Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930
by Various · English · Gutenberg #29809 · 476,289 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930
Author: Various
Editor: Harry Bates
Release date: August 26, 2009 [eBook #29809]
Most recently updated: July 20, 2013
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASTOUNDING STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE, MAY, 1930 ***
Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration:]
ASTOUNDING
STORIES
OF SUPER-SCIENCE
20¢
_On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month_
W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher HARRY BATES, Editor DOUGLAS M. DOLD,
Consulting Editor
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_The other Clayton magazines are_:
ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE-NOVELS
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LOVE STORY MAGAZINE, WESTERN ADVENTURES, _and_ FOREST AND STREAM
_More Than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demand
for Clayton Magazines._
* * * * *
VOL. II, No. 2 CONTENTS MAY, 1930
COVER DESIGN H. W. WESSOLOWSKI
_Painted in Water-colors from a Scene in_ "_The Atom-Smasher_."
INTO THE OCEAN'S DEPTHS SEWELL PEASLEE WRIGHT 151
_To Save Imee's Race of Men-Who-Returned-To-The-Sea, Two Land-Men
Answer the Challenge of the Dreaded Rorn, Corsairs of the Under-Seas._
MURDER MADNESS MURRAY LEINSTER 166
_Murder Madness! Seven Secret Service Men Had Completely Disappeared.
Another Had Been Found a Screaming, Homicidal Maniac, Whose Fingers
Writhed Like Snakes. So Bell, of the Secret "Trade," Plunges into
South America After The Master--the Mighty, Unknown Octopus of Power
Whose Diabolical Poison Threatens a Continent!_ (_Beginning a
Four-part Novel._)
BRIGANDS OF THE MOON RAY CUMMINGS 195
_Gregg and Anita Risk Quick, Sure Death in a Desperate Bluff on the
Ruthless Martian Brigands._ (_Part Three of a Four-part Novel._)
THE JOVIAN JEST LILITH LORRAINE 228
_There Came to Our Pigmy Planet a Radiant Wanderer with a Message--and
a Jest--from the Vasty Universe._
THE ATOM-SMASHER VICTOR ROUSSEAU 234
_Four Destinies Rocket Through the Strange Time-Space of the Fourth
Dimension in Tode's Marvelous Atom-Smasher._ (_A Complete Novelette._)
THE READERS' CORNER ALL OF US 277
_A Meeting Place for Readers of Astounding Stories._
Single Copies, 20 Cents (In Canada, 25 Cents) Yearly Subscription,
$2.00
Issued monthly by Publishers' Fiscal Corporation, 80 Lafayette St.,
New York, N. Y. W. M. Clayton, President; Nathan Goldmann, Secretary.
Application for entry as second-class mail pending at the Post Office
at New York, under Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered as a Trade
Mark in the U. S. Patent Office. Member Newsstand Group--Men's List.
For advertising rates address E. R. Crowe & Co., Inc., 25 Vanderbilt
Ave., New York; or 225 North Michigan Ave., Chicago.
* * * * *
Into the Ocean's Depths
A Sequel to "From the Ocean's Depths"
_By Sewell Peaslee Wright_
[Illustration: The two shark-faced creatures were dragging at my arms
and legs.]
[Sidenote: To save Imee's race of Men-Who-Returned-To-The-Sea, two
Land-Men answer the challenge of the dreaded Rorn, corsairs of the
under-seas.]
I read the telegram for the second time. Then I folded it up, put it
in my pocket, and pressed the little button on my desk. My mind was
made up.
"Miss Fentress, I'm leaving this afternoon on an extended trip. The
Florida address will reach me after Thursday. Tell Wade and Bennett to
carry on. I think you have everything in hand? Is everything clear to
you?"
"Yes, Mr. Taylor." Miss Fentress was not in the least surprised. She
was used to my sudden trips. The outfit got along perfectly without
me; sometimes I think my frequent absences are good for the business.
The boys work like the devil to make a fine showing while I'm away.
And Miss Fentress is a perfect gem of a secretary. I had nothing to
worry about there.
"Fine! Will you get my diggings on the phone?" I hurriedly put my few
papers in place, and signed a couple of letters. Then Josef was on the
wire.
"Josef? Pack my bags right away, will you? For Florida. The usual
things.... Yes, right away. I'll be leaving by noon.... Yes, driving
through."
* * * * *
That was that. There were a few more letters to sign, a few hasty
instructions to be given regarding one or two matters that were
hanging fire. Then, on my way to my bachelor apartments, I read the
telegram through again:
THINK IT WORTH WHILE IF YOU FEEL ADVENTUROUS AND HAVE
NOTHING PRESSING TO COME TO THE MONSTROSITY STOP MAKE YOUR
WILL FIRST STOP SHALL LOOK FOR YOU ANY DAY AS I KNOW YOU ARE
ALWAYS LOOKING FOR EXCITEMENT AND NEVER HAVE ANYTHING
IMPORTANT TO DO SO DON'T BOTHER TO WIRE STOP PERHAPS WE
SHALL SEE HER AGAIN
MERCER
I smiled at Mercer's frank opinion of my disposition and my importance
to my business. But I frowned over the admonition to make my will, and
the last telling statement in the wire: "Perhaps we shall see her
again." I knew whom he meant by "her."
Josef had my bags waiting for me. A few hurried instructions, most of
them shouted over my shoulder, and I was purring down the main drag,
my duffel in the rumble, and the roadster headed due south.
"Perhaps we shall see her again." Those words from the telegram kept
coming before my eyes. Mercer knew what he was about, if he wanted my
company, when he put that line in his wire.
* * * * *
I have already told the story of our first meeting with the strange
being from the ocean's depths that, wounded and senseless, had been
flung up on the beach near Warren Mercer's Florida estate. In all the
history of civilization, no stranger bit of flotsam had ever been cast
up by a storm.
Neither of us would ever forget that slim white creature, swathed in
her veil of long, light golden hair, as she crouched on the bottom of
Mercer's swimming pool, and pictured for us, by means of Mercer's
thought-telegraph (my own name for the device; he has a long and
scientific title for it with as many joints as a centipede), the story
of her people.
They had lived in a country of steaming mist, when the world was very
young. They had been forced into the sea to obtain food, and after
many generations they had gone back to the sea as man once emerged
from it. They had grown webs on their hands and feet, and they
breathed oxygen dissolved in water, as fishes do, instead of taking it
from the atmosphere. And under the mighty Atlantic, somewhere, were
their villages.
The girl had pictured all these things for us, and then--nearly a year
ago, now--she had pleaded with us to let her return to her people. And
so we had put her back into the sea, and she had bade us farewell. But
just before she disappeared, she had done a strange thing.
* * * * *
She had pointed, under the water, out towards the depth, and then,
with a broad, sweeping motion of her arm, she had indicated the shore,
as though to promise, it seemed to me, that she intended to return.
And now, Mercer said, we might see her again! How? Mercer,
conservative and scientific, was not the man to make rash promises.
But how...?
The best way to solve the riddle was to reach Mercer, and I broke the
speed laws of five states three days running.
I did not even stop at my own little shack. It was only four miles
from there to the huge, rather neglected estate, built in boom times
by some newly-rich promoter, and dubbed by Mercer "The Monstrosity."
Hardly bothering to slow down, I turned off the concrete onto the
long, weed-grown gravel drive, and shot between the two massive,
stuccoed pillars that guarded the drive. Their corroded bronze plates,
bearing the original title of the estate, "The Billows," were a
promise that my long, hard drive was nearly at an end.
* * * * *
As soon as the huge, rambling structure was fairly in sight, I pressed
the flat of my hand on the horn button. By the time I came to a
locked-wheel halt, with the gravel rattling on my fenders, Mercer was
there to greet me.
"It's ten o'clock," he grinned as he shook hands. "I'd set noon as the
hour of your arrival. You certainly must have made time, Taylor!"
"I did!" I nodded rather grimly, recalling one or two narrow squeaks.
"But who wouldn't, with a wire like this?" I produced the crumpled
telegram rather dramatically. "You've got a lot to explain."
"I know it." Mercer was quite serious now. "Come on in and we'll mix
highballs with the story."
Locked arm in arm, we entered the house together, and settled
ourselves in the huge living room.
Mercer, I could see at a glance, was thinner and browner than when we
had parted, but otherwise, he was the same lithe, soft-mannered little
scientist I had known for years; dark-eyed, with an almost beautiful
mouth, outlined by a slim, closely cropped and very black moustache.
"Well, here's to our lady from the sea," proposed Mercer, when Carson,
his man, had brought the drinks and departed. I nodded, and we both
sipped our highballs.
"Briefly," said my friend, "this is the story. You and I know that
somewhere beneath the Atlantic there are a people who went back to
whence they came. We have seen one of those people. I propose that,
since they cannot come to us, we go to them. I have made preparations
to go to them, and I wanted you to have the opportunity of going with
me, if you wish."
"But how, Mercer? And what--"
* * * * *
He interrupted with a quick, nervous gesture.
"I'll show you, presently. I believe it can be done. It will be a
dangerous adventure, though; I was not joking when I advised you to
make your will. An uncertain venture, too. But, I believe, most
wonderfully worth while." His eyes were shining now with all the
enthusiasm of the scientist, the dreamer.
"It sounds mighty appealing," I said. "But how...."
"Finish your drink and I'll show you."
I downed what was left of my highball in two mighty gulps.
"Lead me to it, Mercer!"
He smiled his quiet smile and led the way to what had been the
billiard room of "The Billows," but which was the laboratory of "The
Monstrosity." The first thing my eyes fell upon were two gleaming
metal objects suspended from chains let into the ceiling.
"Diving suits," explained Mercer. "Rather different from anything
you've ever seen."
They were different. The body was a perfect globe, as was the
head-piece. The legs were cylindrical, jointed at knee and thigh with
huge discs. The feet were solid metal, curved rocker-like on the
bottom, and at the ends of the arms were three hooked talons, the
concave sides of two talons facing the concave side of the third. The
arms were hinged at the elbow just as the legs were hinged, but there
was a huge ball-and-socket joint at the shoulder.
* * * * *
"But Mercer!" I protested. "No human being could even stand up with
that weight of metal on and around him!"
"You're mistaken, Taylor," smiled Mercer. "That is not solid metal,
you see. And it is an aluminum alloy that is not nearly as heavy as it
looks. There are two walls, slightly over an inch apart, braced by
innumerable trusses. The fabric is nearly as strong as that much solid
metal, and infinitely lighter. They work all right, Taylor. I know,
because I've tried them."
"And this hump on the back?" I asked, walking around the odd, dangling
figures, hanging like bloated metal skeletons from their chains. I
had thought the bodies were perfect globes; I could see now that at
the rear there was a humplike excrescence across the shoulders.
"Air," explained Mercer. "There are two other tanks inside the
globular body. That shape was adopted, by the way, because a globe can
withstand more pressure than any other shape. And we may have to go
where pressures are high."
"And so," I said, "we don these things and stroll out into the
Atlantic looking for the girl and her friends?"
"Hardly. They're not quite the apparel for so long a stroll. You
haven't seen all the marvels yet. Come along!"
* * * * *
He led the way through the patio, beside the pool in which our strange
visitor from the depths had lived during her brief stay with us, and
out into the open again. As we neared the sea, I became aware, for the
first time, of a faint, muffled hammering sound, and I glanced at
Mercer inquiringly.
"Just a second," he smiled. "Then--there she is, Taylor!"
I stood still and stared. In a little cove, cradled in a cunning,
spidery structure of wood, a submarine rested upon the ways.
"Good Lord!" I exclaimed. "You're going into this right, Mercer!"
"Yes. Because I think it's immensely worth while. But come along and
let me show you the _Santa Maria_--named after the flagship of
Columbus' little fleet. Come on!"
Two men with army automatics strapped significantly to their belts
nodded courteously as we came up. They were the only men in sight, but
from the hammering going on inside there must have been quite a
sizeable crew busy in the interior. A couple of raw pine shacks, some
little distance away, provided quarters for, I judged, twenty or
thirty men.
"Had her shipped down in pieces," explained Mercer. "The boat that
brought it lay to off shore and we lightered the parts ashore. A
tremendous job. But she'll be ready for the water in a week; ten days
at the latest."
"You're a wonder," I said, and I meant it.
* * * * *
Mercer patted the red-leaded side of the submarine affectionately.
"Later," he said, "I'll take you inside, but they're busy as the devil
in there, and the sound of the hammers fairly makes your head ring.
You'll see it all later, anyway--if you feel you'd like to share the
adventure with me?"
"Listen," I grinned as we turned back towards the house, "it'll take
more than those two lads with the pop-guns to keep me out of the
_Santa Maria_ when she sails--or dives, or whatever it is she's
supposed to do!"
Mercer laughed softly, and we walked the rest of the way in silence. I
imagine we were both pretty busy with our thoughts; I know that I was.
And several times, as we walked along, I looked back over my shoulder
towards the ungainly red monster straddling on her spindling wooden
legs--and towards the smiling Atlantic, glistening serenely in the
sun.
* * * * *
Mercer was so busy with a thousand and one details that I found myself
very much in the way if I followed him around, so I decided to loaf.
For weeks after we had put our strange girl visitor back into the sea
from whence Mercer had taken her, I had watched from a comfortable
seat well above the high-water mark that commanded that section of
shore. For I had felt sure by that last strange gesture of hers that
she meant to return.
I located my old seat, and I found that it had been used a great deal
since I had left it. There were whole winnows of cigarette butts, some
of them quite fresh, all around. Mercer, cold-blooded scientist as he
was, had hoped against hope that she would return too.
It was a very comfortable seat, in the shade of a little cluster of
palms, and for the next several days I spent most of my time there,
reading and smoking--and watching. No matter how interesting the book,
I found myself, every few seconds, lifting my eyes to search the beach
and the sea.
I am not sure, but I think it was the eighth day after my arrival that
I looked up and saw, for the first time, something besides the smiling
beach and the ceaseless procession of incoming rollers. For an instant
I doubted what I saw; then, with a cry that stuck in my throat, I
dropped my book unheeded to the sand and raced towards the shore.
* * * * *
She was there! White and slim, her pale gold hair clinging to her body
and gleaming like polished metal in the sun, she stood for a moment,
while the spray frothed at her thighs. Behind her, crouching below the
surface, I could distinguish two other forms. She had returned, and
not alone!
One long, slim arm shot out toward me, held level with the shoulder:
the well-remembered gesture of greeting. Then she too crouched below
the surface that she might breathe.
As I ran out onto the wet sand, the waves splashing around my ankles
all unheeded, she rose again, and now I could see her lovely smile,
and her dark, glowing eyes. I was babbling--I do not know what. Before
I could reach her, she smiled and sank again below the surface.
I waded on out, laughing excitedly, and as I came close to her, she
bobbed up again out of the spray, and we greeted each other in the
manner of her people, hands outstretched, each gripping the shoulder
of the other.
She made a quick motion then, with both hands, as though she placed a
cap upon the shining glory of her head, and I understood in an instant
what she wished: the antenna of Mercer's thought-telegraph, by the
aid of which she had told us the story of herself and her people.
* * * * *
I nodded and smiled, and pointed to the spot where she stood, trying
to show her by my expression that I understood, and by my gesture,
that she was to wait here for me. She smiled and nodded in return, and
crouched again below the surface of the heaving sea.
As I turned toward the beach, I caught a momentary glimpse of the two
who had come with her. They were a man and a woman, watching me with
wide, half-curious, half-frightened eyes. I recognized them instantly
from the picture she had impressed upon my mind nearly a year ago. She
had brought with her on her journey her mother and her father.
Stumbling, my legs shaking with excitement, I ran through the water.
With my wet trousers flapping against my ankles, I sprinted towards
the house.
I found Mercer in the laboratory. He looked up as I came rushing in,
wet from the shoulders down, and I saw his eyes grow suddenly wide.
* * * * *
I opened my mouth to speak, but I was breathless. And Mercer took the
words from my mouth before I could utter them.
"She's come back!" he cried. "She's come back! Taylor--she has?" He
gripped me, his fingers like steel clamps, shaking me with his amazing
strength.
"Yes." I found my breath and my voice at the same instant. "She's
there, just where we put her into the sea, and there are two others
with her--her mother and her father. Come on, Mercer, and bring your
thought gadget!"
"I can't!" he groaned. "I've built an improvement on it into the
diving armor, and a central instrument on the sub, but the old
apparatus is strewn all over the table, here, just as it was when we
used it the other time. We'll have to bring her here."
"Get a basin, then!" I said. "We'll carry her back to the pool just as
we took her from it. Hurry!"
And we did just that. Mercer snatched up a huge glass basin used in
his chemistry experiments, and we raced down to the shore. As well as
we could we explained our wishes, and she smiled her quick smile of
understanding. Crouching beneath the water, she turned to her
companions, and I could see her throat move as she spoke to them. They
seemed to protest, dubious and frightened, but in the end she seemed
to reassure them, and we picked her up, swathed in her hair as in a
silken gown, and carried her, her head immersed in the basin of water,
that she might breathe in comfort, to the pool.
It all took but a few minutes, but it seemed hours. Mercer's hands
were shaking as he handed me the antenna for the girl and another for
myself, and his teeth were chattering as he spoke.
"Hurry, Taylor!" he said. "I've set the switch so that she can do the
sending, while we receive. Quickly, man!"
* * * * *
I leaped into the pool and adjusted the antenna on her head, making
sure that the four electrodes of the crossed curved members pressed
against the front and back and both sides of her head. Then, hastily,
I climbed out of the pool, seated myself on its edge, and put on my
own antenna.
Perhaps I should say at this time that Mercer's device for conveying
thought could do no more than convey what was in the mind of the
person sending. Mercer and I could convey actual words and sentences,
because we understood each other's language, and by thinking in words,
we conveyed our thoughts in words. One received the impression,
almost, of having heard actual speech.
We could not communicate with the girl in this fashion, however, for
we did not understand her speech. She had to convey her thoughts to
us by means of mental pictures which told her story. And this is the
story of her pictures unfolded.
First, in sketchy, half-formed pictures, I saw her return to the
village, of her people; her welcome there, with curious crowds around
her, questioning her. Their incredulous expressions as she told them
of her experience were ludicrous. Her meeting with her father and
mother brought a little catch to my throat, and I looked across the
pool at Mercer. I knew that he, too, was glad that we bad put her back
into the sea when she wished to go.
* * * * *
These pictures faded hastily, and for a moment there was only the
circular swirling as of gray mist; that was the symbol she adopted to
denote the passing of time. Then, slowly, the picture cleared.
It was the same village I had seen before, with its ragged, warped,
narrow streets, and its row of dome-shaped houses, for all the world
like Eskimo igloos, but made of coral and various forms of vegetation.
At the outskirts of the village I could see the gently moving, shadowy
forms of weird submarine growths, and the quick darting shapes of
innumerable fishes.
Some few people were moving along the streets, walking with oddly
springy steps. Others, a larger number, darted here and there above
the roofs, some hovering in the water as gulls hover in the air,
lazily, but the majority apparently on business or work to be executed
with dispatch.
Suddenly, into the midst of this peaceful scene, three figures came
darting. They were not like the people of the village, for they were
smaller, and instead of being gracefully slim they were short and
powerful in build. They were not white like the people of the girl's
village, but swarthy, and they were dressed in a sort of tight-fitting
shirt of gleaming leather--shark-skin, I learned later. They carried,
tucked through a sort of belt made of twisted vegetation, two long,
slim knives of pointed stone or bone.
* * * * *
But it was not until they seemed to come close to me that I saw the
great point of difference. Their faces were scarcely human. The nose
had become rudimentary, leaving a large, blank expanse in the middle
of their faces that gave them a peculiarly hideous expression. Their
eyes were almost perfectly round, and very fierce, and their mouths
huge and fishlike. Beneath their sharp, jutting jaws, between the
angle of the jaws and a spot beneath the ears, were huge, longitudinal
slits, that intermittently showed blood-red, like fresh gashes cut in
the sides of their throats. I could see even the hard, bony cover that
protected these slits, and I realized that these were gills! Here were
representatives of a people that had gone back to the sea ages before
the people of the girl's village.
Their coming caused a sort of panic in the village, and the three
noseless creatures strode down the principal street grinning hugely,
glancing from right to left, and showing their sharp pointed teeth.
They looked more like sharks than like human beings.
A committee of five gray old men met the visitors, and conducted them
into one of the larger houses. Insolently, the leader of the three
shark-faced creatures made demands, and the scene changed swiftly to
make clear the nature of those demands.
* * * * *
The village was to give a number of its finest young men and women to
the shark-faced people; about fifty of each sex, I gathered, to be
servants, slaves, to the noseless ones.
The scene shifted quickly to the interior of the house. The old men
were shaking their heads, protesting, explaining. There was fear on
their faces, but there was determination, too.
One of the three envoys snarled and came closer to the five old men,
lifting a knife threateningly. I thought for an instant that he was
about to strike down one of the villagers; then the picture dissolved
into another, and I saw that he was but threatening them with what he
could cause to happen.
The fate of the village and the villagers, were the demands of the
three refused, was a terrible one. Hordes of the noseless creatures
came swarming. They tore the houses apart, and with their long, slim
white weapons they killed the old men and women, and the children. The
villagers fought desperately, but they were outnumbered. The
shark-skin kirtles of the invaders turned their knives like armor, and
the sea grew red with swirling blood that spread like scarlet smoke
through the water. Then, this too faded, and I saw the old men
cowering, pleading with the three terrible envoys.
The leader of the three shark-faced creatures spoke again. He would
give them time--a short revolving swirl of gray that indicated only a
brief time, apparently--and return for an answer. Grinning evilly, the
three turned away, left the dome-shaped house, and darted away over
the roofs of the village into the dim darkness of the distant waters.
* * * * *
I saw the girl, then, talking to the elders. They smiled sadly, and
shook their heads hopelessly. She argued with them earnestly, painting
a picture for them: Mercer and myself, as she viewed us, tall and very
strong and with great wisdom in our faces. We too walked along the
streets of the village. The hordes of shark-faced ones came, like a
swarm of monstrous sharks, and--the picture was very vague and
nebulous, now--we put them to rout.
She wished us to help her, she had convinced the elders that we could.
She, her mother and father, started out from the village. Three times
they had fought with sharks, and each time they had killed them. They
had found the shore, the very spot where we had put her back into the
sea. Then there was a momentary flash of the picture she had called
up, of Mercer and I putting the shark-faced hordes to rout, and then,
startlingly, I was conscious of that high, pleading sound--the sound
that I had heard once before, when she had begged us to return her to
her people.
The sound that I knew was her word for "_Please!_"
There was a little click. Mercer had turned the switch. He would
transmit now; she and I would listen.
* * * * *
In the center of the village--how vaguely and clumsily he pictured
it!--rested the _Santa Maria_. From a trap in the bottom two bulging,
gleaming figures emerged. Rushing up, a glimpse through the
face-plates revealed Mercer and myself. The shark-faced hordes
descended, and Mercer waved something, something like a huge bottle,
towards them. None of the villagers were in sight.
The noseless ones swooped down on us fearlessly, knives drawn, pointed
teeth revealed in fiendish grins. But they did not reach us. By
dozens, by scores, they went limp and floated slowly to the floor of
the ocean. Their bodies covered the streets, they sprawled across the
roofs of the houses. And in a few seconds there was not one alive of
all the hundreds who had come!
I looked down at the girl. She was smiling up at me through the clear
water, and once again I felt the strange, strong tug at my
heart-strings. Her great dark eyes glowed with a perfect confidence, a
supreme faith.
We had made her a promise.
I wondered if it would be possible to keep it.
* * * * *
In the day following, the _Santa Maria_ was launched. Two days later,
trial trips and final adjustments completed, we submerged for the
great adventure.
It sounds very simple when recorded thus in a few brief lines. It was
not, however, such a simple matter. Those three days were full of
hectic activity. Mercer and I did not sleep more than four hours any
of those three nights.
We were too busy to talk. Mercer worked frantically in his laboratory,
slaving feverishly beside the big hood. I overlooked the tests of the
submarine and the loading of the necessary supplies.
The girl we had taken back to her parents, giving her to understand
that she was to wait. They went away, but every few hours returned, as
though to urge us to greater haste. And at last we were ready, and the
girl and her two companions seated themselves on the tiny deck of the
_Santa Maria_, just forward of the conning tower, holding themselves
in place by the chains. We had already instructed the girl in her
duties: we would move slowly, and she should guide us, by pointing
either to the right or the left.
* * * * *
I will confess I gave a last long, lingering look at the shore before
the hatch of the conning tower was clamped down. I was not exactly
afraid, but I wondered if I would ever step foot on solid land again.
Standing in the conning tower beside Mercer, I watched the sea rise at
an angle to meet us, and I dodged instinctively as the first green
wave pelted against the thick porthole through which I was looking. An
instant later the water closed over the top of the conning tower, and
at a gentle angle we nosed towards the bottom of the sea.
An account of the trip itself, perhaps, does not belong in this
record. It was not a pleasant adventure in itself, for the _Santa
Maria_, like every undersea craft, I suppose, was close, smelly, and
cramped. We proceeded very slowly, for only by so doing could our
guide keep her bearings, and how she found the way was a mystery to
all of us. We could see but very little, despite the clearness of the
water.
It was by no means a sight-seeing trip. For various reasons, Mercer
had cut our crew to the minimum. We had two navigating officers,
experienced submarine men both, and five sailors, also experienced in
undersea work. With such a short crew, Mercer and I were both kept
busy.
* * * * *
Bonnett, the captain, was a tall, dark chap, stooped from years in the
low, cramped quarters of submarines. Duke, our second-officer, was a
youngster hardly out of his 'teens, and as clever as they come. And
although both of them, and the crew as well, must have been agog with
questions, neither by word nor look did they express their feelings.
Mercer had paid for obedience without curiosity, and he got it.
We spent the first night on the bottom, for the simple reason that had
we come to the surface, we might have come down into territory
unfamiliar to our guide. As soon as the first faint light began to
filter down, however, we proceeded, and Mercer and I crowded together
into the conning tower.
"We're close," said Mercer. "See how excited they are, all three of
them."
The three strange creatures were holding onto the chains and staring
over the bulging side of the ship. Every few seconds the girl turned
and looked back at us, smiling, her eyes shining with excitement.
Suddenly she pointed straight down, and held out her arm in
unmistakable gesture. We were to stop.
* * * * *
Mercer conveyed the order instantly to Bonnett at the controls, and
all three of our guides dived gracefully off the ship and disappeared
into the depths below.
"Let her settle to the bottom, Bonnett," ordered Mercer. "Slowly ...
slowly...."
Bonnett handled the ship neatly, keeping her nicely trimmed. We came
to rest on the bottom in four or five seconds, and as Mercer and I
stared out eagerly through the round glass ports of the conning
tower, we could see, very dimly, a cluster of dark, rounded
projections cropping out from the bed of the ocean. We were only a few
yards from the edge of the girl's village.
The scene was exactly as we had pictured it, save that it was not
nearly as clear and well lighted. I realized that our eyes were not
accustomed to the gloom, as were those of the girl and her people, but
I could distinguish the vague outlines of the houses, and the slowly
swaying shapes of monstrous growths.
"Well, Taylor," said Mercer, his voice shaking with excitement, "here
we are! And here"--peering out through the glass-covered port
again--"are her people!"
* * * * *
The whole village was swarming around us. White bodies hovered around
us as moths around a light. Faces pressed against the ports and stared
in at us with great, amazed eyes.
Then, suddenly the crowd of curious creatures parted, and the girl
came darting up with the five ancients she had showed us before. They
were evidently the council responsible for the government of the
village, or something of the sort, for the other villagers bowed their
heads respectfully as they passed.
The girl came close to the port through which I was looking, and
gestured earnestly. Her face was tense and anxious, and from time to
time she glanced over her shoulder, as though she feared the coming of
an enemy.
"Our time's short, I take it, if we are to be of service," said
Mercer. "Come on, Taylor; into the diving suits!"
I signaled the girl that we understood, and would hurry. Then I
followed Mercer into our tiny stateroom.
"Remember what I've told you," he said, as we slipped into the heavy
woolen undergarments we were to wear inside the suits. "You understand
how to handle your air, I believe, and you'll have no difficulty
getting around in the suit if you'll just remember to go slowly. Your
job is to get the whole village to get away when the enemy is sighted.
Get them to come this way from the village, towards the ship,
understand. The current comes from this direction; the way the
vegetation bends shows that. And keep the girl's people away until I
signal you to let them return. And remember to take your electric
lantern. Don't burn it more than is necessary; the batteries are not
large and the bulb draws a lot of current. Ready?"
* * * * *
I was, but I was shaking a little as the men helped me into the mighty
armor that was to keep the pressure of several atmospheres from
crushing my body. The helmet was the last piece to be donned; when it
was screwed in place I stood there like a mummy, almost completely
rigid.
Quickly we were put into the air lock, together with a large iron box
containing a number of things Mercer needed. Darkness and water rushed
in on us. The water closed over my head. I became aware of the soft,
continuous popping sounds of the air-bubbles escaping from the relief
valve of the head-piece.
For a moment I was dizzy and more than a little nauseated. I could
feel the cold sweat pricking my forehead. Then there was a sudden glow
of light from before me, and I started walking towards it. I found I
could walk now; not easily, but, after I caught the trick of it,
without much difficulty. I could move my arms, too, and the
interlocking hooks that served me for fingers. When my real fingers
closed upon a little cross-bar at the end of the armored arms, and
pulled the bars towards me, the steel claws outside came together,
like a thumb and two fingers.
* * * * *
In a moment we stood upon the bottom of the ocean. I turned my head
inside the helmet, and there, beside me, was the sleek, smooth side
of the _Santa Maria_. On my other side was Mercer, a huge, dim figure
in his diving armor. He made an awkward gesture towards his head, and
I suddenly remembered something.
Before me, where I could operate it with a thrusting movement of my
chin, was a toggle switch. I snapped it over, and heard Mercer's
voice: "--n't forget everything I tell him."
"I know it," I said mentally to him. "I was rather rattled. O.K. now,
however. Anything I can do?"
"Yes. Help me with this box, and then get the girl to put on the
antenna you'll find there. Don't forget the knife and the light."
"Right!" I bent over the box with him, and we both came near falling.
We opened the lid, however, and I hooked the knife and the light into
their proper places outside my armor. Then, with the antenna for the
girl, so that we could establish connections with her, and through
her, with the villagers, I moved off.
This antenna was entirely different from the one used in previous
experiments. The four cross-members that clasped the head were finer,
and at their junction was a flat black circular box, from which rose a
black rod some six inches in height, and topped by a black sphere half
the size of my fist.
* * * * *
These perfected thought-telegraphs (I shall continue to use my own
designation for them, as clearer and more understandable than
Mercer's) did not need connecting wires; they conveyed their impulses
by Hertzian waves to a master receiver on the _Santa Maria_, which
amplified them and re-broadcast them so that each of us could both
send and receive at any time.
As I turned, I found the girl beside me, waiting anxiously. Behind her
were the five ancients. I slipped the antenna over her head, and
instantly she began telling me that danger was imminent.
To facilitate matters, I shall describe her messages as though she
spoke; indeed, her pictures were as clear, almost, as speech in my
native tongue. And at times she did use certain sound-words; it was in
this way that I learned, by inference, that her name was _Imee_, that
her people were called _Teemorn_ (this may have been the name of the
community, or perhaps it was interchangeable--I am not sure) and that
the shark-faced people were the _Rorn_.
"The Rorn come!" she said quickly. "Two days past, the three came
again, and our old men refused to give up the slaves. Today they will
return, these Rorn, and my people, the Teemorn will all be made dead!"
* * * * *
Then I told her what Mercer had said: that she and every one of her
people must flee swiftly and hide, beyond the boat, a distance beyond
the village. Mercer and I would wait here, and when the Rorn came, it
was they who would be made dead, as we had promised. Although how, I
admitted to myself, being careful to hide the thought that she might
not sense it, I didn't know. We had been too busy since the girl's
arrival to go into details.
She turned and spoke quickly to the old men. They looked at me
doubtfully, and she urged them vehemently. They turned back towards
the village, and in a moment the Teemorn were stalking by obediently,
losing their slim white forms in the gloom behind the dim bulk of the
_Santa Maria_, resting so quietly on the sand.
They were hardly out of sight when suddenly Mercer spoke through the
antenna fitted inside my helmet.
"They're coming!" he cried. "Look above and to your right! The Rorn,
as Imee calls them, have arrived!"
I looked up and beheld a hundred--no, a thousand!--shadowy forms
darting down on the village, upon us. They, too, were just as the girl
had pictured them: short, swart beings with but the suggestion of a
nose, and with pulsing gill-covers under the angles of their jaws.
Each one gripped a long, slim white knife in either hand, and their
tight-fitting shark-skin armor gleamed darkly as they swooped down
upon us.
* * * * *
Eagerly I watched my friend. In the clasping talons of his left hand
he held a long, slim flask that glinted even in that dim, confusing
twilight. Two others, mates to the first, dangled at his waist.
Lifting it high above his head, he swung his metal-clad right arm, and
shattered the flask he held in his taloned left hand.
For an instant nothing happened, save that flittering bits of broken
glass shimmered their way to the sand. Then the horde of noseless ones
seemed to dissolve, as hundreds of limp and sprawling bodies sank to
the sand. Perhaps a half of that great multitude seemed struck dead.
"Hydrocyanic acid, Taylor!" cried Mercer exultantly. "Even diluted by
the sea water, it kills almost instantly. Go back and make sure that
none of the girl's people come back before the current has washed this
away, or they'll go in the same fashion. Warn her to keep them back!"
* * * * *
I hurried toward the _Santa Maria_, thinking urgent warnings for
Imee's benefit. "Stay back! Stay back, Imee! The Rorn are falling to
the sand, we have made many of them dead, but the danger for you and
your people is still here. Stay back!"
"Truly, do the Rorn become dead? I would like to see that with my own
eyes. Be careful that they do not make you dead also, and your friend,
for they have large brains, these Rorn."
"Do not come to see with your own eyes, or you will be as the Rorn!" I
hurried around the submarine, to keep her back by force, if that were
necessary. "You must--"
"Help, Taylor!" cut in a voice--Mercer's. "These devils have got me!"
"Right with you!" I turned and hurried back as swiftly as I could,
stumbling over the bodies of dead Rorn that had settled everywhere on
the clean yellow sand.
I found Mercer in the grip of six of the shark-faced creatures. They
were trying desperately to stab him, but their knives bent and broke
against the metal of his armor. So busy were they with him that they
did not notice me coming up, but finding their weapons useless, they
suddenly snatched him up, one at either arm and either leg, and two
grasping him by the head-piece, and darted away with him, carrying his
bulging metal body between them like a battering ram, while he kicked
and struggled impotently.
"They are taking him to the Place of Darkness!" cried Imee suddenly,
having read my impressions of the scene. "Oh, go quickly, quickly,
toward the direction of your best hand--to your right! I shall
follow!"
"No! No! Stay back!" I warned her frantically. All but these six Rorn
had fallen victims of Mercer's hellish poison, and while they seemed
to be suffering no ill effects, I thought it more than likely that
some sly current might bring the deadly poison to the girl, did she
come this way, and kill her as surely as it had killed these hundreds
of Rorn.
* * * * *
To the right, she had said. Towards the Place of Darkness. I hurried
out of the village in the direction she indicated, towards the distant
gleam of Mercer's armor, rapidly being lost in the gloom.
"I'm coming, Mercer!" I called to him. "Delay them as much as you can.
You're going faster than I can."
"I can't help myself much," replied Mercer. "Doing what I can.
Strong--they're devilish strong, Taylor. And, at close range, I can
see you were right. They have true gill-covers; their noses are
rudimentary and--"
"The devil take your scientific observations! Drag! Slow them down.
I'm losing sight of you. For heaven's sake, drag!"
"I'm doing what I can. Damn you, if I could only get a hand free--" I
realized that this last was directed at his captors, and plunged on.
* * * * *
Huge, monstrous growths swirled around me like living things. My feet
crunched on shelled things, and sank into soft and slimy creeping
things on the bottom. I cursed the water that held me back so gently
yet so firmly; I cursed the armor that made it so hard for me to move
my legs. But I kept on, and at last I began to gain on them; I could
see them quite distinctly, bending over Mercer, working on him....
"Do your best, Taylor," urged Mercer desperately. "We're on the edge
of a sort of cliff; a fault in the structure of the ocean bed. They're
tying me with strong cords of leather. Tying a huge stone to my body.
I think they--" I had a momentary flash of the scene as Mercer saw it
at that instant: the horrid noseless face close to his, the swart
bodies moving with amazing agility. And at his very feet, a yawning
precipice, holding nothing but darkness, leading down and down into
nothingness.
"Run quickly!" It was Imee. She, too, had seen what I had seen. "That
is the Place of Darkness, where we take those whom the Five deem
worthy of the Last Punishment. They will tie the stone to him, and
bear him out above the Blackness, and then they will let him go!
Quickly! Quickly!"
I was almost upon them now, and one of the six turned and saw me.
Three of them darted towards me, while the others held Mercer flat
upon the edge of the precipice. If they had only realized that by
rolling his armored body a foot or two, he would sink ... without the
stone.... But they did not. Their brains had little reasoning power,
apparently. The attaching of a stone was necessary, in their
experience; it was necessary now.
* * * * *
With my left hand I unhooked my light; I already gripped my knife in
my right hand. Swinging the light sharply against my leg, I struck the
toggle-switch, and a beam of intense brilliancy shot through the
gloom. It aided me, as I had thought it would; it blinded these
large-eyed denizens of the deep.
Swiftly I struck out with the knife. It hacked harmlessly into the
shark-skin garment of one of the men, and I stabbed out again. Two of
the men leaped for my right arm, but the knife found, this time, the
throat of the third. My beam of light showed palely red, for a moment,
and the body of the Rorn toppled slowly to the bed of the ocean.
The two shark-faced creatures were hammering at me with their fists,
dragging at my arms and legs, but I plunged on desperately towards
Mercer. Myriads of fish, all shapes and colors and sizes, attracted by
the light, swarmed around us.
"Good boy!" Mercer commended. "See if you can break this last flask of
acid, here at my waist. See--"
* * * * *
With a last desperate plunge, fairly dragging the two Rorn who tugged
at me, I fell forward. With the clenched steel talons of my right
hand, I struck at the silvery flask I could see dangling from Mercer's
waist. I hit it, but only a glancing blow; the flask did not shatter.
"Again!" commanded Mercer. "It's heavy annealed glass--hydrocyanic
acid--terrible stuff--even the fumes--"
I paid but slight heed. The two Rorn dragged me back, but I managed to
crawl forward on my knees, and with all my strength, I struck at the
flask again.
This time it shattered, and I lay where I fell, sobbing with weakness,
looking out through the side window of my head-piece.
The five Rorn seemed to suddenly lose their strength. They struggled
limply for a moment, and then floated down to the waiting sand
beneath us.
"Finish," remarked Mercer coolly. "And just in time. Let's see if we
can find our way back to the _Santa Maria_."
* * * * *
We were weary, and we plodded along slowly, twin trails of air-bubbles
like plumes waving behind us, rushing upwards to the surface. I felt
strangely alone at the moment, isolated, cut off from all mankind, on
the bottom of the Atlantic.
"Coming to meet you, all of us," Imee signaled us. "Be careful where
you step, so that you do not walk in a circle and find again the Place
of Darkness. It is very large."
"Probably some uncharted deep," threw in Mercer. "Only the larger ones
have been located."
For my part, I was too weary to think. I just staggered on.
A crowd of slim, darting white shapes surrounded us. They swam before
us, showing the way. The five patriarchs walked majestically before
us; and between us, smiling at us through the thick lenses of our
headpieces, walked Imee. Oh, it was a triumphal procession, and had I
been less weary, I presume I would have felt quite the hero.
* * * * *
Imee pictured for us, as we went along, the happiness, the
gratefulness of her people. Already, she informed us, great numbers of
young men were clearing away the bodies of the dead Rorn. She was so
happy she could hardly restrain herself.
A dim skeleton shape bulked up at my left. I turned to look at it, and
Imee, watching me through the lights of my head-piece, nodded and
smiled.
Yes, this was the very hulk by which she had been swimming when the
shark had attacked her, the shark which had been the cause of the
accident. She darted on to show me the very rib upon which her head
had struck, stunning her so that she had drifted, unconscious and
storm-tossed, to the shore of Mercer's estate.
I studied the wreck. It was battered and tilted on its beam ends, but
I could still make out the high poop that marked it as a very old
ship.
"A Spanish galleon, Mercer," I conjectured.
"I believe so." And then, in pictured form, for Imee's benefit, "It
has been here while much time passed?"
"Yes." Imee came darting back to us, smiling. "Since before the
Teemorn, my people were here. A Rorn we made prisoner once told us his
people discovered it first. They went into this strange skeleton, and
inside were many blocks of very bright stone." She pictured quite
clearly bars of dully-glinting bullion. Evidently the captive had told
his story well.
* * * * *
"These stones, which were so bright, the Rorn took to their city,
which is three swims distant." How far that might be, I could not even
guess. A swim, it seemed, was the distance a Teemorn could travel
before the need for rest became imperative. "There were many Rorn, and
they each took one stone. And of them, they made a house for their
leader." The leader, as she pictured him, being the most hideous
travesty of a thing in semi-human form that the mind could imagine:
incredibly old and wrinkled and ugly and gray, his noseless face
seamed with cunning, his eyes red rimmed and terrible, his teeth
gleaming, white and sharp, like fangs.
"A whole house, except the roof," she went on. "It is there now, and
it is gazed at with much admiration by all the Rorn. All this our
prisoner told us before we took him, with a rock made fast to him, out
over the Place of Darkness. He, too, was very proud of their leader's
house."
"Treasure!" I commented to Mercer. "If we could find the city of the
Rorn, we might make the trip pay for itself!"
I could sense his wave of amusement.
"I think," he replied, "I'd rather stand it myself. These Rorn don't
appeal to me."
It was over half an hour before we were at last free of our diving
suits.
The first thing Captain Bonnett said:
"We've got to get to the surface, and that quickly. Our air supply is
running damnably low. By the time we blow out the tanks we'll be just
about out. And foul air will keep us here until we rot. I'm sorry,
sir, but that's the way matters stand."
* * * * *
Mercer, white-faced and ill, stared at him dazedly.
"Air?" he repeated groggily--I knew just how he felt--"We should have
lots of air. The specifications--"
"But we're dealing with facts, not specifications, sir," said Captain
Bonnett. "Another two hours here and we won't leave ever."
"Then it can't be helped, Captain," muttered Mercer. "We'll go up. And
back. For more compressed air. We must remember to plot our course
exactly. You kept the record on the way out as I instructed you?"
"Yes, sir," said Captain Bonnett.
"Just a minute, then," said Mercer.
Weakly he made his way forward to the little cubbyhole in which was
housed the central station of his thought-telegraph. I didn't even
inspect the gleaming maze of apparatus. I merely watched him dully as
he plugged in an antenna similar to the one we had left with Imee, and
adjusted the things on his head.
* * * * *
His eyes brightened instantly. "She's still wearing her antenna," he
said swiftly over his shoulder. "I'll tell her that something's
happened; we must leave, but that we will return."
He sat there, frowning intently for a moment, and then dragged the
antenna wearily from his head. He touched a switch somewhere, and
several softly glowing bulbs turned slowly red and then dark.
"You and I," he groaned, "had better go to bed. We overdid it. She
understands, I think. Terribly sorry, terribly disappointed. Some
sort of celebration planned, I gather. Captain Bonnett!"
"Yes, sir?"
"You may proceed now as you think best," said Mercer. "We're retiring.
Be sure and chart the course back, so we may locate this spot again."
"Yes, sir!" said Captain Bonnett.
* * * * *
When I awoke we were at anchor, our deck barely awash, before the
deserted beach of Mercer's estate. Still feeling none too well, Mercer
and I made our way to the narrow deck.
Captain Bonnett was waiting for us, spruce in his blue uniform, his
shoulders bowed as always.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he offered, smiling crisply. "The open air
seems good, doesn't it?"
It did. There was a fresh breeze blowing in from the Atlantic, and I
filled my lungs gratefully. I had not realized until that instant just
how foul the air below had been.
"Very fine, Captain," said Mercer, nodding. "You have signaled the men
on shore to send out a boat to take us off?"
"Yes, sir; I believe they're launching her now."
"And the chart of our course--did the return trip check with the
other?"
"Perfectly, sir." Captain Bonnett reached in an inner pocket of his
double-breasted coat, extracted two folded pages, and extended them,
with a little bow, to Mercer.
Just as Mercer's eager fingers touched the precious papers, however,
the wind whisked them from Bonnett's grasp and whirled them into the
water.
Bonnett gasped and gazed after them for a split second; then, barely
pausing to tear off his coat, he plunged over the side.
* * * * *
He tried desperately, but before he could reach either one of the
tossing white specks, they were washed beneath the surface and
disappeared. Ten minutes later, his uniform bedraggled and shapeless,
he pulled himself on deck.
"I'm sorry, sir," he gasped, out of breath. "Sorrier than I can say. I
tried--"
Mercer, white-faced and struggling with his emotions, looked down and
turned away.
"You don't remember the bearings, I suppose?" he ventured tonelessly.
"I'm sorry--no."
"Thank you, Captain, for trying so hard to recover the papers," said
Mercer. "You'd better change at once; the wind is sharp."
* * * * *
The captain bowed and disappeared down the conning tower. Then Mercer
turned to me, and a smile struggled for life.
"Well, Taylor, we helped her out, anyway," he said slowly. "I'm sorry
that--that Imee will misunderstand when we don't come back."
"But, Mercer," I said swiftly, "perhaps we'll be able to find our way
back to her. You thought before, you know, that--"
"But I can see now what an utterly wild-goose chase it would have
been." Mercer shook his head slowly. "No, old friend, it would be
impossible. And--Imee will not come again to guide us; she will think
we have deserted her. And"--he smiled slowly up into my eyes--"perhaps
it is as well. After all, the photographs and the data I wanted would
do the world no practical good. We did Imee and her people a good
turn; let's content ourselves with that. I, for one, am satisfied."
"And I, old timer," I said, placing my hand affectionately upon his
shoulder. "Here's the boat. Shall we go ashore?"
We did go ashore, silently. And as we got out of the boat, and set
foot again upon the sand, we both turned and looked out across the
smiling Atlantic, dancing brightly in the sun.
The mighty, mysterious Atlantic--home of Imee and her people!
Murder Madness
BEGINNING A FOUR-PART NOVEL
_By Murray Leinster_
[Illustration: _The heads leveled the revolver in spite of him, while
he flung his head from side to side in a frantic attempt to disturb
their aim._]
[Sidenote: Murder Madness! Seven Secret Service men had completely
disappeared. Another had been found a screaming, homicidal maniac,
whose fingers writhed like snakes. So Bell, of the secret "Trade,"
plunges into South America after The Master--the mighty, unknown
octopus of power whose diabolical poison threatens a continent!]
CHAPTER I
The engines of the _Almirante Gomez_ were going dead slow. Away up
beside her monster funnels her siren blew dismally, _Whoo-oo-oo-oo!_
and was silent for the regulation period, and blew desolately again
into the clinging gray mist that ringed her all about.
Her decks were wet and glistening. Droplets of water stood upon the
deck-stanchions, and dripped from the outer edge of the roof above the
promenade deck. A thin, swirling fog lay soggily upon the water and
the big steamer went dead slow upon her course, sending dismal and
depressing blasts from her horn from time to time. It was barely
possible to see from one side of the ship to the other. It was surely
impossible to see the bow from a point half astern.
Charley Bell went forward along the promenade deck. He passed Senor
Ortiz, ex-Minister of the Interior of the Argentine Republic. Ortiz
bowed to him punctiliously, but Bell had a sudden impression that the
Argentine's face was gray and ghastly. He checked himself and looked
back. The little man was climbing the companion-ladder toward the
wireless room.
* * * * *
Bell slipped on toward the bow. He did not want to give an impression
of furtiveness, but the _Almirante Gomez_ was twelve days out of New
York and Bell was still entirely ignorant of why he was on board. He
had been called into the office of his chief in the State Department
and told curtly that his request for leave of absence had been
granted. And Bell had not asked for a leave of absence. But at just
that moment he saw a rubber band on the desk of his immediate
superior, a fairly thick rubber band which had been tied into a
certain intricate knot. And Bell had kept quiet. He went to his
apartment, found his bags packed and tickets to Rio via the _Almirante
Gomez_ in an envelope on his dressing-table, and went out and caught a
train to the ship.
[Illustration]
And that was all he knew. The siren up above blared dolefully into the
fog. It was damp, and soggy, and depressing. The other passengers were
under cover, and the decks seemed to be deserted. From the saloon came
the sound of music. Bell pulled the collar of his light topcoat about
his throat and strolled on toward the bow.
He faced a row of steamer chairs. There was a figure curled up in one
of them. Paula Canalejas, muffled up against the dampness and staring
somberly out into the mist. Bell had met her in Washington and liked
her a great deal, but he swore softly at sight of her in his way.
The afternoon before, he had seen a stoker on the _Almirante Gomez_
pick up a bit of rope and absently tie knots in it while he exchanged
Rabelasian humor with his fellows. He had not looked at Bell at all,
but the knots he tied were the same that Bell had last seen tied in a
rubber band on a desk in the State Department in Washington. And Bell
knew a recognition signal when he saw one. The stoker would be off
watch, just now, and by all the rules of reason he ought to be out
there on the forecastle, waiting for Bell to turn up and receive
instructions.
* * * * *
But Bell paused, lit a cigarette carefully, and strolled forward.
"Mr. Bell."
He stopped and beamed fatuously at her. It would have been logical for
him to fall in love with her, and it is always desirable to seem
logical. He had striven painstakingly to give the impression that he
had fallen in love with her--and then had striven even more
painstakingly to keep from doing it.
"Hullo," he said in bland surprise. "What are you doing out on deck?"
Brown eyes regarded him speculatively.
"Thinking," she said succinctly. "About you, Mr. Bell."
Bell beamed.
"Thinking," he confided, "is usually a bad habit, especially in a
girl. But if you must think, I approve of your choice of subjects.
What were you thinking about me?"
The brown eyes regarded him still more speculatively.
"I was wondering--" said Paula, glancing to either side, "I was
wondering if you happen to be--er--a member of the United States
Secret Service."
Bell laughed with entire naturalness.
"Good Lord, no!" he said amusedly. "I have a desk in the State
Department building, and I read consular reports all day long and
write letters bedeviling the consuls for not including unavailable
statistics in their communications. That's my work. I'm on leave now."
* * * * *
She looked skeptical and, it may be, disappointed.
"You look as if you didn't believe me," said Bell, smiling. "I give
you my word of honor I'm not a member of the United States Secret
Service. Will that do to relieve your suspicions?"
"I believe you," she said slowly, "but it does not relieve my mind. I
shall think about other people. I have something important to tell a
member of the United States Secret Service."
Bell shrugged.
"I'm sorry," he said amiably, "that I can't oblige you by tipping one
of them off. That's what you wanted me to do, isn't it?"
She nodded, and the gesture was very much like a dismissal. Bell
frowned, hesitated, and went on. He was anxious to meet the stoker,
but this....
The siren droned dismally over his head. Fog lay deep about the ship.
The washing of the waves and dripping of water on the decks was
depressing. It seemed to be getting thicker. Four stanchions ahead,
the mist was noticeable. He found that he could count five, six,
seven.... The eighth was indefinite. But a bar materialized in the fog
before him, and the grayness drew away before him and closed in
behind. When he was at the forward end of the promenade, looking down
upon the forecastle deck, he was isolated. He heard footsteps some
distance overhead. The watch officer up on the bridge. Bell glanced up
and saw him as an indistinct figure. He waited until the officer paced
over to the opposite side of the bridge. The air throbbed and shook
with the roaring of the siren.
Bell slipped over the edge of the rail and swung swiftly down the
little ladder of iron bars set into the ship's structure. In seconds
he had landed, and was down upon that terra incognita of all
passengers, the deck reserved for the use of the crew.
* * * * *
A mast loomed overhead, with its heavy, clumsy derrick-booms. A winch
was by his side. Oddments of deck machinery, inexplicable to a
landsman, formed themselves vaguely in the mist. The fog was thicker,
naturally, since the deck was closer to the water's edge.
"Hey!" growled a voice close beside him. "Passengers ain't allowed
down here."
An unshaven, soot-smeared figure loomed up. Bell could not see the man
save as a blur in the mist, but he said cheerfully:
"I know it, but I wanted to look. Seafaring's a trade I'd like to know
something about."
The figure grunted. Bell had just given his word of honor that he
wasn't a member of the Secret Service. He wasn't. But he was in the
Trade--which has no official existence anywhere. And the use of the
word in his first remark was a recognition signal.
"What is your trade, anyways?" growled the figure skeptically.
"I sharpen serpents' teeth from time to time," offered Bell amiably.
He recognized the man, suddenly. "Hullo, Jamison, you look like the
devil."
* * * * *
Jamison drew nearer. He grunted softly.
"I know it. Listen closely, Bell. Your job is getting some information
from Canalejas, Minister of War in Rio. He sent word up to Washington
that he'd something important to say. It isn't treachery to Brazil,
because he's a decent man. Seven Secret Service men have disappeared
in South America within three months. They've found the eighth, and
he's crazy. Something has driven him mad, and they say it's a devilish
poison. He's a homicidal maniac, returning to the United States in a
straight-jacket. Canalejas knows what's happened to the Service men.
He said so, and he's going to tell us. His daughter brought the news
to Washington, and then instead of going on to Europe as she was
supposed to do, she started back to Rio. You're to get this formation
and pass it on to me, then try to keep your skin whole and act
innocent. You were picked out because, as a State Department man, hell
could be raised if you vanished. Understand?"
Bell nodded.
"Something horrible is going on. Secret Service can't do anything. The
man in Asunción isn't dead--he's been seen--but he's cut loose. And
Service men don't often do that. He don't report. That means the
Service code may have been turned over, and hell to pay generally.
It's up to the Trade."
"I've got it," said Bell. "Here are two items for you. Miss Canalejas
just said she suspected I was Secret Service. I convinced her I
wasn't. She says she has important information for a Service man."
* * * * *
The brawny figure of the stoker growled.
"Damn women! She was told somebody'd be sent to see her father. She
was shown a recognition-knot with the outsider's variation. Given one,
for father. That'll identify you to him. But she shouldn't have
talked. Now, be careful. As nearly as we know, that chap in the
straight-jacket was given some poison that drove him insane. There are
hellish drugs down there. Maybe the same thing happened to others.
Look out for yourself, and give me the information Canalejas gives you
as quickly as God will let you. If anything happens to you, we want
the stuff to get back. Understand?"
"Of course," said Bell. He carefully did not shiver as he realized
what Jamison meant by anything happening to him. "The other item is
that Ortiz, ex-Minister of the Interior of the Argentine, is scared to
death about something. Sending radios right and left."
"Umph," growled Jamison. "One of our men vanished in Buenos Aires.
Watch him. You're friendly?"
"Yes."
"Get friendlier. See what he's got. Now shoo."
Bell swung up the ladder again. Mist opened before him and closed
again behind. He climbed over the rail to the promenade deck, and felt
a little flare of irritation. There was a figure watching him.
He slipped to the deck and grinned sheepishly at Paula Canalejas. She
stood with her hands in the pockets of her little sport coat,
regarding him very gravely.
* * * * *
"I suppose," said Charley Bell sheepishly, "that I look like a fool.
But I've always wanted to climb up and down that ladder. I suppose
it's a survival from the age of childhood. At the age of seven I
longed to be a fireman."
"I wonder," said Paula quietly. "Mr. Bell"--she stepped close to
him--"I am taking a desperate chance. For the sake of my father, I
wish certain things known. I think that you are an honorable man, and
I think that you lied to me just now. Go and see Senor Ortiz. Your
government will want to know what happens to him. Go and see him
quickly."
Bell felt the same flare of irritation as before. Women do not follow
rules. They will not follow rules. They depend upon intuition, which
is sometimes right, but sometimes leads to ungodly errors. Paula was
right this time, but she could have been wholly and hopelessly wrong.
If she had talked to anyone else....
"My child," said Bell paternally--he was at least two years older than
Paula--"you should be careful. I did not lie to you just now. I am not
Secret Service. But I happen to know that you have a tiny piece of
string to give your father, and I beg of you not to show that to
anyone else. And--well--you are probably watched. You must not talk
seriously to me!"
He lifted his hat and started astern. He was more than merely
irritated. He was almost frightened. Because the Trade, officially,
does not exist at all, and everybody in the Trade is working entirely
on his own; and because those people who suspect that there is a Trade
and dislike it are not on their own, but have plenty of resources
behind them. And yet it is requisite that the Trade shall succeed in
its various missions. Always.
* * * * *
The Government of the United States, you understand, will admit that
it has a Secret Service, which it strives to identify solely with the
pursuit of counterfeiters, postal thieves, and violators of the
prohibition laws. Strongly pressed, it will admit that some members of
the Secret Service work abroad, the official explanation being that
they work abroad to forestall smugglers. And at a pinch, and in
confidence, it may concede the existence of diplomatic secret agents.
But there is no such thing as the Trade. Not at all. The funds which
members of the Trade expend are derived by very devious bookkeeping
from the appropriations allotted to an otherwise honestly conducted
Department of the United States Government.
Therefore the Trade does not really exist. You might say that there is
a sort of conspiracy among certain people to do certain things. Some
of them are government officials, major and minor. Some of them are
private citizens, reputable and otherwise. One or two of them are in
jail, both here and abroad. But as far as the Government of the United
States is concerned, certain fortunate coincidences that happen now
and then are purely coincidences. And the Trade, which arranges for
them, does not exist. But it has a good many enemies.
* * * * *
The fog-horn howled dismally overhead. Mist swirled past the ship, and
an oily swell surged vaguely overside and disappeared into a gray
oblivion half a ship's length away. Bell moved on toward the stern. It
was his intention to go into the smoking-room and idle ostentatiously.
Perhaps he would enter into another argument with that Brazilian air
pilot who had so much confidence in Handley-Page wing-slots. Bell had,
in Washington, a small private plane that, he explained, had been
given him by a wealthy aunt, who hoped he would break his neck in it.
He considered that wing-slots interfered with stunting.
He had picked out the door with his eye when he espied a small figure
standing by the rail. It was Ortiz, the Argentine ex-Cabinet Minister,
staring off into the grayness, and seeming to listen with all his
ears.
Bell slowed up. The little stout man turned and nodded to him, and
then put out his hand.
"Senor Bell," he said quietly, "tell me. Do you hear airplane motors?"
Bell listened. The drip-drip-drip of condensed mist. The shuddering of
the ship with her motors going dead slow. The tinkling, muted notes of
the piano inside the saloon. The washing and hissing of the waves
overside. That was all.
"Why, no," said Bell. "I don't. Sound travels freakishly in fog,
though. One might be quite close and we couldn't hear it. But we're a
hundred and fifty miles off the Venezuelan coast, aren't we?"
* * * * *
Ortiz turned and faced him. Bell was shocked at the expression on the
small man's face. It was drained of all blood, and its look was
ghastly. But the rather fine dark eyes were steady.
"We are," agreed Ortiz, very steadily indeed, "but I--I have received
a radiogram that some airplane should fly near this ship, and it would
amuse me to hear it."
Bell frowned at the fog.
"I've done a good bit of flying," he observed, "and if I were flying
out at sea right now, I'd dodge this fog bank. It would be
practically suicide to try to alight in a mist like this."
Ortiz regarded him carefully. It seemed to Bell that sweat was coming
out upon the other man's forehead.
"You mean," he said quietly, "that an airplane could not land?"
"It might try," said Bell with a shrug. "But you couldn't judge your
height above the water. You might crash right into it and dive under.
Matter of fact, you probably would."
Ortiz's nostrils quivered a little.
"I told them," he said steadily, "I told them it was not wise to
risk...."
* * * * *
He stopped. He looked suddenly at his hands, clenched upon the rail. A
depth of pallor even greater than his previous terrible paleness
seemed to leave even his lips without blood. He wavered on his feet,
as if he were staggering.
"You're sick!" said Bell sharply. Instinctively he moved forward.
The fine dark eyes regarded him oddly. And Ortiz suddenly took his
hands from the railing of the promenade deck. He looked at his fingers
detachedly. And Bell could see them writhing, opening and closing in a
horribly sensate fashion, as if they were possessed of devils and
altogether beyond the control of their owner. And he suddenly realized
that the steady, grim regard with which Ortiz looked at his hands was
exactly like the look he had seen upon a man's face once, when that
man saw a venomous snake crawling toward him and had absolutely no
weapon.
Ortiz was looking at his fingers as a man might look at cobras at the
ends of his wrists. Very calmly, but with a still, stunned horror.
* * * * *
He lifted his eyes to Bell.
"I have no control over them," he said quietly. "My hands are useless
to me, Senor Bell. I wonder if you will be good enough to assist me to
my cabin."
Again that deadly pallor flashed across his face. Bell caught at his
arm.
"What is the matter?" he demanded anxiously. "Of course I'll help
you."
Ortiz smiled very faintly.
"If any airplane arrives in time," he said steadily, "something may be
done. But you have rid me of even that hope. I have been poisoned,
Senor Bell."
"But the ship's doctor...."
Ortiz, walking rather stiffly beside Bell, shrugged.
"He can do nothing. Will you be good enough to open this door for me?
And"--his voice was hoarse for an instant--"assist me to put my hands
in my pockets. I cannot. But I would not like them to be seen."
Bill took hold of the writhing fingers. He saw sweat standing out upon
Ortiz's forehead. And the fingers closed savagely upon Bell's hands,
tearing at them. Ortiz looked at him with a ghastly supplication.
"Now," he said with difficulty, "if you will open the door, Senor
Bell...."
Bell slid the door aside. They went in together. People were making
the best of boresome weather within, frankly yawning, most of them.
But the card-room would be full, and the smoking-room steward would be
busy.
"My cabin is upon the next deck below," said Ortiz through stiff lips.
"We--we will descend the stairs."
* * * * *
Bell went with him, his face expressionless.
"My cabin should be unlocked," said Ortiz.
It was. Ortiz entered, and, with his hands still in his pockets,
indicated a steamer-trunk.
"Please open that." He licked his lips. "I--I had thought I would have
warning enough. It has not been so severe before. Right at the
top...."
Bell flung the top back. A pair of bright and shiny handcuffs lay on
top of a dress shirt.
"Yes," said Ortiz steadily. "Put them upon my wrists, please. The
poison that has been given to me is--peculiar. I believe that one of
your compatriots has experienced its effects."
Bell started slightly. Ortiz eyed him steadily.
"Precisely." Ortiz, with his face a gray mask of horror, spoke with a
steadiness Bell could never have accomplished. "A poison, Senor Bell,
which has made a member of the Secret Service of the United States a
homicidal maniac. It has been given to me. I have been hoping for its
antidote, but--Quick! Senor Bell! Quick! The handcuffs!"
CHAPTER II
The throbbing of the engines went on at an unvarying tempo. There was
the slight, almost infinitesimal tremor of their vibration. The
electric light in the cabin wavered rhythmically with its dynamo. From
the open porthole came the sound of washing water. Now and then a
disconnected sound of laughter or of speech came down from the main
saloon.
Ortiz lay upon the bed, exhausted.
"It is perhaps humorous, Senor Bell," he said presently, in the same
steady voice he had used upon the deck. "It is undoubtedly humorous
that I should call upon you. I believe that you are allied with the
Secret Service of your government."
Bell started to shake his head, but was still. He said nothing.
"I am poisoned," said Ortiz. He tried to smile, but it was ghastly.
"It is a poison which makes a man mad in a very horrible fashion. If I
could use my hands--and could trust them--I would undoubtedly shoot
myself. It would be entirely preferable. Instead, I hope--"
He broke off short and listened intently. His forehead beaded.
"Is that an airplane motor?"
Bell went to the port and listened. The washing of waves. The
throbbing of the ship's engines. The dismal, long-drawn-out moaning
of the fog-horn. Nothing else.... Yes! A dim and distant muttering. It
drew nearer and died away again.
"That is a plane," said Bell. "Yes, It's out of hearing now."
Ortiz clamped his jaws together.
"I was about to speak," he said steadily, "to tell you--many things.
Which your government should know. Instead, I ask you to go to the
wireless room and have the wireless operator try to get in touch with
that plane. It is a two-motored seaplane and it has a wireless outfit.
It will answer the call M.S.T.R. Ask him to use his directional
wireless and try to guide it to the ship. It brings the antidote to
the poison which affects me."
Bell made for the door. Ortiz raised his head with a ghastly smile.
"Close the door tightly," he said quietly. "I--I feel as if I shall be
unpleasant."
* * * * *
Closing the door behind him, Bell felt rather like a man in a
nightmare. He made for the stairway, bolted for the deck, and fairly
darted up the ladder to the wireless room.
"Ortiz sent me," he said to the operator. "You heard that plane just
now. See if you can get it."
The operator looked up at him beneath a green eyeshade and grinned
crookedly.
"Talking to 'em now," he said.
The key flicked up and down, and a tiny dancing spark leaped into
being and vanished beneath its contact-point. The wireless room was
dark save for the bright, shaded light above the sending table. A file
of sent messages by an elbow. A pad for messages received was by a
hand. Stray wreaths of tobacco smoke floated about the room, leaping
into view as they drifted beneath the lamp.
"Is he bad?" asked the operator fascinatedly, his eyes fixed on his
key.
Bell felt his eyelids flicker.
"Very bad," he said shortly.
"They tell me," said the operator and shuddered, "your hands get
working and you can't stop 'em.... I'm playing, I am! I'm playing The
Master's game!"
* * * * *
The key stopped. He listened.
"They're going to try to swoop over the ship and drop it," he said a
moment later. "I don't think they can. But tell Ortiz they're going to
try."
Bell's eyes were narrow. It is not customary for a radio operator on a
passenger ship to speak of an ex-Cabinet Minister of the Argentine
Republic by his surname only. It bespeaks either impertinence or a
certain very peculiar association. Bell frowned imperceptibly for an
instant, thinking.
"You've--had it?" he asked sharply.
"God, no! I never took the chance! I saw the red spots once, and I
went to Rib--Say! You got a password?"
He was staring up at Bell. Bell shrugged.
"I'm trying to help Senor Ortiz now."
The operator continued to stare, his eyes full of suspicion. Then he
grimaced.
"All right. Go tell him they're going to drop it."
* * * * *
Bell went out. Gray fog, and washing seas, and the big ship ploughing
steadily on toward the south.... The horn blared, startlingly loud and
unspeakably doleful. Bell listened for other sounds. There were none.
Down the steep ladder to the promenade deck. Paula Canalejas nodded to
him.
"I saw you speak to Senor Ortiz," she said quietly. "You see?"
Bell was beginning to have a peculiar, horrible suspicion. It was
incredible, but it was inevitable.
"I think I see," he said harshly. "But I don't dare believe it. Keep
quiet and don't speak to me unless I give you some sign it's safe!
It's--hellish!"
He went inside and swiftly down the stairs. He found a steward
hesitating outside the door of Ortiz's cabin. He touched Bell's arm
anxiously as he was about to go in.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said, and stammered. "I--I heard Mr. Ortiz
making some--very strange noises, sir. I--I thought he was sick...."
"He is," said Bell grimly. "He told me he does not want a doctor,
though. I'm looking after him."
He closed the door behind him, and Ortiz grinned at him. It was a
horrible, a terrible grin, and Ortiz fought it from his face with a
terrific effort of will. There was foam about his lips.
* * * * *
"_Dios!_ It was--it was devilish!" he gasped. "Senor Bell, _amigo
mio_, for the love of the good God get my revolver from my trunk. Give
it to me...."
Bell said shortly: "The airplane just radioed that it's going to try
to swoop overhead and drop a package on board the steamer. It doesn't
dare alight in this fog."
"I think," gasped Ortiz, "I think it would be well to tie my feet. Tie
them fast! If--if the package comes, if I--if I am unpleasant, knock
me unconscious and pour it into my mouth. I fear it is too late now.
But try it...."
Through the port came the muttering of a seaplane's engines. The noise
died away. Almost instantly the siren boomed hoarsely.
"Ah, _Dios!_" said Ortiz unsteadily. "There it is! Senor Bell, I think
it is too late. Would you--would you assist me to go out on deck,
where I might fling myself overboard? I--think I can control my legs
so long."
"Steady!" said Bell, wrenched by the sight of the man before him
fighting against unnameable horror. "Tell me--"
"It is poison," said Ortiz, his features fixed in a terrible effort of
will. "A ghastly, a horrible poison of the _Indios_ of Matto Grosso,
in Brazil. It drives a man mad, murder mad. It is as if he were
possessed by a devil. His hands first refuse to obey him. His feet
next. And then his body. It is as if a devil had seized hold of his
body and carried it about doing murder with it. A part of the brain is
driven insane, and a man goes about shrieking with the horror of what
crimes his body commits until the poison reaches that portion of his
brain as well. Then he is mad forever. That is what I face, _amigo
mio_. That is why I beg you, I implore you, to kill me or assist me to
the side of the ship so that I may fling myself overboard! The Master
had it administered to me secretly, and demanded treason as the price
of the antidote. He deman--"
* * * * *
Steady and strong, rising from a muttering to a steady roar, the sound
of airplane motors came through the port. Bell started up.
"Hold fast," he snapped savagely. "I'll go get that package when it
lands. Hold fast, I tell you! Fight it!"
He flung out of the cabin and raced up the stairs. The door to the
deck was open. He crowded through a group of passengers who had
discounted the dampness for the sake of a novelty--an airplane far out
at sea--and raced up to the upper deck. The roaring noise was
receding. The siren roared hoarsely. Then the noise came back.
For minutes, then, the ship seemed to play hide-and-seek with the
invisible fliers. The roaring noise overhead circled about, now near,
now seeming very far away. And the siren sent its dismal blasts out
into the grayness all about. Then, for an instant, a swiftly scudding
shadow was visible overhead. It banked steeply and vanished, and
seemed to have turned and come lower when it reappeared a moment
later. It was not distinct, at first. It was merely a silhouette of
darker gray against the all-enveloping mist. But its edges sharpened
and became clear. One could make out struts, an aileron's trailing
edge.
"Got nerve, anyhow," said Bell grimly.
It swept across the ship and disappeared, but the noise of its engines
did not dwindle more than a little. The blast of the siren seemed to
summon it back again. Once more it came in sight, and this time it
dived steeply, flashed across the forecastle deck amid a hideous
uproar, desperately, horribly close to the dangling derrick-cables,
and was gone.
* * * * *
Bell had seen it more clearly than anyone else on the ship, perhaps.
He saw a man in the pilot's cockpit between wings and tail reach high
and fling something downward, something with a long streamer attached
to it. Bell had an instant's glimpse of the goggled face. Then he was
darting forward, watching the thing that fell.
It took only a second. Two at most. But the thing seemed to fall with
infinite deliberation, the streamer shivering out behind it. It fell
at a steep slant, the forward momentum of the plane's speed added to
its own drop. It swooped down, slanting toward the rail....
Bell groaned. It struck the rail itself, and bounced. A sailor flung
himself toward it. The streamer slipped from his fingers and slithered
over the side.
Bell was at the railing just in time to see it drop into the water. He
opened his mouth to shout, and saw it sink. The last of the streamer
followed the dropped object down into the green water when it was
directly below him.
His hands clenched. Bell stared sickly at the spot where it had
vanished. An instant later he had whirled and was thrusting wide the
wireless room door. The operator was returning to his key, grinning
crookedly. He looked up sidewise.
"Tell them it went overside," snapped Bell. "Tell them to try it
again. Ortiz is in hell! To try again! He's dying!"
* * * * *
The operator looked up fascinatedly, his fingers working his key.
"Is he--bad?" he asked with a shuddering interest.
"He's dying!" snarled Bell, in a rage because of his helplessness. He
had forgotten everything but the fact that a man below decks was
facing the most horrible fate that can overtake a man, and facing it
with a steadfast gameness that made Bell's heart go out to him.
"They don't die," said the operator. He shuddered. "They don't die of
it."
His key stopped. He listened. His key clicked again.
"They only had two packages," he said a moment later. "They don't dare
risk the other one. They say the fog ends twenty miles farther on.
They're going to land up there and taxi back on the surface of the
water. It shouldn't be more than half an hour."
He pushed himself back from the table with an air of finality.
"That's all. They've signed off."
Bell felt rage sweeping over him. The operator grinned crookedly.
"Better go down and tie him up," he said, and licked his lips with the
fascinated air of one thinking of a known and terrifying thing.
"Better tie him up tight. It'll be half an hour more."
* * * * *
Bell went down the companion-ladder. The promenade was crowded with
passengers now, asking questions of each other. Some, frowning
portentously, thought the plane an unscheduled ocean flier who had
lost his way in the fog.
Paula Canalejas was close to Bell as he shouldered his way through the
crowd.
"That was for him?" she asked, without moving her lips.
Bell nodded.
"Tell him," she said quietly, "I--pray for him."
Bell nodded abruptly and went into the saloon. It was nearly empty. He
wiped the sweat off his face. It was horrible to have to go down to
Ortiz and tell him that at best it would be half an hour more....
Then there was a sudden scream below him, and then a shot. Bell jumped
for the stairs, his heart in his throat, and saw Ortiz coming out of
his stateroom door. His eyes were wide and agonized. His body....
Even in the incredibly short time before he reached the bottom of the
steps, Bell had time to receive the ghastly impression that Ortiz was
sane, but that his body had gone mad. Ortiz's face was white and
horrified. His hands and arms were writhing savagely, working at the
handcuffs on his wrists. His legs were carrying him at a curious,
padding trot down the hallway. One of the hands held a glittering
revolver. A steward was crouched behind a couch, his face white and
filled with stark terror. And Ortiz held his head back, as if
struggling to hold back and control his body, which was under the
control of a malignant demon.
"Out of the way!" cried Ortiz in a voice of terrible despair. "Get
someone to shoot me! Kill me! I cannot--ah, _Dios!_"
* * * * *
The hands leveled the revolver in spite of him, while he flung his
head from side to side in a frantic attempt to disturb their aim.
"Close your eyes!" panted Bell, and hurled himself upon--whom? It was
not Ortiz. It was Ortiz's body, gone mad and raging. The manacled arms
flailed about frenziedly. The gun went off. Again. Again....
Bell struck. He knocked the Thing that possessed Ortiz's body off its
feet. The hands groped for him. They clubbed at him with the revolver.
The feet kicked....
"Keep your eyes closed," gasped Bell, struggling to get the gun away
from those horrible hands. "It--it can't see when you keep your eyes
closed!"
Fighting insanely as the Thing was fighting, he could not identify it
with Ortiz himself. One of the hands unclosed from about the revolver
and clawed at his throat. It seemed to abandon that effort and
attacked Ortiz's face in a frenzy of rage, struggling to claw his eyes
open. The other held the weapon fast with maniacal strength.
At the horror of feeling one of his own manacled hands attacking his
face savagely as if it were itself a sensate thing, Ortiz opened his
eyes. They were wide with despair.
The hand with the revolver made a sudden movement, and Bell flung his
weight upon it as the clutching hand pulled the trigger. There was a
deafening report....
* * * * *
The body seemed to weaken suddenly in Bell's grip. It fought less and
less terribly, though with no lessening of its savagery. He managed to
get the revolver away from the hands that shook with unspeakable rage.
He flung it away and stood panting.
There was a crowd of people suddenly all about the place. Staring,
stunned, incredulous people who regarded Bell with a dawning, damning
suspicion.
Ortiz spoke suddenly. His voice was weak, but it was steady, and it
was full of a desperate relief.
"I wish to make a statement," he said sharply. "I--I wished to commit
suicide for personal reasons. Senor Bell tried to dissuade me. The
handcuffs upon my wrists were placed there with my consent. Senor Bell
is my friend and has done me no wrong. I shot myself, with intention."
Bell beckoned to the ship's doctor.
"Get him bandaged up," he ordered harshly. "There's no need for him to
die."
The body was writhing only feebly, now. Ortiz looked up at him, and
managed a smile. Again there was that incredible impression of the
body not belonging to Ortiz, or Ortiz as a sane and whole and
honorable, admirable man, and the feebly writhing body with its
clutching hands as some evil thing that had properly been defeated and
killed.
* * * * *
The doctor bent down. It was useless, of course. He made futile
movements.
"I wish to speak to my friend, Senor Bell," said Ortiz weakly. "I--I
have not long."
Bell knelt beside him.
"The Master's--deputy in Rio," panted Ortiz weakly, almost in a
whisper, "is--is Ribiera. In Buenos Aires I--I do not know. There was
a man--the one who poisoned me--but I killed him. Secretly. I do not
think--the Master knows. I pray that--"
He stopped. He could not speak again. But he smiled, and a few seconds
later Bell clenched his hands. Ortiz was gone.
Someone touched his arm. Paula Canalejas. He stared down at her and
managed to smile. It was not a very successful smile. He drew a deep
breath.
"I would like," said Bell wryly, "to think that, when I die, I will
die as well as this man did. But I'm afraid I shan't."
But Paula said:
"The airplane can be heard outside. It seems to be moving on the
surface."
* * * * *
And ten minutes later the plane loomed up out of the mist, queerly
ungainly on the surface of the water. Its motors roared impatiently as
if held in leash. It swung clumsily about, heading off out of sight in
the fog to turn. It came back, sliding along the top of the water with
its wing-tip floats leaving alternate streaks of white foam behind
them. A man stood up in its after cockpit.
Bell crowded to the rail. The man--goggled and masked--held up a
package as if to fling it on board. Bell watched grimly. But he saw
that the pilot checked himself and looked up at the upper deck. Bell
craned his neck. The wireless operator was waving wildly to the
seaplane. He writhed his hands, and held his hand to his head is if
blowing out his brains, and waved the plane away, frantically.
The pilot of the plane sat down. A moment later its motors roared more
thunderously. It is not safe to alight on either land or water when
fog hangs low, but there is little danger in taking off.
The seaplane shot away into the mist, its motors bellowing. The sound
of its going changed subtly. It seemed to rise, and grow more
distant.... It died away.
Bell halted at the top of the companion-ladder and saw the wireless
operator, with a crooked, nervous grin upon his face.
CHAPTER III
Bell saw what he was looking for, out in the throng of traffic that
filled the Avenida do Acre, in Rio. He'd seen it over the heads of the
crowd, which was undersized, as most Brazilian crowds are, and he
managed to get through the perpetual jam on the mosaic sidewalk and
reach the curb.
He stood there and regarded the vehicles filling the broad avenue,
wearing exactly the indifferent, half-amused air of a tourist with no
place in particular to go and a great deal of time in which to go
there. Taxis chuffed past, disputing right of way with private cars
which were engaged in more disputes with other cars, all in the rather
extraordinary bad temper and contentiousness which comes to the
Latin-American when he takes the wheel of an automobile.
As if coming to an unimportant decision, Bell raised his hand to an
approaching cab. It had two men on the chauffeur's seat. Of course.
All taxis in Rio carry two men in front. One drives, and the other
lights his cigarettes, makes witty comments upon passing ladies, and
helps in collecting the fares from recalcitrant passengers. The extra
man is called the "secretary," and he assists materially in giving an
impression of haughty pride.
The taxi ground to the curb. The secretary reached behind him
indifferently and opened the door. Bell did not glance at him. He
stepped inside and settled down languidly.
"The Beira Mar," he said listlessly.
The taxi started off with a jolt. It is the invariable custom in Rio
de Janeiro. And besides, it reminds the passenger that he is merely a
customer, admitted to the cab on suffrance, and that he must be
suitably meek to those who will presently blandly ignore the amount
registered by the meter and demand a fare of from eight to
twenty-seven times the indicated amount.
* * * * *
The cab went shooting down the Avenida do Acre toward the harbor. The
Avenida do Acre is officially the Avenida Rio Blanco, and it should be
called by that name, only people forget. The Beira Mar, however, is
named with entire propriety. It is actually the edge of the sea, and
it is probably one of the two or three most beautiful driveways in the
world.
The cab whirled past the crowded sidewalks. Incredible numbers of
people, with an incredible variation in the shades of their
complexions, moved to and from with the peculiar aimlessness of a
Brazilian crowd. A stout and pompous negro politician from Bahia,
wearing an orchid in his button-hole, rubbed elbows with a striking
blonde lady of the sidewalks on his left, and forced a wizened little
silk-hatted _parda_--approximately an octoroon--to dodge about him in
order to progress. A young and languid person, his clothes the very
last expiring gasp of fashion, fingered his stick patiently. He wore
the painstakingly cultivated expression of bored disillusionment your
young Brazilian dandy considers aristocratic. It was very probable
that he shared a particularly undesirable bedroom with four or five
other young men in order to purchase such clothing, but then, _farenda
fita_--making a picture--is the national Brazilian sport.
Bell lighted a cigarette. It was not wise to regard the secretary of
this particular taxi too closely, but if his face had been thickly
smeared with coal dust, and if he had had a two weeks' beard, and if
he had been seen on the forecastle of the _Almirante Gomez_, one would
have deduced him to be a stoker who had not used the name of Jamison.
* * * * *
The cab reached the Beira Mar, and turned to take the long route about
the bay. It is one of the most beautiful views to be found anywhere,
and tall apartment houses have been built along its whole length to
capitalize the scenery. True, the more brightly-colored ladies of the
capital have established themselves in vast numbers among these
apartment houses, but in their languid promenades they add--let us
say--the beauties of art to those of nature.
A voice spoke from the chauffeur's seat.
"Bell."
"Right," said Bell without moving. His eyes flickered, however, and he
found the device Jamison had inserted. A speaking-tube of sorts. Not
especially efficient, but inconspicuous enough. He stirred listlessly
and got his lips near it.
"All right to talk?" he asked briefly.
"Shoot," said Jamison from the secretary's seat beside the chauffeur.
"This man doesn't understand English, and he thinks I'm in a smuggling
gang. He expects to make some money out of me eventually."
Bell spoke curtly, while the taxi rolled past the Morro da Gloria with
its quaint old church and went along the winding, really marvelous
driveway past many beaches, with the incredibly blue water beyond.
"Canalejas is out of town," he said. "It isn't known when he'll be
back. I met his daughter at a dance at our Embassy here, and she told
me. We didn't dare to talk much, but she's frightened. Especially
after what happened to Ortiz. And I've met Ribiera, whom Ortiz named."
"I've been looking him up," growled Jamison through the speaking-tube.
* * * * *
Bell flicked the ash from his cigarette out the door, and went on
quietly.
"He's trying to get friendly with me. I've promised to call at his
house and have him take me out to the flying field. He has two planes,
he tells me, a big amphibian and a two-seater. Uses them for commuting
between Rio and his place back inland. He went out of his way to
cultivate me. I think he suspects I'm trying to find out something."
"Which you are," said Jamison dryly. "You've found out that Ortiz was
right at least about--"
Bell nodded, and frowned at himself for having nodded. He spoke into
the mouthpiece by his head with an expressionless face.
"He's practically fawned upon by a bunch of important officials and
several high ranking army officers. Suspecting what I do, I think he's
got hold of a devil of a lot of power."
Jamison scowled in a lordly fashion upon a mere pedestrian who
threatened to impede the movement of the taxicab by making it run over
him.
* * * * *
"Ortiz," said Bell quietly, "told me he'd been poisoned, and treason
asked as the price of the antidote. I've heard that the Brazilian
Minister for Foreign Affairs went insane six months ago. I heard,
also, that it was homicidal mania--murder madness. And I'm wondering
if these people who fawn upon Ribiera aren't paying a price
for--well--antidotes, or their equivalent. The Minister for Foreign
Affairs may have refused."
"You're improving," said Jamison dryly. The taxi rounded a curve and
a vista of sea and sand and royal palms spread out before it. "Yes,
you're improving. But Ortiz spoke of Ribiera only as a deputy of The
Master. Who is The Master?"
"God knows," said Bell. He stared languidly out of the window, for all
the world to see. A tourist, regarding the boasted beauties of the
Biera Mar.
"A deputy," said Jamison without emotion, "of some unknown person
called The Master poisoned Ortiz in Buenos Aires. And Ortiz was an
important man in the Argentine. Ribiera is merely the deputy of that
same unknown Master in Rio, and he has generals and state presidents
and the big politicians paying court to him. If deputies in two
countries that we know of have so much power, how much power has The
Master?"
* * * * *
Silence. The taxi chugged steadily past unnoticed beauties and
colorings. Rio is really one of the most beautiful cities in the
world.
"It's like this," said Jamison jerkily. "Seven Service men vanish and
one goes mad. You get two tips that the fate of Ortiz is the fate of
the seven men--eight, in fact. We find that two men dispense a certain
ghastly poison in two certain cities, at the orders of a man they call
The Master. We find that those two men wield an astounding lot of
power, and we know they're only deputies, only subordinates of the
Master. We know, also, that the Service men vanished all over the
whole continent, not in just those two cities. How many deputies has
The Master? What's it all about? He wanted treason of Ortiz, we know.
What does he want of the other men his deputies have enslaved? Why did
he poison the Service men? And why--especially why--do two honorable
men, officials of two important nations, want to tip off the United
States Government about the ghastly business? What's it got to do with
our nation?"
Bell flung away his cigarette.
"That last question has occurred to me too," he observed, and
carefully repressed a slight shiver. "I have made a guess, which is
probably insane. I'm going to see Ribiera this afternoon."
"He already suspects you know too much," said Jamison without
expression.
"I am"--Bell managed the ghost of a mirthless smile--"I am
uncomfortably aware of it. And I may need an antidote as badly as
Ortiz. If I do, and can't help myself, I'll depend on you."
* * * * *
Jamison growled.
"I simply mean," said Bell very quietly, "that I'd really rather not
be--er--left alive if I'm mad. That's all. But Ortiz knew what was the
matter with him before he got bad off. I know it's a risk. I'm
goose-flesh all over. But somebody's got to take the risk. The guess
I've made may be insane, but if it's right one or two lives will be
cheap enough as a price for the information. Suppose you chaps turn
around and take me to Ribiera's house?"
There was a long pause. Then Jamison spoke in Portuguese to his
companion. The taxi checked, swerved, and began to retrace its route.
"You're a junior in the Trade," said Jamison painstakingly. "I can't
order you to do it."
Bell fumbled with his cigarette case.
"The Trade doesn't exist, Jamison," he said dryly. "And besides,
nobody gives orders in The Trade. There are only suggestions. Now shut
up a while. I want to try to remember some consular reports I read
once, from the consul at Puerto Pachecho."
"What?"
"The consul there," said Bell, smiling faintly, "was an amateur
botanist. He filled up his consular reports with accounts of native
Indian medicinal plants and drugs, with copious notes and clinical
observations. I had to reprove him severely for taking up space with
such matters and not going fully into the exact number of hides, wet
and dry, that passed through the markets in his district. His
information will be entirely useless in this present emergency, but
I'm going to try to remember as much of it as I can. Now shut up."
* * * * *
When the taxi swung off the Biera Mar to thread its way through many
tree-lined streets--it is a misdemeanor, punishable by fine, to cut
down a tree in Rio de Janeiro--it carried a young American with the
air of an accomplished idler, who has been mildly bored by the
incomparable view from the waterside boulevard. When it stopped at the
foot of one of the slum covered _morros_ that dot all Rio, and a
liveried doorman came out of a splendid residence to ask the visitor
his name, the taxi discharged a young American who seemed to feel the
heat, in spite of the swift motion of the cab. He wiped off his
forehead with his handkerchief as he was assured that the Senhor
Ribiera had given orders he was to be admitted, night or day. When the
taxi drove off, it carried two men on the chauffeur's seat, of whom
one had lost, temporarily, the manner of haughty insolence which is
normally inseparable from the secretary of a taxicab chauffeur.
But though he wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, Bell actually
felt rather cold when he followed his guide through ornately furnished
rooms, which seemed innumerable, and was at last left to wait in an
especially luxurious salon.
There was a pause. A rather long wait. A distinctly long wait. Bell
lighted a cigarette and seemed to become mildly bored. He regarded a
voluptuous small statuette with every appearance of pleased interest.
A subtly decadent painting seemed to amuse him considerably. He did
not seem to notice that no windows at all were visible, and that
shaded lamps lit this room, even in broad daylight.
* * * * *
Two servants came in, a footman in livery and the major-domo. Your
average _Carioca_ servant is either fawning or covertly insolent.
These two were obsequious. The footman carried a tray with a bottle,
glass, ice, and siphon.
"The Senhor Ribiera," announced the major-domo obsequiously, "begs
that the Senhor Bell will oblige him by waiting for the shortest of
moments until the Senhor Ribiera can relieve himself of a business
matter. It will be but the shortest of moments."
Bell felt a little instinctive chill at sight of the bottle and
glasses.
"Oh, very well," he said idly. "You may put the tray there."
The footman lifted the siphon expectantly. Bell regarded it
indifferently. The wait before the arrival of this drink had been
longer than would be required merely for the announcing of a caller
and the tending of a tray, especially if such a tray were a custom of
the place. And the sending of a single bottle only, without inquiry
into his preferences....
"No soda," said Bell. He poured out a drink into the tinier glass. He
lifted it toward his lips, hesitated vaguely, and drew out his
handkerchief again.
He sneezed explosively, and the drink spilled. He swore irritably, put
down the glass, and plied his handkerchief vigorously. A moment later
he was standing up and pouring the drink out afresh, from the bottle
in one hand to the glass in the other. He up-tilted the glass.
"Get rid of this for me," he said annoyedly of the handkerchief.
* * * * *
He saw a nearly imperceptible glance pass between the footman and the
major-domo. They retired, and Bell moved about the room exactly like a
young man who has been discomfited by the necessity of sneezing before
servants. Anywhere else in the world, of course, such a pose would not
have been convincing. But your Brazilian not only adopts _fazenda
fita_ as his own avocation, but also suspects it to be everybody
else's too. And a young Brazilian of the leisure class would be
horribly annoyed at being forced to so plebeian an exhibition in
public.
He moved restlessly about the room, staring at the picture. Presently
he blinked uncertainly and gazed about less definitely. He went rather
uncertainly to the chair he had first occupied and sat down. He
poured--or seemed to pour--another drink. Again he sneered, and looked
mortified. He put down the glass with an air of finality. But he
looked puzzledly about him. Then he sank back in his chair and
gradually seemed to sink into a sort of apathetic indifference.
* * * * *
He looked, then, like a very bored young man on the verge of dozing
off. But actually he was very much alert indeed. He had the feeling of
eyes upon him for a while. Then that sensation ceased and he settled
himself to wait. And meantime he felt a particular, peculiar gratitude
to the late American consul at Puerto Pachecho for his interest in
medicinal plants.
That gentleman had gone into the subject with the passionate
enthusiasm of the amateur. He had described _icus_, _uirari_ and
_timbo_. He had particularized upon _makaka-nimbi_ and _hervamoura_.
And he had gone into a wealth of detail concerning _yagué_, on account
of its probable value if used in criminology. As consul at Puerto
Pachecho he was not altogether a success in some ways, but he had
invented an entirely original method of experimentation upon those
drugs and poisons which did not require to be introduced into the
blood-stream. His method was simplicity itself. An alcoholic solution
"carried" a minute quantity of the drug in its vapor, just as an
alcoholic solution carries a minute quantity of perfuming essential
oil. He inhaled the odor of the alcoholic solution. The effect was
immediately, strictly temporary, and not dangerous. He was enabled to
describe the odors, in some cases the tastes, and in a few instances
the effects of the substances he listed, from personal experience.
* * * * *
And Bell had used his method as an unpromising but possible test for a
drug in the drink that had been brought him. He inhaled the strangling
odor of the spilled liquor on his handkerchief. And there was a drug
involved. For an instant he was dizzy, and for an instant he saw the
room through a vivid blue haze. And something clicked in his brain and
said "It's _yagué_." And the relief of dealing with something which he
knew--if only at second-hand--was so enormous that he felt almost
weak.
_Yagué_, you see, is an extract from the leaves of a plant which is
not yet included in materia medica. It has nearly the effect of
scopolamine--once famous in connection with twilight sleep--and
produces a daze of blue light, an intolerable sleepiness, and
practically all the effects of hypnotism. A person under _yagué_, as
under scopolamine or hypnosis, will seem to slumber and yet will obey
any order, by whomever given. He will answer any question without
reserve or any concealment. And on awakening he will remember nothing
done under the influence of the potion. The effects are not
particularly harmful.
Bell then, sat in an apparent half-daze, half-slumber, in the salon in
which he waited for Ribiera to appear. He knew exactly what he was
expected to do. Ribiera wanted to find out what he knew or suspected
about Ortiz's death. Ribiera wanted to know many things, and he would
believe what Bell told him because he thought Bell had taken enough
_yagué_ to be practically an hypnotic subject. Let Ribiera believe
what he was told!
When he came into the room, bland and smiling, Bell did not stir. He
was literally crawling, inside, with an unspeakable repulsion to the
man and the things for which he stood. But he seemed dazed and dull,
and when Ribiera began to ask questions he babbled his answers in a
toneless, flat voice. He babbled very satisfactorily, in Ribiera's
view.
* * * * *
When Ribiera shook him roughly by the shoulder he started, and let his
eyes clear. Ribiera was laughing heartily.
"Senhor! Senhor!" said Ribiera jovially. "My hospitality is at fault!
You come to be my guest and I allow you to be so bored that you drop
off to sleep! I was detained for five minutes and came in to find you
slumbering!"
Bell stared ruefully about him and rubbed his eyes.
"I did, for a fact," he admitted apologetically. "I'm sorry. Up late
last night, and I was tired. I dropped in to see those planes you
suggested I'd be interested in. But I daresay it's late, now."
Ribiera chuckled again. He was in his late and corpulent forties and
was something of a dandy. If one were captious, one might object to
the thickness of his lips. They suggested sensuality. And there was a
shade--a bare shade--more of pigment in his skin than the American
passes altogether unquestioned. And his hair was wavy.... But he could
be a charming host.
"We'll have a drink," he said bluntly, "while the car's coming around
to the door, and then go out to the flying field."
"No drink," said Bell, lifting his hand. "I feel squeamish now. I say!
Haven't you changed the lamps, or something? Everything looks
blue...."
That was a lie. Things looked entirely normal to Bell. But he looked
about him as if vaguely puzzled. If he had drunk the liquor Ribiera
had sent him, things would have had a bluish tinge for some time
after. But as it was....
Ribiera chaffed him jovially on the way to the flying field. And
introducing him to fliers and officials of the field, he told with
gusto of Bell's falling asleep while waiting for him. A very jolly
companion, Ribiera.
But Bell saw two or three men looking at him very queerly. Almost
sympathetically. And he noticed, a little later, that a surprising
number of fliers and officials of the airport seemed to be concealing
an abject terror of Ribiera. One or two of them seemed to hate him as
well.
CHAPTER IV
Bell stepped out of a tall French window to a terrace, and from the
terrace to the ground. There was a dull muttering in the sky to the
east, and a speck appeared, drew nearer swiftly, grew larger, and
became a small army biplane. It descended steeply to earth behind a
tall planting of trees. Bell lighted a cigarette and moved
purposelessly down an elaborately formalized garden.
"More victims," he observed grimly to himself, of the plane.
Ribiera lifted a pigmented hand to wave languidly from a shaded chair.
There were women about him, three of them, and it sickened Bell to see
the frightened assiduity with which they flattered him. Bell had met
them, of course. Madame the wife of the State President of Bahia--in
the United States of Brazil the states have presidents instead of
governors--preferred the title of "Madame" because it was more foreign
and consequently more aristocratic than Senhora. And Madame the wife
of the General--
"Senhor," called Ribiera blandly, "I have news for you."
Bell turned and went toward him with an air of pleased expectancy. He
noticed for the first time the third of the women. Young, in the first
flush of youthful maturity, but with an expression of stark terror
lingering behind a palpably assumed animation.
"An acquaintance of yours, Senhor," said Ribiera, "is to be my
guests."
Bell steeled himself.
"The Senhor Canalejas," said Ribiera, beaming, "and his daughter."
* * * * *
Bell seemed to frown, and then seemed to remember.
"Oh, yes," he said carelessly, "I met her in Washington. She was on
the _Almirante Gomez_, coming down."
The next instant he saw Ribiera's expression, and cursed himself for a
fool. Ribiera's eyes had narrowed sharply. Then they half-closed, and
he smiled.
"She is charming," said Ribiera in drowsy contentment, "and I had
thought you would be glad to improve her acquaintance. Especially
since, as my friend, you may congratulate me. A contract of marriage
is under discussion."
Bell felt every muscle grow taut. The fat, pigmented man before
him....
"Indeed," said Bell politely, "I do congratulate you."
Ribiera looked at him with an expression in which a sardonic
admiration mingled with something else less pleasant.
"You are clever, Senhor Bell," he said heavily, seeming to sink more
deeply into his chair. "Very clever." He shifted his eyes to the women
who stood about him. "You may go," he said indifferently. His tone was
exactly that of a despot dismissing his slaves. Two of them colored
with instinctive resentment. His eyes lingered an instant on the
third. Her face had showed only a passionate relief. "You, Senhora,"
he said heavily, "may wait nearby."
The terror returned to her features, but she moved submissively to a
spot a little out of earshot. Bell found his jaws clenched. There is a
certain racial taint widespread in Brazil which leads to an
intolerable arrogance when there is the slightest opportunity for its
exercise. Ribiera had the taint, and Bell felt a sickening wrath at
the terrified submission of the women.
"_Si_," said Ribiera, suddenly adverting to insolence. "You are
clever, Senhor Bell. Where did you learn of _yagué_?"
* * * * *
Bell inhaled leisurely. His muscles were tense, but he gave no outward
sign. Instead, he sat down comfortably upon the arm of a chair facing
Ribiera's. The only way to meet insolence is with equal insolence and
a greater calm.
"Ah!" said Bell pleasantly. "So you found out it didn't work, after
all!"
Ribiera's eyes contracted. He became suddenly enraged.
"You are trifling with me," he said furiously. "Do you know the
penalty for that?"
"Why, yes," said Bell, and smiled amiably. "A dose of--er--poison of
The Master's private brand."
It was a guess, but based on a good deal of evidence. Ribiera turned
crimson, then pale.
"What do you know?" he demanded in a deadly quietness. "You cannot
leave this place. You are aware of that. The people here--guests and
servants--are my slaves, the slaves of The Master. You cannot leave
this place except also as my slave. I will have you bound and given
_yagué_ so that you cannot fail to tell me anything that I wish to
know. I will have you tortured so that you will gladly say anything
that I wish, in return for death. I will--"
"You will," said Bell dryly, "drop dead with seven bullets in your
body if you give a signal for anyone to attack me."
* * * * *
Ribiera stared at him as his hand rested negligently in his coat
pocket. And then, quite suddenly Ribiera began to chuckle. His rage
vanished. He laughed, a monstrous, gross, cackling laughter.
"You have been my guest for two days," he gasped, slapping his fat
knees, "and you have not noticed that your pistol his been tampered
with! Senhor Bell! Senhor Bell! My uncle will be disappointed in you!"
It seemed to impress him as a victory that Bell had been depending
upon an utterly futile threat for safety. It restored his good humor
marvelously.
"It does not matter," he said jovially. "Presently you will tell me
all that I wish to know. More, perhaps. My uncle is pleased with you.
You recall your little talk with the wireless operator on the
_Almirante Gomez_? You tried to learn things from him, Senhor. He
reported it. Of course. All our slaves report. He sent his report to
my uncle, The Master, and I did not have it until to-day. I will admit
that you deceived me. I knew you had talked with Ortiz, who was a
fool. I thought that in his despair he might have spoken. I gave you
_yagué_, as I thought, and informed my uncle that you knew nothing.
And he is very much pleased with you. It was clever to deceive me
about the _yagué_. My uncle has high praise for you. He has told me
that he desires your services."
Bell inhaled again. There was no question but that Ribiera was totally
unafraid of the threat he had made. His gun must have been tampered
with, the firing-pin filed off perhaps. So Bell said placidly:
"Well? He desires my services?"
* * * * *
Ribiera chuckled, in his gross and horrible good humor.
"He will have them. Senhor. He will have them. When you observe your
hands writhing at the ends of your wrists, you will enter his service,
through me. Of course. And he will reward you richly. Money, much
money, such as I have. And slaves--such as I have. The Senhora...."
Ribiera looked at the terrified girl standing thirty or forty feet
away. He chuckled again.
"My uncle desires that you should be induced to enter his service of
your own will. So, Senhor, you shall see first what my uncle's service
offers. And later, when you know what pleasures you may some day
possess as my uncle's deputy in your own nation, why, then the fact
that your hands are writhing at the ends of your wrists will be merely
an added inducement to come to me. And I bear you no ill will for
deceiving me. You may go."
Bell rose.
"And still," he said dryly, "I suspect that you are deceived. But now
you deceive yourself."
He heard Ribiera chuckling as he walked away. He heard him call,
amusedly, "Senhora." He heard the little gasp of terror with which the
girl obeyed. He passed her, stumbling toward the gross fat man with
the light brown skin and curly hair. Her eyes were literally pools of
anguish.
* * * * *
Bell threw away his cigarette and began to fumble for another. He was
beginning to feel the first twinges of panic, and fought them down.
Ribiera had not lied. Bell had been at this _fazenda_ of his--which
was almost a miniature Versailles three hundred miles from Rio--for
two days. In all that time he had not seen one person besides himself
who did not display the most abject terror of Ribiera. Ribiera had
made no idle boast when he said that everyone about, guests and
servants, were slaves. They were. Slaves of a terror vastly greater
than mere fear of death. It--
"Senhor!... _Oh, Dios!_" It was the girl's voice, in despair.
Ribiera laughed. Bell felt a red mist come before his eyes.
He deliberately steadied his hands and lighted his cigarette. He heard
stumbling footsteps coming behind him. A hand touched his arm. He
turned to see the girl Ribiera had pointed out, her cheeks utterly,
chalky white, trying desperately to smile.
"Senhor!" she gasped. "Smile at me! For the love of God, smile at me!"
In the fraction of a second, Bell was mad with rage. He understood,
and he hated Ribiera with a corrosive hatred past conception. And then
he was deathly calm, and wholly detached, and he smiled widely, and
turned and looked at Ribiera, and Ribiera's whole gross bulk quivered
as he chuckled. Bell took the girl's arm with an excessive politeness
and managed--he never afterward understood how he managed it--to grin
at Ribiera.
"Senhora," he said in a low tone, "I think I understand. Stop being
afraid. We can fool him. Come and walk with me and talk. The idea is
that he must think you are trying to fascinate me, is it not?"
She spoke through stiffened lips.
"Ah, that I could die!"
Bell had a horrible part to play while he walked the length of the
formal garden with her, and found a pathway leading out of it, and led
her out of sight. He stopped.
"Now," he said sharply, "tell me. I am not yet his slave. He has
ordered you...."
She was staring before her with wide eyes that saw only despair.
"I--I am to persuade you to be my lover," she said dully, "or I shall
know the full wrath of The Master...."
* * * * *
Bell asked questions, crisply, but as gently as he could.
"We are his slaves," she told him apathetically. "I and _mi
Arturo_--my husband. Both of us...." She roused herself little under
Bell's insistent questioning. "We were guests at his house at dinner.
Our friends, people high in society and in the Republic, were all
about us. We suspected nothing. We had heard nothing. But two weeks
later Arturo became irritable. He said that he saw red spots before
his eyes. I also. Then Arturo's hands writhed at the ends of his
wrists. He could not control them. His nerves were horrible. And mine.
And we--we have a tiny baby.... And Senhor Ribiera called upon my
husband. He was charming. He observed my husband's hands. He had a
remedy, he said. He gave it to my husband. He became normal again. And
then--my hands writhed. Senhor Ribiera told my husband that if he
would bring me to him.... And I was relieved. We were grateful. We
accepted the invitation of the Senhor Ribiera to this place. And he
showed us a man, in chains. He--he went mad before our eyes. He was a
member of the United States Secret Service.... And then the Senhor
Ribiera told us that we faced the same fate if we did not serve
him...."
* * * * *
Bell had thrust aside rage as useless, now. He was deliberately cold.
"And so?"
"It is a poison," she said unsteadily. "A deadly, a horrible poison
which drives men murder mad in two weeks from the time of its
administration. The Senhor Ribiera has an antidote for it. But mixed
with the antidote, which acts at once, is more of the horrible poison,
which will act in two weeks more. So that we are entrapped. If we
disobey him...."
Bell began to smile slowly, and not at all mirthfully.
"I think," he said softly, "that I shall gain a great deal of pleasure
from killing the Senhor Ribiera."
"_Dios_--" She strangled upon the word. "Do you not see, Senhor, that
if he dies we--we--" She stopped and choked. "We--have a tiny baby,
Senhor. We--we would...."
Again sick rage surged up in Bell. To kill Ribiera meant to drive his
slaves mad, and mad in the most horrible fashion that can be imagined.
To kill Ribiera meant to have these people duplicate the death of
Ortiz, as their greatest hope, or to fill madhouses with snarling
animals lusting to kill....
"It is--it is not only I, Senhor," said the girl before him. She was
utterly listless, and in the agony of despair. "It is Arturo, also.
The Senhor Ribiera has said that if I do not persuade you, that both
Arturo and I.... And our little baby, Senhor!... Our families also
will be entrapped some day. He has said so.... He will give that
poison to our baby.... And it will grow up either his slave, or--"
Her eyes were pools of panic.
"Oh, God!" said Bell very quietly. "And he's offering me this power!
He's trying to persuade me to become like him. He's offering me
pleasures!"
* * * * *
He laughed unpleasantly. And then he went sick with helplessness. He
could kill Ribiera, perhaps, and let only God know how many people go
mad. Perhaps. Or perhaps Ribiera would merely be supplanted by another
man. Ortiz had said that he killed The Master's deputy in Buenos
Aires, but that another man had taken his place. And the thing went
on. And The Master desired a deputy in the United States....
"Somehow," said Bell very softly, "this has got to be stopped.
Somehow. Right away. That devilish stuff! Can you get hold of a bit of
the antidote?" he asked abruptly. "The merest drop of it?"
She shook her head.
"No, Senhor. It is given in food, in wine. One never knows that one
has had it. It is tasteless, and we have only Senhor Ribiera's word
that it has been given."
Bell's hands clenched.
"So devilish clever.... What are we going to do?"
The girl stuffed the corner of her handkerchief into her mouth.
"I am thinking of my little baby," she said, choking. "I must persuade
you, Senhor. I--I have been tearful. I--I am not attractive. I will
try. If I am not attractive to you...."
* * * * *
Bell cursed, deeply and savagely. It seemed to be the only possible
thing to do. And then he spoke coldly.
"Listen to me, Senhora. Ribiera talked frankly to me just now. He
knows that so far I am not subdued. If I escape he cannot blame you.
He cannot! And I am going to attempt it. If you will follow me...."
"There is no escape for me," she said dully, "and if he thinks that I
knew of your escape and did not tell him...."
"Follow me," said Bell, smiling queerly. "I shall take care that he
does not suspect it."
He gazed about for an instant, orienting himself. The plane that had
just landed--the last of a dozen or more that had arrived in the past
two days--had dipped down on the private landing field to the north.
There was a beautifully kept way running from the landing field to the
house, and he went on through the thick shrubbery amid a labyrinth of
paths, choosing the turnings most likely to lead him to it.
* * * * *
He came out upon it suddenly, and faced toward the field. There were
two men coming toward the house, on foot. One was a flying pilot,
still in his flying clothes. The other was a tall man, for a
Brazilian, with the lucent clarity of complexion that bespeaks
uncontaminated white descent. He was white-haired, and his face was
queerly tired, as if he were exhausted.
Bell looked sharply. He seemed to see a resemblance to someone he knew
in the tall man. He spoke quickly to the girl beside him.
"Who is the man to the left?"
"Senhor Canalejas," said the girl drearily. "He is the Minister of
War. I suppose he, too...."
Bell drew a deep breath. He walked on, confidently. As the two others
drew near he said apologetically:
"Senhores."
They halted with the instinctive, at least surface, courtesy of the
Brazilian. And Bell was fumbling with his handkerchief, rather
nervously tying a knot in it. He held it out to Canalejas.
"Observe."
It was, of course, a recognition-knot such as may be given to an
outsider by one in the Trade. The tall man's face changed. And Bell
swung swiftly and suddenly and very accurately to the point of the
other man's jaw.
He collapsed.
* * * * *
"Senhor Canalejas," said Bell politely, "I am about to go and steal an
airplane to take what I have learned to my companion for transmission.
If you wish to go with me...."
Canalejas stared for the fraction of a second. Then he said quietly:
"But of course."
He turned to retrace his steps. Bell turned to the girl.
"If you are wise," he said gently, "you will go and give the alarm. If
you are kind, you will delay it as much as you dare."
She regarded him in agonized doubt for a moment, and nodded. She fled.
"Now," said Bell casually, "I think we had better hasten. And I hope,
Senhor Canalejas, that you have a revolver. We will need one. Mine has
been ruined."
Without a word, the white-haired man drew out a weapon and offered it
to him.
"I had intended," he said very calmly, "to kill the Senhor Ribiera.
His last demand is for my daughter."
They went swiftly. The plane Bell had seen alight some fifteen or
twenty minutes before was just being approached by languid mechanics.
It was, of course, still warm. Canalejas shouted and waved his arm
imperiously. It is probable that he gave the impression of a man
returning for some forgotten thing, left in the cockpit of the plane.
* * * * *
What happened then, happened quickly. A few crisp words in a low tone.
A minor hubbub began suddenly back at the house. Canalejas climbed
into the passenger's seat as if looking for something. And Bell
presented his now useless automatic pleasantly at the head of the
nearest staring mechanic, and while he froze in horror, scrambled up
into the pilot's cockpit.
"Contact!" he snapped, and turned on the switch. The mechanic remained
frozen with fear. "Damnation!" said Bell savagely. "I don't know the
Portuguese for 'Turn her over'!"
He fumbled desperately about in the cockpit. Something whirred. The
propeller went over.... Canalejas shot with painstaking accuracy,
twice. The motor caught with a spluttering roar.
As a horde of running figures, servants and guests, running with the
same desperation, came plunging out on the flying field from the
shrubbery. Bell gave the motor the gun. The fast little plane's tail
came up off the ground as she darted forward. Faster and faster, with
many bumpings. The bumpings ceased. She was clear.
And Bell zoomed suddenly to lift her over the racing, fear-ridden
creatures who clutched desperately at the wheels, and then the little
ship shot ahead, barely cleared the trees to the east of the field,
and began to roar at her topmost speed toward Rio.
CHAPTER V
The Trade--which does not exist--has its obligations and its code, but
also it has its redeeming features. When a man has finished his job,
he has finished it. And as far as the Trade was concerned, Bell had
but little more to do. But after that--and his eyes burned smokily in
their depths--there was much that he intended to do. He sat in one of
the _bondes_ of the Botanical Garden half of the street railway system
of Rio, and absent mindedly regarded the scenery. This particular
_bonde_ was headed out toward the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, by which
salty mass of water Bell would meet Paula Canalejas. He would receive
a package from her, which he would deliver to Jamison. And then he
would be free, and it was his private intention to engage in an
enterprise which was very probably a form of suicide. But there are
some things one cannot dismiss with a sage reflection that they are
not one's business. This matter of Ribiera was definitely one of them.
* * * * *
The escape from Ribiera's _fazenda_ had been relatively easy, because
so thoroughly unexpected. The little plane had climbed to five
thousand feet and found a stratum of cloud that stretched for very
many miles. Bell had emerged from it only twice in the first hour of
flight, and the second time the sky was clear all about him. That he
was pursued, he had no doubt. That Ribiera had wireless communications
with Rio, he knew. And he knew that instant, and imperative orders
would have gone out for his capture.
Rio would not be a healthy place for him. If Ribiera had power over
high government officials, he had surely indirect power over the
police, and a search for Bell would be in order at once. Yet Canalejas
assuredly expected to return to Rio.
A shouted question with the motor cut out, and a nodded answer. Bell
headed for Petropolis, which is Rio's only real summer resort and is
high in the hills and only an hour and a half from it by train. It was
surprisingly satisfactory to be handling a swift plane again, and Bell
allowed himself what he knew was about the only pleasure he was likely
to have for some time to come.
Something of his hatred of Ribiera, however, came back as he prepared
to land. He managed to crack the plane up very neatly, so that it
would be of no use to Ribiera any more. And at the same time, of
course, the cracking-up provided an excellent excuse for Canalejas to
continue on by train.
* * * * *
They talked very briefly by the puffing engine.
"It is best," said Canalejas, "for you, Senhor, to remain here
overnight. I believe Senhor Ribiera has given orders for us both to be
looked for, yet as a Cabinet Minister I am still immune from arrest by
the ordinary police. If I reach my home I shall be able to do all that
is necessary."
"And you will prepare a message for me to carry," said Bell.
"It is ready," said Canalejas. He smiled faintly. "No, Senhor. I have
instructions to give my daughter. She will deliver the information to
you to-morrow. Let me see. At the edge of the Lagao Rodrigo de
Feitas, at nine o'clock. She is the only messenger I can trust. I
think that is all."
Bell hesitated uncomfortably.
"But you, sir," he said awkwardly. "You have been poisoned, as Senor
Ortiz was."
"But certainly," said Canalejas. His smile was ironic as before. "But,
unlike Senor Ortiz, I have no hope. I have arranged for my daughter to
conceal herself and escape from Brazil. I have prepared for
everything, Senhor. As you know, I had intended to kill Senhor
Ribiera. In returning with you I have merely delayed my own death by a
few hours."
Still smiling, and with the air of one entering a train for the most
casual of journeys, Canalejas entered the coach.
* * * * *
And Bell, sitting in the _bonde_ next morning, saw with an uncanny
clarity the one weak point in Ribiera's hold upon his subjects. When
they had courage to fear nothing more than death, they could defy him.
And not many could attain to that courage. But a few....
"I'll have some help, anyway," muttered Bell savagely to himself.
It is a long ride to the Botanical Gardens, from which one half the
surface lines of Rio take their name. On the way out to the Lagao
Rodrigo de Feitas, which, is close by the Garden itself, Bell had time
to work over for the thousandth time the information he possessed, and
realize its uselessness. Two things, only, might be of service. One
was that Ribiera was the nephew of the person referred to as The
Master, and yet was evidently as much subjected to him as his own
victims to himself. The other was that the ultimate end of all the
ghastly scheme was in some fashion political. If wealth alone had been
Ribiera's aim, the gathering of his slaves would have had a different
aspect. The majority of them would have been rich men, men of
business, men who could pay out hundreds of thousands a month in the
desperate hope of being permitted to remain sane. There would not have
been politicians and officials and officers of the army.
"The key men of the country," growled Bell inaudibly, "enslaved to
Ribiera. They give him the power he's after more than cash. And it's
those key men who have more to lose than money. There's such a thing
as honor...."
Three times the conductor stopped beside him and suggestively rattled
the coins in his box. Three times Bell absent mindedly paid the fare
for the zone. But the ride is a long one, and he had had time to
realize the hopelessness of any single-handed attack upon the thing he
faced long before the end.
Then he absently moved through the amazing collection of tropic and
near tropic growths that is the Botanical Garden until he came at once
to Paula and the Lagoa Rodrico de Freitas.
* * * * *
It was alive with birds, and they hopped and pecked and squabbled
without acrimony within feet of her seated figure. Bell knew that she
had been waiting for a long time. He looked quickly at her face. It
was quite pale, but entirely tearless.
"Here is the message, Senhor Bell," she said quietly, "but I think I
have been followed."
Bell growled in his throat.
"I did not discover it until I reached this spot," she said evenly.
"And I did not know what to do. If I left, I would be seized and the
message taken--and I think that someone would have waited here for
you. So, in part to gain time, and in part because I hoped you might
have some resource, I remained."
"How many of them?" asked Bell shortly.
"Two," she said quietly. She looked at him, her large eyes entirely
calm and grave.
"Give me the package," said Bell briefly. "They'll be more anxious to
get it back than to bother you. And I'll either knock them cold or
hold them in a scrap until you get away."
She reached in her pocket and handed him a small thick envelope. He
stuffed it in the side pocket of his coat.
"I will walk away," he observed, "and they'll follow me. Can you
arrange to give me some sign that you're safe?"
"By the gateway," she told him. "My handkerchief. I shall start as
soon as you have vanished. If I am followed, I will drop this
handkerchief, as it is. If I am not followed, I will tie a knot. But
what can you do?"
"I'll do something," said Bell coldly. "Something!"
* * * * *
She smiled, with the same odd bitterness her father had shown.
"My father--shot himself," she said briefly. "I have no particular
hope of doing better. But I shall not be Ribiera's slave."
She remained quite still. Bell moved away. He hurried. There was thick
jungle ahead, a section of the Gardens that is painstakingly preserved
untouched and undisturbed, that visitors to the capital of Brazil may
observe a typical sample of the virgin interior. He dived into that
jungle as if in flight.
And very shortly after, two men dived in after him. They hesitated,
these men, because your policeman of Rio does not like to injure his
uniform, and there are many thorns in jungle growths. But they entered
it, having first drawn small glittering weapons. And then from the
jungle came silence.
* * * * *
It seemed to be silence. But there may have been some small unusual
noises. It would not be easy to tell if they were unusual or not,
because there are peculiar flashes of charm in certain Brazilian
institutions. The preservation of the spot of jungle itself is one.
Another is the fact that in the Gardens all manner of wild things
live at large and provide unexpected and delightful surprises to the
usually foreign visitors.
So there were noises, after a bit. Such noises as some grunting wild
thing might have made, perhaps. But they might also have been the
gasping of a man as breath was choked out of him.... And there was a
cracking sound a little later, which might--of course--have been any
one of any number of accidental and perfectly natural causes. And it
might have been a man upon whom another man had hurled himself, when
the second man landed on his jaw. And thrashing noises a little later
might have been anything.
But after what seemed a long time, Bell emerged. Alone. He was
breathing quickly, and there were scratches on his face and hands
which--well, which might have been made by thorns. He went swiftly
back toward the spot where Paula had waited. He looked cautiously. She
was gone.
And then Bell went leisurely, in the studious fashion of a person
going through the Botanical Gardens because it was the thing to do,
toward the gateway and the surface cars. As he neared the gate his
eyes roved with apparent casualness all about. He saw a tiny speck of
white on the edge of the roadway. It looked as if it had been flung
from a car. Bell picked it up. It was Paula's handkerchief, and there
was no knot whatever in it. In fact, its lacy edge was torn.
"They've got her," said Bell, apparently unmoved.
* * * * *
He waited for a car. A bulky figure wearing thick spectacles came
placidly from the Gardens. It waited, also, for the car. The car
arrived, in its two sections of first and second class; the first
reserved for _cavalhieros_, which is to say persons wearing coat,
shirt, collar, necktie, hat, shoes and socks, and carrying no parcel
larger than a brief case. Lesser folk who lacked any of the sartorial
requirements for admission to the first class section, or wore
_tomancos_ instead of shoes, heaped themselves into the second section
and paid one-third of the fare in the first.
Bell took his seat in the first section. It was comfortably filled.
The bulky person with the thick spectacles wedged himself carefully
into the space beside Bell. He unfolded a copy of the _Jornal do
Commercio_ and began to regard the advertisements. Presently he found
what he was looking for. "_O Bicho_," said medium-sized type. Beside
it was a picture of a kangaroo. The gentleman with the thick
spectacles resignedly fished into his pockets and found a lottery
ticket. He tore it into scraps and threw them away. Then he began to
gaze disinterestedly at the scenery and the other passengers in the
car.
* * * * *
Bell drummed on his knee. With one's forefinger representing a dot,
and one's second finger serving as a dash, it is surprising how
naturally and absentmindedly one may convey a perfectly intelligible
message to a man sitting within a reasonable distance. When the man is
alongside, the matter is absurdly simple.
Presently the man with the thick lenses got out his paper again, as if
bored by vistas such as no other city in the world can offer. His
paper was in the pocket which pressed against Bell. If in getting out
his newspaper he also abstracted a thick fat envelope from Bell's
pocket and placed it in his own, and if all this took place under a
sign--even in the section reserved for _cavalhieros_ of approved
raiment--solemnly warning passengers against "_batadores de
carteiras_," or pickpockets--well, it was an ironical coincidence
whose humor Bell did not see.
He was busily tapping out on his knee the briefest possible account of
what he had learned at Ribiera's _fazenda_ up country.
"_One chance for me_," he tapped off at the end. "_If I can kidnap
Ribiera I can make him talk. Somehow. He has big amphibian plane kept
fueled and ready for long trip. I think he is back in Rio to direct
hunt for me. Paula kidnapped. My job finished. On my own now._"
The man with thick spectacles did not nod. He seemed to be looking
idly at his paper, but it was folded at an article very discreetly
phrased, beneath a photograph of Senhor Teixeira Canalejas, Minister
of War, who had very unfortunately been found dead that morning. He
had been depressed, of late, but there were certain circumstances
which made it as yet impossible to determine whether he had killed
himself or was the victim of an assassin.
"_Getting set for me_," tapped Bell grimly on his knee. "_Ribiera told
me too much._"
* * * * *
The man with thick spectacles yawned and turned the paper over. Under
a smaller headline--which would only find a place on a Brazilian
sheet--"A Regrettable Incident"--an item of more direct importance was
printed. It told of an unnamed Senhor from the United States of the
North America, who as the guest of a widely known Brazilian gentleman
had behaved most boorishly, had stolen an airplane from his host and
broken it to bits on landing unskilfully, and had vanished with
priceless heirlooms belonging to his host. It read, virtuously:
No names are mentioned because the American Senhor has been
widely introduced in Rio society as a person with an
official status in Washington. It is understood that an
inquiry is to be made of the Ambassador as to the status of
the young man, before any action is taken by the police. It
is to be expected, however, that he will at least be
requested to leave the country.
Bell managed the barest flicker of a smile. Arrest, of course.
Detention, most courteously arranged, while the Ambassador was
communicated with. And Ribiera.
"_Give me dismiss_," he tapped on his knee.
The gentleman in the thick spectacles ran his finger thoughtfully
about the edge of his collar. In the Trade that is a signal of many
varied meanings. A hand across the throat in any fashion means, "Clear
out, your job is finished," "Save your skin as best you can," and "Get
away without trying to help me," according to circumstances. In this
case it relieved Bell of all future responsibility.
He yawned, tapping his lips with the back of his hand, signaled for a
stop of the car, and got out. Five minutes later he had signaled a
taxicab and given Ribiera's address. In six minutes he was being
whirled toward the one house in all Rio de Janeiro from which his
chance of a safe departure was slightest. In little more than half an
hour he had dismissed the cab and was gazing placidly into the
startled eyes of the doorman. The doorman, like all of Rio where
Ribiera was known and feared, knew that Bell was being hunted.
Bell handed over his card with an inscrutable air.
"The Senhor Ribiera," he said drily, "returned to the city last night.
Present my card and say that I would like to speak to him."
* * * * *
The doorman ushered him inside and summoned the major-domo, still
blinking his amazement. And the major-domo blinked again. But Bell
followed with the air of an habitué, as he was again ushered into the
luxurious salon in which he had once been offered a drugged drink.
Again he sank down in a softly padded chair and surveyed the pictures
and the minor objects of decadent art about him. Again he lighted a
cigarette with every appearance of ease, and again had the impression
of eyes upon him. The major-domo appeared, somewhat agitated.
"The Senhor Ribiera," he said harshly, "will see you only if you are
not armed. He requires your word of honor."
Bell smiled lazily.
"I'll do better than that," he said languidly. "I haven't had time to
buy a revolver. But the automatic he had put out of commission is in
my pocket. Present it to him with my compliments."
He handed over the weapon, butt first. The major-domo blinked, and
took it. Bell sat down and smiled widely. He had been expected to be
uproarious, to attempt to force the major-domo to lead him to Ribiera.
And, of course, he would have been led past a perfectly planned ambush
for his capture--but he might have killed the major-domo. Which would
not disturb Ribiera, but had disturbed the servant.
* * * * *
Bell smoked comfortably. And suddenly hangings parted, and Ribiera
came into the room. He smiled nervously, and then, as Bell blew a puff
of smoke at him and nodded casually, he scowled.
"I came," said Bell deliberately, "to make a bargain. Frankly, I do
not like to break my word. I was under obligations to deliver a
package from Senhor Canalejas to a certain messenger who will take it
to my government. I have done it. But I am not, Senhor Ribiera, a
member of the Secret Service. I am entirely a free agent now, and I am
prepared to consider your proposals, which I could not in honor do
before."
He smiled pleasantly. Effrontery, properly managed, is one of the most
valuable of all qualities. Especially in dealing with people who
themselves are arrogant when they dare.
* * * * *
Ribiera purpled with rage, and then controlled it.
"Ah!" he rumbled. "You are prepared to consider my proposals. There
are no proposals. The Master may be amused at your cleverness in
escaping. I do not know. I do know that I am ordered to make you my
slave and send you to The Master. That, I shall do."
"Perhaps," said Bell blandly: "but I can go without food and drink for
several days, which will delay the process. And while I cannot
honorably tell you how to stop the man bearing Senhor Canalejas'
package to my government, still ... If I willingly accepted a dose of
_yagué_ in token of my loyalty to The Master...."
Ribiera's good humor returned. He chuckled.
"You actually mean," he said jovially, "that you think you were given
some of The Master's little compound, and that you wish to make terms
before your hands begin to writhe at the ends of your wrists. Is not
that your reason?"
Bell's eyes flickered. He had been horribly afraid of just that. But
Ribiera's amusement was reassuring.
"Perhaps," said Bell. "Perhaps I am."
* * * * *
Ribiera sat down and stretched his fat legs in front of him. He
surveyed Bell with an obscene, horrible amusement.
"Ah, Senhor," he chuckled, "some day we will laugh together over this!
You yet hope, and do not yet know how much better it will be for you
if you cease to hope, and cultivate desires! The Master is pleased
with you. You have just those qualities he knows are necessary in
dealing with your nation. He is not angry with you. It is his
intention to use you to extend his--ah--influence among the officials
of your nation. You know, of course, that in but a little more time I
will hold all Brazil--as I now hold this city--in the hollow of my
hand. Four of the republics of this continent are already completely
under the control of The Master's deputies, and of the rest, Brazil is
not the most nearly subdued. A year or two, and The Master will
become Emperor, and his deputies viceroys. And it is his whim to give
you the opportunity of becoming the first deputy and the first viceroy
of North America. And you come to me and offer--you, Senhor!--to make
terms! I believe even The Master will laugh when he hears of it."
"But," said Bell practically, "do you accept my terms?"
Ribiera chuckled again.
"What are they, Senhor?"
"That you release the daughter of the Senhor Canalejas and pledge your
word of honor that she will not be enslaved."
* * * * *
Ribiera's word of honor, of course, would be worth rather less than
the breath that was used to give it. But his reception of the proposal
would be informative.
He chuckled again.
"No, Senhor. I do not accept. But I will promise you as a favor,
because my uncle The Master admires you, that within a few weeks you
shall enjoy her charms. I do not," he added with amused candor, "find
that any one woman diverts me for a very long time."
"Oh," said Bell, very quietly.
He sat still for an instant, and then shrugged, and looked about as if
for an ash tray in which to knock the ashes from his cigarette. He
stood up, carrying the tube of tobacco gingerly, and moved toward one
by Ribiera's elbow. He knocked off the ash, and crushed out the tiny
coal. He fumbled in his pockets.
The next instant Ribiera choked with terror.
"Let me explain," said Bell softly. "I did not give your major-domo my
word that I was unarmed. I merely gave him a weapon. I got these from
two policemen who tried to arrest me an hour or so ago. And I also
remind you, Senhor, that if the armed men you have posted to prevent
my escape try to shoot me, that the inevitable contraction of my
muscles will send two bullets into your heart--even if I am dead. I
am a dead man, Senhor, if you give the word, but so are you if you
give it."
Ribiera gasped. His eyes rolled in his head.
"Send for her," said Bell very gently. "Send for her, Senhor. I
estimate that she has been in this house for less than half an hour.
Have her brought here at once, and if she has been harmed the three of
us will perish very promptly, and half of Rio will go mad after our
death."
And the muzzles of two revolvers bored into the fat flesh of Ribiera's
body, and a gasp that was almost a wail of terror came from the
watchers--armed watchers--who dared not kill the man they had been
posted to guard Ribiera against.
Ribiera lifted his hand and croaked an order.
(_To be continued._)
[Advertisement:]
Brigands of the Moon
(The Book of Gregg Haljan)
PART THREE OF A FOUR-PART NOVEL
_By Ray Cummings_
[Illustration: Light-rays and silent flashes seemed to envelop us.]
[Sidenote: Gregg and Anita risk quick, sure death in a desperate bluff
on the ruthless Martian brigands.]
_WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE_
One day in 2075 the Interplanetary Space-Ship _Planetara_ left the
Earth for Mars. I, Gregg Haljan, was third officer.
It was destined to be a tragic voyage. For in our midst were
unscrupulous brigands, masquerading as harmless passengers, intent on
seizing the secret treasure of radium ore Johnny Grantline of the
Grantline Expedition had dug from the Moon. The _Planetara_ was to
stop on the Moon and pick the treasure up on her return trip from
Mars.
Miko, a giant Martian, and his sister, Moa, were the ringleaders. With
them were, as passengers, Sir Arthur Coniston and Ob Hahn, a Venus
mystic. The whole crew was in their pay.
Miko struck. The captain was killed, as were the officers. Only Snap
Dean, the radio-helio operator, Venza, a girl of Venus, and I were
left. And, of course, Anita Prince, who had captivated my heart upon
my first glimpse of her.
The brigands abandoned the other passengers on a small asteroid, and
Miko signaled his space-ship far off on Mars to meet him on the Moon.
I was forced to guide the _Planetara_ to the Moon. We sighted the huts
of the Grantline Expedition, and suddenly, just as we started to
descend, the controls, snapped, and the _Planetara_ tumbled like a
spent rocket! Desperately I tried to check her, but only partially
succeeded. We crashed horribly against the barren gray rock of the
Moon. Anita, Venza, Snap and I lived through it, but we could not find
the bodies of Miko and Moa in the wreckage. Evidently they were still
alive, somewhere.
We reached Johnny Grantline. The _Planetara_ was a complete wreck.
And, speeding to us from Mars, was Miko's brigand ship.
We were powerless--without means of leaving the Moon--and completely
at the mercy of Miko's fast approaching brigands!
CHAPTER XXIII
_The Prowling Watchman_
"Try it again," Snap urged. "Good God, Johnny, we've got to raise some
Earth station! Chance it! Use your power--run it up to the full.
Chance it!"
We were gathered in Grantline's instrument room. The duty-man, with
blanched grim face, sat at his senders. The Grantline crew shoved
close around us, tense and silent.
Above everything we must make some Earth station aware of our plight.
Conditions were against us. There were very few observers, in the
high-powered Earth stations who knew that an exploring party was on
the Moon. Perhaps none of them. The Government officials who had
sanctioned the expedition--and Halsey and his confrères in the
Detective Bureau--were not anticipating trouble now. The _Planetara_
was supposed to be well on her course to Ferrok-Shahn. It was when she
was due to return that Halsey would be alert.
And it seemed, too, that nature was against us. The bulging
half-Earth[1] hung poised near the zenith over our little crater. Its
rotation through the hours was clearly visible. We timed our signals
when the western hemisphere was facing us. But nature was against us.
No clouds, no faintest hint of mist could fog the airless Lunar
surface. But there were continuous clouds over the Americas.
[Footnote 1: Between the half and the full illumined disc, the
complete Earth now was some ten days old.]
"Try it again," Snap urged.
* * * * *
These bulging walls! Grantline used his power far beyond the limits of
safety. He cut down his lights; the telescope intensifiers were
permanently disconnected; the ventilators were momentarily stilled, so
that the air here in the little room crowded with men rapidly grew
fetid. All to save power pressure, that the vital Erentz system might
survive.
Even so it was strained to the danger point. The walls seemed to bulge
outward with the pressure of the room, the aluminite braces straining
and creaking. And our heat was radiating away; the deadly chill of
space crept in.
"Again!" ordered Grantline.
The duty-man flung on the power in rhythmic pulses. In the silence the
tubes hissed. The light sprang through the banks of rotating prisms,
intensified up the scale until, with a vague, almost invisible beam,
it left the last swaying mirror and leaped through our overhead dome
into space.
"Commander!" The duty-man's voice carried an appeal. These bulging
walls! If they cracked, or even sprung a serious leak, the camp would
be uninhabitable....
"Enough," said Grantline. "Switch it off. We'll let it go at that for
now."
It seemed that every man in the room had been holding his breath in
the darkness. The lights came on again: the Erentz motors accelerated
to normal. The strain on the walls eased up, and the room began
warming.
Had the Earth caught our signal? We did not want to waste the power to
find out. Our receivers were disconnected. If an answering signal
came, we could not know it. One of the men said:
"Let's assume they saw us." He laughed, but it was a high-pitched,
tense laugh. "We don't dare even use the telescope. Our rescue ship
will be right overhead, visible to the naked eye before we see it.
Three days more--that's what I'll give it."
* * * * *
But the three days passed, and no rescue ship came. The Earth was
almost at the full. We tried signaling again. Perhaps it got
through--we did not know. But our power was weaker now. The wall of
one of the rooms sprang a leak, and the men were hours repairing it. I
did not say so, but never once did I feel that our signals were seen
on Earth. Those cursed clouds! The Earth almost everywhere seemed to
have poor visibility.
Four of our eight days of grace were all too soon passed. The brigand
ship must be half-way here by now.
They were busy days for us. If we could have captured Miko and his
band, our danger would have been less imminent. With the treasure
insulated so that its Gamma rays could not betray us, and our camp in
darkness, the arriving brigand ship might never find us. But Miko knew
our location: he would signal his oncoming ship when it was close and
lead it to us.
Three times during those days--and the days which followed
them--Grantline sent out searching parties. But it was unavailing.
Miko, Moa and Coniston, with their five underlings, could not be
found. We searched all the territory from the camp to the _Planetara_,
and off to the foot-crags of Archimedes, and a score of miles into the
flatness of the Mare Imbrium. There was no sign of the brigands. Yet
we knew they could be near here--it was so easy to hide amid the
tumbled crags, the ravines, the gullies, the numberless craters and
pit-holes: or underground in the vast honeycombed subterranean
recesses.
* * * * *
We had at first hoped that the brigands might have perished. But that
was soon dispelled! I went--about the third day--with the party that
was sent to the _Planetara_. We wanted to salvage such of its
equipment, its unbroken power units, as might be available. And Snap
and I had worked out an idea which we thought might be of service. We
needed some of the _Planetara's_ smaller gravity-plate sections. Those
in Grantline's wrecked little _Comet_ had stood so long that their
radiations had gone dead. But the _Planetara's_ were still
efficacious.
We secured the fragments of Newtonia.[2] But our hope that Miko might
have perished was dashed. He too had returned to the _Planetara_! The
evidence was clear before us. The vessel was stripped of all its power
units save those which were dead and useless. The last of the food and
water stores was taken. The weapons in the chart-room--the Benson
curve-lights, bullet projectors, and heat-rays--had vanished.
[Footnote 2: An allusion to the element Newtonia, named in memory of
the great founder of celestial mechanics, Sir Isaac Newton.
Artificially electronized, this metal element may be charged either
positively or negatively, thus to attract or repell other masses of
matter. The gravity plates of all space-ships were built of it.]
Other days passed. The Earth reached the full, and began waning. The
twenty-eight day Lunar night was in its last half. No rescue ship came
from Earth. We had ceased our efforts to signal, for we needed all our
power to maintain ourselves. The camp would be in a state of siege.
That was the best we could hope for. We had a few short-range weapons,
such as Bensons, heat-rays and rifles. A few hundred feet of effective
range was the most any of them could obtain. The heat-rays--in giant
form one of the most deadly weapons on Earth--were only slowly
efficacious on the airless Moon. Striking an intensely cold surface,
their warming radiations, without atmosphere to aid them, were slow
to act. Even in a blasting heat-beam a man in his Erentz helmet-suit
could withstand the ray for several minutes.
* * * * *
We were, however, well equipped with explosives. Grantline had brought
a large supply for his mining operations, and much of it was still
unused. We had, also, an ample stock of oxygen fuses, and a variety of
oxygen light flares in small fragile glass-globes.
It was to use these explosives against the brigands that Snap and I
were working out our scheme with the gravity-plates. The brigand ship
would come with giant projectors and with some thirty men. If we could
hold out against them for a time, the fact that the _Planetara_ was
missing would bring us help from Earth.
"A month," said Grantline. "A month at the most. If we can hold them
off that long--even in a week or two help may come."
Another day. A tenseness fell on us all, despite the absorption of our
feverish activities. To conserve the power, the camp was almost dark,
we lived in dim, chill rooms, with just a few weak spots of light
outside to mark the watchmen on their rounds. We did not use the
telescope,[3] but there was scarcely an hour when one or the other of
the men was not sitting on a cross-piece up in the dome of the little
instrument room, casting tense searching gaze into the black, starry
firmament. A ship might appear at any time now--a rescue ship from
Earth, or the brigands from Mars.
* * * * *
Anita and Venza during these days could aid us very little save by
their cheering words. They moved about the rooms, trying to inspire
us; so that all the men, when they might have been humanly sullen and
cursing their fate, were turned to grim activity, or grim laughter,
making a joke of this coming siege. The morale of the camp now was
perfect. An improvement indeed over the inactivity of the former
peaceful weeks!
[Footnote 3: An old-fashioned telescope, of limited field and needing
no electronic power, would have been immensely serviceable to
Grantline, but his was of the more modern type.]
Grantline mentioned it to me. "We'll put up a good fight, Haljan.
These fellows from Mars will know they've had a task before they ever
sail off with this treasure."
I had many moments alone with Anita. I need not mention them. It
seemed that our love was crossed by the stars, with an adverse fate
dooming it. And Snap and Venza must have felt the same. Among the men
we were always quietly, grimly active. But alone.... I came upon Snap
once with his arms around the little Venus girl. I heard him say:
"Accursed luck! That you and I should find each other too late, Venza.
We could have a mighty lot of fun in Great-New York together."
"Snap, we will!"
As I turned away, I murmured: "And, pray God, so will Anita and I."
The girls slept together in a small room of the main building. Often
during the time of sleep, when the camp was stilled except for the
night watch, Snap and I would sit in the corridor near the girls'
door-grid, talking of that time when we would all be back on our
blessed Earth.
* * * * *
Our eight days of grace were passed. The brigand ship was due--now,
to-morrow, or the next day.
I recall, that night, my sleep was fitfully uneasy. Snap and I had a
cubby together. We talked, and made futile plans. I went to sleep, but
awakened after a few hours. Impending disaster lay heavily on me. But
there was nothing abnormal nor unusual in that!
Snap was asleep. I was restless, but I did not have the heart to
awaken him. He needed what little repose he could get. I dressed, left
our cubby and wandered out into the corridor of the main building.
It was cold in the corridor, and gloomy with the weak blue light. An
interior watchman passed me.
"All as usual, Haljan."
"Nothing in sight?"
"No. They're looking."
I went through the connecting corridor to the adjacent building. In
the instrument-room several of the men were gathered, scanning the
vault overhead.
"Nothing, Haljan."
I stayed with them awhile, then wandered away. The outside man met me
near the admission lock-chambers of the main building. The duty-man
here sat at his controls, raising the air-pressure in the locks
through which the outside watchman was coming. The relief sat here in
his bloated suit, with his helmet on his knees. It was Wilks.
"Nothing yet, Haljan. I'm going up to the peak of the crater to see if
anything is in sight. I wish that damnable brigand ship would come and
get it over with."
Instinctively we all spoke in half whispers, the tenseness bearing in
on us.
The outside man came out of his helmet. He was white and grim, but he
grinned at Wilks.
"All is usual." He tried the familiar jest at Wilks, but his voice was
flat: "Don't let the Earthlight get you!"
Wilks went out through the portes--a process of no more than a minute.
I wandered away again through the corridors.
* * * * *
I suppose it was half an hour later that I chanced to be gazing
through a corridor window. The lights along the rocky cliff-edge were
tiny blue spots. The head of the stairway leading down to the abyss of
the crater floor was visible. The bloated figure of Wilks was just
coming up. I watched him for a moment making his rounds. He did not
stop to inspect the lights. That was routine; I thought it queer that
he passed them.
Another minute passed. The figure of Wilks went with slow bounds over
toward the back of the ledge where the glassite shelter housed the
treasure. It was all dark off there. Wilks went into the gloom, but
before I lost sight of him he came back. As though he had changed his
mind he headed for the foot of the staircase which led up the
cliff-face to where, at the peak of the little crater, five hundred
feet above us, the narrow observatory platform was perched. He climbed
with easy bounds, the light on his helmet bobbing in the gloom.
I stood watching. I could not tell why there seemed to be something
queer about Wilks' actions. But I was struck with it, nevertheless. I
watched him disappear over the peak of the summit.
Another minute went by. Wilks did not reappear. I thought I could make
out his light on the platform up there. Then abruptly a tiny white
beam was waving from the observatory platform! It flashed once or
twice, then was extinguished. And now I saw Wilks plainly, standing in
the Earthlight, gazing down.
Queer actions! Had the Earthlight touched him? Or was that a local
signal-call which he had sent out? Why should Wilks be signalling?
What was he doing with a hand-helio? Our watchmen, I knew, had no
reason to carry one.
And to whom could Wilks be signalling across this Lunar desolation?
The answer stabbed at me: to Miko's band!
I waited another moment. No further light. Wilks was still up there!
* * * * *
I went back to the lock entrance. Spare suits and helmets were here
beside the keeper. He gazed at me inquiringly.
"I'm going out, Franck, just for a minute." It struck me that perhaps
I was a meddlesome fool. Wilks, of all Grantline's men, was, I knew,
most in his commander's trust. The signal could have been some part of
this night's ordinary routine, for all I knew.
I was hastily donning an Erentz suit. I added, "Let me out. I just got
the idea Wilks is acting queerly." I laughed. "Maybe the Earthlight
has touched him."
With my helmet on I went through the locks. Once outside, with the
outer panel closed behind me, I dropped the weights from my belt and
shoes and extinguished my helmet-light.
Wilks was still up there. Apparently he had not moved. I bounded off
across the ledge to the foot of the ascending stairs. Did Wilks see me
coming? I could not tell. As I approached the stairs the platform was
cut off from my line of vision.
I mounted with bounding leaps. In my flexible gloved hand I carried my
only weapon, a small bullet projector with oxygen firing caps for use
in this outside near-vacuum. The leaden bullet with its slight mass
would nevertheless pierce a man at the distance of twenty feet.
I held the weapon behind me. I would talk to Wilks first.
I went slowly up the last hundred feet. Was Wilks still up there? The
summit was bathed in Earthlight. The little metal observatory platform
came into view above my head.
Wilks was not there. Then I saw him standing on the rocks nearby,
motionless. But in a moment he saw me coming.
I waved my left arm with a gesture of greeting. It seemed to me that
he started, made as though to leap away, then changed his mind and
waited for me.
I sailed from the head of the staircase with a twenty-foot leap and
landed lightly beside him. I gripped his arm for audiphone contact.
"Wilks!"
Through the visors his face was visible. I saw him, and he saw me. And
I heard his voice.
"You, Haljan! How nice!"
It was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston!
CHAPTER XXIV
_Imprisoned!_
The duty-man at the exit locks of the main building stood at his
window and watched me curiously. He saw me go up the spider-stairs. He
could see the figure he thought was Wilks, standing at the top. He saw
me join Wilks, saw us locked together in combat.
For an instant the duty-man stood amazed. There were two fantastic,
misshapen figures swaying in the Earthlight five hundred feet above
the camp, fighting desperately at the very brink. They were small,
dwarfed by distance, alternately dim and bright as they swayed in and
out of the shadows. Soon the duty-man could not tell one from the
other. Haljan and Wilks--fighting to the death!
The duty-man recovered himself and sprang into action. An interior
siren-call was on the instrument panel near him. He rang it, alarming
the camp.
The men came rushing to him, Grantline among them.
"What's this? Good God, Franck!"
They saw the silent, deadly combat up there on the cliff. The two
figures had fallen together from the observatory platform, dropped
twenty feet to a lower landing on the stairs. They lay as though
stunned for a moment, then fought on.
Grantline stood stricken with amazement. "That's Wilks!"
"And Haljan," the duty-man gasped. "Went out--something wrong with
Wilks--acting strangely--"
The interior of the camp was in a turmoil. The men awakened from
sleep, ran out into the corridors, shouted questions.
"An attack?"
"Is it an attack?"
"The brigands?"
* * * * *
But it was Wilks and Haljan in a fight out there on the cliff. The men
crowded at the bulls'-eye windows.
And over all the confusion the alarm siren, with no one thinking to
shut it off, was screaming with its electrical voice.
Grantline, stricken for that moment of inactivity, stood gazing. One
of the figures broke away from the other, bounded up to the summit
from the stair-platform to which they had fallen. The other followed.
They locked together, swaying at the brink. For an instant it seemed
to Grantline that they would go over; then they surged back,
momentarily out of sight.
Grantline found his wits. "Stop them! I'll go out to stop them! What
fools!"
He was hastily donning one of the Erentz suits which stood at the lock
entrance. "Shut off that siren, Franck!"
Within a minute Grantline was ready. The duty-man called from the
window:
"Still at it! By the infernal, such fools! They'll kill themselves!"
The figures had swayed back into view, then out of sight again.
"Franck, let me out."
Grantline was ready. He stood, helmet in hand.
"I'll go with you, Commander."
But the volunteer was not equipped. Grantline would not wait.
"I'm going at once. Hurry, Franck."
The duty-man turned to his panel. The volunteer shoved a weapon at
Grantline. "Here, take this."
Grantline jammed on his helmet.
* * * * *
He moved the few steps into the small air-chamber which was the first
of the three pressure locks. Its interior door-panel swung open for
him. But the door did not close after him!
Cursing the duty-man's slowness, he waited a few seconds. Then he
turned to the corridor. The duty-man came running.
Grantline took off his helmet. "What in hell--"
"Broken! Dead!"
"What!"
"Smashed from outside," gasped the duty-man. "Look there--my tubes--"
The control-tubes of the portes had flashed into a close-circuit and
burned out. The admission portes would not open!
"And the pressure controls smashed! Broken from outside--!"
There was no way now of getting out through these pressure-locks. The
doors, the entire pressure-lock system, was dead. Had it been tampered
with from outside?
As though to answer Grantline's amazed question there came a chorus of
shouts from the men at the corridor windows.
"Commander! By God--look!"
A figure was outside, close to the building! Clothed in suit and
helmet, it stood, bloated and gigantic. It had evidently been lurking
at the porte-entrance, had ripped out the wires there.
It moved past the windows, saw the staring faces of the men, and made
off with giant bounds. Grantline reached the window in time to see it
vanish around the building corner.
It was a giant figure, larger than a normal Earthman. A Martian?
* * * * *
Up on the summit of the crater the two small figures were still
fighting. All this turmoil had taken no more than a minute or two.
A lurking Martian outside? The brigand, Miko? More than ever,
Grantline was determined to get out. He shouted to his men to don some
of the other suits, and called for some of the hand bullet projectors.
But he could not get out through these main admission portes. He could
have forced the panels open perhaps; but with the pressure-changing
mechanisms broken, it would merely let the air out of the corridor. A
rush of air, probably uncontrollable. How serious the damage was no
one could tell as yet. It would perhaps take hours to repair it.
Grantline was shouting. "Get those weapons! That's a Martian outside!
The brigand leader, probably! Get into your suits, anyone who wants to
go with me! We'll go by the manual emergency exit!"
But the prowling Martian had found it! Within a minute Grantline was
there. It was a smaller, two-lock gateway of manual control, so that
the person going out could operate it himself. It was in a corridor at
the other end of the main building. But Grantline was too late! The
lever would not open the panels!
Had someone gone out this way and broken the mechanisms after him? A
traitor in the camp? Or had someone come in from outside? Or had the
skulking Martian outside broken this lock as he had broken the other?
The questions surged on Grantline. His men crowded around him. The
news spread. The camp was a prison. No one could get out.
And outside, the skulking Martian had disappeared. But Wilks and
Haljan were still fighting. Grantline could see the two figures up on
the observatory platform. They bounded apart, then together again.
Crazily swaying--bouncing--striking the rail.
* * * * *
They went together in a great leap off the platform onto the rocks,
and rolled in a bright patch of Earthlight. First one on top, then the
other, they rolled, unheeding, to the brink. Here, beyond the midway
ledge which held the camp, it was a sheer drop of a thousand feet, on
down to the crater-floor.
The figures were rolling: then one shook himself loose, rose up,
seized the other and, with a desperate lunge, shoved him--
The victorious figure drew back to safety. The other fell, hurtling
down into the shadows past the camp-level--down out of sight in the
darkness of the crater-floor.
Snap, who was in the group near Grantline at the windows, gasped.
"God! Was that Gregg Haljan who fell?"
No one could say. No one answered. Outside, on the camp-ledge, another
helmeted figure now became visible. It was not far from the main
building when Grantline first noticed it. It was running fast,
bounding toward the spider-staircase. It began mounting.
And now still another figure became visible--the giant Martian again.
He appeared from around the corner of the main Grantline building. He
evidently saw the winner of the combat on the cliff, who now was
standing in the Earthlight, gazing down. And he saw, too, no doubt,
the second figure mounting the stairs. He stood quite near the window
through which Grantline and his men were gazing, with his back to the
building, looking up to the summit. Then he ran with tremendous leaps
toward the ascending staircase.
Was it Haljan standing up there on the summit? Who was it climbing the
staircase? And was the third figure Miko?
Grantline's mind framed the questions. But his attention was torn from
them, and torn even from the swift silent drama outside. The corridor
was ringing with shouts.
"We're imprisoned! Can't get out! Was Haljan killed? The brigands are
outside!"
And then an interior audiphone blared a call for Grantline. Someone in
the instrument room of the adjoining building was talking:
"Commander, I tried the telescope to see who got killed--"
But he did not say who got killed, for he had greater news.
"Commander! The brigand ship!"
Miko's reinforcements from Mars had come.
CHAPTER XXV
_The Combat on the Crater-top_
Not Wilks, but Coniston! His drawling, British voice:
"You, Gregg Haljan! How nice!"
His voice broke off as he jerked his arm from me. My hand with the
bullet-protector came up, but with a sweeping blow he struck my
wrist. The weapon dropped to the rocks.
I fought instinctively, those first moments; my mind was whirling with
the shock of surprise. This was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston.
His blow wrenched him around. Awkward, fighting in the air-puffed
suits, with only a body-weight of some thirty pounds! Coniston
stumbled over the rocks. I had still scarce recovered my wits, but I
avoided his outflung arms, and, stooping, tried to recover my
revolver. It lay nearby. But Coniston followed my scrambling steps and
fell upon me. My foot struck the weapon; it slid away and fell down a
crag into a six-foot pit.
We locked together, and when I rose erect he had me around the middle.
His voice jangled with broken syllables in my receiver.
"Do for you now, Haljan--"
It was an eery combat. We swayed, shoving, kicking, wrestling. His
hold around my middle shut off the Erentz circulation; the warning
buzz rang in my ears to mingle with the rasp of his curses. I flung
him off, and my tiny Erentz motors recovered. He staggered away, but
in a great leap came at me again.
I was taller, heavier and far stronger than Coniston. But I found him
crafty, and where I was awkward in handling my lightness, he seemed
more skilfully agile.
* * * * *
I became aware that we were on the twenty-foot square grid of the
observatory platform. It had a low metal railing. We surged against
it. I caught a dizzying glimpse of the abyss. Then it receded as we
bounced the other way. And then we fell to the grid. His helmet bashed
against mine, striking as though butting with the side of his head to
puncture my visor-panel. His gloved fingers were trying to rip at the
fabric around my throat.
As we regained our feet, I flung him off, and bounded, like a diver,
head-first into him. He went backward, but skilfully kept his feet,
gripped me again and shoved me.
I was tottering at the head of the staircase--falling. But I clutched
at him.
We fell some twenty or thirty feet to the next lower spider landing.
The impact must have dazed us both. I recall my vague idea that we had
fallen down the cliff--my Erentz motors smashed--my air shut off. Then
the air came again. The roaring in my ears was stilled; my head
cleared, and I found that we were on the landing--fighting.
He presently broke away from me, bounded to the summit, with me after
him. In the close confines of the suit I was bathed in sweat, and
gasping. I had had no thought to increase the oxygen content of my
air. But I sorely needed more oxygen for my laboring, pounding heart
and my panting breath. I fumbled for the oxygen control-lever. I could
not find it; or it would not operate.
I realized I was fighting sluggishly, almost aimlessly. But so was
Coniston!
* * * * *
It seemed dreamlike. A phantasmagoria of blows and staggering steps. A
nightmare with only the horrible vision of this goggled helmet always
before my eyes.
It seemed that we were rolling on the ground, back on the summit. The
unshadowed Earthlight was clear and bright. The abyss was beside me.
Coniston, rolling, was now on top, now under me, trying to shove me
over the brink. It was all like a dream--as though I were asleep,
dreaming that I did not have enough air.
I strove to keep my senses. He was struggling to roll me over the
brink. Ah, that would not do! But I was so tired. One cannot fight
without oxygen!
I suddenly knew that I had shaken him off and gained my feet. He rose
up, swaying. He was as tired, confused, half-asphyxiated as I.
The brink of the abyss was behind us. I lunged, desperately shoving,
avoiding his clutch.
He went over, and fell soundlessly, his body whirling end over end
down into the shadows, far down.
I drew back. My senses faded as I sank panting to the rocks. But with
inactivity, my thumping heart quieted. My respirations slowed. The
Erentz circulation gained on my poisoned air. It purified.
That blessed oxygen! My head cleared again. Strength came to me. I
felt better.
Coniston had fallen to his death. I was victor. I went to the brink,
cautiously, for I was still dizzy. I could see, far down there on the
crater-floor, a little patch of Earthlight in which a mashed human
figure was lying.
* * * * *
I staggered back again. A moment or two must have passed while I stood
there on the summit, with my senses clearing and my strength renewed
as the blood-stream cleared in my veins.
I was victor. Coniston was dead. I saw now, down on the lower
staircase below the camp-ledge, another goggled figure lying huddled.
That was Wilks, no doubt. Coniston had doubtless caught him there,
surprised him, killed him.
My attention, as I stood gazing, went down to the camp-buildings.
Another figure was outside! It bounded along the ledge, reached the
foot of the ascending staircase at the top of which I was standing.
With agile leaps, it came mounting at me!
Another brigand! Miko? No, it was not large enough to be Miko, not
nearly large enough. I was still confused. I thought of Hahn. But that
was absurd. Hahn was in the wreck of the _Planetara_. One of the
stewards then....
The figure came up the staircase recklessly, to assail me. I took a
step backward, bracing myself to receive this new antagonist.
And then I saw Miko! Unquestionably he: for there was no mistaking
his giant figure. He was down on the camp-ledge, running toward the
foot of the staircase, coming up to help this other man in advance of
him.
I thought of my revolver. I turned to try and find it. I was aware
that the first of my assailants was at the stairhead. I could not
locate at once where the revolver had fallen. I would be caught,
leaped upon from behind. Should I run?
I swung back to see what the oncoming brigand was doing. He had
reached the summit. His arms went up, legs bent under him. With a
sailing leap he launched for me. I could have bounded way, but with a
last look to locate the revolver, I braced myself for the shock.
The figure hit me. It was small and light in my clutching arms. I
recall I saw that Miko was half-way up the staircase. I gripped my
assailant. The audiphone contact brought a voice.
"Gregg! Is it you?"
It was Anita clutching at me!
CHAPTER XXVI
_At Bay_
"Gregg, you're safe!"
She had heard the camp corridors resounding with the shouts that Wilks
and Haljan were fighting. She had come upon a suit and helmet by the
manual emergency lock, had run out through the lock, confused, with
her only idea to stop Wilks and me from fighting. Then she had seen
one of us killed. Impulsive, barely knowing what she was doing, she
mounted the stairs, frantic to find if I were alive.
"Anita!"
Miko was coming! She had not seen him: for she had no thought of
brigands--only the belief that either Wilks or I had been killed.
But now, as for an instant we stood together on the rocks near the
observation platform, I could see the towering figure of Miko nearing
the top of the stairs.
"Anita, that's Miko! We must run."
Then I saw my bullet projector. It lay in a bowl-like depression quite
near us. I jumped for it. And as I tore loose from Anita, she leaped
down after me. It was a broken bowl in the rocks, some six feet deep.
It was open on the side facing the staircase--a narrow, ravinelike
gully, full of gray, broken, tumbled rock-masses. The little gully was
littered with crags and boulders. But I could see out through it.
Miko had come to the head of the staircase. He stopped there, his
great figure etched sharply by the Earthlight. I think he must have
known that Coniston was the one who had fallen over the cliff, as my
helmet and Coniston's were different enough for him to recognize which
was which. He did not know who I was, but he did know me for an enemy.
* * * * *
He stood now at the summit, peering to see where we had gone. He was
no more than fifty feet from us.
"Anita, lie down."
I pulled her down on the rocks. I took aim with the bullet projector.
But I had forgotten our helmet-lights. Miko must have seen them just
as I pulled the trigger. The flying bullet missed him as he jumped
sidewise. He dropped, but I could see him moving in the shadows to
where a jutting rock gave him shelter. I fired again.
"Gregg."
I had stood up to take aim. I saw the bullet chip a bit of rock. Anita
pulled me sharply down beside her.
"Gregg, he's armed!"
It was his turn to fire. It came--the familiar vague flash of the
paralyzing ray. It spat its tint of color on the rocks near us, but
could not reach us.
Miko rose a moment later and bounded to another rock. I scrambled up,
and shot at him, but missed. Then he crouched and returned my fire
from his new angle; but Anita and I had shifted.
Time passed--only a few moments. I could not see Miko momentarily.
Perhaps he was crouching; perhaps he had moved away again. He was, or
had been, on slightly higher ground than the bottom of our bowl. It
was dim down here where we were lying, but I feared that every moment
Miko might appear and strike at us. His ray at any short range would
penetrate our visor-panes, even though our suits might temporarily
resist it.
"Anita--it's too dangerous here."
Had I been alone, I might perhaps have leaped up to lure Miko. But
with Anita I did not dare chance it.
"We've got to get back to the camp," I told her. The audiphone brought
her comment:
"Perhaps he has gone."
* * * * *
But he had not. We saw him again, out in a distant patch of
Earthlight. He was further from us than before, but on still higher
ground. We had extinguished our small helmet-lights. But he knew we
were here, and possibly he could see us. His projector flashed again.
But we had again shifted, and were untouched. He was a hundred feet or
more away now. His weapon was of longer range than mine. I did not
answer his fire, for I could not hope to hit him at such a distance,
and the flash of my weapon would help him with his aim.
I murmured to Anita, "We must get out of here."
Yet how did I dare take Anita from these concealing shadows? Miko
could reach us so easily as we bounded away, in plain view in the
Earthlight of the open summit! We were caught, at bay in this little
bowl.
The camp from here was not visible. But out through the broken gully,
beyond the staircase top, a white beam of light suddenly came up from
below.
"_Haljan._"
It spelled the signal.
"_Haljan._"
It was coming from the Grantline instrument room, I knew.
I could answer it with my helmet-light, but I did not dare. I
hesitated.
"Try it," urged Anita.
* * * * *
We crouched where we thought we might be safe from Miko's fire. My
little light-beam shot up from the bowl. It was undoubtedly visible to
the camp.
"_Yes? I am Haljan._"
And I added:
"_Help! Send us help._"
I did not mention Anita. Miko could doubtless read these signals. And
in the camp they must have missed Anita by now. They answered:
"_Cannot_--"
I lost the rest of it. There came a flash from Miko's weapon. But it
gave us confidence. He could not reach us at the moment.
The Grantline beam repeated:
"_Cannot come out. Portes broken. You cannot get in. Stay where you
are--an hour or two. We may be able to repair portes._"
The portes were broken! Stay here an hour or two! But I could not hold
this position against Miko that long! Sooner or later he would find a
place from where he could sweep this bowl beyond possibility of our
hiding. I saw him running now, well beyond my range, to ferret out
another point of vantage.
I extinguished my light. What use was it to tell Grantline anything
further? Besides, my light was dangerous.
But the Grantline beam spelled another message:
"_The brigand ship is coming! It will be here before we can get out to
you! No lights! We will try and hide our location._"
And the signal-beam brought a last appeal to me:
"_Miko and his men will divulge where we are. Unless you can stop
them_--"
The beam vanished. The lights of the Grantline camp made a faint glow
that showed above the crater-edge. The glow died, as the camp now was
plunged into darkness.
CHAPTER XXVII
_Anita's Plan_
We crouched in the shadows, the Earthlight filtering down to us. The
skulking figure of Miko had vanished; but he was out there somewhere
on the crags I was sure, lurking, maneuvering to where he could strike
us with his ray. Anita's metal-gloved hand was on my arm; in my ear
diaphragm her voice sounded eager and unmistakable:
"What was the signal, Gregg?"
She could not read the semaphore lights. I told her.
"Oh Gregg, the Martian ship coming!"
Her mind clung to that as the most important thing. But not so myself.
To me there was only the realization that Anita was caught out here,
almost at the mercy of Miko's ray. Grantline's men could not get out
to help us, nor could I get Anita into the camp.
She added, "Where do you suppose the ship is? In telescopic view?"
"Yes--twenty or thirty thousand miles up, probably."
The stars and the Earth were visible over us. Somewhere up there
disclosed by Grantline's instrument but not yet discernible to the
naked eye, Miko's reinforcements were hovering.
I stood up cautiously to try and locate Miko. Immediately I saw him.
He jumped as though fearing my coming bullet, and I dropped back,
barely avoiding his flash, which swept across the top of our bowl.
"Gregg--Gregg, don't take such a chance!"
We lay for a moment in silence. It was horribly nerve-straining. Miko
could be creeping up on us. Would he dare chance my sudden fire?
Creeping--or would he make a swift, unexpected rush?
The feeling that he was upon us abruptly swept me. I jumped to my
feet, against Anita's effort to hold me. But again Miko had vanished.
Where was he now?
* * * * *
I sank back. "That ship will be here in a few hours."
I told her what Grantline's signal had suggested: the ship was
hovering overhead. It must be fairly close; for Grantline's telescope
had revealed its identity as a bandit flyer, unmarked by any of the
standard code-identification lights. It was doubtless too far away as
yet to have located the whereabouts of Grantline's camp. The Martian
brigands knew that we were in the vicinity of Archimedes, but no more
than that. Searching this glowing Moon surface, our little lights, the
tiny local semaphore beams we had momentarily been using, could easily
pass unnoticed.
But as the brigand ship approached now--dropping close to Archimedes
as it probably would--our danger was that Miko and his men would then
signal it, join it, and reveal the camp's location, and the brigand
attack would be upon us.
I told this now to Anita. "The signal said, '_Unless you can stop
them_.'"
It was an appeal to me. But how could I respond to it? What could I
do, alone out here with Anita, to cope with this enemy?
Anita made no comment.
I added, "That ship will land near Archimedes I imagine, within an
hour or two! If Grantline can repair his portes, and I can get you
inside--"
Again she made no comment. Then suddenly she gripped me. "Gregg, look
there!"
Out through the gully break in our bowl the figure of Miko showed! He
was running. But not at us. Circling the summit, leaping to keep
himself behind the upstanding crags. He passed the head of the
staircase; he did not descend it, but headed off along the summit of
the curving crater-rim.
* * * * *
I stood up to watch him. He was making off. Abandoning us!
"He's going!"
I let her stand up beside me; cautiously, at first, for it occurred to
me that this might be a ruse to cover some other of Miko's men who
might be lurking up here.
But the summit seemed clear. The figure of Miko was a thousand feet
away now. We could see the tiny blob of it bobbing over the rocks.
Then it plunged down--not into the crater-valley, but out toward the
open Moon surface.
Miko had abandoned his attack on us. The reason seemed plain. He had
come here from his encampment with Coniston, had sent Coniston ahead
to lure and kill Wilks. When this was done, Coniston had flashed his
brief signal to Miko, who was hiding nearby.
It was not like the brigand leader to remain in the background. Miko
was no coward. But Coniston could impersonate Wilks, whereas Miko's
giant stature at once would reveal his identity. Miko had been engaged
in smashing the portes. He had looked up and seen me kill Coniston. He
had come up to assail me. And then he had read Grantline's signal to
me. It was his first knowledge that his ship was at hand. With the
camp exits inoperative, Grantline and his men were imprisoned. Miko
made an effort to kill me. He did not know my companion was Anita. The
effort was taking too long: with the Grantline camp imprisoned and his
ship at hand, it was Miko's best move to return to his own camp,
rejoin his men, and await their opportunity to signal the ship.
At least, so I reasoned it. Anita and I stood alone. What could we do?
* * * * *
We went to the brink of the cliff. The unlighted Grantline buildings
showed vaguely in the Earthlight.
I said, "We'll go down, I'll leave you there. You can wait at the
porte. They'll repair it soon, perhaps, and let you in."
"And what will you do?" she demanded.
I was hurrying her down the stairs. But suddenly she stopped. "What
are you going to do, Gregg?"
I had not intended to tell her. "Hurry, Anita!"
"Why?" She stood stock still. Through the visors I could see her white
face gazing at me rebelliously.
"Why should I hurry, Gregg?"
"Because I want to leave you at the porte. I'm going after Miko--try
and locate where he and his men are camping."
I had indeed no specific plan as yet. But it seemed useless for me to
sit at the porte waiting to be let in.
"But he's gone, Gregg."
She was right on that. Miko was already a mile or more away, down on
the outer surface, making off. He would soon be out of sight. It would
be impossible to follow him.
"Gregg, let me go with you."
She jerked away from me and bounded back up the staircase. I caught
her on the summit.
"Anita!"
"I'm going with you."
"You're going to stay here."
"I'm not!"
This exasperating controversy! And time was so precious!
"Anita, please."
"I'll be safer with you than waiting here, Gregg."
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