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Title: Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930

Author: Various

Editor: Harry Bates

Release date: December 17, 2009 [eBook #30691]
Most recently updated: January 5, 2021

Language: English

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COVER DESIGN H. W. WESSOLOWSKI
Painted in Oils from a Scene in “The Ape-Men of Xlotli.”

SLAVES OF THE DUST SOPHIE WENZEL ELLIS 295
Fate’s Retribution Was Adequate. There Emerged a Rat with
a Man’s Head and Face.

THE PIRATE PLANET CHARLES W. DIFFIN 310
It is War. Interplanetary War. And on Far-Distant Venus
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The Blood of the Van Dorn’s Ran in Karl’s Veins. He Rode
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295

Slaves of the Dust
By Sophie Wenzel Ellis

It’s a poor science that would hide from us the great, deep, sacred infinitude of Nescience,
whither we can never penetrate, on which all science swims as mere superficial film.
—Carlyle.

Sir Basil showed his teeth in his ugly smile. “A creator is never merciful.”

T
HE two batalões turned from the open waters of the lower Tapajos
River into the igarapé, the lily-smothered shallows that often mark an
Indian settlement in the jungles of Brazil. One of the two half-breed
rubber-gatherers suddenly stopped his batalõe by thrusting a paddle against
a giant clump of lilies. In a corruption of the Tupi dialect, he called over to
the white man occupying the other frail craft.
“We dare go no farther, master.
Fate’s retribution was adequate. There emerged a
The country of the Ungapuks is rat with a man’s head and face.
bewitched. It is too dangerous.”
Fearfully he stared over his shoulder toward a spot in the slimy water where
296

a dim bulk moved, which was only an alligator hunting for his breakfast.
Hale Oakham, as long and lanky and level-eyed as Charles Lindbergh, ran
despairing fingers through his damp hair and groaned.
“But how can I find this jungle village without a guide?”
The caboclo shrugged. “The village will find you. It is bewitched, master.
But you will soon see the path through the matto.”
“Can’t you stay by me until time to land? I don’t like the looks of these
alligators.”
“It is better for a white man to face an alligator than for a caboclo to face an
Ungapuk. Once they used to kill and eat us for our strength. Now—” Again
his shrug was eloquent.
“Now?” Hale prompted impatiently.
“The white god who put a spell on these one-time cannibals will bewitch us
and make us wash and rejoice when it is time to die.”

H E shuddered and spat at a cayman that was lumbering away from his
batalõe.
Hale Oakham laughed, a hearty boyish laugh for a rather learned young
professor.
“Is that all they do to you?” he asked.

“No. All who enter this magic matto die soon, rejoicing. Before the last
breath comes, it is said their bodies turn into a handful of silver dust—poof!
—like that.” He snapped his dirty fingers. “Then the life that leaves them
goes into rocks that walk.”
Hale sighed resignedly. There wasn’t any use to argue.
“Unload your batalõe,” he ordered testily, “and get your filthy carcasses
away.”
The half-breeds obeyed readily. As the departing batalõe turned from the
igarapé into the open water of the river, the young man repressed a sudden
lifting of his scalp. He was in for it now!
His long body sprawled out in the batalõe, he paddled about aimlessly for
several minutes until he found an aisle through the jungle—the path that led
to the jungle village which he was visiting in the name of science, and for a
certain award.
Before plunging into that waiting tangle where life and death carried on a
visible, unceasing struggle, he hesitated. Instinctively he shrank from losing
himself in that mad green world.

H E had first heard of the Ungapuks at the convention of the Nescience
Club in New York, that body of scientists, near-scientists and
adventurers linked together for the purpose of awarding the yearly
Woolman prizes for the most spectacular addition of empiric facts to
various branches of science. One of the members of the club, an explorer,
had told a wild yarn about a tribe of Brazilian Indians, headed by Sir Basil
Addington, an English scientist, who was conducting secret experiments in
biochemistry in his jungle laboratory. The explorer had said that the
scientist, half-crazed by a powerful narcotic, had seemingly discovered
some secret of life which enabled him to produce monsters in his laboratory
and to change the physical characteristics of the Ungapuk Indians, who, in
five years, had been transformed from cannibals into cultured men and
women.
And now Hale Oakham, hoping to win one of the Woolman prizes, was here
in the country of the Ungapuks, entering the jungle path that lead to the
unknown.

Fifty feet from the igarapé, the path curved sharply away from a giant tree.
Hale approached the bend with his hand on his gun. Just before he reached
it, he stopped suddenly to listen.
A woman’s voice had suddenly broken forth in a wild, incredibly sweet
song. Hale stood entranced, drinking in the heady sounds that stirred his
emotions like masata, the jungle intoxicant. The singer approached the bend
297

in the path, while the young man waited eagerly.
The first sight of her made him gasp. He had expected to see an Indian girl.
No sane traveler would imagine a white woman in the Amazon jungle, with
skin as amazingly pale as the great, fleshy victoria regia lilies in the
igarapé.
When she saw Hale, she stopped instantly. With a quick, practiced twist,
she reached for the bow flung across her shoulders and fitted a barbed
arrow to the string.

S
HE was a beautiful barbarian, standing quivering before him. In the
thick dull gold braids hanging over her bare shoulders flamed two
enormous scarlet flowers, no redder than her own lips pouted in alarm.
There was a savage brevity to her clothing, which consisted only of a short
skirt of rough native grass and breastplates of beaten gold, held in place by
strings of colored seeds.
The girl held out an imperious hand and, in perfect English, said:
“Go back!”
Hale drew his long body up to its slim height, folded his arms, and gave her
his most winning smile. His insolence added to his wholesome good looks.
“Why?” he exclaimed. “I’ve come a couple of thousand miles to call on
you.”
He saw that the eyes which held his levelly were pure and limpid, and of an
astonishing orchid-blue.
“Who are you?” Her throaty, vibrant voice was a thing of the flesh,
whipping Hale’s senses to sudden madness.

“I’m Hale Oakham,” he said, a little tremulously, “a lone, would-be
scientist knocking about the jungle. Won’t you tell me your name?”
She nodded gravely. “I am Aña. I, too, am white.” Her rich voice was
quietly proud. “Come; I’ll see if Aimu will receive you.”
With surprising, childlike trust, she held out her little hand to him. The
gesture was so delightfully natural that Hale, grinning boyishly, took her
hand and held it as they walked down the jungle path.
“Sing for me,” he demanded abruptly. “Sing the song you sang just now.”
“That?” asked the girl, turning the virgin-blue fire of her eyes on him. “That
was my death-song that I practice each day. Perhaps soon I shall be released
from this.” She passed her hands over her beautiful, half-clothed body.

H ALE’S warm glance swept over her. “Do you want to die?”
“Yes; don’t you? But you do not, or you would not have retreated
from my poisoned arrow.”
“No, Aña; I want to live.”
“To live—and be a slave of this?” Again her hand went over her slim body.
“A slave of a pile of flesh that you must feed and protect from the agonies
that attack it on every side? Bah! But I am hoping that my turn will come
next.”
“Your turn for what, Aña?”
“To enter the Room of Release. Perhaps, if Aimu approves of you, you, too,
may taste of death.” Her gentle smile was beatific.
“Do you speak of Sir Basil Addington?”
“He was called that once, before he came to us. Now he has no name. We
can find none holy enough for him; and so we call him Aimu, which means
good friend.” Her beautiful face was sweet with reverence.
And now, in the distance, Hale saw that the path led into a large clearing.
He slowed his pace, for he wanted to know this lovely girl better before he
joined the Ungapuks.

“Who are you, Aña?” he asked suddenly, bending closer to the crinkled,
dull-gold hair.
“I am Aña, a white woman.” She looked at him frankly.
“But who are your parents, and how did you get among the Ungapuks?” 298
Aña’s red lips curved into a dewy smile. “I thought all white men were
wise, like Aimu. But you are stupid. How do you think a white woman
could appear in a tribe of Indians who live in the jungle, many weeks’
journey from what you call civilization?”
Hale looked a little blank and more than a little disconcerted.
“I suppose I am stupid,” he said dryly. “But tell me, Aña, how did you get
here?”
“Why,” she exclaimed, “he made me!”
“Made you? Good Lord! What do you mean?”
“Just what I said, Hale Oakham. If he can take a few grains of dust and
make a shoot that will grow into a giant tree like yonder monster itauba,
don’t you think he can create a small white girl like me?” Her orchid-blue
eyes glowed innocently into his.

T
HE eager questions that he would have asked froze upon his lips, for a
party of Indians approached.
The six nearly naked red men came close and surveyed him, toying
nervously with their primitive, feather-decorated weapons.
A tall, handsome young fellow who possessed something of the picturesque
perfection of the North American plains’ Indian stepped forward and, in
perfect English, said:
“Good morning, white stranger. What is it you wish of the Ungapuks?”
“I came to see your white cacique,” said Hale.
“Aimu? What is it you wish of Aimu? He is ours, white stranger.”
“Yes, he is yours. I come as a friend, perhaps to help him in his great work.”

“Perhaps!” The young Indian folded his bronze, muscular arms over his
broad chest and continued his cool survey of Hale. “White men before you
have come: spies and thieves. Some we poisoned with curari. Others Aimu
took into the Room of Release.”
He turned to Aña, who was still standing by Hale, and his expression
softened.
“What shall we do with him, Aña?” he asked the question, a fleeting look of
hunger swept his fine, flashing eyes.
Aña flushed beautifully, and, moving closer to Hale, with an impulsive,
almost childish gesture, slipped her arm through his.
“Let us take him to our village, Unani Assu!” she suggested. “I like him.”
It was Hale’s turn to flush, which he did like a schoolboy.

U
NANI ASSU’S brows drew together in a scowl. The hand holding his
blow-pipe jerked convulsively.
“Aña! Come away!” he growled. “You mustn’t touch a stranger!”
Aña’s blue eyes stretched with astonishment. “But I like to touch him,
Unani Assu!”
The tall Indian, with a half comical gesture of despair, said:
“Don’t misunderstand her, stranger. She is young, very young, ah! And she
has known only the reborn men of the Ungapuks.”
He stepped firmly over to Aña, and, taking the girl by the arm, drew her
away.
“Run ahead,” he commanded, “and tell Aimu that we come.”
Aña, her feathered bamboo anklets clicking together, sped away.
Unani Assu bowed courteously to Hale.
“Come, stranger. If you are an enemy, it is you who must fear.” He
motioned for him to proceed down the jungle path.
The path ended at a clearing studded with moloccas, the Indian grass huts
made of plaited straw. Altogether the scene was peaceful and sane and far

removed from the strange tales that Hale had heard concerning the
Ungapuks.
Hale was conducted to a long, low stone building, where, in the doorway,
299

stood a tall and emaciated white man.
“Aimu!” said the Indians reverently, and bowed themselves.
Over the bare, brown backs, the white man looked at Hale.
“Sir Basil Addington?” asked the young man.
“Yes. You are welcome. Come in.”
Hale entered the building.

H
E was in a book-filled study, furnished with hand-made chairs and a
desk. Sir Basil asked him to be seated. He offered the young man
long, brown native cigarettes and a very good drink made from yucca.
After several minutes of conversation, Sir Basil suddenly changed his
manner.
“And now,” he shot out, eyeing the young man through narrowed lids, “will
you please state the purpose of this visit?”
Hale looked squarely at his questioner. “Frankly, Sir Basil, I have called on
you because I am so intensely interested in your work among the Ungapuks
that I wish to offer my services.”
He gave in detail his family history, his education, and his experience as a
teacher and a scientist.
Sir Basil tapped his teeth thoughtfully with a pencil.
“But why do you think you can be of assistance to me?”
“That, of course, is for you to decide.”
Hale thought that the scientist looked like a huge, starved crow in his loose-
fitting coat. He was so fleshless that, when the light fell strongly on his face
as it now did, the bones of his head and hands showed through the skin with
horrible clearness.
Hale, under Sir Basil’s scrutiny, decided instantly that he did not like him.

“I need a helper,” the scientist went on, with the air of talking to himself.
“A white assistant who neither loves nor fears me. Unani Assu is good
enough in his way, but I need a helper who has had technical training.”
Suddenly he wheeled on Hale and asked sharply, “How are your nerves,
young man?”

H
ALE started, but managed to answer calmly. “Excellent. My war
record isn’t half bad, and that was surely backed with good nerves.”
“And you say you have no close relatives, no ties of any sort to interfere
with work that is dangerous—and something else?”
“Not a soul would care if I passed out to-day, Sir Basil.”
“Good! And now tell me this: are you one of those scientists whose minds
are so mechanical, so mathematically made, as it were, that your entire
outlook on science is based on old, established beliefs, or do you belong to
that rare but modern type of trained thinker and dreamer who refuse to
permit yesterday’s convictions to influence to-day’s visions?”
Hale smiled quietly. “I recently lost my chair in a famous university
because of my so-called unscientific teachings regarding ether-drift.”
Expressing himself in purely scientific terms, he went into an elaboration of
his revolutionary theory. When he had finished, Sir Basil reached out his
clawlike hand to him.
“Good!” he approved. “You have dared to think originally. Now listen to
my theory of mind-electrons which has grown into the established fact that
I have discovered the secret of life and death.”
The long, thin hands reached into a pocket for a box of pills. He swallowed
one greedily, and immediately his emaciated face seemed charged with new
virility.
He spoke out suddenly. “Our world, you know, is made up of three powers:
matter, energy and what you call life. I might really say that there are but
two powers, for matter, in its last analysis, is a form of energy. And what is
life? You can’t call it a form of energy, for every inorganic atom has energy
300

without having life. Life, Mr. Oakham, is mind or consciousness.”

He began pacing the floor restlessly. “Everything that lives has this
consciousness, and I say this in defiance of some fixed scientific views. The
amoeba in a stagnant pool, a thallophyte on a bit of old bread, any of the
myriads of trees and plants that you see in the jungle all have consciousness
as well as you. And why?”

H
E brought his fist down upon the table. “Because they issue from the
same source as you and I, the almighty mind, eternal, indestructible,
which has permitted itself to be enslaved by matter. You are Hale
Oakham. I am Basil Addington, yet we are one and the same. Let me
illustrate.”
He seized a glass and poured it full of masata. “Look! Two portions of
masata. But I pour what is in the glass back into the bottle. The molecules
cohere and the two portions become one again. Some day you and I—our
individual consciousnesses—will flow back to the Whole. That sounds
mystical, but listen.
“We scientists hold that the electron explains nearly all the physical and
chemical phenomena. I go further and say that it explains all. Matter,
electricity, light, heat, magnetism—all can be reduced to the ultimate unit.
So, Mr. Oakham, I am going to make clear to you how life itself is
electronic.”
His long finger touched Hale’s arm. “You, I, yonder mosquito on your
sleeve, even one of the germs that is causing my malaria, all being
individual living things, are the ultimate units of what I shall personify as
the Mind. When I say you I do not speak of that mound of flesh in which
you exist, and which can be reduced to the same familiar basic elements
and compounds as make up inorganic structures; I speak of your mind, your
consciousness—for that is the real you. Are you following me?”
“Perfectly, Sir Basil.” Hale reached for another drink. “But do you mean to
say that you and I are no more than a mosquito, a malaria protozoan, or
even one of those trees in the jungle?”
Sir Basil’s dry skin slipped back into a long smile. “Startling, isn’t it? You,
I, and all other living organisms are nothing but matter, energy and
consciousness. You and I have a larger share of consciousness, because our

organic structure permits the mind-electrons greater freedom over the
matter than composes our bodies. We are more acutely aware of the
universe about us, have a greater facility for enjoyment and suffering, a
more intricate brain and nervous system. Yet when our bodies die and our
consciousness is released, the mind-electrons enslaved by our atoms go
back to the elemental Whole. This holds good for the protozoan, the tree,
the man—for all things that live.”

H
ALE was drinking again. “You mean, Sir Basil, that there is a sort of
war waged against what you personify as the Mind by matter; that
matter is constantly seeking to enslave mind-electrons, so that it may
become an organism which, for awhile, may enjoy what we call life?”
Sir Basil pushed back his tufted hair and looked happy. “Yes! And it’s
Nature’s supreme blunder! In the end, the Mind always conquers and gains
its release, yet the eternal chain of enslavement goes on and on, and will
continue to go on as long as there is a living organism in the world to bind
mind to matter.”
Hale was excited now, as much from the fiery intoxicant as from the
scientist’s weird revelation. “I get you,” he said, rather inelegantly for a
professor. “You mean that if every living thing in the world should pass out,
every man, every plant, every animal, even down to microscopic infusoria,
the Mind would collect all its electrons, and through some more jealous law
of, er, cohesion hold these electrons inviolate from matter and energy?”
“Right! And again, as in the beginning, the Mind would rule supreme. 301By
what I have proved, you and I and all other creatures that now have life
may, as separate unfleshed electrons, enjoy eternal consciousness as a part
of the Mind.” A new passion leaped to his dark eyes. “When I have finished
my mission, no more need we be slaves of the dust, subject to all the
frightful sufferings of this dunghill of flesh.”
He brought his fist down upon his skinny leg with a resounding blow.
“But you cannot reduce your theory to fact, Sir Basil!”
“No?” Again came that frightful grin to his cadaverous face. “Can you
withstand shock?”

“If you mean shock to the eye, let me remind you that I served two years in
the big fight.”
“Then come to my laboratory. Better take another drink.”
While Hale helped himself again from the masata bottle, Sir Basil
swallowed another pellet.
Then the two went into the adjoining apartment.

S
IR Basil, his hand over the doorknob, paused.
“Before we go in,” he said, “I want you to remember that we call
natural that which is characteristic of the physical world. Everything alive
in this laboratory was produced by nature. I merely made available the
materials, or, rather, I made the conditions under which matter was able to
enslave mind-electrons.”
He opened the door, slipped his body through, and, with his ugly, teeth-
revealing grin, gestured for Hale to follow him.
Hale steeled himself and looked around half fearfully. The first glance took
in a large and well-equipped laboratory, somewhat fetid with animal odors.
The second lingered here and there on cages, aquariums, incubators, and
other containers where creatures moved.
Suddenly, as something scuttled across the floor and disappeared into a hole
in the wall, Hale cried out and covered his eyes with a hand.
Sir Basil laughed aloud. “Why didn’t you examine it closer?”
Hale looked nauseated. “My God, Sir Basil! A rat with a man’s head and
face!”
Sir Basil’s voice was sharp, decisive. “Before you leave this laboratory,
you’re going to come out of your foolish belief that man is a creature apart
from other living organisms. You—the conscious you—is no greater, no
more important in the final balance than the spark of consciousness in that
rat. When your body and the rat’s body give up their atoms to nature’s
laboratory, the little enslaved mind-electron that is you and the one that is
the rat will be identical.”

Again Hale shivered and turned away from that cold, too-thin face.
The scientist was speaking. “Step around to all those cages and pens. I want
you to see all my slaves of the dust.”

B
UT long before Hale had encircled the room, he was so disturbed at
what he saw that he could scarcely complete his frightful inspection.
In every enclosure he viewed a monstrosity that in some way
resembled a human. Every reptile, every insect, every queer, misshapen
animal not only looked human in some shocking manner, but also seemed
to possess human characteristics. It seemed as though some demented
creator with a perverted sense of humor had attempted to mock man by
calling forth monsters in his image.
At last the young man cried out: “How did you breed these freaks?”
“They are not freaks, and I did not breed them. They are nature’s parentless
products whose basic elements were brought together in this laboratory,
and, by a scientific reproduction of the functions of creation, endowed with
the life principle, which is merely mind-electrons.” He smoothed his long302

tuft of hair nervously. “Would you like to see how life springs from a
wedding of matter, energy, and consciousness?”
“I suspect I can stand anything now,” Hale admitted.
“Then come and peep into a very remarkable group of apparatus I have
developed, where you can watch atoms building molecules and molecules
building living organisms.”
“You say I can see atoms?”
“Not directly, of course. The light waves will forever prevent us from
actually seeing the atom. But I have perfected a system of photography
which magnifies particles smaller than light waves, and, separating their
images from the light waves, renders detail clear in the moving pictures.”

H
E went to a huge machine or series of machines which took up all the
center floor space of the laboratory, where he busied himself in an

intricate network of wires, mirrors, electrodes, ray projectors, and traveling
metal compartments. Presently he called out to Hale.
“Let me remind you, Oakham, that while any scientist can break up any of
the various proteid molecules which are the basis of all living cells, animal
and vegetable, no scientist before me has been able to compound the atoms
and build them into a proteid molecule.”
He bared his teeth in the smile that Hale hated.
“I am proud to tell you that the proteid molecule can be built up only when
the third element of nature’s trinity is added—the mind-electron. I have
found a means of capturing the mind-electron and of bringing it in contact
with proteid elements. And now it is possible to bring forth life in the
laboratory. Come closer and watch proteid forming protoplasm, protoplasm
forming a cell, and the cell evolving into—well, what do you want, an
animal, plant, or an insect?”
Hale had fallen under the scientist’s spell. He did not feel foolish when he
said:
“Let’s have a rat!”

H
ALE became so absorbed in the wonders of the laboratory that when
lunch time came, Sir Basil had food brought to them. While they were
eating a very good vegetable stew, farina, and luscious tropical fruits,
a sudden, agonized scream rang out, followed by other screams and wails.
Sir Basil opened the door and looked out. Aña came running forward. Her
blue eyes were flooded with tears.
“Oh, Aimu!” she moaned. “A tree fell on Unani Assu.”
She buried her beautiful face in her hands and sobbed aloud.
Sir Basil frowned heavily.
“I can’t lose Unani Assu yet,” he declared. “He is a wonderful help around
the laboratory. Is he dead?”
“No. We should rejoice if his time of release had come. But his legs, Aimu!
No one wants to suffer and be crippled.”

Even in her distress, the girl’s voice was rich and vibrant, and every tone
moved Hale curiously.
“Hurry!” cried the scientist. “Have them bring him here before he dies.”
The girl leaped to her feet and sped away.
“Come, Oakham,” continued Sir Basil. “Here is a rare opportunity for you
to see how completely I have mastered the laws that govern organic matter.
Help me prepare.”

F
OR several minutes, Hale worked under the scientist’s sharply spoken
directions. By the time the injured man was brought to the laboratory,
Sir Basil was ready for him.
Unani Assu was still conscious, but his pale face indicated that he had lost
much blood. When the improvised stretcher was lowered to the floor, Sir
Basil sent all the Indians away.
Unani Assu opened his eyes and called feebly, “Aña!”
“Be still!” ordered Sir Basil. “Aña is not here.” 303

“Please!” gasped the dying man. “I want her—my Aña!”
Sir Basil sucked in his breath sharply. “What’s this? Have you been making
love to Aña again, after my warning to you?”
The sufferer stirred uneasily. “No!” he panted. “But perhaps my hour of
release has come, and I want to look at her—once more.”
The scientist smiled unpleasantly as he eyed the magnificent body which
looked like a broken statue in bronze.
“Some human characteristics are strange,” he muttered. “In spite of
everything I do, this fellow continues to love Aña: Aña whom I intend for
myself.”
He stepped to the apparatus and swiftly changed one of the adjustments.
“Perhaps,” he resumed, with a gleam in his eyes that chilled Hale, “this will
forever cure him.”

I
N another moment, the still, half-dead body was lifted and gently slipped
into a compartment.
Before Hale’s horrified gaze fastened on the eye-piece which revealed
moving pictures of every process that went on within, Unani Assu’s body
was reduced almost instantly to a fine, silvery dust.
“Good God!” he cried. “You have killed him.”
The scientist’s teeth showed in his wide smile. “Think so? Does a woman
destroy a dress when she rips it up to make it over?”
“Do you mean me to understand that you can reduce a living body to its
basic elements and then rebuild these elements into a remade man?”
“Watch!” warned the scientist.
Hale looked again and saw the silver dust that was once a living body being
whirled into a tiny, grublike thing. He saw the grub expand into an embryo,
and the embryo develop into a foetus. From now on the development was
slower, and he often stopped to talk with Sir Basil.
Once he asked: “If this man had died naturally, could you have brought him
back to life?”
Sir Basil shook his head. “No. When once the mind-electron is completely
freed from its enslavement by matter, it is forever beyond recall by the body
it has just vacated. Like atomic electrons, whose equilibrium disturbed
break away from their planetary system and go dashing off into space, only
to be drawn into another planetary system, the mind-electron may be
enslaved almost immediately by extraneous matter. Had Unani Assu died,
his liberated mind-electron might at once have been captured by a jungle
flower going to seed. Immediately a new seed would be started. And now
the former Unani Assu would be a seed of a jungle flower, later to find new
life as a plant.”
Suddenly the scientist threw up his hand and cried: “You see? The Mind
will be eternally enslaved as long as there is life! Oh, for the time of
deliverance!” He gazed fanatically into space, as though he dreamed
magnificently.
Hale observed him thoughtfully. When that great brain weakened, the
consequences would be frightful.

S
IR BASIL, as though he had made a sudden decision, went over to that
part of his machine which he called the molecule-disintegrator.
“Oakham!” he called out. “I have taken you partly into my confidence.
Now I want to show you something. Come here.”
Hale obeyed with misgivings. The scientist pointed out the window to a
group of Indians, anxious relatives of Unani Assu.
“Watch!” he ordered.
Turning one of the projectors on the machine toward the window, he sighted
carefully and pressed a button.
Immediately one of the Indians fell to the ground and struggled. His
companions began dancing around him in evident joy. Faintly to 304 the
laboratory came a familiar chant, which Hale recognized as Aña’s death
song.
Dust to dust
Mind to Mind—
He will shed his body
As the green snake sheds his skin.
As Hale watched, the struggling Indian’s body seemed to shrink, and then,
instantly, it disappeared.
“Watch them scatter the dust!” said the scientist.
One of the Indians stooped and blew upon the grass.
“What have you done!” Hale gasped. “You’ve killed this one. Oh, I see
now! These poor devils are totally ignorant that you are killing them for
practice. They worship you while you turn them to—silver dust!” He turned
angrily on the scientist as though he longed to strike him.
“Keep cool, young man!” Sir Basil held up his fleshless hand. “There is no
death! Change, yes; but no permanent blotting out of consciousness. Can’t
you see the horror of it as nature works? When your time for release comes,
as it inevitably will, your mind-electron might find new enslavement in a
worm!”

H
ALE’S reply came hotly. “If that is true, why do you murder these
poor devils deliberately!”
“My dear Oakham, perhaps you are not so brilliant as I had hoped! All that
I have done thus far is only child’s play, in preparation for my real work.
Haven’t you guessed by now what I am getting ready to do?”
“No; I’m a poor guesser.”
The scientist made a gesture of mock despair. “Then let me tell you. The
molecule-disintegrator is active only on organic structures. When I
concentrate it so”—he reached out again, sighted the projector on some
point beyond the window and pressed a button—“one single living
organism passes out. See that jupati tree by the rock disappear?”
Before Hale’s eyes, the tall, slender tree melted into air.
“But,” continued Sir Basil, “if I should broadcast my molecule-
disintegrator on electron magnetic waves, destruction would pass out in all
directions, following the curve of the earth’s surface, penetrating earth, air,
water.” He wet his lips carefully. “You understand?”
Hale stiffened suddenly. “I understand. No life could survive these
vibrations of destruction? Through every corner of the earth where life
lurks, they would reach?”
“Yes!” cried Sir Basil. “There would be not a blade of grass, not a living
spore, not a hidden egg! Think of it, Oakham! No more would the clean air
and the sweet earth reek with life, and at last the ultimate mind-electron
would be released forever.”
He was breathing fast, and his emaciated face burned with two red spots.
Hale thought rapidly. He was convinced now that the fate of all life lay
within that diabolical network of chemical apparatus.
At last he said: “And what of you and I, Sir Basil? Shall we, too, be caught
in this wholesale destruction?”
“Not immediately,” replied the scientist. “Of course, I want to remain in the
flesh long enough to be sure that my purpose has been accomplished. I have
provided a way for my own safety. If you desire, you may remain with me.”

He smiled craftily. “I have planned to keep Aña also, the woman whom I
called into life and made as I wished.”

H IS words pounded against Hale’s tortured ears with almost physical
force. With a supreme effort, the young man controlled his rage and
despair. Aña needed him too much now for him to risk defeat by
showing his emotions.
To Sir Basil he said: “But if all life disappears from the earth, what shall 305
we
do for food—you, Aña, and I?”
Sir Basil lifted his brows. “You don’t think I overlooked that, do you? What
is food? Various combinations of the basic elements. I who have conquered
the atom need never worry about starving to death.”
All this time, the machinery had been humming, and now the humming
changed its note to a shrill whistle. Sir Basil went to the eye-piece and
looked into it. Opening a door in the machinery, he disappeared inside. He
came out soon, flushed and evidently elated.
“Bring the stretcher, Oakham,” he ordered.
Hale brought the stretcher, placing it close to the machine. Then Sir Basil
opened a metal door and gently eased out a human body.
It was Unani Assu, unconscious but alive and breathing. Hale, helping the
scientist to get the man on the stretcher, noticed that the crushed legs were
perfectly healed. Together they bore him to a long seat. The Indian’s eyes
were still closed, but his even breathing indicated that he was only sleeping.
Suddenly Hale pointed a finger and cried out. “My God, Sir Basil, look at
his hands and feet!”

U
NANI ASSU, still lying like a recumbent bronze statue sculptured by
a master, was perfect from shoulder to wrist, from thigh to ankle. But,
somewhere in that diabolical machine through which he had passed,
his hands and feet had undergone a hideous metamorphism which had
transformed them from the well-formed extremities of a splendid young
Indian into the hairy paws of a giant rat!

Hale turned away his head, sick with disgust.
Sir Basil cut the silence triumphantly:
“Now he’ll never again face Aña with love in his eyes!”
“What!” broke in Hale. “Did you plan this monstrous thing?”
“Of course! I told you I should forever cure him of his mad infatuation.”
“But why didn’t you kill him, as you killed the others? It would have been
the most merciful way.”
Sir Basil showed his teeth in his ugly smile. “A creator is never merciful.”
A quiver passed through the Indian’s body and presently, he sighed deeply
and opened his eyes. He seemed dazed, puzzled. He looked from Hale to
the scientist, and turned seeking eyes to other parts of the laboratory.
“Aña!” he called weakly. “Where is Aña?”
He pulled himself a little unsteadily to his feet—to the spatulated, hairy
rodent feet that had come out of the life-machine. Staggering, he would
have fallen, had he not thrown out his arm to steady himself. Instinctively
he tried to grasp something for support, and then, for the first time, he
discovered his deformity.

H
ALE was never to forget that expression of horror and disgust that
swept over the Indian’s face as he spread open his revolting
extremities and stared at them.
A sudden, wild roar of despair rang through the room. “Aimu! My hands!”
The scientist smiled with evident amusement. “You are a grotesque sight,
Unani Assu. Do you want to see Aña now?”
The fright and horror faded from the Indian’s face, for now he glared with
hate into the mad, mocking eyes.
“You did it!” the Indian ground out. “You’ve made me into a thing from
which Aña will run screaming.”
Through the quiet rage of the perfectly spoken English ran a thread of
sorrow. “Aimu, whom we considered too holy to name!”

Choking, he hobbled away to the door, which he unbolted. As he passed out
into the open, Sir Basil went over to the machine and began sighting the
projector which cast forth the ray of destruction.
“No!” cried Hale. “You’ve done enough murder for to-day.”
The scientist paused. “I was trying to be merciful. And then, I wonder if it306is
safe to let him go, hating me? Oh, well!” He shrugged his narrow shoulders.
“I seldom leave the laboratory, and certainly nothing can harm me here.” He
touched the death-projector significantly.
Hale made a mental decision. “I must find out how the damned thing works
and put it out of commission.”

W
ITH this determination uppermost in his mind, he assumed a more
intense interest in the strange laboratory. For the next two days, he
assisted Sir Basil so assiduously that he learned much about the
operation of the life-machine. And gradually he stopped being horrified as
the fascination of producing life in the laboratory grew upon him.
After he had assisted the scientist in building living organisms from basic
elements, he ceased to cringe when he remembered that perhaps it was true
that Aña was created in the mysterious life-machine.
Once the scientist declared, “She is untainted with inheritance. She is the
perfect mate that I called into life so that before I pass from the flesh I may
taste that one human emotion I’ve never experienced—love.”
That very night Hale kept a secret tryst with Aña after the village slept.
Sweet, virginal Aña, who knew less of the world than a civilized child of
twelve—what a sensation she would create in New York with her beauty,
her culture, her natural fascination! With her in his arms and an orange
tropical moon hanging low in the hot, black sky, he ceased to care that she
had no ancestors, for now his one passionate desire was to save her from Sir
Basil and to hold her forever for himself.
He might have been content to go on like this for months, tampering with
creation in the day time, courting Aña in secret at night, had not Unani Assu
come back for revenge.

O
N the fourth night after Unani Assu had disappeared into the jungle,
Hale went to the igarapé to meet Aña. He had gone only half the
distance when he encountered her, running frantically up the path
toward him.
“Hale!” she gasped, falling into his opened arms, where she lay panting and
exhausted.
Hale gently patted the long braids, shimmering in silver tangles under the
moonlight, and, crushing the soft little trembling body close, he murmured:
“What’s the matter, darling?”
She dug her face deeper into the bend of his arm. “Oh, Hale! I saw Unani
Assu a few minutes ago.” For several moments she was unable to go on, for
sudden sobs cut off her breath. “It’s terrible, Hale, what Aimu did to his
hands and feet, but what Unani’s going to do to Aimu is still more terrible.”
Hale placed his hand gently under her chin and tilted up her small, pale,
tear-drenched face.
“Be calm, Aña, and tell me plainly.”
Still clinging to him, she went on. “He told me that Aimu is a devil, Hale.
He showed me his hands and asked me if I could ever get used to them and
be—his squaw.” The round gold breastplates and the necklace of painted
seeds clinked together over her panting bosom. “I told him about you, Hale.
And then he seemed to go mad. He said he’d kill Aimu to-night.”
“But, Aña! Why did he let you go, knowing that you would give the
alarm?”
“He didn’t let me go.” Her petaled lips parted in a faint smile. “I escaped.
Unani Assu tied me to a tree by the igarapé. Because he doesn’t ... hate me,
he could not bear to tie me too tightly.”
“Then he must be close to the laboratory now. If he breaks in upon Aimu—
oh, my God!”
Hale remembered the death-projector. If Sir Basil were in danger of attack,
he would not hesitate to touch the waiting button that would broadcast 307

death throughout the world.

He seized Aña’s little hand and cried out: “Run, Aña! The only safe place
now is Aimu’s laboratory. Run!”

A
S they dashed on madly, Hale opened wide his nostrils to scent the
heavy, flower-laden air of the jungle. Any moment all this sweet, rich
life might vanish instantly. He had a horrible vision of a world devoid
of life, a world of bare rocks, dry sand, odorless, dead waters. For it was life
that greened the landscape, roughened the stones with moss and lichen,
thickened the ocean with ooze, and turned the dry sand into loam—life that
swarmed underfoot, overhead, all around!
And now, just as they reached the laboratory door, panting and frantic, a
hoarse shriek broke forth. Dragging Aña after him, Hale dashed forward,
conscious of two masculine voices raised in passion.
The door to the room where the life-machine performed its vile work was
locked. Hale pounded against it and called out to Sir Basil, but only curses
and the sound of tumbling bodies came from beyond the door. Although
originally the door had been thick and strong, the destructive forces of the
tropics had pitted and rotted the wood. A few blows of Hale’s shoulder
broke it down.
Under the brilliant electric light, Sir Basil and Unani Assu were fighting
upon the blood-spattered floor. The struggle was uneven: the scientist’s
emaciated body was no match for the splendid strength of the young Indian.
“Help Aimu!” cried Aña, pushing Hale forward.
Aimu was being choked to death.
Hale acted fantastically but efficiently. Catching up a bottle of ammonia, he
moistened a handkerchief and clapped it against Unani Assu’s nose.
Instantly the Indian choked, released Sir Basil, and fell back, gasping for
breath.
Hale thrust the handkerchief into his pocket.
“Get out!” he ordered Unani Assu. “Quick!” He threatened him with the
ammonia bottle.

But Unani Assu was not looking at the bottle. “Aimu!” he screamed,
pointing.

W
HEN Hale saw and understood, he leaped across the room to plant
his body in front of Aña; for Sir Basil was behind the life-machine,
reaching for the controls of the ray projector.
Suddenly, from behind Hale, a silver streak shot across the room. Sir Basil
groaned and sank to the floor of the laboratory.
A keen-bladed dissecting knife, thrown by Aña, stuck out from his left
breast.
Aña ran forward, sobbing wildly. “Oh, Aimu! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for it
to strike you there. Only your hand, Aimu! I didn’t want Hale to die, Aimu.
I didn’t—oh!”
She was on her knees by the scientist’s side, his head held in her slender
arms.
“He’s breathing!” she rejoiced. “Some masata, Hale, quick!”
Hale found a bottle of good brandy which he had contributed from his own
supplies. Soon Sir Basil gasped and opened his eyes. He stared about him
wildly, then gasped:
“I’m dying, Hale Oakham! Quick, the life-machine, before my mind-
electron escapes.”
He tried to pull his body up, but fell back, weak and panting.
Hale hesitated, looking doubtfully at Aña.
“For God’s sake, quick!” screamed Sir Basil. “I’m dying, I say! I must have
—rebirth. Lift me to the disintegrator. Hurry!...” His voice trailed off
faintly.
“He is dying,” snapped Hale. “We might as well try it.” He jerked open the
door to the disintegrator. “Here, Unani Assu! Lend a hand!”

308

I
NSTANTLY the Indian came forward, a peculiar, pleased expression on
his handsome face. In a moment, Sir Basil’s body was inside, and the
machine began its weird humming, the humming that indicated the
transformation of a human body into dust.
“Now!” cried Unani Assu exultingly, going behind the machine. “I have
helped him enough to understand that if one changes this—and this—and
this”—he made some rapid adjustments on the machine—“something that
is not pleasant will happen.”
“Stop!” cried Hale. “What did you change?”
The Indian laughed mockingly. “Wouldn’t you like to know? But, yet, you
should not worry. You have no cause to love him, have you?”
“I can’t be a traitor, Unani Assu! Arrange the machine as it was originally,
and I give you my word of honor than when Sir Basil comes out, I’ll wreck
the damned thing beyond repair. See, Unani Assu? You and I together will
smash it.”
The Indian folded his arms so that the repulsive things that should have
been hands were hidden.
“It’s too late now,” he admitted, shaking his head. “Yet I’ve done no more
to him than he did to me.”
Hale went to the eye-piece in the machine and started to look inside. Unani
Assu stepped forward, tapped him on the shoulder, and, fingering
significantly the dissecting knife which he had picked up, said:
“I am operating the machine. Will you sit over there by Aña and wait? It
won’t be long. And, white stranger, remember this: I am your friend. I am
turned against none but our common enemy.” He pointed significantly to
the machine.

T
WO hours passed, long, silent hours for the watchers in the laboratory.
Aña fell asleep, in a sweet, childish bundle upon the piled cushions,
her golden hair, still decorated with the red flowers which she always
wore, crushed and withered now. Several times Hale caught Unani Assu
gazing at her sadly, and his own look saddened when it rested on the
Indian’s strong, outraged body.

The humming of the machine changed to a whistle. Placing his fingers on
his lips in a signal of quiet, Unani Assu whispered:
“Let Aña sleep. She mustn’t see this.”
Opening a door in the machine, his handsome face lighted with a grim
smile, he whispered exultingly:
“Watch!”
A scuttling sound issued forth and then, half drunkenly, an enormous rat
tumbled out—one of those horrible rats with the hairless, humanlike faces
that had so frequently come from the life-machine.
Hale could not crush back the cry that issued from his throat.
“Where is Sir Basil?” he gasped.
“There!” cried the Indian, pointing to the kicking rat, which was fast
gaining strength.

H
ALE staggered back. “No! You don’t mean it, do you?”
Unani Assu turned the rat over with a contemptuous toe. “Yes, I mean
it. Behold Aimu, the man who thought himself creator and destroyer—the
man who said that a human being was no higher than a rat! Perhaps he was
right, for see this thing that was once a man!”
Hale buried his face in his hands. “Kill it, Unani Assu! Kill it!”
Unani Assu’s low laugh was metallic. “You kill it.”
Hale uncovered his face. “Open the disintegrator.” Gingerly he reached for
the rat’s tail.
But his hand never touched the animal. The hairless face turned for a
second, and the little, beady eyes blinked up at Hale with an expression that
his fevered imagination thought almost human. Then, like a dark shadow,
the rat dashed away. Once around the room it scampered, hunting for309an
exit. Hale started in pursuit. He was almost upon the animal again, when,
leaping up from his grasp, it landed on a low shelf where chemicals were
stored. Several bottles fell, filling the room with fumes.

Another bottle fell, and, suddenly, amid a thunderous roar, the ceiling and
walls began falling. Some highly explosive chemical had been stored in one
of the bottles.
Hale was thrown violently against the couch. His hand touched Aña’s body.
One last shred of consciousness enabled him to pick her up and drag her
out. In the open, he fell, aware, before blackness descended, that flames
leaped high over the laboratory building and that Unani Assu lay dead
within.

H
ALE and Aña, leaning over the deck-rail of a small steam launch,
gazed into the dark waters of the Amazon.
“We ought to reach Para by morning,” said Hale, “and then, dearest, we’re
off for New York!”
Aña, wearing one of the first civilized dresses she had ever donned, and
looking as smart as any débutante, slipped her little hand into her
husband’s.
“Isn’t it a shame, Hale,” she moaned, “that the fire burned all the animals
and insects, the machinery, and even your notes?” Her beautiful face
saddened. “Just one or two specimens might have been proof enough for
your What-You-Call-It Club!”
“The Nescience Club, darling. No, I can’t expect to win the Woolman prize,
but I’ve won a prize worth far more.” He squeezed her little hand and
looked devotedly into her blue eyes. “And, Aña, I’ve reasoned out
something concerning mind-electrons which even Sir Basil overlooked.”
“What is it, Hale?”
“He maintained that matter seeks always to enslave mind-electrons, but I
am convinced that mind-electrons seek to enslave matter. Understand? It’s
creation, Aña! Had Sir Basil succeeded in broadcasting death throughout
the world, the freed mind-electrons, as in the beginning, would have started
again to vitalize inorganic atoms. And, in a few million years, which is no
time to the Mind, the world would be humming with a new civilization.
Large thought, eh, sweetheart?”

A SIGNAL TO THE MOON

T
HE idea of a radio signal to the moon may sound fantastic, but is easily
within the range of possibility, says Dr. A. Hoyt Taylor, Chief of the
Radio Division of the United States Naval Research Laboratories at
Washington, who plans such an attempt in the near future.
“We have reason to expect a good chance of getting the signal back in a
time interval of slightly less than three seconds,” said Dr. Taylor.
To be exact, a radio signal should be reflected back to earth in a time
interval of 2.8 seconds, this being the necessary elapsed time for it to carry
the 250,000 miles to the moon and return at its speed of 300,000 kilometers,
or 186,000 miles per second.
The signal would be very weak, Dr. Taylor points out, but not impossible of
detection with the present refinement of receiving instruments, provided no
great absorption took place in interstellar space.
A high frequency wave will be used, as such a wave penetrates readily the
earth’s atmosphere and probably goes far beyond. The frequency of the
wave will range between 20,000 and 30,000 kilocycles. Twenty kilowats of
power will be used, enough to furnish current for about forty flatirons.
The value of a radio signal to the moon lies in the confirmation of whether
there is or not heavy absorption of waves in the upper levels of our own
atmosphere. If successful it would indicate a reasonably good reflection
coefficient at the surface of the moon—the power of the moon’s surface to
act as a joint agent in the perfection of the signal.
The signal might have some bearing also on whether the moon has an
atmosphere—something pretty much settled already by astronomical
observation. It would also lead to the possibility of fairly accurate
determination of wave velocity in free space, all of interest to science,
either confirming existing theories or establishing new ones.

310

The Pirate Planet

part two of a four-part novel

By Charles W. Diffin

WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE

A
FLASH of light on Venus!—and at Maricopa Flying Field Lieutenant
McGuire and Captain Blake laugh at its possible meaning until the
radio’s weird call and the sight of a giant ship in the night sky prove
their wildest thoughts are facts. “Big as an ocean liner,” it hangs in midair,
then turns and shoots upward at incredible speed until it disappears entirely,
in space!
McGuire goes to Mount Lawson
observatory, and there he sees ItVenus is war. Interplanetary war. And on far distant
two fighting Earthlings stand up against a
the flash on Venus repeated. whole planet run amuck.
Professor Sykes, who had
observed the first flash, confirms it and sees still more. He sees 311 the
enveloping clouds of Venus torn asunder, and beneath them an identifying
mark, a continent shaped like the letter “L.”
And then the great ship comes again. It hovers above the observatory and
settles slowly down.

“Hold them off as long as you can!”

Back at Maricopa Field, Captain Blake has tested a new plane for altitude,
and is now prepared to interview the stranger in the higher levels.
McGuire’s frantic phone call sends him out into the night with the 91st
Squadron of planes in support. It is their last flight, for all but Blake. The
invader smothers them in a great sphere of gas, but Blake, with his oxygen
flasks, flies through to crash beside the observatory. Only Blake survives to
see the enemy land, while strange man-shapes loot the buildings and carry 312

off McGuire and Sykes.
A bombardment with giant shells dispels the last doubt of the earth being
under attack. The flashes from Venus at regular intervals spout death and
destruction upon the earth; a mammoth gun, sunk into the planet itself,

bears once upon the earth at every revolution, until the changing position of
the globes take the target out of range.
In less than a year and a half the planets must meet again. It is war to the
death; a united world against an enemy unknown—an enemy who has
conquered space. And there is less than a year and a half in which to
prepare!
Far out in the blackness of space McGuire and Sykes are captives in the
giant ship. Their stupor leaves them; they find themselves immersed in
clouds. The clouds part; their ship drops through; and below them is a
strange continent shaped like the letter “L.” Captives of inhuman but man-
shaped things, they are landing upon a strange globe—upon the planet
Venus itself!

CHAPTER VIII

M
ILES underneath the great ship, from which Lieutenant McGuire and
Professor Sykes were now watching through a floor-window of thick
glass, was a glittering expanse of water—a great ocean. The
flickering gold expanse that reflected back the color of the sunlit clouds
passed to one side as the ship took its station above the island, a continent
in size, that had shown by its shape like a sharply formed “L” an identifying
mark to the astronomer.
They were high in the air; the thick clouds that surrounded this new world
were miles from its surface, and the things of the world that awaited were
tiny and blurred.
Airships passed and repassed far below. Large, some of them—as bulky as
the transport they were on; others were small flashing cylinders, but all
went swiftly on their way.
It must have come—some ethereal vibration to warn others from the path—
for layer after layer of craft were cleared for the descent. A brilliant light
flashed into view, a dazzling pin-point on the shore below, and the great
ship fell suddenly beneath them. Swiftly it dropped down the pathway of
light; on even keel it fell down and still down, till McGuire, despite his
experience in the air, was sick and giddy.

The light blinked out at their approach. It was some minutes before the
watching eyes recovered from the brilliance to see what mysteries might
await, and then the surface was close and the range of vision small.
A vast open space—a great court paved with blocks of black and white—a
landing field, perhaps, for about it in regular spacing other huge cylinders
were moored. Directly beneath in a clear space was a giant cradle of curved
arms; it was a mammoth structure, and the men knew at a glance that this
was the bed where their great ship would lie.

T
HE smooth pavement seemed slowly rising to meet them as their ship
settled close. Now the cradle was below, its arms curved and waiting.
The ship entered their grasp, and the arms widened, then closed to
draw the monster to its rest. Their motion ceased. They were finally, beyond
the last faint doubt, at anchor on a distant world.
A shrill cackle of sound recalled them from the thrill of this adventure, and
the attenuated and lanky figure, with its ashen, blotchy face that glared at
them from the doorway, reminded them that this excursion into space was
none of their desire. They were prisoners—captives from a foreign land.
A long hand moved its sinuous fingers to motion them to follow, and
313

McGuire regarded his companion with a hopeless look and a despondent
shrug of his shoulders.
“No use putting up a fight,” he said; “I guess we’d better be good.”
He followed where the figure was stepping through a doorway into a
corridor beyond. They moved, silent and depressed, along the dimly lighted
way; the touch of cold metal walls was as chilling to their spirits as to their
flesh.
But the mood could not last: the first ray of light from the outside world
sent shivers of anticipation along their spines. They were landing, in very
fact, upon a new world; their feet were to walk where never man had stood;
their eyes would see what mortal eyes had never visioned.
Fears were forgotten, and the men clung to each other not for the human
touch but because of an ecstasy of intoxicating, soul-filling joy in the sheer
thrill of adventure.

They were gripping each other’s hand, round-eyed as a couple of children,
as they stepped forward into the light.

B
EFORE them was a scene whose blazing beauty of color struck them
to frozen silence; their exclamations of wonder died unspoken on their
lips. They were in a city of the stars, and to their eyes it seemed as if
all the brilliance of the heavens had been gathered for its building.
The spacious, open court itself stood high in the air among the masses of
masonry, and beyond were countless structures. Some towered skyward;
others were lower; and all were topped with bulbous towers and graceful
minarets that made a forest of gleaming opal light. Opalescence
everywhere!—it flashed in red and gold and delicate blues from every wall
and cornice and roof.
“Quartz?” marveled Sykes after one long drawn breath. “Quartz or glass?—
what are they made of? It is fairyland!”
A jewelled city! Garish, it might have been, and tawdry, in the full light of
the sun. But on these weirdly unreal structures the sun’s rays never shone;
they were illumined only by the soft golden glow that diffused across this
world from the cloud masses far above.
McGuire looked up at that uniform, glowing, golden mass that paled toward
the horizon and faded to the gray of banked clouds. His eyes came slowly
back to the ramp that led downward to the checkered black and white of the
court. Beyond an open portion the pavement was solidly massed with
people.
“People!—we might as well call them that,” McGuire had told Sykes; “they
are people of a sort, I suppose. We’ll have to give them credit for brains:
they’ve beaten us a hundred years in their inventions.”
He was trying to see everything, understand everything, at once. There was
not time to single out the new impressions that were crowding upon him.
The air—it was warm to the point of discomfort; it explained the loose,
light garments of the people; it came to the two men laden with strange
scents and stranger sounds.

McGuire’s eyes held with hungry curiosity upon the dwellers in this other
world; he stared at the gaping throng from which came a bedlam of shrill
cries. Lean colorless hands gesticulated wildly and pointed with long
fingers at the two men.

T
HE din ceased abruptly at a sharp, whistled order from their captor. He
stood aside with a guard that had followed from the ship, and he
motioned the two before him down the gangway. It was the same
scarlet one who had faced them before, the one whom McGuire had
attacked in a frenzy of furious fighting, only to go down to blackness and
defeat before the slim cylinder of steel and its hissing gas. And the slanting
eyes stared wickedly in cold triumph as he ordered them to go before him314in
his march of victory.
McGuire passed down toward the masses of color that were the ones who
waited. There were many in the dull red of the ship’s crew; others in sky-
blue, in gold and pink and combinations of brilliance that blended their
loose garments to kaleidoscopic hues. But the figures were similar in one
unvarying respect: they were repulsive and ghastly, and their faces showed
bright blotches of blood vessels and blue markings of veins through their
parchment-gray skins.
The crowd parted to a narrow, living lane, and lean fingers clutched
writhingly to touch them as they passed between the solid ranks.
McGuire had only a vague impression of a great building beyond, of lower
stories decorated in barbaric colors, of towers above in strange forms of the
crystal, colorful beauty they had seen. He walked toward it unseeing; his
thoughts were only of the creatures round about.
“What damned beasts!” he said. Then, like his companion, he set his teeth
to restrain all show of feeling as they made their way through the lane of
incredible living things.

T
HEY followed their captor through a doorway into an empty room—
empty save for one blue-clad individual who stood beside an
instrument board let into the wall. Beyond was a long wall, where
circular openings yawned huge and black.

The one at the instrument panel received a curt order: the weird voice of the
man in red repeated a word that stood out above his curious, wordless tone.
“Torg,” he said, and again McGuire heard him repeat the syllable.
The operator touched here and there among his instruments, and tiny lights
flashed; he threw a switch, and from one of the black openings like a deep
cave came a rushing roar of sound. It dropped to silence as the end of a
cylindrical car protruded into the room. A door in the metal car opened, and
their guard hustled them roughly inside. The one in red followed while
behind him the door clanged shut.
Inside the car was light, a diffused radiance from no apparent source, the
whole air was glowing about them. And beneath their feet the car moved
slowly but with a constant acceleration that built up to tremendous speed.
Then that slackened, and Sykes and McGuire clung to each other for
support while the car that had been shot like a projectile came to rest.
“Whew!” breathed the lieutenant; “that was quick delivery.” Sykes made no
reply, and McGuire, too, fell silent to study the tremendous room into which
they were led. Here, seemingly, was the stage for their next experience.
A vast open hall with a floor of glass that was like obsidion, empty but for
carved benches about the walls; there was room here for a mighty
concourse of people. The walls, like those they had seen, were decorated
crudely in glaring colors, and embellished with grotesque designs that
proclaimed loudly the inexpert touch of the draughtsman. Yet, above them,
the ceiling sprang lightly into vaulted, sweeping curves. McGuire’s training
had held little of architecture, yet even he felt the beauty of line and airy
gracefulness of treatment in the structure itself.

T
HE contrast between the flaunting colors and the finished artistry that
lay beneath must have struck a discordant note to the scientist. He
leaned closer to whisper.
“It is all wrong some way—the whole world! Beauty and refinement—then
crude vulgarity, as incongruous as the people themselves—they do not
belong here.”
“Neither do we,” was McGuire’s reply; “it looks like a tough spot that
we’re in.”

He was watching toward a high, arched entrance across the room. A
platform before it was raised some six feet above the floor, and on this were315

seats—ornate chairs, done in sweeping scrolls of scarlet and gold. A
massive seat in the center was like the fantastic throne of a child’s fairy tale.
From the corridor beyond that entrance came a stir and rustling that rivetted
the man’s attention.
A trumpet peal, vibrant and peculiar, blared forth from the ceiling overhead,
and the red figures of the guards stood at rigid attention with lean arms held
stiffly before them. The one in scarlet took the same attitude, then dropped
his hands to motion the two men to give the same salute.
“You go to hell,” said Lieutenant McGuire in his gentlest tones. And the
scarlet figure’s thin lips were snarling as he turned to whip his arms up to
their position. The first of a procession of figures was entering through the
arch.
Sykes, the scientist, was paying little attention. “It isn’t true,” he was
muttering aloud; “it can’t be true. Venus! Twenty-six million miles at
inferior conjunction!”
He seemed lost in silent communion with his own thoughts; then: “But I
said there was every probability of life; I pointed out the similarities—”
“Hush!” warned McGuire. The eyes of the scarlet man were sending wicked
looks in their direction. Tall forms were advancing through the arch. They,
too, were robed in scarlet, and behind them others followed.

T
HE trumpet peal from the dome above held now on a long-drawn,
single note, while the scarlet men strode in silence across the dais and
parted to form two lines. An inverted “V” that faced the entrance—
they were an assembly of rigid, blazing statues whose arms were extended
like those on the floor below.
The vibrant tone from on high changed to a crashing blare that shrieked
discordantly to send quivering protest through every nerve of the waiting
men. Those about them were shouting, and again the name of Torg was
heard, as, in the high arch, another character appeared to play his part in a
strange drama.

Thin like his companions, yet even taller than them, he wore the same
brilliant robes and, an additional mark of distinction, a head-dress of
polished gold. He acknowledged the salute with a quick raising of his own
arms, then came swiftly forward and took his place upon the massive
throne.
Not till he was seated did the others on the platform relax their rigid pose
and seat themselves in the semicircle of chairs. And not till then did they so
much as glance at the men waiting there before them—the two Earth-men,
standing in silent, impassive contemplation of the brilliant scene and with
their arms held quiet at their sides. Then every eye turned full upon the
captives, and if McGuire had seen deadly malevolence in the face of their
captor he found it a hundred-fold in the inhuman faces that looked down
upon them now.
The inquiring mind of Professor Sykes did not fail to note the character of
their reception. “But why,” he asked in whispers of his fellow-prisoner, “—
why this open hatred of us? What possible animus can they have against the
earth or its people?”
The figure on the throne voiced a curt order; the one who had brought them
stepped forward. His voice was raised in the same discordant, singing tone
that leaped and wandered from note to note. It conveyed ideas—that was
apparent; it was a language that he spoke. And the central figure above
nodded a brief assent as he finished.
Their captor took an arm of each in his long fingers and pushed them
roughly forward to stand alone before the battery of hard eyes.

N
OW the crowned figure addressed them directly. His voice quavered
sharply in what seemed an interrogation. The men looked blankly at
each other.
Again the voice questioned them impatiently. Sykes and McGuire were 316

silent. Then the young flyer took an involuntary step forward and looked
squarely at the owner of the harsh voice.
“We don’t know what you are saying,” he began, “and I suppose that our
lingo makes no sense to you—” He paused in helpless wonderment as to
what he could say. Then—

“But what the devil is it all about?” he demanded explosively. “Why all the
dirty looks? You’ve got us here as prisoners—now what do you expect us to
do? Whatever it is, you’ll have to quit singing it and talk something we can
understand.”
He knew his words were useless, but this reception was getting on his
nerves—and his arm still tingled where the scarlet one had gripped him.
It seemed, though, that his meaning was not entirely lost. His words meant
nothing to them, but his tone must have carried its own message. There
were sharp exclamations from the seated circle. The one who had brought
them sprang forward with outstretched, clutching hands; his face was a
blood-red blotch. McGuire was waiting in crouching tenseness that made
the red one pause.
“You touch me again,” said the waiting man, “and I’ll knock you into an
outside loop.”
The attacker’s indecision was ended by a loud order from above. McGuire
turned as if he had been spoken to by the leader on the throne. The thin
figure was leaning far forward; his eye were boring into those of the
lieutenant, and he held the motionless pose for many minutes. To the angry
man, staring back and upward, there came a peculiar optical illusion.
The evil face was vanishing in a shifting cloud that dissolved and reformed,
as he watched, into pictures. He knew it was not there, the thing he saw; he
knew he was regarding something as intangible as thought; but he got the
significance of every detail.
He saw himself and Professor Sykes; they were being crushed like ants
beneath a tremendous heel; he knew that the foot that could grind out their
lives was that of the one on the throne.

T
HE cloud-stuff melted to new forms that grew clearer to show him the
earth. A distorted Earth—and he knew the distortion came from the
mind of the being before him who had never seen the earth at first
hand; yet he knew it for his own world. It was turning in space; he saw
oceans and continents; and before his mental gaze he saw the land
swarming with these creatures of Venus. The one before him was in
command; he was seated on an enormous throne; there were Earth people

like Sykes and himself who crept humbly before him, while fleets of great
Venusian ships hovered overhead.
The message was plain—plain as if written in words of fire in the brain of
the man. McGuire knew that these creatures intended that the vision should
be true—they meant to conquer the earth. The slim, khaki-clad figure of
Lieutenant McGuire quivered with the strength of his refusal to accept the
truth of what he saw. He shook his head to clear it of these thought wraiths.
“Not—in—a—million—years!” he said, and he put behind his words all the
mental force at his command. “Try that, old top, and they’ll give you the
fight of your life—” He checked his words as he saw plainly that the thin
cruel face that stared and stared was getting nothing from his reply.
“Now what do you think about that?” he demanded of Professor Sykes. “He
got an idea across to me—some form of telepathy. I saw his mind, or I saw
what he wanted me to see of it. It’s taps, he says, for us, and then they think
they’re going across and annex the world.”
He glanced upward again and laughed loudly for the benefit of those who
317

were watching him so closely. “Fine chance!” he said; “a fat chance!” But
in the deeper recesses of his mind he was shaken.
For themselves there was no hope. Well, that was all in a lifetime. But the
other—the conquest of the earth—he had to try with all his power of will to
keep from his mind the pictures of destruction these beastly things could
bring about.

T
HE chief of this strange council made a gesture of contempt with the
grotesque hands that were so translucent yet ashy-pale against his
scarlet robe, and the down-drawn thin lips reflected the thoughts that
prompted it. The open opposition of Lieutenant McGuire failed to impress
him, it seemed. At a word the one who had brought them sprang forward.
He addressed himself to the circle of men, and he harangued them mightily
in harsh discordance. He pointed one lean hand at the two captives, then
beat it upon his own chest. “They are mine,” he was saying, as the men
knew plainly. And they realized as if the weird talk came like words to their
ears that this monster was demanding that the captives be given him.

An exchange of dismayed glances, and “Not so good!” said McGuire under
his breath; “Simon Legree is asking for his slaves. Mean, ugly devil, that
boy!”
The lean figures on the platform were bending forward, an expression of
mirth—distorted, animal smiles—upon their flabby lips. They represented
to the humans, so helpless before them, a race of thinking things in whom
no last vestige of kindness or decency remained. But was there an
exception? One of the circle was standing; the one beside them was sullenly
silent as the other on the platform addressed their ruler.
He spoke at some length, not with the fire and vehemence of the one who
had claimed them, but more quietly and dispassionately, and his cold eyes,
when they rested on those of McGuire and Sykes, seemed more crafty than
actively ablaze with malevolent ill-will. Plainly it was the councilor now,
addressing his superior. His inhuman voice was silenced by a reply from the
one on the throne.
He motioned—this gold-crowned figure of personified evil—toward the
two men, and his hand swept on toward the one who had spoken. He
intoned a command in harsh gutturals that ended in a sibilant shriek. And
the two standing silent and hopeless exchanged looks of despair.
They were being delivered to this other—that much was plain—but that it
boded anything but captivity and torment they could not believe. That last
phrase was too eloquent of hissing hate.

T
HE creature rose, tall and ungainly, from his throne; amid the
salutations of his followers he turned and vanished through the arch.
The others of his council followed, all but the one. He motioned to the
two men to come with him, and the sullen one who had demanded the men
for himself obeyed an order from this councilor who was his superior.
He snapped an order, and four of his men ranged themselves about the
captives as a guard. Thin metal cords were whipped about the wrists of
each; their hands were tied. The wire cut like a knife-edge if they strained
against it.
The new director of their destinies was vanishing through an exit at one side
of the great hall; their guard hustled them after. A corridor opened before

them to end in a gold-lit portal; it was daylight out beyond where a street
was filled with hurrying figures in many colors. With quavering shrieks
they scattered like frightened fowls as an airship descended between the tall
buildings that reflected its passing in opalescent hues.
It was a small craft compared with the one that had brought them, and318it
swept down to settle lightly upon the street with no least regard for those
who might be crushed by its descent. Consideration for their fellows did not
appear as a marked characteristic of this strange people, McGuire observed
thoughtfully. They swarmed in endless droves, these multicolored beings
who made of the thoroughfare an ever-changing kaleidoscope—and what
was a life or two, more or less, among so many? He found no comfort for
themselves in the thought.
Shoulder to shoulder, the two followed where the scarlet figure of the
councilor moved toward the waiting ship. Only the professor paid further
heed to their surroundings; he marveled aloud at the numbers of the people.
“Hundreds of them,” he said; “thousands! They are swarming everywhere
like rats. Horrible!” His eyes passed on to the buildings in their glory of
delicate hues, as he added, “And the contrast they make with their
surroundings! It is all wrong some way; I wish I knew—”
They were in the ship when McGuire replied. “I hope we live long enough
to satisfy your curiosity,” he said grimly.
The ship was rising beneath them; the opal and quartz of the city’s walls
were flashing swiftly down.

CHAPTER IX

T
HEY were in a cabin at the very nose of the ship, seated on metal
chairs, their hands unshackled and free. Their scarlet guardian reclined
at ease somewhat to one side, but despite his apparent disregard his
cold eyes seldom left the faces of the two men.
Windows closed them in; windows on each side, in front, above them, and
even in the floor beneath. It was a room for observation whose metal-
latticed walls served only as a framework for the glass. And there was much
to be observed.

The golden radiance of sunlit clouds was warm above. They rose toward it,
until, high over the buildings’ tallest spires, there spread on every hand the
bewildering beauty of that forest of minarets and sloping roofs and towers,
whose many facets made glorious blendings of soft color. Aircraft at many
levels swept in uniform directions throughout the sky. The ship they were in
hung quiet for a time, then rose to a higher level to join the current of
transportation that flowed into the south.
“We will call it south,” said Professor Sykes. “The sun-glow, you will
observe, is not directly overhead; the sun is sinking; it is past their noon.
What is the length of their day? Ah, this interesting—interesting!” The
certain fate they had foreseen was forgotten; it is not often given to an
astronomer to check at first hand his own indefinite observations.
“Look!” McGuire exclaimed. “Open country! The city is ending!”

A
HEAD and below them the buildings were smaller and scattered.
Their new master was watching with closest scrutiny the excitement
of the men; he whispered an order into a nearby tube, and the ship
slowly slanted toward the ground. He was studying these new specimens, as
McGuire observed, but the lieutenant paid little attention; his eyes were too
thoroughly occupied in resolving into recognizable units the picture that
flowed past them so quickly. He was accustomed, this pilot of the army air
service, to reading clearly the map that spreads beneath a plane, but now he
was looking at an unfamiliar chart.
“Fields,” he said, and pointed to squared areas of pale reds and blues;
“though what it is, heaven knows. And the trees!—if that’s what they are.”
The ship went downward where an area of tropical denseness made a
tangled mass of color and shadow.
“Trees!” Lieutenant McGuire had exclaimed, but these forests were of tree-
319

forms in weirdest shapes and hues. They grew to towering heights, and their
branches and leaves that swayed and dipped in the slow-moving air were of
delicate pastel shades.
“No sunlight,” said the Professor excitedly; “they have no direct rays of the
sun. The clouds act as a screen and filter out actinic rays.”

McGuire did not reply. He was watching the countless dots of color that
were people—people who swarmed here as they had in the city; people
working at these great groves, crouching lower in the fields as the ship
swept close; people everywhere in teeming thousands. And like the
vegetation about them, they, too, were tall and thin, attenuated of form and
with skin like blood-stained ash.
“They need the sun,” Sykes was repeating; “both vegetable and animal life.
The plants are deficient in chlorophyl—see the pale green of the leaves!—
and the people need vitamins. Yet they evidently have electric power in
abundance. I could tell them of lamps—”

H IS comments ceased as McGuire lurched heavily against him. The
flyer had taken note of the tense, attentive attitude of the one in
scarlet; the man was leaning forward, his eyes focused directly upon
the scientist’s face; he seemed absorbing both words and emotions.
How much could he comprehend? What power had he to vision the idea-
pictures in the other’s mind? McGuire could not know. But “Sorry!” he told
Sykes; “that was clumsy of me.” And he added in a whisper, “Keep your
thoughts to yourself; I think this bird is getting them.”
Buildings flashed under them, not massed solidly as in the city, yet spaced
close to one another as if every foot of ground not devoted to their
incredible agriculture were needed to house the inhabitants. The ground
about them was alive with an equally incredible humanity that swarmed
over all this world in appalling profusion.
Their horrid flesh! Their hideous features! And their number! McGuire had
a sudden, sickening thought. They were larvae, these crawling hordes—vile
worm-things that infested a beautiful world—that bred here in millions,
their numbers limited only by the space for their bodies and the food for
their stomachs. And he, McGuire, a man—he and this other man with his
clear-thinking scientific brain were prisoners to this horde; captives, to be
used or butchered by those vile, crawling things!
And again it was this world of contrast that drove home the conviction with
its sickening certainty. A world of beauty, of delicate colors, of sweeping
oceans and gleaming shores and towering cities with their grace and beauty

and elfin splendor yet a world that shuddered beneath this devouring plague
of grublike men.

T
HEY swept past cities and towns and over many miles of open land
before their craft swung eastward toward the dark horizon. The master
gave another order into the speaking tube and their ship shot forward,
faster and yet faster, with a speed that pressed them heavily into their seats.
Behind them was the glory of the sunlit clouds; ahead the gloomy gray-
black masses that must make a stygian night sky over this lonely world—a
world cut off by that vaporous shell from all communion with the stars.
They were over the water; before them a dark ocean reached out in
forbidding emptiness to a darker horizon. Ahead, the only broken line in the
vast level expanse was a mountain rising abruptly from the sea. It was a
volcanic cone surmounting an island; the sunlight’s glow reflected from
behind them against the sombre mass that lifted toward the clouds. Their
ship was high enough to clear it, but instead it swung, as McGuire watched,
toward the south.
The island drifted past, and again they were on their course. But to the flyer
320

there were significant facts that could not pass unobserved. Their own ship
had swung in a great circle to avoid this mountain. And all through the skies
were others that did the same. The air above and about the grim sentinel
peak was devoid of flying shapes.
McGuire caught the eyes of the councilor, their keeper. “What is that?” he
asked, though he knew the words were lost on the other. He nodded his
head toward the distant peak, and his question was plainly in regard to the
island. And for the first time since their coming to this wild world, he saw,
flashing across the features of one of these men, a trace of emotion that
could only be construed as fear.
The slitted cat eyes lost their look of complacent superiority. They widened
involuntarily, and the face was drained of its blotched color. There was fear,
terror unmistakable, though it showed for but an instant. He had control of
his features almost at once, but the flyer had read their story.
Here was something that gave pause to this race of conquering vermin; a
place in the expanse of this vast sea that brought panic to their hearts. And

there came to him, as he stowed the remembrance away in his mind, the
first glow of hope. These things could fear a mountain; it might be that they
could be brought to fear a man.

T
HE sky was clearing rapidly of traffic and the mountain of his
speculations was lost astern, when another island came slanting swiftly
up to meet them as their ship swept down from the heights. It was a
tiny speck in the ocean’s expanse, a speck that resolved itself into the
squared fields of colored growth, orchards whose brilliant, strange fruits
glowed crimson in the last light of day, and enormous trees, beyond which
appeared a house.
A palace, McGuire concluded, when he saw clearly the many-storied pile.
Like the buildings they had seen, this also constructed of opalescent quartz.
There were windows that glowed warmly in the dusk. A sudden wave of
loneliness, almost unbearable, swept over the man.
Windows and gleaming lights, the good sounds of Earth; home!... And his
ears, as he stepped out into the cool air, were assailed with the strange
cackle and calling of weird folk; the air brought him scents, from the open
ground beyond, of fruits and vegetation like none he had ever known; and
the earth, the homeland of his vain imaginings, was millions of empty miles
away....
The leader stopped, and McGuire looked dispiritedly at the unfamiliar
landscape under dusky lowering skies. Trees towered high in the air—trees
grotesque and weird by all Earth standards—whose limbs were pale green
shadows in the last light of day. The foliage, too, seemed bleached and
drained of color, but among the leaves were flashes of brilliance where
night-blooming flowers burst open like star-shells to fill the air with heavy
scents.
Between the men and the forest growth was a row of denser vegetation,
great ferns twenty feet and more in height, and among them at regular
intervals stood plants of another growth—each a tremendous pod held in air
on a thick stalk. Tendrils coiled themselves like giant springs beside each
pod, tendrils as thick as a man’s wrist. The great pods were ranged in a line
that extended as far as McGuire could see in the dim light.

H
IS shoulders drooped as the guard herded him and his companion
toward the building beyond. He must not be cast down—he would
not! Who knew how much of such feeling was read by these keen-
eyed observers? And the only thought with which he could fill his mind, the
one forlorn ghost of a hope that he could cling to, was that of an island, a
volcanic peak that rose from dark waters to point upward toward the
heights.
The guard of four was clustered about; the figures were waiting now in 321
the
gathering dark—waiting, while the one in scarlet listened and spoke
alternately into a jeweled instrument that hung by a slender chain about his
neck. He raised one lean hand to motion the stirring guards to silence,
listened again intently into the instrument, then pointed that hand toward
the cloud-filled sky, while he craned his thin neck to look above him.
The men’s eyes followed the pointing hand to see only the sullen black of
unlit clouds. The last distant aircraft had vanished from the skies; not a ship
was in the air—only the enveloping blanket of high-flung vapor that
blocked out all traces of the heavens. And then!—
The cloud banks high in the skies flashed suddenly to dazzling, rolling
flame. The ground under their feet was shaken as by a distant earthquake,
while, above, the terrible fire spread, a swift, flashing conflagration that ate
up the masses of clouds.
“What in thunder—” McGuire began; then stopped as he caught, in the light
from above, the reflection of fierce exultation in the eyes of the scarlet one.
The evil, gloating message of those eyes needed no words to explain its
meaning. That this cataclysm was self-made by these beings, McGuire
knew, and he knew that in some way it meant menace to him and his.
Yet he groped in thought for some definite meaning. No menace could this
be to himself personally, for he and Sykes stood there safe in the company
of the councilor himself. Then the threat of this flaming blast must be
directed toward the earth!

T
HE fire vanished, and once more, as Professor Sykes had seen on that
night so long ago, the blanket of clouds was broken. McGuire followed

the gaze of the scientist whose keen eyes were probing in these brief
moments into the depths of star-lit space.
“There—there!” Sykes exclaimed in awe-struck tones. His hand was
pointing outward through the space where flames had cleared the sky. A star
was shining in the heavens with a glory that surpassed all others. It
outshone all neighboring stars, and it sent its light down through the vast
empty reaches of space, a silent message to two humans, despondent and
heartsick, who stared with aching eyes.
Lieutenant McGuire did not hear his friend’s whispered words. No need to
name that distant world—it was Earth! Earth!... And it was calling to its
own....
There was a flying-field—so plain before his mental eyes; men in khaki and
leather who moved and talked and spoke of familiar things ... and the
thunder of motors ... and roaring planes....
Some far recess within his deeper self responded strangely. What now of
threats and these brute-things that threatened?—he was one with this
picture he had visioned. He was himself; he was a man of that distant world
of men; they would show these vile things how men could meet menace—
or death.... His shoulders were back and unconsciously he stood erect.
The scarlet figure was close beside them in the dusk, his voice vibrant with
a quality which should have struck fear to his captives’ hearts as he ordered
them on. But the look in his crafty eyes changed to one of puzzled wonder
at sight of the men.
Hands on each other’s shoulders, they stood there in the gathering dark,
where grotesque trees arched twistingly overhead. Their moment of
depression had passed; Earth had called, and they had heard it, each after
his own fashion. But to each the call had been one of clear courage. No
longer cast off and forlorn, they were one with their own world.
“Down,” said Professor Sykes with a whimsical smile; “down, but not out!”
And the lieutenant responded in kind.
“Are we down-hearted?” he demanded loudly. And the two turned as one
322

man to grin at the scarlet one as they thundered. “N-o-o!”

CHAPTER X

T
WO men grinned in derision at the horrible, man-shaped thing that
held their destinies in his lean, inhuman hands!—but they turned
abruptly away to look again above them where that bright star still
shone through an opening in the clouds.
“The earth! Home!” It seemed as if they could never tear their eyes away
from the sight.
Their captor whistled an order, and the guard of four tugged vainly at the
two, who resisted that they might gaze upon their own world until the
closing clouds should blot it from sight. A cry from one of the red guards
roused them.
The dark was closing in fast, and their surroundings were dim. Vaguely,
McGuire felt more than saw one of the red figures whirled into the air. He
sensed a movement in the jungle darkness where were groves of weird trees
and the tangle of huge vegetable growths. What it was he could not say, but
he felt the guard who clutched at him quiver in terror.
Their leader snatched at the instrument that hung about his neck and put it
to his lips; he whistled an order, sharp and shrill. Blazing light that seemed
to flame in the air was the response; the air was aglow with an all-pervading
brilliance like that in the car that had whirled them from the landing field.
The light was everywhere, and the building before them was surrounded by
a dazzling envelope of luminosity.
Whatever of motion or menace there had been ceased abruptly. Their guard,
three now in number instead of four, seized them roughly and hustled them
toward an open door. No time, as they passed, for more than fleeting
impressions: a hall of warm, glowing light—a passage that branched off—
and, at the end, a room into which they were thrown, while a metal door
clanged behind them.

T
HESE were no gentle hands that hurled the men staggering through the
doorway, and Professor Sykes fell headlong upon the glassy floor. He
sprang to his feet, his face aflame with anger. “The miserable beasts!”
he shouted.

“Take it easy,” admonished the flyer. “We’re in the hoose-gow; no use of
getting all fussed up if they don’t behave like perfect gentlemen.
“There’s a bunk in the corner,” he said, and pointed to a woven hammock
that was covered with soft cloths; “and here’s another that I can sling. Twin
beds! What more do you want?”
He opened a door and the splash of falling water came to them. A fountain
cascaded to the ceiling to fall splashing upon a floor of inlaid, glassy tile.
McGuire whistled.
“Room and bath,” he said. “And you complained of the service!”
“I have an idea,” he told the scientist, “that our scarlet friend who owns this
place intends to treat us decently, even though his helpers are a bit rough.
My hunch is that he wants to get some information out of us. That old bird
back there in the council chamber told me as plain as day that they think
they are going to conquer the earth. Maybe that’s why we are here—as
exhibits A and B, for them to study and learn how to lick us.”
“You are talking what I would have termed nonsense a month ago,” replied
Sykes, “but now—well, I am afraid you are right. And,” he said slowly, “I
fear that they are equally correct. They have conquered space; they have
ships propelled by some unknown power; they have gas weapons, as you
and I have reason to know. And they have all the beastly ferocity to carry
such a plan through to success. But I wonder what that sky-splitting blast
meant.”
“Bombardment,” the flyer told him; “bombardment of the earth as sure323as
you’re alive.”
“More nonsense,” said Sykes; “and probably correct.... Well, what are we to
do?—sit tight and give them as little information as we can? or—” His
question ended unfinished; the alternative, it seemed, was not plain to him.
“There’s only one answer,” said McGuire. “We must get away; escape
somehow.”

P
ROFESSOR SYKES’ eyes showed his appreciation of a spirit that
could still dare to hope, but he asked dejectedly: “Escape? Good idea.
But where to?”

“I have an idea,” the flyer said slowly. “An idea about an island.” He told
the professor what he had observed—the fact that there was one spot of
land on this globe from which the traffic of these monsters of Venus steered
clear. This, he explained, must have some significance.
“Whatever is there, God only knows,” he admitted, “but it is something
these devils don’t like a little bit. It might be interesting to learn more. We’ll
make a break for it; find a boat. No, we probably can’t do it, but we can
make a try. Now what is our first step, I wonder.”
“Our first step,” said Professor Sykes, measuring his words as if he might
be working out some astronomical calculation, “is into the inverted shower-
bath, if you feel as hot as I do. And our next step, when all is quiet for the
night, is through the window I see beyond. I can see the branches of one of
those undernourished trees from here.”
“Last one in is a lop-eared Venusian!” said McGuire, throwing off his
jacket. And in that strange room in a strange world, under the shadow of
death and of tortures unknown, the two men stripped with all the care-free
abandon of a couple of schoolboys racing to be first in the old swimming
hole.

I
T was some time later when the door opened and a long red hand pushed
a tray of food into the room. The tray was of unbreakable crystal—he
rattled it heedlessly upon the floor—and it held crystal dishes of
unknown foods.
They were sampling them all when Sykes remarked plaintively, “I would
like to know what under heaven I am eating.”
“I’ve wished to know that in lots of restaurants,” McGuire replied. “I
remember a place down on—” He stopped abruptly, then chewed in silence
upon a fruit like a striped pepper that stung his mouth and tongue while he
scarcely felt it. References to Earth things plainly were to be avoided: the
visions they brought before one’s eyes were unnerving.
They made a pretence of sleeping in case they were being observed, and it
was some hours later when the two stood quietly beside the open window.
As Sykes had seen, there were branches of a pale, twisted tree-growth close
outside. McGuire tried his weight upon them, then swung himself out, hand

over hand, upon the branch that bent low beneath him. Sykes was close
behind when he clambered to the ground to stand for some minutes,
listening silently in the dark.
“Too easy!” the lieutenant whispered. “They are too foxy to leave a
gateway like that—but here we are. The shore is off in this direction.”
The dark of a night unrelieved by a single star was about them as they
moved noiselessly away. They followed open ground at first. The building
that had been their brief prison was upon their right; beyond and at the left
was where the ship landed—it was gone now—and beyond that the wall of
vegetation.
And again, in the dark, McGuire had an uncanny sense of motion. Soft
bodies were slipping quietly one upon another; something that lived was
there beyond them in the night. No sound or sign of life came from 324
the
house; no guard had been posted; and McGuire stopped again, before
plunging into the tangled growth, to whisper, “Too easy, Sykes! There’s
something about this—”

H
E had pushed aside the fronds of a giant fern; a cautious step beyond
his hands touched a slippery, pliant vine. And his whisper ended as he
felt the thing turn and twist beneath his hand. It was alive!—writhing!
—cold as the body of a monster snake, and just as vicious and savage in the
way that it whipped down and about him in the gloom of the starless night.
The thing was alive! It threw its coils around his body in an embrace that
left him breathless; a slender tendril was tightening about his neck; his
hands and arms were bound.
His ankle was grasped as he was whirled aloft—a human hand that gripped
him this time—and Sykes, forgetting discretion and the need for silence,
was shouting in the darkness that gave no clue to their opponent. “Hang
on!” he yelled. “I’ve got you, Mac!”
His shouts were cut short by another serpent shape that thrashed him and
smashed the softer growing things to earth that it might wrap this man, too,
in its deadly coils.

McGuire felt his companion’s hold loosen as he was lifted from the ground;
there were other arms flailing about him—living, coiling things that seemed
to fight one with another for this prize. Abruptly, blindingly, the scene was
vividly etched before him: the strange trees, the ferns, the writhing and
darting serpent-arms! They were illumined in a dazzling, white light!
He was in the air, clutched strangely in constricting arms; an odor of rotted
flesh was in his nostrils, sickening, suffocating! Beyond and almost beneath
him a cauldron of green gaped open, and he saw within it a pool of thick
liquid that eddied and steamed to give off the stench of putrescence.
All this in an instant of vision—and in that instant he knew the death they
courted. It was a giant pod that held that pool—one of the growths he had
seen ranged out like a line of sentinels. But the terrible tendrils that had
been coiled and at rest were wrapped about him now, drawing him to that
reeking pool of death and the waiting thick lips that would close above him.
Sykes, too! The tendrils that had clutched him were whisking his helpless
body where another gaping mouth was open—

A
ND then, in the blazing light that was more brilliant than any light of
day in this world, the hold about McGuire relaxed. He saw, as he fell,
the thick, green lips snap shut; and the arms that had held him pulled
back into harmless, tight-wound coils.
Their bodies crashed to earth where a great fern bent beneath them to
cushion their fall. And the men lay silent and gasping for great choking
breaths, while from the building beyond came the cackle and shrieking of
man-things in manifest enjoyment of the frustrated plans.
It was the laughter that determined McGuire.
“Damn the plants!” he said between hoarse breaths. “Man-eating plants—
but they’re—better—than—those devils! And there’s only—one line of
them: I saw them here before. Shall we go on?—make a break for it?”
Sykes rolled to the shelter of an arching frond and, without a word, went
crawling away. McGuire was behind him, and the two, as they came to
open ground, sprang to their feet and ran on through the weird orchard
where tree trunks made dim, twisting lines. They ran blindly and helplessly
toward the outer dark that promised temporary shelter.

A hopeless attempt: both men, knew the futility of it, while they stumbled
onward through the dark. Behind them the night was hideous with noise325as
the great palace gave forth an eruption of shrieking, inhuman forms that
scattered with whistling and wailing calls in all directions.

A
MILE or more of groping, hopeless flight, till a yellow gleam shone
among the trees to guide them. A building, beyond a clearing, gave a
bright illumination to the black night.
“We’ve run in a circle,” choked McGuire, his voice weak and uncertain
with exhaustion. “Like a couple of fools!—”
He waited until the heavy breathing that shook his body might be
controlled, then corrected himself. “No—this is another—a new one—see
the towers! And listen—it’s a radio station!”
The slender frameworks that towered high in air glowed like flame—a
warning to the ships whose lights showed now and then far overhead. And,
clear and distinct, there came to the listening men the steady, crackling hiss
of an uninterrupted signal.
Against the lighted building moving figures showed momentarily, and
McGuire pulled his friend into the safe concealment of a tangle of growth,
while the group of yelling things sped past.
“Come on,” he told Sykes; “we can’t get away—not a chance! Let’s have a
look at this place, and perhaps—well, I have an idea!” He slipped silently,
cautiously on, where a forest of jungle ferns gave promise of safe passage.

S
OME warning had been sounded; the occupants of the building were
scattered to aid in the man-hunt. Only one was left in the room where
two Earth-men peeped in at the door.
The figure was seated upon an insulated platform, and his long hands
manipulated keys and levers on a table before him. McGuire and Sykes
stared amazedly at this broadcasting station whose air was filled with a
pandemonium of crashing sound from some distant room, but McGuire was
concerned mainly with the motion of a lean, blood-red hand that swung an

object like a pointer in free-running sweeps above a dial on the table. And
he detected a variation in the din from beyond as the pointer moved swiftly.
Here was the control board for those messages he had heard; this was the
instrument that varied the sending mechanism to produce the wailing
wireless cries that made words in some far-distant ears. McGuire, as he
slipped into the room and crept within leaping distance of the grotesque
thing so like yet unlike a man, was as silent as the nameless, writhing horror
that had seized them in the dark. He sprang, and the two came crashing to
the floor.
Lean arms came quickly about him to clutch and tear at his face, but the
flyer had an arm free, and one blow ended the battle. The man of Venus
relaxed to a huddle of purple and yellow cloth from which a ghastly face
protruded. McGuire leaped to his feet and sprang to the place where the
other had been.
“Hold them off as long as you can!” he shouted to Sykes, and his hand
closed upon the pointer.
Did this station send where he was hoping? Was this the station that had
communicated with the ship that had hovered above their flying field in that
far-off land? He did not know, but it was a powerful station, and there was a
chance—

H
E moved the pointer frantically here and there, swung it to one side
and another; then found at last a point on the outside of the strange
design beneath his hand where the pointer could rest while the
crashing crackle of sound was stilled.
And now he swung the pointer—upon the plate—anywhere!—and the noise
from beyond told instantly of the current’s passage. He held it an instant,
then pushed it back to the silent spot—a dash! A quick return that flashed
back again to bring silence—a dot! More dashes and dots ... and McGuire326

thanked a kindly heaven that had permitted him to learn the language of the
air, while he cursed his slowness in sending.
Would it reach? Would there be anyone to hear? No certainty; he could only
flash the wild Morse symbols out into the night. He must try to get word to

them—warn them! And “Blake,” he called, and spelled out the name of
their field, “warning—Venus—”
“Hold them!” he yelled to Sykes at the sound of rushing feet. “Keep them
off as long as you can!”
“... Prepare—for invasion. Blake, this is McGuire....” Over and over, he
worked the swinging pointer into symbols that might in some way, by some
fortunate chance, help that helpless people to resist the horror that lay
ahead.
And while heavy bodies crashed against the door that Sykes was holding,
there came from some deep-hidden well of memory an inspiration. There
was a man he had once met—a man who had confided wondrous things;
and now, with the knowledge of these others who had conquered space, he
could believe wholly what he had laughed and joked about before. That
man, too, had claimed to have travelled far from the earth; he had invented
a machine; his name—
The pointer was swinging in frenzied haste to spell over and over the name
of a man, and the name, too, of a forgotten place in the mountains of
Nevada. It was repeating the message; then finished in one long crashing
wail as a cloud of vapor shot about McGuire and his hand upon the pointer
went suddenly limp.

CHAPTER XI

C
APTAIN BLAKE’S game of solitaire had become an obsession. He
drove himself to the utmost in the line of duty, and, through the day,
the demands of the flying field filled his mind to forgetfulness. And
for the rest, he forced his mind to concentrate upon the turn of the cards. He
could not read—and he must not think!—so he sat through long evenings
trying vainly to forget.
He looked up with an expressionless face as Colonel Boynton entered the
room. The colonel saw the cards and nodded.
“Does that help?” he asked, and added without waiting for an answer, “I
don’t like cards, but I find my mathematics works well.... My old problems

—I can concentrate on them, and stop this eternal, damnable thinking,
thinking—”
There was something of the same look forming about the eyes of both—that
look that told of men who struggled gamely under the sentence of death,
refusing to think or to fear, and waiting, waiting, impotently. Blake looked
at the colonel with a carefully emotionless gaze. “It’s hell in the big towns, I
hear.”
The Colonel nodded. “Can’t blame them much, if that’s what appeals to
them. A year and a half!—and they’ve got to forget it. Why not crowd all
the recklessness and excesses they can into the time that is left?—poor
devils! But for the most part the world is wagging along, and people are
going through the familiar motions.”
“Well,” said Blake, “I used to wonder at times how a man might feel if he
were facing execution. Now we all know. Just going dumbly along, feeling
as little as we can, thinking of anything, everything—except the one thing.
They’ve turned to using dope, a lot of them, I hear. Maybe it helps; nobody
cares much. Only a year and a half.”

H
E raised his face from which all expression was consciously erased.
“Any possible hope?” he asked. “Or do we take it when it comes and
fight with what we’ve got as long as we can? There was some talk in
the papers of an invention—Bureau of Standards cooperating with the 327
big
General Committee to investigate. Anything come of it?”
“A thousand of them,” said the colonel, “all futile. No, we can’t expect
much from those things. Though there’s a whisper that came to me from
Washington. General Clinton—you may remember him; he was here when
the thing first broke—says that some scientist, a real one, not another of
these half-baked geniuses, has worked out a transformation of some kind. It
was too deep for me, but it is based upon changing hydrogen into helium, I
think. Liberates some perfectly tremendous amount of power. The general
had it all down pat—”
He stopped speaking at the change in Captain Blake’s face. The careful
repression of all emotions was gone; the face was suddenly alive—

“I know,” he said sharply; “I remember something of the theory. There is a
difference in the atoms or their protons—the liberation of an electron from
each atom—matter actually transformed into energy; theoretical, what I
have read. But—but—Oh my God, Boynton, do you mean that they’ve got
it?—that it will drive us through space?”

T
HE colonel drove one fist into the palm of his other hand. “Fool!
Idiot!” he exclaimed, and it was evident that the epithets were intended
for himself.
“I had forgotten that you had been trained along that line. The general wants
a man to work with them, somewhat as a liason officer to link the army
requirements closely with their developments; we are hoping to work out a
space ship, of course. You are just the man; I will radio him this minute. Be
ready to leave—” The slamming of the door marked a hurried exit toward
the radio room.
And abruptly, stifflingly, Captain Blake dared to hope. “Scientists will come
through with something, some new method of propulsion. All the world is
looking to them!” His thoughts were leaping from one possibility to
another. “Some miracle of power that will drive a fleet through space as
they have done, to battle with the enemy on his own ground—”
Could he help? Was there one little thing that he could do to apply their
knowledge to practical ends? The thought thrilled him with overpowering
emotion an hour later as he felt the lift of the plane beneath him.
“Report to General Clinton,” the colonel’s reply had said. “Captain Blake
will be assigned to special duty.” He opened the throttle to his ship’s best
cruising speed, but his spirit was soaring ahead to urge on the swift scout
ship whose wings drove steadily into the gathering dusk.

A
ND then, after long hours, Washington! Brief words with many men
—and discouragement! The seat of government of the United States
was a city of despondent men, weary, hopeless, but fighting. There
was a look of strain on every face; the eyes told a story of sleepless nights
and futile thinking and planning. Blake’s elation was short lived.

He was sent to New York and on into the state, where the laboratories of a
great electrical company had turned their equipment from commercial
purposes to those of war. Here, surely, one might find fuel to feed the dying
embers of hope; the new development must give greater promise than
General Clinton had intimated.
“Nothing you can do as yet,” he was told, when he had stated his mission.
“It is still experimental, but we have worked out the transformation on a
small scale, and harnessed the power.”
Captain Blake was in no mood for temporizing; he was tired with being put
off. He stared belligerently at the chief of this department.
“Power—hell!” he said. “We’ve got power now. How will you apply it?
How will we use it for travelling through space?”
The great man of science was unmoved by the outburst. “That328is
poppycock,” he replied; “the unscientific twaddle of the sensational press.
We are practical men here; we are working to give you men who do the
fighting better ships and better arms. But you will use them right here on
Earth.”
The calm assurance of this man who spoke with a voice of such confidence
and authority left the flyer speechless. His brain sent a chaos of profane and
violent expletives to the lips that dared not frame them. There was no
adequate reply.

B
LAKE jammed his hat upon his head and walked blindly from the
room. Heedless of the protests of those he jostled on the street he went
raging on, but some subconscious urge directed his steps. He found
himself at the railway. There was a station, and a grilled window where he
was asking for a ticket back to Washington. And on the following day—
“There is nothing I can do,” he told General Clinton. “It is hopeless. I ask to
be relieved.”
“Why?” The general snapped the question at him. What kind of man was
this that Boynton had sent him?
“They are fools,” said Blake bluntly, “pompous, well-meaning fools! They
are planning better motors, more power”—he laughed harshly—“and they

think that with them we can attack ships that are independent of the air.”
“Still,” asked General Clinton coldly, “for what purpose do you wish to be
relieved? What do you intend to do?”
“Return to the field,” said Captain Blake, “to work, and put my planes and
personnel in the best possible condition; then, when the time comes, go up
and fight like hell.”
An unusual phrasing of a request when one is addressing one’s commander;
but the older man threw back his shoulders, that were bending under
responsibilities too great for one man to bear, and took a long breath that
relaxed his face and seemed to bring relief.
“You’ve got the right idea,”—he spoke slowly and thoughtfully—“the right
philosophy. It is all we have left—to fight like hell when the time comes.
Give my regards to Colonel Boynton; he sent me a good man after all.”

A
NOTHER long flight, westward this time, and, despite the failure of
his hopes and of his errand, Blake was flying with a mind at peace. “It
is all we have left,” the general had said. Well, it was good to face
facts, to admit them—and that was that! There was no use of thinking or
worrying.... He lifted the ship to a higher level and glanced at his compass.
There were clouds up ahead, and he drove still higher into the night, until
he was above them.
And again his peace of mind was not to last.
It was night when he swung the ship over his home port and signalled for a
landing. A flood of light swept out across the field to guide him down. He
went directly to the colonel’s quarters but found him gone.
“In the radio room, I think,” an orderly told him.
Colonel Boynton was listening intently in the silent room; he scowled with
annoyance at the disturbance of Blake’s coming; then, seeing who it was, he
motioned quickly for the captain to listen in.
“Good Lord, Blake,” he told the captain in an excited whisper; “I’m glad
you’re here. Another ship had been sighted; she’s been all over the earth;
just scouting and mapping, probably. And there have been signals the same

as before—the same until just now. Listen!—it’s talking Morse!—it’s been
calling for you!”
He thrust a head set into Blake’s hands, then reached for some papers.
“Poor reception, but there’s what we’ve got,” he said.

T
HE paper held the merest fragments of messages that the operator had
329

deciphered. Blake examined them curiously while he listened at the
silent receiver.
“Maricopa”—the message, whatever it was, was meant for them, but there
were only parts of words and disjointed phrases that the man had written
down—“Venus attacking Earth ... Captain Blake ... Sykes and....”
At the name of Sykes, Blake dropped the paper.
“What does this mean?” he demanded. “Sykes!—why Sykes was the
astronomer who was captured with McGuire!”
“Listen! Listen!” The colonel’s voice was almost shrill with excitement.
The night was whispering faintly the merest echo of a signal from a station
far away, but it resolved itself into broken fragments of sound that were
long and short in duration, and the fragments joined to form letters in the
Morse code.
“See Winslow,” it told them, and repeated the message: “See Winslow at
Sierra....” Some distant storm crashed and rattled for breathless minutes.
“Blake see Winslow. This is McGuire, Blake. Winslow can help—”
The message ended abruptly. One long, wailing note; then again the night
was voiceless ... and in the radio room at Maricopa Flying Field two men
stood speechless, unbreathing, to stare at each other with incredulous eyes,
as might men who had seen a phantom—a ghost that spoke to them and
called them by name.
“McGuire—is—alive!” stammered Blake. “They’ve taken him—there!”

C OLONEL BOYNTON was considering, weighing all the possibilities,
and his voice, when he answered, had the ring of conviction.
“That was no hoax,” he agreed; “that quavering tone could never be faked.
That message was sent from the same station we heard before. Yes,
McGuire is alive—or was up to the end of that sending.... But, who the
devil is Winslow?”

Blake shook his head despairingly. “I don’t know,” he said. “And it seems
as if I should—”
It was hours later, far into the night, when he sprang from out of a half-
conscious doze to find himself in the middle of the floor with the voice of
McGuire ringing clearly in his ears. A buried memory had returned to the
level of his conscious mind. He rushed over to the colonel’s quarters.
“I’ve got it,” he shouted to that officer whose head was projecting from an
upper window. “I remember! McGuire told me about this Winslow—some
hermit that he ran across. He has some invention—some machine—said he
had been to the moon. I always thought Mac half believed him. We’ll go
over Mac’s things and find the address.”
“Do you think—do you suppose—?” began Colonel Boynton doubtfully.
“I don’t dare to think,” Blake responded. “God only knows if we dare hope;
but Mac—Mac’s got a level head; he wouldn’t send us unless he knew!
Good Lord, man!” he exclaimed, “Mac radioed us from Venus; is there
anything impossible after that?”
“Wait there,” said Colonel Boynton; “I’ll be right down—”

CHAPTER XII

L IEUTENANT MCGUIRE awoke, as he had on other occasions, to the
smell of sickly-sweet fumes and the stifling pressure of a mask held
over his nose and mouth. He struggled to free himself, and the mask
was removed. Another of the man-creatures whom McGuire had not seen
before helped him to sit up.
A group of the attenuated figures, with their blood-and-ashes faces,
regarded him curiously. The one who had helped him arise forced the others
to stand back, and he gave McGuire a drink of yellow fluid from a crystal
330

goblet. The dazed man gulped it down to feel a following surge of warmth
and life that pulsed through his paralyzed body. The figures before him
came sharply from the haze that had enveloped them. A window high above
admitted a golden light that meant another day, but it brought no cheer or
encouragement to the flyer. McGuire felt crushed and hopeless in the
knowledge that his life must still go on.

If only that sleep could have continued—carried him out to the deeper sleep
of death! What hope for them here? Not a chance! And then he remembered
Sykes; he mustn’t desert Sykes. He looked about him to see the same prison
room from which he and Sykes had escaped. The body of the scientist was
motionless on the hammock-bed across the room; an occasional deep-drawn
breath showed that the man still lived.
No, he must not leave Sykes, even if he had the means of death. They
would fight it through together, and perhaps—perhaps—they might yet be
of service, might find some way to avert the catastrophe that threatened
their world. Hopeless? Beyond doubt. But he must hope—and fight!
The leader had watched the light of understanding as it returned to the
flyer’s eyes. He motioned now to the others, and McGuire was picked up
bodily by four of them and carried from the room.

M CGUIRE’S mind was alert once more; he was eager to learn what he
could of this place that was to be their prison, but he saw little. A
glory of blending colors beyond, where the golden light from
without shone through opal walls—then he found himself upon a narrow
table where straps of metal were thrown quickly about to bind him fast. He
was tied hand and foot to the table that moved forward on smooth rollers to
a waiting lift.
What next? he questioned. Not death, for they had been too careful to keep
him alive, these repulsive things that stared at him with such cold
malevolence. Then what? And McGuire found himself with unpleasant
recollections of others he had seen strapped in similar fashion to an
operating table.
The lift that he had thought would rise fell smoothly, instead, to stop at
some point far below ground where the table with its helpless burden was
rolled into a great room.
He could move his head, and McGuire turned and twisted to look at the
maze of instruments that filled the room—a super-laboratory for
experiments of which he dared not think.
“Whoever says I’m not scared to death is a liar,” he whispered to himself,
but he continued to look and wonder as he was wheeled before a gleaming

machine of many coils and shining, metal parts. A smooth sheet of metal
stood vertically beyond him; painted a grayish-white, he saw; but he could
not imagine its use. A throng of people, seated in the room, turned blood-
red faces toward the bound man and the metal sheet.
“Looks as if we were about to put on a show of some kind,” he told himself,
“and I am cast for a leading role.” He watched as best he could from his
bound position while a tall figure in robes of lustreless black appeared to
stand beside him.
The newcomer regarded him with a face that was devoid of all emotion.
McGuire felt the lack of the customary expression of hatred; there was not
even that; and he knew he was nothing more than a strange animal, bound,
and helpless, ready for this weird creature’s experiments. The one in black
held a pencil whose tip was a tiny, brilliant light.

A
BRUPTLY the room plunged to darkness, where the only visible thing
was this one point of light. Ceaselessly it waved back and forth before
his eyes; he followed it in a pattern of strange design; it approached
331

and receded. Again and again the motion was repeated, until McGuire felt
himself sinking—sinking—into a passive state of lethargy. His muscles
relaxed; his mind was at rest; there seemed nothing in the entire universe of
being but the single point of light that drew him on and on ... till something
whispered from the far reaches of black space....
It came to him, an insistent call. It was asking about the earth—his own
world. What of Earth’s armies and their means of defense? Vaguely he
sensed the demand, and without conscious volition he responded. He
pictured the world he had known; how plainly he saw the wide field at
Maricopa, and the sweeping flight of a squadron of planes! Yes—yes! How
high could they ascend? From one of the planes he saw the world below;
the ships were near their ceiling; this was the limit of their climb. And did
they fight with gas? What of their deadliness? And again he was seated in a
plane, and he was firing tiny bullets from a tiny gun. No. They did not use
gas. But on the ground below—what fortifications? What means of defense?
McGuire’s mind was no longer his own; he could only respond to that
invisible questioner, that insistent demand from out of the depths where he

was floating. And yet there was something within him that protested, that
clamored at his mind and brain.
Fortifications! They must know about fortifications—anti-aircraft guns—
means for combatting aerial attack. Yes, he knew, and he must explain—and
the thing within him pounded in the back of his brain to draw him back to
himself.
He saw a battery of anti-aircraft guns in operation; the guns were firing;
shells were bursting in little plumes of smoke high in the air. And that self
within him was shouting now, hammering at him; “You are seeing it,” it
told him; “it is there before you on the screen. Stop! Stop!”

A
ND for an instant McGuire had the strange experience of witnessing
his own thoughts. Memories, mental records of past experience, were
flashing through his mind; mock battles, and the batteries were firing!
And, before him, on the metal screen, there glowed a vivid picture of the
same thing. Men were serving the guns with sure swiftness; the bursts were
high in the air—in a flash of understanding Lieutenant McGuire knew that
he was giving his country’s secrets to the enemy. And in that same instant
he felt himself swept upward from the depths of that darkness where he had
drifted. He was himself again, bound and helpless before an infernal
contrivance of these devil-creatures. They had read his thoughts; the
machine beside him had projected them upon the screen for all to see; a
steady clicking might mean their reproduction in motion pictures for later
study! He, Lieutenant McGuire, was a traitor against his will!
The screen was blank, and the lights of the room came on to show the thin
lips that smiled complacently in a cruel and evil face.
McGuire glared back into that face, and he tried with all the mental force
that he could concentrate to get across to the exultant one the fact that they
had not wholly conquered him. This much they had got—but no more!
The thin-lipped one had an instrument in his hand, and McGuire felt the
prick of a needle plunged into his arm. He tried to move his head and found
himself powerless. And now, in the darkness of the room where all lights
were again extinguished, the helpless man was fighting the most horrible of
battles, and the battleground was within his own mind. He was two selves,

and he fought and struggled with all his consciousness to keep those
memories from flooding him.
With one part of himself he knew what it meant: a sure knowledge given
these invaders of what they must prepare to meet; he was betraying 332 his
country; the whole of humanity! And that raging, raving self was powerless
to check the flow of memory pictures that went endlessly through his mind
and out upon the screen beyond....
He had no sense of time; he was limp and exhausted with his fruitless
struggle when he felt himself released from the bondage of the metal straps
and placed again in the hammock in his room. And he could only look
wanly and hopelessly after the figure of Professor Sykes, carried by
barbarous figures to the same ordeal.

S LEEP, through the long night, restored both McGuire and his
companion to normal strength. The flyer was seated with his head
bowed low in his cupped hands. His words seemed wrung from an
agony of spirit. “So that’s what they brought us here for,” he said harshly;
“that’s why they’re keeping us alive!”
Professor Sykes walked back and forth in their bare room while he shook
his impotent fists in the air.
“I told them everything,” he exploded; “everything!” Their astronomical
knowledge must be limited; under this blanket of clouds they can see
nothing, and from their ships they could make approximations only.
“And I have told them—the earth, and its days and seasons—its orbital
velocity and motion—its relation to the orbit of this accursed planet. They
had documents from the observatory and I explained them; I corrected their
time of firing their big gun on its equatorial position. Oh, there is little I left
untold—damn them!”
“I wish to heaven,” said the flyer savagely, “that we had known; we would
have jumped out of their beastly ship somehow ten thousand feet up, and
we would have taken our information with us.”
Sykes nodded agreement. “Well,” he asked, “how about to-morrow, and the
next day, and the next? They will want more facts; they will pump the last

drop of information from us. Are we going to allow it?”

M
CGUIRE’S tone was dry. “You know the answer to that as well as I
do. We have just two alternatives; either we get out of here—find
some place to hide in, then find some way to put a crimp in their
plans; or we get out of here for good. It’s twenty feet, not twenty thousand,
from that window to the ground, but I think a head-first dive would do it.”
Sykes did not reply at once; he seemed to be weighing some problem in his
mind.
“I would prefer the water,” he said at last. “If we can get away and reach
the shore, and if there is not a possibility of escape—which I must admit I
consider highly improbable—well, we can always swim out as far as we
can go, and the result will be certain.
“This other is so messy.” The man had stopped his ceaseless pacing, and he
even managed a cheerful smile at the lieutenant. “And, remember, it might
only cripple us and leave us helpless in their hands.”
“Sounds all right to me,” McGuire agreed, and there was a tone of finality
in his voice as he added: “They’ve made us do that traitor act for the last
time, anyway.”

D
AYLIGHT comes slowly through cloud-filled skies; the window of
the room where the fountain sprayed ceaselessly was showing the first
hint of gold in the eastern sky. Above was the utter darkness of the
cloud-wrapped night as the two men swung noiselessly out into the
grotesque branches of a tree to make their way into the gloom below. There,
under the cover of great leaves, they crouched in silence, while the darkness
about them faded and a sound of subdued whistling noises came to them
from the night.
A wheel creaked, and in the dim light two figures appeared tugging at a cart
upon which was a cage of woven wire. Beyond them, against the darker 333

background of denser growth, tentacles coiled and twisted above the row of
guardian plants that surrounded the house.

One of the ghostly forms reached within the cage and brought forth a
struggling object that whimpered in fear. The low whine came distinctly to
the hidden men. They saw a vague black thing tossed through the air and
toward the deadly plants; they heard the swishing of pliant tentacles and the
yelping cry of a frightened animal. And the cry rose to a shriek that ended
with the gulping splash of thick liquid.
The giant pod next in line was open—they could see it dimly—and its
tentacles were writhing convulsively, hungrily, across the ground. Another
animal was taken from the cage and thrown to the waiting, serpent forms
that closed about and whirled it high in air. Another—and another! The
yelps of terror grew faint in the distance as the monsters passed on in their
gruesome work. And the two men, palpitant with memories of their own
experience, were limp and sick with horror.

I
N the growing light they saw more plainly the fleshy, pliant arms that
whipped through the air or felt searchingly along the ground. No hope
there for bird or beast that passed by in the night; nor for men, as they
knew too well. But now, as the golden light increased, the arms drew back
to form again the tight-wound coils that flattened themselves beside the
monstrous pods whose lips were closing. Locked within them were the
pools of liquid that could dissolve a living body into food for these
vampires of the vegetable world.
“Damnable!” breathed Sykes in a savage whisper. “Utterly damnable! And
this world is peopled with such monsters!”
The last deadly arm was tightly coiled when the men stole off through the
lush growth that reached even above their heads. McGuire remembered the
outlines he had seen from the air and led the way where, if no better
concealment could be found, the ocean waited with promise of rest and
release from their inhuman captors.
They counted on an hour’s start—it would be that long before their jailer
would come with their morning meal and give the alarm—and now they
went swiftly and silently through the stillness of a strange world. The air
that flicked misty-wet across their faces was heavy and heady with the
perfume of night-blooming plants. Crimson blossoms flung wide their

odorous petals, and the first golden light was filtered through tremendous
tree-growths of pale lavenders and grays to show as unreal colors in the
vegetation close about them.

T
HEY found no guards; the isolation of this island made the land itself
their prison, and the men ran at full speed through every open space,
knowing as they ran that there was no refuge for them—only the ocean
waiting at the last. But their flight was not unobserved.
A great bird rose screaming from a tangle of vines; its heavy, flapping
wings flashed red against the pale trees. A pandemonium of shrieking cries
echoed its alarm as other birds took flight; the forest about them was in an
uproar of harsh cries. And faintly, from far in the rear, came a babel of shrill
calls—weird, inhuman!—the voices of the men-things of Venus.
“It’s all off,” said McGuire sharply; “they’ll be on our trail now!” He
plunged through where the trees were more open, and Sykes was beside
him as they ran with a burst of speed toward a hilltop beyond.
They paused, panting, upon the crest. A wide expanse of foliage in delicate
shadings swept out before them to wave gently in a sea of color under the
morning breeze, and beyond was another sea that beckoned with white
breakers on a rocky shore.
“The ocean!” gasped Sykes, and pointed a trembling hand toward their
334

goal. “But—I had no idea—that suicide—was—such hard work!”
The tall figure of Lieutenant McGuire turned to the shorter, breathless man,
and he gripped hard at one of his hands.
“Sykes,” he said, “I’ll never get another chance to say it—but you’re one
good scout!... Come on!”

M
CGUIRE fought to force his way through jungle growth, while
screaming birds marked where they went. The sounds of their
pursuers were close behind them when the two tore their way
through the last snarled tangle of pale vine to stand on a sheer bluff, where,
below, deep waters crashed against a rocky wall. They staggered with
weariness and gulped sobbingly of the morning air. McGuire could have

sworn he was exhausted beyond any further effort, yet from somewhere he
summoned energy to spring savagely upon a tall, blood-red figure whose
purpling face rose suddenly to confront them.
One hand closed upon the metal tube that the other hand raised, and, with
his final reserve of strength, the flyer wrapped an arm about the tall body
and rushed it stumblingly toward the cliff. To be balked now!—to be
brought back to that intolerable prison and the unthinkable role of traitor!
The khaki-clad figure wrenched furiously at the deadly tube as they
struggled and swayed on the edge of the cliff.
He freed his arm quickly, and, regardless of the clawing thing that tore at
his face and eyes, he launched one long swing for the horrible face above
him. He saw the awkward fall of a lean body, and he swayed helplessly out
to follow when the grip of Sykes’ hand pulled him back and up to
momentary safety.
McGuire’s mind held only the desire to kill, and he would have begun a
staggering rush toward the shrieking mob that broke from the cover behind
them, had not Sykes held him fast. At sight of the weapon, their own gas
projector, still clutched in the flyer’s hand, the pursuers halted. Their long
arms pointed and their shrill calls joined in a chorus that quavered and fell
uncertainly.

O NE, braver than the rest, dashed forward and discharged his weapon.
The spurting gas failed to reach its intended victims; it blew gently
back toward the others who fled quickly to either side. Above the
trees a giant ship nosed swiftly down, and McGuire pointed to it grimly and
in silence. The men before them were massed now for a rush.
“This is the end,” said the flyer softly. “I wonder how this devilish thing
works; there’s a trigger here. I will give them a shot with the wind helping,
then we’ll jump for it.”
The ship was above them as the slim figure of Lieutenant McGuire threw
itself a score of paces toward the waiting group. From the metal tube there
shot a stream of pale vapor that swept downward upon the others who ran
in panic from its touch.

Then back—and a grip of a hand!—and two Earth-men who threw
themselves out and downward from a sheer rock wall to the cool embrace
of deep water.
They came to the top, battered from their fall, but able to dive under a wave
and emerge again near one another.
“Swim!” urged Sykes. “Swim out! They may get us here—recover our
bodies—resuscitate us. And that wouldn’t do!”
Another wave, and the two men were swimming beyond it; swimming
feebly but steadily out from shore, while above them a great cylinder of
shining metal swept past in a circling flight. They kept on while their eyes,
from the wave tops, saw it turn and come slowly back in a long smooth
descent.
It was a hundred feet above the water a short way out at sea, and the two
men made feeble motions with arms and legs, while their eyes exchanged335

glances of dismay.

A
DOOR had opened in the round under-surface, and a figure, whose
gas-suit made it a bloated caricature of a man, was lowered from
beneath in a sling. From the stern of the ship gaseous vapor belched
downward to spread upon the surface of the water. The wind was bringing
the misty cloud toward them. “The gas!” said McGuire despairingly. “It will
knock us out, and then that devil will get us! They’ll take us back! Our last
chance—gone!”
“God help us!” said Sykes weakly. “We can’t—even—die—” His feeble
strokes stopped, and he sank beneath the water. McGuire’s last picture as he
too sank and the waters closed over his head, was the shining ship hovering
beyond.
He wondered only vaguely at the sudden whirling of water around him. A
solid something was rising beneath his dragging feet; a firm, solid support
that raised him again to the surface. He realized dimly the air about him, the
sodden form of Professor Sykes some few feet distant. His numbed brain
was trying to comprehend what else the eyes beheld.

A metal surface beneath them rose higher, shining wet, above the water; a
metal tube raised suddenly from its shield, to swing in quick aim upon the
enemy ship approaching from above.
His eyes moved to the ship, and to the man-thing below in the sling. Its
clothes were a mass of flame, and the figure itself was falling headlong
through the air. Above the blazing body was the metal of the ship itself, and
it sagged and melted to a liquid fire that poured, splashing and hissing, to
the waters beneath. In the wild panic the great shape threw itself into the
air; it swept out and up in curving flight to plunge headlong into the
depths....
The gas was drifting close, as McGuire saw an opening in the structure
beside him. The voice of a man, human, kindly, befriending, said something
of “hurry” and “gas,” and “lift them carefully but make haste.” The white
faces of men were blurred and indistinct as McGuire felt himself lowered
into a cool room and laid, with the unconscious form of Sykes, upon a floor.
He tried to remember. He had gone down in the water—Sykes had
drowned, and he himself—he was tired—tired. “And this,”—the thought
seemed a certainty in his mind—“this is death. How—very—peculiar—”
He was trying to twist his lips to a weak laugh as the lighted ports in the
wall beside him changed from gold to green, then black—and a rushing of
torn waters was in his ears....
(To be continued)

ASTOUNDING STORIES
Appears on Newsstands
THE FIRST THURSDAY IN EACH MONTH

336

The Sea Terror
By Captain S. P. Meek

“The mass hung over the ship.”

“
I BEG your pardon, sir. I’m looking for Dr. Bird.”
The famous Bureau of Standards scientist appraised the speaker rapidly.
Keen blue eyes stared questioningly at him from a mahogany brown face,

criss-crossed with a thousand tiny wrinkles. The tattooed anchor on his
hand and the ill-fitting blue serge suit smacked of the sea while the
squareness of his shoulders and the direct gaze of his eye spoke eloquently
of authority.
“I’m Dr. Bird, Captain. What can
The trail of mystery gold leads Carnes and Dr.
I do for you?” Bird to a tremendous monster of the deep.
“Thank you, Doctor, but I’m not
a captain. My name is Mitchell and I am, or was, the first mate of the
Arethusa.”
“The Arethusa!” Operative Carnes of the United States Secret Service 337

sprang to his feet. “You said the Arethusa? There were no survivors!”
“I believe that I am the only one.”
“Where have you been hiding and why haven’t you reported the fact of
your rescue to the proper authorities? Tell the truth; I’m a federal officer!”
Carnes flashed the gold badge of the Secret Service and an expression of
anger crossed Mitchell’s face.
“If I had wished to talk to an officer I could have found plenty in New
York,” he said shortly. “I came to Washington in order to tell my story to
Dr. Bird.”
The seaman and the detective glared at one another for a moment and then
Dr. Bird intervened.
“Pipe down, Carnes,” he said softly. “Mr. Mitchell undoubtedly has reasons,
excellent reasons, for his actions. Sit down, Mr. Mitchell, and have a cigar.”

M
ITCHELL accepted the cigar which the doctor proferred and took a
chair. He lighted the weed and after another glance of hostility
toward the detective he pointedly ignored him and addressed his
remarks to Dr. Bird.
“I have no objection to telling you why I haven’t spoken earlier, Doctor,” he
said. “When the Arethusa sank, I must have hit my head on something, for
the next thing I knew, I was in the Marine Hospital in New York. I had been
picked up unconscious by a fishing boat and brought in, and I lay there a

week before I knew anything. When I knew what I was doing I heard about
the loss of my ship and was told that there were no survivors, and I didn’t
know what to do. The story I had to tell was so weird and improbable that I
hesitated to speak to anyone about it. I was not sure at first that it was not a
trick of a disordered brain, but since my head has cleared I am convinced of
the truth of it ... and yet I know that it can’t be so. I have read about you and
some of the things you have done, and so as soon as I was able to travel I
came here to tell you about it. You will be better able to judge than I,
whether what I tell you really happened or was only a vision.”
Dr. Bird leaned back in his chair and put the tips of his fingers together.
Long, tapering fingers they were, sensitive and well shaped, though sadly
marred by acid stains. It was in his hands alone that Dr. Bird showed the
genius in his make-up, the artistry which inspired him to produce those
miracles of experimentation which had made his name a household word in
the realm of science. Aside from those hands he more resembled a pugilist
than a scientist. A heavy shock of unruly black hair surmounted a face with
beetling black brows and a prognathous jaw. His enormous head, with a
breadth and height of forehead which were amazing, rose from a pillar-like
neck which sprang from a pair of massive shoulders and the arching chest
of the trained athlete. Dr. Bird stood six feet two inches in his socks, and
weighed over two hundred stripped. As he leaned back a curious glitter,
which Carnes had learned to associate with keen interest, showed for an
instant in his eyes.
“I will be glad to hear your story, Mr. Mitchell,” he said softly. “Tell it in
your own way and try not to omit any detail, no matter how trivial it may
be.”

T
HE seaman nodded and sat silent for a moment as though marshaling
his thoughts.
“The story really starts the afternoon of May 12th,” he said, “although I
didn’t realize the importance of the first incident at the time. We were
steaming along at good speed, hoping to make New York before too late for
quarantine, when a hail came from the forward lookout. I was on watch and
I went forward to see what was the matter. The lookout was Louis Green, an
able bodied seaman and a good one, but a confirmed drunkard. I asked him

what the trouble was and he turned toward me a face that was haggard with
338

terror.
“‘I’ve seen a sea serpent, Mr. Mitchell,’ he said.
“‘Nonsense!’ I replied sharply. ‘You’ve been drinking again.’
“He swore that he hadn’t and I asked him to describe what he had seen. His
teeth were chattering so that he could hardly speak, but he gasped out a
story about seeing a monstrous head, a half mile across, he said, with a long
snake body stretching out over the sea until the end of it was lost on the
horizon. I turned my glass in the direction he pointed and of course there
was nothing to be seen. The man’s condition was such as to make him
worse than useless as a lookout, so I relieved him and ordered him below. I
took it for a touch of delirium tremens.
“We were bucking a head wind, although not a very stiff one, and we didn’t
make port until after dark, so we anchored at quarantine, just off Staten
Island, in forty fathoms of water, and Captain Murphy radioed for a Coast
Guard boat to come out and lay by us for the night. As you have probably
heard, we were carrying four millions in bar gold consigned to the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York from the Bank of England.”

D
R. BIRD and Carnes nodded. The inexplicable loss of the Arethusa
had occupied much space in the papers ten days earlier.
“The cutter came out, signalled, and dropped anchor about three hundred
yards away. So far, everything was exactly as it should be. I walked to the
stern of the boat and looked out across the Atlantic and then I realized that
Green wasn’t the only one who could see things. The wind had fallen and it
was getting pretty dark, but not too dark to see things a pretty good distance
away. As I looked I saw, or thought I saw, a huge black leathery mass come
to the surface a mile or so away. There were two things on it that looked
like eyes, and I had a feeling as though some malignant thing was staring at
me. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, but the vision persisted, and I went
forward to get a glass. When I came back the thing, whatever it was, had
disappeared, but the water where it had been was boiling as though there
were a great spring or something of the sort under the surface.

“I trained my glass on the disturbed area, and I will take my oath that I saw
a huge body like a snake emerge from the water. It lay in long undulations
on the waves, and moved with them as though it were floating. It was quite
a bit nearer than the first thing had been and I could see it plainly with the
glass. I would judge it to be fifteen or twenty feet thick, and it actually
seemed to disappear in the distance as Green had described it. The sight of
the thing sent shivers up and down my spine, and I gave a hoarse shout. The
lookout hurried to my side and asked me what the trouble was. I pointed
and handed him the glass. He looked through it and handed it back to me
with a curious expression.
“‘I can’t see nothing, sir,’ he said.
“I took the glass from him and tried to level it but my hands were trembling
so that I was forced to rest it on the rail. The lookout was right. There was
absolutely nothing to be seen and the peculiar appearance of the sea had
subsided to normal. The lookout was staring at me rather curiously and I
knew that he was thinking the same thing about me as I had thought about
Green in the afternoon. I made some kind of an excuse and went below to
pull myself together. I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass. I was as
white as a sheet, and the sweat was running off my face in drops.

“
I SHOOK myself together after a fashion and managed to persuade
myself that the whole thing was just a trick of my mind, inspired by
Green’s vivid description of his delirious vision of the afternoon. Eight
bells struck, and when Mr. Fulton, the junior officer, relieved me, I laid339

down and tried to quiet myself. I didn’t have much luck. Just before I took
the deck again at midnight I slipped down to the forecastle to see how
Green was coming along. He was lying in his bunk, wide awake, with
staring eyes.
“‘How are you feeling now, Green?’ I asked.
“He looked up at me with an expression of a man who has looked death in
the face.
“‘Ain’t there no chance of dockin’ to-night, Mr. Mitchell?’ he asked.
“‘Of course not,’ I said rather sharply. ‘What’s the matter with you? Are you
afraid your sea serpent will get us?’

“‘He’ll get us if we stay out here to-night, sir,’ he replied with an air of
conviction. ‘I saw the horrible mouth on him, large enough to bite this ship
in half; and it had a beak like a bird, like a bloody parrot, sir. I saw its
horrible body, too, with great black ulcers on the under side of it where the
sharks had been after it. For all the shark takes a man now and then, he’s the
seaman’s friend, sir, because he kills off the sea serpents who would take
ship and all.’
“‘Nonsense, Green!’ I said sharply. ‘Don’t talk any more such foolishness
or I’ll have you ironed. You’ve been drinking so much that you are seeing
things, and I won’t have the crew disturbed by your crazy talk.’
“‘You won’t think it’s talk when those big eyes stare into yours to-night,
Mr. Mitchell, and that body twists around you and squeezes the life out of
you. I don’t care whether you iron me or not; I know that I’m doomed and
so is everyone else; but I won’t talk about it, sir. The crew might as well rest
easy while they can, for there’s no escape if we have to stay out here to-
night.’
“‘Well, be sure you keep a tight mouth then,’ I said, and left rather
hurriedly. I was in a cold sweat, for his air of conviction, together with what
I had seen, had shaken me pretty badly. I heard the watch changing up
above, and knew there would be men in the forecastle in a minute. I didn’t
want to face them right then.

“
M R. FULTON reported everything quiet when I went on deck to
relieve him, and although I surveyed the water through a night glass
for as far as I could see, there was nothing out of the way. The
Coast Guard’s lights were shining less than a quarter of a mile away, and
things looked peaceful enough. The wind had gone down with the sun; the
sea was almost glassy, and there was a bright moon.
“After going around the ship, I relieved all of the watch except two men for
lookouts, and sent them below to get a good night’s sleep. If I hadn’t done
that, some of them might be alive now.
“I paced the deck for an hour trying to quiet my nerves, but really getting
more nervous every minute. Three bells struck and I walked forward and

leaned on the rail to watch the water. I saw a peculiar swirl as though some
large body were coming to the surface from below, and then I saw—it.
“Dr. Bird, I take a drink once in a while when I am on shore, but never at
sea and never in excess, and I know it wasn’t a vision of drink delirium. I
felt perfectly normal aside from my nervousness, and I don’t think it was
fever. Either I saw it or I am insane, for it is as vivid to me as though I were
standing on the Arethusa’s deck and that monstrous horror was rising once
more before my eyes.”
The seaman’s face had become drawn and white as he talked, and drops of
sweat were trickling from his chin. Carnes sat forward absorbed in his
narrative while Dr. Bird sat back with a glitter in his black eyes and an
expression of great attention on his face.
“Go on, Mr. Mitchell,” the doctor said soothingly. “Tell me just what you
saw.”

M
ITCHELL shuddered and glanced quickly around the laboratory340as
though to assure himself that he was safe within four walls.
“From the surface of the sea,” he went on, “rose a massive body, black, and
of the appearance of wet leather. It must have been a couple of hundred
yards across, although the size of objects is often magnified by moonlight
and my terror may have added to its size. In the midst of it were two great
discs, thirty feet across, which glowed red with the reflected moonlight. It
stared for a moment and then rose higher until it towered above the ship;
and then I saw, or thought I saw, a huge gaping beak like a parrot’s. It was
as Green had described it, large enough to bite the Arethusa in half, and she
was a ship of three thousand tons.
“I was frozen with horror and couldn’t move or cry out. As I watched, I saw
the long snake-like body emerge from the water, and the estimate I had
made of the size in the afternoon seemed pitifully inadequate. Presently a
second and a third snake arose from the water, and then more, until the
whole sea and the air above it seemed a writhing mass of huge snakes. I
remember wondering why the watch of the Coast Guard cutter didn’t sound
an alarm, and then I realized that the thing had arisen on our port side and
the cutter was on the starboard.

“The mass of snakes writhed backward and forward, and then two of them
rose in the air and hung over the ship. I could see the under side and I saw
what Green had called the scars where the sharks had attacked. They were
great cup-shaped depressions with vile white edges, and they did resemble
huge sores or ulcers. They wavered over the ship for an instant, and then
both of them dropped down on the deck.
“I found my voice and I think that I gave a yell, but even as I opened my
mouth, I realized the futility of it. The Arethusa was sucked down into the
sea as though it had been a tiny chip. I saw the water rising to the rail, and I
think I cried out again. The ship tilted and I felt myself falling. The next
thing I knew was when I was in the hospital and was told that I had been
raving for a week. I was afraid to tell my story for fear I would be put in an
asylum, so I kept a tight tongue in my head until I was discharged.”

D
R. BIRD mused for a moment as the seaman’s voice stopped.
“You cried out all right, Mr. Mitchell,” he said. “You gave two distinct
shouts, both of which were heard by the watch on the Wren, the Coast
Guard cutter. They reported that at 1:30, the Arethusa sank without
warning. As soon as he heard your shouts, the watch gave the alarm and the
crew piled on deck. The Arethusa was gone completely and the Wren was
tossing about like ‘a chip in a whirlpool’ as they graphically described it.
The Wren had steam up and they fought the waves and steamed over your
anchoring ground looking for survivors, but they found none. The sea
gradually subsided and they did the only thing they could do—dropped a
buoy, to guide the salvage people, and radioed for assistance. The Robin
came out and joined them, and both cutters stood by until daylight, but
nothing unusual was seen. The insurance people are trying to salvage the
wreck now, but so far they have made little headway.”
“That brings me to the rest of the story, the part that made me decide to
come to you, Doctor,” said the seaman. “Did you see what happened to the
divers yesterday?”
Dr. Bird nodded.
“I saw a brief account of it,” he said. “It seems that two of them were lost
through their lines getting fouled and their air connections severed in some

way. I don’t believe the bodies have been recovered yet.”
“They never will be recovered, Doctor. I was discharged from the hospital
341

yesterday and the papers were just out with an account of it. I went down to
the dock where the John MacLean, the salvage ship, ties up, and I talked to
Captain Starley who commands it. I have known him casually for some
years, although not intimately, and he gave me a few more details than the
press got. He didn’t connect me up at first with the Mitchell who was
reported lost on the Arethusa.
“The first man to go down from the MacLean was Charley Melrose, an
expert diver. He went down in a pressure outfit to the bottom and started to
work. Everything was going along fine until the telephone suddenly rang
and the man who answered it heard him say, ‘Raise me, for God’s sake!
Hurry!’ The signal for raising was given, but they hadn’t got him more than
thirty feet from the bottom before there came a tug on the line and he was
gone! The air line, the lifting cable and the telephone cord floated free and
were reeled in. Melrose had been plucked off the end of that line as you or I
would pluck off a grape.”

D
R. BIRD leaned forward with the curious glitter again in his eye.
“Go on,” he said tersely.
“Blake, the other diver, donned a suit and insisted on being lowered at once.
Starley tried to dissuade him but he insisted on going down. They lowered
him over the side with a twelve-foot steel-shod pike in his hand. He never
got to the bottom. He had not been lowered more than a hundred feet when
a scream came over the telephone, and again there was a jerk on the lines
which threatened to wreck the reel—and the line came aboard with no diver
on the end of it. At the same time, Starley told me, the sea boiled and
churned as though the whole bottom were coming up, and his ship was
tossed about as though it were in a violent storm, although it was calm
enough for forty fathom salvage work and that is pretty quiet, you know.
Half the time his screws were out of water and he had a hard time to keep
from being capsized. He fought his way out of the disturbed area, and as
soon as he did, it started to quiet down, and in ten minutes it was calm
again.

“Starley was pretty badly shaken and besides he had lost both of his divers,
so he came in and I saw him at the dock. When I heard his yarn, I took him
into my confidence and told him what I had seen and that I proposed
coming to you and asking your advice. I was afraid until I heard his story
that it was merely a vision that I had had, but it certainly was no vision that
plucked those two divers off their lines.”
“Has Captain Starley told that story to anyone else yet?”
“No, Doctor, he hasn’t. He promised not to talk until after I had seen you.
I’ll vouch for him; he’ll keep his word through anything; and he is keeping
his whole crew on board until he hears from me.”

D
R. BIRD sprang to his feet.
“Mr. Mitchell,” he said energetically, “you have shown excellent
judgment. Wire Captain Starley that you have seen me and that he is to hold
his crew on board and to talk to no one until I get there. Carnes, telephone
the Chief of Naval Operations and ask him to receive me in conference at
once. Have him get the Secretary of the Navy in, too, if he is available.
When you have finished that, telephone Bolton that you will be away from
Washington indefinitely.”
“I’ll telephone Admiral Buck for you, Doctor, but I don’t dare telephone
any such message to Bolton; he’d take my head off. He has been running
the whole service ragged lately, and this is my first afternoon off duty in a
fortnight.”
“What’s the trouble, a flood of new counterfeits?”
“No, the counterfeit division is getting along all right. In point of fact, they
342

have lent us a dozen men. The trouble is a sudden big increase in
Communist activity throughout the country, with the Young Labor party
behind it. Bolton has been pretty jumpy since that Stokowski affair last
August and he is afraid of another attempt of some sort on the President.”
“The Young Labor party? I thought that gang was bankrupt and out of
business, since the Coast Guard broke up their alien smuggling scheme.”
“They were down and out for a while, but they are in funds again—and
how! They must have three or four millions at least.”

“Where did they get it?”
“That’s what we have been trying to find out. The leaders have presented
bars of gold to a dozen banks throughout the country and demanded specie.
The banks shipped the gold to the mint and it was good gold, nine hundred
and twenty-five fine. What we are trying to find out is how that gold got
into the United States.”
“A shipment of that size should be easy to trace.”
“It would seem so, but it hasn’t been. We have accounted for every pound
of every shipment that has come in through a port of entry, and we have
checked almost that close on the output of every mine in the United States.
If the gold came from Russia, it would have had to cross Europe, and we
can’t get any trace of it from abroad. It looks as though they were making
it.”

D
R. BIRD rubbed his head thoughtfully.
“Possible, but hardly probable,” he said. “How much did you say they
had?”
“Over three millions in thirty-pound bars. Each bar shows signs of having a
mint mark chiselled off, but that don’t help much for they have done too
good a job. It has us pretty well bluffed.”
Again Dr. Bird rubbed his head.
“Telephone Admiral Buck, and then phone Bolton and tell him exactly what
I told you to: that you will be away indefinitely. When he gets through
exploding, tell him that you are going with me and that possibly, just barely
possibly, we might be on the trail of that gold shipment.”
“On the trail of the gold!” gasped Carnes. “Surely, Doctor, you don’t think
—”
“Once in a while, old dear,” replied the Doctor with a chuckle, “which is
more than anyone in the Secret Service does. You might tell Bolton that I
said that, but hang up quickly if you do. I don’t want the wires of my
telephone melted off. No, Carnesy, I have no miraculous inspiration as to
where that gold is coming from; I just have a plain old-fashioned hunch,

and that hunch is that we are going to have lots of fun and more than our
share of danger before we see Washington again. After you get through
bearding Bolton in his den, you might call the Chief of the Air Corps and
ask him to have a bomber held at Langley Field subject to my orders. If he
squawks any, I’ll talk to him.”
He turned to a telephone which stood on his desk and lifted the receiver.
“Get Mr. Lambertson on the wire,” he said. “He is the chief technician of
the Pyrex Glass Works at Corning, New Jersey.”

T
HE U.S.S. Minneconsin steamed out of New York harbor and headed
down toward the lower bay. On her forward deck rested a huge globe.
The bottom quarter of the sphere was made of some dark opaque
substance but the upper portion was transparent as crystal. Through the
walls could be seen a quantity of apparatus resting on the opaque bottom
portion. Two mechanics from the Bureau of Standards were making final
adjustments of one of the pieces of apparatus, which resembled a tank fitted
343

with a piston geared to an electric motor. From the tank, tubes ran to four
hollow pipes, an inch and a half in diameter, which ran through the skin and
extended thirty inches from the outer skin of the twenty-foot sphere. Dr.
Bird stood near talking with the executive officer of the ship and from time
to time giving a brief word of direction to the mechanics.
“It’s safer than you might think, Commander,” he said. “In the first place,
that globe is not made of ordinary glass; it is made of vitrilene, a new semi-
malleable glass which was developed at the Bureau and which is being
made on an experimental scale for us by the Pyrex people. It is much
stronger than ordinary glass, and is not sensitive to shock. It is also
perfectly transparent to ultra-violet light, being superior even to rock crystal
or fused quartz in that respect. The walls, as you have noticed, are four
inches thick, and I have calculated that the ball will stand a uniform
external pressure of thirty-five hundred atmospheres, the pressure which
would be encountered at a depth of about twenty miles. I believe that it will
stand a squeeze of six thousand tons without buckling, and it is impossible
to fracture it by shock. It could be dropped from the top of the Woolworth
Building, and it would just bounce.”

“It seems incredible that it could stand such a pressure as you have named.”
“My figures are conservative ones. Lambertson calculated them even
higher, but we allowed for the fact that this is the first large mass of the
material to be cast, and lowered them.”

“
B UT suppose your lifting cable should break?” objected the naval
officer. “The outfit weighs a good many tons.”
“You notice that the lower quarter is made of lead. The specific gravity of
the entire globe when sealed up tight with two men in it is only a little more
than unity. In the water its weight is so little that a three-inch manilla
hawser would raise it, let alone a steel cable. I have another safety device.
Granted that the cable should snap, I can detach the lead from it and it
would shoot to the surface like a rocket.”
“How long can you remain under water in it?”
“A week, if necessary. I have an oxygen tank and a carbon dioxide
removing apparatus which will keep the air in good condition. The globe is
electrically lighted, and can be heated if necessary. Should my telephone
line become fouled and broken, I have a radio set which will enable me to
communicate with you. I can’t see that it is especially dangerous; not nearly
as much so as a submarine.”
“What is your object in going down, if I may ask?”
“To take pictures and to explore the wreck if we can. The globe is equipped
with huge floodlights and excellent cameras. The salvage people are having
a little trouble and we are trying to help them out.”
“You mentioned exploring. Can you leave the globe while it is under
water?”
“Yes. There is a locking device for doing so. A man in a diving suit can
enter the lock and fill it with water. Once the external pressure is released
he can open the outer door and step out. Coming back, he seals the outer
door and the man inside blows out the lock and compressed air and then the
inner door can be opened. It is the same principle as a torpedo tube.”

A
JANGLE of bells interrupted them and the Minneconsin slowed
down. Commander Lawrence stepped to the rail and gave a sharp
order to the navigating officer on the bridge. The bells jangled again
and the ship’s engines stopped.
“We are almost over the buoy, Doctor,” he said.
Dr. Bird nodded and spoke to the two mechanics. With a few final touches
344

to the apparatus they emerged from the globe and Dr. Bird entered.
“Come on, Carnes,” he called. “No backing out at the last minute.”
Carnes stepped forward with a sickly smile and joined the Doctor in the
huge sphere.
“All right, boys; close her up.”
The mechanics swung the outer door into place with a crane. Both the edge
of the door and the surface against which it fitted had been ground flat and
were in addition faced with soft rubber. Bolts were fastened in the door
which passed through holes in the main sphere, and Dr. Bird spun nuts onto
them and tightened them with a heavy wrench. He and Carnes lifted the
smaller inner door into place and bolted it tight. Dr. Bird stepped to the
telephone.
“Lower away,” he directed.
From a boom attached to the Minneconsin’s forward fighting top, a huge
steel cable swung down, and the latch at the end of the cable was closed
over a vitrilene ring which was fastened to the top of the sphere. The cable
tightened and the globe with the two men in it was lifted over the side of the
battleship and lowered gently into the water. Carnes involuntarily ducked
and threw up his hand as the waters closed over them. Dr. Bird laughed.
“Look up, Carnes,” he said.
Carnes gasped as he looked up and saw the surface of the water above him.
Dr. Bird laughed again and turned to the telephone.
“Lower away,” he said. “Everything is tight.”

T
HE globe descended into the depths of the sea. Darker and darker it
grew until only a faint twilight glow filled the sphere. A dark bulk
loomed before them. Dr. Bird snapped on one of his huge floodlights
and pointed.
“The Arethusa,” he said.
The ill-fated vessel lay on her side with a huge jagged hole torn in her
fabric amidships.
“That’s where her boilers burst,” explained the Doctor. “Luckily we have a
hard bottom to deal with. Let’s see if we can locate any of Mitchell’s sea
serpents.”
He turned on other flood lights and swept the bottom of the sea with them.
The huge beams bored out into the water for a quarter of a mile, but nothing
unusual was to be seen. Dr. Bird turned his attention again to the wreck.
“Things look normal from this side,” he said after a prolonged scrutiny. “I’ll
have the Minneconsin steam around it while we look it over.”
In response to his telephone orders the ship above them swung around the
wreck in a circle, and Carnes and the Doctor viewed each side in turn. But
nothing of a suspicious nature made its appearance. The sphere stopped
opposite the hole in the side and Dr. Bird turned to Carnes.
“I’m going to put on a diving suit and explore that wreck,” he said. “If there
ever was any danger, it isn’t apparent now; and I can’t find out anything
until I get inside.”
“Don’t do it, Doctor!” cried Carnes. “Remember what happened to the
other divers!”

“
W E don’t know what happened to them, Carnes. No matter what it
was, there is no danger apparent right now, and I’ve got to get into
that ship before I can get any real information. We could have
lowered an under-sea camera and learned as much as we have so far.”
“Let me go instead of you, Doctor.”
“I’m sorry to refuse you, old dear, but frankly, I wouldn’t trust your
judgment as to what you had seen if you went alone; and we can’t both go.”

“Why not?”
“If we both went, who would work the air to let us back in? No, this is a
one-man job and I’m the one to do it. While I am gone, keep a sharp
lookout, and if you see anything unusual call me at once.”
“How can I call you?”
“On this small radio phone. A pair of receivers tuned to the right wave- 345

length are in my diving helmet, and I will be able to hear you although I
can’t reply. I won’t be gone long: I have only a small air tank, large enough
to keep me going for thirty minutes. Now help me into my suit and keep a
sharp watch. A timely warning may save my life if anything happens.”
With Carnes’ assistance, Dr. Bird donned a deep-sea diving outfit and
screwed down the helmet. He crawled through the inner door into the lock
and lifted the inner door into place. Carnes fastened the door with nuts and
the Doctor opened a pair of valves in the outer door and filled the lock with
water. He removed the outer door; and, taking in one hand a steel-shod
twelve-foot pike with a hook on the end, and in the other a waterproof
flashlight, he sallied forth. As he left the shell he paused for a moment, and
then returned and picked up the heavy wrench with which he had removed
the nuts holding the outer door into place. He fastened the tool to the belt of
his suit. Then, with a wave of his hand toward the detective, he approached
the hulk.
The hole in the side was too high for him to reach, but he hooked the end of
his pike in one of the joints of the Arethusa’s plates and climbed slowly and
painfully up the side of the vessel. As he disappeared into the hull, Carnes
realized with a sudden start that he had been watching his friend and
neglecting the duty imposed on him of keeping a sharp watch. He turned
quickly to the floodlights and searched the sea bottom.

N
OTHING appeared, and the minutes moved as slowly as hours should.
Carnes felt that he had been submerged alone for weeks, and his
nerves grew so tense that he felt that he would scream in another
instant. A sudden thought sobered him like a dash of cold water. If he
screamed, Dr. Bird would take it for an alarm signal and possibly be afraid

to emerge from the vessel. His watch showed him that the Doctor had been
gone for twenty-five minutes and he moved slowly to the radio transmitter.
“Dr. Bird,” he said slowly and distinctly, “you have been gone nearly thirty
minutes. Nothing alarming has appeared but I will feel better when I see
you coming back.”
He glued his eyes on the opening in the ship’s side and waited. Five minutes
passed, and then ten, with no signs of the Doctor. Carnes moved again to
the receiver.
“It has been over half an hour. Doctor,” he cried in a pleading voice. “If you
are all right, for God’s sake show yourself. I am frantic with worry.”
Another five minutes passed, and the sweat dripped in a steady stream from
the detective’s chin. Suddenly he gave a sob of relief and sank back against
the side of the globe. A bulky figure showed at the edge of the hole, and Dr.
Bird climbed slowly and heavily out of the hold and dropped to the sea
bottom. He lay prone for a moment before he rose and made his way with
evident effort toward the sphere. He entered the compartment and with a
heroic effort lifted the outer door into place, and feebly and with fumbling
fingers placed nuts on the bolts. His hands wandered uncertainly toward the
valves and closed the upper one. He waved his hand toward Carnes and
sank in a heap on the floor of the lock.

W
ITH trembling hands Carnes connected the air and opened the valve.
Air flowed into the lock and the water was gradually forced out.
When the lock was empty, he waited for Dr. Bird to close the outer
valve but the Doctor did not move. Carnes tore at the bolts which held the
inner door and threw his weight against it. It held against his assault, and he
thought frantically. An inspiration came to him, and he disconnected the346 air
valve. With a whistling rush, the air from the lock rushed into the sphere
and he forced open the inner door. A stream of sea water drove against his
feet through the open valve, and he reached for the valve to close it. The
force of the water held it open for a moment, but he threw every ounce of
his strength into the effort. The valve slowly closed.
It was beyond his strength to haul the heavy Doctor with his pressure diving
suit through the restricted confines of the inner door, so Carnes wormed his

way into the lock and with trembling fingers unscrewed the helmet of the
Doctor’s diving suit. The helmet clanged to the floor and Carnes scooped
up his hands full of water and dashed it into the Doctor’s face. There was no
response and he was at his wit’s end. He sprang for the radio to order the
sphere hauled up when his glance fell on the oxygen tank. It took him only
a moment to connect a rubber hose to the tank, and in a few seconds a blast
of the life-giving gas was blowing into the scientist’s face. Dr. Bird gave a
convulsive gasp or two and opened his eyes.
“Shut off the juice, Carnes,” he said faintly. “Too much of that’s bad.”
Carnes shut off the oxygen and Dr. Bird struggled to a sitting position and
inhaled deep breaths.
“That was a narrow squeak, old dear,” he said faintly. “Give me a hand and
I’ll climb in.”

W
ITH the detective’s aid he climbed into the sphere and Carnes
fastened the inner door. Slowly the Doctor rid himself of the diving
suit and lay prone on the floor, his breath still coming in gasps.
“Thanks for your warning about the time, Carnes,” he said. “I knew that my
air supply was running short but I was caught down there and couldn’t
readily free myself. I thought for a while that my time had come, but it
wasn’t so written. By the looks of things, I freed myself just in time.”
“Did you find out anything?” asked the detective eagerly.
“I did,” replied Dr. Bird grimly. “For one thing, the gold is no longer in the
hold of the Arethusa.”
“It’s gone?”
“Clean as a whistle, every bar of it. A hole has been cut in the vault around
the combination, and the bars slid back and the door opened. The gold has
been stolen.”
“Might it not have been stolen before the vessel sank?”
“The idea occurred to me of course, and I examined things pretty carefully.
I know that the theft occurred after the vessel sank.”

“How could you tell?”
“For one thing, the hole was cut with an under-water cutting torch. For the
second, look here.”

T
HE Doctor rolled up his trousers and showed the detective his leg.
Carnes cried out as he saw huge purple welts on it.
“What caused that?” he cried.
“As I entered the vault, I stepped full into a steel bear trap which was set
there for the purpose of catching and holding anyone who entered.
Someone has visited the Arethusa, since she sank, and looted her, and also
arranged so that any diver who got as far as the vault would never return to
the surface to tell of it. Luckily for myself, I carried a heavy wrench and
was able to free myself. Most divers don’t carry such a thing.”
“But who could have done it?”
“That’s what we have got to find out, and we aren’t going to do it down
here. Give the word to have us hauled up; and, Carnes, don’t mention
anything about the looting of the vessel. Allow it to be understood that I
couldn’t get into the hold. We’ll head back for New York at once. I want to
have a few small changes made in this sphere before we use it again. While
I am doing that, I want you to get hold of the Coast Guard or the
Immigration Service or whoever it is that has the complete records in that 347

case of alien smuggling, by the Young Labor party. When you get the
information, report to me and we’ll go over it. You might also drop a hint to
Captain Starley that will stop all further attempts at salvage operations for a
few days. Tell him that I’ll arrange to have a Coast Guard cutter guard the
locality of the wreck.”
“Won’t that be rather risky for the cutter?”
“I think not. The gold is gone and there is no reason to apprehend any
further danger in that locality, at least for the present.”

A
T nine o’clock next morning Carnes and Dr. Bird sat in the office of
Lieutenant Commander Minden of the United States Coast Guard,

listening intently to the history of the alien smuggling case. Commander
Minden was saying:
“Their boats would load up and clear ostensibly for Rio de Janeiro or some
other South American port, but once they were in the Atlantic, they would
alter their course and head from the Massachusetts coast. Of course, we had
no right to interfere with them on the high seas, and they never came closer
than fifty miles of our coast line. When they got that close, they would
cruise slowly back and forth for a few days and then steam away south to
the port they had cleared for. When they got there, of course there were no
passengers on board.
“We patrolled the coast carefully while they were around but we never got
any indication of any landing of aliens and yet we knew they were being
landed in some way. We drew lines so close that a cork couldn’t get by
without being seen and we even had the air patrolled, but with no results.
Eventually the air patrol was the thing that gave them away.
“They had been operating so successfully that they evidently got careless
and started a load off late in the night so they didn’t reach the coast by
dawn. A Navy plane was flying along the coast-line about twelve miles off
when they spotted a submarine running parallel with the coast, headed
north. It didn’t look like an American craft and they went on and radioed
Washington and found that we had no under-sea craft in that neighborhood.
They returned to their patrol and followed the sub for a matter of thirty or
forty miles up the coast, and then it turned in right toward the shore. The
shore line there is rocky, and, at the point where the sub was heading, it
falls sheer about two hundred fathoms. The sub ran right at the cliff and
disappeared from view.”

L
IEUTENANT COMMANDER MINDEN paused impressively. Carnes
and Dr. Bird set forward in their chairs, for it was evident that the crux
of the story was at hand.
“When the plane reported what they had seen, we knew how those aliens
were being landed. The point where the sub went in gave us a good idea of
the location of their base and we threw a cordon of men around and
searched. A Navy sub was sent to the scene and they reported that there was

a tunnel opening into the rock, about a hundred fathoms under water,
running for they had no idea how far under the land. They stayed to guard
the hole while we combed the land. It took us a week to locate the place,
but we traced some truck loads of food and finally found it. This tunnel ran
under the land for a mile and then ended in a large cave underground. The
Young Labor party had established a regular receiving depot there, and took
the aliens from the sub and kept them for a day or two until they had a
chance to load them into trucks and run them into Boston or some other
town in the night.
“Once we had the place spotted, we sent a gang in and captured the whole
works without any trouble. The underground cavern had no natural opening
to the surface, but one had been made by blasting. We captured the whole348

lot and then sealed the end of the hole with rock and concrete. That was the
end of the affair.”
“Thank you, Commander; you have given us a very graphic description of
it. I suppose you could find the entrance which was sealed up?”

“
E ASILY. I led the raiding party. I forgot to mention one blunder we
made. Evidently some word of our plans leaked out, for the sub which
was guarding the outer end of the tunnel was called away by a radio
message supposed to be from the Navy Department. It had gone only a
short distance, however, when the commander smelled a rat and made his
way back. He was too late. He was just in time to see the sub emerge from
the hole and head into the open sea. He gave chase, but the other sub was
faster than the Navy boat and it got clear away. The leader of the gang must
have been on it, for we didn’t get him.”
“Who was the leader?”
“From some records we captured, his name was Ivan Saranoff. I never saw
him.”
“Saranoff?” said Dr. Bird thoughtfully. “The name seems familiar. Where
have I—Thunder! I know now. He was at one time a member of the faculty
of St. Petersburg. He was one of the leading biologists of his time. Carnes,
we’ve found our man.”

“If you are thinking of Saranoff, I am afraid you are mistaken, Doctor,” said
Commander Minden. “Neither he nor his submarine have ever been heard
of since and it has been generally conceded that they were lost at sea. We
had some pretty rough weather just after that affair.”
“Rough weather doesn’t mean much to a sub, Commander. I expect that
he’s our man. At any rate, the place we want to go is the end of that tunnel.”
“I’m at your service, Doctor.”
“Carnes, get the location of that tunnel entrance from Commander Minden
and order the Minneconsin to proceed north along the coast to that vicinity
and stand by for radio orders. I am going to telephone Mitchell Field and
get a plane. We have no time to lose.”

T
HE plane from Mitchell Field roared down to a landing, and Carnes,
Dr. Bird and Commander Minden dismounted from the rear cockpit
and looked around. They had landed in a smooth field at the base of a
rise almost rugged enough to be called a mountain. A group of three men
were standing near them as they got out of the plane. One of the men
approached.
“Dr. Bird?” asked the newcomer. “I am Tom Harron, United States Marshal.
These two men are deputies. I understand that I am to report to you for
orders.”
“I’m glad to know you, Mr. Harron. This is Operative Carnes of the Secret
Service and Commander Minden of the Coast Guard. We are going to
explore an underground cavern that is located in this vicinity.”
“Do you mean the one where they used to smuggle aliens? That is closed
up. I was in charge of that work and we closed it tight as a drum two years
ago.”
“Can you find the entrance?”
“Sure. It isn’t over a mile from here.”
“Lead the way, then. We want to take a look at it.”
The marshal led the way toward the eminence and took a path which led up
a gully in its side. He paused for a moment to take his bearings and then

turned sharply to his left and climbed part way up the side of the ravine.
“Here it is,” he announced. An expression of astonishment crossed his face
and he examined the ground closely. “By Golly, Doc,” he went on as he
straightened up, “this place has been opened since I left it!”

D
R. BIRD hurried forward and joined him. The heavy stone and
concrete with which the entrance to the cavern had been sealed were 349

undisturbed, but in the side of the hill was set a steel door beside the
concrete. There was no sign of a keyhole or other means of entering it.
“Was this steel door part of your work?” asked Carnes.
“No, sir, it wasn’t. We sealed it solid. That door has been put there since.”
Dr. Bird closely examined the structure. He tapped it and went around the
edges and then straightened up and took a small pocket compass from his
pocket and opened the case. The needle swung crazily for a moment and
then pointed straight toward the door.
“A magnetic lock,” he exclaimed. “If we could find the power line it would
be easy to force, but finding that line might take us a week. At any rate, we
have found out what we were after. This is their base from which they are
operating. Mr. Harron, I want you to station a guard armed with rifles at this
door day and night until I personally relieve you. Remember, until I relieve
you, in person. Verbal or written orders don’t go. Capture or kill anyone
who tries to enter or leave the cavern through this entrance. Just now we’ll
find that cavern more vulnerable from the sea end, and that is where I mean
to attack. We’ll force that door and explore from this end later. Commander
Minden, you may stay here with Mr. Harron, if you like, or you may come
with Carnes and me. We are going on board the Minneconsin.”

T
HE Mitchell Field plane roared to a take-off and bore south along the
coast. Half an hour of flying brought them in view of the battleship
steaming at full speed up the coast. Dr. Bird radioed instructions to the
ship, and an hour later a launch picked them up from the beach and took
them out. As soon as they were on board they resumed their progress, and
in two hours the peak that Dr. Bird had marked as a landmark was opposite.

“Steam in as close to the shore as you can safely,” he said, “and then lower
us. Once we are down, you will be guided by our telephoned instructions.
Come on, Carnes, let’s go.”
The detective followed him into the sphere as the Minneconsin edged up
toward the shore. The huge ball was lifted from the deck and lowered gently
into two hundred fathoms of water. It was pitch dark at that depth, and Dr.
Bird switched on one floodlight and studied the cliff which rose a hundred
yards from them.
“We have missed the place, Carnes,” he said. “We’ll have them pull us up a
few hundred feet and then steam along the coast.”
He turned to the telephone and the sphere rose while the battleship steamed
slowly ahead, the vitrilene ball following in her wake. For a quarter of a
mile they continued on their way, and then Dr. Bird halted the ship.
“What depth are we?” he asked. “Eighty fathoms? All right, lower us,
please.”

T
HE ball sank until it rested on the sea bottom, and Dr. Bird turned on
two additional floodlights and studied the surroundings. The bed of the
ocean was literally covered with lobster and crab shell, with the bones
of fish scattered here and there among them. A few bones of land animals
were mixed with the debris and Carnes gave a gasp as Dr. Bird pointed out
to him a diving helmet.
“We are on the right track,” said the scientist grimly. He stepped to the
telephone and ordered the sphere raised to one hundred fathoms. The ship
moved forward along the coast until Dr. Bird again stepped to the telephone
and halted it. Before them yawned the entrance to the underground tunnel.
It was about two hundred feet high and three hundred across, and their most
powerful beams would not penetrate to the end of it. A pile of debris could
be seen on the floor of the tunnel and Carnes fancied that he could 350 see
another diving helmet among the litter. Dr. Bird pointed toward the side of
the cavern.
“See those floodlights fastened to the cliff so that their beams will sweep
across the mouth of the tunnel when they are lighted?” he said. “Apparently
the cave is used as a prison and the light beams are the bars. The creature is

not at home just now or the bars would be up. My God! Look at that,
Carnes!”
Carnes stared and echoed the Doctor’s cry of surprise. Clinging to a shelf of
rock which extended out from the wall of the cavern and half hidden among
the seaweed was a huge marine creature. It looked like a huge black slug
with rudimentary eyes and mouth. The thing was fifty feet in length and
fully fifteen feet in diameter. It hung there, moving sluggishly as though
breathing, and rudimentary tentacles projecting from one end moved in the
water.
“What is it, Doctor?” asked Carnes in a voice of awe.
“It is a typical trochosphere of the giant octopus, the devil fish of Indian
Ocean legend, multiplied a thousand times,” he replied. “When the octopus
lays its eggs, they hatch out into the larval form. The free swimming larva is
known as a trochosphere, and I am positive that that is what we see; but
look at the size of the thing! Man alive, if that ever developed, I can’t
conceive of its dimensions!”

“
I HAVE seen pictures of a huge octopus pulling down a ship,” said
Carnes, “but I always fancied they were imaginary.”
“They are. This monstrosity before us is no product of nature. A dozen of
them would depopulate the seas in a year. It is a hideous parody of nature
conceived in the brain of a madman and produced by some glandular
disturbance. Saranoff spent years in glandular experimentation, and no
doubt he has managed to stimulate the thyroid of a normal octopus and
produce a giant. I fancy that the immediate parent of the thing before us was
of normal size, and so, probably, are its brothers and sisters. The
phenomenon of giantism of this nature occurs in alternate generations and
then only in rare instances. Its grandparent may not be far away, however. I
wish it was safe to use a submarine to explore that cavern.”
“Why isn’t it?”
“Any creature powerful enough to pull the Arethusa under water would
crush a frail submarine without effort. Anyway, a Navy sub isn’t built for
under-water exploration like this ball is. The window space is quite limited
and they aren’t equipped with powerful floodlights. I would like to be able

to reach that thing and destroy it, but it can wait until later. The best thing
we can do is to put out our lights and wait.”
His hand sought the light switch, and the globe became dark. Only a tiny
glimmer of light came down to them from the surface, a hundred fathoms
above. In the darkness they stared into the depths of the sea.

F
OR an hour they waited and then Dr. Bird grasped Carnes by the
shoulder and pointed. Far in the distance could be seen a tiny point of
light. It wavered and winked and at times disappeared, but it was
gradually approaching them. Dr. Bird stepped to the telephone and the
Minneconsin moved a hundred yards further from the shore. The light
disappeared again as though hidden by some opaque body. Their eyes had
become accustomed to the dim light and they could dimly see a long snake-
like body approach the globe and then suddenly withdraw.
The light appeared again only a few hundred yards away. The water swirled
and the sphere swayed drunkenly as some gigantic body moved past it with
express train speed and entered the mouth of the cavern. The light turned
toward them and they could see the dim outlines of a small submarine351 on
which it was mounted. Another rush of water came as the object which had
entered the cave started to leave it, and the light swung around. It bore on a
huge black body, and was reflected with a red glow from huge eyes, and the
creature backed again into the cave. Back and forth across the mouth of the
cavern the light played, and the watchers caught a glimpse of a huge parrot
beak which could have engulfed a freight car. From the cavern projected
twisting tentacles of gargantuan dimensions, and red eyes, thirty feet in
diameter, glared balefully at them. For several minutes the light of the
submarine played across the mouth of the cave, and then the floodlights on
the cliff sprang into full glow and bathed the ball and the mouth of the
tunnel in a flood of light.
Before their horrified gaze was an octopus of a size to make them
disbelieve their eyes. The submarine had moved up to within a few feet of
them, and the light from it played full on the ball. The submarine
maneuvered in the vicinity, keeping the ball full in the beam of its light, and
then drew back. As it did so, the floodlights on the cliff died out and the

beam of the submarine’s light was directed away from them. Dr. Bird
jumped to the telephone.
“Head straight out to sea and full speed ahead!” he shouted. “Don’t try to
pull us in; tow us!”

T
HE ball swayed as the Minneconsin’s mighty engines responded to his
orders and the cliff wall disappeared.
“As long as they know we’re here, we might as well announce our presence
in good style,” said the doctor grimly as he closed a switch and threw all of
the sphere’s huge lights into action. He had turned on the lights just in time,
for even as he did so a mighty tentacle shot out of the darkness and wrapped
itself around the ball. For a moment it clung there and then was withdrawn.
“The thing can’t stand light,” remarked the doctor as he threw off the
switch. “That sub was herding it like a cow by the use of a light beam. As
long as we are lighted up we are safe from attack.”
“Then for God’s sake turn on the lights!” cried Carnes.
“I want it to attack us,” replied the doctor calmly. “We have no offensive
weapons and only by meeting an attack can we harm the thing.”
As he spoke there came a soft whisper of sound from the vitrilene walls and
they were thrown from their feet by a sudden jerk. Dr. Bird stumbled to the
switch and closed it, and the ball was flooded with light. Two arms were
now on them but they were slowly withdrawn as the lights glared forth. The
huge outlines of the beast could be seen as it followed them toward the
surface. Its great eyes glared at them hungrily. The submarine was visible
only as a speck of light in the distance.

T
HE Minneconsin’s speed was picking up under the urge of her huge
steam turbines, and the ball was nearing the surface. The sea was light
enough now that they could see for quite a distance. The telephone bell
jangled and Dr. Bird picked the receiver from its hook.
“Hello,” he said. “What’s that? You can? By all means, fire. Yes, indeed,
we’re well out of danger; we must be thirty or forty feet down. Watch the

fun now,” he went on to Carnes as he replaced the receiver. “The beast is
showing above the surface and they’re going to shell it.”
They watched the surface and suddenly there came a flash of light followed
by a dull boom of sound. The huge octopus suddenly sank below them,
thrashing its arms about wildly.
“A hit!” shouted Dr. Bird into the telephone. “Get it again if it shows up. I
want it to get good and mad.”
He turned off the lights in the ball and the octopus attacked again. The shell
had taught it caution and it kept well down, but three huge arms came352 up
from the depths of the sea and wrapped themselves about the ball. The
forward motion stopped for a moment, and then came a jerk that threw
them down. The ball started to sink.
“Our cable has parted!” cried the doctor. “Turn on the lights!”

C
ARNES closed the switch. The ball was so covered with the huge
tentacles that they could see nothing, but the light had its usual effect
and they were released. The ball sank toward the bottom and they
could see the huge cephalopod lying below watching them. Blood was
flowing from a wound near one of its eyes where the Minneconsin’s shell
had found its mark.
Toward the huge monster they sank until they lay on the bottom of the
ocean and a few yards from it. In an instant the sea became opaque and they
could see nothing.
“He has shot his ink!” cried the doctor. “Here comes the real attack. Strap
yourself to the wall where you can reach one of the motor switches.”
Through the darkness huge arms came out and wrapped themselves around
the ball. The heavy vitrilene groaned under the enormous pressure which
was applied, but it held. The ink was clearing slightly and they could see
that the sphere was covered by the arms. The mass moved and the huge
maw opened before them. The pipes projecting from the sides of the ball
were buried in the creature’s flesh.
“Good Lord, he’s going to swallow us!” gasped the doctor. “Quick, Carnes,
the motor switch.”

He closed one of them as he spoke, and the powerful little electric motors
began to hum, forcing forward the piston attached to the tank connected to
the hollow rods. Steadily the little motors hummed, and the tank emptied
through the rods into the body of the giant cephalopod.
“I hope the stuff works fast,” groaned the doctor as they approached closer
to the giant maw. “I never tried giving an octopus a hypodermic injection of
prussic acid before, but it ought to do the business. There’s enough acid
there to kill half New York City.”

C
ARNES blanched as the ball approached the mouth. One by one the
arms unwound until only one was holding them and the jaws opened
wider. They were almost in them when the motion stopped. They
could feel a shudder run through the arm which held them. For a moment
the arm alternately expanded and contracted, almost releasing them only to
clutch them again. Another arm came from the depths and whipped about
the ball, and again the vitrilene groaned at the pressure which was applied.
The arms were suddenly withdrawn and the ball started to sink.
“Drop the lead, Carnes!” cried the doctor. With the aid of the detective he
operated the electric catches which held the huge mass of lead to the
bottom, and the sphere shot up through the water like a rocket. It leaped
clear of the water and fell back with a splash. A half mile away the
Minneconsin was swinging in a wide circle to head back toward them. They
turned their gaze toward the shore.
As they looked a giant arm shot a hundred yards up into the air, twisting
and writhing frantically. It disappeared, and another, and then half a dozen
flashed into the air. The arms dipped below the surface. A huge black body
reared its bulk free from the water for a moment, and the sea boiled as
though in a violent storm. The body sank and again the arms were thrown
up, twisting and turning like a half dozen huge snakes. The whole creature
sank below the waves and the ball tossed back and forth, often buried under
tons of water and once tossed thirty feet into the air by the huge waves.

A
MOMENTARY lull came in the waves. Carnes gave a cry of
astonishment and pointed toward the shore. With an effort, Dr. Bird
353

twisted himself in his lashing and looked in that direction. The huge body
had again come to the surface, and three of the arms were towering into the
air. Grasped in them was a long, black, cigar-shaped object. As they
watched the object was torn into two parts and the fragments crushed by the
enormous power of the octopus. Again the arms writhed in torment, and
then they stiffened out. For a moment they towered in the air and then
slowly sank below the surface of the sea.
“The cyanide has worked,” cried the doctor, “and in its last agonies the
creature has turned on its creator and destroyed him. It is a shame, for
Saranoff was a brilliant although perverted genius, and besides, I would
have liked to have learned his method. However, I may find something
when we open the land end and raid the cave; and really, he was too
brilliant a man to hang for murder. Once we open the cave and I get any
data that is there, my connection with the case will end. Trailing down the
gold and recovering it is a routine matter for Bolton, and one in which he
won’t need my help.”
“What about that creature we saw in the cave, Doctor? Won’t it hatch into
another terror of the sea like the thing that destroyed the ship?”
“The trochosphere? No, I’m not worried there. It won’t try to leave the cave
for some days yet, and by that time we’ll have the land end opened and the
floodlights turned on. They will keep it there and it will starve to death. We
could send down a sub to feed it a torpedo, but there’s no need. Nature will
dispose of it. Meanwhile, I hope the Minneconsin rigs up a jury tackle
pretty soon and takes us on board. I’m getting seasick.”

IN THE NEXT ISSUE
THE FIFTH-DIMENSION CATAPULT
A Novelette of an Extraordinary Interdimensional Rescue
By Murray Leinster

THE GATE TO XORAN

A Thrilling Story of a Metal Man’s Visit to Earth
By Hal K. Wells

THE EYE OF ALLAH
A Story of the Tracking Down of a Mysterious Scientific Killer
By C. D. Willard

THE PIRATE PLANET
Part Three of the Outstanding Current Novel
By Charles W. Diffin

——AND OTHERS!

354

Gray Denim
By Harl Vincent

There came a stabbing pencil of light from over Karl’s shoulder.

B
ENEATH the huge central arch in Cooper Square a meeting was in
progress—a gathering of the gray-clad workers of the lower levels of
New York. Less than two hundred of their number were in evidence,

and these huddled in dejected groups around the pedestal from which a
fiery-tongued orator was addressing them. Lounging negligently at the edge
of the small crowd were a dozen of the red police.
“I tell you, comrades,” the
speaker was shouting, “the time The blood of the Van Dorn’s ran in Karl’s veins.
He rode the skies like an avenging god.
has come when we must revolt.
We must battle to the death with
the wearers of the purple. Why work out our lives down here so they can
live in the lap of luxury over our heads? Why labor day after day at 355 the
oxygen generators to give them the fresh air they breathe?”
The speaker paused uncertainly as a chorus of raucous laughter came to his
ears. He glared belligerently at a group of newcomers who stood aloof from
his own gathering. Seven or eight of them there were, and they wore the
gray with obvious discomfort. Slummers! Well, they’d hear something they
could carry back with them when they returned to their homes!
“Why,” he continued in rising tones, “do we sit at the controls of the
pneumatic tubes which carry thousands of our fellows to tasks equally
irksome, while they of the purple ride their air yachts to the pleasure cities
of the sky lanes? Never in the history of mankind have the poor been poorer
and the rich richer!”
“Yah!” shouted a disrespectful voice from among the newcomers. “You’re
full o’ bunk! Nothing but bunk!”
An ominous murmur swelled from the crowd and the red police roused
from their lethargy. The mounting scream of a siren echoed in the vaulted
recesses above and re-echoed from the surrounding columns—the call for
reserves.

A
LL was confusion in the Square. The little group of newcomers
immediately became the center of a mêlée of dangerous proportions.
Some of the more timid of the wearers of the gray struggled to get out
of the crowd and away. Others, not in sympathy with the speaker, rushed to
the support of the besieged visitors. The police were, for the moment,
overwhelmed.

The orator, mad with resentment and injured pride, hurled himself into the
group. A knife flashed in his hand; rose and fell. A scream of agony shrilled
piercingly above the din of the fighting.
Then came the reserves, and the wielder of the knife turned to escape. He
broke away from the milling combatants and made speedily for the shadows
that lay beyond the great pillars of the Square. But he never reached them,
for one of the red guards raised his riot pistol and fired. There was a dull
plop, and a rubbery something struck the fleeing man and wrapped
powerful tentacles around his body, binding him hand and foot in their swift
embrace. He fell crashing to the pavement.
A lieutenant of the red police was shouting his orders and the din in the
Square was deafening. With their numbers greatly augmented, the guards
were now in control of the situation and their maces struck left and right.
Groans and curses came from the gray-clad workers, who now fought
desperately to escape.
Then, with startling suddenness, the artificial sunlight of the cavernous
Square was gone, leaving the battle to continue in utter darkness.

C
OOPER SQUARE, in the year 2108, was the one gathering place in
New York City where the wearers of the gray denim were permitted to
assemble and discuss their grievances publicly. Deep in the maze of
lower-level ways seldom visited by wearers of the purple, the grottolike
enclosure bore the name of a philanthropist of the late nineteenth century
and still carried a musty air of certain of the traditions of that period.
In Astor Way, on the lowest level of all, there was a tiny book shop. Nestled
between two of the great columns that provided foundation support for the
eighty levels above, it was safely hidden from the gaze of curious passersby
in the Square. Slumming parties from afar, their purple temporarily
discarded for the gray, occasionally passed within a stone’s throw of the
little shop, never suspecting the existence of such a retreat amidst the dark
shadows of the pillars. But to the initiated few amongst the wearers of the
gray, and to certain of the red police, it was well known.
Rudolph Krassin, proprietor of the establishment, was a bent and withered
356

ancient. His jacket of gray denim hung loosely from his spare frame and his

hollow cough bespoke a deep-seated ailment. Looking out from behind
thick lenses set in his square-rimmed spectacles, the watery eyes seemed
vacant; uncomprehending. But old Rudolph was a scholar—keen-witted—
and a gentleman besides. To his many friends of the gray-clad multitude he
was an anomaly; they could not understand his devotion to his well-
thumbed volumes. But they listened to his words of wisdom and, more
frequently than they could afford, parted with precious labor tickets in
exchange for reading matter that was usually of the lighter variety.

W
HEN the fighting started in the Square, Rudolph was watching and
listening from a point of vantage in the shadows near his shop. This
fellow Leontardo, who was the speaker, was an agitator of the worst
sort. His arguments always were calculated to arouse the passions of his
hearers; to inflame them against the wearers of the purple. He had nothing
constructive to offer. Always he spoke of destruction; war; bloodshed.
Rudolph marveled at the patience of the red police. To-day, these
newcomers, obviously a slumming party of youngsters bent on whatever
mischief they could find, were interfering with the speaker. The old man
chuckled at the first interruption. But at signs of real trouble he scurried into
the shadows and vanished in the blackness of first-level passages known
only to himself. He knew where to find the automatic sub-station of the
Power Syndicate.
Returning to the darkness he had created in the Square, he was relieved to
find that the sounds of the fighting had subsided. Apparently most of the
wearers of the gray had escaped. He skirted the avenue of pillars along
Astor Way, feeling his way from one to another as he progressed toward his
little shop. Peering into the blackness of the square he saw the feeble beams
of several flash-lamps in the hands of the police. They were searching for
survivors of the fracas, maces and riot pistols held ready for use. A sobbing
gasp from close by set his pulses throbbing. He crept stealthily in the
direction from which the sound had come.
“Steady now,” came a whispered voice. “My uncle’s shop is close by. He’ll
take you in. Here—let me lift you.”

T
HERE was a shuffling on the opposite side of the pillar at which
Rudolph had halted; another grunt of pain.
“Karl!” hissed the old man. It was his nephew.
“Uncle Rudolph?” came the guarded response.
“Yes. Can I help you?”
“Quick—yes—he’s fainted.”
The old man was around the huge base of the column in an instant. He
groped in the darkness and his hands encountered human bodies.
“Who is it?” he breathed.
“One of the hecklers, Uncle. A young lad; and of the purple I think. He’s
been knifed.”
Together they dragged the inert form into the shelter of the long line of
pillars. There was a trampling of many men in the square. That would be a
second detachment of reserves. A ray of light filtered through and dancing
shadows of the giant columns made grotesque outlines against the walls of
the Way. A portable searchlight had been brought to the scene. They must
hurry.
Impeded by the dead weight of their burden, they made sorry progress and
several times found it necessary to halt in the shadow of a pillar while the
red police passed by in their search of the Square. It was with a sigh of
relief that Rudolph opened the door of his shop and with still greater
satisfaction closed and bolted it securely. His nephew shouldered the limp
form of the unconscious youth and carried it to his own bed in one of 357the
rear rooms.
“Ugh!” exclaimed old Rudolph as he ripped open the young man’s shirt,
“it’s a nasty cut. Warm water, Karl.”
The gaping wound was washed and bound tightly. Rudolph’s experienced
fingers told him the knife had not reached a vital spot. The youth would
recover.
“But Karl,” he objected, “he wears the purple. Under the gray. See! It’ll get
us in trouble if we keep him.”

He was stripping the young man of his clothing to prepare him for bed.
Suddenly there was revealed on the white skin a triangular mark. Bright
scarlet it was and just over the right hip. He made a hasty attempt to hide it
from the watching eyes of Karl.
“Uncle!” snapped his nephew, “—the mark you call cursed! He has it, too!”

T
HE tall young man in gray was on his knees, tearing the hands of the
old man away. He saw the mark clearly now. There was no further use
of attempting to conceal it. Rudolph rose and faced his angered
nephew, his watery eyes inscrutable.
“You told me, Rudolph, that it was a brand that cursed me. I have seen it on
him, too. You have lied to me.”
The old man’s eyes wavered. He trembled violently.
“Why did you lie?” demanded Karl. “Am I not your nephew? Am I not
really cursed as you’ve maintained? Tell me—tell me!”
He had the old man by the shoulders, shaking him cruelly.
“Karl—Karl,” begged the helpless ancient, “it was for your good. I swear it.
You were born to the purple. That’s what that mark means—not that you’re
degraded to the gray, as I said. But there’s a reason. Let me explain.”
“Bah! A reason! You’ve kept me in this misery and squalor for a reason!
Who’s my father?”
He flung Rudolph to the floor, where the old man crouched in apprehensive
misery.
“Please Karl—don’t! I can explain. Just give me time. It’s a long story.”
“Time! Time! For twenty-odd years you’ve lied to me; cheated me. My
birthright—where is it?”
He menaced his supposed uncle; was about to strike him. Then suddenly he
was ashamed. He turned on his heel.
“I’m leaving,” he said shortly.
“Karl—my boy,” begged Rudolph Krassin, struggling to his feet. “You
can’t! That lad in there—he—”

But Karl was too angry to reason.
“To hell with him!” he raged, “and to hell with you! I’m through!”
He stamped from the room and out into the eery shadows of the Way. Karl
was done with his old life. He’d go to the upper levels and claim his rights.
Some day, too, he’d punish the man who’d stolen them away. God! Born to
the purple! To think he’d missed it all! Probably was kidnaped by the old
rascal he’d been calling uncle. But he’d find out. Rudolph didn’t have to
explain. Fingerprint records would clear his name; establish his rightful
station in life. He dived into a passage that would lead him to one of the
express lifts. He’d soon be overhead.

A
SERGEANT of the red police looked up startled from his desk as a
tall youth in the gray denim of forty levels below appeared before
him.
“Well?” he growled. The stalwart young worker had stared belligerently and
insolently, he thought.
“I want to check my fingerprint record, Sergeant.”
“Hm. Pretty cocky, aren’t you? The records for such as you are down
below, where you belong.”
“Not mine, I think.”
“So? And who the devil are you?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out. I’ve got a triangle branded on my right
hip.”
“A what?”
“Triangle. Here—look!”
The amazing youngster had raised his jacket and was pulling at his shirt.358

The sergeant stared at what was revealed, his eyes bulging as he looked.
“Lord!” he gasped, “a Van Dorn—in the gray!”
Quickly he turned to the radiovision and made rapid connection with
several persons in turn—important ones, by the appearance of the features
of each in the brilliant disc of the instrument.

Karl was confused by the sudden turn of things. The sergeant talked so
rapidly he could not catch the sense of his words. And that name, Van Dorn,
eluded him. He knew he had heard it before, in the little shop down there in
Astor Way. But he could not place it. He wished fervently that he had paid
more attention to the desires of old Rudolph; had studied more and read the
books the old man had begged him to read. His new surroundings confused
him, too, and he knew that he was the center of some great new excitement.

T
HEN they were in the room; two individuals, one in the red uniform of
a captain of police, the other a pompous, whiskered man in purple.
Others followed and it seemed to Karl that the room was filled with
them, strangers all, and they stared at him and chattered incessantly. He
experienced an overwhelming impulse to run, but mastered it and faced
them boldly.
A square of plate glass was placed under his outstretched fingers. It was
smeared with something sticky and he watched the whiskered man as he
held it up to the light and studied the impressions. Then there was more
confusion. Everyone talked at once and the pompous one in purple made
use of the radiovision, holding the square of glass near its disc for
observation by the person he had called. The identification number was
repeated aloud, a string of figures and letters that were a meaningless
jumble to Karl. The room became quiet while the police captain thumbed
the pages of a huge book he had taken from among many similar ones that
filled a rack behind the desk.
Karl’s blood froze in his veins at the rumbling swish of a car speeding
through the pneumatic tube beneath their feet. His nerves were on edge.
Then the captain of police looked up from the book and there was a peculiar
glint in his eyes as he spoke.
“Peter Van Dorn. Missing since 2085. Wanted by Continental Government.
Ha!”
The words came to Karl’s ears through a growing sensation of unreality. It
seemed that the speaker was miles away and that his voice and features
were those of a radiovision likeness. Wanted by the great power across the
Atlantic! It was unthinkable. Why, he had been but an infant in 2085! What

possible crime could he have committed? But the red police captain was
speaking again, this time in a chill voice. And the room of the police, thick
with the smoke of a dozen cigars, became suddenly stifling.
“Where have you been these twenty-three years, Peter Van Dorn?” asked
the captain. “Who have you lived with, I mean?”

S
OMETHING warned him to protect old Rudolph. And somehow he
wished he had not treated the old fellow as he did when he left. His
self-possession returned. A wave of hot resentment swept over him.
“That’s my affair,” he said defiantly.
The captain shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, well,” he said, “you needn’t
answer—now. We’ll find out when it’s necessary. In the meanwhile we’ll
have to turn you over to the Continental Ambassador.”
Two of the red police advanced toward him and the rest drew back.
“You mean I’m under arrest?” asked Karl incredulously.
“Certainly. Of course you’re not to be harmed.”
One of the guards had him by the arm and he saw the glint of handcuffs.
They couldn’t do this! If it had been for rioting in the Square it would359be
different. But this! It meant he was a prisoner of a foreign government, for
what reason he could not guess. He lost his head completely.
The captain cried out in amazement as one of his huskiest guards went
sprawling under a well-planted punch. This youngster must be as crazy as
was his father before him. But he was a whirlwind. Before he could be
stopped he had tackled the other guard and with a mighty heave flung him
halfway across the room where he fell with a thud that left him dazed and
gasping. The pompous little man in the purple crawled under the desk as the
sergeant leveled a slender tube at the young giant in gray.
Karl ducked instinctively at sight of the weapon, but the spiteful crackle of
its mechanism was too quick for him. A faintly luminous ray struck him full
in the breast and stopped him in his tracks. A thrill of intense cold chased up
his spine and a thunderbolt crashed in his brain. The captain caught his
stiffened body as he fell.

K
ARL—refusing to think of himself as Peter Van Dorn—came to his
senses as from a troubled sleep. His head ached miserably and he
turned it slowly to view his surroundings. Then, in a flash, he
remembered. The paralyzing ray of the red police! They never used it in the
lower levels; but overhead—why, the swine! He sat suddenly erect and
glared into a pair of green eyes that regarded him curiously.
A quick glance showed him that he was in a small padded compartment like
that of the pneumatic tube cars. At one end there was an amazing array of
machinery with glittering levers and handwheels—a control board on which
numberless tiny lights blinked and flickered in rapid succession. At these
controls squatted the twisted figure of a dwarf. A second of the creatures sat
at his side and stared with those horrible green eyes.
“Lord!” he muttered. “Am I still asleep?”
“No,” smiled the dwarf, “you’re awake, Peter Van Dorn.” The misshapen
creature did not seem unfriendly.
“Then where am I, and who are you?”
“You’re in one of the Zar’s rocket cars, speeding toward Dorn. We are but
two of the Zar’s servants—Moon men.”
“Rocket car? Moon men?” Karl was aghast. He wanted to pinch himself.
But a hollow roar to the rear told him he was in a rapidly moving vessel of
some sort. Certainly, too, these dwarfs were not figments of his
imagination.
“You’ve been kept completely ignorant?” asked the dwarf.
“It—it seems so.” Karl was bewildered. “You mean we are out in the open
—traveling in space—to the Moon perhaps?”

T
HE dwarf laughed. “No, I wish we were,” he replied. “But we are
about halfway to the capital of the Continental Empire, greatest of
world powers. We’ll be there in an hour.”
“But I don’t understand.”

“Stupid. Didn’t you ever hear of the rocket ships that cross the ocean like a
projectile, mounting a thousand miles from the surface and making the trip
in two hours?”
“No!” Karl was aghast. “Are we really in such a contraption?” he faltered.
“Say! Are you kidding me?” The dwarf was incredulous. “Do you mean to
tell me you know so little of your world as that? Have you never read
anything? The news broadcasts, the thought exchangers—don’t you follow
them at all?”
Karl shook his head in growing wonder. Truly Rudolph had kept him in
ignorance. Or was it his own fault? He had refused to dig into the volumes
old Krassin had begged him to read. The broadcasts and the thought
machines—well, only those of the purple had access to those.
“Hey, Laro!” called the dwarf to his companion, “this mole is as dumb360as
can be. Doesn’t know he’s alive hardly. And a Van Dorn!”
The two laughed uproariously and Karl raged inwardly. Mole! So that’s
what they called wearers of the gray! He clenched his fists and rose
unsteadily to his feet.
“Sorry,” apologized his tormentor. “Mustn’t get sore now. It seems so funny
to us though. And listen, kid, you’ll never have another chance to hear it all.
So, if you’ll sit down and calm yourself a bit I’ll give you an earful.”

M
OLLIFIED, Karl listened. A marvelous tale it was, of a disgruntled
scientist of the Eastern Hemisphere who had conquered that portion
of the world with the aid of the inhabitants he had found on the outer
side of the Moon; of the scientist who still ruled the East—Zar of the
Continental Empire. A horrible war—in 2085, the year of his own birth—
depopulated the countries of Asia, Europe and Africa and reduced them to
subjection. There was no combatting the destructive rays and chemical
warfare of the Moon men. The United Americas, still weakened from a civil
war of their own, remained aloof and, for some strange reason, the Zar left
them in peace, contenting himself with his conquest of practically all of the
rest of the world. Now, it seemed, the two major powers were as separate as
if on different planets, there being no traffic between them save by
governmental sanction; and that was rarely given.

It grew uncomfortably warm in the compartment as the rocket car entered
the lower atmosphere but Karl listened spellbound to the astounding
revelations of the Moon man. There came a pause in the discourse of the
dwarf as a number of relays clicked furiously on the control board and the
vessel slackened its speed perceptibly.
“But,” said Karl, thinking aloud rather than meaning to interrupt, “what has
all this to do with me? Why does the government of this Zar want me?”
The dwarf bent close and eyed him cautiously. “Poor kid!” he whispered,
“it doesn’t seem right that you should suffer for something that happened
when you were born; something you know nothing about. But the Zar
knows best. You—”
There came a stabbing pencil of light from over Karl’s shoulder and the
green eyes of the dwarf went wide with horrified surprise. He clutched at
his breast where the flame had contacted, then slowly collapsed in a pitiful,
distorted heap. Karl recoiled from the odor of putrefaction that immediately
filled the compartment. He whirled to face the new danger but saw nothing
but the padded walls.
Then they were in darkness save for the blinking lights of the control board.
He was thrown forward violently and the piercing screech of compressed
air rushing past the vessel told him they had entered the receiving tube at
their destination and were being retarded in speed for the landing. This
much he had gathered from the explanations of the now silenced dwarf.
Laro, the other Moon man, remained mute at the controls. His companion
evidently had talked too much.

T
HE vessel had stopped and a section of the padded rear wall of the
compartment moved back to reveal a second chamber. There were
three other occupants of the ship and Karl knew now at whose hands
the talkative Moon man had met his death. One of the three—all wearers of
the purple—still held the generator of the dazzling ray in his hands. He
decided wisely that resistance was useless and followed meekly when he
was led from the ship.
Endlessly they rode upward in a high-speed lift, dismounting finally at a
pneumatic tube entrance. A special car whisked them roaring into 361 the

blackness. Then they were shot forth into the open and Karl saw the light of
the sun for the first time in many years. They were on the upper surface of a
great city, Dorn, the capital of the Continental Empire.
The air was filled with darting ships of all sorts and sizes, most of them
being pleasure craft of the wearers of the purple. To Karl it was the sudden
realization of his dreams. He was one of them. He, too, should be wearing
the purple. Then his heart sank as one of his guards prodded him into
action. His dream already was shattered for they stood at the entrance to a
great crystal pyramid that rose from the flat expanse of the roofs of Dorn. It
was the palace of the Zar.
It seemed then that fairyland had opened its gates to the young man in gray
denim. He immediately fell under its influence when they traversed a long
lane between rows of brightly colored growing things which filled the air
with sweet odors. Feathered creatures fluttered about and twittered and
caroled in the sheer joy of being alive. It was sweeter music than he had
ever believed possible or even imagined as existing. Again he forgot the
menace of the imperial edict which had brought him from the other side of
the world.

T
HEN rudely, he was brought back to earth. He was in the presence of
the mighty Zar and his three escorts were bowing themselves from the
huge room in which the wizened monarch sat enthroned. They had
finished their duties.
A shriveled face; beady eyes; trembling hands with abnormally large
knuckles; a cruel and determined mouth—these were the features that most
impressed Karl as he stared wordlessly at this Zar of the Eastern
Hemisphere. The magnificence of the royal robe was lost on the young
wearer of the gray.
“Well, well, so this is Peter Van Dorn, my beloved nephew.” The Zar was
speaking and the chilly sarcasm in which the words were uttered belied the
friendliness they otherwise might have implied.
“That’s what I’m told,” replied Karl, “though I didn’t know I’m supposed to
be the nephew of so great a figure as yourself.”
Not bad that, for an humble wearer of the gray.

“Oh, yes, yes, indeed. Why else should I have sent for you?”
“I have wondered why—and still wonder.”
“Oh, you wonder, eh?” The Zar inspected him carefully and then broke into
a cackle of horrible laughter. “A Van Dorn in gray denim!” he chortled. “A
mole of the Americas! And to think that even the Zar has been unable to
find him in all these years!”
“Stop!” bellowed Karl. “I’ll not have your ridicule. Come to the point now
and have it over with. Kill me if you will, but tell me the story!” He had
seen the slender tube in the Zar’s hand.

A
N expression of surprise, almost of admiration, flickered in the beady
eyes of the Zar and was gone. He spoke coldly.
“Very well, I shall explain. You, Peter, are actually my nephew. Your father,
Derek Van Dorn, was my brother; he a king of Belravia and I a poor but
experienced scientist. He scorned me and he paid, for I learned of the
ancient race of the other side of the Moon, the side we can not see from the
earth. I went to them and enlisted their aid in warring upon my brother.
When we returned to carry on this war I learned that I had a son. So, too,
did Derek. But my son was born in obscurity and Derek’s son—you, Peter
—in the lap of luxury. The war was short and, to me, sweet. Belravia was
first to fall, and I had your father removed from this life by the vibrating
death.”
“You monster!” cried Karl. But the slender rod menaced him.
“A moment, my hot-headed nephew. I vowed I’d have your life, Peter, 362
but
your father had a few friends and one of these spirited you away. So
temporarily you escaped. But now I have you where I can keep that vow.
You, too, shall die. By the vibration. But first—ha! ha!—I’ll give you a
taste of the purple. Just so the going will be harder.”
Karl kept his temper as best he could. He thought, conscience-stricken, of
old Rudolph, that good friend of his father. Then he thought of that youth he
had taken from the Square.
“Your son?” he asked gently. “Has he the triangular brand?”

The Zar was taken aback. “He has, yes. Why?” he asked.
“I have seen him in the Americas. He now lies wounded and in peril of his
life. What do you think of that?”
Karl was triumphant as the Zar paled.
“You lie, Peter Van Dorn!”

B
UT the beady eyes saw that the young man was truthful. Sudden fury
assailed the monarch of the East. A bell pealed its mellow summons
and three Moon men entered the Presence.
“Quick, Taru—the radiovision! Our ambassador in the Americas!” The Zar
was on his feet, his hard features terrible in fear and anger. “By God!” he
vowed, “I’ll lay waste the Americas if harm has come to my son. And
you”—turning to Karl—“I’ll reserve for you an even more terrible fate than
the vibrating death!”
The radiovision was wheeled in and in operation. A frightened face
appeared in its disc: the Zar’s ambassador across the sea.
“Moreau—my son!” snapped the Zar. “Where is he?”
“Majesty! Have mercy!” gasped Moreau. “Paul has eluded us. He was
skylarking—in the lower levels of New York. But our secret agents are
combing the passages. We’ll have him in twenty-four hours. I promise!”
The rage of the Zar was terrible to see. Karl expected momentarily that the
white flame would lay him low, for the anger of the mad ruler was directed
first at Moreau, then at himself. But a quick, evil calm succeeded the storm.
“You, Peter,” he stated, in tones suddenly silky, “shall have that twenty-four
hours—no more. If Moreau has not produced my son in that time you shall
be dismembered slowly. A finger; an ear; your tongue; a hand—until you
reveal the whereabouts of the heir to my throne!”
“Never! You scum!” Karl was on the dais in a single bound. He had the Zar
by the throat, his fingers twisting in the flabby flesh. Might as well have it
over at once. “Fratricide—murderer of my father, I’ll take you with me!”

B
UT it was not to be. The throne room was filled with retainers of the
mad emperor. Strong hands tore him away and he was borne,
struggling and fighting, to the floor. A sharp pain in his forearm. A
deadening of the muscles. He was powerless, save for the painful ability to
crawl to his knees, swaying drunkenly. A delicious languor overcame him.
Nothing mattered now. He saw that a tall man in the purple had withdrawn
the needle of the hypodermic and was replacing the instrument in its case.
Ever so slowly, it seemed.
The Zar was laughing. That horrible cackle. But Karl didn’t care. They’d
have their sport with him. Let ’em! Then it’d be over. Lord! If only he had
been a little quicker. He’d have torn the old Zar’s windpipe from its place!
“My word,” laughed the Zar. “The sacred word of a Van Dorn. I gave it.
He’ll wear the purple for a day. Take him from my sight!”
Karl was walking, quite willingly now. The effects of the drug were
altering. His muscular strength returned but his mental state underwent a
complete change. Always he’d wanted a taste of the purple. For years he’d
listened to the orators of the Square, to the conflicting statements of 363
old
Krassin. But now he’d see. He’d know the joys of the upper levels; the
pleasure cities, perhaps. For one day. But what did it matter? He found
himself laughing and joking with his companion, a heavy-set wearer of the
purple. They were in a luxurious apartment. Servants! Moon men all of
them, but so efficient. They stripped him of his gray denim; discarded it
contemptuously. Karl kicked the heap into a corner and laughed delightedly.
His bath was waiting.

M
UCH can happen in a day. Clothed in the purple, Karl—Peter Van
Dorn, he was, now—expanded. Turgid emotions surged through his
new being. He was a new man. In his rightful place. He was
delighted with the companionship of his new friend of the purple, Leon
Lemaire. An euphonious name! A fine fellow! Fool that the Zar must be, to
leave him in the care of so amiable a man. Why, Leon couldn’t hold him!
None of them could. He’d escape them all—if he wished. Twenty-four
hours, indeed!

They were in the midst of a gay company. Wine flowed freely, and Leon
had attached to their party a pair of beautiful damsels, young, and easy to
know. There was music and dancing. Lights of marvelous color played over
the assemblage in the huge hall, swaying their senses at the will of some
expert manipulator. Peter was a different person now. He was exhilarated to
the point of intoxication, but not by the wine. Somehow he couldn’t bear
the taste of the amber fluid the others were imbibing with such gusto. The
effects of the drug had left a coppery taste in his mouth. But no matter!
Rhoda, his lovely companion at the table leaned close. Her breath was hot
at his throat. He swept her into his arms. Leon and the other girl laughed
approvingly.
There were many such places in the upper levels of Dorn and they traveled
from one to another. Now their party was larger, it having been augmented
by the appearance of other of Leon’s friends. Fine companions, these men
of the purple, and the women were incomparable. Especially Rhoda. They
understood one another perfectly now. It was all as he had pictured it.
Someone proposed that they visit the intermediate levels. It would be such a
lark to watch the mechanicals. They made the drop in a lift. A laughing,
riotous party. And Peter was one of them! He felt that he had known them
for years. Rhoda clung to his arm, and the languorous glances from under
her long lashes set the blood racing madly in his veins.

I
N the levels of the mechanicals they romped boisterously. To them the
strange robots—creatures of steel and glass and copper—were objects of
ridicule. Poor, senseless mechanisms that performed the tasks that made
the wearers of the purple independent of labor. Here they saw the
preparation of their synthetic food, untouched by human hands. In one
chamber a group of mechanicals, soulless and brainless, engaged in the
delicate chemical compounding of raw materials that went into the making
of their clothing. Here was a nursery, where tiny tots born to the purple
were reared to adolescence by unfeeling but efficient mechanical nurses.
The mothers of the purple could not be bothered with their offspring until
they had reached the age of reason. The whirring machinery of a huge
power plant provided much amusement for the feminine members of the

party. It was all so massive; throbbing with energy. But dirty! Ugh! Lucky
the attendants could be mechanicals.
“We have visited the lower levels,” whispered Rhoda in his ear, “but not
often. It isn’t pleasant. Ignorant fools in the gray denim—too many of them.
I don’t know why we permit their existence. Fools who will not learn.
Education made us as we are, and they won’t take it. Sullen looks and evil
364

leers are all that they have for us. Hope nobody suggests going down there
now.”
“Me, too,” said Peter. He had forgotten that once he was Karl Krassin, a
wearer of the despised gray.
Someone in the party was becoming restless. They must move on.
“Where to?” asked Peter.
“Sans Dolor, sweet boy. A pleasure city within a hundred kilometers of
Dorn. You’ll love it, Peter.”
A pleasure city! Fondest dream of the wearers of the gray! In the dim past,
when he was Karl, he had dreamed it often. Now he was to visit one!

T
HEY were atop the city now and the crystal palace of the Zar
shimmered in the sunlight off there across the flat upper surface of
Dorn. But it seemed so far away that Peter did not give it a second
thought. He was living in the present.
A swift aero took them into the skies and they roared out above the
wilderness that was everywhere between the great cities of earth. Funny
nobody thought of leaving the cities and exploring the jungles of the
outside. But, of course, it wasn’t necessary. They had everything they
needed within the cities. All of their wants were supplied by the
mechanicals and by the few toilers in the gray who still persisted in
ignorance and in some perverse ideas that they must work in order to live.
Besides, the jungle was dangerous.
Sans Dolor loomed into view, a great island floating in the air a thousand
meters above the tossing waters of the ocean. Peter gave not a thought to
the forces that kept it suspended. Dimly he recalled certain words of old
Rudolph, words regarding the artificial emanations that had been

discovered as capable of counteracting the force of gravity. But his mind
was intent on the pleasures to come.
They were over the city. Carefully tended foliage lined its streets and a
smooth lagoon glistened in its center. Its towers and spires were decorated
with gay colors. The streets were filled with wearers of the purple and the
nude bodies of bathers in the lagoon gleamed white in the strong sunlight.
He sensed anew the nearness of Rhoda. Her soft warm hand nestled in his
and she responded instantly to his sudden embrace.
There came a shock and the party was stilled in dismay. The aero careened
violently and the pilot struggled with controls that were dead. Sans Dolor
dropped rapidly away beneath them. They were shooting skyward, drawn
by some inexplicable and invisible energy from above.

R
HODA screamed and held him close, trembling violently. All of the
women screamed and the men cursed. Leon arose to his feet and
stared at Peter. The friendliness was gone from his features and he spat
forth an accusation. A glistening mechanism appeared in his hand as if by
magic. A ray generator! He had been appointed by the Zar to guard this
upstart and, whatever happened, he’d not let him escape with his life. The
girl shuddered at sight of the weapon and extricated herself from his arms.
Her affection too had been a pose.
Peter’s mind was clearing from the effects of the drug. He had not the
slightest idea of what might have caused the quick change in the situation
but he resolved he would die fighting, if die he must. Leon fumbled with
the catch of the generator. It refused to operate. The force that was drawing
them upward had paralyzed all mechanisms aboard the little aero. Flinging
it from him in disgust he sprang for Peter.
Their minds befuddled, the rest of the men watched dully. The women
huddled together in a corner, whimpering. They were a sorry lot after all,
thought Karl. He was no longer Peter Van Dorn, and he thrilled to the joy of
battle.

L
EON LEMAIRE was no mean antagonist. His flailing arms were 365

everywhere and a huge fist caught Karl on the side of his head and sent
him reeling. But this only served to clear his mind further and to fill
him with a cold rage. He bored in unmercifully and Lemaire soon was on
the defensive. A blow to his midsection had him puffing and Karl
hammered in rights and lefts to the now sinister face that rocked his
opponent to his heels. But the minion of the Zar was crafty. He slid to the
floor as if groggy, then with catlike agility, dove for Karl’s knees, bringing
him down with a crash.
The air whistled by them as the ship was drawn upward with ever-
increasing speed. The other passengers cowered in fright as the two men
rolled over and over on the floor, banging at each other indiscriminately.
Both were hurt. Karl’s lip was split, and bleeding profusely. One eye was
closing. But now he was on top and he pummeled his opponent to a pulp.
Long after he ceased resisting them, the blows continued until the features
of Leon Lemaire were unrecognizable. The infuriated Karl did not see that
one of the members of the party was creeping up on him from behind.
Neither was he aware that the upward motion of the aero had ceased and
that they now hung motionless in space. A terrific blow at the base of his
skull sent him sprawling. Must have been struck by a rocket, one of those
funny ships that crossed the ocean so quickly. A million lights danced
before his aching eyeballs.
Lying prone across the inert body of his foe, dimly conscious and fingers
clutching weakly, he knew that the cabin was filled with people. Alien
voices bellowed commands. There was the screaming of women; the sound
of blows; curses ... then all was silence and darkness.

I
T was a far cry to the little book shop off Cooper Square, but Karl was
calling for Rudolph when he next awoke to the realization that he was
still in the land of the living. His head was bandaged and his tongue
furry. A terrible hangover. Then he heard voices and they were discussing
Peter Van Dorn. He opened one eye as an experiment. The other refused to
open. But it might have been worse. At least he was alive; he could see well
enough with the one good optic.

“Sh-h!” whispered one of the voices. “He’s recovering!”
He looked solemnly into the eyes of an old man; a pair of wise and gentle
eyes that reminded him somehow of Rudolph’s.
“Quiet now, Peter,” said the old man. “You’ll be all right in a few minutes.
Banged up a bit, you are, but nothing serious.”
“Don’t call me Peter,” objected Karl. He loathed the sound of the name;
loathed himself for his recent thoughts and actions. “I am Karl Krassin,” he
continued, “and as such will remain until I die.”
There were others in the room and he saw glances of satisfaction pass
between them. This was a strange situation. These men were not of the
purple. Neither were they of the gray. Their garments shone with the
whiteness of pure silver. And that’s what they were; of finely woven
metallic cloth. Was he in another world?
“Very well, Karl.” The kind old man was speaking once more. “I merely
want you to know that you are among friends—your father’s friends.”

S
URPRISED into complete wakefulness, Karl struggled to a seated
position and surveyed the group that faced him. They were a fine
looking lot, mostly older men, but there was a refreshing
wholesomeness about them.
“My father?” he faltered. “He’s not alive.”
“No, my poor boy. Derek Van Dorn left this life at the hands of your uncle,
Zar Boris. But we, his friends, are here to avenge him and to restore to you
his throne.”
“But—but—I still do not understand.” 366

“Of course not, because we’ve kept ourselves hidden from the world for
more than twenty-two years, waiting for this very moment. There are forty-
one of us, including Rudolph, my brother. We have lived in the jungle since
Boris conquered the Eastern Hemisphere. But amongst our numbers were
several scientists, two greater than was Boris, even in his heyday. They
have done wonderful things and we are now prepared to take back what was

taken from Derek—and more. His life we can not restore—Heaven rest him
—but his kingdom we can. And to his son it shall be returned.
“You were given into Rudolph’s care when little more than a babe in arms
and he has cared for you well. We’ve watched, you know, in the
detectoscopes—long range radiovision mechanisms that can penetrate solid
walls, the earth itself, to bring to us the images and voices of persons who
may be on the other side of the world. We’ve followed your every move,
my boy, and the first time we feared for you was yesterday when the drug
of the Zar’s physician stole away your sense of right and wrong. But we
were in time to save you, and now we are ready to kneel at your feet and
proclaim you our king. First there is the Zar to be dealt with and then we
shall set up the new regime. Are you with us?”

K
ARL gazed at the speaker in wonder. He a king? Always to live
amongst the wearers of the purple? To be responsible for the welfare
of half the world? It was unthinkable! But Zar Boris, the murderer of
his own father—he must be punished, and at the hands of the son!
“I’ll do it,” he said simply. “That is, I’ll do whatever you have planned in
the way of exterminating the Zar. Then we’ll talk of the new empire. But
how is the Zar to be overcome? I thought he was invincible, with his Moon
men and terrible weapons.”
“Ah! That, my boy, is where our scientists have triumphed. True, his rays
were terrible. They could not be combatted when he first returned. The
strange chemicals and gases of the Moon men defied analysis or
duplication. His citadel atop the city of Dorn is proof against them all; proof
against explosives and rays of all kinds known to him. The disintegration
and decomposition rays have no effect on the crystal of its walls. It is
hermetically sealed from the outer air so can not be gassed. The vibration
impulses have no effect upon its reinforced structure. But there is a ray, a
powerful destructive agent, against which it is not proof. And our scientists
have developed this agency. You shall have the privilege of pressing the
release of the energy that destroys the arch-fiend in his lair. His dominance
over, the empire will fall. We shall take it—for you.”

A strange exaltation shone from the faces of those in the room, and Karl
found that it was contagious. His bosom swelled and he itched to handle the
controls of this wonderful ray.
“This ray,” continued the brother of old Rudolph, “carries the longest
vibrations ever measured, the vibrations of infra-red, the heat-ray. We have
succeeded in concentrating a terrific amount of power in its production, and
with it are able to produce temperatures in excess of that of the interior of
the earth, where all substances are molten or gaseous. The Zar’s crystal
palace cannot withstand it for a second. He cannot escape!”
“How’ll you know he’s there at the time?” Karl was greatly excited, but he
was curious too.
“Come with me, my boy. I’ll show you.” The old man led him from the
room and the others followed respectfully.

T
HEY stopped at a circular port and Karl saw that they were high above
the earth in a vessel that hovered motionless, quivering with what367

seemed like human eagerness to be off.
“This vessel?” he asked.
“It’s a huge sphere; the base of our operations. To it we drew the aero on
which you were fighting. A magnetic force discovered by our scientists and
differing only slightly from that used in counteracting gravity. We let the
rest of them go; foolishly I think. But it’s done now and we have no fear.
From this larger vessel we shall send forth smaller ones, armed with the
heat-ray. The flagship of the fleet is to be yours and you’ll lead the attack on
Dorn. Here—I’ll show you the Zar.”
They had reached the room of the detectoscopes—a mass of mechanisms
that reminded Karl of nothing so much as the vitals of the intermediate
levels which he had visited with Leon—and Rhoda. He knew that he
flushed when he thought of her. What a fool he had been!
A disc glowed as one of the silver-robed strangers manipulated the controls.
The upper surface of Dorn swung into view. Rapidly the image drew nearer
and they were looking at the crystal pyramid that was the Zar’s palace.
Down, down to its very tip they passed. Karl recoiled from the image as it

seemed they were falling to its glistening sides. The sensation passed. They
were through, penetrating solid crystal, masonry, steel and duralumin
girders. Room after room was opened to their view. It was magic—the
magic of the upper levels.

N
OW they were in the throne room. A group of purple-clad men and
women stood before the dais. Leon, Rhoda—all of his wild
companions were there, facing the dais. The Zar was raging and the
words of his speech came raucously to their ears through the sound-
producing mechanism.
“You’ve failed miserably, all of you,” he screamed. “He’s gotten away and
you know the penalty. Taru—the vibrating ray!”
The Moon man already was fussing with a gleaming machine, a machine
with bristling appendages having metallic spheres on their ends, a machine
in which dozens of vacuum tubes glowed suddenly.
Rhoda screamed. It was a familiar sound to Karl. He noted with satisfaction
that Leon could hardly stand on his feet and that his face was covered with
plasters. Then, startled, he saw that Leon was shivering as with the ague.
His outline on the screen grew dim and indistinct as the rate of vibration
increased. Then the body bloated and became misty. He could see through
it. The vibrating death! His father had gone the same way!
Karl groaned at the thought. The whine of the distant machine rose in pitch
until it passed the limit of audibility. Tiny pin-points of incandescence
glowed here and there from the Zar’s victims as periods of vibration were
reached that coincided with the natural periods of certain of the molecules
of their structure. They were no longer recognizable as human beings.
Shimmering auras surrounded them. Suddenly they were torches of cold
fire, weaving, oscillating with inconceivable rapidity. Then they were gone;
vanished utterly.
The Zar laughed—that horrible cackle again.
“Great God!” exclaimed Karl, “let’s go! The fiend must not live a moment
longer than necessary. Are you ready?”
Rudolph’s brother smiled. “We’re ready Karl,” he said.

T
HE great vessel hummed with activity. The five torpedo-shaped aeros
of the battle fleet were ready to take off from the cavities in the hull. In
the flagship Karl was stationed at the control of the heat-ray. His
instructions in its operation had been simple. A telescopic sight with
crosshairs for the centering of the object to be attacked; a small lever. That
was all. He burned with impatience.
Then they were dropping; falling clear of the mother ship. The pilot pressed
368

a button and the electronic motors started. A burst of roaring energy
streamed from the tapered stern of their vessel and the earth lurched
violently to meet them. Down, down they dived until the rocking surface of
Dorn was just beneath them. Then they flattened out and circled the vast
upper surface. From the corner of his eye Karl saw that the other four
vessels of his fleet were just behind. There was a flurry among the wasplike
clouds of pleasure craft over the city. They scurried for cover. Something
was amiss!
“Hurry!” shouted Karl. “The warning is out! There is no time to lose!”
He pressed his face to the eye-piece of his sight, his finger on the release
lever of the ray. The crystal pyramid crossed his view and was gone. Again
it crossed, more slowly this time. And now his sight was dead on it, the
gleaming wall rushing toward him. Pressure on the tiny button. They’d
crash into the palace in another second! But no, a brilliant flash obscured
his vision, a blinding light that made the sun seem dark by comparison.
They roared on and upward. He took his eye from the telescope and stared
ahead, down. The city was dropping away, and, where the crystal palace
had stood, there was a spreading blob of molten material from which
searing vapors were drifting. The roofs of the city were sagging all around
and great streams of the sparkling, sputtering liquid dripped into the
openings that suddenly appeared. Derek Van Dorn was avenged.
“Destroy! Destroy!” yelled Karl madly. A microphone hung before him and
his words rang through every vessel of his convoy.

T HE lust of battle was upon him. A fleet of the Zar’s aeros had risen
from below; twenty of them at least. These would be manned by Moon

creatures, he knew, and would carry all of the dreadful weapons which had
originated on that strange body. But he did not know that his own ships
were insulated against most of the rays used by the Zar’s forces. He knew
only that he must fight; fight and kill; exterminate every last one of the
Zar’s adherents or be exterminated in the attempt.
Kill! Kill! The madness was contagious. His pilot was a marvel and drove
his ship straight for the massed ships of the foe. The air was vivid with
light-streamers. A ray from an enemy vessel struck the thick glass of the
port through which he looked and the outer surface was shattered and pock-
marked. But a cloud of vapor and a dripping stream of fiery liquid told him
his own ray had taken effect on a vessel of the enemy. One! They wheeled
about and spiraled, coming up under another of the Zar’s aeros. It vanished
in a puff of steam and they narrowly missed being covered by the falling
remnants of incandescent liquid. Two! Karl’s aim was good and he gloated
in the fact. Three! They climbed and turned over, dropping again into the
fray. Four!
The air grew stifling, for the expended energy of the enemies’ rays must
needs be absorbed. It could not disintegrate them nor decompose their
bodies, but the contacts were many and the liberation of heat enormous.
They were suffocating! But Karl would not desist. They drove on, now
beneath, now above an enemy ship. He lost count.
One of his own vessels was in trouble. The report came to him from the
little speaker at his ear. He looked around in alarm. A glowing object reeled
uncertainly over there between two of the aeros of the Zar. The
concentration of beams of vibrations was too much for the sturdy craft. It
was red hot and its occupants burned alive where they sat. Suddenly it
slipped into a spin and went slithering down into the city, leaving a gaping
opening where it fell. This sobered him somewhat, but he went into 369 the
battle with renewed fury.

H
OW many had they brought down? Fifteen? Sixteen? He tore his
purple jacket from his body. The perspiration rolled from his pores.
His own ship would be next. But what did it matter? Kill! Kill! He
shouted once more into the microphone, then dived into battle. Another and
another! In Heaven’s name, how many were there? It was maddening. If

only he could breathe. His lungs were seared; his eyes smarting from the
heat. And then it was over.
Three of the Zar’s aeros remained, and these turned tail to run for it. No!
They were falling, nose down, under full power; diving into the city from
which they had come. Suicide? Yes. They couldn’t face the recriminations
that must come to them. And anything was better than facing that burning
death from the strange little fighters which had come from out the skies.
Dorn was a mass of wreckage.
Karl tore at the fastenings of the ports, searing his fingers on the heated
metal. His pilot had collapsed, the little aero heading madly skyward with
no guiding hand. Air! They must have air! He loosened the pilot’s jacket;
slapped frantically at his wrists in the effort to bring him to consciousness.
Then he was at the controls of the vessel, tugging on first one, then the
other. The aero circled and spun, executing the most dangerous of sideslips
and dives. A little voice was speaking to him—the voice of the radio—
instructing him. In a daze he followed instructions as best he could. The
whirlings of the earth stabilized after a time and he found he was flying the
vessel; climbing rapidly.

A
SENSE of power came to him as the little voice of the radio continued
to instruct. Here were the controls of the electronic motor; there the
gravity-energy. He was proceeding in the wrong direction. But what
did it matter? He learned the meaning of the tiny figures of the altimeter;
the difference between the points of the compass. Still he drove on.
“East! Turn East!” begged the little voice from the radio. “You’re heading
west. Your speed—a thousand kilometers an hour—it’s too fast. Turn back,
Zar Peter!”
He tore the loud speaker of the radio from its fastenings. West! He wanted
to go west! On and on he sped, becoming more and more familiar with the
workings of the little vessel as he progressed. A cooling breeze whistled
from the opened ports, a breeze that smelled of the sea. His heart sang with
the wonder of it all. He could fly. And fly he did. Zar Peter? Never! He
knew now where he belonged; knew what he wanted. He’d find the coast of
North America. Follow it until he located New York. A landing would be

easy, for had not the voice instructed him in the use of the gravity-energy?
He’d make his way to the lower levels, to the little book shop of Rudolph
Krassin. A suit of gray denim awaited him there and he’d never discard it.

O
NWARD he sped into the night, which was falling fast. He held to his
westward course like a veteran of the air lanes. The pilot had ceased
to breathe and Karl was sorry. Game little devil, that pilot. Have to
shove his body overboard. Too bad.
Rudolph’s brother would understand. He’d be watching in the detectoscope.
And the others—those who had wished to seat him on a throne—they’d
understand, too. They’d have to!
Rudolph would forgive him, he knew. Paul Van Dorn—his own cousin—the
secret agents of the Zar would never locate him! Too many friends of
Rudolph’s were of the red police.
He gave himself over to happy thoughts as the little aero sped on in the
darkness. Home! He was going home! Back to the gray denim, where he
belonged and where now he would remain content.

370

The Ape-Men of Xlotli
By David R. Sparks

CHAPTER I

K
IRBY did not know what mountains they were. He did know that the
Mannlicher bullets of eleven bad Mexicans were whining over his

head and whizzing past the hoofs of his galloping, stolen horse. The shots
were mingled with yelps which pretty well curdled his spine. In the
circumstances, the unknown range of snow mountains towering blue and
white beyond the arid, windy plateau, offering he could not tell what
dangers, seemed a paradise. Looking at them, Kirby laughed harshly to
himself.
As he dug the heels of his 371

aviator’s boots into the stallion’s A beautiful face in the depths of a geyser—and
Kirby plunges into a desperate mid-Earth conflict
flanks, the animal galloped even with the dreadful Feathered Serpent.
faster than before, and Kirby
took hope. Then more bullets and more yelps made him think that his
advantage might prove only temporary. Nevertheless, he laughed again, and
as he became accustomed to the feel of a stallion under him, he even
essayed a few pistol shots back at the pack of frantic, swarthy devils he had
fooled.

His head wavered back and forth and his hiss filled the night.

Three hours ago he had been eating a peaceful breakfast with his friend and372

commandant, Colonel Miguel de Castanar, in the sunlit patio of the
commandant’s hacienda. Castanar, chief of the air patrol for the district, had
waxed enthusiastic over the suppression of last spring’s revolutionists and
the cowed state of up-country bandits. Captain Freddie Kirby, American
instructor of flying to Mexican pilots in the making, had agreed with him
and asked for one of the Wasps and three days’ leave with which to go
visiting in Laredo. The simple matter of a broken fuel line, a forced landing
two hundred kilometres from nowhere, and the unlucky proximity of the
not-so-cowed horsemen, were the things which had changed the day from
what it had been to what it was.

The one piece of good fortune which had befallen him since the bandits had
surrounded the wrecked Wasp, looted it, and taken its lone pilot prisoner,
was the break he was getting now. During the squadron’s first halt to feed,
he had knocked down his guards and made a bolt for the grazing stallion.
So far, the attempt was proving worth while.

O
N and on the stallion lunged toward the white mountains. Kirby’s eyes
became red rimmed now from fatigue and the glare of the sun and the
dust of the pitilessly bare plateau. A negligible scalp wound under his
mop of straw-colored hair, slight as it was, did not add to his comfort. But
still he would not give up, for the horse, as if it sensed what its rider needed
most, was making directly for a narrow ravine which debouched on the
plateau from the nearest mountain flank.
It was the promise of cover afforded by the jagged rocks and jungle growth
of that ravine which kept hope alive in Kirby’s throbbing brain.
The stallion was blown and staggering. Foam from the heavily bitted mouth
flashed back in great yellow flakes against Kirby’s dust-caked aviator’s
tunic. But just the same, the five mile gallop had carried both horse and
rider beyond range of any but the most expert rifle shot. And Kirby knew
that if his own splendid mount was almost ready to crash, the horses of his
pursuers must be in worse shape still. So for the third time since the fight
had begun, he laughed. This time there was no harshness, but only relief, in
the sound which came from his dry lips.
Ten minutes later, he flung himself out of his saddle. Like the caress of a
vast, soothing hand, the shadowed coolness of the ravine lay upon him. As
his feet struck ground, they splashed in the water overflowing from a spring
at the base of an immense rock. At once Kirby dropped the reins on the
stallion’s neck, giving him his freedom, and as the horse lowered his head
to drink, Kirby stooped also.
There was cover everywhere. Kirby’s first move after pulling both himself
and the horse away from the spring, was to glance up the long, deeply
shaded canyon which he had entered—a gash hacked into the breast of the
steep mountain as by a titanic ax. Then, reassured as to the possibilities for
a defensive retreat, he glanced back toward the dazzling, bare plateau.

I
T was what he saw taking place amongst the sombreroed bandits out
there which made the grin of satisfaction fade from his broad mouth. His
last glance backward, before bolting into the canyon mouth, had showed
him a ragged squadron of men left far behind, yet galloping after him still.
But now—
Presently a puzzled frown made wrinkles in Freddie Kirby’s wide
sunburned forehead. He relaxed his grip upon the heavy Luger, which, in
his big hands, looked like a cap pistol, and rubbed his eyes.
But he was not mistaken. The horsemen had halted! Out there on the
glaring, alkali-arid plateau, they were standing as still as so many statues.
373

Looking toward the canyon mouth which had swallowed their quarry, they
certainly were, but they were halted as completely as men struck dead.
“Huh,” Kirby grunted, and scratched behind his ear.
The next second he swung around to look at his horse, uncertain what he
was going to do next, but aware of the fact that right now, with a lot of
unknown country between himself and Castanar’s sunlit patio, the stallion
was going to be a friend in need.
As he turned, however, prepared to take up the loose reins, something else
happened. The stallion let out a neigh as shrill as a trumpet blast. As Kirby
jumped, grabbed for the bridle, his fingers found empty air. Like a crazy
animal the stallion leaped past him, barely missing him. Out toward the
plain the horse jumped, out and away from the shaded canyon mouth, out
toward the spot where other horses waited. And despite the animal’s blown
condition, the speed he put into his retreat left Kirby dazed.

A
FTER a helpless, profanity-filled second, Kirby scratched behind his
ear again. As certain as the fact that almost his sole hope of getting
back to civilization depended upon the stallion, was the fact that the
brute did not intend to stop running until he dropped.
“Now what in the hell ever got into his crazy head?” Kirby muttered grimly.
Then he turned around to glance up the shadow-filled slash of a canyon,
and sniffed.

“Huh!”
Faintly in the air had risen an odor the like of which he had never
encountered in his life. A combination, it was, of the unforgetable stench
which hangs over a battlefield when the dead are long unburied, and of a
fragrance more rare, more heady, more poignantly sweet than any essence
ever concocted by Parisian perfumer.
With the drifting scent came a sound. Faint, carrying from a distance, the
rumble which Kirby heard was almost certainly that of a geyser.
There was no telling what had brought the troop of horsemen to a halt, but
after a time Kirby knew that the cause of his horse’s sudden departure must
have been a whiff of the strange perfume.

F
OR a long time he stood still, watching the crazy stallion dwindle in
size, watching the line of unexpectedly timid bandits. Then, when it
became apparent that the horsemen were going to stay put either until
he came out, or showed that he never was coming out, he shrugged, and
swung on his heel so that he faced up the canyon.
The odor was dying away now, and the geyser rumble was gone. In Kirby’s
heart came a mingled feeling of tense uneasiness and fascinated curiosity.
Momentarily he was almost glad that his horse had bolted, and that his
pursuers were blocking any lane of retreat except that offered by the
canyon. If things had been different, the queer behavior of the Mexicans,
the unaccountable actions of his horse and the equally strange growth of his
own uneasiness might have made him uncertain whether he would go up
the canyon or not. Now it was the only thing to do, and Kirby was glad
because, fear or no fear, he wanted to go on.
“I wonder,” he said out loud as he started, “just what the denizens of First
Street in Kansas would say to a layout like this!”

CHAPTER II

A
T the end of an hour he was still wondering.

At midday the canyon was chill and dank, lit only by a half light which at
times dwindled to a deep dusk as the rock walls beetled together hundreds
of feet above his head. Always when he stumbled through one of the
darkest passages, he heard and half saw immense gray bats flapping above 374

him. In the half-lit reaches, he hardly took a step without seeing great rats
with gray coats, yellow teeth, and evil pink eyes. But rats and bats
combined were not as bad as the snakes. They were almost white, and
nowhere had he seen rattlers of such size. If his caution relaxed for a
second, they struck at him with fangs as long and sharp as needles.
The tortured, twisted cedars, the paloverdi, occatilla, cholla, opunti, through
which he edged his laborious way, all offered an almost animate, armed
hostility.
Altogether this journey was the least sweet he had taken anywhere. Yet he
went on.
Why had eleven Mexican bandits refused to advance even to within decent
rifle range of the canyon’s mouth? What was there about the putrid yet
gorgeous perfume that had made the stallion go off his nut, so to speak?
After a time, Kirby veered away from a fourteen-foot rattler which flashed
in a loathsome coil on his left hand. Hungry, weakened by all he had been
through since breakfast time, he plodded doggedly on.
But a moment later he stumbled past a twisted cedar, and then stopped,
forgetting even the snakes.
At his feet lay the bleached skeleton of a man.

B
ESIDE the right hand, in a position which indicated that only the final
relaxation of death had loosened his grip upon a precious object, lay a
cylinder, carefully carved, of rich, yellow gold.
Of the science of anthropology Kirby knew enough to make him sure that
the dolicocephalic skull and characteristically shaped pelvic and thigh
bones of the skeleton had belonged to a white man.
As for the cylinder—But he was not so sure what that was.

Regardless of the dry swish of a rattler’s body on the rocks behind him, he
lifted the object from the spot in which it had lain for no man knew how
long. Of much the size and shape of an old-time cylindrical wax
phonograph record, the softly gleaming thing weighed, he judged, almost
two pounds.
Two pounds of soft, virgin gold of a quality as fine as any he had seen
amongst all the treasures brought out of Mexico, Yucatan, and Peru
combined!
But the gold was not the only thing. If Kirby was human enough to think in
terms of treasure, he was also enough of an amateur anthropologist to hold
his breath over the carvings on the yellow surface.
First he recognized the ancient symbols of Sun and Moon. And then a
representation, semi-realistic, semi-conventionalized, of Quetzalcoatl, the
Feathered Serpent, known in all the annals of primitive Mexican religions.
Good enough.
But the mere symbols by no means told the whole story of the cylinder. The
workmanship was archaic, older than any Aztec art Kirby knew, older than
Toltec, older far, he ventured to guess, than even earliest archaic Mayan
carvings.
God, what a find!

F
OR a moment it seemed almost impossible that he, Freddie Kirby,
native of Kansas, unromantic aviator, should have been the one to
discover this relic of an unknown, lost race. Yet the cylinder of gold
was there, in his hand.
After a long minute Kirby looked around him, then listened.
From up the canyon came the provocative rumble of the geyser. It was
closer now, and Kirby, glancing at his watch which had been spared to him
in the Wasp’s crash, noted that just forty-four minutes had passed since the
last eruption. There was nothing to be done about the bleached skeleton. So,
tucking the precious cylinder into his tunic, Kirby headed on up the gash375of
a canyon.

Far away indeed seemed the neat, maple-shaded asphalt street, the rows of
parked cars and farm wagons, the telephone office and drug store and bank,
of the Kansas town where he had grown up.
Time passed until again he heard the geyser, and again was dizzied by the
perfume. As the fragrance—close and powerful now—died away, he flailed
with one arm at a two-foot bat which flapped close to his head.
And then he trudged his dogged way around a deeply shadowed bend, and
found the chasm not only almost wholly dark, but narrower than it had been
at any previous point.
“Holy mackerel,” Kirby groaned. “Phew! If this keeps up, I—”
He stopped. His jaw dropped.
“Oh, hell!”
The beetling walls narrowed in until the gash was scarcely fifteen feet wide.
Further progress was barred by a smooth wall which rose sheer in front of
him.

K
IRBY did not know how many seconds passed before he made out
through the gloom that the wall was man-made and carved with the
same symbols of Sun, Moon, and Feathered Serpent, which
ornamented the cylinder of gold. But when he did realize at last, the shout
with which he expressed his feeling was anything but a groan.
It simply meant that the skeleton which once had been a man, had almost
surely found the golden cylinder beyond the wall and not in the canyon.
And if the dead man had passed that smooth, carved barrier, another man
could do it!
Kirby jumped forward, began to search in the darkness for some hidden
entrance.
Minute after minute passed. He gave another cry. He saw a long, upright
crack in the stone surface, and a quick push of his hands made the stones in
front of him give almost an inch.
All at once his shoulder was planted, and behind that square shoulder was
straining all the muscle of his two hundred pound body. The result was all

that he desired. When he ceased pushing, a slab of rock gaped wide before
him, giving entrance to a pitch dark tunnel.
For a moment he held the portal back, then, releasing his pressure, he
stepped into the dark passage. By the time a ponderous grating of rocks
assured him that the door had swung shut of its own weight, he had
produced matches and struck a light.

T HE puny flame showed him a curving passage hewn smoothly through
the heart of bedrock. Before the flare died he walked twenty feet, and
as another match burned to his fingers, he found the right hand curve
of the passage giving way to a left hand twist. After that he dared use no
more of his precious matches. But just when the darkness was beginning to
wear badly on his nerves, he uttered a low cry.
As he increased his rapid walk to a run, the faint light he had suddenly seen
ahead of him grew until it became a circular flare of daylight which marked
the tunnel’s end.
Out of the passage Kirby strode with shoulders square and head up, his
cool, level, practical blue eyes wide with wonder. Out of the tunnel he
strode into the valley of the perfumed geyser.
“God above!”
The words were vibrant with hoarse reverence. He saw the sunlight of a
cliff-surrounded diminutive Garden of Eden. He saw a vale of flowering
grass, of palms and live oaks, saw patches of lilies so huge as to transcend
belief, and dizzying clumps of tree cactus almost as tall as the palms
themselves.
What was more, he saw in the center of this upland, cliff-guarded valley, a
gaping black orifice which every faculty of judgment told him was 376 the
mouth of the geyser of perfume. And beside it, outstretched on a smooth
sheet of rock which glistened as though coated with a layer of clear,
sparkling glass, he saw—

IRBY blinked his eyes rapidly, hardly believing what he saw.

K On the glistening rock lay the perfectly preserved figure of a Spanish
Conquistadore in full armor. Morion and breast-plate were in place,
and glistened as though they had been burnished this morning. And
the Spaniard’s dark, handsome, bearded face! Kirby saw instantly that no
decay had touched it, that even the hairs of the beard were perfect. The
whole armor-clad corpse gleamed softly with a covering of the same glassy
substance which covered the rock.
Kirby glanced at his watch, saw that twelve minutes must elapse before the
geyser spouted again. Then his eyes narrowed. He remained standing where
he was, hard by the mouth of the tunnel, knowing that a wise man would
conduct cautiously his exploration of this valley of wonders.
Arsenic! Silicon!
The two words stood out sharply in his thought. In Africa existed plenty of
springs whose waters contained enough arsenic to bring death to those who
drank. Might not the Spaniard’s presence here be explained, then, by
assuming that the geyser water was charged with a strong arsenic content,
and, in addition, with some sort of silicon solution which, left to dry in the
air, hardened to glass?
Lord, what a discovery to take back with him to Kansas! Almost it made the
discovery of the golden cylinder pale by comparison. Why, the commercial
uses to which this silicon water might be put were almost without limit, and
the owner of the concession might confidently expect to make millions!
It was while Kirby stood there, breathless and jubilant, waiting for the
geyser to spout, that he began to feel that he was being watched.
Suddenly, with a start, he shot a sweeping glance over the whole grove. But
that did no good. He saw nothing save sunlight and waving green leaves.
Eleven days were to pass before he discovered all that was to be involved in
that sensation of being gazed at by unseen eyes.

CHAPTER III

A
T the beginning of the eleventh morning in the valley, Kirby had again
posted himself close to the mouth of the black tunnel, and again felt
that hidden eyes were observing him.

But this morning differed from the first morning, because now, for the first
time, he was ready to do something about the watcher or watchers.
Exploration of the whole valley had not helped. Therefore, there lay at his
feet a considerable coil of rope, the manufacture of which from plaited
strands of the tough grass in his Eden had taken him whole days. With what
patience he could find, he was waiting for the gigantic spout of milky-
colored, perfumed water which would mean that the geyser had gone off
and would erupt no more for exactly forty-four minutes.
Eleven days in the valley!
While he waited, Kirby considered them. Who had made the beautiful
footprints beside him, when he had slept at last after his arrival here? Why
had so many of the queer, fuzzy topped shrubs with immense yam-shaped
roots, which grew here been taken away during that first sleep, and during
all his other periods of sleep? Who had taken them? Early in his stay, he had
learned that the tuberlike roots were good to eat and would sustain life, and
he supposed that the unseen people of the valley took them for food. But
who were these people of the valley?
Who had laid beside him during his first sleep the immense lily with
perfume like that which came with the milky geyser spray—that spray377of
death and delight mingled? Why had someone scratched a line in the earth
from him directly to the distant orifice of the geyser? Was this, as he
believed, a signal to come not only to the edge of the orifice, but to lower
himself down into its depths? And if the line were intended as a signal, did
the persons who came to the valley while he slept, always eluding him,
wish him well or mean to do him harm?
Last question of all: had the beautiful girl’s face he believed he had seen
just once, been real or an hallucination? It had been while he was kneeling
at the very edge of the geyser cone, staring down its many colored throat,
that the vision had appeared. Misty white amidst the green gloom, the face
had been turned up to him, smiling, its lips forming a kiss, and its great eyes
beckoning. Had the face been real or a dream?
Eleven days in the valley! Now, with his braided rope ready at last, he was
going to do something which might help to answer his questions.

K
IRBY reached out and began to run his grass rope, yard by yard,
through his hands, searching carefully for any flaw. A canyon wren
made the air sweet above him, while the morning sun began to wink
and blink against the shadows which still lay against the face of the
guardian cliffs. Kirby glanced at his watch and got up.
Crossing beyond the mouth of the geyser, he grinned good morning at his
friend the Conquistadore, and marched on into the shade of the live oak
which grew nearest the geyser. Here he made one end of his rope fast to the
gnarled trunk, inspected his pistol, patted his tunic to make sure that the
cylinder of gold was safe, then stood by to await the geyser.
With the passing of three minutes there came from the still empty orifice a
sonorous rumbling. Kirby grinned.
From deep in the earth issued a sound of fizzing and bubbling, and then, to
the accompaniment of subterranean thunder, burst loose the milky, upward
column which had never ceased to awe the man who watched so eagerly
this morning. As the titanic jet leaped skyward now, the slanting rays of the
sun caught it, and turned the water, fanning out, into a fire opal, into a sheet
of living color.
Kirby, hard headed to the last, drew from the supply in one pocket of his
tunic, a strip of one of the tuberlike roots, and munched it.
The thunder ceased. The waters receded.
After that Kirby hesitated not a second. Promptly he moved forward, flung
his coil of line down into the geyser tunnel, and swung on to the line. By
the time he had swallowed the last bite of his breakfast, the world he knew
had been left behind, and he was climbing down to a new.

I
T became at once apparent that the gorgeously colored, glassy-smooth
throat glowed with tints which were unfamiliar to him. He could
perceive these new shades of color, yet had no name for them.
As he stopped after fifty feet to breathe, the color phenomenon made him
wonder if the tuber roots he had been eating had affected his vision; then
decided they had not. In addition to food value, the roots had some power to
stimulate courage and a slight mental exhilaration. But the drug had proved

non-habit forming, and Kirby knew that his powers of perception were not
now, and never had been, affected.
He swung down further.
Just a moment after he began that progress was when things began to
happen to him. First he heard what seemed to be the low titter of a human
voice laughing sweetly. Next came a far off, unutterably lovely strumming
of music. And then he realized that, at a depth of about a hundred feet, he
was hanging level with a hole which marked the mouth of another tunnel.378
This new tunnel sloped down into the earth on his right hand. The floor and
walls were glassy smooth, and the angle of descent was steep, but by no
means as steep as the drop of the vertical geyser shaft in which he now
hung.
Laughter, music, the new tunnel suddenly aroused an excitement which
made him quiver.
“When I saw her,” he gasped, “she was standing here, in the mouth of this
tunnel, looking up at me!”
Violently, Freddie Kirby forgot the maple-shaded street of his Kansas town,
forgot everything but desire to reach the mouth of the new tunnel, where the
girl of the exquisite face and beckoning lips had stood. Tightening his grip
on the rope, he began to swing himself back and forth like a pendulum.
It seemed probable that when the geyser water shot up past the horizontal
tunnel, its force was so great that no water at all entered. He redoubled his
efforts to widen his swing.

T
HEN his feet scraped on the floor, and in a second he had alighted
there. He still hung stoutly to his line, however, for the tunnel sloped
down sharply enough, and was slippery enough, to prohibit the
maintenance of footing unaided.
The music which issued from the depths of that stunningly mysterious
passage swelled to a crescendo—and stopped. Kirby clung there to his
precarious perch, his feet slipping on the glass under them with every move
he made, and feelings stirred in his heart which had never been there before.

Then, as silence reigned where the music had been, something prompted
him to look up. The next instant he stifled a cry.
With widening eyes he saw the flash of a white arm and the gleam of a
knife hovering over the spot where his taut rope passed out of the geyser
opening into the sunshine of the outer world. Again he stifled a cry. For
crying out would do no good. While the suppressed sound was still on his
lips, the knife flickered.
Then Kirby was shooting downward, the severed line whipping out after
him. The first plunge flung him off his feet. A long swoop which he took on
his back dizzied him. But as the fall continued, he was able to slow it a little
by bracing arms and legs against the tunnel walls.
“Holy Jeehosophat!” he gurgled.
But there seemed to be no particular danger. The slide was as smooth as
most of the chutes he had ever encountered at summer swimming pools. If
ever the confounded spiral passage came to an end, he might find that he
was still all right. As seconds passed and he fell and fell, it seemed that he
was bound for the center of the earth. It seemed that—

H
E swished around a multiple bend, and eyes which had been
accustomed to darkness were blinded by light.
It was light which radiated in all colors—blue, yellow, browns, purples,
reds, pinks, and then all the new colors for which he had no name.
Somehow Kirby knew that he had shot out of the tunnel, which emerged
high up in the face of a cliff, and that he was dropping through perfumed,
brilliant air resonant with the sound of birds and insects and human cries.
The funny thing was that the pull of gravity was not right, somehow, and he
was dropping fairly slowly. From far below, a body of what looked like
water was sweeping up to meet him. Kirby closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, his whole body was stinging with the slap of
his impact, and he found that it was water which he had struck. The proof of
it lay in the fact that he was swimming, and was approaching a shore.
But such water! It was milky white and perfumed as the geyser flow had
379

been, and it seemed luminous as with a radium fire. Had he not realized

presently that the fluid probably contained enough arsenic to finish a
thousand like him, he would have thought of himself as bathing in the
waters of Paradise.
But then he began to forget about the poison which might already be at
work upon him.
Ahead of him, stretched out in the gorgeous, colored light, ran a beach
which was backed by heavy jungle. And on the beach stood the lovely
creatures, all clad in shimmering, glistening garments, whose flutelike cries
had come to him as he fell.

K
IRBY looked, and became almost powerless to continue his swim.
The beauty of those frail women was like the reputed beauty of bright
angels. That paralyzing effect of wonder, however, did not last long.
The girls moved forward to the water’s edge, and, laughing amongst
themselves, beckoned to him with lovely slender hands whose every motion
was a caress.
“Be not afraid,” called one in a curious patois dialect, about five-sixths of
which seemed made up of Spanish words, distorted but recognizable.
“The water would kill you,” called another, “as it killed the Spaniard in
armor. But we are here to save you. I will give you a draught to drink which
will defeat the poison. Come on to us!”
Kirby’s heart was almost literally in his mouth now, because the girl who
promised him salvation was she whose lips had formed a kiss at him from
the green-gloomy throat of the geyser.
His feet struck a shale bottom. Panting, he stood up and was conscious of
the fact that despite his forlornly dripping and dishevelled condition, he was
tall and straight and big, and that for some reason all of the girls on the
gleaming sand, and one girl in particular, were anxious to receive him here.
The one girl had drawn a small, gleaming flask of gold from the misty
bodice of her gown, and was holding it out while she laughed with red lips
and great, dazzling dark eyes.

“Pronto!” she called in pure Spanish, and other girls echoed the word.
“Oh,” went on the bright owner of the flask, “we thought you would never
have done with your work on the rope. It took you so long!”

K
IRBY left the smooth lake behind him and stood dripping on the sand.
The moment the air touched his clothes, he felt that they were
stiffening slightly. Yet the sensation brought no terror. He could not
feel terror as he faced the girls.
“Give him the flask, Naida!” someone exclaimed.
“Ah, but the Gods have been kind to us!” echoed another.
The girl with the flask made a gesture for silence.
“Is it Naida you are called?” Kirby put in quickly, and as he spoke the
Spanish words, the roll of them on his tongue did much to make him know
that he was sane and awake, and not dreaming, that this was still the
Twentieth Century, and that he was Freddie Kirby.
Answering his question, Naida nodded, and gave him the flask.
“A single draught will act as antidote to the poison,” she said.
“I drink,” said Kirby as he raised the flask, “to the many of you who have
been so gracious as to save me!”
A flashing smile, a blush was his answer. And then he had wetted his lips
with, and was swallowing, a limpid liquid which tasted of some drug.
“Enough!” Naida ordered in a second.
As she reached for the flask, her companions closed in as though a
ceremony of some sort had been completed.
“Is it time to tell him yet, Naida?” piped one of the girls, younger than the
rest, whom someone had called Elana.
“Oh, do begin, Naida,” chorused two more. “We can’t wait much longer380to
find out if he is going to help us!”
Kirby turned to Naida, while a soothing sensation crept through him from
the draught he had taken.

“Pray tell me what it is that I am to be permitted to do for you. I can
promise you that the whole of my life and strength, and such intelligence as
I possess, is yours to command.”

E
XCITED small cries and a clapping of hands answered him. As for
Naida, her face lighted with glowing joy.
“Oh, one who could say that, must be the friend and protector of whom we
have stood in such bitter need!”
“What,” asked Kirby, “is this need which made one of you cut my rope, so
that I should come here?”
A momentary silence was broken only by the hum of insects in the
perfumed air, and by the golden thrilling of a bird back in the jungle. Then
Kirby beheld Naida bowing to him.
“So be it,” she said in a voice low and flutelike. “I will speak now since you
request it. Already you have seen that you are here in our world because we
conspired amongst ourselves to bring you here. Our reason—”
She paused, looked deep into his eyes.
“Amigo,” she continued slowly, “we whom you see here are the People of
the Temple. For more centuries than even our sages can tell, our progenitors
have dwelt here, where you find us, knowing always of your outer world,
but remaining always unknown by it. But now the time has come when
those of us who are left amongst our race need the help of one from the
outer races we have shunned. Dangers of various orders confront us who
have waited here for your coming. When we first discovered you in the
Valley of the Geyser, the idea came to me that we must make you
understand our troubles, and ask of you—”
But then she stopped.
As Kirby stared at her, the gentleness of her expression was replaced by a
swift strength which made her majestic.
The next moment bedlam reigned upon the beach.
“They are after us!” gasped one of the girls in terror. “Quick, Naida! Quick!
Quick!”

W
HATEVER it was that threatened, Naida did not need to be told that
the need for action was pressing. She shouted at her companions
some order which Kirby did not understand. From a pouch at her
side, she snatched out a greyish, spherical vegetable substance which
looked almost like a tennis ball. Then she braced herself as if to withstand
an assault.
“Stand back!” she cried to Kirby.
He had long ago ceased to wonder at anything that might happen here.
Disappointed that Naida’s story had been interrupted, wondering what was
wrong, he obeyed Naida’s order to keep clear.
As he fell back and stood motionless, there came from behind a dense
screen of shrubs which would have resembled aloe and prickly pear bushes,
save that they were as big as oak trees, a ghastly howling. The next second,
hopped and hurtled across the beach toward the girls, a group of hair-
covered, shaggy creatures which were neither apes nor men. The faces,
contorted with lust, were hideously leathery and brown, the foreheads small
and beetling, and the mouths enormous, with immense yellow teeth.
Helpless, Kirby realized that Naida and all the others had clapped over their
faces curious masks which seemed to be made of some crystalline
substance, and that now others had armed themselves with the tennis balls.
And that was the last observation he made before the battle opened
furiously.
With a cry muffled behind her mask, Naida leaped out in front of her
squadron and cut loose her queer vegetable ball with whizzing aim and
381

force.
Full into the snarling face of one of the ape-men the thing smashed, filling
the air all about the creature with a yellow, mistlike powder. Kirby was half
deafened by the yells of rage and terror which went up from the entire
attacking band. The creature who had been hit fell to his knees the while he
made agonized tearing movements at his face and uttered shrill, jabbering
yelps.
Other balls flashed instantly from Naida’s ranks, and each brought about the
same ghastly result as the first. But then Kirby saw that the whole jungle

seethed with the hairy, awful men.
“Keep back!” Naida shrieked at him through her mask. “We have no mask
for you. If the powder from our fungi touches you, it will be the end!”

W
ITH gaps in the advancing line filled as soon as each screeching ape
went down, the attackers leaped on until Kirby knew they would be
upon the girls in a matter of seconds. A sweat broke out on his neck.
But then an idea gripped him, and suddenly, without even a last glance at
Naida, he leaped away even as she had commanded.
A great boulder lay on the shore fifty yards away. Toward it Kirby streaked
as though he had become coward. But he had not turned coward.
By the time he reached the shelter which would protect him from the fungus
mist, a turning point had come in the battle. The ape-men had closed in on
the girls, were swarming about them, and the mist balls had almost ceased
to fly. But the thing which gave Kirby hope was that the apes were not
attempting to harm the girls. They seemed victors, but they were not
committing atrocities.
It was the sharp intuition that something like this might happen which had
sent Kirby fleeing from the fight. He believed he might yet prove useful.
The thickest group of attackers were jostling about Naida. As the screams
and sobs of the girls quivered out, mingled with the guttural roaring of the
men, Naida was shut off by a solid wall of aggressors.
Then Kirby saw her again. But now two of the most powerful of the ape-
men had caught her up and was carrying her. Her kicking and writhing and
biting accomplished nothing. The apes were headed directly back to the
jungle.

N
OW, however, most of the yellow mist had disappeared, and that was
all Kirby had been waiting for. With a growling shout, he tore out
from behind his boulder, his Luger ready. Naida’s captors were in full
retreat, and other pairs of men were snatching up other girls and hopping
after them. Toward Naida Kirby ran madly but not blindly.

“Naida! Naida!” he bellowed.
He got in two strides for every one the apes made.
“Naida!” he shouted, and at last saw her look at him.
Her face was pallid with loathing and terror. As her glimmering dark eyes
met his, they flashed a plea which made his heart thrash against his lungs.
With a final roar of encouragement Kirby closed in on the hair-covered
men, and fired instantly a shot which caught one full in the heart. The
creature wavered on its legs, looked at the unexpected enemy with
dismayed, swinish little red eyes, and relaxing his hold upon Naida,
dropped without making a sound.
After that—
But suddenly Kirby found himself unable to comprehend fully the other
terrific results of his intervention. Before the echoes of his shot died, there
came to him the rumble of what seemed to be tons of falling rock. In the
bright air a slight mist was precipitated. To all of which was added the
effect upon the ape-men of fear of a weapon and a type of fighter utterly
new to them.
Kirby had fired believing that he would have to fight other ape-men when
382

the first fell. But not so. Instead of that—

H
E blinked rapidly as he took in the scene.
Naida had been released. Lying on the sand beside the dead ape-man,
she was looking up at him in stupefied wonder. And her other captor,
instead of remaining to fight, had clapped shaggy hands over his ears, and
was leaping headlong for the protection of the jungle!
Moreover, the soprano cries of the girls and the deep howls of the men were
rising everywhere, and everywhere the ape-men were dropping their
captives and plunging away after their leader.
“Huh,” Kirby muttered aloud, and wondered what the citizens of Kansas
would have to say about this.

Naida looked at the dead and bleeding ape-man and shuddered, and then at
the score or so of others brought down by the puff balls. Then she looked up
at Kirby, raised her arms for his support, and smiled up into his brown face.
Kirby forgot Kansas, lifted her, warm and alive, radiantly beautiful, in his
arms.
“Our friends the enemies,” she whispered as she remained for a second in
his embrace and then drew away, “will attack no more this day—thanks to
you.”
There was no possible need for another shot, Kirby saw. In terrified silence,
the first of the apes had already floundered behind the prickly pear and aloe
bushes, and the last stragglers were using all the power in their legs to catch
up. On the beach, Naida’s followers were picking themselves up, and
already a few of them had burst into ringing laughter.
“Come on, all of you,” Naida said to them, and, including Kirby in her
glance, added, “We may as well go to the caciques now, and have it over
with.”

CHAPTER IV

I
T was with Naida at his side and the other girls grouped about them, that
they started their journey to the “caciques,” whoever they might be, “to
have it over with,” whatever that might mean. As they strode along in
silence, Kirby did what he could to straighten out in his mind the many
curious things which had happened since he sat testing his rope in the upper
world this morning.
In final analysis, it seemed to him that, extraordinary as his experience had
been, there was nothing so much out of the way about it, after all. The only
unusual thing was the existence of this inhabited pocket in the earth. For the
rest, the strange colors to which he could not put a name, were simply some
manifestation of infra-reds and ultra-violets. And then the startling effect of
his single shot at the ape-men—that was simply the old story of savage
creatures running from a new weapon and a new enemy; naturally the shot
had sounded loud in this enclosed cavern. Lastly, the pull of gravity down
here seemed upset somehow. But why should it not seem so, at this distance

within the earth? The American was no scientist; the conclusions he reached
seemed very reasonable to him.
All told, the last thing Kirby found he needed to do was pinch himself to
see if he was awake.
A place of indefinite extent, the cavern seemed to be exactly what he had
already judged it—a giant pocket within the earth. The ceiling, or the sky,
was of some kind of natural glass—no doubt the same kind which was
crackling on his clothes now—and from it emanated the brilliant, many
colored glow which lighted the cavern. Radium? Perhaps it was that.
Perhaps the rays were cast off from some other element even less
understood than mysterious radium. As for the plant and animal life with
which the cavern teemed, it was amazing.

B
UT Kirby did not give himself up to silent observation any longer. 383
“Will you finish telling me,” he asked of Naida, “about the task I am
to perform for you here?”
Naida, walking with lithe strides along a path jungle-hemmed on both sides,
smiled at him.
“You are to be our leader.”
“Yes?”
Now both Naida and the other girls became sober.
“You will lead us in a revolt.”
“Ah!” Kirby whistled softly.
“In a revolt against the caciques—the wise men—whose kind have
governed the People of the Temple since the beginning.”
Her statement was received with acclaim by the whole troop, who crowded
close around, the while they smiled at Kirby.
“You mean I am to lead a revolt,” he asked, “against these same caciques
whom we are going now to face?”
Naida nodded emphatically.

“Yes, if revolt proves necessary. And it probably will.”
“Hum.” Kirby scratched behind his ear. “You’d better tell me what you can
about it.”

T
HEN, as they hurried on, Naida spoke rapidly.
The situation before the People of the Temple was that for a long time
now, the only children to be born had been girls. Worse still, not even a girl
had been born during a period equal to sixteen upper-world years. The only
remaining members of a race which had flourished in this underground land
for countless thousands of years, consisted of the caciques, a handful of
aged people, and the thirty-four girls, including Naida, who accompanied
Kirby now.
On one hand was promised extinction through lack of reproduction. On the
other, even swifter and more terrible extinction at the hands of the ape-men,
whom Naida called the Worshippers of Xlotli, the Rabbit God, the God of
all bestiality and drunkenness.
It was the menace of the ape-men, rather than the less appalling one of lack
of reproduction, which was making the most trouble now. Ages ago, when
the People of the Temple had flourished as a race, they had been untroubled
by the Worshippers of Xlotli. But now the ape-men were by far the
stronger; and they desired the girls who had been born as the last generation
of an ancient race. The battle of this morning had been only one of many.
Dissension between the caciques, who ruled the People of the Temple, and
their girl subjects, had arisen on the subject of the best way of dealing with
the ape-man menace.

S
OME time ago, Naida, heading a council of all the girls, had proposed
to the caciques that support be sought amongst the people of the upper
world. This would be done judiciously, by bringing to the lower realm
a few men who were wise and strong, men who would make good
husbands, and who could fight the ape-men.
This proposal the priests had promptly quashed. They would never receive,
they said, any members of the teeming outer races from whom the People

of the Temple had so long been hidden. Those few who had blundered into
the Valley of the Geyser during the centuries, and who had never escaped,
were enough. Better, said the caciques, that a compromise be arranged with
the subjects of the Rabbit God.
Flatly then, the priests had proposed that some of the girls, the number to be
specified later, should be given to the ape-men, and peace won. During the
time of reprieve which would thus be afforded, prayers and sacrifices could
be offered the Lords of the Sun and Moon, and to Quetzalcoatl, the
Feathered Serpent. In answer to these prayers, the Gods would surely send
the aged people who alone were left as prospective parents, a generation of
sons.
Once the priests’ program of giving up some of the girls to the ape-men had
384

been made definite, it had not taken Naida and the others long to decide that
they would never submit. And then, while matters were at an acute stage, a
tall, blond white man had come to the Valley of the Geyser—Kirby.

A
S Naida had finished her story, Kirby mustered a smile despite the
soberness which had come upon him.
“So the white man came,” he repeated after her, “and all of you decided
forthwith to stage your revolt.”
“Why not?” Naida answered. “We observed you until we were sure you
possessed the qualities of leadership we wanted. After that, we did what we
could to coax you to come here.”
Kirby grinned at that.
“Now,” Naida ended simply, “we will go to the caciques. If they accept you,
and grant our requests to them, there will be peace. If they rage, it will be
war.”
Suddenly she drew closer to Kirby as they swung along, and slipped her
hand into his, looking up at him in silent entreaty.
“How much farther,” he asked in a voice which became sharp, “until we
reach the headquarters of these caciques?”

“They live in a castle which our ancestors built ages ago on a protected
plateau,” Naida answered tensely. “It is a good distance still, but we will
cover it soon enough.”
They crossed now one edge of a shadow-filled forest composed principally
of immense, pallid palmlike trees. Farther on, the path wound through a belt
of swampy land covered by gigantic reeds which rustled above their heads
with a glassy sound, and by things which looked like the cat-tails of the
upper world, but were a hundred times larger. Everywhere hovered odd
little creatures like birds, but with teeth in their long snouts and small
frondlike growths on each side of their tails. About some swamp plants with
very large blooms resembling passion flowers, flitted dragon flies of
jeweled hues and enormous size, and under the flowers hopped strange
toadlike creatures equipped with two pair of gauzy wings.

F
INALLY, through a tunnel composed of ferns a hundred feet high, they
emerged to a still densely overgrown but higher country which Naida
said was a part of the Rorroh forest.
In the forest, Kirby gained a hazy impression of bronzy, immense cycads
and what appeared to be tree chrysophilums with gorgeous blossoms. Then
he received a much clearer impression of other trees with blossoms of
bright orange yellow and very thick petals, each tipped with a glassy sharp
point. The disconcerting thing about the tree was that, as they approached,
the scaly limbs began to tremble and wave, and suddenly lashed out as
though making a human effort to snatch at the bright travelers.
Naida and all the others hurried along without offering comment, and Kirby
asked no questions.
Once he thought he saw a group of gorilla creatures parallelling their course
back amongst the forest growth, but if Naida observed the animals, she paid
no attention. The one thing which had any effect upon the company was the
appearance, presently, of two vast, birdlike creatures. As these things
approached, Naida signaled to all to crouch beneath the shelter of a tall rock
beside the path.
Enormous, the birds had bat wings, and carried with them, as they
approached, the stink of putrid flesh. The long beaks were overfull of sharp

teeth. The heads, set upon bodies of glistening white-grey, were black.
Reddish grey eyes searched the jungle as the creatures flapped along. But,
the Pterodactyls—if they were that—passed above Naida’s band without
offering attack, and presently Naida gave the command to advance again.385

I
N time, they came to a chasmlike gorge across which was suspended a
slender long thread of a bridge. Not far above the bridge, a considerable
river emptied itself into the gorge in a mirrorlike ribbon. Kirby could not
hear the torrent fall—or rather could not hear it strike any solid bottom. But
from somewhere in the unlighted, unfathomed depths of the abyss rose
strange bubbling and whistling sounds.
At the bridge, Naida paused and pointed to the land across the river. And as
Kirby looked in the direction indicated, he beheld a rocky eminence rising
for several hundred feet straight up from the expanse of a level, tree and
grass covered plain. Atop of the plateau, glimmered the complex towers and
turrets, the crenellated walls of a castle which, in its grey antiquity, seemed
as old as the race of men.
“It is behind those walls that the caciques dwell,” Naida said quickly. “It is
behind the castle, in a series of separate houses, that the older members of
the race dwell. We shall go and look upon them presently. But first we will
force an interview with the caciques.”
In silence Kirby took her hand, and, with the others following, they moved
out upon the swaying, perilous causeway which hung above the chasm.
After that, the trip across the plain to the foot of the plateau cliffs was
quickly accomplished.
Here, however, Kirby thought they must face trouble, for he found that the
great walls, of a sparkling, almost glassy smoothness, shot up to a height of
at least three hundred feet, and that no path of any sort was visible.
“We’re here,” he said, “but how can we get up?”

B
UT understanding began to dawn as Naida laughed, and produced
from the pouch at the side of her gauzy dress four pliable discs of a
substance which resembled rubber.

“You are very strong, are you not?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then you will have no trouble in following us up the cliff. Our Serpent
God, Quetzalcoatl, taught us how to climb long ago.”
With that she handed Kirby the set of vacuum discs, and producing another
for herself, moistened them in a pool of water close at hand. Then, as all of
the girls followed her action, she strapped them to her hands and feet, and
in a moment they had begun the ascent.
“Why,” Kirby said presently, “with these things you could hang by your feet
and walk on a smooth ceiling!”
Naida laughed, and they worked their way upward.
When the climb was accomplished and the discs were put away, Kirby
found himself standing on the outer edge of a mediaeval paradise, of a
magnificent plateau partly fortified by nature, partly by the hand of man.
“Ah!” he cried in deep admiration, then followed Naida.
The building—the castle—in the near distance, resembled a castle of Spain,
save that there was greater beauty and subtlety of architecture. Turreted on
all four corners, constructed of material which looked like blocks of natural
glass, the fairylike structure was crowned by a gigantic tower of something
which resembled obsidian. Up and up this tower soared until its gleaming
black tip seemed almost to touch the glassy-radiant sky of the cavern.
No people showed themselves, and Kirby saw that the bronze-studded
portals set in the front of the castle were closed.
Admiringly, he glanced at the surrounding land laid out in checkerboard
patches of gardens and orchards where grew a bewildering variety of
unknown fruits and blooms. Butterflies drifted past, and the air was
freighted with the scent of flowers. Inside a walled enclosure, Kirby saw a
good-sized plot heavily grown with the plant on which he had been 386

subsisting. As they passed this ground, each of the girls, Naida leading,
made a strange little bowing, gliding genuflection, and Kirby wondered.

N
OW, however, new sights distracted him as they crossed a port
drawbridge above a deep moat which was a fairyland of aquatic
plants. Although not a sound had come from the castle, the great
entrance doors were swinging back.
“Be ready,” Naida whispered, “for almost anything. The doors are being
opened by some of the palace guard. I have little doubt that word was long
ago rushed to the caciques that we are come to them with an upper-world
man!”
Kirby answered with a nod. Then they passed the outer doors, passed
inside, and Kirby blinked at what he saw.
In a long hall decorated bewilderingly with a carven frieze in which
appeared all of the symbols common to early Mexican religions, and many
new ones, stood a row of bright suits of armor of the Sixteenth Century.
From each suit peered the glassy face and shovel beard of a dead
Conquistadore.
So this was what happened to intruders from the upper world! The
Conquistadore who kept his long watch beside the geyser was not the only
one! Kirby felt an involuntary chill prickle up his back. But he was not
given long to think before Naida, ignoring the gruesome array, clasped his
arm.
“Look! Behold!”
And Kirby saw that with almost magical silence the whole wall at the end
of the corridor was sliding back to reveal an enormous amphitheatre in the
center of which stood a vast circular table. Ranged in a semicircle about
that table, stood fifteen incredibly ancient men clad in long, glistening grey
robes. Blanched beards trailed down the front of the garments until they all
but touched the floor.
The caciques!
Kirby, on the threshold of the amphitheatre, squared his shoulders and held
his head high. Then with Naida on his right, his own eyes boring
unyieldingly into the smouldering, narrowed eyes which stared at him, he
advanced.

But in front of him the priests moved suddenly. From Naida burst a shriek.
In the radiant glare of the council room flashed the long, thin, cruel blade of
a sacrificial knife.
The cacique who had whipped it from his robe flew at Kirby with a condor
swoop, talon-hands outstretched, his wrinkled, bearded face contorted with
fury.

CHAPTER V

B
EFORE Kirby was more than half set to fight, the priest was clawing
at his throat, and a gnarled old fist was poised to drive the knife in a
death stroke.
Kirby did the only thing he could do quickly—sprang to one side. The
move saved him. The knife whipped past his shoulder, and the cacique
nearly fell. But it had been a close enough squeak for all that.
Nor was it over. After Kirby the priest sprang with unexpected agility, and
before Kirby could snatch at his pistol the talon-hands were lunging at his
throat once more.
With the gasps of the girls ringing in his ears, Kirby bunched himself for
another side leap only to find the cacique all over him like an octopus.
Momentarily the knife hung above his chest, and Kirby, dismayed at the
powers of his opponent, almost felt that the thing must plunge before he
could break the octopus hold.
But he had no intention of being defeated, and now he was getting used to
the fight. The priest’s left arm swiftly clenched about his neck and
shoulders, and the right arm, with the knife, attempted a drive through to
the heart. Suddenly, however, Kirby lurched sideways and backward, and as
the octopus grip slackened for a flash, he himself got a wrestler’s grip that
387

left him ready to do business. As the priest broke free, he slid around in an
attempt to fasten himself on Kirby’s back. Quickly, tensely Kirby doubled,
and knew that he had done enough. The cacique shot over his shoulders,
described a somersault in midair, and landed with a sharp crack of head and
shoulders against unyielding stone.

F
ROM the semicircle of other priests went up a gasp. From Naida came
a strangled cry of joy. Kirby made one leap for the knife which had
fallen from the cacique’s hand as he slumped into unconsciousness, and
then he straightened up with the weapon safe in his possession.
“There, you old billygoat,” he croaked in English, “maybe you won’t try
any more fast ones for awhile.”
A second later he stepped over the sprawled body to stand beside Naida.
Upon the wrinkled countenances of the remaining caciques was stamped a
look of dismay and hatred which boded no good. It was plain to Kirby that
in battering up the man detailed to kill him, he had committed a desecration
of first order.
“Is there anyone else who cares to fight?” he flung at them in Spanish,
showing a contempt as great as their rage.
The response he got was instant. From one old gullet, then from others,
came choking, snarling sounds which presently became words. By those
words Kirby heard himself cursed with a vituperation which made him,
even in his temporary triumph, feel grave.
But he did not let that soberness trouble him long. For the main point now
was that no one made a move to fight further, which was what he had
expected. He had flung them the challenge, knowing that he was possessed
of their knife, and suspecting that it was their only weapon. The belief that
no one would care to try a barehanded conflict, no matter what insult was
waiting to be avenged, seemed justified as none of the caciques advanced,
and as even the cursing presently ceased.
“No?” Kirby asked. “There is to be no more fighting?”

O
NE of the caciques now came forward a few steps.
“No,” he answered with a lameness which was not to be denied. “But
you, a criminal interloper in our realm, have been marked as a victim for
sacrifice, and from this there is no power in the universe which can save
you.”

Kirby, after a reassuring glance at Naida, looked at the floored priest who
was sitting up now, looking stupidly about, and feeling himself all over, and
Kirby suppressed a grin.
“Ah, I am to be sacrificed, eh? But what happens until that time comes?
Listen my Wise Ones—”
He stabbed a finger at them, and his eyes flashed.
“Listen! What you mean to say is that I have defeated you, and you must
lay off me until you can launch another attack. But I have a few things to
say to that. One is that I am not going to permit myself to be sacrificed.
Another is that I demand, right here and now, that you begin to discuss with
me certain agreements which are going to regulate the future conduct of
affairs in this world to which I have come.”
A low exclamation answered that, but it came from no priest. They
remained sullen and staggered. It was Naida who murmured, and there was
excitement and pleasure in her voice. Suddenly she placed her lips against
Kirby’s ear.
“You must not treat with them,” she said. “Tell them you want to see the
Duca, and will destroy them all unless he comes!”
Understanding burst over Kirby. The Duca! Then these men were only the
representatives of a High Priest, the Duca!
“Yes,” he repeated resolutely to the assembled greybeards, “a meeting is
going to be held in this chamber of council at once. But I will not deal with
388

you! Do you understand me? I must see the Duca. I leave it to you to decide
whether you will summon him, or force me to fight my way through to
wherever he is staying.”
“The Duca!”

T
HE words burst in dismay from the gimlet-eyed cacique who had said
there would be no more fighting. He looked at Naida, well aware of
the fact that it was her interference which had made Kirby extend his
demand. And his look was black.
Kirby slid between Naida and the cacique.

“Yes,” he spat out, “the Duca! Will you summon him, or—”
He did not repeat what he would do as an alternative. A second passed in
silence. It seemed as if the cacique who had been speaking was ready to
burst.
“Answer me!” Kirby thundered.
And then the priest obeyed.
“Very well,” he growled in a voice which quaked with rage. “I obey. But
you will wish you had never made the demand!”
The next second he swung on his heel, and leaving his company behind as a
guard, headed toward a stair which led upward from one side of the
amphitheatre, and which was protected by a door of heavy, grilled metal
work. The stairway seemed to be spiral, and was all enclosed. Kirby
realized that it must lead into the tall and beautiful tower of obsidion which
he had seen outside.
“Oh,” Naida whispered as looks and smiles of approval came from all of
the girls, “you have been magnificent! Mark now, what we must do. You
must be the one to state our terms, because you have already won a victory
for us. Tell the Duca that we will not submit to any compromise with the
ape-men, and least of all will we let any of our number go to the ape-men.”
A deep flush crept into Kirby’s cheeks at thought of what he would like to
do to the man who had proposed that sacrifice.
“Then tell him,” Naida continued, “that we want men brought to our world
from the world above. And finally tell him we will live under his
dictatorship no longer, and hereafter demand a voice in all councils
affecting temporal affairs.”
“All right,” Kirby spoke grimly. “I’ll tell him. Naida, is this high priest
we’re waiting for, the one who proposed sacrifice of some of you to the
apes?”
Naida nodded.

N
EXT moment, she, Kirby, and all the others, including the row of
glowering caciques, became silent. At sounds from above, all looked

toward the grilled doorway to the tower. Then Kirby realized that all of the
girls, as well as the caciques, were dropping to their knees.
“No!” he commanded quickly. “Get up! You must not abase—”
He had not finished, and Naida had scarcely risen, when the heavy door
swung on noiseless hinges.
The light in the amphitheatre seemed to become more intense. Then, against
the great glow, Kirby beheld majesty, beheld one who represented the
apotheosis of priestly rank and power.
Clad in robes of filmy material which glimmered white beside the gray
robes of his underlings, the Duca wore about his waist the living flame of a
girdle composed of alternate cut diamonds and blood red rubies each larger
than a golf ball. And Kirby, searching for comparisons, realized that the
Duca’s face, upheld to others, would be as remarkable as his jewels must be
when compared to ordinary gems. It was a chiseled face, seamed by a
thousand wrinkles, which a god might have carved from ivory before
endowing it with the flush and glow of life. A mane of snow white hair
cascaded back from a tremendous forehead to fall about thin but square
shoulders and mingle with the downward sweep of pure white beard. The 389

eyes, black as polished jet, flamed now with the glare of baleful fires.
As Naida, stealing close to Kirby, trembled, and even the abased caciques
trembled, Kirby himself felt as if icy water was trickling over him.
He fought the sensation off. For suddenly he knew that in spite of first
impressions which made the man seem a living god, the old Duca was
human. And what was more, he was in the wrong. All of which being true,
the thing to do was keep a level head and fight.

A
LL at once Kirby spoke across the silence in the great room.
“I have sent for you,” he said, weighing words carefully.
“And I,”—the Duca’s voice was mellow and deep—“have come. But I am
not here because you summoned me.”
“Oh!” Kirby let sarcasm edge his words. “Well, I won’t quibble about your
motives for coming. Did my messenger tell you why we are here and

demand your presence?”
“Your messenger,” the old man said calmly, “told me.”
“Very well. Do you consent to listen to Naida’s and my terms? If you will
listen—”
“But wait a moment,” the Duca interrupted, still calmly, but with a look in
his eyes which Kirby did not like. “Are you asking me, to my face, whether
I will listen to terms which you offer as self-styled victor of a battle with
my caciques?”
Kirby nodded. His apprehension increased.
“Ah,” said the Duca softly. And then, amazingly, a smile deepened every
wrinkle of his parchment face. “But do you not remember that I said I had
not come here because you summoned me?”
“Yes,” Kirby said solidly. “I remember very well.”
“The thing which brought me here was the failure of my followers to
accomplish an assignment which I had given them—namely, that of ending
your life.”
“Hum.” Kirby scratched behind his ear. “You are not interested in arranging
terms of peace, then.”
“I am here,”—suddenly the Duca’s voice filled the room—“to do that
which my priests were unable to do. And the moment has come when the
Gods will no longer trifle with you. You dog! You thieving intruder! You—”
Swiftly the Duca plunged one withered but still powerful hand into the
folds of his robe above the flaming girdle. Then his hand flashed out, and in
it he held—

B
UT Kirby did not get to see.
A strangled cry of terror smote his ears. Naida leaped toward him from
one side, while Elana, the lovely youngest girl, sprang from another
direction, hurled Naida aside, and stopped in front of Kirby.
Through the glaring room flickered a tiny red serpentine creature which the
Duca hurled from a crystalline tube in his hand. As the minute snake struck

Elana’s breast, she gave a choked cough, and then, as she half turned to
smile at both Naida and Kirby over her shoulder, her eyes went blank, and
she collapsed gently to the polished stones of the floor—dead.
A second later came squirming out from under her the ghastly, glimmering
little snake which had struck.
Slowly, while every mortal in the room stood paralyzed, Kirby stepped
forward and set his heel upon the writhing thing. When he raised his boot,
the snake was only a blotch on the floor.
The Duca was standing as still as girls and caciques. The laughter with
which he had started to greet what he had thought would be Kirby’s
extermination had faded to a look of wonder—and fear. He was an easy
mark.
Up to him Kirby rolled, and with all the force of soul and muscular body,
drove his fist into the Duca’s face.
“By God,” he roared, “you want war, and you shall have it!” 390

The Duca was simply out—not dead. Since Kirby did not want him dead,
he did not strike again, but swung back from the sprawled body, faced
Naida, and pointed to the tower door.
“Up there!” he snapped. “Seize the tower. I have a reason!”
At the Duca’s crashing downfall, had come to the caciques a tension which
made Kirby know they would not be dummy figures much longer. His eyes
never left them.
“Quick, Naida!” he snapped again. “We must hold the tower!”
Naida, all of the girls, were staring dazedly at Elana, dead.
“The tower!” she choked. “But we cannot go there. It is the Duca’s!”
“Because it is the Duca’s,” Kirby said firmly, “is exactly why we must hold
it. Come, Naida, please—”

A
ND then he saw comprehension begin to dawn at last.
He also saw two of the caciques glide from the wooden line, and slink
toward him past the unconscious Duca, stealthily.

As Naida suddenly cried out to her companions, pushed at two of them, and
then darted like a rainbow nymph toward the silent and forbidding upward
spiral of steps, Kirby faced the gliding caciques.
One he clutched with viselike hands, and lifted him. As the other shrieked
and sprang, he was mowed down by the hurtling body of his fellow priest
which Kirby flung forward mightily.
The rest of the caciques were howling. While Naida waited beside the tower
door, the other girls flashed up the steps. The Duca still lay where he had
fallen, a thread of blood oozing from his mouth. Kirby, after his last look
over all, solemnly stooped and gathered in his arms the limp, radiant little
body of the girl who had given her life that her friends might be left with a
leader.
A moment later, he was standing on the steps. Naida, unopposed by the still
stupefied caciques, swung shut the tower door and shot a double bolt.
“Naida—” Kirby whispered as he held Elana closer to him, “oh, I am so
sorry that we could have won only at such a price.”
As Naida stooped to kiss the pale little forehead with its halo of golden hair,
sobs came. But then she raised her eyes, and they were, for Kirby, alight
with the message that she could and would accept Elana’s sacrifice, because
she would gladly have made it herself.
“We will not forget,” she whispered. “Carry her tenderly, and come.”
For better, for worse, the Duca’s tower was theirs.

CHAPTER VI

A
T the end of an hour, Kirby was taking a turn of guard duty at the foot
of the steps, while the others remained with Elana in a chamber
above. To Kirby, with things thus far along, it seemed that the seizure
of the tower had proved a shrewd stroke.
It seemed that the tower was to the Duca what hair was to Sampson. From
Naida had come the information that the Duca lived hidden within the great
shaft of obsidion, and appeared but seldom even before his caciques.
Apparently a large part of his hold upon his subjects was maintained by the

mystery with which he kept himself surrounded. And now his retreat was
lost to him! Such had been the moral effect of the loss upon both Duca and
caciques, that his whole first hour had gone by without their doing
anything.
Kirby, standing just around the first turn of the winding stairway, presently
cocked his ears to listen to the conclave being held in the amphitheatre.
“Why not starve them out, O Holy One?” he heard one of the caciques ask
of the Duca, only to be answered by a growl of negation.
The Duca, Kirby had gathered before this, wanted to fight.
“But there is no food in the tower, is there?” the cacique still pressed 391
on,
and this time he was supported by other voices.
“No,” the Duca rumbled back. “But am I to be deprived of my retreat, left
here like a common dog amongst other dogs, while these accursed fiends
starve slowly to death? No! I tell you, you must fight for me!”

B
UT he had told them so several times before and nothing had
happened. Kirby grinned at the thought of the caste the Duca was
losing by being driven to this belittling parley.
“Holy One,” exclaimed a new priest in answer to the urge to fight, “what
can we do against the golden haired fiend? The stairs are so narrow that he
could defend them alone. And then there are the gates of bronze. If we
could shatter the first, at the foot of the steps, we should only encounter
others. The Duca must remember that his tower was built to withstand
attack.”
“Even so,” the Duca snapped back, “it must be attacked! I—”
But then he fell silent, having been made so by the sounds of dissension
which arose amongst his caciques. Kirby, laughing to himself, turned away
from his listening post, and tip-toed up the steps.
After he had closed and bolted behind him three of the bronze portals so
feared by the caciques, he turned to the entrance of the chamber in which he
had left Naida and the others. Here all was silent, and he found his friends

grouped about a couch on which lay Elana. Feeling the solemnity of the
moment, he would have taken his place quietly amongst the mourners.
Naida, however, came to him at once, and in a low voice asked for news
from the amphitheatre, and when Kirby answered that the caciques were
unanimously in favor of leaving them alone until they starved, she
exclaimed:
“Oh, then it is good news!”
After that, however, a shadow of doubt flickered in her great eyes.
“And yet, is it? It means temporary immunity, of coarse. But—starvation!”
Kirby assured her with a grin.
“If we had to starve we might worry. But there is more food here than the
Duca thinks. Look!”

F
ROM a bulging pocket of his tunic he fished a strip of the roots on
which he had subsisted so comfortably. Naida’s eyes widened, and
several of the girls gave low cries.
“Yes,” Naida exclaimed, “but such food! Why—why, do you know what
you are offering us? Why, this is the sacred Peyote! Only the Duca eats it,
and, at rare intervals, his priests.”
Kirby was really startled now.
“But surely you and the others have taken quantities of the stuff away from
the Valley of the Geyser. Do you mean—”
“Because we gathered the Peyote does not mean that we have ever tasted it.
We gather it for the Duca. To taste would be complete, utter sacrilege. Have
you been eating it?”
Inwardly Kirby was chuckling at this added proof of the buncumbe with
which the Duca—and other Ducas—had fooled all.
“Of course I’ve been eating the Peyote.”
“And—and nothing has happened to you?” Naida asked.

“Hardly. I certainly haven’t been blasted by the Lords of the Sun and Moon,
or the Serpent either!”
Naida and all the others were silent. The conflict between their reverence
for the food and their clear desire to eat it, now that it was become the food
of their leader, was pathetic.
Kirby put one of the strips in Naida’s hand.
“Why not?” he asked. “We have bested the Duca in fair fight. We have
seized his tower. Why not eat his food?”
As he had hoped it would, the suggestion at last settled the matter.392A
moment later, as Naida nibbled her first bite, she smiled.
“Why, it—it’s good!”
With the question of provisions settled at least for a time, Kirby’s next
thought was of the tower. The present lull of peace seemed made for
exploration.
“Come along,” he said to Naida, “we’ve plenty to do,” and then, when he
explained, they set out, accompanied by Nini, a cousin of Naida’s, and
Ivana, a younger sister.
All of the others remained with little Elana.

W
HILE they climbed spiral stairs, Naida explained that the chamber
they had just left was used by the Duca as a place in which he
prayed before and after contacts with caciques or subjects. A sort of
halfway station between earth and heaven, as it were, where the Duca might
be purged of any sullying influence gained from human relationships.
At thought of the rank, egotistical hypocrisy implied by the story, Kirby
smiled grimly. Then they came to a new door, heavier than that which
barricaded the prayer chamber. Unlocked, the thing swung ponderously at
Kirby’s push, and with the three girls pressing close beside him, he entered
—and stopped.
“Naida!” he gasped.

“Oh, oh!” she cried, and while Nini and Ivana gasped, she clapped her
hands in an instinctive, feminine reaction of joy. “But there are things here
which I believe none but the Ducas of our race have ever seen! Oh! Why,
the sacred girdle is as nothing compared to this display!”
By “display” she meant a treasure which took Kirby’s breath away, which
made his heart act queerly.
The walls of the chamber were fashioned of polished blocks of obsidion on
which stood out in heavy bas-relief a maze of decorative figures fashioned
of pure, beaten gold—the same kind of gold which had gone into the
making of the cylinder of gold. With his first glance at the gorgeously
wrought motifs of Feathered Serpent and Sun and Moon symbols, Kirby
knew to a certainty whence the golden cylinder had come originally.
But even the gold—literally tons of it there must have been—was nothing
compared to the gems.

T
HEY were spread out in blinding array upon a great table in the center
of the room. There were pearls as big as turkey eggs and whiter, softer
than the light of a June morning growing in the East. There were
rubies. One amongst the many was the size of a baseball and glowed like
the heart of a red star. The least of the two or three hundred gems would
have outclassed the greatest treasures of the Crown jewels of England and
Russia combined.
Most overwhelming of all, however, was the jewel which rested against a
square of black cloth all its own in the center of the table. While his heart
still acted queerly, while Naida, Nini, and Ivana hung back, delighted, but
still too bewildered to move, Kirby advanced and took gingerly in his hands
a single white diamond about eighteen inches long, and almost as wide and
deep as it was long.
The thing was carved with exquisite cunning to a likeness of the living head
of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent.
Kirby dared not guess how many pounds the carven hunk of flashing, blue-
white carbon weighed. He knew only that like it there was no other
diamond in the world, and that the thing was real. Naida and the two girls
were silent now, and suddenly Kirby realized that to their awe of the gem

was added awe of deepest religious nature. Slowly he put the diamond head
of the Serpent back upon its square of cloth.
“We—we had heard that this thing existed,” Naida said presently, voice 393

hushed, “but no one except the holy men of our race has ever beheld it.”
“But, what is it?” Kirby asked. “Whence came it?”
However, when Naida would have answered, he interrupted.
“But wait! Tell me as we go. We could stay here for the rest of our lives
without much trouble, but we’ve got to cover the rest of the tower and get
back to the others.”

I
T was after they had closed the door to the treasure room that Naida told
him the story.
“There is not so much to tell,” she began. “The diamond itself is so
gorgeous that it is hard to talk about. But here is the story. A great many
ages ago one of the Ducas of our race found the diamond, decided to carve
it into a perfect likeness of the head of the Serpent God. All of the
craftsmen of the race helped him and when they were done, they took their
image to Quetzalcoatl himself, and showed him what they had done.
“Quetzalcoatl was pleased. So pleased, that he promised all of the wise men
that he would cease to prey upon them as he had in the past, and
henceforward would take his toll of sacrifice from the ape-men alone. Them
he hated and would continue to hate because they worshipped not him but
Xlotli.
“And so it came about,” Naida went on slowly, looking up at Kirby as they
still mounted wide steps to the upper reaches of the tower, “that our people
gained immunity from a God which had always before harmed and
destroyed them. Our race presently began to build this castle here on the
high plateau, and Quetzalcoatl kept his compact with them. He still comes
out of his chasm at intervals and preys upon the ape-men, but no one of our
race has seen him for thousands of years, and he has always let us alone.
And there is the whole myth and explanation of why the great diamond is
revered among us as a holy of holies.”

T
HEY had mounted to a new door which Kirby guessed might give
entrance to the Duca’s living quarters. But he was in no mood to open
it at once.
“Wait a minute,” he said as they all paused. “You say that, although none of
your race has seen Quetzalcoatl since the diamond head was carved, he still
comes out of his chasm and makes trouble for the ape-men. Just what does
that mean?”
“Why—” Naida looked at him wonderingly. “I mean what I have said. The
Serpent comes out of his chasm and—”
“What chasm?” Kirby asked sharply.
“Why, the one we crossed this morning. It extends to the far reaches of our
country, beyond the Rorroh forest, where the ape-men dwell but which our
people never visit. It is in that distant part of the chasm that the Serpent
dwells.”
“But—but—Oh, good Lord!” Kirby whistled softly. “Naida, do you mean
to tell me that Quetzalcoatl was not simply a mythical monster, but an
actual, living serpent which is alive now?”
Naida and the others shrugged.
“Why not?” she answered. “Sometimes we have captured a few ape-men,
and they tell us stories of how Quetzalcoatl kills them. They say he is very
much alive.”
“But,” Kirby mumbled in increasing wonder, “is this living creature the
same which your ancestors worshipped first as long ago, perhaps, as a
million years?”
“That,” Naida answered unhesitatingly, “I’m not sure of. Our caciques
believe that the Serpent, although it lives longer than any other sentient
thing, finally dies and is succeeded by a new Serpent which is reproduced
by itself, within its own body.”
So overwhelming did Kirby find this unexpected sequel to their discovery
of the great diamond head, so staggered was he by the fact that 394

Quetzalcoatl, of Aztecan myth, might exist as a sentient creature here in this
cavern world, that he had little heart left for exploring other wonders.

N
EVERTHELESS, he presently pushed open the new door before
which they had paused, and behind it found, as he had expected, the
Duca’s living quarters.
These were as severe as the jewel chamber had been gorgeous. A thin pallet
spread upon a frame of wood formed the bed, and beside it stood a single
stiff chair. That was all. The walls of glistening obsidion were bare.
There was, however, a door in one circular wall, and as Kirby flung this
open, his previous disappointment changed to delight. For shelves along the
walls of the small chamber held roll after roll of parchment covered with
script. And in one corner lay six undamaged, almost new Mannlichers and
several hundred rounds of ammunition!
“Naida,” he exclaimed, “do you know what those are?”
“I suppose that they are weapons of the sort you used against the ape-men
this morning?”
Kirby grinned.
“They are the same kind I used, and then some. With these weapons we can
do what we never could with the smaller one. How did they get here?”
“They came when I was much younger,” Naida answered with a shade of
sadness in her voice. “The men who had them penetrated the Valley of the
Geyser, coming by a different route from the one you followed. When the
Duca learned they were there, he sent such men of the race as were still able
to fight to kill them. That order of the Duca’s was one of the first things to
turn me against him. The men were not harming us, and they should have
been permitted to go away. But the Duca insisted that they be killed, and in
the fight were lost eight of our youngest and strongest men.”

K
IRBY stooped to inspect the rifles.
“Has no one learned to use these weapons?”
“No,” Naida answered. “The Duca kept them for himself.”
“We think,” put in Ivana, “that he hoped to learn to use them, and was
afraid for us to have the knowledge.”

Kirby filled one of the magazines, and felt the heft of the gun with pleasure.
“Very well,” he said. “It looks to me as though your time to learn the art of
shooting has come at last. Come, I think we had better be getting back
downstairs.”
Kirby took three guns himself, and with the others lugging the rest, they
started back. The parchment rolls, he decided, must be left for examination
later on.
They were all elated when they rejoined the girls in the prayer chamber, and
high spirits were still further increased by the report, promptly given, that
all had remained quiet in the amphitheatre. Save only for the presence of
Elana, radiant and calm in death, the give and take of questions would have
been accompanied by actual gaiety.
But the time of peace did not last much longer. While Naida was in the
midst of answering incessant questions about the wonders of the jewel
chamber, Kirby heard a sound from below, and suddenly went over to the
downward-winding steps.
“Listen,” he called sharply back to the others.
He had not been mistaken. Many footsteps echoed from the amphitheatre,
and he made out that the caciques were coming toward the bolted gate at
the foot of the steps. While he listened, and Naida came eagerly to his side,
silence fell.
But then clear words came up to them.
“Let the upper-world man come to the foot of the steps,” called the Duca. “I
have an offer to make him!”
395
CHAPTER VII

T
O himself Kirby chuckled. Such real entreaty filled the Duca’s voice
that there seemed no danger of further treachery from him at the
moment.
With a grin, Kirby took Naida’s hand and led her down the steps, unbolting
each bronze gate but the last.

“What do you want?” he asked in a cool voice a moment later, when he
stopped on the final step and faced the Duca from behind the protection of
the final gate.
Clearly the parley was going to be a blunt one.
“I want you to leave our world,” the Duca rumbled promptly.
He was drawn up in a posture intended to display dignity. But his left
cheek, where Kirby had hammered him, was pulpy and discolored, and
somehow he seemed to Kirby more than ever merely human.
“Under what conditions am I to leave?”
“If you will vacate my tower at once,” the Duca said with a flush of
eagerness which he could not conceal, “I will permit Naida and one of my
caciques to escort you back to the Valley of the Geyser. I will also give you
directions by which you may travel in safety from there to the outer world.”
Kirby, wanting more details, made himself seem thoughtful.
“And what will happen to me, and to the girls, if I decline?”
Encouraged, the Duca made an impressive gesture.
“You will be left in the tower to die of starvation. Mine is not a complicated
offer. It should require no complicated decision. What is your answer?”
Kirby dropped his carefully assumed mask of thought.
“My answer is this,” he lashed out. “I will not leave! The tower is ours, and
we will hold it until you have accepted Naida’s peace terms on your priestly
oath!”
“But if you stay in the tower you will starve!” thundered the Duca.
“No, we won’t starve! We won’t starve because we eat the food of Ducas!”

I
N silence, Kirby took from his pocket a strip of the sacred Peyote and bit
off one end of it. Suddenly the hush in the amphitheatre became
complete. As he watched Kirby chewing, the Duca gasped and choked.
“Moreover,” Kirby announced with slow emphasis, “I have taken
possession of the weapons which you took from men of the upper world,

and which have already sent men of your race to their death. I have no wish
to kill either you or your caciques, but if you do not presently discuss peace
with me, you will certainly find yourself embroiled in a struggle more bitter
than the mild one of this morning.”
With that said, he swung on his heel, and taking Naida’s hand again, started
with her up the steps.
“I have nothing more to say,” he called over his shoulder to a Duca whose
white haired majesty had been stripped from him.
“We’re getting on,” he whispered to Naida a moment later. “The best thing
for us is just to sit still now, and wait.”
With the questions he wanted to ask Naida about her world becoming
insistent, he found himself, as a matter of fact, glad for the prospect of
further respite. As both of them rejoined the girls in the Duca’s prayer
chamber, the first thing he did was to take from his tunic the cylinder of
gold which he had found in the canyon.
“What is this, Naida?” he asked, hoping to start talk that would make all of
them forget the Duca and politics, and at the same time help him to learn
much that he wished to know.
But a queer thing happened. Naida’s reaction to the carven gold was as
unexpected as it was marked.
“Oh!” she cried in a voice which suddenly trembled with surprise, with
blank dismay. Somehow, the cylinder of gold brought to her face things
396

which not even the Serpent’s head of the diamond had evoked.

T
HE prospect of a long session of talk began to fade out in Kirby’s
mind.
“But Naida, whatever is there about this fragment of gold to startle you as it
does?”
By this time all of the thirty-odd other girls had come flocking about them,
and all were staring at the cylinder as fascinatedly as Naida.
“Do you see what he has there?” Naida finally asked, ignoring Kirby in her
continued excitement.

“Do we see?” answered the girl she had addressed. “Naida, surely it is the
carving which was lost!”
Naida was quivering with feeling now.
“Do you realize what it means to our cause that it should have been
returned to us in this way?”
The girl to whom she had spoken, and the others, simply looked at her, but
in one face after another presently dawned awe and joy.
Kirby stood still, puzzled and interested, until at last Naida was recovered
enough to speak to him.
“Where did you get this thing which you call ‘a fragment of gold’?” she
asked in a hushed voice.
“I found it,” Kirby answered, “lying beside the skeleton of an upper-world
man, while I was ascending the canyon which brought me to the Valley of
the Geyser.”
“And you do not know what the cylinder is? But no, of course you could
not.”
“What is it, Naida?”

N
AIDA glanced at her friends, then laid her hand on Kirby’s.
“Next to the great diamond, it is the most cherished possession of our
race. In some respects it is even more holy than the Serpent’s head. The
cylinder happens to be the first work in gold which was ever produced by
our people. It was made when the race was new. It was because our first
wise men had found they could create things of beauty like this cylinder,
that they decided to attempt the creation of the Serpent’s head, which is
supposed to have brought all of our blessings upon us.”
Kirby thought he was beginning to understand the excitement which his
introduction of the cylinder had created. He also thought he could see what
Naida had meant by implying that the cylinder could be made to aid their
cause.

“Tell me,” he asked in a mood approaching reverence, “how the cylinder
came to be lying beside a dead man’s bones.”
“It was stolen,” Naida answered in the breathless silence which the others
were keeping. “When I was very young, an upper-world man found his way
here, and the Duca captured and meant to sacrifice him. But while they
were leading him to the temple where such special ceremonies are held—
the building stands on another plateau, beyond this—the man broke away.
Some of the priests in the procession were carrying the cylinder, for it was
an occasion of great importance. The prisoner knocked them down, got the
cylinder away from them, and finally escaped by the same route over which
you came.”
“And he escaped,” said Kirby wonderingly, “only to be killed by a
rattlesnake before he ever reached the civilized world. But do you mean that
you never knew your sacred cylinder was so close to you all these years?”
Naida shook her head.
“We never got to the canyon of which you speak, for a special reason which
I shall explain some day. And besides that, I think the Duca was afraid of
this man who fought so bravely. So he counted the cylinder as lost. And that
is one of the reasons why he killed the men with the rifles, who appeared in
the Valley a few years later.”

K
IRBY looked at her thoughtfully. The mood for discussing all 397
the
wonders of this lower world, which had made him bring out the
cylinder originally, had quite vanished.
“I suppose,” he said, “that anyone who was responsible for the return of the
cylinder to its rightful owners, would be held in some respect?”
Naida nodded vigorously, while little lightnings of excitement flickered in
her eyes.
“He might be held in more than respect.”
“What, then, do you suggest that we do next?”
Again the small lightnings darted, and Naida reached for the cylinder.
“Do you mind if I take it for a moment?”

“Of course not.”
Promptly then she faced around.
“Wait here, everyone,” she ordered.
And with that she waved the cylinder in a flashing little arc before their
eyes, and darted to the door.
It was all so unexpected that she was gone before Kirby could speak.
Slowly, with all of the suddenly gay company of girls following after him,
he went to the doorway, and stood on the steps leading to the amphitheatre.

A
MINUTE passed. He heard voices downstairs. He heard Naida’s voice
ringing clearly, though he could not distinguish her words. He heard a
great cry from a score of male throats. More minutes passed. Words
that were low and tense poured out in a rumbling volume. Above the
rumble, Naida’s voice presently sounded again, clear and sweet, but
incisive. Then, when no more than five or six minutes had gone, Kirby
heard the clang of the bronze gate at the foot of the steps, heard light, swift
footsteps ascending.
“Naida!” he called softly.
She flashed upward toward him around the last curve in the stairway.
Straight to his outstretched arms she went.
“It is done! It is done!” she whispered.
“Tell us!” cried first one girl and then others.
Naida drew away from Kirby at last.
“I told the Duca,” she said to all of them, “that our leader would keep the
cylinder for a period of time equal to one upper-world year. If the Duca
grants all the terms of peace which we will ask of him, and if he accepts the
upper-world man as our temporal ruler, and all goes well for a year, then we
will consider replacing the cylinder where it belongs.”
“And what,” Kirby asked exultantly, “does the Duca say?”
Suddenly, without warning, Naida dropped before him on one knee, and
from that position gazed up at him laughing.

“He says he will make you our King, to govern all temporal affairs within
our realm! He is waiting for you to come and hold a conclave now.”
“What?”
Still kneeling half in fun, half in sincere reverence, Naida held out the
precious, potent cylinder of gold.
“Guard it carefully!” she exclaimed. “So long as you keep it away from the
Duca, making him hope to win it back, he will consent to almost anything.
Yes, he is waiting with the caciques in the amphitheatre now; waiting to
draw up terms of peace.”

CHAPTER VIII

T
O be King amongst these people! A queer sensation tugged at Kirby’s
heart as he descended the steps with Naida at his right, and all of her—
and his—dainty and gracious friends following after. Yet, intense as his
emotion was, never for a second was he able to doubt the evidence of his
senses which told him that all of this was real. As they descended the black
steps of the tower, Naida’s sweetness, her grace, the warm humanity of her,
made him humble with gratitude for the extraordinary fortune which had 398

come to him, an unromantic aviator born in Kansas.
Then they were standing in the brilliant light of the amphitheatre, and the
Duca, surrounded by his caciques, was advancing to meet them.
It was not a long conference which followed. Kirby saw from the start that
the Duca was indeed ready to come to terms. So treasured an object, it
seemed, was the cylinder of gold, that the mere fact that Kirby possessed it
made the Duca respect the possessor, whether he would or no. With this
initial advantage, it did not take long to make demands and win acceptance.
It was agreed that some systematic campaign of extermination should be
planned and carried out against the ape-men. Further, the project for
eventually bringing other upper-world men to the realm was accepted. Most
notable of all, it was agreed that while the Duca should retain a voice in the
regulation of temporal affairs, Kirby should possess an absolute veto over
his word.

Naida said there must be some formal ceremony to celebrate Kirby’s
ascendency to power. To this the Duca consented, and established the date
as a fortnight hence, and the place as the temple on the plateau beyond the
plateau of the castle, where the Ducas had been invested with their robes of
state from time immemorial. At the end, it was decided that little Elana
should be left in the prayer chamber until a burial ceremony could be held
on the morrow.

I
N less than an hour, Kirby, Naida, and the others withdrew from the
amphitheatre to return to the regular dwelling places of the girls. Deep in
his mind, Kirby did not know how sincere the Duca was, and fear
lingered, somehow, but he put it aside for the present.
As they came out of the castle, proceeding in a gay procession across the
drawbridge above the moat of beautiful aquatic plants, Kirby saw that the
light from the glass sky was fading to a glow like that of spring twilight in
the upper world. Naida answered his question about the phenomenon by
saying that day and night in the cavern corresponded to the same period
above. What quality of the glass sky gave out light, she did not know, but it
seemed definite that the element was sensitive to the presence of light in the
upper world, and when the sun sank there, the glow faded here.
A flower embroidered path led them around the castle to a group of little
crystalline houses all overgrown with bougainvillea vines and honeysuckle.
In front of the first, Naida paused, and while the others went on to the other
houses, she looked at Kirby.
“It is Elana’s dwelling,” she said simply, “and it will be vacant now. Elana
would want you to take it. Will you, please?”
The twilight was deepening swiftly. Kirby nodded reverently, then drew
close to Naida.
“Naida?”
“Yes?”
He took her hand.

“I can stay here, I can consent to become, after a fashion, a King, only if
you will reign with me as Queen. Will you, Naida? Will you love me as I
have learned to love you during this single day in Paradise?”
She did not answer. But presently Kirby’s mind went blank for sheer joy.
For then Naida raised her face, and he kissed her lips.
It made no difference then that, despite the day’s victory, Kirby could see
trouble ahead, and feared, rather than rejoiced at, the Duca’s too easy
acceptance of terms. The future could take care of itself. This moment in the
dusk belonged to him and Naida.

T
HE two weeks which passed for Kirby after that particular twilight
sped quickly. During the first morning, all attended the ceremony
which was held for Elana’s burial in the plot of gardened ground where
lay her ancestors. Ensuing mornings were devoted to conferences in 399 the
amphitheatre with Duca and caciques.
After the fourth day Kirby, at Naida’s insistence, moved into splendid
quarters in the castle—a suite of chambers across the amphitheatre from
those in which the caciques dwelt. In practically forcing the move on Kirby,
Naida won his consent finally by agreeing to have their wedding ceremony
performed on the day of his coronation; then she would come to the castle
with him.
The afternoons of that first fortnight before the wedding and coronation
were spent in hunting and fishing. Also Kirby and Naida visited often the
aged people of the race, who dwelt in crystalline, vine covered houses like
those of the girls, but removed from them. Naida’s relatives were dead, but
she had relatives there, and to all these aged ones, who sat living in the past,
she did what she could to explain present developments in the affairs of the
younger generation.
Last but not least, Kirby set aside certain hours each afternoon which he
devoted to the formation of a rifle squad amongst the girls. Six rifles he
had, and in turn he trained each of the girls in their use, having set up a
range at the foot of the plateau cliffs. The results he gained made him feel
that the day would come soon enough when he would dare launch an
offensive against the ape-people; and especially pleasing was the sense of

power over the Duca which he gained. The Duca showed no sign of
treachery. Yet Kirby did not trust him. Never did he quite forget the
misgivings which had lingered in his mind after the first conclave.

A
S for his relationship with Naida, that grew with every moment they
could steal to spend with each other. And side by side with their
growing knowledge of each other grew, for Kirby, an increasing store
of knowledge of the realm.
He learned, amongst other things, what seemed the origin of the worship of
the Serpent, Quetzalcoatl, amongst primitive Mexican races. The time had
been when the People of the Temple had mingled freely with the races
above them; and, that they might have ready means of egress to the world,
they had built the tunnel through which Kirby had entered the Valley of the
Geyser. Thus, going and coming as they did, they had spread their cult of
the worship of Quetzalcoatl; and when, eventually, strife arose between the
peoples of upper world and lower, and the People of the Temple withdrew
to their realm, they left behind them the Serpent myth which was to live
through countless centuries.
The tunnel, Naida said, had been abandoned when her people left the upper
world once and for all, and its use for any reason prohibited. This, Naida
gave as the reason why none of them went near the tunnel now, and why the
cylinder of gold had lain in the canyon undiscovered. It was the explanation
she had promised on the day in the tower, when first she saw the cylinder.
So the days passed, until the day set aside for wedding and coronation
dawned. On that morning, Kirby, having concluded a long conference with
the Duca, was walking with Naida in the gardens outside the castle.
“Tell me,” he said to her: “do you yourself believe that this Serpent has the
powers of a God?”
Naida looked at him quickly, a sudden fright in her eyes.
“I believe the Serpent exists to-day, somewhere in the distant reaches of the
chasm, beyond the Rorroh forest.”
“Yes, but do you believe the Serpent is God?”

A
CTUALLY frightened now, she looked swiftly about. But when she
saw that they were alone, confidence returned.
“No!” she exclaimed. “I do not believe Quetzalcoatl is a god. I believe he400is
the most terrible creature anywhere in our realm, and that men first
worshipped him through fear. I believe our race would be better a hundred
times if they had never made him their God.”
Kirby whistled.
“Then you do not believe that the Ducas of past ages talked with him. You
do not believe it was Quetzalcoatl’s pleasure over the great diamond which
made him cease preying on your people?”
“No! Long habit makes me show respect for these myths, and adhere to the
customs of our cult, but I do not believe. I think our race gained immunity
for the Serpent’s ravages, not through a compact with Quetzalcoatl, but
because our builders were intelligent enough to erect the castle up here on
the plateau, where Quetzalcoatl could not reach them. To tell the truth, I
think the whole cult is false and wrong, and I wish Quetzalcoatl were dead
and gone from the world!”
Kirby smiled. In spite of Naida’s reverence for certain features of the cult,
he had long suspected that her true feelings were those she had just
expressed. And he was glad for this new bond of understanding between
them. He glanced at her with understanding and perfect trust.
“Naida, since we have talked so frankly, there is one more thing which I
must bring out.”
She looked up at him.
“What is it?”
“The Duca.”

S
HE drew closer, her perfumed body brushing his, her great eyes
caressing him.
“Naida, I am afraid of the man.”
“And so am I!” she confessed suddenly.

“It has all been too easy,” Kirby said in a slow voice. “There is no doubt
whatever that our possession of the cylinder of gold has had great influence
on the Duca, and yet—”
He paused, taking her hand.
“And yet,” she went on for him, “you do not believe he would have
conceded what he has, unless he intends to make trouble?”
Kirby nodded twice, emphatically.
“Well, you have trained all of us to use the rifles.”
He smiled gravely at her understanding.
“Yes, I have. And your skill, and that of the others, with the rifles, will
always help us. Yet even so—”
Closer still she drew now, and there was sadness in her eyes.
“I think I see,” she said in a voice which choked. “When do you think he
will make a move to start trouble?”
Kirby hesitated, then drew a long breath.
“To-day!”
“On—on the day of our union?” Naida echoed in dismay. “Can you tell
where or how he will strike at us?”
Kirby shook his head.
“There are a hundred things he could do. Naida, I—I—Well, somehow I am
afraid of the ceremony this afternoon—the wedding ceremony!”

H
E felt a little shiver go through her, and would have taken her in his
arms, save that a gay cry rang in the garden then.
“Naida, Naida!” It was her cousin, Nini, a bronze-haired youngster as elfin
and Pucklike as her name. “I thought we should never find you! Do you
realize this is your wedding day, and that you’re acting as if there was
nothing to be done?”
Nini darted a mocking glance at Kirby, who grinned.

“Do come, Naida!” cried another girl. “Your gown is ready, and we want
you to ourselves for awhile.”
Other girls joined them, some singing and some carrying an obligato on the
sweet, flutelike instruments which Kirby had first heard as he hung in the
throat of the geyser. In front of them all, Kirby laughed and kissed Naida on
the forehead. But as he took leave of her thus, he whispered:

“We must not let our guard relax for a second this afternoon. And I think
401

there is a more definite precaution which I will take, besides.”

CHAPTER IX

S
OME hours later, Kirby smiled with tight-lipped satisfaction at thought
of that precaution which he had taken. What it was only he, Nini,
Ivana, and three other girls knew, which secrecy pleased him as much
as the precautionary measure itself.
Seated alone in a dimly-lighted, thick-walled cell of the ancient temple in
which the dual ceremony of wedding and coronation would take place, he
was waiting for the moment when the festivities would begin. Thus far the
Duca had done nothing. Yet Kirby’s uneasiness would not leave him, and he
continued to be thankful that, if trouble should start, the Duca might not
find as many trumps in his hand as he expected.
A couple of hours after Kirby had left Naida and the other girls in the
garden, all had begun the two-mile journey from the castle to the small
plateau on which stood this temple, where the ceremony would be held.
Now, while Kirby waited alone, the Duca and his caciques had gone to
another wing of the temple. Naida, attended by her bridesmaids, had been
assigned to a cell of their own, and the rest of the girls were waiting in the
nave of the temple. Unable to attend the walk from their plateau to this, the
old people of the race had remained in their crystal houses.
With ten minutes more to wait, Kirby rose from a bench on which he had
been seated, and began to pace his cell. It was this archaic pile of stone, he
finally decided, which was causing his depression. Unlike the bright and
cheerful castle, this place, older than any other building in the realm, was
squat, thick-walled, and gloomy. Here, in the dusky cells which lined
labyrinthine corridors, the early generations of the race had found
protection from outside dangers. All of which was all right, Kirby thought,
but just the same he wished he had insisted upon being wedded in the
brilliant and cheerful amphitheatre.

B UT presently he stopped pacing and faced the door of his cell. Then he
breathed a sigh of relief.
From down the twisting corridors which wound out to the central nave,
stole the high sweetness of soprano voices, the whisper of flutes, and the
mellow resonance of little gongs of jade and gold. It was the signal for
which he had waited.
It had been the Duca’s instructions that he should come out into the temple
when the music began, and meet Naida there. Both would advance to the
altar, and when they were in place, the Duca would come to them. Kirby,
therefore, after a glance at the blue trousers and tunic of tanager scarlet
which the girls had made for him, opened the door of his cell, and stepped
out.
In a moment he traversed the windings of the corridor, and halted under a
flat arch at one side of the temple nave.
As he paused so, to await the appearance of Naida and her bridesmaids
under a similar arch directly across the temple, he held his breath. Not even
nymphs could be as graceful as were the twenty-six girls who were
performing the dance of Life Immortal, which tradition decreed should be
given before the ceremony by which, in this realm, two souls were wedded.
The flash of rainbow gowns was like the swirling of light in a sky at
dawning. The music of voices, flutes, and the little gongs of jade, would
have stirred the souls of the dead.
If only the confounded sense of approaching disaster would leave him,
Kirby thought grimly, this would be a magnificent moment. As it was, he
turned his eyes away from the girls, and began to examine the temple.
Just as Naida had told him the case would be, he found both sides of 402 the
nave surrounded by arches similar to the one under which he was standing.
Everywhere, dim and tortuous corridors led to cells like the one he had just
left. Then, in one end of the nave, loomed a closed door from behind which
the Duca and caciques would appear when the couple to be wedded were in
place, before the altar.
The altar itself, a rectangular mass of some jadelike stone, stood at a
distance of perhaps twenty paces in front of the closed door. On top of the
greenish stones, resting on a cushion of some crimson material, flashed the

crown which would be used at the coronation. Kirby’s eyes widened as he
beheld a single rose-cut diamond two inches in diameter, mounted in an
exquisitely simple bandeau of wrought gold. But, a moment later, even the
crown which would be his—if nothing happened—seemed only a bauble
compared to the other prize which he had won in this world beneath the
world.
Naida!

H E realized that the dance was ended, the music stilled, and that the
rainbow garbed girls had formed a double line in the center of the
temple. Suddenly his heart beat fast, and for just a moment, as he
dared look full and deeply at Naida, and she smiled back at him across the
distance, he even forgot to be depressed.
But even as he advanced to meet her, his uneasiness returned.
Now the girls were singing again, their voices raised in a triumphant
chorale as beautiful as Naida’s face with its warm red lips and smiling eyes,
as beautiful as her wedding gown that might have been woven, in its
filminess, of mist from the sea. The bridesmaids, silent, their lovely faces
alight, paused. But Naida came on.
From her floated to Kirby a fragrance more overwhelming than even the
perfume of the geyser. Presently he felt her hand on his arm, and at last they
stood side by side. Now again, his premonition of evil left him for a flash;
but again it returned.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you.”
“But I am still afraid.”
Naida’s smile faded.
“And I too. Oh, I’ve been terribly afraid! We will keep our guard!”
“Yes.”

I N front of them, on the altar, the crown diamond winked and shimmered
in a dim light. The swelling chorus of triumph, in which the bridesmaids
had joined now, made the whole temple ring. Slowly, while Naida moved
easily beside him, Kirby began to march to the altar.
Then it was done, and they were halted. After both of them had given a
lingering glance at the crown whose diamond shimmered now within their
reach, they raised their eyes to the closed door behind the altar.
The thing was swinging open. An inch it moved, two inches.
Kirby waited, never taking his eyes away from the widening crack. With a
crashing final volume of sound, the chorus swept magnificently to its
climax. Then the door was flung wide.
Still Kirby stood stiffly before the altar, with Naida drawn up splendidly
beside him. After two seconds, however, he moved.
Duca and caciques were not standing in the corridor.
In the semi-darkness, the only figures visible there were squatting,
grotesque things whose bodies were covered with whitish hair and whose
leathery faces were disfigured by gashes of mouths filled with enormous
teeth.
A feeling of standing face to face with final disaster, turned Kirby sick. As
he jerked back from the altar, sweeping a paralyzed Naida with him, the
ape-men let out gibbering howls, half-human. With gigantic, hopping
strides, the foremost rank of the creatures swung forward, straight into the
temple.
403
CHAPTER X

K
IRBY, already falling back toward the other girls, caught Naida up in
his arms, and ran.
“Nini!” he bellowed. “Ivana! Get the rifles!”
While the two whom he had ordered sprang to a corridor, and four others
followed, Kirby fell in with the others and dropped Naida on her feet. Sick
as he was, there was still a ray of hope, because the hard-headed precaution

he had taken against treachery this morning was to have Nini and Ivana
bring the rifles here and hide them.
The first of the ape-men, snarling, laughing, had hopped beyond the altar,
and the yellow foam of madness was slavering from his jaws. Over his
shoulder he howled some jargon which made his hairy legion struggle to
catch up with him.
“Have you got any puff balls?” Kirby snapped at Naida.
She shook her head numbly, just as Nini and Ivana swung forward with the
Mannlichers.
“No. But you had sense enough to bring the rifles! Oh, what does it mean?”
“The Duca has sold himself out to the ape-man! He was helpless against us,
and has brought them to destroy us for him. Here, Ivana, give me a rifle!
Everyone for herself!”
The next moment he had a Mannlicher at his shoulder.

A
S the thing kicked, an ape who would have reached him in two more
jumps crashed over with his heart torn out, the temple echoed with
sound which threatened to rip its solid walls apart, and bright flashes
at Kirby’s right and left told him that other rifles were getting under way.
He fired again, twice more, slaughtering an ape with each shot. The five
other rifles were creating havoc.
Blocked by a dozen torn and bleeding bodies on the floor, the
reenforcements which still poured from the corridor, began to mill around
amongst themselves, and the forward charge slowed down. All the panic
which had sent the ape-men scuttling from the beach at their first
experience of gunfire, seemed ready to break loose again now.
Kirby felt it was good enough for the work of a minute.
“Get into line as I showed you how!” he shouted. “Rifles in the front rank,
the others behind them. We’re all right now! Keep firing!”
“Keep behind me!” he ordered Naida, still unarmed.

Then he placed a shell in the chest of one brute who was broader and
heavier than the others—a leader—and saw that he had increased the
demoralization; and from the hastily-formed front rank a volley leaped hot
and jagged.
Then the rout which had threatened broke loose. As eight ape-men slumped
into blubbering, bleeding heaps, the milling remainder of the horde turned,
and in a fighting, scrambling frenzy attempted to get back to the corridor.
Kirby let his triumph take the form of thoughts about what he would do to
the Duca when that personage could be rounded up.
“Follow after them!” he ordered. “Don’t stop until we have located the
Duca. He is the one we must settle—”

But he never finished.
As he himself, holding fire for a second, prepared to follow up the retreat,
he found himself confronted by the utterly unexpected.
A voice unquestionably the Duca’s began to shout orders at the ape-men
from somewhere down the corridor! And, riot or no riot, the tones of that
voice seemed to inspire the creatures with more fear than the rifle fire.
So suddenly the change came, that by the time Kirby flung his rifle again to
his shoulder, the crazy retreat had been halted, and as he fired again, the
ape-men swung in their tracks and began to charge!
There was no time to guess by what power the Duca had turned the tables.
404

There was not even time for orders. Kirby fired twice, knowing that the
ape-men had been infused with some spirit which would bring them on in
spite of rifle fire.
Naida, unarmed, cried out behind him, and he shoved his gun at her.
“Take it!”
He had just inserted a new clip. He handed her others.
“Fire for your lives!” he shouted to the girls.
“But you!” Naida gasped. “You are unarmed!”
“I’ll be all right.”

On the floor lay a jagged, hand-chipped knife of obsidion which had fallen
as some ape died. Kirby grabbed it.

I
N another second the flood of ape-men had burst in all its fury over him.
Crashing, thundering shots were dinning in his ears, animal death
screams and the Valkyrie battle cries of the girls filled the temple. He
could not tell how many of the apes were fighting him. As a cave-man’s
club whizzed past his head, he drove his knife once, and yanked it dripping
from hairy, yielding flesh to plunge it again. A sudden side-step carried him
away from another assailant. He dropped the knife to snatch the gigantic
club of one of the creatures he had killed.
Quicker in every movement than the ape-men, he laid on, right and left,
with such power that blood spurted in a dozen places, and heads were split
open on every side. And because of his speed, the frantic, clumsy blows and
knife thrusts which were directed at him proved harmless.
A terrific drive which smashed a snarling face into pulp, left Kirby free for
a second, and he emerged from the first round of battle ready to cut in and
help the girls. But then he saw that he had gotten separated from the main
body.
“Naida!” he called. “Naida!”
A series of shots answered him, and as several apes fell, a gap was opened
through which he saw her conducting a well ordered retreat of all the girls
toward the dark corridors surrounding the temple. Again Kirby fell to with
his club, swinging, hacking, fighting with his whole strength to catch up.
He made headway, and hope began to come again. The ape-men would not
kill, or even harm, the girls. What they wanted was to carry them off. If he
and Naida together could get their party rounded up in the corridors, the
chances were good.
“Naida!” he shouted again. “Coming!”
Battering down an ape in front of him, he jumped up on the corpse, and saw
that already the vanguard of girls had reached the first sheltering corridor.
Naida had been cut off from the others by eight or ten apes. But even so her
fire made her mistress of the situation, and she seemed all right.

It was just as Kirby started to jump down from the corpse that he saw
something which put another complexion on the matter, and left him frozen
where he was.

B
EHIND Naida, directly in the path in which her slavering aggressors
were slowly forcing her, a huge stone slab in the temple floor had
begun to tilt up as if it were a trapdoor raised by an invisible hand.
Within the yawning opening, Kirby caught a glimpse of stone steps winding
down into blackness.
In a flash he saw that it was Naida, and her alone, that the ape-men were
after. The Duca’s determination was to capture her, and it was the presence
of this trapdoor, making capture possible, which had brought on the second
charge of the apes.
A scream, high and wild, from Naida released Kirby from his trance of
horror. He leaped off the corpse, and smashed a suddenly presented skull
like an egg shell. Momentarily he saw Naida, too terrified to fire, staring405at
the open trapdoor. Kirby felled two apes and felt their blood on his arms.
“Ivana!” he yelled. “Help Naida, for God’s sake!”
An answering shout, not from Ivana alone but from many girls, encouraged
him, and he swung his club with a speed and force which would let nothing
stand before him. But then another scream from Naida rang in his ears.
“Naida!” he shouted. “It’s all right! We’re coming!”
He knew, though, that it wasn’t all right. Fighting like a maniac, he opened
another lane down which he glimpsed her. Fighting still, in a last terrific
effort to force his way down the lane to her side, he saw the black opening
gape at her feet; and, as Naida screamed again, a dozen hairy arms reached
it at once, twisted the empty rifle out of her hands, and lifted her shining
body as if it had been a feather.
Shouts and murderous fire were coming from the other girls, and Kirby
swung his club as never before. But even as he fell upon the last two or
three apes which kept him away from Naida, those who had snatched her,
bolted down the steps.

Kirby was left with the memory of Naida’s great eyes fixed upon his, fear-
filled, beseeching his protection. In a second, the ponderous trapdoor
crashed into place, and she was gone.

CHAPTER XI

D
AZED and grief-stricken, Kirby stood in the bloody, corpse-filled
nave of the temple, surrounded by thirty-two girls whose faces were
blanched and most of whose eyes were tear-bright. The fight was
over, and they were assembled to decide what must be done, but for a time
no one spoke.
Gaining the trapdoor just as it was pinioned from beneath, Kirby had torn at
it with bare hands. But that had been hopeless. Then he had begun to fight
again. But that had been hopeless also. With howls and screams they started
to retreat, and it had not taken Kirby long to find out that every part of their
raid had been carefully planned, even to this retreat under fire. Straight into
the damp black tunnel which led away from the corridor behind the altar,
the ape-men had leaped. And Kirby, in hot pursuit, had heard the Duca’s
voice driving them on. Too much the soldier to follow in that darkness
where the Duca knew every foot of the way, and he knew nothing, Kirby
had seen that he must go back to the girls and take stock.
Now he looked at the strewn ape corpses, smelled the corrosive reek of
burned powder, and tried to put aside his grief.
“The Duca,” he said at last, “must have been planning this with the apes
ever since the first morning in the castle.”
Ivana, Naida’s sister, nodded.
“The Duca brought the ape-people here, kept them in the tunnel, and then
herded them back when their work was done. I suppose it was one of the
caciques who opened the door when the time was right.”
“Does anyone think we ought to try the tunnels now?” Kirby asked.

S
EVERAL girls shook their heads. He knew that already they felt he had
been wise in giving up the pursuit. Ivana spoke.

“If the Duca and his horde stay underground, we shouldn’t have a chance
against them. And if they don’t, we’re better here.”
Kirby shot a searching glance at her, somehow sure that her thoughts were
running parallel with his.
“You don’t think they’re going to stay here, do you?”
“No, and you don’t either,” Ivana answered.
“It seems to me that they will retreat into the Rorroh as fast as they can,”
Kirby then observed.
“And do you think the Duca and all the caciques will go with the apes?”
406

This time it was Nini who spoke, and with the council so well launched,
Kirby began to feel better.
“I think,” he answered Nini, “that the Duca has gone over to Xlotli
altogether. We fooled him to-day. Instead of killing or capturing us all, he—
he only got Naida. But he won’t give up. I think he is taking the apes off to
some place from which he can launch a new attack. And we’ve got to stop
him before he is ready to deliver another blow.”
“What do you mean?” Ivana now asked.
“Do you know where the villages of the ape-people are?”
“Yes. None of us has been very far into the Rorroh, but I could guess where
some of the villages may stand.”

S
ILENCE fell after that, but Kirby knew from the glint in Ivana’s eyes,
and the quick breaths which other girls drew, that they understood.
“Ivana,” he said suddenly, “will you go with me into the Rorroh jungle, and
stay with me, facing down every danger it may conceal, until we have
found Naida and brought her back?”
A flush of life crept into Ivana’s pallid cheeks.
“Yes!”
Kirby faced the other girls, all of them keyed up now.
“Nini, will you go?”

Nini, bronze-haired, dainty nymph of a girl, who had yet the stamina of a
man, looked at him with brave eyes. Then her hands tightened on her rifle,
and she stepped forward.
“When will you have us start?” Ivana asked in a low voice.
“Now!” Kirby answered, and, taking up the rifle which lay beside him—the
same with which Naida had fought—he looked at the other girls.
“There is not one of you,” he said slowly, “who would not go willingly on
this quest. But the pursuit party must be small and mobile. And there is
another duty. To all of you I leave the care of the castle and the plateau.
Take the three rifles I shall leave behind, do what you can to reassure the
old people, and hold the plateau safe until we return.”
A murmur of girls’ voices sounded in the temple. Kirby motioned to Nini
and Ivana, and followed by a low cheer, they moved off together.

T
HE night was on them, where they crouched in a cave above a swiftly
flowing river. Kirby, rifle across his knees, sat peering out across the
black, invisible stretches of the forest. His nostrils quivered to this
mingled smells of fresh growth and fetid decay of the grotesque land. In his
ears shrilled the creaking and scraping of insects, the flap of unseen wings,
the distant bellowing grunt of some unseen, unknown animal.
“I cannot sleep,” Ivana said presently, from back in the cave.
“Hush,” he whispered, “you will wake Nini.”
“But I am already awake!” came her answer. “I—I cannot forget the white
snakes which slid from that tree when you tried to cut firewood.”
“Hush,” Kirby murmured again. “Presently the moon will rise on the earth
above, and light will come here. Even if the jungle is terrible, were you not
born with courage? Go to sleep now, both of you, because you must relieve
me soon.”
As silence fell again, he knew that the real thing behind their nervousness
was their ghastly doubt about what the night was bringing to Naida. But
none of them spoke of Naida. So sickening were the possibilities that Kirby

would not permit conjecture to occupy even his mind when, at length, the
sound of even breathing told him that Nini and Ivana slept.
After dreary passing of an hour, a faint light grew over the jungle, silver and
clear, and Kirby let his mind run back to the two deserted ape-men
communities which they had found and searched before dusk sent them407to
the cave. From the signs of hasty departure, it looked as though a far-
reaching order had taken the brutes away from their dwellings, and sent
them—somewhere.
That somewhere seemed likely to be the great central community which
Ivana said was rumored to exist in the far reaches of the Rorroh. The
problem was how to locate the community through the hideous country. But
Kirby presently drove the question from his head. To-morrow’s evils could
best be faced when morrow dawned.

E
NOUGH light had grown now so that the swirling bosom of the river,
and a strip of sand directly below the cliff in which their cave was set,
were visible. As Kirby let his eyes wander to the lush growth beyond
the sand, he heard something which made him stir uneasily. Some creature
which suggested power and hugeness immeasurable was moving there.
The brush parted, and he saw plainly an animal with the bulk of a two-story
house. On two feet the nightmare thing stood, as lightly as a cat, and then
came down on all four feet as it ambled out on the sand and extended into
the lapping river a tremendous beak studded with teeth. A smell of crushed
weeds and the musty odor like that of a lion house filled the night. The
tyranosaur—it was more like a tyranosaur than anything else—breathed
heavily and guzzled in great mouthfuls of water.
Kirby sat perfectly still. He hoped the thing would go away. But the
tyranosaur did not go away. All at once it hissed loudly and stood up, its
eyes glowing green and baleful, and Kirby leaned forward.
From the water was slithering another creature with a gigantic, quivering,
jelly body. Kirby saw to his horror that, in addition to four short legs with
webbed, claw-tipped feet, there sprouted from the body a number of
octopus tentacles. From the scabrous mottle of the head, cruel,
unintelligent, bestial eyes glared at the rearing tyranosaur.

O
NE of the serpentine tentacles whipped out, slapped against the
tyranosaur’s fore-shoulder to call forth a hiss and a short bellow. Then
other tentacles waved in the moonlight, and in a flash the tyranosaur
was enmeshed as by a score of slimy cables. He was not altogether helpless.
Suddenly the steam shovel of a beak buried itself in the jelly body of the
water animal, and there spurted out a flood of inky liquid. The water animal
emitted a sickening gurgle. But the tyranosaur’s advantage was only
temporary. Closer and closer drew the ugly, scabrous tentacles. The
tyranosaur never had a chance. Its green eyes flared, the shovel beak
plunged and slashed, but never for a second did the tentacles relax. As
Kirby stared, he saw the water animal begin to back up, dragging its
gigantic enemy with it. For a second the whole night was hideous with the
sound of hisses, gurgles, dashing water. Then the river boiled once and for
all, and both animals sank in its depths.
Kirby chafed cold hands together and shivered a little, then turned to see if
Nini and Ivana had heard the struggle.
Fortunately, however, they still slept. And as if this peace which was upon
them were an omen of good, the jungle continued quiet for the next hour.
Kirby wakened them at last, and after a snatched nap, was in turn
awakened.
The three of them started again when the first glimmerings of dawn came to
the forest. Of food there was plenty—fruits which grew in profusion, and
some roots which Nini grubbed out of the earth. Having started along the
first trail which they encountered beside the river bank, they ate as they
walked.

K
IRBY judged they had kept their steady gait for more than two hours
before a slight widening of the trail roused him from the
preoccupation into which he had fallen.
“See there,” he exclaimed to both girls, and pointed at a grove of trees with
408

fanlike leaves which towered up to the right of the trail. “What are those big
bundles fastened to the lower limbs?”
Ivana glanced at Nini, who nodded as if in answer to a question.

“This must be one of the places where the ape-people leave their dead,”
Nini answered. “The bundles—But come over to them.”
Kirby forced his way ahead until he stood beneath a huge, unsavory bundle
wrapped in roughly woven brown fibre, and wedged in a fork between two
limbs. Judging from the ugly odor which overhung the grove, there could
be no question about what the bundle contained. Nini and Ivana, glancing at
the scores of similar bundles which burdened the trees of the whole grove,
made wry faces. Kirby slung his rifle in the crook of his arm, and nodded
toward the trail.
“There must be a village somewhere near,” he said.
A mile farther on they found what they were seeking, a colony of seventy or
eighty conical dwellings of mud and thatch, which were ranged in a double
circle about a central common of bare, well-trodden earth. It took no long
reconnaissance to discover that the town was deserted completely of all
inhabitants.
Ivana beckoned and darted to one of the nearest huts, and Kirby, following
her, found lying on the uneven earth floor within, a half-skinned animal
which resembled a small antelope. An obsidion knife beside the carcass, the
disordered condition of a couch of grass, the sour odor of recent animal
occupancy, all told their story.
“The owner left in a hurry,” Kirby observed aloud.
Nini, who had gone beyond, to a larger hut which might have belonged to a
king ape, called out excitedly to them.
“A great number of apes have eaten a hurried meal here!”

K
IRBY entered the shadowed, foul-smelling interior of the central hut
to find her statement true. Broken meats, some raw, some cooked, lay
on the dirt floor, and scattered bits of fruit were mingled with them.
The ashes of a burned out fire at the hut entrance were cold, but had not
been for long.
“Do you think—” Ivana began.

“I think the whole of the Duca’s horde came this way, fed, and went on,
taking everyone with them,” Kirby finished.
“But which direction did they take?” asked Nini, who was standing at the
door of the big hut and had already begun to examine the crowding, green,
inscrutable walls of jungle which foamed up to the clearing on all sides.
No less than seven trails wound away into the dark country beyond, and
Kirby saw that the question would not be an easy one.
Having hastily circled the clearing and peered down one trail after another
without finding a clue, he knew that it was the Duca’s intelligence which
had made the ape-people depart without leaving even tracks behind them.
He did not like the situation.
“Well,” he rumbled to his companions, “we may as well take our choice.
One chance in seven of coming out right!”
But the words were hardly out of his mouth before he pulled himself up
with a jerk, and cursed himself for having given in.
“Ivana! Nini!” Sharpness, a sudden ring of hope edged his voice. “Am I
seeing things, or is that—”

A
S he pointed to a huge aloe bush down one of the trails to their left,
they started to run. Then Kirby knew that he was not seeing things.
What his first inspection of the trails had failed to show, he saw
plainly now.
Tied loosely to one branch of the aloe bush, almost concealed amidst the
deep green of foliage, was a bit of white cloth! In a second Kirby was
holding out to his companions a tiny strip of Naida’s wedding gown. 409

“She knew we would come!” He stared down the trail with narrowed, keen
eyes.
How Naida had contrived to leave her signal was more than they knew. The
fact that she had done so, sent all three of them down the trail at driving
speed.
An hour passed, then another, and the morning which had been barely born
when they first took the trail, wore on to the sultriness and vast, colored

light of a tropical noon. Twice the main trail forked, and twice they found
an unobtrusive bit of cloth to guide them beyond the works. When the
hands of Kirby’s still useful watch pointed to twelve, they paused to eat and
rest. Then they pushed on.
Meanwhile, the country through which they passed left Kirby with a clear
understanding of why Naida and her people had shunned the Rorroh forest
down the centuries of time.
Just one thing which stuck in his head was the sight of a small creature like
a marmoset, sticking an inquisitive nose into the heart of a sickly-sweet
plant which resembled a terrestrial nepenthe. No sooner had the little pink
snout touched the green and maroon splotched petals, than the plant
writhed, closed its leaves, and swallowed the monkey whole. Little squeaks
of agony and terror sounded for a moment, and ceased.

A
T midafternoon they paused in a spot where a forest of trees with
whorled tops were slowly being strangled to death by immense
orchids of every conceivable shape and color, and by a kind of
creeping mistletoe which grew almost as they watched. Here also, the
ground was covered with fluffy, grey-green moss which seethed constantly
as if it were a carpet of maggots. Both Ivana and Nini warned Kirby on his
life not to touch or go near the moss, and a moment later he knew why.
From the forest came the flash of a small, five-toed horse being pursued by
some animal with a hyena head that barked. At the edge of the mossy glade
the hyena swerved aside, but the terrified horse plunged straight out on the
carpet of moss. Instantly the air was filled with the sound of animal
screams, and a series of tiny, muffled explosions. A cloud of greenish-red
mist swirled about the horse. Quivering, still screaming, the animal went
down on its knees, and as the reddish green smoke fell on him and settled, it
became a mass of growing moss spores.
Before Kirby’s eyes, the pitiful animal was covered by a shroud of green
that spread over him and cloaked him, licking over all with tiny sounds like
far off muffled drums as fresh spore cases developed and burst. The
screams died. Even as Kirby drew the girls to him and they passed on, the

horse’s nostrils, eyes, mouth were filled with choking green moss; and he
lay still.

O
N and on, deeper into the jungle Kirby pushed, and never for a
moment did his companions falter. But the way was not so easy now,
for nerves were jaded, muscles sore, and no human will could have
been powerful enough to cast aside the growing fear for Naida.
Fear came finally to a head when, toward dusk, Kirby sighted a fork ahead
of them, approached it confidently to look for Naida’s sign, and found
nothing.
“Oh Lord!” he muttered, and realized that it was the first time any of them
had spoken for long.
“There must be something to guide us!” Ivana exclaimed as she searched
with questing eyes through the swiftly deepening gloom of evening.
Nini, making an effort to keep up hope in spite of the paleness which came
to her lovely face, darted down both paths, glancing as she went at every
bush and shrub. But she returned in a moment, and as she shook her head,410

her great eyes were somber.
Kirby grunted, scratched behind his ear. Then, however, he stifled an
exclamation, and clutched at the hands of both girls.
On one of the two trails appeared suddenly in the dusk an ape-creature.
Kirby saw at once that the thing was small—a female undoubtedly—and
that it had spied them and was moving toward them with all speed. And
borne in upon him most certainly was the fact that the ape-woman was
making signals of peace. In her outstretched hand flickered through the
gloom a strip of cloth that was gauzy and white.
Again—a strip of Naida’s gown.
“If you know any words of her tongue, call to her,” Kirby said sharply.

I
VANA obeyed. All three of them started forward. The ape-woman, after
returning the hail in creaking gutturals, came up to them, and with an

unexpected look of pathos and entreaty in her face, began to address the
girls with a flood of talk.
Word after creaking word she poured out while Nini and Ivana listened in
silence. Finally Kirby could stand the suspense no longer.
“What is it, Ivana? What does she say? Your eyes are lighting up with hope!
Tell me—”
Ivana smiled and turned toward him, while the ape-woman still looked her
entreaty.
“She says,” Ivana announced bluntly, “that she and the other women
amongst their people, do not want any of the girls of our race to be taken by
their males. Already the men are quarreling about Naida. They will not look
at their own women. Naida told this woman that we would be following,
and sent her to lead us to the place where the ape-people are assembling!”
Kirby felt his lips tightening in a grim smile at the thought that jealousy was
not unknown even to the semi-human creatures of this neither world. He
looked at Nini and Ivana during a stretched out second. Then he moved.
“Good,” he snapped. “We go on at once.”
That was his only recognition of what was surely one of the important
happenings of a lifetime. But for all that, his tired brain, which so lately had
felt the chill of black depression, was suddenly set on fire with triumph and
thanksgiving.

CHAPTER XII

A
S they marched rapidly, the ape-woman, who called herself Gori,
succeeded in making them understand that most of the ape-tribes,
commanded by the Duca and his caciques, were assembled in the
central community toward which they were heading, that grave danger of
some sort threatened Naida, and that the need for haste was great. But what
the danger was, the two girls could not understand.
“We can’t make out what is going to happen—what they plan to do to-
night,” Ivana whispered at last to Kirby. “All Gori says is that we must
rescue Naida and take her away, and must take the Duca away so that he

cannot influence the men any more. And she keeps repeating that we must
hurry.”
“And you can’t find out what we must rescue Naida from?”
Ivana shook her head.
“I’m afraid we’re facing something of an appalling nature, as dangerous to
ourselves as to Naida. But I know nothing more.”
By the time the silver glow which corresponded to moonlight flooded the
jungle, Gori had left the open trail, and was leading them across country
which humans could not have negotiated without the guidance she offered.
Advancing cautiously always, she stopped for long seconds at a time to
reconnoitre, shifting her huge ears about and changing their shape,
twitching her nostrils, and glancing hither and thither with bright little eyes.
Sometimes they passed immense spike-tipped flowers ten feet in diameter, 411

with fleshy yellow leaves which gave out a nauseating stench. Vines with
long, recurved thorns and blossoms of deep scarlet, laced the undergrowth
together and made passing dangerous. Fire-flies drifted past, and all above
and about them flapped moths as big as bats.
Kirby, his clothes almost torn from his body, sweat pouring from every
pore, heard the labored breathing of the girls, and wondered how they could
hang on. But they did, and after a long time, Gori, halting in the midst of a
slight clearing, held up a warning hand.

A
QUEER sensation came over Kirby. As he stared and listened, he
realized that the twinkles he saw far ahead were not fire-flies, as he
had thought, but lights. In the frosted moon glow, Nini and Ivana
drew close, and Kirby clasped their hands and pressed them for a second.
Too tired to exult further he was, even though they seemed close to their
goal of goals.
Gori swung her hairy arm in a signal, and with rifles clasped carefully, they
began to advance. When, five minutes later, they stood in the heart of a rank
glade beyond which they could see nothing, Gori spoke to the two girls in
her creaking whisper, and Nini laid a restraining hand on Kirby’s.

“We have gone as far as Gori dares! She says we must climb a tree here,
and watch what will go on in a clearing just beyond this thicket.”
“And we still don’t know what we’re getting into,” Kirby muttered.
But at any rate they had reached the end of their march.
Exultation did come to Kirby now, but still he was too completely fagged,
as were both girls, to give much sign. Gori pointed to a tree some fifty feet
away, which shot up to a great, foliage-crowned height. They moved toward
it, and in a moment were climbing, Gori first, the girls after her, and Kirby
last.
“Here we are,” Ivana presently whispered, at the same time drawing herself
out on a limb just beneath one on which Gori and Nini had crawled.
Kirby found himself hedged in by tasselated leaves through which he could
not see. The foliage thinned, however, and soon Ivana halted, perched
herself in a comfortable position. Kirby, making himself at ease beside her,
and seeing that Nini and Gori were in place, turned his eyes slowly,
expectantly downward.

A
T first, all that he saw from his bird’s-eye perch, was a circular
clearing two hundred yards across, which was surrounded on all sides
by lowering jungle. In the exact center of the circle, like a splotch of
ink on gray paper, there gaped a deep hole which might have measured six
feet in diameter. Around this hole, eight poles as tall and stout as telephone
poles stood up in bristling array. The moonlight showed that the whitish
earth of the clearing was tamped smooth as though thousands of creatures
had danced or walked about there for centuries. But not a living form was
visible.
A grunt of disappointment escaped Kirby after that one look. When he
looked beyond the clearing, however, a change came to his feelings.
A quarter of a mile away, lights were twinkling—the same ones which had
been visible on the last stretch of the journey. And the moonlight touched
the little conical roofs of fully two hundred huts of the ape-people. No
sound was audible save the soughing of night wind in the trees, the shrilling
of insects. Nevertheless, there stole over Kirby all at once a feeling that the

great ape-village was crowded to overflowing. What was more, he felt
himself touched by an eery sensation—familiar these days—of evil to
come.
Ivana, seated with her rifle across her knees, stirred on the limb beside him.
“Oh,” she whispered suddenly, “I am afraid of this place!”
Kirby took her hand. 412

“I know. Maybe it is the sensation of all the legions of the apes herded
together so silently in their village. I wish we knew what to expect from
them. I wish—”

B
UT he broke off, and called softly to Nini on the limb above. She
looked down with a drawn expression about her mouth.
“Are you all right?” Kirby whispered.
“Yes. But—Well, are both of you all right? Gori says we have reached here
in time, but I—” A gasp of uneasiness escaped her, and Kirby heard Ivana
echo it. “There is something about that black, silent hole out there in the
clearing, and about those poles sticking up like fangs, that makes me
terribly, terribly afraid. Oh, what are they planning? Where is Naida? What
are they going to do to her?”
Kirby whistled in a low key. He had not thought about the black hole in the
clearing.
“Hum,” he muttered, “that’s interesting. Ivana, Nini, what do you suppose
—”
But he got no answer. Gori’s twitching lips grimaced them to silence.
The next instant, the stillness of the night was hurled aside by a howling,
gurgling shout from a hundred, a thousand hysterically distended ape
throats. With the sickening sound came from the village the sullen roaring
of drums.

T
EN minutes later, a Kirby who was cold with apprehension and
wonder looked down from his leaf-crowned height at such a spectacle

as he knew human eyes had never before seen. The shouting had died away,
the drums were silenced. Crammed into the clearing, their foul, hairy bodies
packed close together, the silver light glinting against rolling red eyes and
grinning white teeth, stood fully a thousand apes!
Once the first tumult of shouting in the village had died, they had come on
in silence, and in orderly procession. Those who bore the drums—huge
gourds with heads of stretched skin—had formed a line entirely around the
outer diameter of the circular clearing. Then others, lugging vats of a dark,
heady-smelling liquor, had deposited their burden beside the drums, and
formed a second circle. The balance of the thousand had crowded itself
together as best it might, leaving bare the center of the clearing with its
black hole and fangs of poles. Kirby, looking down at these legions, did not
wonder that cold sweat wetted his back.
Capable of thinking about only one thing—Naida—he was trying with all
his strength not to think. Ivana, her face blanched in the light which filtered
their camouflage of leaves, sat rigid, her hands locked about her cold rifle.
On the branch above, Nini and Gori were as still as mummies. No one had
spoken since the vanguard of apes had appeared.
But at last Nini leaned close to Kirby.
“Have you any idea of what all this means?”
A draught of hot night air carried up a stench of drunkenness, and the goaty
odor of massed animal bodies.
“No,” Kirby whispered. “I suppose, from Gori’s having brought us here,
that Naida is going to appear somehow. We’ve simply got to trust that Gori
knows what she is about.”
“But listen—” Ivana suppressed a shudder. “Suppose they should bring
Naida here presently to force her to take part in some ceremony at which
we can only guess. Gori, who thinks we can work miracles, supposes we
can rescue Naida. But I—I’m not so certain. Is there anything we can do?”

I
T was exactly that question which had made Kirby fight to keep himself
from thinking. His face turned gray before he answered. But answer he
did, finally.

“Yes, there is one thing we can do, Ivana. We’ve got to be frank with each 413

other, and so far, this is the only thing I’ve been able to figure out. If Naida
is brought here, and they make any move to harm her or torture her, we can,
and we will, shoot her quickly, before harm or pain comes.”
A grim silence settled once more. During the last miles of march in the
jungle, there had persisted in Kirby’s heart the hope that there would be at
least something favorable in whatever situation they might encounter. His
spirits were so low now that he dared not speak again.
Amongst the noiseless sea of ape-men below them came, every now and
again, a little ripple of motion as some anthropoid shadow fell out of his
place, approached the liquor vats, and swilled down the black brew, a quart
at a gulp. But mostly there was little commotion. Ivana drew a sibilant
breath and said that she wished something would happen.
“I wish,” Kirby answered tensely, “that we knew what is going to happen.”
But the nightmare waiting was not to go on forever. Kirby leaned forward
and pointed.
It was only instinct that had made him know action must come. For a
second, no change in the expression of the ape-men, no movement in their
crammed ranks, was visible. Then, however, a queer, subdued grunting
rumbled deep down in many throats, and those who had faced the hundred-
foot space in the center of the clearing squatted down on their hams.
In the back of the crowd necks were craned. The stronger shoved the
weaker in an effort to get a better view of the cleared stage, and a few ape-
men who had been drinking hurried on unsteady legs to their places.
“The drums!” Kirby whispered then.

W
ITH almost military precision, the scores of leather-faced creatures
who had led the procession into the clearing, clasped the skin-
headed gourds to their shaggy bellies, and stood with free arm raised
as though awaiting a signal. Nini moved in her position, and Kirby felt
Ivana shiver and edge close to him.
From the front rank of the crowd, there sprang up a great male creature with
the face of a gargoyle and the body of a jungle giant. Just once he reeled on

his feet, as though black alcohol had befuddled him, then he steadied
himself, flung both arms above his head, and rolled out a command which
burst upon Kirby’s ears like thunder.
It was as if the whole cavern of the lower world, and the whole of the round
earth itself, had been rocked uneasily, dreadfully by the bellowing, crashing
explosion of the drums. Maddened by the turmoil he had let loose, the
gargoyle-faced giant ape-man leered about him with blood-shot, drunken
eyes, and beat on his cicatrized chest with massive fists. Suddenly he let out
a bellow. Straight up into the air he sprang in a wild leap. When he came
down, he was dancing, and the portentious, the sickeningly mysterious
ceremony for which such solemn preparation had been made, was begun.
Kirby drew a rasping breath. Knowing that there must be some definite
reason for the dance having begun just when and as it had, he looked
beyond the solitary dancing giant, on beyond the crowded legions of the
apes, toward the village. There, where the main trail from the community
approached the clearing, he saw precisely the thing which he had both
hoped desperately and dreaded terribly to find.

H
EADED directly toward the clearing, moving down the trail with
slow, majestic pace, came a procession headed by a bodyguard of ape-
men and augmented by other men whose nakedness was covered by
unmistakable, unforgetable priestly robes of gray.
All at once the ape-people in the clearing began to scuffle apart, opening 414
a
lane down which the procession might pass to the central stage with its
dancer, its ink spot orifice, and its fangs of tall poles. Kirby, watching the
congregation, watching the majestic approach of gray robes through the
night, wiped away from his forehead a sweat of fear.
“I think,” Nini called in a voice pitched high to outsound the drums, “that
the—the Duca is with them!”
“Yes.” Kirby pointed jerkily. “In the middle of the procession, there,
surrounded by his caciques!”
The Duca!

Yet his approach did not hold Kirby. Directly behind the priests were
emerging now from the jungle a new company of ape-men. Squinting his
eyes, Kirby saw that two of them were lugging on a pole across their
shoulders a curious burden—a sort of monstrous bird cage of barked
withes. Crouched on the floor of the cage in a little motionless, white heap
—
But Kirby closed his eyes. Ivana, cowering against him, gulped as though
she were going to be sick. Nini leaned down from above and looked at them
with dilated eyes. Although none of them spoke, all knew that they had
found Naida at last.
Kirby was the first to pull himself up. Opening his eyes, he stared long at
the white gowned, motionless shape within the cage. Next summing up the
whole situation—the cage surrounded by an armed band, the clearing
crammed with a thousand ape-men—he shook his head. Afterward, he
made a quick movement with his hands.
Ivana, seeing that movement, seeing the expression on his face, started out
of her daze.
“No! No! Oh, there must be some other way out for her! There must—”

H
ER cry, half a shriek, did not change Kirby’s look. What he had done
with his hands was to throw a shell into the chamber of his rifle. Now
he held the rifle grimly, ready to carry it to his shoulder.
The procession with the bodyguard of ape-men at its head, the renegade
Duca and his caciques following next, and the cage bringing up the rear,
advanced relentlessly down the lane to the central stage. The gargoyle-faced
ape-man who held the stage alone danced with increasing wildness,
writhing, twisting, with weird suppleness. Upon the dancing giant the
procession bore down, and before him it finally halted.
The halt left the Duca and the king ape facing each other, and the ape ended
his dance. After each had given a salute made by raising their arms, both
Duca and the king ape turned to face the creatures who were standing with
the cage slung across their shoulders. Whereupon the bearers of the cage
advanced with it until they stood between two of the tall poles. There,

facing the ominous hole in the center of the clearing, with a pole on either
side of them, the ape-men lowered the cage to the ground.
Kirby felt his last hope and courage ebbing. Now he noticed that each pole
was equipped with a rope which passed through a hole near its top, like a
thread through the eye of a needle. And while he stared at the dangling
ropes, the ape-men made one end of each fast to a ring in the top of the
cage. The next instant they leaped back, and began to heave at the other end
of the lines.
From the drums came a quicker pounding, a more head-splitting volume of
thunder. Over all the ape-people who watched the show, passed a shiver of
what seemed to be whole-souled, ecstatic satisfaction. Slowly, as the two
ape-men heaved hard, the cage swung off the ground, and slowly rose
higher and higher into the moonlit air.

W
HEN finally the thing hung high above the heads of the multitude,
swaying midway between its tall supports, the ape-men who had
done the hoisting fastened their lines to cleats on the poles. Then
415

they turned to the Duca and the giant king who stood behind them, executed
a queer, lumbering bow, and fell back to the rear.
The next moment it seemed as though every creature in the clearing—men
and those who were only half men—had gone crazy. The king flung himself
into the air as if he were a mass of bounding rubber. Following his lead, the
whole assembly let out howls that drowned even the drums, and then began
to sway, to squirm, to leap, even as their king was doing before them.
The caciques and the Duca joined in the madness of foul dancing as heartily
as any there. Their eyes were flaming, their long robes flapping, their
beards streaming.
On his perch in the tree Kirby muttered an oath which was lost, swept away
like a breath, in the shrieking turmoil of sound. Then he turned to Ivana.
“They’ve brought Naida here to sacrifice her.”
“But why?” Ivana’s sweet face was frozen in lines of horror. “I’ve been able
to guess what was going to happen to her. But—sacrifice. Why will it be
that?”

“Don’t you see?” Looking up to include Nini, Kirby found his hands
quivering against his rifle. “It is easy to understand. In the temple yesterday,
what the Duca hoped to do was to kidnap most, or all, of the girls for the
ape-people. But he was able to get only Naida. The first result was that the
ape-men started to quarrel over the one girl. From what Gori says, trouble
started on all sides at once. It became inadvisable to let Naida live. So the
Duca, in his shrewdness, planned a sacrifice. By sacrificing Naida, he rids
himself of a source of contention amongst the ape-men. He also hopes his
act will win favor from his Gods, and make them help him when he is ready
to launch a new attempt to capture all the girls.”

I
VANA and Nini looked at each other, then at Kirby, and horror was
etched deeper into their faces.
“I think,” gulped Ivana, “that you—are right. I—begin to understand.”
Nini leaned close to them.
“Tell us, then, how this sacrifice is to be made.”
Silent at that, Kirby presently made a heavy gesture toward the maelstrom
of howling, leaping animals below them.
“I couldn’t guess at first. Now I think I can. They have placed her in that
cage and swung it high above the black hole you were afraid of. What can
that mean except that she is to be offered to—to—”
It was a monstrous theory which had stunned his hope and courage, and to
voice the thing in words was too gruesome.
His bare suggestion, however, made Ivana pass a hand limply over her
forehead and look at him with blank, stricken eyes. Nini tottered so
uncertainly that Gori, who had remained motionless and silent throughout,
had to steady her with muscular arms. If it was impossible for Kirby to utter
his fears aloud, he had no need to speak to make them understood.
“And—and we can do nothing?” Nini choked at last.
“You can see for yourself how she is surrounded. If we had been able to get
here sooner, we might have done something. Now—”
Kirby’s voice trailed off, and he gave an agonized look at his rifle.

T
HE terrific dance in the clearing was going forward with madness
which increased second by second. It had been a general debauch at
first, with the whole thousand of the apes bellowing and squirming.
Now a change was becoming apparent. Red eyes which had caught the
glare of ultimate madness, focused upon the caciques, the Duca, and the
great king, all of whom were swaying together on the central stage. As they
looked, the horde of ape-men broke loose with a heightened frenzy of noise
416

and movement too overwhelming for Kirby to follow. He leaned forward,
making an effort to see what actions of Duca and king could be so
influencing the congregation. And then he saw.
Both of those central figures, the one with hair-covered giant’s body and
evilly grimacing face, the other with white robes and whipping silver hair,
were definitely emulating the motions of a serpent!
It was as if the angles and joints had disappeared from their bodies. They
were become gliding lengths of muscle as swift, as loathsome in their
supple dartings and coilings as any snake lashing across the expanses of
primeval jungle. Lost in what they did, unconscious of the nightmare,
demoniac legion before which they danced, they had eyes only for the
empty, ominous hole beneath Naida’s cage. As they circled the hole,
drawing ever and ever closer to it, they opened and closed their arms with
the motion of great serpent jaws biting and striking.
“God in Heaven!” Kirby cried in a voice which shrilled with horror and
then broke.
It was not alone the Duca’s dance which had wrung the shout from him. As
Nina and Ivana shrieked and cowered, as Gori twitched, gasped, buried her
head in trembling arms, Kirby knew that Naida was fully aware of what
was going on—had been, perhaps, from the beginning.
Slowly, numbly she raised herself from her huddled position, rose to her
knees, and clutching with despairing hands at the sides of her cage, looked
out from between the bars.

T
HE king and Duca edged closer to the hole until they were dancing
upon its very brink. From that position, they stared down into the

depths, their faces tense and strained. And then their look became radiant,
exalted, joyous. Suddenly the Duca leaped back. He shrieked something at
the gargoyle ape, and they flung their arms high in a commanding, mighty
signal which was directed across the nightmare legion of ape-men, to the
drums.
As Kirby winced in expectancy, the drums ceased to roar. Over the night
smashed a hideous concussion of silence, deafening, absolute. And the ape-
men—all of them—and the Duca, his caciques, and the king, ceased to
dance. As if a whirlwind had hurled them, the caciques scattered in all
directions. The Duca, having already leaped back from the gaping orifice,
suddenly turned and ran with blurred speed over to the slobbering, deadly
still front rank of the congregation. An instant later the king crouched down
beside him, and the whole stage was left bare and deserted.
Kirby gave one look at Naida, found her staring down, deeper and deeper
down, into the hole which yawned beneath her so blackly. Then Kirby
lowered his eyes until he, too, stared at the opening.
Amidst the pressing silence there stole from the earth an uneasy sound as of
some immense thing waking and stirring. Came a hissing note as of
escaping steam. The tribes of the ape-men waited in silent rapture. Kirby
saw Naida still looking down, and felt Ivana crouch against him, fainting.
He held his rifle tighter, and continued to stare.
Something red, like two small flames, licked up above the edge of the pit.
Then Kirby gasped and all but went limp. Up and out into the moonlight
slid a glistening white lump that moved from side to side and licked at the
night with flickering black and red tipped forked tongue.
The glistening white lump was the head of Quetzalcoatl, buried God of the
People of the Temple. It was wider and bigger than an elephant’s, and the
round snake body could not have been encircled by a man’s two arms.
Kirby guessed at the probable length of the Serpent in terms of hundreds417of
feet.

S
ICK, numb, he glanced at Naida, who was still staring silently, and
hitched his rifle half up to his shoulder. But he did not look down the

sights yet. Although it was time, and more than time, that he fired, he would
not do it until the last possible second, when nothing else remained.
Slowly from the hole slid a fifteen or twenty-foot column of the body, and
Quetzalcoatl, thus reared, looked about him with a pair of eyes immense
and not like snake’s eyes, but heavily lidded and lashed; eyes that stared in
a wise, evil way; eyes glittering and round and black as ink. After a time the
mouth opened in a silent snarl, showing great white fangs and recurved
simitars of teeth. The head was snow white, leperous in its scabby, scaly
roughness, with here and there a patch of what looked like greenish fungus.
From the rounded body trailed a short, unnatural, sickening growth of—
feathers. Old and evil and very wise the Feathered Serpent seemed as his
forked tongue flickered in and out and he stared at the ape horde, who
stared back silently.
He seemed in no hurry to devote his attention to the cage set forth for his
delectation. The black eyes rolled beneath their lashes, staring now at the
Duca in his robes, and again at the huddled ape-people. But after ghastly
seconds, Quetzalcoatl at last had seen enough.
Again the moonlight glinted against simitar teeth as the great, white, puffy
mouth yawned in its silent snarl. Quetzalcoatl reared his head a little higher,
slid further from his hole, and then looked up at the dangling cage of barked
withes.
In Kirby’s mind stirred cloudily a remembrance of moments in the past: the
feel of Naida’s first kiss, her look as they advanced to the altar in the
temple. Then he saw things as they were now, with Naida surrounded by all
the tribes of the apes, and with Quetzalcoatl staring from beneath heavily
lidded lashes at the whiteness of her.
Suddenly Kirby stirred to free his shoulder of Ivana’s supine weight against
it, and he made himself look down his rifle. He let the breath half out of his
lungs, and nursed the trigger.

B
UT he did not fire.
All at once he started so violently that he almost hurtled from the tree.
Suddenly, trembling, he lowered his rifle.

“Oh, thank God!” he yelped in the silence of the night.
The idea which had transformed him was perhaps the conception of a
lunatic. But it was still an idea, and offered a chance.
Again Kirby peered down his rifle. But he no longer aimed at Naida. As
Quetzalcoatl lifted white fangs, Kirby aimed deliberately at him, and turned
loose his fire.
With the first shot, the Serpent lurched back from the cage, snapped his
jaws, and closed evil, black eyes. From one lidded socket squirted dark
blood. As a second and third shot crashed into the cavernous fanged mouth,
and others ripped into the flat skull, Quetzalcoatl seemed dazed. His head
wavered back and forth and his hiss filled the night, but he did nothing.
But all at once Kirby felt that he was going to do something in a second,
and a great calm came upon him. He quickly jammed home a fresh clip of
shells.
“Nini! Ivana! Fire at the Serpent. Give him everything you’ve got! Do you
understand? Fire! He thinks that the ape-people have hurt him, and he will
be after them in a second. If we have any luck, he will do to them what we
never could have done, and maybe destroy himself at the same time! Me,
I’m going down there and get Naida now!”
418
CHAPTER XIII

N
O sooner did Kirby see comprehension in the girls’ faces than he
swung around and let go of his perch. As he crashed, caught the next
limb below him, and let go to crash to another, he had all he could do
to suppress a yelp of joy. For all at once every voice in the ape congregation
was raised in howls and screams of devastated terror.
He did not care how he got down from the tree. Seconds and half seconds
were what counted. From the last limb above the ground he swung into
space, and a split second later staggered to his feet, clutched his rifle, and
started for the clearing. His lungs seemed collapsed and both ankles
shattered. He did not care. Not when the ape screams were growing louder
with every step he took. Not when he heard Nini and Ivana pouring down
from their tree a continuation of the scorching fire he had started.

Panting, his breath only half regained, but steeled to make the fight of his
life, he tore from the jungle into the clearing just in time to see a twisting,
pain-convulsed seventy-foot coil of white muscle lash up and strike Naida’s
cage a blow which knocked it like a ball in the air. Naida screamed and
hung to the bars.
But she was all right. It was not against her that Quetzalcoatl was venting
his wrath: the blow had been blind accident. As Kirby stood at the
clearing’s edge, he knew to a certainty that Quetzalcoatl’s reaction to
sudden pain had been all he had dared hope.
In front of him forty or fifty ape-bodies lay in a crushed heap. While yard
after yard of the Serpent’s bleached length streamed out of the hole, the
hundreds of feet of coils already in the clearing suddenly whipped about a
whole squadron of ape-men, and with a few constrictions annihilated them
as if they had been ants. Across the clearing, the leperous head reared up as
high as the trees and swooped down, fangs gleaming. The howls of the ape-
men trying to flee, the screams of those who had been caught, rose until
they became all one scream.

B
UT Kirby had not left the safety of the tree merely to get a ringside
view of carnage. He faced his next, his final task unhesitatingly.
Straight out he leaped from the shadows of the jungle into the
clearing, out into the presence of the beleagured, screaming ape-men. Well
enough he knew that those creatures, despite their frenzy, might sight him
and fall upon him at any second; well enough he knew that a single flick of
the white coils all over the clearing could crush him instantly. But the time
to worry about those hazards would be when they beset him. With a yell as
piercing as any in the whole bedlam, Kirby rushed forward.
High up in the moonlit vault of the night, swaying between the two poles
which supported it, hung the white cage which was Naida’s prison. By the
time Kirby had sprinted fifty yards, he knew that his yells had reached
Naida. For she staggered to her knees and looked straight at him. A second
later, though, he realized that the almost inevitable recognition of him by
ape-men had come to pass.

Eight or ten of the creatures, left unmolested for a second by the Serpent,
halted in the mad run they were making for the sheltering jungle, and while
one pointed with hairy arm, the others let out shrieks. Kirby gritted his teeth
in something like despair. Then he realized that the worst danger—
Quetzalcoatl’s blurred coils—was not threatening him so far. And he went
on, straight toward the ape-men.
He did not look where, how, or at whom he struck. All he knew was that his
rifle blazed, and as he clubbed at soft flesh with the butt, blood spurted, and
new screams filled the night. He felt and half saw big, stinking bodies going
down, and clawed his way forward, around them, over them. Then he 419 felt
no more bodies, and knew that he was through. A little farther he ran over
the trampled earth, and stopped and looked up.
The howls of the living, the shrieks of the dying deafened him. Renewed
shots from the rifles in the tree, made the Serpent lash about in a dazzling
white blur, smashing trees, apes, everything in its path. But Kirby, finding
himself still safe, scarcely heard or saw. His eyes, turned upward, saw one
thing only.
“Naida!”

S
HE had snapped two of the withes of the cage and was leaning forward
through the opening. Her face was livid with horror and exhaustion, but
she was able to look at him with eyes that glowed.
“You—you came!” she gasped. “You came to me!”
In a flash Kirby jumped over to the poles and began to cast off one of the
lines which held the cage aloft.
“Get ready for a bump!” he shouted, as he lowered away, arms straining.
Paying out the one line left the cage suspended from the second, but let it
sweep from its position between the poles, down toward one pole. As the
thing struck the tall support, Kirby bounded over to stand beneath it, only
too sharply aware of the death waiting for him on every side, but ignoring
it. Naida still hung suspended a good twenty feet above him, but there was
no time to let go the other line. He braced himself and held up his arms.
“Jump!” he yelled.

Then he saw the white gown sweeping down toward him, felt the crash of a
soft body against his, and staggered back. Recovered in a tenth of a second,
he drew a deep breath, and looked at Naida beside him, tall and brave,
unhurt.
“Are you able to run?” he snapped, and then, the moment she nodded,
motioned toward the jungle.
Behind them, in front, on all sides, rose screams so horrible that he
wondered even then if he would ever forget. As he started to run, he
realized that when Naida had finally landed in his arms, the nearest
squirming loop of the Serpent had been no more than four yards away, and
that, right now, if their luck failed, a single unfortunate twist of the
incredible hundreds of feet of white muscle could still end things for them.

B
UT luck was not going to fail. Somehow Kirby knew it as they
sprinted side by side, and the sheltering jungle loomed closer every
second. And a moment later, something beside his own inner faith
made him know it, too.
“Look, Naida! Look!” he screeched all at once.
At the upper end of the clearing, where an unthinkable slaughter was going
on, there leaped out from amongst a surging mass of apes, leaped out from
almost directly beneath a downward smashing blur of white snake folds, a
figure which Kirby had not seen or thought about for many seconds.
The Duca’s robe hung in tatters from his body. Blood had smeared his white
hair. His eyes were those of a man gone mad from fear. And as he escaped
the tons of muscle which so nearly had engulfed him, he began to run even
as Kirby felt himself running.
Straight toward him and Naida, Kirby saw the man spurt, but whether the
mad eyes recognized them or not, he could not tell, nor did he care. All at
once his feeling that they would escape the clearing, became conviction.
For suddenly the same single twitch of Quetzalcoatl’s vast folds which
might have finished them, if luck had not held, put an end to the Duca’s
retreat. At one moment the man’s path was clear. The next—
Kirby, running for dear life, gasped, and heard Naida cry out beside him.

The great loops flashed, twisted, and where had been an open way for 420 the
Duca, loomed a wall of scaly white flesh. The living wall twitched, closed
in; and as the Duca dodged and leaped to no avail, a cry shrilled across the
night—a cry that cut like a knife.

K
IRBY saw no more. But it was likely that most, if not all, of the
caciques had gone with the Duca.
Somehow, anyhow, in but a few seconds more, Kirby dove into the spot
from which he had left the jungle to enter the clearing. As Naida pressed
against him, winded but still strong, he found his best hopes for immediate
retreat realized, for Gori, Nini, and Ivana, down from their tree, ran toward
them.
“She is all right,” he said with a gesture which cut short the outbursts ready
to come. “But we’ve got to keep going. Ivana, tell Gori that her people are
gone, wiped out, but that if she will cast her lot with us, we will not forget
what she has done. Come on!”
With Gori leading them they ran, stumbling, recovering themselves,
stumbling again. To breathe became an agony. But not until many minutes
later, when they plowed into the cover of a fern belt whose blackness not
even the moonlight had pierced, did Kirby call a halt.
Here he swept a final glance behind him, listened long for sounds of
pursuit, and relaxed a little only when none came to disturb the night
stillness. However, that relaxation, now that he permitted it at last, meant
something.
The complete silence gave him final conviction that what he had said about
the whole ape-people being destroyed was true. As for the Serpent—well,
perhaps he was destroyed even as they were. Perhaps not. In any case the
grip which Quetzalcoatl held upon the imagination of the People of the
Temple had been destroyed by this night’s work, and that was what counted
most. The Serpent would be worshipped no longer.

K
IRBY reached out in the darkness and found Naida’s hand.

“Come along,” he said to all of the party. “I think the past is—the past. And
with Gori to guide us out of the jungle, and our own brains to guide us
through the jungle of self-government after that, I think the future ought to
be bright enough.”
Ivana and Nini both chuckled as they moved again, and Gori, hearing her
name spoken in a kindly voice, twitched her ears appreciatively. Naida drew
very close to Kirby.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked presently.
“The—temple,” he answered.
“About the crown which probably is still lying on the altar there?”
Kirby looked up in surprise.
“Why, I had forgotten about that!”
“What was it, then?”
“But what could I have been thinking about except how you looked when
we came together in that gloomy place, and walked forward, side by side?
Now have I told you enough?”
Naida laughed.
“There is so much to be done!” Kirby exclaimed then. “As soon as possible,
we must climb to the Valley of the Geyser, go on into the outer world, and
there seek carefully for men who are willing, and fit, to come here. And that
is only one task. Others come crowding to me every second. But first—”
“What?” Naida asked softly.
“The temple. Naida, we will reach the plateau sometime to-morrow. All of
the girls who kept watch there will be waiting for us, and it will be a time of
happiness. May we not, then, go to the temple? There will be no priests. But
we will make our pledges without them. Tell me, may I hope that it will be
so—to-morrow?”
Naida did not answer at once. She did not even nod. But presently her
shoulder, still fragrant with faint perfume, brushed his. She clasped his hand
then, and as they walked on in silence, Kirby knew.

421

The Reader’s Corner

“Literature”

Dear Editor:
After comparison with various other magazines which specialize in the
publication of Science Fiction, we—The Scientific Fiction Library Ass’n, of

1457 First Ave., New York City—have found that your magazine, Amazing
Stories, publishes stories to which the term “literature” may be applied in its
real sense. A fine example of this is the story “Murder Madness,” by
Murray Leinster. Others of the finer novels are: “The Beetle Horde,” by
Victor Rousseau, and, up to the present installment, “Earth, the Marauder,”
by Arthur J. Burks. “Brigands of the Moon,” by Ray Cummings, was
interesting and well-written, but it was not literature (not a story which you
will remember and read over again). Of the shorter stories, the novelettes,
the best are: “Spawn of the Stars,” by Charles W. Diffin, “Monsters of
Moyen,” by Arthur J. Burks, and “The Atom Smasher,” by Victor Rousseau.
Since the magazine started, there are only three stories that did not belong
in the magazine, and were not even interesting. These are: “The Corpse on
the Grating,” by Hugh B. Cave; “The Stolen Mind,” by M. Staley, and the
last (I wonder that the editors who used such good sense in picking the
other finer stories, let it pass), “Vampires of Venus,” by Anthony Pelcher.
May you keep up the high standard of fiction you are publishing at present.
—Nathan Greenfeld, 873 Whitlock Ave., New York City.

You See—It Didn’t!

Dear Editor:
Firstly, let me say that I am sending a year’s subscription to Astounding
Stories, which will tell you that they are good.
On the average, the stories are of good literary merit and plot. However,
there is one thing that seems to be getting rather pushed into the background
and that is the second part of your title, “Super-Science.” If this is to be a
Science Fiction magazine let us have it so. I am kicking against stories like
“Murder Madness” and the like. They are really excellent in every way but
just need that tincture of a little scientific background to make them super-
excellent. “Brigands of the Moon” and “The Moon Master” seem to me
more the type of story “our mag” should publish, from its name.
No doubt this criticism will leave you cold and this effusion find its way
into the nearest waste paper basket, but I find that a number of your readers
in Australia think somewhat the same as I do.
422

More brickbats—I hope not! and more bouquets—I hope so! the next time I
write.—N.W. Alcock, 5 Gaza Rd., Naremburn, N.S.W., Australia.

Not in de Head!!

Dear Editor:
I shall be glad to take advantage of your cordial invitation to come over to
“The Readers’ Corner.” In the first place, I find your magazine the best of
its kind on the market, and you are to be congratulated on having such
excellent authors as Ray Cummings, Murray Leinster and Captain S. P.
Meek. Nevertheless, there are so many things to be criticized that I hardly
know where to begin.
Let’s start of with stories of future warfare. Although this class is potentially
one of the most interesting, it is at the same time one of the most abused.
Ray Cummings can write classics in this field, but the efforts of most the
others are atrocities. I’ll wager that their favorite childhood sport was
mowing down whole regiments of lead soldiers with oxy-acetylene torches.
It shows in their writings. Why can’t they think of something original? Why
can’t they make their stories logical? The merits of a story are not
dependent on the number of people wiped out by one blast of a death ray!
But they all stick to the same old plot. A merciless but well-meaning
scientist, or hordes from a foreign planet, wipe out thousands of American
citizens at one blow. Hundreds of airplanes are disintegrated before they
discover that the enemy is invulnerable. An ultimatum in domineering tones
gives the terror-stricken populace forty-eight hours in which to surrender.
But, all unknown to the dastardly villains, an obscure young scientist labors
to save his country and the girl he loves. Fifteen minutes before the time set
in the ultimatum he perfects a new weapon that soon sends the invaders to
their well merited fate.
Surely you realize how ridiculous the whole affair is. It is only slightly less
nauseating than the plot used in the stories of advanced civilizations where
the hero is conducted on a sight-seeing tour by the individual in whose path
he popped upon entering this new world. I can’t believe that more than a
handful of my fellow beings are of such low intelligence that they can find
enjoyment in such trash. You will notice that although every reader has a
different list of favorite authors, Ray Cummings has his name in practically

every list. He is easily your favorite author. Ray Cummings does not wipe
out whole cities at one time. His heroes do not save the world by inventing
a new weapon at a moment’s notice. His wars are not of forty-eight hours’
duration. His conquerors do not attempt to win the war by one great attack
on New York City. Do try to have your authors write logical stories.
I would now like to criticize the love element in your stories. I do not claim
that there should be none whatever from cover to cover of your magazine,
but I do claim that there should be none unless it really helps the plot. Most
of your authors seem to think that a girl is necessary in every plot and so
they bring her in, disregarding the fact that they do not know how to handle
such material. The way it stands now, the heroine is introduced in a lame,
routine fashion; is rescued once or twice; and accepts the hero as a husband
in an altogether lame fashion.
There are many other points but they can wait. Logical war stories, no
Utopias or sight-seeing tours, sensible love element, plus your present
policy will make a corking magazine.—Philip Waite, 3400 Wayne Ave.,
New York, N.Y.

No Present Plans

Dear Editor:
Thanks for the new color cover. It certainly is a big improvement. The
picture on the front of “our” magazine was just as astounding as the story
by R. F. Starzl from which it was drawn. Let’s have more stories from the
pen of Mr. Starzl.
In my opinion “Beyond the Heaviside Layer” is the best story I have read in
Astounding Stories to date. I am very pleased that you intend to print a
sequel to it.
Now I would like to ask you a question. Do you intend to print an Annual or
Quarterly, or do think you will ever enlarge the size of this magazine? I
don’t care so much whether you enlarge the magazine or not, but I certainly
would like to read an Annual or Quarterly.
Even though this letter meets the fate of thousands of other such letters and
sees the inside of your wastebasket, I will at least have had the pleasure of