of his dread, I drove that evening as I had never driven before or since.
Barely fifteen minutes later I halted my roadster at the short flight of steps
leading to the main door of The Grange. Even as we stepped from the
machine the door flung open and an agitated woman hurried towards us. She
was Mary, John's wife.
"Sir!" She gripped my arm and stared anxiously into my face. "'Tis glad I am
that you've come. The Grange is a house of death."
In spite of myself a chill shook my whole body. Gently handing her to John,
I strode up the steps.
At the open doorway I halted, the aged couple crowding on my heels, the
woman still babbling about death. I couldn't blame her. All day she had been
alone in that gloomy, rambling old building, wondering, no doubt, why John
and I had not returned sooner.

And gloomy the house was. Always, even when staying there at the
professor's request, I had found it to be somber and depressing, as if there
lurked within its walls the shadowy wings of the years-old tragedy that had

caused my friend to retire to such a God-forsaken place, and there become
absorbed in his scientific experiments.
Even now, as I gazed into the dimly-lighted hallway, the air seemed charged
with that same malignant something I cannot describe.
Pulling myself together I strode quickly along the corridor, and flung open
the study door. The lights being full on, one glance sufficed to show me that
my friend was not there. Swinging on my heel, the horror I saw in the eyes
of the servants, honest, healthy folks not easily frightened, conveyed itself to
me. Somehow, the sight of that room, lights on, chairs drawn up to the burnt-
out fire, brought home to me the fact that something serious was amiss. I
chided myself for thinking John had been unduly agitated.
For a moment I stood, trying to conceal the chill coursing through my veins,
puzzling what to do next. I decided to search the house thoroughly. If I found
no sign of the professor or his guest, I would call in the police.
Fearfully yet willingly the aged couple led me from room to room, from attic
to basement, until but one place remained—the laboratory. I hesitated for
several seconds at the closed door of my friend's workroom. Not that I had
never entered the—to a layman's eyes—weirdly-appointed place. I had been
in many times with the professor. But this time I dreaded what I might find.

Pulling myself together, I gently tried the door. To my horror it yielded to my
touch. Alive, the professor always kept it locked. A new dread assailed me,
as, flinging the door wide open, I blinked in the sudden glare of powerful
globes. Someone had left the lights full on!
Horrified I stood and stared, knowing by their heavy breathing that the aged
couple were also staring with fright-widened eyes. Afraid of what? I did not
know. I only knew that the atmosphere had become even more sinister. I
knew that something dreadful had taken place in that room.
Trembling with consternation I forced myself to take a few steps forward,
then I again stared about me. At one end of the large room something shone
brightly in the glow of the lights. Slowly I walked across to examine it: it

appeared to be a glass case, almost like a show-case, about eight feet square
and seven feet in height. With the mechanical actions of the mentally
distraught I walked all around it. Not the slightest sign of an entrance could I
see. The fact intrigued me. I tapped lightly on the highly polished surface
with my fingers. It rang to my touch like cut glass.
Through the transparent surface I could see John and his wife. They were
watching me furtively, wondering, no doubt, why I lingered. As I looked at
them John suddenly lumbered up to the case on the opposite side. Dropping
to his knees, he stared. Turning an imploring gaze to me, he pointed. His lips
moved soundlessly. I followed the pointing finger with my eyes; gasped at
what I saw.
Near the center of the cage, on the floor constructed of the same crystalline
substance, something glittered, its brilliance almost dazzling as the light rays
struck it. My face pressed close to the cold outer surface of the structure, my
shocked intelligence gradually realized what that small sparkling object was.
It was a magnificent diamond—and the professor had always worn a
diamond ring!

In a sudden frenzy of horror I pawed my way around the cage to where John
still knelt. As I reached him he jerked his head in a numb way as he croaked,
"It's a diamond, sir! The professor's!"
"But how?" I implored. "How can it be? There's no way into this thing.
Perhaps he was working here, and the stone came loose from its setting. He
couldn't have dropped it after the cage was completed."
"It's his diamond, sir," intoned the old man, dully. "I know it is."
Then a sudden unreasoning terror filled me. I shrank away from that shining
box. It seemed to be mocking me, gloatingly, malevolently.
"Quickly!" I threw at the aged couple. "Let us get out of here! Now! At
once!" They needed no second urging. I knew that they felt as I felt: the
laboratory was a sepulcher!

Five minutes later I was guiding my car over the narrow road to town. I did
not pause until I drew up at police headquarters. I suppose my appearance
was distraught, for I was ushered into the presence of the chief without
delay. In a few moments I had poured out my story. He listened with a polite
calmness I found almost maddening. Leaning back in his chair, he reviewed,
audibly, the facts.
"Some twenty-odd years ago your friend, Professor Wroxton, married. He
was so absorbed in the pursuit of some weird invention that he neglected his
bride. She ran away with another man. This man deserted her, and
disappeared. The professor found her many months later, in desperate health.
Shortly afterwards she died. Your friend tried to trail the man, but failed.
Shocked and saddened beyond measure, he retired to a place known as The
Grange."

He suddenly straightened up in his seat, and pointed at me a thick forefinger.
"How long have you known Professor Wroxton?"
"About ten years," I answered.
"What was he trying to invent?"
"I don't know," I replied.
"And yet you had his confidence in other matters?"
"But what has all this to do with finding out what has become of my friend?"
I blurted out. "Perhaps every moment counts."
"A lot." The chief eyed me in a way I did not like. "Solely because your
friend has not been seen by his servants for nearly twenty-four hours, merely
because you saw what you believe to be his diamond in some kind of a glass
compartment in his laboratory, you come here as distraught as a man who
has something terrible on his mind. Why?"
"I can't say." I shifted uneasily under that direct stare. "Somehow I feel that
something dreadful has happened to my friend."

"We do not go by feelings." The chief got to his feet. "But you have told me
enough to warrant action. I want you to guide me and a couple of men to this
house. Please wait here until I return." He left the room.
Sitting there awaiting his return, I tried to ponder the matter reasonably.
After all, perhaps the chief was right. Merely because the professor had been
absent for a few hours and I had seen what I thought to be his diamond in the
laboratory, I had worked myself into a perfect fever of anxiety. I almost
smiled to myself. In that businesslike office the whole affair did seem
absurd. After all the professor did not have to answer to his servants for his
actions.
Heavy footsteps, announcing the chief's return, caused me to rise to my feet.
A few minutes later, in company with the three officers, I was driving again
towards The Grange.

We made the return journey in almost complete silence. Occasionally the
chief would shoot a question at me; but, the night air cooling my fevered
brain, my replies were guarded. He realized that fact, for I felt his eyes upon
me all the way. What was going on behind that broad forehead, I wondered.
Then we reached The Grange. As we mounted the steps, John, his wife
herding behind him, flung wide the door. He answered the question in my
eyes with a negative shake of his head, and the words, "Nothing fresh, sir."
The chief eyed him keenly, then curtly bade him lead the way to the
laboratory. John hung back, his face blanched. "I can't, sir," he faltered. The
chief turned to me, and, although I wanted to follow John's example,
although the atmosphere of the house had again filled me with an unshakable
dread, I led the way, standing back at the door to allow the officers to enter
first.
With calculating gaze the chief slowly took in every detail of the stone
apartment. He turned to me.
"What is there here to be afraid of?" I pointed hesitatingly towards the
crystalline cage. The chief and his men strode across to it.

"You don't know how to open this?" the chief shot at me after a brief
examination.
"No," I replied. "It was not here on my last visit."
"When was that?"
"Some two or three months ago", I answered. "My work occasions much
traveling on my part."

The chief and his men turned again to the cage, talking in undertones. He
turned again to me.
"You notice that this thing is built in sections. One of them must be movable.
Perhaps—" He paused as his eyes fell upon some wires and tubes that trailed
across the floor from underneath the cage to a switchboard fastened to the
wall.
"Perhaps," he repeated, "it is worked from that board." He crossed over,
stared thoughtfully at the shining levers for some seconds, and moved one
slightly. The result was astounding. All four of us stared with unbelieving
eyes as slowly, without the faintest sound, a section of one wall slid inwards,
as if guided by invisible tracks on floor and ceiling.
"Guess that's enough for now." With the words the chief backed away,
almost timidly, I thought, from the switchboard, and walked to the cage. For
a moment he hesitated, but he entered, and emerged with the sparkling
object in his hand.
"It's the professor's," I choked, crowding close to him.
"How'd you know?" he shot back. "All unset stones look pretty much alike."
"I just know," was all I could falter.
"You 'just know'." The chief sat down on a stool and regarded me
searchingly. "Mr. Thornton, when I started out with you, I thought I was on a
wild goose chase or the trail of a confession. You looked exactly like a man

who had either committed a serious crime, or was getting over a bad drunk. I
feel sure now"—he again regarded the diamond—"that your story was not
the product of an alcohol-crazed brain. Come on!" He lurched to his feet,
and grasped me by the shoulder. "Come through!"

Without answering, I wrenched myself free. Over my shoulder I saw one of
the policemen at the door. In the hand of the other a revolver suddenly
appeared. Good God! I glared in bewilderment from one to another. Was I
going mad? Surely this was some awful nightmare! What had I said to make
them suspect me of having committed a revolting crime?
"Sit down!" The command came from the chief. Mechanically I found a
stool, and obeyed him. "Hold your stations, boys, and listen carefully," he
ordered his men. Then he turned to me.
"Professor Wroxton was a wealthy man without kith or kin?"
"Yes."
"Do you know the nature of his will?"
"Yes." Chilled to the heart, I felt the circumstantial net tightening.
"What is its nature?"
"This house and an annuity to John and his wife," I explained. "The residue
of his wealth to me."
"Humph!" The chief stared at me piercingly. "And how has business been
with you lately?"
Damn the man! What right had he to put me through the third degree? I felt
my state of dazed horror slowly giving way to anger. I glanced around. The
pistol still menaced; the man at the door had not moved. It was useless to try
and evade the questions.
"For the past year," I replied, "business has been very poor. In fact, the
professor advanced me some money."

"Humph!" Again that irritating, non-committal grunt.

The chief turned in his seat and stared thoughtfully at the crystalline cage.
"And you don't know what the professor was trying to invent?"
"Only its nature," I began.
"Ah! That's better. Why didn't you tell me that before?" The chief leaned
forward.
"Well," I explained, "the whole thing seems so absurd. When the professor
told me how his married life had been broken up, he told me that at that time
he reached the utmost depths of human suffering. Absolute zero, he called
it."
"Ah!"
"The experiments he indulged in," I continued, trying to hide the shiver
pimpling my flesh, "were to produce an actual state of absolute zero. It is
years since he told me this. I had almost forgotten it."
"And exactly what is an absolute zero?" The chief's eyes never left mine.
"Well," I protested, "please understand that I also am a layman in these
matters. According to my friend, an absolute zero has been the dream of
scientists for ages. Once upon a time it was attained, but the secret became
lost."
"And exactly what is an absolute zero?"
Curse the man! I could have struck him down for the chilling level of his
tone. I forced myself to go on, realizing that I was damning myself at every
step.
"An absolute zero is a cold so intense it will destroy flesh, bone and tissue.
Remove them," my voice rose in spite of myself, "leaving absolutely no
trace."

No trace! Something attracted my eyes. The chief had opened his hand. The
diamond there flashed and sparkled as if mocking me. I pulled myself
together, and went on.
"It all comes back to me now. One day I came out here and found the
professor terribly distraught. He told me that, with the aid of electric currents
he had been able to invent the absolute zero, but he could not invent a
container."
"Why?" Those eyes continued to bore into mine.
"Because—remember it is years since he told me this—there was difficulty
in controlling the power. Besides destroying living things, it would destroy
bricks and mortar, stone and iron. Only one substance it could not wipe out
—crystalline of diamond hardness.
"I know, now!" I jumped to my feet and grabbed the chief's arm. "I know
now what he meant. Fool, fool! Why did I not think of it before? This—" I
swung towards the cage—"is compensation." Almost panting in my
eagerness I went on:
"My friend told me that the law of compensation would atone to him for the
tragedy of his youth. Absolute zero in suffering would be atoned for by a
real state of absolute zero. Chief!" I whirled on him. "Don't you understand?
This is the perfected dream of my friend. It is the absolute zero."
"Humph! Plausible but not convincing." I slumped back at the officer's
words. "That does not explain the professor's disappearance. Even if it did,
what about Mr. Lathom? And don't forget this contrivance is worked from
outside. We found the diamond inside. Of course, he might have placed it
there himself to test the machine," he concluded.
"Of course, that's it," I commenced. But I regretted the words when I saw
suspicion flicker again in the chief's eyes. Lamely I finished, "And he has
probably rushed off, in an ecstasy of triumph, to acquaint professional
colleagues."
"Without unlocking any doors or taking a car, eh?

"Mr. Thornton." The chief stood up and regarded me sternly. "As a sensible
man, don't you think yourself that your story is a bit thin? The professor has
disappeared. Here is a strange-looking case which you say is an absolute
zero container. Whether you know, or are just jumping at conclusions,
remains to be proved. But even if it is, do you think that, after perfecting
such a tremendous invention, the professor would commit suicide?"
"On the contrary," I gasped, "my friend was a man of gentle, kindly
disposition, but strong purpose. I should think his first action on attaining his
life's ambition would be to notify me, his closest friend."
"And he didn't." Every word condemned me, and roused me to retaliate.
"Chief, I know enough of the law to know that, before you can try a man for
murder, you must prove that murder has been committed." I grinned
savagely. "You must have the corpus delicti. Go ahead! Find my friend or his
remains, or else withdraw your charges." I grinned again, with shocked
mirthlessness.

Then I buried my head in my hands. I had called in the police to help find
the professor, and they had only blundered around and asked a lot of stupid
questions. The chief had practically accused me of murder—something I
knew he could not prove, yet feared he might. Because I had told the chief of
the locked doors and unused cars, he had confined his investigations to the
house itself.
He interrupted my thoughts.
"Mr. Thornton, I am going back to town. You will remain here with my men.
I advise you to get some sleep, as I shall not be able to carry out certain
investigations until the morning. One of my men will spend his time
searching the house and patrolling the grounds, the other one will stay here
with you."
He turned away, whispered some instructions to his men, and, followed by
one of them, silently left the laboratory. I started to protest, tried to follow
him; the man at the door stopped me. Silently, almost grimly, he indicated a

narrow cot at one end of the room. For a moment I hesitated, feeling the
man's eyes upon me.
Sleep on my dead—I felt sure he was dead—friend's cot! Sleep in that
fearful place! My whole being crawled with horror. I turned again to the
man. His features were unyielding. Perhaps this was more third degree.
Limp with weakness and weariness, I dragged my lagging feet towards the
cot.

As long as I live I shall never forget my awakening. A uniformed figure, the
chief, shaking me by the shoulder. Two other uniformed men silently
watching. I sat up and gazed about me, dazedly. Bright sunlight streamed
through the windows. A stray gleam struck the cage. I shrank back,
trembling. And yet I had slept soundly.
"Mr. Thornton," the chief said, "I have serious news for you. I have positive
proof your friend is dead."
"Dear God!" The exclamation was wrung from me as recollection returned
with a rush. "Where? You can't have!"
"Here." He thrust a bundle of letters into my hands. "You acted so strangely
last night you caused me to suspect you of a serious crime. Also, you
overlooked several important points. You got back from a trip only last
night."
Last night! Surely it was years.
"You had left instructions to have your mail forwarded," the level voice went
on. "These letters were evidently one day behind you. I picked them up at
your rooms this morning. I took the liberty of opening them. Read this one."
He selected it.

With trembling fingers I extracted from the envelope a single written page. I
recognized the handwriting as the professor's. I read with feverish intensity,
each single word burning itself into my consciousness:

Dear Thornton:
I am writing this in anticipation. I will see that it is mailed when my
plans are completed. Too late, dear friend, for you to attempt, with the
best intentions in the world, to frustrate them.
You will, perhaps, recall that many years ago, when I gave you my full
confidence, I told you that I felt sure that the law of compensation
would atone in some measure for my loss. Thornton, old friend, I
believe that, in more ways than one, my hour has arrived. Two days ago
I completed the absolute zero. But even better!
A man called here to-day. Although he did not recognize me, I saw
through the veneer of added years with ease. Fate, call it what you will,
my visitor is the man who wrecked my happiness.
Under pretext I shall detain him. I shall induce him to enter the
crystalline cage. I have already arranged a dual control which the power
will destroy when I apply it from the inside of the cage.
Please destroy the cage. It will have brought compensation to me before
you read this.
Good-by, dear friend!
Wroxton.

"I apologize, Mr. Thornton." The chief offered a hand which I clutched in
mingled sorrow and relief. The world had lost a genius. I had lost a dear
friend. But he was right. It was compensation.

Tanks

By Murray Leinster
... The deciding battle of the War of 1932 was the first in which the use
of infantry was practically discontinued ...
—History of the U.S., 1920-1945 (Gregg-
Harley).

Row after row of the monsters roared by, going greedily with
hungry guns into battle.

The persistent, oily smell of fog-gas was everywhere,
even in the little pill-box. Outside, all the world was Two miles of
American front had
blotted out by the thick gray mist that went rolling slowly gone dead. And on

across country with the breeze. The noises that came two lone
infantrymen, lost in
through it were curiously muted—fog-gas mutes all the menace of the
noises somewhat—but somewhere to the right artillery fog-gas and the
was pounding something with H E shell, and there were tanks, depended the
outcome of the war
those little spitting under-current explosions that told of of 1932.
tanks in action. To the right there was a distant rolling of
machine-gun fire. In between was an utter, solemn silence.
Sergeant Coffee, disreputable to look at and disrespectful of mien, was
sprawling over one of the gunners' seats and talking into a field telephone
while mud dripped from him. Corporal Wallis, equally muddy and still more
disreputable, was painstakingly manufacturing one complete cigarette from
the pinched-out butts of four others. Both were rifle-infantry. Neither had
any right or reason to be occupying a definitely machine-gun-section post.
The fact that the machine-gun crew was all dead did not seem to make much
difference to sector H.Q. at the other end of the telephone wire, judging from
the questions that were being asked.
"I tell you," drawled Sergeant Coffee, "they're dead.... Yeah, all dead. Just as
dead as when I told you the firs' time, maybe even deader.... Gas, o'course. I
don't know what kind.... Yeh. They got their masks on."
He waited, looking speculatively at the cigarette Corporal Wallis had in
manufacture. It began to look imposing. Corporal Wallis regarded it
affectionately. Sergeant Coffee put his hand over the mouthpiece, and looked
intently at his companion.
"Gimme a drag o' that, Pete," he suggested. "I'll slip y' some butts in a
minute."

Corporal Wallis nodded, and proceeded to light the cigarette with infinite
artistry. He puffed delicately upon it, inhaled it with the care a man learns
when he has just so much tobacco and never expects to get any more, and
reluctantly handed it to Sergeant Coffee.
Sergeant Coffee emptied his lungs in a sigh of anticipation. He put the
cigarette to his lips. It burned brightly as he drew upon it. Its tip became

brighter and brighter until it was white-hot, and the paper crackled as the line
of fire crept up the tube.
"Hey!" said Corporal Wallis in alarm.
Sergeant Coffee waved him aside, and his chest expanded to the fullest limit
of his blouse. When his lungs could hold no more he ceased to draw, grandly
returned about one-fourth of the cigarette to Corporal Wallis, and blew out a
cloud of smoke in small driblets until he had to gasp for breath.
"When y' ain't got much time," said Sergeant Coffee amiably, "that's a quick
smoke."
Corporal Wallis regarded the ruins of his cigarette with a woeful air.
"Hell!" said Corporal Wallis gloomily. But he smoked what was left.
"Yeah," said Sergeant Coffee suddenly, into the field telephone, "I'm still
here, an' they're still dead.... Listen, Mr. Officer, I got me a black eye an'
numerous contusions. Also my gas-mask is busted. I called y'up to do y' a
favor. I aim to head for distant parts.... Hell's bells! Ain't there anybody else
in the army—" He stopped, and resentment died out in wide-eyed
amazement. "Yeh.... Yeh.... Yeh.... I gotcha, Loot. A'right, I'll see what I c'n
do. Yeh.... Wish y'd see my insurance gets paid. Yeh."
He hung up, gloomily, and turned to Corporal Wallis.
"We' got to be heroes," he announced bitterly. "Sit out here in th' stinkin' fog
an' wait for a tank t' come along an' wipe us out. We' the only listenin' post in
two miles of front. That new gas o' theirs wiped out all the rest without
report."
He surveyed the crumpled figures, which had been the original occupants of
the pill-box. They wore the same uniform as himself and when he took the
gas-mask off of one of them the man's face was strangely peaceful.
"Hell of a war," said Sergeant Coffee bitterly. "Here our gang gets wiped out
by a helicopter. I ain't seen sunlight in a week, an' I got just four butts left.
Lucky I started savin' 'em." He rummaged shrewdly. "This guy's got half a
sack o' makin's. Say, that was Loot'n't Madison on the line, then. Transferred

from our gang a coupla months back. They cut him in the line to listen in on
me an' make sure I was who I said I was. He recognized my voice."

Corporal Wallis, after smoking to the last and ultimate puff, pinched out his
cigarette and put the fragments of a butt back in his pocket.
"What we got to do?" he asked, watching as Sergeant Coffee divided the
treasure-trove into two scrupulously exact portions.
"Nothin'," said Coffee bitterly, "except find out how this gang got wiped out,
an' a few little things like that. Half th' front line is in th' air, the planes can't
see anything, o'course, an' nobody dares cut th' fog-gas to look. He didn't say
much, but he said for Gawd's sake find out somethin'."
Corporal Wallis gloated over one-fourth of a sack of tobacco and stowed it
away.
"Th' infantry always gets th' dirty end of the stick," he said gloomily. "I'm
goin' to roll me a whole one, pre-war, an' smoke it, presently."
"Hell yes," said Coffee. He examined his gas-mask from force of habit
before stepping out into the fog once more, then contemptuously threw it
aside. "Gas-masks, hell! Ain't worth havin'. Come on."
Corporal Wallis followed as he emerged from the little round cone of the
pill-box.
The gray mist that was fog-gas hung over everything. There was a definite
breeze blowing, but the mist was so dense that it did not seem to move. It
was far enough from the fog-flares for the last least trace of striation to have
vanished. Fifteen miles to the north the fog-flares were placed, ranged by
hundreds and by thousands, burning one after another as the fog service set
them off, and sending out their incredible masses of thick gray vapor in long
threads that spread out before the wind, coalesced, and made a smoke-screen
to which the puny efforts of the last war—the war that was to make the
world safe for democracy—were as nothing.

Here, fifteen miles down wind from the flares, it was possible to see clearly
in a circle approximately five feet in diameter. At the edge of that circle
outlines began to blur. At ten feet all shapes were the faintest of bulks, the
dimmest of outlines. At fifteen feet all was invisible, hidden behind a screen
of mist.
"Cast around," said Coffee gloomily. "Maybe we'll find a shell, or tracks of a
tank or somethin' that chucked the gas here."

It was rather ludicrous to go searching for anything in that mass of vapor. At
three yards distance they could make each other out as dim outlines, no
more. But it did not even occur to them to deplore the mist. The war which
had already been christened, by the politicians at home, the last war, was
always fought in a mist. Infantry could not stand against tanks, tanks could
not live under aircraft-directed artillery fire—not when forty guns fired
salvos for the aircraft to spot—and neither artillery nor aircraft could take
any advantage of a victory which either, under special conditions, might win.
The general staffs of both the United States and the prominent nation—let us
say the Yellow Empire—at war with it had come to a single conclusion.
Tanks or infantry were needed for the use of victories. Infantry could be
destroyed by tanks. But tanks could be hidden from aerial spotters by
smoke-screens.
The result was fog-gas, which was being used by both sides in the most
modern fashion when, their own unit wiped out and themselves wandering
aimlessly in the general direction of the American rear, Sergeant Coffee and
Corporal Wallis stumbled upon an American pill-box with its small garrison
lying dead. For forty miles in one direction and perhaps thirty in the other,
the vapor lay upon the earth. It was being blown by the wind, of course, but
it was sufficiently heavier than air to cling to the ground level, and the
industries of two nations were straining every nerve to supply the demands
of their respective armies for its material.
The fog-bank was nowhere less than a hundred feet thick—a cloud of
impalpable particles impenetrable to any eye or any camera, however
shrewdly filtered. And under that mattress of pale opacity the tanks crawled

heavily. They lurched and rumbled upon their deadly errands, uncouth and
barbarous, listening for each other by a myriad of devices, locked in
desperate, short-range conflict when they came upon each other, and
emitting clouds of deadly vapor, against which gas-masks were no
protection, when they came upon opposing infantry.

The infantrymen, though, were few. Their principal purpose was the
reporting of the approach or passage of tanks, and trenches were of no
service to them. They occupied unarmed little listening-posts with field
telephones, small wireless or ground buzzer sets for reporting the enemy
before he overwhelmed them. They held small pill-boxes, fitted with anti-
tank guns which sometimes—if rarely—managed to get home a shell, aimed
largely by sound, before the tank rolled over gun and gunners alike.
And now Sergeant Coffee and Corporal Wallis groped about in that blinding
mist. There had been two systems of listening-posts hidden in it, each of
admittedly little fighting value, but each one deep and composed of an
infinity of little pin-point posts where two or three men were stationed. The
American posts, by their reports, had assured the command that all enemy
tanks were on the other side of a certain definite line. Their own tanks,
receiving recognition signals, passed and repassed among them, prowling in
quest of invaders. The enemy tanks crawled upon the same grisly patrol on
their own side.
But two miles of the American front had suddenly gone silent. A hundred
telephones had ceased to make reports along the line nearest the enemy. As
Coffee and Wallis stumbled about the little pill-box, looking for some
inkling of the way in which the original occupants of the small strong-point
had been wiped out, the second line of observation-posts began to go dead.
Now one, now another abruptly ceased to communicate. Half a dozen were
in actual conversation with their sector headquarters, and broke off between
words. The wires remained intact. But in fifteen nerve-racking minutes a
second hundred posts ceased to make reports and ceased to answer the
inquiry-signal. G.H.Q. was demanding explanations in crisp accents that told
the matter was being taken very seriously indeed. And then, as the officer in

command of the second-line sector headquarters was explaining frenziedly
that he was doing all any man could do, he stopped short between two words
and thereafter he, also, ceased to communicate.
Front-line sector headquarters seemed inexplicably to have escaped
whatever fate had overtaken all its posts, but it could only report that they
had apparently gone out of existence without warning. American tanks,
prowling in the area that had gone dead, announced that no enemy tanks had
been seen. G-81, stumbling on a pill-box no more than ten minutes after it
had gone silent, offered to investigate. A member of her crew, in a gas-mask,
stepped out of the port doorway. Immediately thereafter G-81's wireless
reports stopped coming in.

The situation was clearly shown in the huge tank that had been built to serve
as G.H.Q. That tank was seventy feet long, and lay hidden in the mist with a
brood of other, smaller tanks clustered near it, from each of which a cable
ran to the telephones and instruments of the greater monster. Farther off in
the fog, of course, were other tanks, hundreds of them, fighting machines all,
silent and motionless now, but infinitely ready to protect the brain of the
army.
The G.H.Q. maneuver-board showed the battle as no single observer could
ever have seen it. A map lay spread out on a monster board, under a pitiless
white light. It was a map of the whole battlefield. Tiny sparks crawled here
and there under the map, and there were hundreds of little pins with
different-colored heads to mark the position of this thing and that. The
crawling sparks were the reported positions of American tanks, made visible
as positions of moving trains had been made visible for years on the electric
charts of railroads in dispatcher's offices. Where the tiny bulbs glowed under
the map, there a tank crawled under the fog. As the tank moved, the first
bulb went out and another flashed into light.
The general watched broodingly as the crawling sparks moved from this
place to that place, as varicolored lights flashed up and vanished, as a steady
hand reached down to shift tiny pins and place new ones. The general moved

rarely, and spoke hardly at all. His whole air was that of a man absorbed in a
game of chess—a game on which the fate of a nation depended.
He was thus absorbed. The great board, illuminated from above by the
glaring bulb, and speckled with little white sparks from below by the tiny
bulbs beneath, showed the situation clearly at every instant. The crawling
white sparks were his own tanks, each in its present position. Flashing blue
sparks noted the last report of enemy tanks. Two staff officers stood behind
the general, and each spoke from time to time into a strapped-on telephone
transmitter. They were giving routine orders, heading the nearest American
patrol-tanks toward the location of the latest reported enemies.

The general reached out his hand suddenly and marked off an area with his
fingers. They were long fingers, and slender ones: an artist's fingers.
"Our outposts are dead in this space," he observed meditatively. The use of
the word "outposts" dated him many years back as a soldier, back to the old
days of open warfare, which had only now come about again. "Penetration
of two miles—"
"Tank, sir," said the man of the steady fingers, putting a black pin in position
within that area, "let a man out in a gas-mask to examine a pill-box. The tank
does not report or reply, sir."
"Gas," said the general, noting the spot. "Their new gas, of course. It must
go through masks or sag-paste, or both."
He looked up to one of a row of officers seated opposite him, each man with
headphones strapped to his ears and a transmitter before his lips, and each
man with a map-pad on his knees, on which from time to time he made
notations and shifted pins absorbedly.
"Captain Harvey," said the general, "you are sure that dead spot has not been
bombarded with gas-shells?"
"Yes, General. There has been no artillery fire heavy enough to put more
than a fraction of those posts out of action, and all that fire, sir, has been

accounted for elsewhere."
The officer looked up, saw the general's eyes shift, and bent to his map
again, on which he was marking areas from which spotting aircraft reported
flashes as of heavy guns beneath the mist.
"Their aircraft have not been dropping bombs, positively?"
A second officer glanced up from his own map.
"Our planes cover all that space, sir, and have for some time."
"They either have a noiseless tank," observed the general meditatively,
"or...."
The steady fingers placed a red pin at a certain spot.
"One observation-post, sir, has reopened communication. Two infantrymen,
separated from their command, came upon it and found the machine-gun
crew dead, with gas-masks adjusted. No tanks or tracks. They are identified,
sir, and are now looking for tank tracks or shells."
The general nodded emotionlessly.
"Let me know immediately."

He fell back to the ceaseless study of the board with its crawling sparks and
sudden flashes of light. Over at the left, there were four white sparks
crawling toward a spot where a blue flash had showed a little while since. A
red light glowed suddenly where one of the white sparks crawled. One of the
two officers behind the general spoke crisply. Instantly, it seemed, the other
three white sparks changed their direction of movement. They swung toward
the red flash—the point where a wireless from the tank represented by the
first white flash had reported, contact with the enemy.
"Enemy tank destroyed here, sir," said the voice above the steady fingers.
"Wiped out three of our observation posts," murmured the general, "His side
knows it. That's an opportunity. Have those posts reoccupied."

"Orders given, sir," said a staff officer from behind. "No reports as yet."
The general's eyes went back to the space two miles wide and two miles
deep in which there was only a single observation-post functioning, and that
in charge of two strayed infantrymen. The battle in the fog was in a
formative stage, now, and the general himself had to watch the whole,
because it was by small and trivial indications that the enemy's plans would
be disclosed. The dead area was no triviality, however. Half a dozen tanks
were crawling through it, reporting monotonously that no sign of the enemy
could be found. One of the little sparks representing those tanks abruptly
went out.
"Tank here, sir, no longer reports."
The general watched with lack-luster eyes, his mind withdrawn in thought.
"Send four helicopters," he said slowly, "to sweep that space. We'll see what
the enemy does."
One of the seated officers opposite him spoke swiftly. Far away a roaring set
up and was stilled. The helicopters were taking off.

They would rush across the blanket of fog, their vertical propellers sending
blasts of air straight downward. For most of their sweep they would keep a
good height, but above the questionable ground they would swoop down to
barely above the fog-blanket. There their monstrous screws would blow
holes in the fog until the ground below was visible. If any tanks crawled
there, in the spaces the helicopters swept clear, they would be visible at once
and would be shelled by batteries miles away, batteries invisible under the
artificial cloud-bank.
No other noises came through the walls of the monster tank. There was a
faint, monotonous murmur of the electric generator. There were the quiet,
crisp orders of the officers behind the general, giving the routine commands
that kept the fighting a stalemate.

The aircraft officer lifted his head, pressing his headphones tightly against
his ears, as if to hear mores clearly.
"The enemy, sir, has sent sixty fighting machines to attack our helicopters.
We sent forty single-seaters as escort."
"Let them fight enough," said the general absently, "to cause the enemy to
think us desperate for information. Then draw them off."
There was silence again. The steady fingers put pins here and there. An
enemy tank destroyed here. An American tank encountered an enemy and
ceased to report further. The enemy sent four helicopters in a wide sweep
behind the American lines, escorted by fifty fighting planes. They uncovered
a squadron of four tanks, which scattered like insects disturbed by the
overturning of a stone. Instantly after their disclosure a hundred and fifty
guns, four miles away, were pouring shells about the place where they had
been seen. Two of the tanks ceased to report.
The general's attention was called to a telephone instrument with its call-
light glowing.
"Ah," said the general absently. "They want publicity matter."
The telephone was connected to the rear, and from there to the Capital. A
much-worried cabinet waited for news, and arrangements were made and
had been used, to broadcast suitably arranged reports from the front, the
voice of the commander-in-chief in the field going to every workshop, every
gathering-place, and even being bellowed by loud-speakers in the city
streets.

The general took the phone. The President of the United States was at the
other end of the wire, this time.
"General?"
"Still in a preliminary stage, sir," said the general, without haste. "The
enemy is preparing a break-through effort, possibly aimed at our machine-
shops and supplies. Of course, if he gets them we will have to retreat. An

hour ago he paralyzed our radios, not being aware, I suppose, of our tuned
earth-induction wireless sets. I daresay he is puzzled that our
communications have not fallen to pieces."
"But what are our chances?" The voice of the President was steady, but it
was strained.
"His tanks outnumber ours two to one, of course, sir," said the general
calmly. "Unless we can divide his fleet and destroy a part of it, of course we
will be crushed in a general combat. But we are naturally trying to make sure
that any such action will take place within point-blank range of our artillery,
which may help a little. We will cut the fog to secure that help, risking
everything, if a general engagement occurs."
There was silence.
The President's voice, when it came, was more strained still.
"Will you speak to the public, General?"
"Three sentences. I have no time for more."
There were little clickings on the line, while the general's eyes returned to
the board that was the battlefield in miniature. He indicated a spot with his
finger.
"Concentrate our reserve-tanks here," he said meditatively. "Our fighting
aircraft here. At once."
The two spots were at nearly opposite ends of the battle field. The chief of
staff, checking the general's judgment with the alert suspicion that was the
latest addition to his duties, protested sharply.
"But sir, our tanks will have no protection against helicopters!"
"I am quite aware of it," said the general mildly.
He turned to the transmitter. A thin voice had just announced at the other end
of the wire, "The commander-in-chief of the army in the field will make a
statement."

The general spoke unhurriedly.
"We are in contact with the enemy, have been for some hours. We have lost
forty tanks and the enemy, we think, sixty or more. No general engagement
has yet taken place, but we think decisive action on the enemy's part will be
attempted within two hours. The tanks in the field need now, as always,
ammunition, spare tanks, and the special supplies for modern warfare. In
particular, we require ever-increasing quantities of fog-gas. I appeal to your
patriotism for reinforcements of material and men."
He hung up the receiver and returned to his survey of the board.
"Those three listening-posts," he said abruptly, indicating a place near where
an enemy tank had been destroyed. "Have they been reoccupied?"
"Yes, sir. Just reported. The tank they reported rolled over them, destroying
the placement. They are digging in."
"Tell me," said the general, "when they cease to report again. They will."
He watched the board again and without lifting his eyes from it, spoke again.
"That listening-post in the dead sector, with the two strayed infantrymen in
it. Was it reported?"
"Not yet, sir."
"Tell me immediately it does."
The general leaned back in his chair and deliberately relaxed. He lighted a
cigar and puffed at it, his hands quite steady. Other officers, scenting the
smoke, glanced up enviously. But the general was the only man who might
smoke. The enemy's gases, like the American ones, could go through any
gas-mask if in sufficient concentration. The tanks were sealed like so many
submarines, and opened their interiors to the outer air only after that air had
been thoroughly tested and proven safe. Only the general might use up more
than a man's allowance for breathing.

The general gazed about him, letting his mind rest from its intense strain
against the greater strain that would come on it in a few minutes. He looked
at a tall blond man who was surveying the board intently, moving away, and
returning again, his forehead creased in thought.
The general smiled quizzically. That man was the officer appointed to I. I.
duty—interpretative intelligence—chosen from a thousand officers because
the most exhaustive psychological tests had proven that his brain worked as
nearly as possible like that of the enemy commander. His task was to take
the place of the enemy commander, to reconstruct from the enemy
movements reported and the enemy movements known as nearly as possible
the enemy plans.
"Well, Harlin," said the general, "Where will he strike?"
"He's tricky, sir," said Harlin. "That gap in our listening-posts looks, of
course, like preparation for a massing of his tanks inside our lines. And it
would be logical that he fought off our helicopters to keep them from
discovering his tanks massing in that area."
The general nodded.
"Quite true," he admitted. "Quite true."
"But," said Harlin eagerly. "He'd know we could figure that out. And he may
have wiped out listening posts to make us think he was planning just so. He
may have fought off our helicopters, not to keep them from discovering his
tanks in there, but to keep them from discovering that there were no tanks in
there!"
"My own idea exactly," said the general meditatively. "But again, it looks so
much like a feint that it may be a serious blow. I dare not risk assuming it to
be a feint only."
He turned back to the board.
"Have those two strayed infantrymen reported yet?" he asked sharply.
"Not yet, sir."

The general drummed on the table. There were four red flashes glowing at
different points of the board—four points where American tanks or groups
of tanks were locked in conflict with the enemy. Somewhere off in the
enveloping fog that made all the world a gray chaos, lumbering, crawling
monsters rammed and battered at each other at infinitely short range. They
fought blindly, their guns swinging menacingly and belching lurid flames
into the semi-darkness, while from all about them dropped the liquids that
meant death to any man who breathed their vapor. Those gases penetrated
any gas-mask, and would even strike through the sag-pastes that had made
the vesicatory gases of 1918 futile.
With tanks by thousands hidden in the fog, four small combats were kept up,
four only. Battles fought with tanks as the main arm are necessarily battles of
movement, more nearly akin to cavalry battles than any other unless it be
fleet actions. When the main bodies come into contact, the issue is decided
quickly. There can be no long drawn-out stalemates such as infantry trenches
produced in years past. The fighting that had taken place so far, both under
the fog and aloft in the air, was outpost skirmishing only. When the main
body of the enemy came into action it would be like a whirlwind, and the
battle would be won or lost in a matter of minutes only.
The general paid no attention to those four conflicts, or their possible
meaning.
"I want to hear from those two strayed infantrymen," he said quietly, "I must
base my orders on what they report. The whole battle, I believe, hinges on
what they have to say."
He fell silent, watching the board without the tense preoccupation he had
shown before. He knew the moves he had to make in any of three
eventualities. He watched the board to make sure he would not have to make
those moves before he was ready. His whole air was that of waiting: the
commander-in-chief of the army of the United States, waiting to hear what
he would be told by two strayed infantrymen, lost in the fog that covered a
battlefield.

The fog was neither more dense nor any lighter where Corporal Wallis
paused to roll his pre-war cigarette. The tobacco came from the gassed
machine-gunner in the pill-box a few yards off. Sergeant Coffee, three yards
distant, was a blurred figure. Corporal Wallis put his cigarette into his
mouth, struck his match, and puffed delicately.
"Ah!" said Corporal Wallis, and cheered considerably. He thought he saw
Sergeant Coffee moving toward him and ungenerously hid his cigarette's
glow.
Overhead, a machine-gun suddenly burst into a rattling roar, the sound
sweeping above them with incredible speed. Another gun answered it.
Abruptly, the whole sky above them was an inferno of such tearing noises
and immediately after they began a multitudinous bellowing set up.
Airplanes on patrol ordinarily kept their engines muffled, in hopes of
locating a tank below them by its noise. But in actual fighting there was too
much power to be gained by cutting out the muffler for any minor motive to
take effect. A hundred aircraft above the heads of the two strayed
infantrymen were fighting madly about five helicopters. Two hundred yards
away, one fell to the earth with a crash, and immediately afterward there was
a hollow boom. For an instant even the mist was tinged with yellow from the
exploded gasoline tank. But the roaring above continued—not mounting, as
in a battle between opposing patrols of fighting planes, when each side finds
height a decisive advantage, but keeping nearly to the same level, little
above the bank of cloud.
Something came down, roaring, and struck the earth no more than fifty yards
away. The impact was terrific, but after it there was dead silence while the
thunder above kept on.
Sergeant Coffee came leaping to Corporal Wallis' side.
"Helicopters!" he barked. "Huntin' tanks an' pill-boxes! Lay down!"
He flung himself down to the earth.
Wind beat on them suddenly, then an outrageous blast of icy air from above.
For an instant the sky lightened. They saw a hole in the mist, saw the little
pill-box clearly, saw a huge framework of supporting screws sweeping
swiftly overhead with figures in it watching the ground through wind-angle

glasses, and machine-gunners firing madly at dancing things in the air. Then
it was gone.
"One o' ours," shouted Coffee in Wallis' ear. "They' tryin' to find th' Yellows'
tanks!"

The center of the roaring seemed to shift, perhaps to the north. Then a
roaring drowned out all the other roarings. This one was lower down and
approaching in a rush. Something swooped from the south, a dark blotch in
the lighter mist above. It was an airplane flying in the mist, a plane that had
dived into the fog as into oblivion. It appeared, was gone—and there was a
terrific crash. A shattering roar drowned out even the droning tumult of a
hundred aircraft engines. A sheet of flame flashed up, and a thunderous
detonation.
"Hit a tree," panted Coffee, scrambling to his feet again. "Suicide club,
aimin' for our helicopter."
Corporal Wallis was pointing, his lips drawn back in a snarl.
"Shut up!" he whispered. "I saw a shadow against that flash! Yeller
infantryman! Le's get 'im!"
"Y'crazy," said Sergeant Coffee, but he strained his eyes and more especially
his ears.
It was Coffee who clutched Corporal Wallis' wrist and pointed. Wallis could
see nothing, but he followed as Coffee moved silently through the gray mist.
Presently he too, straining his eyes, saw an indistinct movement.
The roaring of motors died away suddenly. The fighting had stopped, a long
way off, apparently because the helicopters had been withdrawn. Except for
the booming of artillery a very long distance away, firing unseen at an
unseen target, there was no noise at all.
"Aimin' for our pill-box," whispered Coffee.

They saw the dim shape, moving noiselessly, halt. The dim figure seemed to
be casting about for something. It went down on hands and knees and
crawled forward. The two infantrymen crept after it. It stopped, and turned
around. The two dodged to one side in haste. The enemy infantryman
crawled off in another direction, the two Americans following him as closely
as they dared.
He halted once more, a dim and grotesque figure in the fog. They saw him
fumbling in his belt. He threw something, suddenly. There was a little tap as
of a fountain pen dropped upon concrete. Then a hissing sound. That was all,
but the enemy infantryman waited, as if listening....

The two Americans fell upon him as one individual. They bore him to the
earth and Coffee dragged at his gas-mask, good tactics in a battle where
every man carries gas-grenades. He gasped and fought desperately, in a
seeming frenzy of terror.
They squatted over him, finally, having taken away his automatics, and
Coffee worked painstakingly to get off his gas-mask while Wallis went
poking about in quest of tobacco.
"Dawggone!" said Coffee. "This mask is intricate."
"He ain't got any pockets," mourned Wallis.
Then they examined him more closely.
"It's a whole suit," explained Coffee. "H-m.... He don't have to bother with
sag-paste. He's got him on a land diving-suit."
"S-s-say," gasped the prisoner, his language utterly colloquial in spite of the
beady eyes and coarse black hair that marked him racially as of the enemy,
"say, don't take off my mask! Don't take off my mask!"
"He talks an' everything," observed Coffee in mild amazement. He inspected
the mask again and painstakingly smashed the goggles. "Now, big boy, you
take your chance with th' rest of us. What' you doin' around here?"

The prisoner set his teeth, though deathly pale, and did not reply.
"H'm-m...." said Coffee meditatively. "Let's take him in the pill-box an' let
Loot'n't Madison tell us what to do with him."
They picked him up.
"No! No! For Gawd's sake, no!" cried the prisoner shrilly. "I just gassed it!"

The two halted. Coffee scratched his nose.
"Reckon he's lyin', Pete?" he asked.
Corporal Wallis shrugged gloomily.
"He ain't got any tobacco," he said morosely. "Let's chuck him in first an'
see."
The prisoner wriggled until Coffee put his own automatic in the small of his
back.
"How long does that gas last?" he asked, frowning. "Loot'n't Madison wants
us to report. There's some fellers in there, all gassed up, but we were in there
a while back an' it didn't hurt us. How long does it last?"
"Fur-fifteen minutes, maybe twenty," chattered the prisoner. "Don't put me in
there!"
Coffee scratched his nose again and looked at his wrist-watch.
"A'right," he conceded, "we give you twenty minutes. Then we chuck you
down inside. That is, if you act real agreeable until then. Got anything to
smoke?"
The prisoner agonizedly opened a zipper slip in his costume and brought out
tobacco, even tailor-made cigarettes. Coffee pounced on them one second
before Wallis. Then he divided them with absorbed and scrupulous fairness.

"Right," said Sergeant Coffee comfortably. He lighted up. "Say, you, if y'
want to smoke, here's one o' your pills. Let's see the gas stuff. How' y' use
it?"
Wallis had stripped off a heavy belt about the prisoner's waist and it was
trailing over his arm. He inspected it now. There were twenty or thirty little
sticks in it, each one barely larger than a lead pencil, of dirty gray color, and
each one securely nested in a tube of flannel-lined papier-mache.
"These things?" asked Wallis contentedly. He was inhaling deeply with that
luxurious enjoyment a tailor-made cigarette can give a man who had been
remaking butts into smokes for days past.
"Don't touch 'em," warned the prisoner nervously. "You broke my goggles.
You throw 'em, and they light and catch fire, and that scatters the gas."

Coffee touched the prisoner, indicating the ground, and sat down,
comfortably smoking one of the prisoner's cigarettes. By his air, he began to
approve of his captive.
"Say, you," he said curiously, "you talk English pretty good. How'd you learn
it?"
"I was a waiter," the prisoner explained. "New York. Corner Forty-eighth
and Sixth."
"My Gawd!" said Coffee. "Me, I used to be a movie operator along there.
Forty-ninth. Projection room stuff, you know. Say, you know Heine's place?"
"Sure," said the prisoner. "I used to buy Scotch from that blond feller in the
back room. With a benzine label for a prescription?"
Coffee lay back and slapped his knee.
"Ain't it a small world?" he demanded. "Pete, here, he ain't never been in any
town bigger than Chicago. Ever in Chicago?"

"Hell," said Wallis, morose yet comfortable with a tailor-made cigarette. "If
you guys want to start a extra war, go to knockin' Chicago. That's all."
Coffee looked at his wrist-watch again.
"Got ten minutes yet," he observed. "Say, you must know Pete Hanfry—"
"Sure I know him," said the enemy prisoner, scornfully. "I waited on him.
One day, just before us reserves were called back home...."
In the monster tank that was headquarters the general tapped his fingers on
his knees. The pale white light flickered a little as it shone on the board
where the bright sparks crawled. White sparks were American tanks. Blue
flashes were for enemy tanks sighted and reported, usually in the three-
second interval between their identification and the annihilation of the
observation-post that had reported them. Red glows showed encounters
between American and enemy tanks. There were a dozen red glows visible,
with from one to a dozen white sparks hovering about them. It seemed as if
the whole front line were about to burst into a glare of red, were about to
become one long lane of conflicts in impenetrable obscurity, where metal
monsters roared and rumbled and clanked one against the other, bellowing
and belching flame and ramming each other savagely, while from them
dripped the liquids that made their breath mean death. There were
nightmarish conflicts in progress under the blanket of fog, unparalleled save
perhaps in the undersea battles between submarines in the previous
European war.

The chief of staff looked up; his face drawn.
"General," he said harshly, "it looks like a frontal attack all along our line."
The general's cigar had gone out. He was pale, but calm with an iron
composure.
"Yes," he conceded. "But you forget that blank spot in our line. We do not
know what is happening there."
"I am not forgetting it. But the enemy outnumbers us two to one—"

"I am waiting," said the general, "to hear from those two infantrymen who
reported some time ago from a listen-post in the dead area."
The chief of staff pointed to the outline formed by the red glows where tanks
were battling.
"Those fights are keeping up too long!" he said sharply. "General, don't you
see, they're driving back our line, but they aren't driving it back as fast as if
they were throwing their whole weight on it! If they were making a frontal
attack there, they'd wipe out the tanks we have facing them; they'd roll right
over them! That's a feint! They're concentrating in the dead space—"
"I am waiting," said the general softly, "to hear from those two infantrymen."
He looked at the board again and said quietly, "Have the call-signal sent
them. They may answer."
He struck a match to relight his dead cigar. His fingers barely quivered as
they held the match. It might have been excitement—but it might have been
foreboding, too.
"By the way," he said, holding the match clear, "have our machine-shops and
supply-tanks ready to move. Every plane is, of course, ready to take the air
on signal. But get the aircraft ground personnel in their traveling tanks
immediately."
Voices began to murmur orders as the general puffed. He watched the board
steadily.
"Let me know if anything is heard from these infantrymen...."

There was a definite air of strain within the tank that was headquarters. It
was a sort of tensity that seemed to emanate from the general himself.
Where Coffee and Wallis and the prisoner squatted on the ground, however,
there was no sign of strain at all. There was a steady gabble of voices.
"What kinda rations they give you?" asked Coffee interestedly.

The enemy prisoner listed them, with profane side-comments.
"Hell," said Wallis gloomily. "Y'ought to see what we get! Las' week they
fed us worse'n dogs. An' th' canteen stuff—"
"Your tank men, they get treated fancy?" asked the prisoner.
Coffee made a reply consisting almost exclusively of high powered
expletives.
"—and the infantry gets it in the neck every time," he finished savagely. "We
do the work—"
Guns began to boom, far away. Wallis cocked his ears.
"Tanks gettin' together," he judged, gloomily. "If they'd all blow each other
to hell an' let us infantry fight this battle—"
"Damn the tanks!" said the enemy prisoner viciously. "Look here, you
fellers. Look at me. They sent a battalion of us out, in two waves. We hike
along by compass through the fog, supposed to be five paces apart. We come
on a pill-box or listenin' post, we gas it an' go on. We try not to make a noise.
We try not to get seen before we use our gas. We go on, deep in your lines as
we can. We hear one of your tanks, we dodge it if we can, so we don't get
seen at all. O'course we give it a dose of gas in passing, just in case. But we
don't get any orders about how far to go or how to come back. We ask for
recognition signals for our own tanks, an' they grin an' say we won't see
none of our tanks till the battle's over. They say 'Re-form an' march back
when the fog is out.' Ain't that pretty for you?"
"You second wave?" asked Coffee, with interest.
The prisoner nodded.
"Mopping up," he said bitterly, "what the first wave left. No fun in that! We
go along gassin' dead men, an' all the time your tanks is ravin' around to find
out what's happenin' to their listenin'-posts. They run into us—"
Coffee nodded sympathetically.
"The infantry always gets the dirty end of the stick," said Wallis morosely.

Somewhere, something blew up with a violent explosion. The noise of battle
in the distance became heavier and heavier.
"Goin' it strong," said the prisoner, listening.
"Yeh," said Coffee. He looked at his wrist-watch. "Say, that twenty minutes
is up. You go down in there first, big boy."
They stood beside the little pill-box. The prisoner's knees shook.
"Say, fellers," he said pleadingly, "they told us that stuff would scatter in
twenty minutes, but you busted my mask. Yours ain't any good against this
gas. I'll have to go down in there if you fellers make me, but—"
Coffee lighted another of the prisoner's tailor-made cigarettes.
"Give you five minutes more," he said graciously. "I don't suppose it'll ruin
the war."
They sat down relievedly again, while the fog-gas made all the earth
invisible behind a pall of grayness, a grayness from which the noises of
battle came.
In the tank that was headquarters, the air of strain was pronounced. The
maneuver-board showed the situation as close to desperation, now. The
reserve-tank positions had been switched on the board, dim orange glows,
massed in curiously precise blocks. And little squares of green showed there
that the supply and machine-shop tanks were massed. They were moving
slowly across the maneuver-board. But the principal change lay in the front-
line indications.
The red glows that showed where tank battles were in progress formed an
irregularly curved line, now. There were twenty or more such isolated battles
in progress, varying from single combats between single tanks to greater
conflicts where twenty to thirty tanks to a side were engaged. And the
positions of those conflicts were changing constantly, and invariably the
American tanks were being pushed back.

The two staff officers behind the general were nearly silent. There were few
sparks crawling within the American lines now. Nearly every one had been
diverted into the front-line battles. The two men watched the board with
feverish intensity, watching the red glows moving back, and back....
The chief of staff was shaking like a leaf, watching the American line
stretched, and stretched....
The general looked at him with a twisted smile.
"I know my opponent," he said suddenly. "I had lunch with him once in
Vienna. We were attending a disarmament conference." He seemed to be
amused at the ironic statement. "We talked war and battles, of course. And
he showed me, drawing on the tablecloth, the tactical scheme that should
have been used at Cambrai, back in 1917. It was a singularly perfect plan. It
was a beautiful one."
"General," burst out one of the two staff officers behind him. "I need twenty
tanks from the reserves."
"Take them," said the general. He went on, addressing his chief of staff. "It
was an utterly flawless plan. I talked to other men. We were all pretty busy
estimating each other there, we soldiers. We discussed each other with some
freedom, I may say. And I formed the opinion that the man who is in
command of the enemy is an artist: a soldier with the spirit of an amateur.
He's a very skilful fencer, by the way. Doesn't that suggest anything?"
The chief of staff had his eyes glued to the board.
"That is a feint, sir. A strong feint, yes, but he has his force concentrated in
the dead area."
"You are not listening, sir," said the general, reprovingly. "I am saying that
my opponent is an artist, an amateur, the sort of person who delights in the
delicate work of fencing. I, sir, would thank God for the chance to defeat my
enemy. He has twice my force, but he will not be content merely to defeat
me. He will want to defeat me by a plan of consummate artistry, which will
arouse admiration among soldiers for years to come."
"But General, every minute, every second—"

"We are losing men, of whom we have plenty, and tanks, of which we have
not enough. True, very true," conceded the general. "But I am waiting to
hear from two strayed infantrymen. When they report, I will speak to them
myself."
"But, sir," cried the chief of staff, withheld only by the iron habit of
discipline from violent action and the taking over of command himself,
"they may be dead! You can't risk this battle waiting for them! You can't risk
it, sir! You can't!"
"They are not dead," said the general coolly. "They cannot be dead.
Sometimes, sir, we must obey the motto on our coins. Our country needs this
battle to be won. We have got to win it, sir! And the only way to win it—"

The signal-light at his telephone glowed. The general snatched it up, his
hands quivering. But his voice, was steady and deliberate as he spoke.
"Hello, Sergeant—Sergeant Coffee, is it?... Very well, Sergeant. Tell me
what you've found out.... Your prisoner objects to his rations, eh? Very well,
go on.... How did he gas our listening-posts?... He did, eh? He got turned
around and you caught him wandering about?... Oh, he was second wave!
They weren't taking any chances on any of our listening-posts reporting their
tanks, eh?... Say that again, Sergeant Coffee!" The general's tone had
changed indescribably. "Your prisoner has no recognition signals for his own
tanks? They told him he wouldn't see any of them until the battle was
over?... Thank you, Sergeant. One of our tanks will stop for you. This is the
commanding general speaking."
He rang off, his eyes blazing. Relaxation was gone. He was a dynamo,
snapping orders.
"Supply tanks, machine-shop tanks, ground forces of the air service,
concentrate here!" His finger rested on a spot in the middle of the dead area.
"Reserve tanks take position behind them. Draw off every tank we've got—
take 'em out of action!—and mass them in front, on a line with our former
first line of outposts. Every airplane and helicopter take the air and engage in

general combat with the enemy, wherever the enemy may be found and in
whatever force. And our tanks move straight through here!"
Orders were snapping into telephone transmitters. The commands had been
relayed before their import was fully realized. Then there was a gasp.
"General!" cried the chief of staff. "If the enemy is massed there, he'll
destroy our forces in detail as they take position!"
"He isn't massed there," said the general, his eyes blazing. "The infantrymen
who were gassing our listening-posts were given no recognition signals for
their tanks. Sergeant Coffee's prisoner has his gas-mask broken and is in
deadly fear. The enemy commander is foolish in many ways, perhaps, but
not foolish enough to break down morale by refusing recognition signals to
his own men who will need them. And look at the beautiful plan he's got."

He sketched half a dozen lines with his fingers, moving them in lightning
gestures as his orders took effect.
"His main force is here, behind those skirmishes that look like a feint. As
fast as we reinforce our skirmishing-line, he reinforces his—just enough to
drive our tanks back slowly. It looks like a strong feint, but it's a trap! This
dead space is empty. He thinks we are concentrating to face it. When he is
sure of it—his helicopters will sweep across any minute, now, to see—he'll
throw his whole force on our front line. It'll crumple up. His whole fighting
force will smash through to take us, facing the dead space, in the rear! With
twice our numbers, he'll drive us before him."
"But general! You're ordering a concentration there! You're falling in with
his plans!"
The general laughed.
"I had lunch with the general in command over there, once upon a time. He
is an artist. He won't be content with a defeat like that! He'll want to make
his battle a masterpiece, a work of art! There's just one touch he can add. He
has to have reserves to protect his supply-tanks and machine-shops. They're

fixed. The ideal touch, the perfect tactical fillip, will be—Here! Look. He
expects to smash in our rear, here. The heaviest blow will fall here. He will
swing around our right wing, drive us out of the dead area into his own lines
—and drive us on his reserves! Do you see it? He'll use every tank he's got
in one beautiful final blow. We'll be outwitted, out-numbered, out-flanked
and finally caught between his main body and his reserves and pounded to
bits. It is a perfect, a masterly bit of work!"
He watched the board, hawklike.
"We'll concentrate, but our machine-shops and supplies will concentrate with
us. Before he has time to take us in rear we'll drive ahead, in just the line he
plans for us! We don't wait to be driven into his reserves. We roll into them
and over them! We smash his supplies! We destroy his shops! And then we
can advance along his line of communication and destroy it, our own depots
being blown up—give the orders when necessary—and leaving him stranded
with motor-driven tanks, motorized artillery, and nothing to run his motors
with! He'll be marooned beyond help in the middle of our country, and we
will have him at our mercy when his tanks run out of fuel. As a matter of
fact, I shall expect him to surrender in three days."

The little blocks of green and yellow that had showed the position of the
reserve and supply-tanks, changed abruptly to white, and began to crawl
across the maneuver-board. Other little white sparks turned about. Every
white spark upon the maneuver-board suddenly took to itself a new
direction.
"Disconnect cables," said the general, crisply. "We move with our tanks, in
the lead!"
The monotonous humming of the electric generator was drowned out in a
thunderous uproar that was muffled as an air-tight door was shut abruptly.
Fifteen seconds later there was a violent lurch, and the colossal tank was on
the move in the midst of a crawling, thundering horde of metal monsters
whose lumbering progress shook the earth.

Sergeant Coffee, still blinking his amazement, absent-mindedly lighted the
last of his share of the cigarettes looted from the prisoner.
"The big guy himself!" he said, still stunned. "My Gawd! The big guy
himself!"
A distant thunder began, a deep-toned rumbling that seemed to come from
the rear. It came nearer and grew louder. A peculiar quivering seemed to set
up in the earth. The noise was tanks moving through the fog, not one tank or
two tanks, or twenty tanks, but all the tanks in creation rumbling and
lurching at their topmost speed in serried array.
Corporal Wallis heard, and turned pale. The prisoner heard, and his knees
caved in.
"Hell," said Corporal Wallis dispairingly. "They can't see us, an' they
couldn't dodge us if they did!"
The prisoner wailed, and slumped to the floor.
Coffee picked him up by the collar and jerked him out of the pill-box.
"C'mon Pete," he ordered briefly. "They ain't givin' us a infantryman's
chance, but maybe we can do some dodgin'!"

Then the roar of engines, of metal treads crushing upon earth and clinking
upon their joints, drowned out all possible other sounds. Before the three
men beside the pill-box could have moved a muscle, monster shapes loomed
up, rushing, rolling, lurching, squeaking. They thundered past, and the hot
fumes of their exhausts enveloped the trio.
Coffee growled and put himself in a position of defiance, his feet braced
against the concrete of the pill-box dome. His expression was snarling and
angry but, surreptitiously, he crossed himself. He heard the fellows of the
two tanks that had roared by him, thundering along in alignment to right and
left. A twenty-yard space, and a second row of the monsters came hurtling
on, gun muzzles gaping, gas-tubes elevated, spitting smoke from their
exhausts that was even thicker than the fog. A third row, a fourth, a fifth....

The universe was a monster uproar. One could not think in this volume of
sound. It seemed that there was fighting overhead. Crackling noises came
feebly through the reverberating uproar that was the army of the United
States in full charge. Something came whirling down through the
overhanging mist and exploded in a lurid flare that for a second or two cast
the grotesque shadows of a row of tanks clearly before the trio of shaken
infantrymen.
Still the tanks came on and roared past. Twenty tanks, twenty-one ... twenty-
two.... Coffee lost count, dazed and almost stunned by the sheer noise. It
rose from the earth and seemed to be echoed back from the topmost limit of
the skies. It was a colossal din, an incredible uproar, a sustained thunder that
beat at the eardrums like the reiterated concussions of a thousand guns that
fired without ceasing. There was no intermission, no cessation of the tumult.
Row after row after row of the monsters roared by, beaked and armed, going
greedily with hungry guns into battle.

And then, for a space of seconds, no tanks passed. Through the
pandemonium of their going, however, the sound of firing somehow seemed
to creep. It was gunfire of incredible intensity, and it came from the direction
in which the front-rank tanks were heading.
"Forty-eight, forty-nine, forty-ten, forty-'leven," muttered Coffee dazedly,
his senses beaten down almost to unconsciousness by the ordeal of sound.
"Gawd! The whole army went by!"
The roaring of the fighting-tanks was less, but it was still a monstrous din.
Through it, however, came now a series of concussions that were so close
together that they were inseparable, and so violent that they were like slaps
upon the chest.
Then came other noises, louder only because nearer. These were different
noises, too, from those the fighting-tanks had made. Lighter noises. The
curious, misshapen service tanks began to rush by, of all sizes and all shapes.
Fuel-carrier tanks. Machine-shop tanks, huge ones, these. Commissary
tanks....

Something enormous and glistening stopped short. A door opened. A voice
roared an order. The three men, beaten and whipped by noise, stared dumbly.
"Sergeant Coffee!" roared the voice. "Bring your men! Quick!"
Coffee dragged himself back to a semblance of life. Corporal Wallis moved
forward, sagging. The two of them loaded their prisoner into the door and
tumbled in. They were instantly sent into a heap as the tank took up its
progress again with a sudden sharp leap.
"Good man," grinned a sooty-faced officer, clinging to a handhold. "The
general sent special orders you were to be picked up. Said you'd won the
battle. It isn't finished yet, but when the general says that—"
"Battle?" said Coffee dully. "This ain't my battle. It's a parade of a lot of
damn tanks!"
There was a howl of joy from somewhere above. Discipline in the machine-
shop tanks was strict enough, but vastly different in kind from the formality
of the fighting-machines.
"Contact!" roared the voice again. "General wireless is going again! Our
fellows have rolled over their reserves and are smashing their machine-shops
and supplies!"
Yells reverberated deafeningly inside the steel walls, already filled with
tumult from the running motors and rumbling treads.
"Smashed 'em up!" shrieked the voice above, insane with joy. "Smashed 'em!
Smashed 'em! Smashed 'em! We've wiped out their whole reserve and—" A
series of detonations came through even the steel shell of the lurching tank.
Detonations so violent, so monstrous, that even through the springs and
treads of the tank the earth-concussion could be felt. "There goes their
ammunition! We set off all their dumps!"
There was sheer pandemonium inside the service-tank, speeding behind the
fighting force with only a thin skin of reserve-tanks between it and a panic-
stricken, mechanically pursuing enemy.
"Yell, you birds!" screamed the voice. "The general says we've won the
battle! Thanks to the fighting force! We're to go on and wipe out the enemy

line of communications, letting him chase us till his gas gives out! Then we
come back and pound him to bits! Our tanks have wiped him out!"

Coffee managed to find something to hold on to. He struggled to his feet.
Corporal Wallis, recovering from the certainty of death and the torture of
sound, was being very sea-sick from the tank's motion. The prisoner moved
away from him on the steel floor. He looked gloomily up at Coffee.
"Listen to 'em," said Coffee bitterly. "Tanks! Tanks! Tanks! Hell! If they'd
given us infantry a chance—"
"You said it," said the prisoner savagely. "This is a hell of a way to fight a
war."
Corporal Wallis turned a greenish face to them.
"The infantry always gets the dirty end of the stick," he gasped. "Now they
—now they' makin' infantry ride in tanks! Hell!"

Invisible Death

By Anthony Pelcher

Wildly racing through the night, missing other cars by a breath,
the visible car continued its pursuit of—what?

The inquest into the mysterious death of Darius Darrow,
savant, inventor, recluse and eccentric, resembled a On Lees' quick and
clever action
scientific convention. Men and women of high scientific depended the life of
attainment, and, in some instances, world fame, attended "Old Perk"
to hear first hand the strange, uncanny, unbelievable Ferguson, the
millionaire
circumstances as hinted by the newspapers. manufacturer
threatened by the
Mrs. Susan Darrow, the widow, was the paramount uncanny, invisible
witness. She appeared a quaint figure as she took the killer.
stand. Tearful, yet alert, this little woman betrayed the
intelligence that had made her one of the world's foremost chemists. She
gave her age as fifty-eight, but if it had not been for her snowy hair she
would have looked much younger. She was small but not frail, and had
expressive blue eyes. She had a firm little nose and chin, and was garbed in
black silk garments of a fashion evidently dating back a decade.
Although not modern in dress, her answers to questions regarding scientific
and business affairs involved in the mysterious case, proved she was
thoroughly abreast of the times in all other particulars.
"You believe your husband was murdered?" bluntly asked the examiner at
one stage.
"That is my opinion," she said, then added: "It might have been some
scientific accident, the nature of which I cannot fathom. We were
confidential in all matters except my husband's work. He reserved the right
to be secretive about the scientific problems on which he was working."
"Can you throw any light on a motive for such a crime?"
"The motive seems self-evident. He was working on an invention that he
said would do away with war and would make the owner of the device a
practical world dictator, should he choose to exercise such power. The
device was completed. The murderer killed him to secure his device. That all
seems plain enough."
"Was anything else of value taken?"
"We had nothing else of value about the place. I was never given to jewelry.
The furnishings and equipment were undisturbed. It is quite evident, I think,

that the thief was no ordinary petty burglar."

The attorney interposed: "I believe we had better let Mrs. Darrow tell this
story from the beginning in her own way. There are only two really
important witnesses. Whatever she can remember to recite might be of value
to the authorities. Now, Mrs. Darrow, how long had you lived at Brooknook?
Begin there and just let your story unfold. Try to control your nerves and
emotions."
"I am not emotional. I am not nervous," said the quaint little woman,
bravely. "My heart hurts, that is all.
"The place was named by my father. We inherited it at his death, thirty years
ago, and moved in. My two children were born and died there. At first we
kept the servants and maintained all of the thirty-two rooms. But after the
children were gone, we both gave ourselves over to study and we began to
close one room after another, releasing the servants one by one."
"How many rooms do you occupy now?"
"We lived in three, a living-room, kitchen and bedroom. The two big parlors
were turned into a laboratory. We both worked there. It was there my
husband met his death at his work. Sometimes we worked together,
sometimes independently. I did all my own housework, except the laundry,
which I sent out. We had no visitors. We lived for each other and our work."
"Tell us about the rooms that were not occupied."
"We left them just as they always had been. I have not been in any of these
rooms for twenty years. Once I looked into the little girl's room—my
daughter's room. It was dusty and cobwebby, but undisturbed by human
hand. My husband peered in over my shoulder. I closed the door. We turned
away in each other's arms."

Here the little old woman fell to weeping softly into her lace handkerchief.
Minutes lapsed as the court waited, respecting her grief.
"Were these rooms locked?" asked the attorney finally.
"No," said the widow, recovering, as she dabbed at her eyes. "We feared no
one. All the rooms were closed, but not locked. The outside doors were
seldom locked. We lived in our own world. For appearance sake we kept up
the grounds. Peck, the gardener, kept the grounds, as you know. He called in
outside help when necessary. This was his affair. We never bothered him. He
lived probably a half mile up the road. The first of each month he would
come for his pay. He was practically our only visitor.
"When it was necessary to see our attorney or other connections, Peck would
drive us. At first he used to drive our horses. Ten years ago we pastured the
horses for life and bought the small car. We seldom went out. We have no
close friends and no relatives nearer than the Pacific coast. They are distant
cousins. You see, we were rather alone in the world since the children went
away—we never spoke of them as being dead."
Again the court was hushed. The coroner and the attorney took occasion to
blow their noses rather violently.
"On May 27th, the day your husband died, what happened, as you re-
remember it?" asked the attorney.
"We arose and had breakfast as usual. I was puttering about the rooms. My
husband kissed me and started for the laboratory. I was in the kitchen. It was
about ten o'clock when I finished in the kitchen and went into the living
room which adjoins the laboratory. I had been rather fretted, something
unusual for me. It seemed I dimly sensed the presence of someone near me,
someone I did not know, an outsider. I thought it was foolish of me and
buckled up.
"But when I went into the living room, it seemed as if some invisible
presence were following me. I could hear the low hum of my husband's
device. The door of the laboratory was open. He called to me and said:
"'Sue dear, it seems strange, but I made two models of this set and now I can
find only one. You could not have misplaced the other by any chance, could

you?'
"I assured him I knew nothing of it and he said, 'Hum-m, that's funny.' Then
he went back into the library and closed the door. The humming continued. I
was more annoyed than ever, but I did not want to bother my husband. Then
a queer thing happened. I saw the door of the laboratory open and close, but
I did not see anyone. The next instant, I heard my husband's outcry. It was
more a groan than a scream.

"I rushed into the laboratory. My husband was lying by his slate-topped
table. The device, I noticed, was gone. It was no bigger than a coffee-mill, I
thought, as I bent over my husband. Strange how such a thought could have
crowded in at such a time.
"My husband's head was bleeding. It was cut, a long gash over the ear, just
below the bald spot. It must have been a frightful blow. I looked in his eyes.
My nurse's and pharmaceutical course gave me knowledge which sent a chill
to my heart. He was dead. I must have fainted.
"When I recovered I ran for Peck. I found him near the house, coming my
way and holding his right eye.
"'Something struck me,' he said. Then, seeing me so pale, he said, 'My God!
Mrs. Darrow, what has happened?'
"'Run for the doctor,' I said. When the doctor came he called the police and
coroner. They told me not to disturb the body. Later they took it away, and
the gardener told me—"
"Never mind what Peck told you," interrupted the attorney. "We will let him
tell it. Is that all you can tell us about the death itself?"
But the widow was weeping now, so violently that the court ordered her
excused.

The gardener was called and took the stand displaying a big, black eye,
which offered comedy relief to a pathetic situation.
"On the main road to the east," he began after preliminary questioning, "was
a small car which had been parked there all morning. I noticed it because it
had no license plates. It was visible from the inside of the grounds, but was
hidden from the road by a hedge. It made me wonder because it was just
inside our grounds.
"I had some very special red flags which I planted as a border back of pink
geraniums. They were doing fine. I got them from the Fabrish seed house.
There are no plants like Fabrish's—I wouldn't give a snap of my finger for
all the other—"
"Just a minute," interrupted the attorney. He told the gardener to never mind
the geraniums and flags, but to tell just what happened.
"Well, I was bending over the border bed when I heard sounds like someone
running along the gravel path towards me. I heard a humming like a bumble
bee and I jumped to my feet. Just then something hit me in the eye and
knocked me down. Yes sir, knocked me plumb down, and—"
"Then what happened? Never mind the asides, the extras—tell us just the
simple facts," instructed the attorney.
"Well, you won't believe it, but I heard the footsteps leave the road. The
geraniums were badly trampled. I looked at the parked automobile and could
hear the hum coming from there.
"The machine started and turned into the road—"
"Did you notice anyone at the wheel?"
"That's what you're not going to believe. There wasn't anybody in that auto
at all. I didn't see anyone at any time. The auto started itself, and what is
more, that auto only went about a hundred yards when it disappeared
altogether—like that—like a flash."
"Did it turn off the road?"

"I didn't turn anywhere. It was in the middle of the road. It just disappeared
right in the middle of the road. It started without a driver, it turned north
without a driver, and went on by itself for about a hundred yards. Then it
vanished in the middle of the road. Just dropped out of sight."
The court-room was hushed. The audience and court attaches were awe
stricken and looked their incredulity.
"Do you mean to tell us that auto drove itself?" asked the court sternly.

The witness was completely confused. The attorney came to his rescue,
looked at the court, and said:
"He has told that same story a hundred times, and he will stick to it. It seems
impossible, but has not Mrs. Darrow told us she heard this humming and
saw nothing? With the purely perfunctory recitals of the doctor and the
constabulary this court and the jury have heard all there is to hear. We have
no more witnesses. That is all there is.
"The jury will have to decide from the evidence whether this case is accident
or murder. The doctor and two experts have reported that the wound
appeared to have been made by some blunt instrument, swung powerfully.
The skull under the wound and back of the ear was simply crushed. Death
was instantaneous. It all happened in broad daylight."
After an hour's deliberation the jury decided the savant came to his death in
his laboratory from a blow on the skull received in some manner unknown.
The crowd filed out, spiritedly discussing the unusual crime. In the crowd
was Perkins Ferguson, known as "Old Perk," head of the Schefert
Engineering Corporation, who paid royalty on some of the Darrow patents.
With him was Damon Farnsworth, his first vice-president.
"Well, what do you think of it?" asked Farnsworth, biting into a black cigar.
"Damned weird, isn't it?" replied "Old Perk." "I have my own theory,
however," he added, "but I am going to know a whole lot more about this

case before I venture it." The pair climbed into Ferguson's car discussing the
Darrow death case with furrowed brows.

What might be termed an extraordinary meeting of the directors of the
Schefert Engineering Corporation, was held a few days later in a big
building in the financial district.
The rich furnishings of the directors' room indicated, better than Bradstreet's,
the great wealth of the corporation. Uniformed pages stood at attention at
each end of the long, mahogany table at which were seated the fourteen
directors of the company. All were men of wealth, standing and engineering
knowledge. The departed Darrow often had been summoned to such
meetings, and at this one there was a hush because of his recent demise.
After a batch of preliminary business had been transacted, Ferguson arose
and cleared his throat. The directors leaned forward in their chairs
expectantly. The page boys lost their mechanical attitude for the instant and
fairly craned their necks around the bulks of the forms in front of them.
"The Darrow case has taken a sudden and sinister turn," said the president. "I
have a letter. I will read it:

"Old Perk: Get wise to yourself. We are in a position to destroy you and
all the pot-bellies in the Wall Street crowd. If you want to die of old
age, remember what happened to Darrow and begin declaring us in on
Wall Street dividends. If you do not you will follow Darrow in the same
way.
"Our first demand is for $100,000. Leave this amount in hundreds and
fifties in the rubbish can at the corner of 50th Street and Broadway at
10 A. M. next Thursday. If you fail we will break your damned neck.
Bring the police with you if you like.
Invisible Death.

Ferguson passed the letter around for inspection. It was painstakingly
printed, evidently from the type in a rubber stamp set such as is sold in toy
stores.
"I have decided," said Perkins at length, "to give this case to Walter Lees. He
has never failed us in mechanical, chemical, or any form of scientific
problem. I hope he will not fail in this. He will work independently of the
police, who have requested that we keep the appointment at 50th Street and
Broadway at the hour named. We will deposit a roll of newspapers, around
which has been wrapped a fifty dollar bill and then we will stand by while
the awaiting detectives do their duty."
"You do not think anyone is going to call for any supposed package of
money at one of the most congested corners in the world in broad daylight?"
asked a director at the end of the table.
"Why not?" asked Ferguson. "A seedy individual could pick a package from
a rubbish bin at that corner without attracting the least attention."
"I guess you're right," agreed the doubting one.
"I know I'm right," said the president. And he usually was.
"I have already arranged to have Lees instructed in his work," Ferguson
volunteered as a pause came in the buzz of conversation about the table.
"Lees is young, but he is capable." There was general discussion of the
strange case of Darius Darrow; the room filled with the blue haze of many
cigars.
Suddenly a low, humming sound was heard in the room.
Papers on the directors' table were bunched as if by unseen hands, and
thrown to the ceiling, from which they descended like flakes of snow and
scattered about the room.
A book of minutes was torn from the hands of a secretary. It was raised and
brought down on vice-president Farnsworth's head. A chair was pulled out
from under another director and he was deposited in an undignified heap on
the floor.

Another director acted as though he had been tripped, and he fell on top of
Farnsworth. Two big vases crashed to the floor in bits. Other decorative
objects were scattered about.
The directors who had been hurtled to the floor stood up with expressions of
comical surprise on their features. Their chairs catapulted into a far corner of
the room, one after the other.
Startled expressions resounded from the group.
A small bookcase fell on its front with a crash of glass. Ferguson's cane
jumped in the air and crashed a window pane.
The humming ceased suddenly.

The room was a wreck. The assembled men stood aghast. They were simply
nonplussed. Finally they phoned for the police.
After hearing the strange recital from so many highly reputable witnesses, a
detective sergeant, who had responded to the call with others, reported to
headquarters.
A uniformed police guard was sent to the place with instructions to remain
on duty until relieved.
Ferguson sent for Walter Lees, the young engineer of whom he had spoken
to the directorate. Assigned to the task of unraveling the Darrow death
mystery, Lees ran true to form by getting busy at once. This was at midnight
of the day of the surprising directors' meeting. Lees owned a big car; he
piled into it and started for the scene of the crime.
Daybreak found him examining every inch of the road around the Darrow
estate. Then he searched the hedge along the east road, where the phantom
auto had disappeared after the crime. The brush along the opposite side of
the thoroughfare was also gone over.
Passing autos had stopped to ask the meaning of his flashlight. Lees
explained he had lost a pocketbook. It was as good an excuse as any and

served to keep him from drawing a crowd. He found nothing to reward his
long and painstaking efforts.
At seven A. M. he decided to interview the Darrow widow, and found her
already up and about her kitchen, weeping softly as she worked.
She bade him be seated in the living room.
"No, I am not afraid to stay here alone," she said in reply to Lees' first
question. "Whoever killed my husband did so to get possession of his second
model. They had already stolen the first. I have thought since that they were
afraid that the finding of the second model after his death would aid in their
detection. For some reason they had to have both models."
She agreed to tell all she knew of the case. Lees listened to the long recital as
already recorded at the coroner's inquest. By adroit questioning Lees gained
just one new fact. Mrs. Darrow remembered that she had called her husband,
just before he retired to his laboratory, to fix a towel hanger in the kitchen.
"He found the pivot needed oiling," explained the widow. "That was all. He
oiled it and went into the laboratory."

The idea of one of the world's greatest mechanical engineers stopping his
work to oil a towel hanger caused Lees to smile, but Mrs. Darrow did not
smile.
"My husband was a genius at repairing about the house," she said, in all
seriousness.
"I can imagine so," agreed Lees.
The conversation ceased. Lees sat for a few minutes with his head in his
hands, thinking deeply. Finally he said:
"I am convinced that someone who was well aware of your husband's habits
committed this crime. Do you believe, positively, that the gardener is above
suspicion?"

"Oh, it couldn't have been Peck," insisted Mrs. Darrow. "I had seen him
down near the gate from the window. He was too far from the house, and
besides, he was devoted to us both."
"Then it was somebody from the neighborhood," said Lees.
"Maybe so," replied Mrs. Darrow, noncommittally.
"Who lives in the next house south?"
"That is towards the city," mused the widow. "There are no houses south on
either side of the road for a little further than a mile, when you reach the
town limits of Farsdale. The town line is about half-way between, and marks
the southern end of this estate."
"Who lives in the first house to the north?"
"That is the cottage of Peck, the gardener."
"How near is the next house?"
"That was the parcel my father sold. It is about three acres, and in the center,
or about the center, is the house built by Adolph Jouret, who bought the land.
He lives there with his daughter. They built a magnificent place. The brook
that traverses our grounds rises at a spring back of his house. Save for two
West Indian servants, they are alone. The servants live in Farsdale and motor
back and forth."

"What do you know of this—what's his name?" queried Lees, who had
assumed the role of examiner.
"Jouret? Very little. He is some sort of a circus man or showman, or was
before he retired. He once had wealth, but my husband, some weeks ago,
said that because of ill-advised investments he was not so well rated as
formerly. I had the feeling that he might be forced to give up the place. I just
felt that. I never heard it. I am so sorry because of the daughter. She is a
beautiful girl, and seemed kindly, the one time I saw her. She was about
twelve then. I do not like to say it, but she seemed a little dazed or slow

witted, but really beautiful." Mrs. Darrow fell to smoothing out the folds in
her house apron as Lees asked:
"When was the only time you saw her?"
"Ten years ago, about. Just after my father's death. They called on us. We did
not care to continue the friendship, as Jouret seemed a little flamboyant—his
circus nature, I suppose. Anyway, we were quiet folks, and there was no
need of close association with neighbors.
"I remember," continued the widow, after a pause, "that Jouret, when he
heard my husband was a scientist, simulated an interest in science. He did
have a smattering knowledge of science, but he was plainly affected, so we
decided to just let him drop. No ill-feeling. We just—well, we were not
interested."
"You do not approve of circus people?"
"It is not that. Any honest work is honorable. It seems commendable to
furnish amusement for the public. I know little about people of his
profession but I am sure they are perfectly all right. It was Jouret, personally.
He seemed noisy and insincere. The girl was nice. I loved her."
"That is all you know of the Jourets?"
"That is all."
"Mrs. Darrow, I wish to go through this house from attic to basement. Have
you any objections?"
"None whatever. Make yourself free, but do not attach any significance to
what appears to be a secret passageway and cave. My father was a biological
chemist. He used to experiment much with small animals. He had a cave
where he stored chemicals, and I believe you will find old chemicals stored
down there now. I disturbed nothing."
The widow forced a smile to her lips. "Will you excuse me?" she concluded.
"I am trying to carry on."

Lees, carrying a flashlight, began a systematic search of the premises. He
made his way up a winding staircase, through dust and cobwebs to the attic.
He found the top story filled with trunks and bits of furniture of a previous
generation. All was in order, but dust-covered and cobwebby.
"Someone has been here before me," he said to himself, brushing a mist of
cobwebs from his coat sleeves. "There is a path brushed through the
spiderwebs." Turning his flashlight on the floor, he exclaimed:
"And here are footprints in the dust. Well I'll be—!"
Then, after some study, he mused:
"Of course there has been someone here. The killer of Darrow probably has
been here to see what he could see. It was no great task. The doors were
never locked. The footprints are of no value except to give me the size of his
shoes."
He measured the footprints carefully. Then he went downstairs and phoned
the measurements to a local shoe dealer, asking him to give him the trade
size of shoes which would make such prints.
"They are number nines," decided the shoe dealer.
Lees then returned to resume his search in the rooms and corridors.
"Wonder if Jouret wears nines," he questioned himself. "But what if he does?
I couldn't convict him on that score. However, it might help."
Then he fell to searching through the old trunks. He found old photographs,
articles of apparel, knicknacks—grandmother's and grandfather's belongings
all of them, and some children's clothes of the days when little boys wore
ruffles about their necks and little girls' pantalettes reached to their ankles.
Carefully each article was replaced. He made his way down to the third and
then the second floor. Through cobwebby corridors and bedchambers he
searched, but found nothing further to aid his case.
In the unused rooms on the first floor he found an old spinning-wheel,
candle moulds and utensils used in cooking in the days when housewives
cooked over an open fire.

He did not find the "secret" passageway until Mrs. Darrow came to his aid.
Leading from the basement was a coal chute. This shoot was formed in a
triangle with the point under a trap. It was man-high at the cellar opening
and its floor was a slide for fuel. It had been in use, evidently, quite recently.
At the cellar wall of this chute, Mrs. Darrow pressed what appeared to be a
knot in the old timber and pushed open a door.
A dank odor issued forth as the door was opened. Lees entered the passage
and Mrs. Darrow returned upstairs.
Following the underground passageway, Lees came onto a cave about 14 by
14 feet in size with a ceiling and walls of arched brick. It had evidently been
built before the days of cement construction.
A long bench and shelves with carboys and jars of chemicals were the only
furnishings. Lees sounded all the walls, but found nothing further to interest
him.
Lees returned to town at the urgent call of "Old Perk," who had arranged
with great care to keep the appointment at 50th street and Broadway, where
the decoy package was to be left. He had snipers in nearby windows. He had
detectives, dressed in the gay garb of the habitues of the neighborhood,
patrolling the corner, and he and his own guard parked an automobile,
against all traffic rule, at the curb near the rubbish can.
An office boy sauntered up to the rubbish can, threw in the decoy package,
and sauntered away.
A second later there was a low humming sound. The decoy package fairly
jumped out of the rubbish can and disappeared in thin air.
The humming sound seemed to round the corner into 50th Street. Detectives
followed on the jump. The humming approached an auto at the curb and the
auto's self starter began to function. As the police stood near by, enough to
have jumped into the auto, the whole machine, a big touring car, actually
disappeared before their eyes.
Consternation is a mild word when used to describe the result.

All forces set to trap the extortionists gathered in a group, and in their
surprise and disappointment began discussing the queer case in loud tones. A
crowd was gathering which was blocking traffic.
"Old Perk" was the first to recover from his surprise.
"Get the hell out of this neighborhood," he yelled to his working forces. "All
of you get down to my office!"
The working force dissolved and "Old Perk" drove away.
At "Old Perk's" office shortly afterward a conference of the defeated forces
of the law and of science was held.
"Old Perk" stormed and raged and the detective captain in charge fumed and
fussed, but nothing came of it all. One was as powerless as another. Finally
the conference adjourned.
The next morning in the mail, Perkins Ferguson, president of Schefert
Engineering Corporation, received a letter carefully printed in rubber type. It
read:

Thanks for the $50 bill. You cheated us by $99,950. This will never do.
Don't be like that. You poor fools, you make us increase our demand.
We double it. Leave $200,000 for us on your desk and leave the desk
unlocked. We will get it. Every time you ignore one of our demands,
one of your number will die. Better take this matter seriously. Last
warning.
Invisible Death.

"Not another dime will they get out of me," mused Ferguson.
He started opening the rest of his mail.
A clerk entered and handed him a telegram. It read:

"Damon Farnsworth struck down at breakfast table. Family heard
humming sound as he fell from his chair. Removed to Medical Center.

Skull reported fractured. May die.
"William Devins, Chief of Police,
Larchmont."

Ferguson wildly seized the telephone. "Get me Farnsworth's house at
Larchmont!" he shouted to his operator.

The phone was answered by Jones, the butler.
"This is Ferguson."
An agitated voice replied:
"'Ow sir, yes sir. It's true, sir. 'E was bleeding at the 'ead, sir. Something 'it
'im."
"Let me talk to Mrs. Farnsworth."
"They are at the 'ospital, sir."
"One of the boys."
"Both are at the 'ospital, sir."
"Do you think he will live?"
"An' 'ow could I say, sir?"
Ferguson called the Medical Center. They permitted him to talk to a doctor
and a nurse. The nurse referred him to the doctor, who said:
"He is unconscious. There is a wicked fracture at the base of the brain. He
was struck from the back—a club, I believe. He may die without regaining
consciousness. I am hoping he will rally and that he will be all right."
Ferguson ordered his car and, with Lees at his heels, jumped in the tonneau.
He heard a humming sound back of him. He looked back and saw nothing.
Both he and Lees were too impressed for words.

"Step on it," Ferguson ordered the chauffeur. "Drive us to the Medical
Center."
At the world's largest group of hospitals, Ferguson's worst fears were
confirmed. The patient was reported sinking.

Ferguson, giant of Wall Street, was a low spirited man as he drove back
down town to his office. With Lees he passed through the outer offices,
buzzing with business and the click of typewriters. Not a head was raised
from a desk or machine. It was a well-drilled force.
Into his private sanctum he walked or rather dragged himself, and wearily he
sat down. He pushed a pile of papers from him and ran his hand over his hot
brow.
Blood pounded at his temples.
For the first time in his life he faced a situation which was too deep for his
understanding.
Over and over again he reviewed the uncanny events as Lees sat awaiting
orders.
"I cannot have them killing off my friends like that," he mused finally.
He called a clerk.
"Go to the bank and get $200,000 in fifties and one hundreds," he
commanded.
When the clerk returned with the money he laid the package on his desk and
left the desk open. "This might appear cowardly, but it will give us time," he
said. Lees did not offer an opinion.
Ferguson drew a personal note for $200,000 and sent it to the Schefert
Corporation's attorneys. This amount represented a large part of Ferguson's
personal assets, not involved with any company with which he was
connected. He told Lees to go about his further investigations. Then he left

the office and started for his home. "I'll bank my life Lees will have those
crooks lined up within a week," he assured himself as he lolled in his auto,
bound homeward. But his voice sounded hollow, and the blood still pounded
at his temples.

Reaching home, he found a call from the western plant, at Chicago. He
phoned the superintendent with a foreboding that all was not well.
"This you, Perk?" sounded the voice on the wire.
"Yes, what's up?"
"I had not intended bothering you with this, but in the light of all that has
happened I guess you had better know that one of our engineers went stark
mad out here about three weeks ago. He was a very brainy man but his
reason snapped. He first appeared queer when he began talking of anarchy
and cursing capitalists. Then one afternoon he struck a shop foreman down
with a heavy wrench and rushed out of the plant. We have not seen him
since. The police have been looking for him, but he is still at large."
"That explains a lot of things," said "Old Perk." "Tell the police to keep after
him. We'll look for him here. File me a complete detailed report of the
incident by telegraph," he instructed. Then he asked:
"How is the foreman? Badly hurt?"
"He dodged; it was a glancing blow. The foreman was back to work in a
week. But he is nervous and has armed himself. We have put on extra
guards."
"Good," commended Ferguson. "Don't hesitate to spend tolls to keep me
advised of any developments."
An hour and a half later, Ferguson phoned the chief clerk in his offices:
"Go into my private office," he ordered, "and see if there is a package on my
desk. It is a bank package."

The clerk returned in a few moments.
"There is no package on your desk, Mr. Ferguson."
"That is all I wanted to know," said Ferguson, and hung up the receiver.
Then Ferguson called up the Darrow home and tried to get in touch with
Lees, but was unable to do so, as Mrs. Darrow said she had not seen him
since he had been called back to the office.

The reason Ferguson could not reach Lees was because Lees had decided to
learn once and for all if Jouret wore number nine shoes. He had started for
Jouret's in his own car. It was a beautiful country he was traversing, but he
had no time to note that the tree branches almost met over his head and that
his way was bordered with a profusion of wild flowers, displaying a rainbow
of colors.
The house of Jouret, the retired circus performer, sat back far from the road,
against the side of a beautiful hill, and was surrounded by poplars. The
landscape was wilder and more natural than that of the Darrow place
adjoining.
The door was opened by a Porto Rican boy. Lees lost no time. He said
bluntly:
"Tell your master that a gentleman is here to see him on very particular
business."
Jouret, himself, came back with the boy.
"What is it?" he asked, smiling a welcome.
"I am working on the case of the death of Mr. Darrow, your neighbor. I
believed you might have seen something. I thought you might aid me."

Jouret betrayed no surprise.
"Come in," he said. He led the way to a large reception room and asked his
visitor to be seated. He was the soul of affability. Short, husky and florid.
His eyes large, black and staring. His hair black, quite long and curling
upward at the ears. He was dressed in black, and he had the appearance of a
big, fat crow.
"I am glad you came," he greeted his guest, "for I have far too few callers."
He switched on a big electric bunch-light in the center of the room, for it was
dusk.
"We have been told that you are a retired circus man," said Lees, in his usual
frank manner.
"Not exactly," said Jouret. "I traveled on the continent, finally journeying to
Australia and then to the States. I crossed the country from San Francisco
and settled down here. I was known as 'Elias, the Great.' I had my own
company and property. It was a magic show. It was not a circus, although we
did carry two elephants, three camels, some ponies, snakes, and birds and
smaller animals. That's where the circus report came from.
"When I retired I sold my stock to a circus. The newspapers regarded it as
funny, and one of them printed a half page story with pictures about the
public sale. It was very much exaggerated. They mentioned giraffes, hyenas,
and a lot of other animals I never possessed. Odd, wasn't it, getting so much
publicity after I was through needing it? However I never, in those days,
dodged the limelight." Jouret ended his speech with a loud and hearty
guffaw.
"I will call my daughter," Jouret appended. "She will be glad to meet you."
He left the room.
Lees had taken occasion to note the size of Jouret's feet. They were small,
almost effeminate. More likely fives or sixes than nines.
Soon Jouret returned with a girl in her early twenties. She was blond and
radiantly beautiful.

Doris Jouret bowed and smiled in a perfectly friendly manner. Lees noted
that there was something about her eyes that made her appear dazed.
Jouret monopolized the conversation, giving no one a chance to edge in a
word.
"This gentleman desires information in connection with the death of our
neighbor Mr., or is it Dr., Darrow? I want you to assure him, as I will, that
we have seen or noted nothing that could possibly throw light on the strange
case."
The girl nodded, it seemed a little wearily, and Jouret was off on another
conversational flight:
"I too am a man of scientific attainments," he chattered. "I am a biologist,
toxicologist, doctor of medicine, a geologist, metalurgist, mineralogist, and
somewhat of a mechanic and electrician. I have given long hours to the study
of strange sciences in meta-physics, to which you men give too little
attention. There are sciences which transcend any of this sphere. There is a
higher astronomy. I neglected to say that I am an astronomer."
"Yes?" drawled Lees.
"Yes!" said Jouret emphatically.
The girl had adopted rather a theatrical pose, which disclosed considerable
of her nether charms, and said nothing at all.
"When you find your man," volunteered Jouret, "you will find a madman."
He said this ponderously and with a gesture meant evidently to be
impressive.
"You believe a madman did it?" asked Lees, as Jouret paused, expecting a
question.
"Undoubtedly. It was a paranoic with delusions of money, grandeur and a
strongly developed homicidal mania. To me, that is the only sensible
solution. I am quite sure that I am correct."
Lees arose to go and Jouret did not urge him to stay. He bowed Lees out and
Doris bowed with him.

"She is a beautiful girl," mused Lees once he was outside.
Lees ran over in his mind the circumstances of his visit to Jouret. There was
no doubt in his mind that Jouret's shoes were too small to be number nines,
and he reasoned that that fact might tend to eliminate Jouret. But he was not
satisfied.
"I am going to get some gas," he told himself, "and then I am going to get
two private detectives to assist me, for I'm going right back there. For the
first time in my life I am going to be a Peeping Tom.
"There is no moon. The poplars will give us a view of all three floors of that
house, if they leave their blinds up enough, and three of us can watch all
three floors at once."
He phoned Ferguson that he might be busy for days, joined his pair of
operatives from the detective agency and for some time the three operated on
a well conceived plan.

It was probably a week later that Lees rendered a report to Perkins Ferguson,
which for a time proved one of the strangest documents in the weird case. It
read:
"You will probably think I am crazy, and for this reason I am having this
report subscribed and sworn to, jointly and severally. With my two
detectives I have seen Miss Jouret, the girl I told you about over the phone,
in three places at one and the same time. Not once but twice this has
happened.
"Looking through the windows of the Jouret place at night, we saw the girl
on the first, second and third floor of the house. We believed this due to a
clever arrangement of mirrors. But figure this out:
"The next day she drove a car to town. We followed. She got out at one
theater and entered. She did not come back, that we could see, but the car
drove off. There was no chauffeur, and we thought we had discovered the
driverless auto, until we looked and saw Miss Jouret still at the wheel.

"She got out and entered another theater. She did not come back, but the car
drove off with her still at the wheel. She entered a third theater after parking
the car and this time the driver's seat and the tonneau was empty.
"Reverse the reel and you will see her coming out of three theaters and
driving home. That is what happened. There must be three of her, all
identical, but only one shows at a time. If it's some of Jouret's far-famed
magic, I'll say he's some conjurer. The explanation is not yet forthcoming.
We want to shadow Jouret, but he never goes anywhere. The girl has only
been out the one time when she attended three matinees as described.
Believe it or not.
"The next night we each—the two detectives and I—tried to steal a march on
one another and called her up and asked her to go out. To our individual
surprise, she agreed in each case. To our collective surprise, she kept all
three dates on the same night. She walked through the trees in this vicinity
with me. She also drove down the road in the auto with one of my
detectives, and she went dancing with the other. She was in three places
miles apart at one and the same time.
"We each brought her home within a half hour of the other and we are
swearing to that. Either we are all hypnotized or else there are three identical
Misses Jouret.
"Jouret himself treats us all wonderfully, gives us the run of the house, and
tries to talk us to death."

The strange document was subscribed by Lees and the two detectives and
was held by Ferguson pending developments.
The next report from Lees read:
"I had a chance to prowl around the Jouret house a little while waiting for
Miss Jouret to dress. I met her twice in my ramblings and a few minutes later
she met me again, this time in a different costume.

"I got a chance to search the woods back of Jouret's house in the evening. I
found a spot where the earth had been disturbed, and dug up a pair of shoes.
They were number nines."
A fourth report from him read:
"We found the body of the crazed engineer. He had drowned himself in a
lake. This eliminates him as a murder suspect."

Two weeks passed with no new developments in the "Invisible Death" case
except for the arrival of a letter demanding $1,000,000 and threatening the
life of Perkins Ferguson if the demand was ignored. It was ignored, and only
served to spur Lees and his detectives on to decisive action.
They decided to rush the Jouret house and kidnap Jouret with the idea of
holding him until he agreed to explain the presence of the number nine shoes
buried back of his house.
A low moon hung over the poplars when Lees rang the Jouret front door
bell. One detective was guarding a side door and the other a back door.
Suddenly Jouret was seen to jump from a second-story window. As he did, a
car driven by one of his Porto Ricans came along the drive and he leaped
into it. Lees, first to see Jouret, called his detectives. They came running.
Their car was waiting in the road.
The Porto Rican was seen to jump from the Jouret car just as it started south
towards New York.
Lees took up the race. Both cars had plenty of power, but the Jouret car
suddenly disappeared as a low humming noise began to break the stillness of
the night.
One of the detectives was at the wheel. Lees, as usual, was giving orders:
"Keep close to that hum. Never mind that you cannot see the car. It is there
all right. If you can gain on it enough, drive right into it."

"Righto!" shouted the detective. "We're wise to him now."
The humming noise was taking on speed with every second. So was Lees'
car. Soon Lees' car was making sixty miles an hour with the hum just ahead
and barely audible.
Past traffic lights, over bridges and grade crossings the mad chase of the
phantom continued.
Wildly racing through the night, missing other cars by a breath, the big,
visible auto continued its pursuit of—what?
Careening, Lees' car rounded a curve, and, above the hum just ahead, they
heard the shouted curses of their quarry. But he could not be seen. Lees
could only see the road marked by his lights.
Mile after mile the wild, uncanny chase of the phantom continued.

Soon the lights of New York could be seen in the distance. The cars were
forced to slow down somewhat. Suddenly there was a thundering crash
ahead. A car was twisted in a mass of tangled wreckage.
Feminine and masculine shrieks blended as Lees' car piled up on the
wrecked heap. A third car, becoming suddenly visible, rolled over and
brought up at the edge of the road. From this car emerged the limping,
cursing form of Jouret.
From the wreckage three painfully injured young men dragged and tore
themselves. Then they leaped—ignoring their hurts—at the limping figure.
The fight was on. Jouret was heavy and powerful and proved an obstinate
fighter, for he knew he was fighting for his life. He bit and clawed. He
kicked with one uninjured leg and butted with his massive head.
Lees and his detectives were fighting with no respect for the rules. Lees
managed to get his two hands on the bull-neck of Jouret just as one detective
connected a duet of blows to the man's wind.

Lees' hands closed in a steely grip, and soon Jouret was limp and helpless.
They held him there. An ambulance arrived. A few minutes later a police
auto with reserves came on the scene. The police shackled Jouret.
The car that had been hit by the phantom was a light sedan. It was occupied
by two women. Their bodies were drawn from the wreckage. Both were
dead—innocents sacrificed to the blood madness of a maniac.
Jouret was right about himself. He was a paranoic with a strongly developed
homicidal mania.
In the wreckage was found a package containing $200,000 and also two
twisted and broken mechanisms. One of these was about the size of an
ordinary kitchen coffee-mill, and the other slightly larger.

Regarding these machines, Lees wrote in a report:
"While making a fourth search of Darrow's laboratory, I found the equations,
specifications and what I believe to be the full plans for the last invention of
the ingenious Darius Darrow.
"Many of the most astounding inventions and discoveries have resulted from
theories which were laughed to scorn at the time they were advanced.
Roebling's plans for the Brooklyn Bridge resulted in a meeting of the
foremost engineers of the day. All agreed that the plans were built on a false
premise. They argued that the bridge would fall of its own weight. Then they
all had a good laugh. The bridge still stands.
"Watching smoke float over a hill from army camp fires caused an early
French scientist to dream of filling a bag full of smoke and riding with it
over the hill. The first balloon was the answer to this dream.
"James Watt is said to have gotten his idea for a steam engine from watching
a lid on a tea-kettle dance under steam pressure.
"When Langley was flying his man-carrying kites the Wright brothers
dreamed of hitching an engine and a propeller to a giant kite. The airplane

was the result of these experiments.

"Darrow got his idea from watching a rapidly revolving wheel. He noticed
that the spokes and rim blended into a blurred disc when a certain speed was
reached. The entire wheel was practically invisible, under certain lighting
conditions, when a higher speed was attained.
"Darrow went further and reached the conclusion that there was a rate of
vibration that would produce invisibility. This was accepted in practically all
engineering research plants, long before it was perfected by Darrow.
"The facts are that any rapidly vibrating object becomes more and more
difficult to outline as its rate of vibration increases. All that was left for
Darrow was to arrive at the exact mathematical time, tone, or rate of
vibration producing invisibility and to construct a vibrator tuned to produce
this condition.
"His first machine produced the vibrations of invisibility in a field with a
three-foot radius in all directions. That is, it caused every solid object, within
this atmospheric field, to vibrate at the rate, tone, or speed of invisibility.
This machine was in no sense rotary. It departed from the original example
of a revolving wheel and entered instead into general vibration in a given or
measured field.
"The pulsations or vibrations of an ordinary automobile engine will cause
every ounce of metal, or solid, in the automobile—including the driver—to
vibrate at the same rate or momentum. This is a known fact, and it provided
the basis for Darrow's experiments.

"Darrow built two machines. The first had a field with a radius of three feet
on all sides. This was used by the killer in his murders. Jouret stole this
machine first, thus paving his way for the second robbery.

"With the first machine in his possession, Jouret was able to commit the
Darrow murder without being seen. He had to have the second and larger
machine, however, to make his auto disappear. He stole the larger machine at
the time of the Darrow murder, and with it he had his auto vanish, as the
gardener testified.
"Both machines were hopelessly smashed in the wreck, but with Darrow's
documents at hand, we might be able to construct another and a larger
model. A machine built on the proper scale will make a plane or a battleship
invisible and should, as Darrow said, make war against this country
impossible.

"Digging into Jouret's history we found that the 'Misses Jouret' were one-cell
triplets. Their mother, Mrs. Doris Nettleton, an English woman, was a
member of Jouret's troupe, as was the father.
"The mother died at the birth of the triplets. The father died a few years later.
The company was touring Australia at the time. Jouret and the father had the
birth of only one baby recorded. She was named Doris, after the mother. The
other girls also used this one name. They now have only one name among
them until the court gives them individual names.
"Jouret never let but one girl be seen at a time. The reason was that he and
the father had planned to use the girls, when grown, to create a surprising
stage illusion. In this illusion, one girl was to act as the earthly body and the
other girls as the astral bodies of the same purported individual.
"The father died, and Jouret retired before he ever got around to staging the
illusion. Jouret continued the deception, however, because it appealed to his
showman's nature.
"The girls, at all times, were under the hypnotic control of Jouret, and, of
course, knew nothing of his crazed intellect or crimes. Upon his arrest Jouret
released the girls from the spell of years.
"The Misses Nettleton say that Jouret was always kind to them and was an
ethical showman until his mind gave way.

"I told the triplets that I might find them employment with our concern, but
they prefer to follow in the footsteps of their mother and father, and return to
the stage."
Ferguson, quite his normal self once more, since Farnsworth was recovering
slowly, twitted Lees about being in love with one of the triplets. Lees
admitted they were most gorgeous blondes, but insisted he preferred one
brunette.
"Then another thing," added Lees. "Any man who falls in love with one of
the Nettleton triplets will never be sure just which one he fell in love with."

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASTOUNDING
STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE JANUARY 1930 ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright royalties.
Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license,
apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic
works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and
trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not
be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of
the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project
Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may
use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative
works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks
may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically
ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S.
copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license,
especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing
Project Gutenberg electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic
work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept
all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg electronic works in your possession. If
you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg
electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this
agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom
you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people
who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the

collection of Project Gutenberg electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in
the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg mission of promoting free
access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg works
in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project
Gutenberg name associated with the work. You can easily comply with
the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format
with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when you share it
without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work on which
the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase
“Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed,
viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with

this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located
in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is derived
from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a
notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright
holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United
States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or
providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”
associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with
the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain
permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg License for all works posted
with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of
this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide
access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official

version posted on the official Project Gutenberg website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of
obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works provided
that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the
use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the
owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has agreed to donate
royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days
following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to
prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly
marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about
donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does
not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You
must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works
possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all
access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution
of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth
in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the
Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in
Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend
considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and
proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the
Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be
stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete,
inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES -
Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in
paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,
the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party
distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this
agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and
expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO
REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH
OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE
FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY
DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT,
CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES

EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you
discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it,
you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by
sending a written explanation to the person you received the work
from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return
the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that
provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a
replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work
electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to
give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu
of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a
refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in
paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If
any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law
of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the
Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the
Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any
volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability,
costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly
from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a)

distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg work, (b) alteration,
modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg work,
and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project
Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s goals
and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg collection will remain freely
available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and
permanent future for Project Gutenberg and future generations. To
learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and
the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state
of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue
Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is
64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S.
federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza
#516, Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact

links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small
donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax
exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States.
Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable
effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these
requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have
not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg
electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility:
www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg, including
how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.