CHAPTER XIX
The Return to Earth
DuQuesne's first act upon gaining the privacy of his own cabin was toopen the leather bag presented to him by the Karfedix. He expected tofind it filled with rare metals, with perhaps some jewels, instead ofwhich the only metal present was a heavily-insulated tube containing afull pound of metallic radium. The least valuable items in the bag werescores of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds of enormous size and offlawless perfection. Merely ornamental glass upon Osnome, Dunark knewthat they were priceless upon Earth, and had acted accordingly. To thisgreat wealth of known gems, he had added a rich and varied assortment ofthe rare and strange jewels peculiar to his own world, the faidon alonebeing omitted from the collection. DuQuesne's habitual calmness of mindalmost deserted him as he classified the contents of the bag.
The radium alone was worth millions of dollars, and the scientist in himexulted that at last his brother scientists should have ample suppliesof that priceless metal with which to work, even while he was rejoicingin the price he would exact for it. He took out the familiar jewels,estimating their value as he counted them--a staggering total. The bagwas still half full of the strange gems, some of them glowing likeminiature lamps in the dark depths, and he made no effort to appraisethem. He knew that once any competent jeweler had compared their cold,hard, scintillating beauty with that of any Earthly gems, he coulddemand his own price.
"At last," he breathed to himself, "I will be what I have always longedto be--a money power. Now I can cut loose from that gang of crooks andgo my own way."
He replaced the gems and the tube of radium in the bag, which he stowedaway in one of his capacious pockets, and made his way to the galley.
* * * * *
The return voyage through space was uneventful, the Skylark constantlymaintaining the same velocity with which she had started out. Severaltimes, as the days wore on, she came within the zone of attraction ofvarious gigantic suns, but the pilot had learned his lesson. He kept avigilant eye upon the bar, and at the first sign of a deviation from theperpendicular he steered away, far from the source of the attraction.Not content with these precautions, the man at the board would, fromtime to time, shut off the power, to make sure that the space-car wasnot falling toward a body directly in its line of flight.
When half the distance had been covered, the bar was reversed, thetravelers holding an impromptu ceremony as the great vessel spun aroundits center through an angle of one hundred and eighty degrees. A fewdays later the observers began to recognize some of the fixed stars infamiliar constellations and knew that the yellowish-white star directlyin their line of flight was the sun of their own solar system. After atime they saw that their course, instead of being directly toward thatrapidly-brightening star, was bearing upon a barely visible star alittle to one side of it. Pointing their most powerful telescope towardthat point of light, Crane made out a planet, half of its disk shiningbrightly. The girls hastened to peer through the telescope, and theygrew excited as they made out the familiar outlines of the continentsand oceans upon the lighted portion of the disk.
It was not long until these outlines were plainly visible to the unaidedvision. The Earth appeared as a great, softly shining, greenishhalf-moon, with parts of its surface obscured by fleecy wisps of cloud,and with its two gleaming ice-caps making of its poles two brilliantareas of white. The returning wanderers stared at their own world withtheir hearts in their throats as Crane, who was at the board, increasedthe retarding force sufficiently to assure himself that they would notbe traveling too fast to land upon the Earth.
After Dorothy and Margaret had gone to prepare a meal, DuQuesne turnedto Seaton.
"Have you gentlemen decided what you intend to do with me?"
"No. We haven't discussed it yet. I can't make up my own mind what Iwant to do to you, except that I sure would like to get you inside asquare ring with four-ounce gloves on. You have been of too much realassistance on this trip for us to see you hanged, as you deserve. On theother hand, you are altogether too much of a thorough-going scoundrelfor us to let you go free. You see the fix we are in. What would yousuggest?"
"Nothing," replied DuQuesne calmly. "As I am in no danger whatever ofhanging, nothing you can say on that score affects me in the least. Asfor freeing me, you may do as you please--it makes no difference to me,one way or the other, as no jail can hold me for a day. I can say,however, that while I have made a fortune on this trip, so that I do nothave to associate further with Steel unless it is to my interest to doso, I may nevertheless find it desirable at some future time toestablish a monopoly of X. That would, of course, necessitate the deathof yourself and Crane. In that event, or in case any other differenceshould arise between us, this whole affair will be as though it hadnever existed. It will have no weight either way, whether or not you tryto hang me."
"Go as far as you like," Seaton answered cheerfully. "If we're not amatch for you and your gang, on foot or in the air, in body or in mind,we'll deserve whatever we get. We can outrun you, outjump you, throw youdown, or lick you; we can run faster, hit harder, dive deeper, and comeup dryer, than you can. We'll play any game you want to deal, wheneveryou want to deal it; for fun, money, chalk, or marbles."
His brow darkened in anger as a thought struck him, and the steady grayeyes bored into the unflinching black ones as he continued, with notrace of his former levity in his voice:
"But listen to this. Anything goes as far as Martin and I personally areconcerned. But I want you to know that I could be arrested for what Ithink of you as a man; and if any of your little schemes touch Dottie orPeggy in any way, shape or form, I'll kill you as I would a snake--orrather, I'll take you apart as I would any other piece of scientificapparatus. This isn't a threat, it's a promise. Get me?"
"Perfectly. Good-night."
For many hours the Earth had been obscured by clouds, so that the pilothad only a general idea of what part of the world was beneath them, butas they dropped rapidly downward into the twilight zone, the cloudsparted and they saw that they were directly over the Panama Canal.Seaton allowed the Skylark to fall to within ten miles of the ground,when he stopped so that Martin could get his bearings and calculate thecourse to Washington, which would be in total darkness before theirarrival.
DuQuesne had retired, cold and reticent as usual. Glancing quickly abouthis cabin to make sure that he had overlooked nothing he could take withhim, he opened a locker, exposing to view four suits which he had madein his spare time, each adapted to a particular method of escape fromthe Skylark. The one he selected was of heavy canvas, braced with steelnetting, equipped with helmet and air-tanks, and attached to a strong,heavy parachute. He put it on, tested all its parts, and made his wayunobserved to one of the doors in the lower part of the vessel. Thus,when the chance for escape came, he was ready for it. As the Skylarkpaused over the Isthmus, his lips parted in a sardonic smile. He openedthe door and stepped out into the air, closing the door behind him as hefell. The neutral color of the parachute was lost in the gatheringtwilight a few seconds after he left the vessel.
The course laid, Seaton turned almost due north and the Skylark torethrough the air. After a short time, when half the ground had beencovered, Seaton spoke suddenly.
"Forgot about DuQuesne, Mart. We'd better iron him, hadn't we? Thenwe'll decide whether we want to keep him or turn him loose."
"I will go fetch him," replied Crane, and turned to the stairs.
He returned shortly, with the news of the flight of the captive.
"Hm ... he must have made himself a parachute. I didn't think even hewould tackle a sixty-thousand-foot drop. I'll tell the world that hesure has established a record. I can't say I'm sorry that he got away,though. We can get him again any time we want him, anyway, as thatlittle object-compass in my drawer is still looking right at him," saidSeaton.
"I think he earned his liberty," declared Dorothy, stoutly, and Margaretadded:
"He deserves to be shot, but
I'm glad he's gone. He gives me theshivers."
At the end of the calculated time they saw the lights of a large citybeneath them, and Crane's fingers clenched upon Seaton's arm as hepointed downward. There were the landing-lights of Crane Field, sevenpeculiarly-arranged searchlights throwing their mighty beams upward intothe night.
"Nine weeks, Dick," he said, unsteadily, "and Shiro would have kept themburning nine years if necessary."
The Skylark dropped easily to the ground in front of the testing shedand the wanderers leaped out, to be greeted by the half-hysterical Jap.Shiro's ready vocabulary of peculiar but sonorous words failed himcompletely, and he bent himself double in a bow, his yellow facewreathed in the widest possible smile. Crane, one arm around his wife,seized Shiro's hand and wrung it in silence. Seaton swept Dorothy offher feet, pressing her slender form against his powerful body. Her armstightened about his neck as they kissed each other fervently and hewhispered in her ear:
"Sweetheart wife, isn't it great to be back on our good old Earthagain?"
THE END
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Transcriber's Notes & Errata | | | | The editorial notes associated with the three installments | | of the story have been placed in ASCII text boxes and | | incorporated at the appropriate places in the text. | | | | Illustrations have been moved to the appropriate place in | | the text. | | | | The chemical symbol for water is represented as H2O. | | | | The following typographical errors have been corrected. | | | | |Error |Correction | | | | | | | | |plantinum |platinum | | | |refused. |refused." | | | |We |"We | | | |abstruce |abstruse | | | |I love |"I love | | | |CHAPTE |CHAPTER | | | |food |fool | | | |unmistakeable |unmistakable | | | |ever |even | | | |Mat |Mart | | | |gravity. |gravity." | | | |completely. |completely." | | | |ecstacy |ecstasy | | | |embarassment |embarrassment | | | |Naloon |Nalboon | | | |inumerable |innumerable | | | |but |"but | | | |efficient |efficient." | | | |Dare |"Dare | | | |wit |wait | | | |They produce |"They produce | | | | | | | Variable hyphenation | | | | The number of times each form appears in the text is given | | in parentheses. | | | | |blue-prints (2) |blueprints (4) | | | |border-line (3) |borderline (1) | | | |break-down (1) |breakdown (1) | | | |devil-fish (1) |devilfish (1) | | | |Good-bye (4) |Goodbye (1) | | | |good-bye (4) |goodbye (3) | | | |good-night (2) |goodnight (2) | | | |half-way (4) |halfway (1) | | | |hand-rail (1) |handrail (2) | | | |hand-rails (1) |handrails (1) | | | |home-coming (1) |homecoming (1) | | | |major-domo (3) |majordomo (1) | | | |near-by (1) |nearby (4) | | | |nitro-glycerin (2) |nitroglycerin (2) | | | |to-night (2) |tonight (7) | | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+
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