XII
The shabby-genteel little houses of the Appian Way, in Cambridge, whosewindow-eyes with their blue-green lids had watched Bennie Hooker comeand go, trudging back and forth to lectures and recitations, first asboy and then as man, for thirty years, must have blinked with amazementat the sight of the little professor as he started on the afterwardfamous Hooker Expedition to Labrador in search of the Flying Ring.
For the five days following Thornton's unexpected visit Bennie, existingwithout sleep and almost without food save for his staple ofready-to-serve chocolate, was the centre of a whirl of books,logarithms, and calculations in the University Library, and constitutedhimself an unmitigated, if respected, pest at the Cambridge Observatory.Moreover--and this was the most iconoclastic spectacle of all to hisconservative pedagogical neighbours in the Appian Way--telegraph boys onbicycles kept rushing to and fro in a stream between the Hookerboarding-house and Harvard Square at all hours of the day and night.
For Bennie had lost no time and had instantly started in upon the sameseries of experiments to locate the origin of the phenomena which hadshaken the globe as had been made use of by Professor von Schwenitz atthe direction of General von Helmuth, the Imperial German Commissionerfor War, at Mainz. The result had been approximately identical, andHooker had satisfied himself that somewhere in the centre of Labradorhis fellow-scientist--the discoverer of the Lavender Ray--was conductingthe operations that had resulted in the dislocation of the earth's axisand retardation of its motion. Filled with a pure and unselfishscientific joy, it became his sole and immediate ambition to find theman who had done these things, to shake him by the hand, and to comparenotes with him upon the now solved problems of thermic induction and ofatomic disintegration.
But how to get there? How to reach him? For Prof. Bennie Hooker hadnever been a hundred miles from Cambridge in his life, and a journey toLabrador seemed almost as difficult as an attempt to reach the pole. Offagain then to the University Library, with pale but polite young ladieshastening to fetch him atlases, charts, guidebooks, and works dealingwith sport and travel, until at last the great scheme unfolded itself tohis mind--the scheme that was to result in the perpetuation of atomicdisintegration for the uses of mankind and the subsequent alteration ofcivilization, both political and economic. Innocently, ingeniously,ingenuously, he mapped it all out. No one must know what he was about.Oh, no! He must steal away, in disguise if need be, and reach Pax alone.Three would be a crowd in that communion of scientific thought! He musttake with him the notes of his own experiments, the diagrams of hisapparatus, and his precious zirconium; and he must return with the greatsecret of atomic disintegration in his breast, ready, with thediscoverer's permission, to give it to the dry and thirsty world. Andthen, indeed, the earth would blossom like the rose!
A strange sight, the start of the Hooker Expedition!
Doctor Jelly's coloured housemaid had just thrown a pail of blue-graysuds over his front steps--it was 6:30 A.M.--and was on the point ofresignedly kneeling and swabbing up the doctor's porch, when she saw thedoor of the professor's residence open cautiously and a curious humanexhibit, the like of which had ne'er before been seen on sea or land,surreptitiously emerge. It was Prof. Bennie Hooker--disguised as asalmon fisherman!
Over a brand-new sportsman's knickerbocker suit of screaming yellowcheck he had donned an English mackintosh. On his legs were gaiters, andon his head a helmetlike affair of cloth with a visor in front andanother behind, with eartabs fastened at the crown with a piece of blackribbon--in other words a "Glengarry." The suit had been manufactured inHarvard Square, and was a triumph of sartorial art on the part of onewho had never been nearer to a real fisherman than a coloured fashionplate. However, it did suggest a sportsman of the variety usuallyportrayed in the comic supplements, and, to complete the picture, inProfessor Hooker's hands and under his arms were yellow pigskin bags androd cases, so that he looked like the show window of a harness store.
"Fo' de land sakes!" exclaimed the Jellys' coloured maid, oblivious ofher suds. "Fo' de Lawd! Am dat Perfesser Hookey?"
It was! But a new and glorified professor, with a soul thrilling to thejoy of discovery and romance, with a flash in his eyes, and the savingsof ten years in a large roll in his left-hand knickerbocker pocket.
Thus started the Hooker Expedition, which discovered the Flying Ring andmade the famous report to the Smithsonian Institution after thedisarmament of the nations. But could the nations have seen theexpedition as it emerged from its boarding-house that September morningthey would have rubbed their eyes.
With the utmost difficulty Prof. Bennie Hooker negotiated his bags androd cases as far as Harvard Square, where, through the assistance of afriendly conductor with a sense of humour, he was enabled to board anelectric surface car to the North Station.
Beyond the start up the River Moisie his imagination refused to carryhim. But he had a faith that approximated certainty that over the Heightof Land--just over the edge--he would find Pax and the Flying Ring.During all the period required for his experiments and preparations hehad never once glanced at a newspaper or inquired as to the progress ofthe war that was rapidly exterminating the inhabitants of the globe.Thermic induction, atomic disintegration, the Lavender Ray, these werethe Alpha, the Sigma, the Omega of his existence.
But meantime[3] the war had gone on with all its concomitant horror,suffering, and loss of life, and the representatives of the nationsassembled at Washington had been feverishly attempting to unite upon theterms of a universal treaty that should end militarism and war forever.And thereafter, also, although Professor Hooker was sublimelyunconscious of the fact, the celebrated conclave, known as ConferenceNo. 2, composed of the best-known scientific men from every laud, wassitting, perspiring, in the great lecture hall of the SmithsonianInstitution, its members shouting at one another in a dozen differentlanguages, telling each other what they did and didn't know, andbecoming more and more confused and entangled in an underbrush ofcontradictory facts and observations and irreconcilable theories untilthey were making no progress whatever--which was precisely what theastute and plausible Count von Koenitz, the German Ambassador, hadplanned and intended.
[Footnote 3: Up to the date of the armistice.]
The Flying Ring did not again appear, and in spite of the uncontrovertedtestimony of Acting-Consul Quinn, Mohammed Ben Ali el Bad, and athousand others who had actually seen the Lavender Ray, people begangradually, almost unconsciously, to assume that the destruction of theAtlas Mountains had been the work of an unsuspected volcano and that thepresence of the Flying Ring had been a coincidence and not the cause ofthe disruption. So the incident passed by and public attentionrefocussed itself upon the conflict on the plains of Chalons-sur-Marne.Only Bill Hood, Thornton, and a few others in the secret, together withthe President, the Cabinet, and the members of Conference No. 1 and ofConference No. 2, truly apprehended the significance of what hadoccurred, and realized that either war or the human race must pass awayforever. And no one at all, save only the German Ambassador and theImperial German Commissioners, suspected that one of the nations hadconceived and was putting into execution a plan designed to result inthe acquirement of the secret of how the earth could be rocked and inthe capture of the discoverer. For the _Sea Fox_, bearing the Germanexpeditionary force, had sailed from Amsterdam twelve days after theconference held at Mainz between Professor von Schwenitz and General vonHelmuth, and having safely rounded the Orkneys was now already well onits course toward Labrador. Bennie Hooker, however, was ignorant of allthese things. Like an immigrant with a tag on his arm, he sat on thetrain which bore him toward Quebec, his ticket stuck into the band onhis hat, dreaming of a transformer that wouldn't--couldn't--melt at onlysix thousand degrees.
When Professor Hooker awoke in his room at the hotel in Quebec themorning after his arrival there, he ate a leisurely breakfast, andhaving smoked a pipe on the terrace, strolled down to the wharves alongthe river front. Here to his disgust he learned that the Labradorste
amer, the _Druro_, would not sail until the following Thursday--athree days' wait. Apparently Labrador was a less-frequented localitythan he had supposed. He mastered his impatience, however, anddiscovering a library presided over by a highly intelligent graduate ofEdinburgh, he became so interested in various profound treatises onphysics which he discovered that he almost missed his boat.
Assisted by the head porter, and staggering under the weight of his newrod cases and other impedimenta, Bennie boarded the _Druro_ on Thursdaymorning, engaged a stateroom, and purchased a ticket for Seven Islands,which is the nearest harbour to the mouth of the River Moisie. She was alarge and comfortable river steamer of about eight hundred and fiftytons, and from her appearance belied the fact that she was theconnecting link between civilization and the desolate and ice-cladwastes of the Far North, as in fact she was. The captain regarded Benniewith indifference, if not disrespect, grunted, and ascending to thepilot house blew the whistle. Quebec, with its teeming wharves andcrowded shipping, overlooked by the cliffs that made Wolfe famous,slowly fell behind. Off their leeward bow the Isle of Orleans swungnearer and swept past, its neat homesteads inviting the weary travellerto pastoral repose. The river cleared. Low, farm-clad shores began toslip by. The few tourists and returning habitans settled themselves inthe bow and made ready for their voyage.
There would have been much to interest the ordinary American travellerin this comparatively unfrequented corner of his native continent; butour salmon fisherman, having conveniently disposed of his baggage,immediately retired to his stateroom and, intent on saving time,proceeded, wholly oblivious of the _Druro_, to read passionately severalexceedingly uninviting looking books which he produced from his valise.The _Druro_, quite as oblivious to Professor Hooker, proceeded on heraccustomed way, passed by Tadousac, and made her first stop at theGodbout. Bennie, finding the boat no longer in motion, reappeared ondeck under the mistaken impression that they had reached the end of thevoyage, for he was unfamiliar with the topography of the St. Lawrence,and in fact had very vague ideas as to distances and the time requiredto traverse them by rail or boat.
At the Godbout the _Druro_ dropped a habitan or two, a few boatloads ofsteel rods, crates of crockery and tobacco, and then thrust her bow outinto the stream and steered down river, rounding at length the Pointedes Monts and winding in behind the Isles des Oeufs to the RiverPentecoute, where she deposited some more habitans, including a priestin a black soutane, who somewhat incongruously was smoking a largecigar. Then, nosing through a fog bank and breaking out at last intosunlight again, she steamed across and put in past the Carousel, thatpicturesque and rocky headland, into Seven Islands Bay. Here sheanchored, and, having discharged cargo, steamed out by the Grand Boule,where eighteen miles beyond the islands Bennie saw the pilot house ofthe old _St. Olaf_, of unhappy memory, just lifting above the water.
He had emerged from the retirement of his stateroom only on being askedby the steward for his ticket and learning that the _Druro_ was nearingthe end of her journey. For nearly two days he had been submerged inSoddy on The Interpretation of Radium. The _Druro_ was running along asandy, low-lying beach about half a mile offshore. They were nearing themouth of a wide river. The volume of black fresh water from the Moisierushed out into the St. Lawrence until it met the green sea water,causing a sharp demarcation of colour and a no less pronounced conflictof natural forces. For, owing to the pressure of the tide against thesolid mass of the fresh stream, acres of water unexpectedly boiled onall sides, throwing geysers of foam twenty feet or more into the air,and then subsided. Off the point the engine bell rang twice, and the_Druro_ came to a pause.
Bennie, standing in the bow, in his sportsman's cap and waterproof,hugging his rod cases to his breast, watched while a heterogeneous fleetof canoes, skiffs, and sailboats came racing out from shore, for thesteamer does not land here, but hangs in the offing and lighters itscargo ashore. Leading the lot was a sort of whaleboat propelled by twooars on one side and one on the other, and in the sternsheets sat arosy-cheeked, good-natured looking man with a smooth-shaven face whoBennie knew must be Malcolm Holliday.
"Hello, Cap!" shouted Holliday. "Any passengers?"
The captain from the pilot house waved contemptuously in Bennie'sgeneral direction.
"Howdy!" said Holliday. "What do you want? What can I do for you?"
"I thought I'd try a little salmon fishing," shrieked Bennie back athim.
Holliday shook his head. "Sorry," he bellowed, "river's leased. Besides,the officers[4] are here."
[Footnote 4: Along the St. Lawrence and the Labrador coast a salmonfisherman is always spoken of by natives and local residents as an"officer," the reason being that most of the sportsmen who visit thesewaters are English army officers. Hence salmon fishermen are universallytermed "officers," and a habitan will describe the sportsmen who haverented a certain river as "_les officiers de la Moisie_" or "_lesofficiers de la Romaine_."]
"Oh!" answered Bennie ruefully. "I didn't know. I supposed I could fishanywhere."
"Well, you can't!" snapped Holliday, puzzled by the little man's curiousappearance.
"I suppose I can go ashore, can't I?" insisted Bennie somewhatindignantly. "I'll just take a camping trip then. I'd like to see thebig salmon cache up at the forks if I can't do anything else."
Instantly Holliday scented something. "Another fellow after gold," hemuttered to himself.
Just at that moment, the tide being at the ebb, a hundred acres of greenwater off the _Druro's_ bow broke into whirling waves and jets of foamagain. All about them, and a mile to seaward, these merry men danced bythe score. Bennie thrilled at the beauty of it. The whaleboat containingHolliday was now right under the ship's bows.
"I want to look round anyhow," expostulated Bennie. "I've come all theway from Boston." He felt himself treated like a criminal, felt thesuspicion in Holliday's eye.
The factor laughed. "In that case you certainly deserve sympathy." Thenhe hesitated. "Oh, well, come along," he said finally. "We'll see whatwe can do for you."
A rope ladder had been thrown over the side and one of the sailors nowlowered Bennie's luggage into the boat. The professor followed, avoidingwith difficulty stepping on his mackintosh as he climbed down theslippery rounds. Holliday grasped his hand and yanked him to a seat inthe stern.
"Yes," he repeated, "if you've come all the way from Boston I guesswe'll have to put you up for a few days anyway."
A crate of canned goods, a parcel of mail, and a huge bundle ofnewspapers were deposited in the bow. Holliday waved his hand. The_Druro_ churned the water and swung out into midstream again. Bennielooked curiously after her. To the north lay a sandy shore dotted by ascraggy forest of dwarf spruce and birch. A few fishing huts and a massof wooden shanties fringed the forest. To the east, seaward, many milesdown that great stretch of treacherous, sullen river waited a gray bankof fog. But overhead the air was crystalline with that sparkling,scratchy brilliance that is found only in northern climes. Nature seemedhard, relentless. With his feet entangled in rod cases Professor Hookerwondered for a moment what on earth he was there for, landing on thisinhospitable coast. Then his eyes sought the genial face of MalcolmHolliday and hope sprang up anew. For there is that about this genialfrontiersman that draws all men to him alike, be they Scotch or English,Canadian habitans or Montagnais, and he is the king of the coast, as hisfather was before him, or as was old Peter McKenzie, the head factor,who incidentally cast the best salmon fly ever thrown east of Montrealor south of Ungava. Bennie found comfort in Holliday's smile, and felttoward him as a child does toward its mother.
They neared shore and ran alongside a ramshackle pier, up the slipperypoles of which Bennie was instructed to clamber. Then, dodging rottenboards and treacherous places, he gained the sand of the beach and stoodat last on Labrador. A group of Montagnais picked up the professor'sluggage and, headed by Holliday, they started for the latter's house. Itwas a strange and amusing landing of an expedition the results of whichhave revolutionized the
life of the inhabitants of the entire globe. Nosuch inconspicuous event has ever had so momentous a conclusion. And nowwhen Malcolm Holliday makes his yearly trip home to Quebec, to report tothe firm of Holliday Brothers, who own all the nets far east ofAnticosti, he spends hours at the Club des Voyageurs, recounting indetail all the circumstances surrounding the arrival of Professor Hookerand how he took him for a gold hunter.
"Anyhow," he finishes, "I knew he wasn't a salmon fisherman in spite ofhis rods and cases, for he didn't know a Black Dose from a Thunder andLightning or a Jock Scott, and he thought you could catch salmon with aworm!"
It was true wholly. Bennie did suppose one killed the king of game fishas he had caught minnows in his childhood, and his geologic researchesin the Harvard Library had not taught him otherwise. Neither had histailor.
"My dear fellow," said Holliday as they smoked their pipes on the narrowboard piazza at the Post, "of course I'll help you all I can, but you'vecome at a bad season of the year all round. In the first place, you'llbe eaten alive by black flies, gnats, and mosquitoes." He slappedvigorously as he spoke. "And you'll have the devil of a job gettingcanoe men. You see all the Montagnais are down here at the settlement'making their mass.' Once a year they leave the hunting grounds up bythe Divide and beyond and come down river to '_faire la messe_'--it's asacred duty with 'em. They're very religious, as you probably know--afine lot, too, take 'em altogether, gentle, obedient, industrious,polite, cheerful, and fair to middling honest. They have a good deal ofFrench blood--a bit diluted, but it's there."
"Can't I get a few to go along with me?" asked Bennie anxiously.
"That's a question," answered the factor meditatively. "You know how thebirds--how caribou--migrate every year. Well, these Montagnais are justlike them. They have a regular routine. Each man has a line of traps ofhis own, all the way up to the Height of Land. They all go up river inthe autumn with their winter's supply of pork, flour, tea, powder, lead,axes, files, rosin to mend their canoes, and castoreum--made out ofbeaver glands, you know--to take away the smell of their hands from thebaited traps. They go up in families, six or seven canoes together, andas each man reaches his own territory his canoe drops out of theprocession and he makes a camp for his wife and babies. Then he spendsthe winter--six or seven months--in the woods following his line oftraps. By and by the ice goes out and he begins to want some society. Hehasn't seen a priest for ten months or so, and he's afraid of the_loup-garou_, for all I know. So he comes down river, takes his Newportseason here at Moisie, and goes to mass and staves off the _loup-garou_.They're all here now. Maybe you can get a couple to go up river andmaybe you can't."
Then observing Bennie's crestfallen expression, he added:
"But we'll see. Perhaps you can get Marc St. Ange and Edouard Moreau,both good fellows. They've made their mass and they know the countryfrom here to Ungava. There's Marc now--_Venez ici_, Marc St. Ange." Aswarthy, lithe Montagnais was coming down the road, and Hollidayaddressed him rapidly in habitan French: "This gentleman wishes to go upriver to the forks to see the big cache. Will you go with him?"
The Montagnais bowed to Professor Hooker and pondered the suggestion.Then he gesticulated toward the north and seemed to Bennie to be tellinga long story.
Holliday laughed again. "Marc says he will go," he commented shortly."But he says also that if the Great Father of the Marionettes is angryhe will come back."
"What does he mean by that?" asked Bennie.
"Why, when the aurora borealis--Northern Lights--plays in the sky theIndians always say that the 'marionettes are dancing.' About four weeksago we had some electrical disturbances up here and a kind of anearthquake. It scared these Indians silly. There was a tremendousdisplay, almost like a volcano. It beat anything I ever saw, and I'vebeen here fifteen years. The Indians said the Father of the Marionetteswas angry because they didn't dance enough to suit him, and that he wasmaking them dance. Then some of them caught a glimpse of a shootingstar, or a comet, or something, and called it the Father of theMarionettes. They had quite a time--held masses, and so on--and werereally cut up. But the thing is over now, except for the regular,ordinary display."
"When can they be ready?" inquired Bennie eagerly.
"To-morrow morning," replied Holliday. "Marc will engage his uncle.They're all right. Now how about an outfit? But don't talk any moreabout salmon. I know what you're after--it's _gold_!"
* * * * *
The moon was still hanging low over the firs at four o'clock the nextmorning when three black and silent shadows emerged from the factor'shouse and made their way, cautiously and with difficulty, across thesand to where a canoe had been run into the riffles of the beach. Marccame first, carrying a sheet-iron stove with a collapsible funnel; thenhis Uncle Edouard, shouldering a bundle consisting of a tent and acouple of sacks of flour and pork; and lastly Professor Hooker with hismackintosh and rifle, entirely unaware of the fact that his carefulguides had removed all the cartridges from his luggage lest he shouldshoot too many caribou and so spoil the winter's food supply. It wascold, almost frosty. In the black flood of the river the stars burnedwith a chill, wavering light. Bennie put on his mackintosh with ashiver. The two guides quietly piled the luggage in the centre of thecanoe, arranged a seat for their passenger, picked up their paddles,shoved off, and took their places in bow and stern.
No lights gleamed in the windows of Moisie. The lap of the ripplesagainst the birch side of the canoe, the gurgle of the water round thepaddle blades, and the rush of the bow as, after it had paused on thewithdraw, it leaped forward on the stroke, were the only sounds thatbroke the deathlike silence of the semi-arctic night. Bennie struck amatch, and it flared red against the black water as he lit his pipe, buthe felt a great stirring within his little breast, a great courage todare, to do, for he was off, really off, on his great hunt, his searchfor the secret that would remake the world. With the current whisperingagainst its sides the canoe swept in a wide circle to midstream. Themoon was now partially obscured behind the treetops. To the east a faintglow made the horizon seem blacker than ever. Ahead the wide waste ofthe dark river seemed like an engulfing chasm. Drowsiness enwrappedProfessor Hooker, a drowsiness intensified by the rythmic swinging ofthe paddles and the pile of bedding against which he reclined. He closedhis eyes, content to be driven onward toward the region of his hopes,content almost to fall asleep.
"Hi!" suddenly whispered Marc St. Ange. "_Voila! Le pere desmarionettes!_"
Bennie awoke with a start that almost upset the canoe. The blood rushedto his face and sang in his ears.
"Where?" he cried. "Where?"
"_Au nord_," answered Marc. "_Mais il descend!_"
Professor Hooker stared in the direction of Marc's uplifted paddle. Washe deceived? Was the wish father to the thought? Or did he really see atan immeasurable distance upon the horizon a quickly dying trail oforange-yellow light? He rubbed his eyes--his heart beating wildly underhis sportsman's suiting. But the north was black beyond the coming dawn.
Old Edouard grunted.
"_Vous etes fou!_" he muttered to his nephew, and drove his paddle deepinto the water.
Day broke with staccato emphasis. The sun swung up out of Europe andburned down upon the canoe with a heat so equatorial in quality thatBennie discarded both his mackintosh and his sporting jacket. All signsof human life had disappeared from the distant banks of the river andthe bow of the canoe faced a gray-blue flood emerging from a wildernessof scrubby trees. A few gulls flopped their way coast-ward, and at rareintervals a salmon leaped and slashed the slow-moving surface into aboiling circle; but for the rest their surroundings were as set, asimmobile, as the painted scenery of a stage, save where the currentswept the scattered promontories of the shore. But they moved steadilynorth. So wearied was Bennie with the unaccustomed light and fresh airthat by ten o'clock he felt the day must be over, although the sun hadnot yet reached the zenith. Unexpectedly Marc and Edouard turned thecanoe quietly into a shallow, and beached
her on a spit of white sand.In three minutes Edouard had a small fire snapping, and handed Bennie acup of tea. How wonderful it seemed--a genuine elixir! And then he feltthe stab of a mosquito, and putting up his hand found it blotched withblood. And the black flies came also. Soon the professor was tramping upand down, waving his handkerchief and clutching wildly at the air. Thenthey pushed off again.
The sun dropped westward as they turned bend after bend, disclosing everthe same view beyond. Shadows of rocks and trees began to jut across theeddies. A great heron, as big as an ostrich, or so he seemed, aroseawkwardly and flapped off, trailing yards of legs behind him. ThenBennie put on first his jacket and then his mackintosh. He realized thathis hands were numb. The sun was now only a foot or so above the skyline.
This time it was Marc who grunted and thrust the canoe toward theriver's edge with a sideways push. It grounded on a belt of sand andthey dragged it ashore. Bennie, who had been looking forward to thenight with vivid apprehension, now discovered to his great happinessthat the chill was keeping away the black flies. Joyfully he assisted ingathering dry sticks, driving tent pegs, and picking reindeer moss forbedding. Then as darkness fell Edouard fried eggs and bacon, and withtheir boots off and their stockinged feet toasting to the blaze thethree men ate as becomes men who have laboured fifteen hours in the openair. They drank tin cups of scalding tea, a pint at a time, and found itgood; and they smoked their pipes with their backs propped against thetree trunks and found it heaven. Then as the stars came out and thewoods behind them snapped with strange noises, Edouard took his pipefrom his mouth.
"It's getting cold," said he. "The marionettes will dance to-night."
Bennie heard him as if across a great, yawning gulf. Even the firelightseemed hundreds of yards away. The little professor was "all in," and hesat with his chin dropped again to his chest, until he heard Marcexclaim:
"_Voila! Elles dansent!_"
He raised his eyes. Just across the black, silent sweep of the riverthree giant prismatic searchlights were playing high toward thepolestar, such searchlights as the gods might be using in some monstrousgame. They wavered here and there, shifting and dodging, faded andsprang up again, till Bennie, dizzy, closed his eyes. The lights werestill dancing in the north as he stumbled to his couch of moss.
"_Toujour les marionettes!_" whispered Marc gently, as he might to achild. "_Bon soir, monsieur._"
The tent was hot and dazzling white above his head when low voices,footsteps, and the clink of tin against iron aroused the professor froma profound coma. The guides had already loaded the canoe and werewaiting for him. The sun was high. Apologetically he pulled on hisboots, and stepping to the sand dashed the icy water into his face. Hismuscles groaned and rasped. His neck refused to respond to his desireswith its accustomed elasticity. But he drank his tea and downed hisscrambled eggs with an enthusiasm unknown in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Marc gave him a hand into the canoe and they were off. The day hadbegun.
The river narrowed somewhat and the shores grew more rocky. At noon theylunched on another sand-spit. At sunset they saw a caribou. Night came."Always the marionettes." Thus passed nine days--like a dream to Bennie;and then came the first adventure.
It was about four o'clock on the afternoon of the tenth day of theirtrip up the Moisie when Marc suddenly stopped paddling and gazedintently shoreward. After a moment he said something in a low tone toEdouard, and they turned the canoe and drove it rapidly toward a smallcove half hidden by rocks. Bennie, straining his eyes, could see nothingat first, but when the canoe was but ten yards from shore he caughtsight of the motionless figure of a man, lying on his face with his headnearly in the water. Marc turned him over gently, but the limbs felllimp, one leg at a grotesque angle to the knee. Bennie saw instantlythat it was broken. The Indian's face was white and drawn, no doubt withpain.
"_Il est mort!_" said Marc slowly, crossing himself.
Edouard shrugged his shoulders and fetched a small flask of brandy fromthe professor's sack. Forcing open the jaws, he poured a few drops intothe man's mouth. The Indian choked and opened his eyes. Edouard grunted.
"_La jeunesse pense qu'elle sait tout!_" he remarked scornfully.
Thus they found Nichicun, without whom Bennie might never haveaccomplished the object of his quest. It took three days to nurse thehalf-dead and altogether starved Montagnais back to life, but hereceived the tenderest care. Marc shot a young caribou and gave him theblood to drink, and made a ragout to put the flesh back on his bones.Meanwhile the professor slept long hours on the moss and took amuch-needed rest; and by degrees they learned from Nichicun the story ofhis misfortune--the story that forms a part of the chronicle of theexpedition, which can be read at the Smithsonian Institution.
He was a Montagnais, he said, with a line of traps to the northeast ofthe Height of Land, and last winter he had had very bad luck indeed.There had been less and less in his traps and he had seen no caribou. Sohe had taken his wife, who was sick, and had gone over into the Nascopeecountry for food, and there his wife had died. He had made up his mindvery late in the season to come down to Moisie and make his mass and geta new wife, and start a fresh line of traps in the autumn. All the otherMontagnais had descended the river in their canoes long before, so hewas alone. His provisions had given out and he saw no caribou. He beganto think he would surely starve to death. And then one evening, on thepoint just above their present camp, he had seen a caribou and shot it,but he had been too weak to take good aim and had only broken itsshoulder. It lay kicking among the boulders, pushing itself along by itshind legs, and he had feared that it would escape. In his haste to reachit he had slipped on a wet rock and fallen and broken his leg. In spiteof the pain he had crawled on, and then had taken place a wild, terriblefight for life between the dying man and the dying beast.
He could not remember all that had occurred--he had been kicked, gored,and bitten; but finally he had got a grip on its throat and slashed itwith his knife. Then, lying there on the ground beside it, he drank itsblood and cut off the raw flesh in strips for food. Finally one day hehad crawled to the river for water and had fainted.
The professor and his guides made for the Indian a hut of rocks andbark, and threw a great pile of moss into the corner of it for him tolie on. They carved a splint for his leg and bound it up, and cut a hugeheap of firewood for him, smoking caribou meat and hanging it up in thehut. Somebody would come up river and find him, or if not, the three menwould pick him up on their return. For this was right and the law of thewoods. But never a word of particular interest to Prof. Bennie Hookerdid Nichicun speak until the night before their departure, although thereason and manner of his speaking were natural enough. It happened asfollows: but first it should be said that the Nascopees are an ignorantand barbarous tribe, dirty and treacherous, upon whom the Montagnaislook down with contempt and scorn. They do not even wear civilizedclothes, and their ways are not the ways of _les bons sauvages_. Theyhave no priests; they do not come to the coast; and the Montagnais willnot mingle with them. Thus it bespoke the hunger of Nichicun that he waswilling to go into their country.
As he sat round the fire with Marc and Edouard on that last night,Nichicun spoke his mind of the Nascopees, and Marc translated freely forBennie's edification.
No, the injured Montagnais told them, the Nascopees were not nice; theywere dirty. They ate decayed food and they never went to mass. Moreover,they were half-witted. While he was there they were all planning tomigrate for the most absurd reason--what do you suppose? Magic! Theyclaimed the end of the world was coming! Of course it was coming sometime. But they said now, right away. But why? Because the marionetteswere dancing so much. And they had seen the Father of the Marionettesfloating in the sky and making thunder! Fools! But the strangest thingof all, they said they could hunt no longer, for they were afraid tocross something--an iron serpent that stung with fire if you touched it,and killed you! What foolishness! An iron serpent! But he had asked themand they had sworn on the holy cross that it was true.
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Bennie listened with a chill creeping up his spine. But it would neverdo to hint what this disclosure meant to him. Between puffs of his pipehe asked casual, careless questions of Nichicun. These Nascopees, forinstance, how far off might their land be? And where did they assertthis extraordinary serpent of iron to be? Were there rivers in theNascopee country? Did white men ever go there? All these things thewounded Montagnais told him. It appeared, moreover, that the RassiniRiver was near the Nascopee territory, and that it flowed into theMoisie only seven miles above the camp. All that night the marionettesdanced in Bennie's brain.
Next morning they propped Nichicun on his bed of moss, laid a rifle anda box of matches beside him, and bade him farewell. At the mouth of theRassini River Prof. Bennie Hooker held up his hand and announced that hewas going to the Nascopee country. The canoe halted abruptly. OldEdouard declared that they had been engaged only to go to the big cache,and that their present trip was merely by way of a little excursion tosee the river. They had no supplies for such a journey, no proper amountof ammunition. No, they would deposit the professor on the nearestsandbar if he wished, but they were going back.
Bennie arose unsteadily in the canoe and dug into his pocket, producinga roll of gold coin. Two hundred and fifty dollars he promised them ifthey would take him to the nearest tribe of Nascopees; five hundred ifthey could find the Iron Serpent.
"_Bien!_" exclaimed both Indians without a moment's hesitation, and thecanoe plunged forward up the Rassini.
Once more a dreamlike succession of brilliant, frosty days; once morethe star-studded sky in which always the marionettes danced. And then atlast the great falls of the Rassini, beyond which no white man had gone.They hid the canoe in the bushes and placed beneath it the iron stoveand half their supply of food. Then they plunged into the brush,eastward. Bennie had never known such grueling work and heartbreakingfatigue; and the clouds of flies pursued them venomously and withunrelenting persistence. At first they had to cut their way throughacres of brush, and then the land rose and they saw before them miles ofswamp and barren land dotted with dwarf trees and lichen-grown rocks.Here it was easier and they made better time; but the professor's legsached and his rifle wore a red bruise on his shoulder. And then afterfive days of torment they came upon the Iron Rail. It ran in almost adirect line from northwest to southwest, with hardly a waver, straightover the barrens and through the forests of scrub, with a five-footclearing upon either side. At intervals it was elevated to a height ofeight or ten inches upon insulated iron braces. Both Marc and Edouardstared at in wonder, while Bennie made them a little speech.
It was, he said, a thing called a "monorail," made by a man whopossessed strange secrets concerning the earth and the properties ofmatter. That man lived over the Height of Land toward Ungava. He was agood man and would not harm other good men. But he was a greatmagician--if you believed in magic. On the rail undoubtedly he ransomething called a gyroscopic engine, and carried his stores andmachinery into the wilderness. The Nascopees were not such fools afterall, for here was the something they feared to cross--the iron serpentthat bit and killed. Let them watch while he made it bite. He allowedhis rifle to fall against the rail, and instantly a shower of bluesparks flashed from it as the current leaped into the earth.
Bennie counted out twenty-five golden eagles and handed them to Edouard.If they followed the rail to its source he would, he promised, on theirreturn to civilization give them as much again. Without more ado theIndians lifted their packs and swung off to the northwest along the lineof the rail. The stock of Prof. Bennie Hooker had risen in theirestimation. On they ploughed across the barrens, through swamps, overthe quaking muskeg, into the patches of scrub growth where the shortbranches slapped their faces, but always they kept in sight of the rail.
* * * * *
The extraordinary announcement, transmitted from various European newsagencies, that an attempt had been made by the general commanding theFirst Artillery Division of the German Army of the Meuse to violate thearmistice, had caused a profound sensation, particularly as the attemptto destroy Paris had been prevented only by the sudden appearance of thesame mysterious Flying Ring that had shortly before caused thedestruction of the Atlas Mountains and the flooding of the Sahara Desertby the Mediterranean Sea.
The advent of the Flying Ring on this second occasion had been noted byseveral hundred thousand persons, both soldiers and non-combatants. Atabout the hour of midnight, as if to observe whether the warring nationsintended sincerely to live up to their agreement and bring about anactual cessation of hostilities, the Ring had appeared out of the northand, floating through the sky, had followed the lines of thebelligerents from Brussels to Verdun and southward. The blinding yellowlight that it had projected toward the earth had roused the soldierssleeping in their intrenchments and caused great consternation all alongthe line of fortifications, as it was universally supposed that thedirector of its flight intended to annihilate the combined armies ofFrance, England, Germany, and Belgium. But the Ring had sailedpeacefully along, three thousand feet aloft, deluging the countrysidewith its dazzling light, sending its beams into the casemates of thehuge fortresses of the Rhine and the outer line of the Frenchfortifications, searching the redoubts and trenches, but doing no harmto the sleeping armies that lay beneath it; until at last the silence ofthe night had been broken by the thunder of "Thanatos," and in thetwinkling of an eye the Lavender Ray had descended, to turn the villageof Champaubert into the smoking crater of a dying volcano. The entiredivision of artillery had been annihilated, with the exception of a fewstragglers, and of the Relay Gun naught remained but a distorted puddleof steel and iron.
Long before the news of the horrible retribution visited by the masterof the Ring upon Treitschke, the major-general of artillery, and theinventor, Von Heckmann, had reached the United States, Bill Hood,sitting in the wireless receiving station of the Naval Observatory atGeorgetown, had received through the ether a message from his mysteriouscorrespondent in the north that sent him hurrying to the White House.Pax had called the Naval Observatory and had transmitted the followingultimatum, repeating it, as was his custom, three times:
"_To the President of the United States and to All Mankind:_
"I have put the nations to the test and found them wanting. The solemn treaty entered into by the ambassadors of the belligerent nations at Washington has been violated. My attempt by harmless means to compel the cessation of hostilities and the abolition of war has failed. I cannot trust the nations of the earth. Their selfishness, their bloodthirstiness, and greed, will inevitably prevent their fulfilling their agreements with me or keeping the terms of their treaties with one another, which they regard, as they themselves declare, merely as 'scraps of paper.' The time has come for me to compel peace. I am the dictator of human destiny and my will is law. War shall cease. On the 10th day of September I shall shift the axis of the earth until the North Pole shall be in the region of Strassburg and the South Pole in New Zealand. The habitable zone of the earth will be hereafter in South Africa, South and Central America, and regions now unfrequented by man. The nations must migrate and a new life in which war is unknown must begin upon the globe. This is my last message to the human race.
"PAX."
The conference of ambassadors summoned by the President to the WhiteHouse that afternoon exhibited a character in striking contrast with thefirst, at which Von Koenitz and the ambassadors from France, Russia, andEngland had had their memorable disagreement. It was a serious,apprehensive, and subdued group of gentlemen that gathered round thegreat mahogany table in the Cabinet chamber to debate what course ofaction the nations should pursue to avert the impending calamity tomankind. For that Pax could shift the axis of the earth, or blow theglobe clean out of its orbit into space, if he chose to do so, no onedoubted any longer.
And first it fell as the task of the ambassador representing theImper
ial German Commissioners to assure his distinguished colleaguesthat his nation disavowed and denied all responsibility for the conductof General Treitschke in bombarding Paris after the hour set for thearmistice. It was unjust and contrary to the dictates of reason, heargued, to hold the government of a nation comprising sixty-fivemillions of human beings and five millions of armed men accountable forthe actions of a single individual. He spoke passionately, eloquently,persuasively, and at the conclusion of his speech the ambassadorspresent were forced to acknowledge that what he said was true, and toaccept without reservation his plausible assurances that the ImperialGerman Commissioners had no thought but to cooperate with the othergovernments in bringing about a lasting peace such as Pax demanded.
But the immediate question was, had not the time for this gone by? Wasit not too late to convince the master of the Flying Ring that hisorders would be obeyed? Could anything be done to avert the calamity hethreatened to bring upon the earth--to prevent the conversion of Europeinto a barren waste of ice fields? For Pax had announced that he hadspoken for the last time and that the fate of Europe was sealed. All theambassadors agreed that a general European immigration was practicallyimpossible; and as a last resort it was finally decided to transmit toPax, through the Georgetown station, a wireless message signed by allthe ambassadors of the belligerent nations, solemnly agreeing within oneweek to disband their armies and to destroy all their munitions andimplements of war. This message was delivered to Hood, with instructionsfor its immediate delivery. All that afternoon and evening the operatorsat in the observatory, calling over and over again the three lettersthat marked mankind's only communication with the controller of itsdestiny:
"PAX--PAX--PAX!"
But no answer came. For long, weary hours Hood waited, his ears glued tothe receivers. An impenetrable silence surrounded the master of theRing. Pax had spoken. He would say no more. Late that night Hoodreluctantly returned to the White House and informed the President thathe was unable to deliver the message of the nations.
And meantime Prof. Bennie Hooker, with Marc and Edouard, struggledacross the wilderness of Labrador, following the Iron Rail that led tothe hiding-place of the master of the world.
* * * * *
The terrible fate of the German expeditionary force is too well known torequire comment. As has been already told, the _Sea Fox_ had sailed fromAmsterdam twelve days after the conference in the War Office at Mainzbetween General von Helmuth and Professor von Schwenitz. Once north ofthe Orkneys it had encountered fair weather, and it had reached HamiltonInlet in ten days without mishap, and with the men and animals in thebest of condition. At Rigolet the men had disembarked and loaded theirhowitzers, mules, and supplies upon the flat-bottomed barges broughtwith them for that purpose. Thirty French and Indian guides had beenengaged, and five days later the expedition, towed by the powerful motorlaunches, had started up the river toward the chain of lakes lyingnorthwest toward Ungava. Every one was in the best of spirits andeverything moved with customary German precision like clockwork. Nothinghad been forgotten, not even the pungent invention of a Berlin chemistto discourage mosquitoes. Without labour, without anxiety, the fourteenbarges bored through the swift currents and at last reached a great lakethat lay like a silver mirror for miles about them. The moon rose andturned the boats into weird shapes as they ploughed through the graymists--a strange and terrible sight for the Nascopees lurking in theunderbrush along the shore. And while the men smoked and sang "Die Wachtam Rhein," listening to the trill of the ripples against the bows, theforemost motorboat grounded.
The momentum of the barge immediately following could not be checked,and she in turn drove into what seemed to be a mud bank. At about thesame instant the other barges struck bottom. Intense excitement andconfusion prevailed among the members of the expedition, since they werealmost out of sight of land and the draft of the motorboats was onlynineteen inches. But no efforts could move the barges from where theywere. All night long the propellers churned the gleaming water of thelake to foam, but without result. Each and every barge and boat was hardand fast aground, and when the gray daylight came stealing across thelake there was no lake to be seen, only a reeking marsh, covered formiles with a welter of green slime and decaying vegetable matter acrosswhich it would seem no human being or animal could flounder. As far asthe eye could reach lay only a blackish ooze. And with the sun camemillions of mosquitoes and flies, and drove the men and mules franticwith their stings.
Only one man, Ludwig Helmer, a gun driver from Potsdam, survived. Halfmad with the flies and nearly naked, he found his way somehow across thequaking bog, after all his comrades had died of thirst, and reached atribe of Nascopees, who took him to the coast. A great explosion, theytold him, had torn the River Nascopee from its bed and diverted itscourse. The lakes that it fed had all dried up.
* * * * *
Blinded by perspiration, sweltering under the heavy burden of theiroutfit, goaded almost to frenzy by the black flies and mosquitoes,Hooker and Marc and Edouard staggered through the brush, following themonorail. They had already reached the summit of the Height of Land andwhere now working down the northern slope in the direction of Ungava.The land was barren beyond the imagination of the unimaginative Bennie.Small dwarfed trees struggled for a footing amid the lichen-coveredoutcroppings and sun-dried moss of the hollows. The slightest riseshowed mile upon mile of great waste undulating interminably in everydirection. The heat shimmering off the rocks was almost suffocating. Atnoon on September 10th they threw themselves into the shade of a narrowledge, boiled some tea, and smoked their pipes, wildly fanning the airto drive away the swarms of insects that attacked them.
Hooker was half drunk from lack of sleep and water. Already once ortwice he had caught himself wandering when talking to Marc and Edouard.The whole thing was like a horrible, disgusting nightmare. And then hesuddenly became aware that the two Indians were staring intently throughthe clouds of mosquitoes over the tree tops to the eastward. Through thesweat that trickled into his eyes he tried to make out what they couldsee. But he could discern nothing except mosquitoes. And then he thoughthe saw a mosquito larger than all the others. He waved at it, but itremained where it was. A slight breeze momentarily wafted the swarmaway, and he still saw the big mosquito hovering over the horizon. Thenhe heard Marc cry out:
"_Quelque chose vol en l'air!_"
He rubbed the moisture out of his eyes and stared at the mosquito, whichwas growing bigger every minute. With the velocity of a projectile, thismonstrous insect, or whatever it was, came sweeping up behind them fromthe Height of Land, soaring into the zenith in a great parabola, untilwith a shiver of excitement Bennie recognized that it was the FlyingRing.
"It's him," he chattered emphatically, if ungrammatically.
Marc and Edouard nodded.
"_Oui, oui!_" they cried in unison. "_C'est celui que vous cherchez!_"
"_Il retourne chez lui_," said Marc.
And then Bennie, without offering any explanation, found himself dancingup and down upon the rocks in the dizzying sun, waving his hat andshouting to the Father of the Marionettes. What he shouted he neverknew. And Marc and Edouard both shouted, too. But the master of the Ringheard them not, or if he heard he paid them no attention. Nearer andnearer came the Ring, until Bennie could see the gleaming cylinder ofits great steel circle. At a distance of about two miles it sweptthrough the air over a low ridge, and settled toward the earth in thedirection of Ungava.
"He only goes ten mile maybe," announced Marc confidently. "_Un petitbout de chemin._ We get there to-night."
On they struggled beside the Rail, but now hope ran high. Bennie sangand whistled, unmindful of the mosquitoes and black flies that renewedtheir attacks with unremitting ferocity. The sun lowered itself into thepine trees, shooting dazzling shafts through the low branches, and thensank in a welter of crimson-yellow light. The sky turned gray in theeast; faint stars twinkled through the quiver
ing waves that still shookfrom the overheated rocks. It turned cold and the mosquitoes departed.Hugging the Rail, they staggered on, now over shaking muskeg, nowthrough thickets of tangled brush, now on great ledges of barren rock,and then across caribou barrens knee-deep in dry and crackling moss.Darkness fell and prudence dictated that they should make camp. But intheir excitement they trudged on, until presently a pale glow behind thedwarfed trees showed that the moon was rising. They boiled the water,made tea, and cooked some biscuits. Soon they could see to pursue theirway.
"'Most there now," encouraged Marc.
Presently, instead of descending, they found the land was rising again,and forcing their way through the undergrowth they struggled up a rockyhillside, perhaps three hundred feet in height. Marc was in the lead,with Bennie a few feet behind him. As they reached the crest the Indianturned and pointed to something in front of him that Bennie was unableto distinguish.
"_Nous sommes arrivees_," he announced.
With his heart thumping from the exertion of the climb, Bennie crawledup beside his guide and found himself confronted by a strong barbed-wireentanglement affixed to iron stanchions firmly imbedded in the rocks.They were on the top of a ridge that dropped away abruptly at their feetinto a valley, perhaps a mile in width, terminating on the other side inperpendicular cliffs, estimated by Bennie to be about eight hundred or athousand feet in height. Although the entanglement was by no meansimpassable, it was a distinct obstacle and one they preferred to tackleby daylight. Moreover, it indicated that their company was undesired.They were in the presence of an unknown quantity, the master of theFlying Ring. Whether he was a malign or a benevolent influence, thisFather of the Marionettes, they could not tell.
With his back propped against a small spruce Bennie focused his glassesupon dim shapes barely discernible in the midst of the valley. He wasthrilled by a deep excitement, a strange fear. What would he see? Whatmysteries would those vague forms disclose? The shadows cast by thecliffs and a light mist gathering in the low ground made it difficult tosee; and then, even as he looked, the moon rose higher and shone throughsomething in the middle of the valley that looked like a tall, grislyskeleton. It seemed to have legs and arms, an odd mushroom-shaped head,and endless ribs. Below and at its feet were other and vaguershapes--flat domes or cupolas, bombproofs perhaps, buildings of somesort--Pax's home beyond peradventure.
As he looked through the glasses at the skeleton-like tower Bennie hadan extraordinary feeling of having seen it all before somewhere. As in along-forgotten dream he remembered Tesla's tower near Smithtown, on LongIsland. And this was Tesla's tower, naught else! It is a strange thing,how at great crises of our lives come feelings of anticipatoryknowledge. There is, indeed, nothing new under the sun; else had Benniebeen more afraid. As it was, he saw only Tesla's Smithtown tower withits head like a young mushroom. And at the same time there flashed intohis memory: "Childe Harold to the Dark Tower Came." Over and over herepeated it mechanically, feeling that he might be one of those of whomthe poet had sung. Yet he had not read the lines for years:
_Burningly it came on me all at once, This was the place!... What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?_
His eyes searched the shadows round the base of the tower, for his earshad already caught a faint, almost inaudible throbbing that seemed togrow from moment to moment. There certainly was a dull vibration in theair, a vibration like the distant hum of machinery. Suddenly old Edouardtouched Bennie upon the shoulder.
"_Regardez!_" he whispered.
Some transformation was happening in the hood of the tower. From a blackopaque object it began to turn a dull red and to diffuse a subdued glow,while the hum turned into a distinct whir.
Bennie became almost hysterical with excitement.
Soon the hood of the tower had turned white and the glow had increaseduntil the whole valley was lit up with a suffused and gentle light. TheRing could be distinctly seen about half a mile away, resting upon ahuge circular support.
"_C'est le feu!_" grunted Marc. "_C'est ainsi que l'on fait danser lesmarionettes!_"
There was no doubt that the hood of the tower was in fact white hot, forthe perpendicular cliffs of the mountain across the valley sharplyreflected the light that it disseminated. The humming whir of the greatalternator rose gradually into a scream like the outcry of some angrything. And then unexpectedly a shaft of pale lavender light shot outfrom the glowing hood and lost itself in the blackness of the midnightsky. Now appeared a wonderful and beautiful spectacle: immediately abovethe point where the rays disappeared into the ether hundreds of pointsof yellow fire suddenly sprang into being in the sky, darting hither andthither like fireflies, some moving slowly and others with such speedthey appeared as even, luminous lines.
"_Les marionettes! Les marionettes!_" Marc cried trembling.
"Not at all! Not at all! They are meteorites!" answered Bennie, entirelyengrossed in the scientific phase of the matter and forgetting that hedid not speak the other's language. "Space is jammed full of meteoricdust. The larger particles, which strike our atmosphere and which igniteby friction, form shooting stars. The Ray--the Lavender Ray--reachingout into the most distant regions of space meets them in countlessnumbers and disintegrates them, surrounding them with glowingatmospheres. By George, though, if he starts in playing the Ray uponthat cliff we've got to stand from under! Look here, boys," he shouted,"stuff something in your ears." He seized his handkerchief, tore itapart, and, making two plugs, thrust them into the openings of his earsas far as the drums. The others in wonderment followed his example.
"He's going to rock the earth!" cried Bennie Hooker. "He's going to rockthe earth again!"
Slowly the Lavender Ray swung through the ether, followed by itsmillions of meteorites, dipping downward toward the northern side of thevalley and sinking ever lower and lower toward the cliff. Bennie threwhimself flat on his stomach upon the ridge, pressing his hands to hisears, and the others, feeling that something terrible was going tohappen, followed his example. Nearer and nearer toward the ridge droppedthe Ray. Bennie held his breath. Another instant and there came ablinding splash of yellow light, a crash like thunder, and a roar thatseemed to tear the mountain from its base. The earth shook. Into thezenith sprang a flame of incandescent vapour a mile in height. Thetumult increased. Vivid blue flashes of lightning shot out from the spotupon which the Ray played. The air was filled with thunderings, and theground beneath them rose and fell and swung from side to side. Then camea mighty wind, nay, a cyclone, and gravel and broken branches fell uponthem, and suffocating clouds of dust filled their eyes and shut out fromtime to time what was occurring in the valley. The face of the cliffglowed like the interior of a furnace, and the blazing yellow blast ofglowing helium shot over their heads and off into space, making thenight sky light as day.
For a moment they all lay stunned and sightless. Then the dischargeappeared to diminish both in volume and in intensity. The air clearedsomewhat and the ground no longer trembled. The burst of flame slowlysubsided, like a fountain that is being gradually turned off. Either theRing man wasn't going to rock the earth or he had lost control of hismachinery.
Something was clearly going wrong. Showers of sparks fell from the hoodand occasionally huge glowing masses of molten metal dropped from it.And now the Lavender Ray began slowly to sweep down the face of thecliff; and the yellow blast of helium gradually faded away until it wasscarcely visible. The roar of the alternator died down, first to a humand then to a purr.
"Something's busted," thought Bennie, "and he's shut it off."
The Ray had now reached the bottom of the cliff and was sweeping acrossthe ground toward the base of the tower, its path being marked by asmall travelling volcano that hurled its smoke and steam high into theair. It was evident to Bennie that the hood of the tower was slowlyturning over, and that the now fast-fading Ray would presently play uponits base and the adjacent cupola in which the master of the Ring wasprobably attempting to control his recalcitrant machin
ery.
And then Bennie lost consciousness.
* * * * *
A splash of rain. He awoke, and found himself lying by the barbed-wirefence in the graying light of dawn. His muscles were stiff and sore, buthe felt a strange sense of exhilaration. A mist was driving across thevalley and enshrouding the scene of the night's debacle. Through therain gusts he could see, still standing, the wreck of the tower, with afragment of melted inductor drooping from its apex--and a long way offthe Ring. The base of the tower and its surroundings were lost in mist.He crawled to his knees and looked about him for Marc and Edouard, butthey had disappeared. His field glasses lay beside him, and he pickedthem up and raised himself to his feet. Like stout Cortes, silent uponhis peak in Darien, he surveyed the Pacific of his dreams. For the Ringwas still there! Pax might be annihilated, his machinery destroyed, butthe secret remained--and it was his, Bennie Hooker's, of Appian Way,Cambridge, Massachusetts! In his excitement, in getting over the fencehe tore a jagged hole in what was left of his sporting suit, but in amoment more he was scrambling down the ridge into the ravine.
He found it no easy task to climb down the jagged face of the cliff, buttwenty minutes of stiff work landed him in the valley and within athousand yards of the stark remains of the tower. Between where he stoodand the devastation caused by the culminating explosion of the nightbefore, the surface of the earth showed the customary ledges of barrenrock, the scraggy scattering of firs, and stretches of moss with whichhe had become so familiar. Behind him the monorail, springing into spacefrom the crest of the hill, ended in the dangling wreckage of a trestlewhich evidently had terminated in a station, now vanished, near thetower. From his point of observation little of the results of theupheaval was noticeable except the debris, which lay in a film ofshattered rock and gravel over the surface of the ground, but as he rantoward the tower the damage caused by the Ray quickly became apparent.
At the distance of two hundred yards from the base he paused astounded.Why anything of the tower remained at all was a mystery, explicable onlyby reason of the skeleton-like character of its construction. All aboutit the surface had been rent as by an earthquake, and save for afragment of the dome or bombproof all trace of buildings haddisappeared. A glistening lake of leperous-like molten lead lay in thecentre of the crater, strangely iridescent. A broad path of destruction,fifty yards or so in width, led from the scene of the disruption to theprecipice against which the Ray had played. The face of the cliff itselfseemed covered with a white coating or powder which gave it a ghostlysheen. Moreover, the rain had turned to snow and already the entireaspect of the valley had changed.
Bennie stood wonderingly on the edge of this inferno. He was cold,famished, horror-stricken. Like a flash in a pan the mechanism which hadrocked the earth and dislocated its axis had blown out; and there wasnow nothing left to tell the story, for its inventor had flashed outwith it into eternity. At his very feet a conscious human being, onlytwelve short hours before, had by virtue of his stupendous brain beenable to generate and control a force capable of destroying the planetitself, and now----! He was gone! It was all gone! Unless somewhere hardby was hovering amid the whirling snowflakes that which might be hissoul. But Pax would send no more messages! Bennie's journey had gone fornaught. He had arrived just too late to talk it all over with hisfellow-scientist, and discuss those little improvements on Hiroshito'stheory. Pax was dead!
He sat down wearily, noticing for the first time that his ears painedhim. In his depression and excitement he had totally forgotten the Ring.He wondered how he was ever going to get back to Cambridge. And then ashe raised his hand to adjust his Glengarry he saw it awaitinghim--unscathed. Far to the westward it rested snugly in its giganticnest of crossbeams, like the head of some colossal decapitated Chinesemandarin. With an involuntary shout he started running down the valley,heedless of his steps. Nearer and higher loomed the steel trestleworkupon which rested the giant engine. Panting, he blindly stumbled on,mindful only of the momentous fact that Pax's secret was not lost.
Fifty feet above the ground, supported upon a cylindrical trestle ofsteel girders, rested the body of the car, constructed of aluminumplates in the form of an anchor ring some seventy-five feet in diameter,while over the circular structure of the Ring itself rose a skeletontower like a tripod, carrying at its summit a huge metal device shapedlike a thimble, the open mouth of which pointed downward through theopen centre of the machine. Obviously this must be the tractor orradiant engine. There, too, swung far out from the side of the ring on aframework of steel, was the thermic inductor which had played thedisintegrating Ray upon the Atlas Mountains and the great cannon of VonHeckmann. The whole affair resembled nothing which he had ever conceivedof either in the air, the earth, or the waters under the earth, thebizarre invention of a superhuman mind. It seemed as firmly anchored andas immovable as the Eiffel Tower, and yet Bennie knew that the thingcould lift itself into the air and sail off like a ball of thistledownbefore a breeze. He knew that it could do it, for he had seen it withhis own eyes.
A few steps more brought him into the centre of the circle of steelgirders which supported the landing stage. Here the surface of the earthat his feet had been completely denuded and the underlying rock exposed,evidently by some artificial action, the downward blast of gas from thetractor. Even the rock itself had been seared by the discharge; littlefurrows worn smooth as if by a mountain torrent radiating in alldirections from the central point. More than anything it reminded Bennieof the surface of a meteorite, polished and scarred by its rush throughthe atmosphere. He paused, filled with a kind of awe. The most wonderfulengine of all time waited his inspection. The great secret was hisalone. The inventor and his associates had been wiped out of existencein a flash, and the Flying Ring was his by every right of treasuretrove. In the heart of the Labrador wilderness Prof. Benjamin Hooker ofCambridge, Massachusetts, gave an exultant shout, threw off his coat,and swarmed up the steel ladder leading to the landing stage.
He had ascended about halfway when a voice echoed among the girders. Ared face was peering down at him over the edge of the platform.
"Hello!" said the face. "I'm all right, I guess."
Bennie gripped tight hold of the ladder, stiff with fear. He thoughtfirst of jumping down, changed his mind, and, shutting his eyes,continued automatically climbing up the ladder.
Then a hand gripped him under the arm and gave him a lift on to thelevel floor of the platform. He steadied himself and opened his eyes.Before him stood a man in blue overalls, under whose forehead, burnedbright red by the Labrador sun, a pair of blue eyes looked out vaguely.The man appeared to be waiting for the visitor to make the next move."Good morning," said Bennie, sparring for time. "Well"--hehesitated--"where were you when it happened?"
The man looked at him stupidly. "What?" he mumbled. "I--I don't seem toremember. You see--I was in--the condenser room building up thecharge--for to-morrow--I mean to-day--sixty thousand volts at theterminals, and the fluid clearing up. I guess I looked out of the windowa minute--to see--the fireworks--and then--somehow--I was out on theplatform." He shaded his eyes and looked off down the valley at thehalf-shattered, wrecked tower. "The wind and the smoke!" he muttered."The wind and the smoke--and the dust in my eyes--and now it's all goneto hell! But I guess everything's all right now, if you want to fly." Hetouched his cap automatically. "We can start whenever you are ready,sir. You see I thought you were gone, too! That would have been a mess!I'm sure you can handle the balancer without Perkins. Poor old Perk! AndHoskins--and the others. All gone, by God! All wiped out! Only me andyou left, sir!" He laughed hysterically.
"Bats in his belfry!" thought Bennie. "Something hit him!"
Slowly it came over him that the half-stunned creature thought that he,Bennie Hooker, was Pax, the Master of the World!
He took the fellow by the arm. "Come on inside," he said. A plan hadalready formulated itself in his brain. Even as he was the man might beable to go through his customar
y duties in handling the Ring. It was notimpossible. He had heard of such things, and the thought of the longmarches over the frozen barrens and the perilous canoe trip down thecoast, contrasted with a swift rush for an hour or two through thesunlit air, gave the professor the courage which might not have availedhim otherwise. At the top of a short ladder a trapdoor opened inward,and Bennie found himself in a small compartment scarcely large enough toturn around in, from which a second door opened into the body of theRing proper.
"It's all right--to-day," said the man hesitatingly. "I fixed--theair-lock--yesterday, sir. The leak--was here--at the hinge--but it'squite tight--now." He pointed at the door.
"Good," remarked Bennie. "I'll look around and see how things are."
This seemed to him to be eminently safe--and allowing for a program ofinvestigation absolutely essential at the moment. Once he could masterthe secret of the Ring and be sure that the part of the fellow's brainwhich controlled the performance of his customary duties had not beeninjured by the shock of the night before, it might be possible to carryout the daring project which had suggested itself.
Passing through the inner door of the air-lock he entered the chart roomof the Ring, followed stumblingly by his companion. It was warm andcozy; the first warmth Hooker had experienced for nearly a month. Itmade him feel faint, and he dropped into an armchair and pulled off hisGlengarry. The survivor of the explosion, standing awkwardly at hisside, fumbled with his cap. Ever and anon he rubbed his head.
Bennie sank back into the cushions and looked about him. On the oppositewall hung a map of the world on Mercator's Projection, and from a spotin Northern Labrador red lines radiated in all directions, which formedgreat curved loops, returning to the starting-point.
"The flights of the Ring," thought Bennie. "There's the one where theybusted the Atlas Mountains," following with his eyes the crimson threadwhich ran diagonally across the Atlantic, traversed Spain and theMediterranean, and circling in a narrow loop over the coast of NorthernAfrica turned back into its original track. Visions came to him ofguiding the car for an afternoon jaunt across the Sahara, the gloomyforests of the Congo, into the Antarctic, and thence home in time forafternoon tea, via the Easter Islands, Hawaii, and Alaska. But why stopthere? What was to prevent a trip to the moon? Or Mars? Or for thatmatter into the unknown realms outside the solar system--the fourthdimension, perhaps--or even the fifth dimension----
"Excuse me," said the machinist suddenly, "I just forgot--whether youtake--cigars or cigarettes. You see I only acted as--tableorderly--once--when Smith had that sprain." His hands moved uncertainlyon the shelves, beyond the map. The heart of Professor Hooker leaped.
"Cigars!" he almost shouted.
The man found a box of Havanas and struck a match.
The bliss of it! And if there was tobacco there must be food and drinkas well. He began to feel strangely exhilarated. But how to handle theman beside him? Pax would certainly never ask the questions that hewished to ask. He smoked rapidly, thinking hard. Of course he mightpretend that he, too, had forgotten things. And at first this seemed tobe the only way out of the difficulty. Then he had an inspiration.
"Look here," he remarked, rather severely. "Something's happened to you.You say you've forgotten what occurred yesterday? How do I know but youhave forgotten everything you ever knew? You remember your name?"
"My name, sir?" The man laughed in a foolish fashion. "Why--of course Iremember--my name. I wouldn't--be likely--to forget--that:Atterbury--I'm Atterbury--electrician of the _Chimaera_." And he drewhimself up.
"That's all right," said Bennie, "but what were we doing yesterday? Whatis the very last thing that you can go back to?"
The man wrinkled his forehead. "The last thing? Why, sir, you told usyou were going--to turn over the pole a bit--and freeze up Europe. I wasup here--loading the condenser--when you cut me off from the alternator.I opened the switch--and put on the electrometer to see--if we hadenough. Next--everything was clouded, and I went--over to the window tosee--what was going on."
"Yes," commented Bennie approvingly, "all right so far. What happenedthen?"
"Why, after that, sir, after that, there was the Ray of course, ander--I don't seem to remember--oh, yes, a short circuit--and I ran--outon the platform--forgot all about the danger! After that, everything'sconfused. It's like a dream. Your coming up--the ladder--seemed--to wakeme up." The machinist smiled sheepishly.
The plan was working well. Professor Hooker was learning things fast.
"Do you think that the two of us can fly the _Chimaera_ south again?" heasked, inspecting the map.
"Why not?" answered Atterbury. "The balancer is working--betternow--and--doesn't take--much attention--and you can lay the course--andmanage--the landing. I was going to put a fresh uranium cylinder in thetractor this morning--but I--forgot."
"There you go, forgetting again!" growled Bennie, realizing that hisonly excuse for asking questions hung on this fiction. And there weremany, many more questions that he must ask before he would be able tofly. "You don't seem quite right in your coco this morning, Atterbury,"he said. "I think we'll look things over a bit--the condenser first."
"Very well, sir." Atterbury turned and groped his way through a doorway,and they passed first into what appeared to be a storage-battery room.Huge glass tanks filled with amber-coloured fluid, in which numerousparallel plates were supported, lined the walls from floor to ceiling.
An ammeter on the wall caught Bennie's attention. "Weston Direct ReadingA. C. Ammeter," he read on the dial. Alternate current! What were theydoing with an alternating current in the storage-battery room? His eyesfollowed the wires along the wall. Yes, they ran to the terminals of thebattery. It dawned upon him that there might be something here undreamedof in electrical engineering--a storage battery for an alternatingcurrent!
The electrician closed a row of switches, brought the two polished brassspheres of the discharger within striking distance, and instantly ablinding current of sparks roared between the terminals. He had beenright. This battery not only was charged by an alternating current, butdelivered one of high potential. He peered into the cells, racking hisbrain for an explanation.
"Atterbury," said he meditatively, "did I ever tell you why they dothat?"
"Yes," answered the man. "You--told me--once. The two metals--in theelectrolyte--come down--on the plates--in alternate films--as--thecurrent changes direction. But you never told me--what the electrolytewas--I don't suppose--you--would be willing to now, would you?"
"H'm," said Bennie, "some time, maybe."
But this cue was all that he required. A clever scheme! Pax had formedlayers of molecular thickness of two different metals in alternation bythe to-and-fro swing of his charging current. When the batterydischarged the metals went into solution, each plate becomingalternately positive and negative. He wondered what Pax had used for anelectrolyte that enabled him to get a metallic deposit at eachelectrode. And he wondered also why the metals did not alloy. But itwould not do for him to linger too long over a mere detail of equipment.And he turned away to continue his tour of inspection, a tour whichoccupied most of the morning, and during which he found a well-stockedgallery and made himself a cup of coffee.[5]
[Footnote 5: He even climbed with Atterbury to the very summit of thetractor, where he discovered that his original guess had been correctand that the car rose from the earth rocket fashion, due to the backpressure of the radiant discharge from a massive cylinder of uraniumcontained in the tractor. Against this block played a disintegrating rayfrom a small thermic inductor, the inner construction of which he wasnot able to determine, although it was obviously different from his own,and the coils were wound in a curious manner which he did notunderstand. There might be something in Hiroshito's theory after all.The cylinder of the tractor pointed directly downward so that the blastwas discharged through the very centre of the Ring, but it could beswung through a small angle in any direction, and by means of thisslight deflection the horizontal moti
on of the machine secured. Perhapsthe most interesting feature of the mechanism was that the Ring appearedto have automatic stability, for the angle of the direction in which thetractor was pointed was controlled not only by a pair of gyroscopeswhich kept the Ring on an even keel, but also by a manometric valvecausing it to fly at a fixed height above the earth's surface. Should itstart to rise, the diminished pressure of the atmosphere operating onthe valve swung the tractor more to one side, and the horizontalacceleration was thus increased at the expense of the vertical.]
But the more he learned about the mechanism of the Ring the greaterbecame his misgivings about undertaking the return journey alone withAtterbury through the air. If they were to go, the start must be madewithin a few days, for the condenser held its charge but a comparativelyshort time, and its energy was necessary for starting the Ring. Whenfreshly charged it supplied current for the thermic inductor for nearlythree minutes, but the metallic films, deposited on the plates,dissolved slowly in the fluid, and after three or four days thereremained only enough for a thirty-second run, hardly enough to lift theRing from the earth. Once in the air, the downward blast from thetractor operated a turbine alternator mounted on a skeleton framework atthe centre of the Ring, and the current supplied by this machine enabledthe Ring to continue its flight indefinitely, or until the cylinder ofuranium was completely disintegrated.
Yet to trek back over the route by which he had come appeared to beequally impossible. There was little likelihood that the two Indianswould return; they were probably already thirty miles on their way backto the coast. If only he could get word to Thornton or some of thosechaps at Washington they might send a relief expedition! But a shipwould be weeks in getting to the coast, and how could he live in themeantime? There were provisions for only a few days in the Ring, and thestorehouse in the valley had been wiped out of existence. Only anaeroplane could do the trick. And then he thought of Burke, hisclassmate--Burke who had devoted his life to heavier-than-air machines,and who, since his memorable flight across the Atlantic in the _StormyPetrol_, had been a national hero. Burke could reach him in ten hours,but how could _he_ reach Burke? In the heart of the frozen wilderness ofLabrador he might as well be on another planet, as far as communicationwith the civilized world was concerned.
A burst of sunlight shot through the window and formed an oval patch onthe floor at his feet. The weather was clearing. He went out upon theplatform. Patches of blue sky appeared overhead. As he gazeddisconsolately across the valley toward the tower, his eye caught theglisten of something high in the air. From the top of the wreckage fivethin shining lines ran parallel across the sky and disappeared in asmall cloud which hung low over the face of the cliff.
"The antennae!" exclaimed Bennie. "A wireless to Burke." Burke wouldcome; he knew Burke. A thousand miles overland was nothing to him.Hadn't he wagered five thousand dollars at the club that he would fly tothe pole and bring back Peary's flag--with no takers? Why, Burke wouldtake him home with as little trouble as a taxicab. And then, aghast, heremembered the complete destruction in the valley. The wireless planthad gone with the rest. He ran back into the chart room and calledAtterbury.
"Can we get off a message to Washington?" he demanded. "The wires arestill up, and we have the condenser."
"We might, sir, if it's not--a long one, though you've always said therewas danger in running the engine with the car bolted down. We did it thetime the big machine burnt out a coil. I can throw--a wire--over theantennae with a rocket--and join up--with the turbine machine. It willincrease--our wave length, but they ought to pick us up."
"We'll try it, anyway," announced Bennie.
He inspected the chart and measured the distance in an airline fromBoston to the point where the red lines converged. It was a trifle lessthan the distance between Boston and Chicago. Burke had done that innine hours on the trial trip of his trans-Atlantic monoplane. If themachine was in order and Burke started in the morning he would be withthem by sunset, if he didn't get lost. But Bennie knew that Burke coulddrive his machine by dead reckoning and strike within a few leagues of atarget a thousand miles away.
A muffled roar outside interrupted his musings, and running out on theplatform again he found Atterbury attaching the cord of the aluminumribbon, which the rocket had carried up and over the antennae, to one ofthe brush bars of the alternator.
"Nearly ready, sir," he said. "We'd best--lock the storm bolts--to holdher down--in case we have--to crowd on the power. We've got touse--pretty near the full lift--to get the alternator up--to the properspeed."
A chill ran down Bennie's spine. They were going to start the engine! Ina moment he would be within twenty feet of a blast of disintegrationproducts capable of lifting the whole machine into the air, and it wasto be started at his command, after he had worked and pottered for twoyears with a thermic inductor the size of a thimble! He felt as he usedto feel before taking a high dive, or as he imagined a soldier feelswhen about to go under fire for the first time. How would it turn out?Was he taking too much responsibility, and was Atterbury counting on himfor the management of details? He felt singularly helpless as hereentered the chart room to compose his message.
He turned on the electric lamp which hung over the desk, for in thefast-gathering dusk the interior of the Ring was in almost totaldarkness. How should his message read? It must be brief: it must tellthe story, and, above all, it must be compelling.
He was joined by the electrician.
"I think--we are all--ready now," stammered the latter. "What will yousend, sir?"
Bennie handed him a scrap of yellow paper, and Atterbury put on a pairof dark amber glasses, to protect his eyes from the light of the spark.
"_Thornton, Naval Observatory, Washington:_
"Stranded fifty-four thirty-eight north, seventy-four eighteen west. Have the Ring machine. Ask Burke come immediately. Life and death matter.
"B. HOOKER."
Atterbury read the message and then gazed blankly at Hooker.
"I--don't--understand," he said.
"Never mind, send it. I'll explain later." Together they went into thecondenser room.
Atterbury mechanically pushed the brass balls in contact, shoved abundle of iron wires halfway through the core of a great coil, andclosed a switch. A humming sound filled the air, and a few seconds latera glow of yellow light came in through the window. A cone of luminousvapour was shooting downward through the centre of the Ring from thetractor. At first it was soft and nebulous, but it increased rapidly inbrilliancy, and a dull roar, like that of a waterfall, added itself tothe hum of the alternating current in the wires. And now a third soundcame to his ears, the note of the turbine, low at first, but graduallyrising like the scream of a siren, and the floor of the Ring beneath hisfeet throbbed with the vibration.
Bennie forgot the dynamometer, forgot his message to Burke, wasconscious only that he had wakened a sleeping volcano. Then came thecrack of the sparks, and the room seemed filled with the glare of theblue lightning, for Atterbury, with his telephones at his ears, staringthrough his yellow glasses, was sending out the call for the NavalObservatory.
"NAA--NAA--P--A--X."
Over and over again he sent the call, while in the meantime thecondenser built up its charge from the overflow of current from theturbine generator. Then the electrician opened a switch, and the roaroutside diminished and finally ceased.
"We can't listen--with the tractor running," he fretted. "Thestatic--from the discharge--would tear--our detector--to pieces." Hethrew in the receiving instrument. For a few moments the telephonesspoke only the whisperings of the arctic aurora, and then suddenly thefaint cry of the answering spark was heard. Bennie watched the words asthe electrician's pencil scrawled along on the paper.
"Waiting for you. Why don't you send? N.A.A."
"They must have--called us before--while the discharge--was runningdown," muttered Atterbury. "I think we can send--with thecondenser--now."
He picked
up the scrap of yellow paper, read it over, and threw out intospace the message which he did not understand.
"O. K. Wait. Thornton," came in reply.
Two hours later came a second message:
"P--A--X. Burke starts at daybreak. Expects reach you by nine P. M. Asks you to show large beacon fire if possible.
"THORNTON, N. A. A."
"Hurrah!" cried Bennie. "Good for Burke! Atterbury, we're saved--saved,do you hear! Go to bed now and don't ask any questions. And say, beforeyou go see if you can find me a glass of brandy."
* * * * *
It was decided that Burke must land on the plateau above the cliff, andhere the material for the fire was collected. There was little enough ofit and it was hard work carrying the oil up the steep trail. At timesBennie was almost in despair.
"It won't burn half an hour," said he, surveying the pile. "And we oughtto be able to keep it going all night. There's plenty of stuff in thevalley, but we can't have him come down there, with the tower, theantennae, and all the rest of the mess."
"We might--show him--the big Ray," ventured Atterbury. "The thing--canbe pointed up--and I can--keep the turbine running. You can start--thefire--as soon as you--hear his motors--and I'll shut down--as soon as Isee your fire."
"Good idea!" agreed Bennie. "Only don't run continuously. Show the Rayfor a minute every quarter of an hour, and on no account start up afteryou see the fire. If he thought the vertical beam was a searchlight andflew through it----" Bennie shuddered at the thought of Burke drivinghis aeroplane through the Ray that had shattered the Atlas Mountains.
So it was arranged. Half an hour after sunset Atterbury shut himself upin the Ring, and while Bennie climbed the trail leading to his post onthe plateau, he heard the creaking of the great inductor as it slowlyturned on its trunions.
It was pitch dark by the time he reached the pitifully small pile ofbrush which they had collected, and he poured some of the oil over itand sat down, drawing a blanket around his shoulders. He felt very muchalone. Suppose the inductor failed to work? Suppose Atterbury turned theRay on him? Suppose.... But his musings were shattered by a noise fromthe valley, a sound like that of escaping steam, and a moment later theLavender Ray shot up toward the zenith. Bennie lay on his back andwatched it, mindful of the night before the last when he had watched theRay from the tower descending upon the cliff. He wondered if he shouldsee any meteorites kindle in its path, but nothing appeared and the Raydied down, leaving everything in darkness again. Fifteen minutes passedand again the ghostly beam shot up into the night sky. Bennie looked athis watch. It was nearly half-past eight. The cold made him sleepy. Hedrew the blanket about him....
Two hours later through his half-dreams he caught the faint sound forwhich he had been listening. At first he was not sure. It might be theturbine alternator of the Ring running by its own inertia for some timeafter the discharge had ceased. But no, it was growing loudermomentarily, and appeared to come from high up in the air. Now it diedaway to nothingness, and now it swelled in volume, and again died away.But at each subsequent recurrence it was louder than before. There wasno longer any doubt. Burke was coming! It was time to start the brushpile. He lit match after match, only for the wind to blow them out. Yetall the time the machine in the air was coming nearer, the roar of itstwin engines beating on the stillness of the Labrador night. In despairBennie threw himself flat on his face by the brush pile and made a tentof the blanket, under which he at last succeeded in starting a blazeamong the oil-soaked twigs. Then he pushed the half-empty keg into thefire, arose and stared up at the sky.
The machine was somewhere directly above him--just where he could notsay. Presently the motors stopped. He shouted feebly, running up anddown with his eyes turned skyward, and several times nearly fell intothe fire. He wondered why it didn't appear. It seemed hours since themotors stopped! Then unexpectedly against the black background of thesky the great wings of the machine appeared, illuminated on theirunderside by the light of the fire. Silently it swung around on itsdescending spiral, instantly to be swallowed up in the darkness again, amoment later reappearing from the opposite direction, this time low downand headed straight for him. He jumped hastily to one side and fellflat. The machine grounded, rose once or twice as it ran along theground, and came to a stop twenty yards from the fire. A man climbedout, slowly removed his goggles, and shook himself. Bennie scrambled tohis feet and ran forward waving his hat.
"Well, Hooker!" remarked the man. "What th' hell are you doing _here_?You sure have some searchlight!"
* * * * *
How Hooker and Burke, under the guidance of Atterbury, who graduallyregained his normal mental status, explored and charted the valley ofthe Ring is strictly no part of this tale which deals solely with theend of War upon the Earth. But next day, after several hours ofexcavation among the debris of the smelter, where Pax had extracted hisuranium from the pitch blend mined at the cliff, they uncovered eightcylinders of the precious metal weighing about one hundred poundsapiece--the fuel of the Flying Ring. Now they were safe. Nay, more:universal space was theirs to traffic in.
Curious as to the reason why Pax had isolated himself in this frozenwilderness, they next examined the high cliffs which shut in the valleyon the west and against the almost perpendicular walls of which he hadplayed the Lavender Ray. These cliffs proved, as Bennie had alreadysuspected, to be a gigantic outcrop of pitchblende or black oxide ofuranium. He estimated that nature had stored more uranium in but one ofthe abutments of this cliff than in all the known mines of the entireworld. This radioactive mountain was the fulcrum by which this modernArchimedes had moved the earth. The vast amount of matter disintegratedby the Ray and thrown off into space with a velocity a thousandfoldgreater than the blast of a siege gun produced a back pressure or recoilagainst the face of the cliff, which thus became the "thrust block" ofthe force which had slowed down the period of the earth's rotation.
* * * * *
The day of the start dawned with a blazing sun. From the landing stageof the Ring Bennie could see stretching away to the east, west, andsouth, the interminable plains, dotted with firs, which had formed thenatural barrier to the previous discovery of Pax's secret. Overhead thedome of the sky fitted the horizon like an enormous shell--a shellwhich, with a thrill, he realized that he could crack and escape from,like a fledgling ready for its first flight. And yet in this moment oftriumph little Bennie Hooker felt the qualm which must inevitably cometo those who take their lives in their hands. An hour and he would beeither soaring Phoebus-like toward the south, or lying crushed andmangled within a tangled mass of wreckage. Even here in this desolatewaste life seemed sweet, and he had much, so much to do. Wasn't it,after all, a crazy thing to try to navigate the complicated mechanismback to civilization? Yet something told him that unless he put his fateto the test now he would never return. He had the utmost confidence inBurke--he might never be able to secure his services again--no, it wasnow or never. He entered the air-lock, closing and bolting the door, andpassed on into the chart room.
At all events, he thought, they were no worse off than Pax when he hadmade his first trial flight, and they were working with a provenmachine, tuned to its fullest efficiency, and one which apparentlypossessed automatic stability. Atterbury had gone to the condenser roomand was waiting for the order to start, while Burke was making the finaladjustment of the gyroscopes which would put the Ring on itspredetermined course. He came through the door and joined Bennie.
"Hooker," he said, "we're sure going to have some experience. If I cankeep her from turning over, I think I can manage her. The trouble willcome when we slant the tractor. I'm not sure how much depends on theatmospheric valve, and how much on me. Things may happen quickly. If weturn over we're done for."
He held out his hand to Bennie, who gripped it tremulously.
"Well," remarked the aviator, tossing away his cigarette, "we might aswe
ll die now as any time!"
He walked swiftly over to the speaking-tube which communicated with thecondenser room and blew sharply into it.
"Let her go, _Gallagher_!" he directed.
"My God!" ejaculated Bennie. "Wait a second, can't you?"
But it was too late. He grabbed the rail, trembling. A humming soundfilled the air, and the gyroscopes slowly began to revolve. He looked upthrough the window at the tractor, from which shot streaks of palevapour with a noise like escaping steam. Somehow it seemed alive.
The Ring was throbbing as if it, too, was impregnated with life. Thedischarge of the tractor had risen to a muffled roar. Shaking all over,Bennie crossed to the inside window and looked across the inner space ofthe Ring. As yet the yellow glow of the discharge was scarcely visible,but the steel sides of the Ring danced and quivered, undulating inwaves, and, as the intensity of the blast increased and the turbinecommenced to revolve, everything outside went suddenly blurred andindistinct.
Dropping to his knees, Bennie looked down through the observation windowin the floor. A blinding cloud of yellow dust was driving out and awayfrom the base of the landing stage in the form of a gigantic ring. Theearth at their feet was hidden in whirls of vapour; and ripples of lightand shade chased each other outward in all directions, like shadows onthe bottom of a sandy pond rippled by a breeze. It made him dizzy tolook down there, and he arose from the window. Burke stood grimly at thecontrol, unmindful of his associate. Bennie crossed to the other side,and as he passed the gyroscopes, the air from the swiftly spinning discsblew back his hair. He could see nothing through the tumult that roareddown through the centre of the Ring, like a Niagara of hot steam shotthrough with a pale yellow phosphorescent light. The floor quiveredunder his feet, and ominous creaking and snapping sounds reverberatedthrough the outer shell, as the steel girders of the landing stage weregradually relieved of its weight. Just as it seemed to him thateverything was going to pieces, suddenly there was silence, save for thepurr of the machinery, and Bennie felt his knees sink under him.
"We're off!" cried Burke. "Watch out!"
The floor swayed as the Ring, lifted by the tractor, swung to and frolike a pendulum. Bennie threw himself upon his stomach. The earth wasdropping away from them like a stone. He felt a sickening sensation.
"Two thousand feet already," gasped Burke. "The atmospheric valve is setfor five thousand. I'll make it ten! It will give us more room torecover in--if anything--goes wrong!"
He gave the knob another half turn and laid his hand lightly on thelever which controlled the movements of the tractor. Bennie, flattenedagainst the window, gazed below. The great dust ring showed indistinctlythrough a blue haze no longer directly beneath them, but a quarter of amile to the north. Evidently they were not rising vertically.
The valley of the Ring looked like a black crack in a greenish-graydesert of rock and moss, the landing stage like a tiny bird's nest. Thefloor of the car moved slightly from side to side. Burke's face had gonegray, and he crouched unsteadily, one hand gripping a steel bracket onthe wall.
"My Lord!" he mumbled with dry lips. "My Lord!"
Bennie, momentarily expecting annihilation, crawled on all fours toBurke's side.
The needle of the manometer indicated nine thousand five hundred feet,and was rapidly nearing the next division. Suddenly Burke felt the levermove slowly under his hand as though operated by some outsideintelligence, and at the same moment the axis of one gyroscope swungslowly in a horizontal plane through an angle of nearly ninety degrees,while that of the other dipped slightly from the vertical. Both men hada ghastly feeling that the ghost of Pax had somehow returned and assumedcontrol of the car. Bennie rotated the map under the gyroscope until thefine black line on the dial again lay across their destination. Then hecrept back to his window again. The earth, far below and dimly visible,was sliding slowly northward, and the dust ring which marked theirstarting-point now lay as a flattened ellipse on the distant horizon.Beneath and behind them in their flight trailed a thin streak of palebluish fog--the wake of the Flying Ring.
They were now searing the atmosphere at a height of nearly two miles,and the car was flying on a firm and even keel. There was no sound savethe dull roar of the tractor and a slight humming from the vibration ofthe light steel cables. Bennie no longer felt any disagreeablesensation. A strange detachment possessed him. Dark forests, lakes, anda mighty river appeared to the south--the Moisie--and they followed itas a fishhawk might have done, until the wilderness broke away beforethem and they saw the broad reach of the St. Lawrence streaked with thesmoke of ocean liners.
And then he lost control of himself for the first time and sobbed like awoman--not from fear, nor weariness, nor excitement, but for joy--thejoy of the true scientist who has sought the truth and found it, hasachieved that for mankind which but for him it would have lacked,perchance, forever. And he looked up at Burke and smiled.
The latter nodded.
"Yes," he remarked prosaically, "this is sure a little bit of all right!All to the good!"
EPILOGUE
Meanwhile, during the weeks that Hooker had been engaged in finding thevalley of the Ring, unbelievable things had happened in world politics.In spite of the fact that Pax, having decreed the shifting of the Poleand the transformation of Central Europe into the Arctic zone, hadrefused further communication with mankind, all the nations--and nonemore zealously than the German Republic--had proceeded immediately towithdraw their armies within their own borders, and under the personalsupervision of a General Commission to destroy all their armaments andmunitions of war. The lyddite bombs, manufactured in vast quantities bythe Krupps for the Relay Gun and all other high explosives, were used todemolish the fortresses upon every frontier of Europe. The contents ofevery arsenal was loaded upon barges and sunk in mid-Atlantic. And everyform of military organization, rank, service, and even uniform, wasabolished throughout the world.
A coalition of nations was formed under a single general government,known as the United States of Europe, which in cooeperation with theUnited States of North and South America, of Asia, and of Africa,arranged for an annual world congress at The Hague, and which enforcedits decrees by means of an International Police. In effect all theinhabitants of the globe came under a single control, as far as languageand geographical boundaries would permit. Each state enforced locallaws, but all were obedient to the higher law--the Law ofHumanity--which was uniform through the earth. If an individual offendedagainst the law of one nation, he was held to have offended against all,and was dealt with as such. The international police needed no treatiesof extradition. The New York embezzler who fled to Nairobi was sent backas a matter of course without delay.
Any man was free to go and live where he chose, to manufacture, buy, andsell as he saw fit. And, because the fear and shadow of war wereremoved, the nations grew rich beyond the imagination of men; greathospitals and research laboratories, universities, schools, andkindergartens, opera houses, theatres, and gardens of every sort sprangup everywhere, paid for no one quite knew how. The nations ceased tobuild dreadnoughts, and instead used the money to send great troops ofchildren with the teachers travelling over the world. It was against thelaw to own or manufacture any weapon that could be used to take humanlife. And because the nations had nothing to fear from one another, andbecause there were no scheming diplomatists and bureaucrats to make aliving out of imaginary antagonisms, people forgot that they were Frenchor German or Russian or English, just as the people of the United Statesof America had long before practically disregarded the fact that theycame from Ohio or Oregon or Connecticut or Nevada. Russians with weakthroats went to live in Italy as a matter of course, and Spaniards wholiked German cooking settled in Muenich.
All this, of course, did not happen at once, but came about quitenaturally after the abolition of war. And after it had been done,everybody wondered why it had not been done ten centuries before; andpeople became so interested in destroying all the relics of thatdespicable employme
nt, warfare, that they almost forgot that the Man WhoRocked the Earth had threatened that he would shift the axis of theglobe. So that when the day fixed by him came and everything remainedjust as it always had been--and everybody still wore linen-meshunderwear in Strassburg and flannels in Archangel--nobody thought verymuch about it, or commented on the fact that the Flying Ring was nolonger to be seen. And the only real difference was that you could takea P. & O. steamer at Marseilles and buy a through ticket to TasiliAhaggar--if you wanted to go there--and that the shores of the Saharabecame the Riviera of the world, crowded with health resorts andwatering-places--so that Pax had not lived in vain, nor Thornton, norBill Hood, nor Bennie Hooker, nor any of them.
The whole thing is a matter of record, as it should be. Thedeliberations of Conference No. 2 broke up in a hubbub, just as VonHelmuth and Von Koenitz had intended, and the transcripts of theirdiscussions proved to be not of the slightest scientific value. But inthe files of the old War Department--now called the Department for theAlleviation of Poverty and Human Suffering--can be read the messagesinterchanged between The Dictator of Human Destiny and the President ofthe United States, together with all the reports and observationsrelating thereto, including Professor Hooker's Report to the SmithsonianInstitute of his journey to the valley of the Ring and what he foundthere. Only the secret of the Ring--of thermic induction and atomicdisintegration--in short, of the Lavender Ray, is his by right ofdiscovery, or treasure trove, or what you will, and so is his patent onHooker's Space-Navigating Car, in which he afterward explored the solarsystem and the uttermost regions of the sidereal ether. But that shallbe told hereafter.
THE END
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