The Alien Intelligence | Project Gutenberg (2024)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73724 ***

CHAPTER I

The Mountain of the Moon

Before me, not half a mile away, rose the nearest ramparts of theMountain of the Moon. It was after noon, and the red sun blazed downon the bare, undulating sandy waste with fearful intensity. The airwas still and intolerably hot. Heat waves danced ceaselessly over theuneven sand. I felt the utter loneliness, the wild mystery, and theoverwhelming power of the desert. The black cliffs rose cold and solidin the east—a barrier of dark menace. Pillars of black basalt, of darkhornblende, and of black obsidian rose in a precipitous wall of sharpand jagged peaks that curved back to meet the horizon. Needle-likespires rose a thousand feet, and nowhere was the escarpment less thanhalf that high. It was with mingled awe and incipient fear that I firstlooked upon the Mountain of the Moon.

It was a year since I had left medical college in America to beginpractise in Perth, Australia. There I had an uncle who was my solesurviving relative. My companion on the voyage had been Dr. HoraceAusten, the well-known radiologist, archeologist, and explorer. He hadbeen my dearest friend. That he was thirty years my senior, had neverinterfered with our comradeship. It was he who had paid most of myexpenses in school. He had left me at Perth, and went on to investigatesome curious ruined columns that a traveler had reported in the westernpart of the Great Victoria Desert. There Austen had simply vanished. Hehad left Kanowna, and the desert had swallowed him up. But it was hisway, when working on a problem, to go into utter seclusion for monthsat a time.

My uncle was an ardent radio enthusiast, and it was over one of hisexperimental short wave sets that we picked up the remarkable messagefrom my lost friend that led me to abandon my practise, and, heedingthe call of adventure that has always been strong in those of my blood,to seek the half mythical Mountain of the Moon, in the heart of theunexplored region of the Great Victoria Desert of Western Australia.

The message was tantalizingly brief and hard to interpret. We picked itup five times, over a period of two weeks, always just after sunset.Evidently it was sent by one who had not recently practised hisknowledge of code, and it seemed that the sender was always in a greathurry, or under a considerable nervous tension, for minor errors andomissions were frequent. The words were invariably the same. I copythem from an old notebook.

"To Winfield Fowler, physician, Perth, Australia: I, Horace Austen,am lost in an unknown new world, where alien terrors reign, that liesin a crater in the Mountain of the Moon. I implore you to come to myaid, for the sake of mankind. Bring arms, and my equipment—the Rontgentubes and coils, and the spectrometer. Ascend ladder at west pinnacle.Find my friend Melvar, maiden of the crystal city, whom I left beyondthe Silver Lake. Come, for the sake of civilization, and may whoeverhears this forward it with all dispatch."

My uncle was inclined to suspect a hoax. But after the message hadcome over twice I received telegrams from several other radio amateurswho had heard it, and were forwarding it to me. We took the directionof the third call and had amateurs in Adelaide do the same. The linesintersected in the Great Victoria Desert, at a point very near that atwhich Wellington located the Mountain of the Moon, when he sighted itand named it in 1887.

Knowing Austen, as I did, to be intensely human as a man, but grave andserious as a scientist, it was impossible for me to take the message asa practical joke, as my uncle, deriding the possibility of my friend'sbeing imprisoned in "an unknown new world," insisted it was. It wasequally impossible for one of my impetuous and adventurous dispositionto devote himself to any prosaic business when so attractive a mysterywas beckoning him away. Then I would never, in any case, have hesitatedto go to Austen's aid, if I knew him to be in need.

I got together the apparatus he had mentioned—it was some equipment hehappened to have left with me as he went on—as well as my emergencymedicine kit, a heavy rifle, two .45 Colt automatics, and a good supplyof ammunition; and waited for more explicit signals. But the calls hadnever come regularly, and after the fifth no more were heard. Havingwaited another irksome week, I bade my uncle farewell and got on thetrain. I left the railway at Kanowna, and bought three ponies. I rodeone and packed provisions, equipment, and water bottles on the othertwo. Nothing need be said of the perils of the journey. Three weekslater I came in sight of the mountain.

Wellington had christened it as he did because of an apparentsimilarity to the strange cliff-rimmed craters of the moon, and theappellation was an apt one. The crags rose almost perpendicularlyfrom the sand to the jagged rim. To climb them was clearly out ofthe question. The rock was polished slick by wind-blown sands formany feet, but rough and sharp above. To my left, at the extreme westpoint of the great curve, was a dark needle spire that towered threehundred feet above its fellows. I knew that it must be Austen's "westpinnacle." What sort of ladder I was to ascend, I had little idea.

As the sun sank back of the rolling sea of sand, dark purple shadowsrose about the barrier, and I was struck with deep forebodings of theevil mystery that lay beyond it. The gold of the desert changed tosilver gray, and the gray faded swiftly, while the deep purple mantleswept up the peaks, displacing even the deep red crowns that lay likesplashes of blood upon the summits. Still I felt, or fancied, a strangespirit of terror that lurked behind the mountain, even in the night.

Quickly I made camp. Just two of the ponies were left, and they werenear death (I have passed over the hardships of my trip). I hobbledthem on a little patch of grass and brush that grew where water had runfrom the cliff; pitched my little tent, and found brush to start a tinyfire. I ate supper, with but a scanty cup of water; then, oppressedby the vast mysterious peaks that loomed portentously in the east,shutting out the starlight, I went in the tent and sought my blanket.Then came the first of those terrible and inexplicable occurrences thatled up to the great adventure.

CHAPTER II

The Abyss of the Terror-light

First I heard a faint whispering sound, or rather a hiss, infinitelyfar away, and up, I thought, over the cliffs. Then the cloth of thetent was lighted by a faint red glow thrown on it from above. Ishivered and the strange spell of the mountain and the desert fellheavier upon me. I wanted to go out and investigate; but unfamiliarterror held me powerless. I gripped my automatic and waited tensely.The scarlet radiance shone ever brighter through the cloth. The soundturned to a hissing, shrieking scream. It was deafening, and it plungedstraight down. It seemed to pause, to hover overhead. The red glare wasalmost blinding. Abruptly the tent was blown down by a sudden tempestof wind. For perhaps a minute the terror hung about me. I lay there ina strange paralysis of fear, while a hurricane of wind tore at thecanvas upon me. I heard upon the tempest, above that awful whistling, awild mad laugh that rang against the cliff, weirdly appalling. It wasutterly inhuman, not even the laugh of a madman. Just once it rang out,and afterwards I imagined it had been my fancy.

Then the light and the sound swept up and away. With belated courageI tore my way from under the cloth. The stars were like jewels in thewestward sky, where the zodiacal light was still visible. The ominousblackness of the mountain blotted out the eastern stars; and the peakswere lighted by a vague and flickering radiance of scarlet, like thereflection of unpleasant fires beyond. Strange pulsing, exploringfingers of red seemed to thrust themselves up from behind the cliff.Somehow they gave me the feeling that an incredibly great, incrediblyevil personality lurked beyond. The crimson light shone weirdly on thewild summits of the mountain, as if they were smeared with blood.

I threw more brush on the fire, and crouched over it, feelinguncomfortably alone and terrified. When the flames had flared up Ilooked about for the ponies, seeking companionship even in them.They were gone! At first I thought they had broken their hobbles andrun off, but I could neither see nor hear them, and they had been inno condition to run far. I walked about a little, to look for them,and then went back to the fire. I sat there and watched the eerie,unwholesome glare that shone over the mountain. No longer did I doubtthe existence of Austen's "world where alien terrors reign." I knew,even as I had felt when I first saw the mountain, that strange life andpower lurked beyond it.

The Ladder Found

Presently I stretched the tent again, and lay down, but I did not sleep.

At dawn I got up and went to look for the ponies. I climbed one of thelow dunes and gazed over the gray infinity of sand, but not a sign ofthem rewarded my look. I tried to trail them. I found where they hadbeen hobbled, and followed the tracks of each to a place where thehoofs had cut deep in the sandy turf. Beyond there was no trace. ThenI was certain of what I had already known, that the Thing had carriedthem away.

Then I found something stranger still—the prints of bare human feet,half erased by the wind that had blown while the terror had hung there.That unearthly laugh, and the footprints! Was there a land of madmenbehind the mountain? And what was the thing that had come and gone inthe night? Those were questions I could not answer, but daylight dulledmy wondering fear.

The sun would not rise on my side of the mountain until nearly noon,and the cold dark shadow of the cliff was upon me when the desert allabout was a shimmering white in the heat of the sun. Austen's call hadmentioned a ladder. I set out to find it. Just north of the peak I cameupon it, running straight up like a silver ribbon to the top of thecliff. It was not the clumsy affair of ropes that I expected. In fact,I at once abandoned any idea that Austen had made it at all. It was ofan odd-looking white metal, and it seemed very old, although it wascorroded but little. The rungs were short white bars, riveted to longstraps which were fastened on the rock by spikes of the same silverymetal. I have said that the mountain rises straight from the sand. Andthe ladder goes on into the ground. That suggests that the sand haspiled in on the base of the mountain since the ladder was put there. Atany rate, I am sure that it is incredibly old.

I went back to camp; packed together my guns, a little food, andAusten's equipment; and started up the ladder. Although it was no morethan six hundred feet to the top, heavily laden as I was, I got verytired before I reached it. I stopped several times to rest. Once,looking down on the illimitable sea of rolling sand, with the tiny tentand the sharp shadow of the mountain the only definite features, I hada terrible attack of vertigo, and my fears of the night returned, untilI almost wished I had never started up the ladder. But I knew that ifI were suddenly back in Perth again I would be more eager than ever toset out upon the adventure.

At last I reached the top and crawled up in the mouth of a narrowcanyon, with the black stone walls rising straight to the peaks oneither side. Down the crevice was a smooth curving pathway, very muchworn, it seemed, more by time than human feet. It was not yet noon. Iwaited a few minutes to rest; then walked up the path with a very keencuriosity as to where it led. It grew so deep that the sky overheadwas but a dark blue ribbon in which I saw Venus gleaming whitely. Itwidened. I walked out on a broad stone platform. And below me lay—theabyss.

I stood on the brink of a great chasm whose bottom must have beenmiles, even, below sea level. The farther walls of the circularpit—they must have been forty miles away—were still black in theshadow of the morning. Clouds of red and purple mist hung in theinfinities of space the chasm contained, and completely hid the fartherhalf of the floor. Beneath me, so far away that it was as if I lookedon another world, was a deep red shelf, a scarlet plain weird as thedeserts of Mars. To what it owed its color I could not tell. In themidst of the red, rose a mountain whose summit was a strange crown ofscintillating fire. It looked as though it were capped, not with snow,but with an immense heap of precious jewels, set on fire with the gloryof the sun, and blazing with a splendrous shifting flame of prismaticlight. And the crimson upland sloped down—to "the Silver Lake." It wasa lake shaped like a crescent moon, the horns reaching to the mountainson the north and the south. In the hollow of the crescent beyond, lowhills rose, impenetrable banks of purple mist lying back of them tothe dark wall in the distance. The lake gleamed like quicksilver andlight waves ran upon it, reflecting the sunlight in cold blue fire. Itseemed that faint purple vapors were floating up from the surface. Setlike a picture in the dark red landscape, with the black cliffs about,the argent lake was very white, and very bright.

CHAPTER III

Down the Silver Ladder

For a long, long time I gazed into the abyss, lost in the wonder andthe mystery of it. Meanwhile the sun climbed over and lit the fartherrim, which still was black or dully red, because of the dark colorsof the volcanic rocks of which it is composed. The scene was so vast,so strange, so wildly beautiful and unearthly, that it seemed almosta dream, instead of an ominous reality. It was hard to realize thatsomewhere upon the red plain, or along the shores of the Silver Lake,or perhaps beneath the banks of mist beyond, Austen was—or hadbeen—alone, and in distress. I wondered, too, from what part of thisstrange world had come the thing of the whistling sound and the redlight, which had taken the ponies.

It was well after noon before I ate a little lunch and took thought ofthe matter of descent. I saw that a second ladder led down in a fineline of silver until it disappeared above the crimson upland, milesbelow. I climbed over the brink and started down. Descending was easierthan climbing had been, but I had infinitely farther to go. The solesof my shoes were cut through, and my hands became red and blistered onthe rungs. Sometimes, when I was too tired to go on, I slung myself tothe ladder with a piece of rope from my pack, while I rested.

Steadily the black walls rose higher about me. The red plateau beneath,the mountain with its crown of flaming gems, and the strange white lakebeyond, came nearer and nearer.

I was still half a mile above the scarlet plain when the shadow of thewestern wall was flung fast over the valley floor, and the light purplemists beyond the argent lake deepened their hue to a dark and ominouspurple-red.

But the Silver Lake did not darken. It seemed luminous. It gleamed witha bright, metallic silvery luster, even when the shadow had fallen uponit. Whenever I rested, I searched keenly the whole visible floor of theabyss, but nowhere was any life or motion to be seen.

With a growing apprehension, I realized that I would not have timeto reach the ground before dark. I had no desire to be sticking likea fly to the face of the cliff when the Thing that had made the redlight was moving about. Disregarding my fatigue and pain, I clambereddown as fast as I could force my wearied limbs to move. The process ofmotion had become almost automatic. Hands and feet moved regularly,rhythmically, without orders from the brain. But sometimes they fumbledor slipped. Then I had to grasp, frenzied, at the rungs to save my life.

Night fell like a black curtain rolled quickly over the top of thepit, but the half-moon of the Silver Lake still shone with its whitemetallic light. And strange, moving shapes of red appeared in the mistin the hollow of the crescent. The light that fell upon the rock wasfaint, but still enough to help, and still I hurried—forcing hands andfeet to follow down and find the rungs. And fearfully I looked over myshoulder at the bank of mist.

Suddenly a long pale finger of red—a delicate rosy ray—shot highout of it. And up the vague pathway it sped, a long slender pencil ofcrimson light—a narrow, sharp-tipped scarlet shape—high into thenight, and over and around in a long arching curve. Down it plunged,and back into the mist. Presently I heard its sound—that strangewhistling sigh that rolled majestically and rose and fell, vast as theroar of an erupting volcano. Other things sprang out of the purplebank, slender searching needles of brilliant scarlet, sweeping over thevalley and high into the starlit sky above.

Following paths that were smooth and arched, with incredible speed,they swept about like a swarm of strange insects, always with amazingease, and always shooting back into the cloud, leaving faint purpletracks behind them. And the great rushing sounds rose and fell. Thoselights were incredible entities, intelligent—and evil.

They flew, more often than anywhere else, over the crown of lights uponthe hill—the gems still shone with a faint beautiful glow of mingledcolors. Whenever one swept near the mountain, a pale blue ray shottoward it from the cap of jewels. And the red things fled from the ray.More and more the flying things of crimson were drawn to the mountaintop, wheeling swiftly and ceaselessly, ever evading the feeble beamsof blue. Their persistence was inhuman—and terrible. They were likeinsects wheeling about a light.

All the while I climbed down as fast as I could, driving my worn-outlimbs beyond the limit of endurance, while I prayed that the thingsmight not observe me. Then one passed within a half mile, with adeep awful whistling roar, flinging ahead its dusky red pathway, andhurtling along with a velocity that is inconceivable. I saw that it wasa great red body, a cylinder with tapering ends, with a bright greenlight shining on the forward part. It did not pause, but swept on alongits comet-like path, and down behind the Silver Lake. Behind it wasleft a vague purple phosphorescent track, like the path of a meteor,that lasted several minutes.

After it was gone, I hurried on for a few minutes, breathing easier.Then another went by, so close that a hot wind laden with the purplemist of its track blew against my face.

I was gripped with deathly, unutterable terror. I let myself down inthe haste of desperation. Then the third one came. As it approachedit paused in its path, and drifted slowly and deliberately toward me.The very cliff trembled with the roaring blast of its sound. The greenlight in the forward end stared at me like a terrible, evil eye.

Exactly how it happened I never knew. I suppose my foot slipped, ormy bleeding hands failed to grasp a rung. I have a vague recollectionof the nightmare sensation of falling headlong, of the air whistlingbriefly about my ears, of the dark earth looming up below. I think Ifell on my back, and that my head struck a rock.

In the Red Scrub

The next I knew it was day, and the sun was shining in my eyes. Istruggled awkwardly and painfully to my feet. My whole body was bruisedand sore, and the back of my head was caked with dried blood. Myexhausted muscles had stiffened during the night, and to stand uponmy cut and blistered feet was torturing. But I had something to bethankful for—that I had been within a few feet of the ground when Ifell; and that the red thing had departed and left me lying there,perhaps thinking me dead.

I leaned against the base of the metal ladder and looked about, I hadfallen into a thicket of low red bushes. All about grew low thickbrush, covering the slightly rolling plain. The plants were scarcelyknee-high, bearing narrow, feathered leaves of red. The delicate,fern-like sprays of crimson rippled in the breeze like waves on a seaof blood. The leaves had a peculiar bright and greasy appearance anda strange pungent odor. The shrubs bore innumerable tiny snow-whiteflowers that gleamed like stars against the deep red background.

I think that the red vegetation had evolved from a species of cycad.Undoubtedly the greater crater had been isolated from the outer worldwhen the great tree-ferns were reigning throughout the earth. And,as I was presently to find, the order of evolution in the deep warmpit had been vastly different from that which had produced man as itshighest form of life. Presently I was to meet far stranger and moreamazing things than the red bush. I am inclined to believe that theextraordinary color may have been due to the quality of the atmosphere,perhaps to the high pressure, or to the purple vapors that ever rosefrom the region beyond the Silver Lake.

Nowhere did I see any living thing, nor did I hear any sound of life.In fact one of the strange things of the place was the complete absenceof the lower forms of life, and even of the smaller insects. Thesilence hung oppressively. It grew intolerably monotonous—maddening.

Far away to the right and to the left the walls of the pit rosestraight and black to the azure infinity that arched the top. To theleft of me, five or six miles away, towered the gem-crowned hill, itssummit a blaze of ever-changing polychromatic flame. Beyond it, allalong the east, the red plateau fell away to the Silver Lake, which laylike a curved scimitar of polished steel, with the faint bank of purplemist shrouding the low red hills that rose inside the curve beyond. Thesun was just above the eastern peaks, shining purple through the mist.

After a time I limped slowly down the nearest of the little valleys.As I went my roving eye caught the bright glitter of brass on theground at my feet. Searching in the red shrubs, I picked up threefired cartridges for a .45 calibre automatic. I held them in my handand gazed over the weird scene before me, lost in wonder. They wereconcrete proof that Austen had passed this way, had here fought offsome danger. He must yet be somewhere in this strange crater. But wherewas I to find "Melvar, maiden of the crystal city," and what was sheto do for me?

Presently I went on. I wanted water to bathe my cuts and bruises. I wasvery thirsty as well as hungry. My pack was an irksome burden, but Idid not discard it, and I carried the heavy rifle ready in my hand. Iwas still feeling very weak. After a painful half mile I came to a tinypool in a thicket of the red scrub. I lay down and drank the cool clearwater until I was half sick. I threw away the remnants of my shoes andbathed my feet.

A Curious Sight

Suddenly my attention was arrested by a crystal clashing sound. Therewas a marching rhythm in it, and the clatter of weapons. I croucheddown the shrubbery and peered fearfully about. I saw a line of men,queerly equipped soldiers, marching in single file over the nearestknoll. They seemed to be wearing a closely fitting chain mail ofsilvery metal, and they had helmets, breastplates and shields thatthrew off the sunlight in scintillant flashes of red, as if made ofrubies. And their long swords flashed like diamonds. Their crystalarmor tinkled as they came, in time to their marching feet.

One, whom I took to be the leader, boomed out an order in a hearty,mellow voice. They passed straight by, within fifty yards of me. Isaw that they were tall men, of magnificent physique, white-skinned,with blond hair and blue eyes. On they went, in the direction of thefire-topped mountain, until they passed out of sight in a slightdeclivity, and the music died away.

It is needless to say that I was excited as by nothing that I had seenbefore. A race of fair-haired men in an Australian valley. What asensational discovery! I supposed that they had built the metal ladderand come down it into the valley, but from whence had they come? Or wasthe Mountain of the Moon itself the cradle of humanity, the Garden ofEden?

Then the crystal weapons of the soldiery suggested that they usedsome transparent crystalline substance in lieu of metal, and that theiridescent crown upon the mountain might be the city of the race. Wasit Austen's "crystal city?" That would suggest a high civilization,but I saw no sign of the mechanical devices that are the outstandingfeatures of our own civilized achievement. Certainly the soldiers hadcarried no modern weapons.

Then I thought of the footprints and the eerie laugh. I wondered whatcontact Austen had had with these people. Had they been friends orfoes? I wondered if it had been the men of the crystal city who hadpaid me a visit outside the cliffs. If so, the red torpedo-shapes ofthe night must be aircraft, and they must have advanced the art ofaerial navigation to a very high degree.

I determined, first of all, to do some spying, and find out as muchas possible about the strange race before I revealed my presence. Iwas not in a very good trim for battle, and I had taken much pains forconcealment when the men passed. But I had little doubt that my gunswere so far superior to their crystal swords that I could fight them atany odds if they proved unfriendly.

So presently I bound my feet with bandages from my medicine kit,attended as best I could to the wound on the back of my head, andwalked slowly on the direction of the mountain, keeping in the coverof the valleys as much as possible. Although I could limp painfullyalong, the red vegetation offered me no very serious impediment to myprogress. The low bushes crushed easily underfoot, burdening the airwith their unfamiliar, pungent odor. The country was rolling, the lowhills and level valleys all covered crimson with the scrub, giganticboulders scattered here and there. The Silver Lake shimmered in thedistance—a bright, white, metallic sheet.

The gem-capped mountain rose before me until I saw that the gauntblack sides rose a full thousand feet to the crown of blazing crystal.And as I drew nearer, I saw that indeed the gems were buildings, of amassive, fantastic architecture. A city of crystal! Prismatic fires ofemerald-green, and ruby-red, and sapphire-blue, poured out in a mingledflood of iridescence from its slender spires and great towers, itscentral ruby dome and the circling battlements of a hundred flashinghues.

CHAPTER IV

Melvar of Astran

Just before noon I staggered into a little dell that was coveredwith unusually profuse growths of the crimson plants. Along a littletrickling stream of water they were waist high, bearing abundantly thestar-shaped flowers, and small golden-brown fruits. Suddenly therewas a rustling in the thicket and the head and shoulders of a youngwoman rose abruptly out of the red brush. In her hand she held a wovenbasket, half full of the fruits. In my alarm I had thrown up the rifle.But soon lowered it and grinned in confusion when I realized that itwas a girl, and by far the most beautiful one I had ever seen. I havealways been awkward in the presence of a beautiful woman, and for a fewminutes I did nothing but stand and stare at her, while her quizzicaldark, blue eyes inscrutably returned my look.

She was clad in a slight garment, green in color, that seemed to bewoven of a fine-spun metal. Her hair was long and golden, fastenedbehind her shapely head with a circlet—a thin band cut evidently froma single monster ruby. Her features were fine and delicate, and shehad a surpassing grace of figure. That her slender arms were stainedto the elbows with the red juice of the plants—she had been pickingthe golden fruits—did not detract from her beauty. I was struck—andI will admit it, conquered—by her face. For a little time she stoodvery erect, looking at me with an odd expression, and then she spoke,enunciating the words very carefully, in a rich golden voice.

The language was English!

She said, "Are you—an American?"

"At your service completely," I told her, "Winfield Fowler, of WhiteDeer, Texas, and New York City, not to mention other points. But I ownto some surprise at finding a knowledge of the idiom in a denizen of soremote a locality."

"I can understand," she smiled. "But I think you could talk—moresimply. So you are Winfield, who came with Austen across thegreat—ocean from America?"

"You guessed it," I said, trying to keep my growing excitement in hand,while I marveled at her beauty. "Is mind reading common in these parts?"

"Doctor Austen—the American—told me about you, his friend. And hegave me two books. Tennyson's poems, and—'The Pathfinder.'"

"So you have seen Austen?" I cried in real astonishment. "Are youMelvar? Are you the 'maiden of the crystal city?'"

"I am Melvar," she told me. "And Austen stopped in Astran onesutar—that is thirty-six days."

"Where is he now?" I eagerly demanded.

"He was a strange man," the golden voice replied. "He did not fearthe Krimlu, as do the men of Astran. He walked off toward the pass inthe north that leads around—around the Silver Lake, he called it. Hehad been watching the Krimlu as they came at night, and doing strangethings with some stuff he took from—the Silver Lake. While he washere, the hunters brought in one of the—" again she hesitated, at aloss for a word. "—The Purple Ones," she concluded. "He took that toexamine it."

"What are the Krimlu?" I exclaimed. "What—or who—are the Purple Ones?What is the Silver Lake?"

"You are a man of many questions," she laughed. For a moment shehesitated, with her blue eyes resting on my face.

"The Krimlu, so say the old men of Astran, are the spirits of the deadwho come back from the land beyond the Silver Lake to watch the living,and to carry off the evil for their food. So the priests taught us,and so I believed until Austen came and told me of the world that isbeyond. He told the Elders of the outer world, but they put upon himthe curse of the sun, and drove him away. And indeed it is well that hewas ready to go so willingly beyond the Silver Lake, for Jorak wouldhave offered him to the Purple Sun had he been in the city anothernight."

Suddenly she must have become conscious of the intensity of myunthinking gaze, for she abruptly dropped her eyes, and flushed alittle.

"Go on," I urged her. "What about the Purple Ones and the Silver Lake?Your account is certainly entertaining, if somewhat more mystifyingthan illuminating. At this rate you will have me a raving maniac in anhour, but the process is not unpleasant. Proceed."

Fowler Grows Bold

She looked up at me, smiled, looked off to the side, then let her eyesreturn to mine with curious speculation in them. "What is the SilverLake," she went on, "you know as well as I, though Austen tried to findits secret. The touch of its water is death—a death that is terrible.And the Purple Ones—you will see them soon enough! They are strangebeings who come, no one knows whence, into the land of Astran. Thepriests tell us that they are 'The Avengers of the Purple Sun.'—butdid you come down the ladder as Austen did?"

"Most of the way in the same manner," I told her. "I finished thedescent rather faster than he did, I imagine."

"Is there really," she asked, "a broad world beyond, with fields andforests that are green, and seas that are of clear blue water, anda sun that is not purple, but white? Such Austen told me, but theelders say that the ladder is the path to the Purple Sun, and beyondis nothing. Is it true that there is a great nation of the men of yourrace, a nation of men who know the art of fire that Austen showed us,and greater arts, who can travel in ships over water and through theair like the Krimlu?"

"Yes," I said, "the world is that, and more, but, in all of it, I havenever seen a girl so beautiful as you."

It is not my habit to make such speeches to ladies, but I was feelinga bit light-headed on that morning, as a reaction from my terribleadventure, and I was rather intoxicated by her charm.

She smiled, evidently not displeased, and looked away again, apparentlycomposing her expression with difficulty. There was a suspicioustwinkle in her dark blue eyes.

"Tell me why you have come into this land," she asked abruptly.

"Austen sent for me to come to his aid." I replied.

"You and Austen are not like the men of Astran," she mused. "Not one ofthem ever went out to face the Krimlu or even the Purple Ones, of hisown free will. You must be brave."

"Rather, ignorant," I said. "Since I have seen the 'Krimlu,' as youcall the flying lights, I am about ready to give up my courage of anykind."

Then, because my exhausted condition had robbed me of my ordinary senseof responsibility, I did such a thing as I had never dared before. Thegirl was standing close before me, matchlessly beautiful, infinitelydesirable. Her eyes were bright, and the sunlight glistened in hergolden hair. And—well, I admit that I did not try very hard to resistthe temptation to kiss her. I felt her arm at my back, a sudden quickthrust of her lithe body. The next I knew I was lying on my back, andshe was bending over me, with tears in her eyes.

"Oh," she cried. "I didn't know. Your head! It is bleeding. And yourhands and feet! I didn't notice!"

So I was compelled to lie there while the beautiful stranger verytenderly dressed and bandaged the cut on my head. In truth, I doubtthat I would have been able to get up immediately. The touch of hercool fingers was very light and deft. Once her golden hair brushedagainst my cheek. Her nearness was very pleasant. I knew that I lovedher completely, though I had never taken much stock in love at firstsight.

Presently she had finished. Then she said, "When Austen gave me thebooks he left a letter for any man of the outside who might happen tocome to Astran. You must come with me to the city, to get it, and torest until you can walk without limping so painfully. Then, if youwill, you can go on around the northern pass. Perhaps you can findAusten. But the Krimlu are mighty. No man of Astran has ever daredoppose them. No man who has ever gone into that accursed region hasever been seen again."

CHAPTER V

Astran, the Crystal City

The sun dropped beneath the rim, and the purple dusk began to thickenand to creep over the valley floor. I took up my precious equipment,and Melvar and I walked off through the red brush in the directionof the mountain. The vast strange buildings of the city of gems werestill glowing with soft color, and the cold, bright surface of theSilver Lake flashed often into sight beyond the rolling eminences.Presently we came to a well-worn path through the crimson scrub, but Isaw nothing to indicate that anyone had thought of paving or improvingit. But the Astranians did not seem to have much energy for any kind ofpublic work. Their material civilization appeared to be on a rather lowscale. In fact they supplied their wants in the way of food entirelywith the abundant fruit of the red bushes. As I had guessed from thegirl's remarks, they did not even have the use of fire. Indeed thegreat physical and mental development of the race and the splendid cityin which it lived was strangely contrasted with their absolute lack ofscientific knowledge.

Our pace was hastened by thoughts of the terrors that night wouldbring, and perhaps because of them, we walked nearer one another, andpresently we were hurrying along, hand in hand. About us the purplenight deepened and, beyond the argent brilliance of the Silver Sea, thestrange evil of the night gathered itself for the attack.

At last we came to the narrow path that wound up the side of themountain to the splendid palaces that crowned it. We hurried; cameto a great arched gate in the emerald wall, and entered. The huge,incredibly magnificent buildings were scattered irregularly about thesummit, with broad spaces between them. Here and there were pavedcourts of the silvery metal, which must have been an aluminum bronze,but the open ground was for the most part grown up in rank thickets ofthe red brush. The great building showed the wear and breakage of ages.Here and there were great heaps of gleaming crystal, where wonderfuledifices had fallen, with the brush grown up around them. Incredibleas it may seem, I think the old civilization of Astran had possessed ascience that was able to synthetize diamonds and other precious stones,in quantities sufficient even for use as building stone. Later I had anopportunity to examine bits of the fallen masonry.

Towering above all, on the very peak of the mountain, was a great rubydome, vast as the dome of St. Peter's, and mounted upon the center ofthe top was a huge machine that resembled nothing so much as a greatnaval gun, though it was made of crystal and white metal. A littlegroup of men were gathered about it, and as I watched they swung thegreat tube about, and a narrow ray of pale blue light poured out ofit. And down on the plain below, where the practise beam had struck, agreat boulder flashed into sudden incandescence. In their explorationof the ultraviolet spectrum, our own scientists have found rays thatare strangely destructive to life, and considerable progress has beenmade in the development of a destructive beam of wireless energy. Butlater I was to meet a far more terrible ray weapon than that slenderblue beam.

"With that," said Melvar, "our people fight off the Krimlu at night.But the Krimlu are so many that sometimes they are able to land andtake our people. If only we had more of the beams! But there is no manin all Astran who knows how the light is made, or anything save thatthe blue light shines out to destroy when rock of a certain kind is putinto the tube. Austen wished to examine it, and spoke of something hecalled 'radium ore' but the priests forbade. Indeed, his curiosity isone of the reasons Jorak had for driving him away."

Standing about the ill-kept streets were a few of the people of thecrystal city. All were of magnificent physique, and intelligentlooking, white-skinned, and fair haired. All wore garments that seemedof spun metal, and gleaming crystal weapons. Most of them were hurryingalong, intent on affairs of their own, but a few gathered around usalmost as soon as we stepped in the gate. I felt that they were hostileto me. They questioned Melvar in a tongue that was strange to my ears;then became engaged in a noisy debate among themselves. Their glancestoward me were furtive and sullen, and their eyes had the lock of mencrazed by fear.

Safe!

Melvar was saying something in a conciliatory tone, and I was swingingmy rifle into position for use, when there was a sudden shout fromthe gate of the city, and the clashing of crystal weapons. Theinterruption was most welcome to me. The crowd turned eagerly to thenew arrivals. I saw that they were a band of soldiers, possibly thesame that had passed me in the morning. Slung to a pole carried betweenthe foremost two, was a strange thing. Weirdly colored and fearfullymutilated as it was, I saw that it was the naked body of a human being.The head was cut half off, and dangling at a grotesque angle. The hairwas very long and very white, flying in loose disorder. The featureswere withered and wrinkled, indeed the whole form was incrediblyemaciated. It was the corpse of a woman. The flesh was deep purple!

As I stood staring at the thing in horror, there was laughter andcheering in the crowd, and a little child ran up to stab at the thingwith a miniature diamond sword. Melvar touched my arm.

"Come," she whispered. "Quickly. The people do not like your coming.They did not like the things Austen told of the world outside, for thepriests teach that there is no such world. It is well that the hunterscame when they did with the Purple One. And let us hope that thepriests of the Purple Sun do not hear of you."

As she spoke she led me rapidly away through a tangle of the red brush,and through a colonnade of polished sapphire. Then she quickly led theway down a deserted alley, across another patch of the red shrubbery,and down a short flight of steps into a chamber that was dark.

"Wait here," she commanded. "I must leave you. I think that Jorakhas had spies upon me, and if I were too long absent he might growsuspicious. He was the enemy of my father, and some day my brother willslay him. But sometimes I am afraid of the way he looks at me. Howeverthere is no danger now. If the priests hear, I will somehow get you outof Astran. I think they will not seek you here, whatever may happen. Mybrother will bring the message from Austen, and food and drink. May yourest well, and have faith in me!"

She ran up the steps, and left me standing in the darkness, in a stateof uncomfortable indecision. I did not like the turn that affairs hadtaken. It is never pleasant to be alone in the dark in a strange anddangerous place. I would have much preferred to take my chances out onthe open plain, with nothing but the moving lights to fear, terribleas they were, than here in this strange city, full of ill-disposedsavages. A diamond knife will kill a man just as effectively andcompletely as the weirdest death that ever roamed the night.

For a time I stood waiting tensely, with my rifle in my hand, but I wasvery tired and weak. Presently I got out my flashlight and examined theplace. It was a little cell, apparently hewn in the living rock of themountain. There was nothing in the way of furniture except a sort ofpadded shelf, or bed, at the back. I sat down upon it, and presentlywent to sleep there, though I had no intention of doing so.

Austen's Letter

The next I knew, someone was shaking my arm, and shouting strange wordsin my ear. I opened my eyes. Standing before me was a young man. Inone hand he held a crystal globe filled with a glowing, phosphorescentstuff, faintly lighting the little apartment. I sat up slowly, for mylimbs were stiff. The gun was still in my hand. Without saying anythingmore, the young fellow pointed to a tray that he had set by me on theshelf. It contained a crystal pitcher of aromatic liquid, and a dashof the yellow fruit. I gulped down some of the drink, and ate a few ofthe fruits, feeling refreshed almost immediately. Then the boy—he wasnot more than sixteen years of age—thrust into my hand an envelopeaddressed in the familiar handwriting of Austen. He handed me the lightand walked up the stone stairs.

With feeling that well may be imagined, I tore open the envelope andread, in the faint light of the glowing bulb, the words of my oldfriend.

CHAPTER VI

Fowler Recovers

I read it in the faint glow of the phosphorescent globe, and readit again. So Austen was beyond the crescent, if he had been able tocarry out his plan. The date of the letter was ten months back. Thenthe radio message had probably come from the other side. And why hadit been sent? Austen was not one to appeal for aid for himself alone.Had he feared some general danger to the human race? I thought of hisphrase, "for the sake of mankind," and shuddered at a picture of thered lights sweeping like destroying angels over a great city like NewYork decimating the terrorized population.

I tried to think what was best for me to do, if ever I got out ofAstran alive. I supposed that Austen had been able to round the SilverLake in the north. I should be able to follow him. Clearly there wasnothing for me to do but to find out as much about this strange worldas possible, and to get the equipment to him as soon as I could do so.

I stayed in the cellar-like home for a week. Twice each day theyoung chap came to bring food and drink. He knew but a few words ofEnglish, and during the hour or so he stayed each time I had him totry teaching me the language of Astran. But my progress was slow,and I never learned more than a few score words. The language seemedmuch more complex, even, than English, with bewildering rules ofinflection. But I developed quite a liking for the boy. He had asimple, straight forward manner, and a good sense of humor. His namewas Naro. He was the brother of Melvar, and two years younger. Theirfather, it seemed, had been carried off several years before, when theflying lights made a great raid, and the mother had soon after fallena victim to the sacrificial rites of the hated Jorak. And the boyhimself bore the scars of wounds he had suffered a few months before ina terrific battle with one of the Purple Ones, as those monsters werecalled, which so mystified me then, and with which I had such terribleexperiences later.

On the second day Melvar came. She brought a great flask of aromaticoil that she poured over my wounds. It must have been remarkablyhealing, for in a few days I found myself entirely recovered. Beforeshe left she told me that the priests had heard of my arrival, and thatit was whispered among the people that I was a supernatural being, sentas an omen of an attack by the Krimlu. She told me, too, that there wastalk that a sacrifice would soon be offered at the altar of the PurpleSun, to appease the angry Spirits of the dead. Sweet and innocentchild, she seemed to have no fear that she, who had brought me intothe city, would be the sacrifice, and I did nothing to let her know mymisgivings, although I did propose that we leave the city together assoon as possible. How I hated to see her leave the apartment!

The Shrine of the Purple Sun

During the following days I questioned Naro constantly as to the doingsof his sister, and of the Astranians, but I was able to elicit no verysatisfactory information, except that none of the Krimlu had been seenfor several days, and that the headmen of the nation were beginning toexpect a raid in force. Also I persuaded him to keep a very close watchon the movements of Melvar, and to come to me at once if Jorak made anyattempt to get her into his power, or if the sacrificial ceremony wasbegun with the victim unselected.

During the interminable periods when I was alone, I was driven almostinsane by the monotony and the anxiety of my existence. But I had myscientific equipment, and I had the boy to bring me a few assortedfragments of the crystal building stone, which I tested and found to bereal gems, of several varieties. Many of the gems were simple enoughin chemical formula, and composed of the most common elements, so thesynthesis of them by scientific means is not unreasonable.

For example, it is a well-known fact that diamond is just a crystalform of carbon, which element occurs in three allotropic forms. Thosethree forms are diamond, graphite, which also crystallizes, andamorphous carbon, of which charcoal is a form. Since carbon occurs inthe air in carbon dioxide, it is not impossible that latterday sciencewould be able to manufacture diamonds from the air. Sapphires arealuminum oxide, or alumina, colored with a little cobalt, and rubiesare composed of the same oxide, with a trace of chromium, to which thecolor is due. A clay-bed would supply an inexhaustible amount of theelements needed for the synthesis of these gems, and I think the peopleof old Astran had been able to accomplish it. I examined the littleglow-lamp, too, and found it to be simply a crystal bottle filled withthe moist crushed leaves of the red plants, which formed a culture ofsome kind of luminous bacteria.

On the seventh night, when the pale ray of daylight that filtered downinto my hiding place was dimmed, Naro burst into the chamber, panting,and wild-eyed with terror. His crystal sword was gone, his metallicmantle was torn, and blood was falling, drop by drop, from a deepscratch on his arm. He thrust into my hand a tattered scrap of paper,evidently the flyleaf of a book. On it, in an ink that I took at firstto be blood, although it was probably the juice of the red plants, thefollowing words were formed in hastily drawn printing characters.

No time was to be lost. I had been anticipating something of the kind.The guns were cleaned and loaded. My pack was soon ready. Naro took apart of my equipment. I followed the boy up the stair, with the phrase,"For I loved you," ringing in my heart.

We reached the top and walked out into the red brush. Beneath thepurple starlight the vast fantastic columned halls of Astran weregleaming faintly, and I caught a brief blue flicker from the greatmachine on the ruby dome.

Suddenly, with a sharp thrill of terror that made me catch my breath,I heard the awful distant whining sigh that grew until it rolled andreverberated through the heavens, and the air seemed alive with itsdeep intensity. Above the emerald wall I glimpsed the green-tippedneedle of crimson that made the sound. It was sweeping through the skymeteor-swift, while the pale blue beam stabbed out at it ineffectually.It passed in an instant, but others came, and soon the sky was lightedwith the weird red radiance, and the very mountain top vibrated withthe whistling roars. The things swept around and around in a madconfusion of darting flames. They were like moths about a candle.

We passed an amber palace wall and came suddenly upon a great,metal-floored court. Marching across it were a half score of theAstranian men-at-arms, their accoutrements gleaming weirdly in thelight of the strange things above. They saw us at once, and chargedupon us with a shout. I dropped to my knees. Once my rifle spoke, and Irejoiced at its heavy thrust against my shoulder, and the acrid odor ofthe smoke. I felt a man again. And the leader of the soldiers fell uponhis face.

Melvar Saved

Naro gripped my shoulder and pointed upward. One of the red things wasplunging down, like a great red Zeppelin with a great green light atit* forward end, its purple phosphorescent track swirling up behind it.The soldiers forgot us and scattered in mad terror. Naro jerked my armand in a moment we had tumbled into a copse of the red brush. For amoment the bloody radiance was thrown upon us in an intense flood, andthe screaming roar was deafening. A few minutes more, and the thing hadflashed up and away. A breath of hot purple mist passed over us. Whenwe got to our feet and crept out of the thicket the soldiers were gone.

Swiftly, Naro led me on, keeping in the shadows of the building, on inthe cover of the thickets. Once a man sprang suddenly at us from behinda sapphire pillar, diamond sword drawn. My pistol exploded in his faceand blew his head half off. Naro possessed himself of the dead man'sweapons, and we went breathlessly on. Three times, in other parts ofthe city, we saw the red shapes drop to the ground for a few minutes,and then dart up again, while ever the blue ray played back and forthupon them.

At last we passed between vast ruby columns and stood beneath the hugered dome. Before us lay a great space, fairly lit with a rosy lightfrom the crystal walls. Around the farther side were seated tier upontier, thousands of the brilliantly clad people of Astran. In the centerof the great floor, resting upon a pedestal, was a globe of shiningpurple—a sphere of coruscating flame—itself immense, perhaps fortyfeet in diameter, but insignificant in that colossal hall. Standing atrigid attention, in regular rows about the pedestal were a few scorebright-armed soldiers, and as many other erect men in long purplerobes. All eyes were fixed on a point in front of the gigantic globe,and hence hidden from where we stood.

We hurried silently across the smooth metal floor, our footstepsdrowned in the rushing sounds of the flying things above. We ran aroundthe great purple sun-sphere of crystal, and came abruptly upon adramatically terrible scene. Beneath the sphere was an altar of glowingred, with the priests and soldiery all grouped about it. By the altar,kneeling and silent, clad in a filmy green robe, was the beautiful formof Melvar. Just behind her stood a tall hawk-like man, in his hands agreat transparent crystal vessel full of a liquid that gleamed likemolten silver.

As we came around the sphere he was holding up the vessel and repeatinga strange chant in a monotonous monotone. At sight of us he droppedinto alarmed silence, with an ugly scowl of hate and fear distortinghis harsh features. For a moment he stood as if paralyzed, then herushed toward the silent girl as though to empty the contents of thecrystal pitcher upon her.

I fired on the instant, and had the luck to shatter the vessel,splashing the shining silvery fluid all over his person. The effectof it was instantaneous and terrible. His purple robe was eaten awayand set on fire by the stuff; his flesh was dyed a deep purple, andpartially consumed. He tottered and fell to the floor in a writhing,flaming heap.

In the confusion, and the dazed silence that fell upon the vastassemblage at sight of that horrible thing, Melvar, aroused from herresignation of despair by the report of the pistol, sprang to her feetin incredulous surprise. For a moment she looked wonderingly at us.Then she turned and shouted a few strange and impressive words at thepriests. Her white arms swept up in a curious gesture.

Then she turned and sped toward us. We started running back the waywe had come. The dramatic fall of Jorak, and the evident terrorthat Melvar's courageous and timely words, whatever they had been,had inspired, served to hold the Astranians motionless until we hadtraversed the better part of the distance to the columns. But then theystarted after us en masse. I dropped to my knees at the columns andbegan firing steadily with the rifle. They fell, sometimes two or threeat a shot, but still they charged on, and their number was overwhelming.

Then, outside, there was a sudden louder shrieking roar. A flood of redlight poured through the columns, and there was a terrific crash uponthe dome. Dense clouds of hot purple vapor poured into the vast room.One of the flying lights had landed upon the roof. The charging throngbehind us stopped and ran about in confusion. We darted out through thepurple clouds and ran for the shadow of the nearest building. We keptclose by the mighty walls until we reached the gate. Daring the terrorsof the night, we ran out and down the narrow trail. By dawn we wereseveral miles from Astran in the direction of the shining lake.

CHAPTER VII

The Silver Lake

At the coming of day we were walking over a gently rolling scarletplain, scattered with gigantic solitary boulders, that sloped graduallydown to the Silver Lake. The lake lay flat and argent white, clad inall the ominous mystery of that strange world, calling, beckoning uson, challenging us to learn the secret of the fartherest bank of purplefog, with a grim warning of the doom that might await us. The redfern-like sprays waved gently in the breeze, and the vivid, tiny whiteflowers seemed to sparkle with a million glancing rays, like frost inthe sunshine; but the deep intensity of the red color lent a weird andunpleasant suggestion of blood. Beyond the Silver Lake, low hills rose,faint and mysterious in the purple haze.

Melvar walked beside me when the way was smooth enough; she was talkingvivaciously. She had a keen sense of humor and a lively wit. She seemedto have an almost childishly perfect faith in my power and that of myguns—but I was far from feeling confident.

At sunrise we stopped by a little pool of clear water, drank, and madea meal of the abundant yellow fruit. Astran, with the scintillatingfires kindled again in its jeweled towers by the rising sun, lay farbehind and above us. When we had finished eating, Melvar stood lookingfor a long moment at its glorious sparkling light. She murmured a fewwords beneath her breath, in the Astranian tongue, and turned againtoward the Silver Lake.

In two hours we came to the shore of the great lake. The red scrub grewup to the brink of a bluff a dozen feet high. Below was a broad, baresandy beach, with the gleaming waves, quicksilver white, rolling on ittwo hundred yards away. For a few minutes we stood at the edge of thecliff, in the fringe of crimson brush, and let our eyes wander over thevast flat desert of flowing argent fire. We peered at the misty redhills beyond, trying to penetrate their mysteries, and to read whatlay behind them. Then we scrambled down on the hard white sand. Narograsped his weapon and looked up and down the beach.

"It is along the shore of the Silver Lake," Melvar said, "that thePurple Ones are most frequently found."

"The Purple Ones, again!" I cried. "What are they—decoratedrattlesnakes?" Then, with a sickening sensation of terror, I rememberedthe horrible, half-human purple corpse that I had seen the soldiersbringing into Astran. "Are the Purple Ones men?"

"In form, they are men and women," Melvar said, "but they dwell alonein the thickets like beasts. All of them are old and hideous. Theyare savage, and they have the strength each of many men. Our soldiersmust always hunt them, and fight them to the death. A single man,even though armed, could do nothing against one of them, for theyare terribly strong, and they fight like demons. Their country is notknown, and no children of their kind are ever found. The priests saythat they are of a race of dwarfs that dwell beneath the Silver Lake."

Here was another of the baffling mysteries of this strange world. Infact, I was coming upon unpleasant mysteries much faster than I couldcomfortably stomach them. Lone, purple, savage animals, in the form ofemaciated humans, who prowled about the country like wolves, and likewolves were hunted down by the Astranians! Again I shuddered at thememory of the limp purple corpse the soldiers had carried, and witha strange chill of the heart, I remembered the human footprints thathad been left where my ponies were taken in the desert, and of theeerie, insane laughter that I had heard, or thought I heard, above thewhistling roar.

My thoughts ended with the construction of a mad hypothesis of a raceof purple folk who lived beyond the Silver Lake, who were accustomedto make slave raids on the whites in torpedo-shaped airships, and whomade a practise of releasing, or turning out, the superannuated onesof their kind to prey on the people of the crystal city. It seemed,in fact, quite plausible at the time, but I was far from the hideoustruth. I could see no reason, if one race could attain a civilizationhigh enough to synthetize diamonds for building stone, why anothermight not be able to build ships as marvelous as the red torpedoes.But my reason rebelled at the acceptance of the ideas of demonic andsupernatural horrors my emotional self tried to force upon it.

The Touch of the Metal

Presently I roused myself and led the way down the white waves. Mycompanions held back nervously and warned me not to touch it, or Iwould die as Jorak had done. But I succeeded in filling a test tubewith the stuff. It was not transparent. It was white, gleaming,metallic, like mercury, or molten silver. I carried it back up to thebluff and set about examining it, while Naro stood guard, and Melvarwatched me. She asked innumerable questions, concerning not only theoperation in hand, but on such subjects as the appearance of a cat,and Fifth Avenue styles of ladies' garments. Upon which (the lattersubject), however, I was lamentably ignorant. And so often did Ipause, to answer her questions, to laugh at the naive quaintness ofher phrases, or to let my eyes rest on her charming face, that theattempted analysis of the metal did not progress with any remarkablecelerity.

The silver liquid was very mobile and very light, having a specificgravity of only .25, or not even four times that of liquid hydrogen,which is .07. It was extremely corrosive. Tiny bits of wood or paperwere entirely consumed on contact with it, with the liberation,apparently, of carbon dioxide and water vapor, and a dense purple gasthat I could not identify. That suggested, of course, that the stuffcontained oxygen, but as to how much, or in what combination, I had noidea. A drop of it on a larger piece of paper set it afire. I found,too, when testing the electrolytic qualities of the liquid, that when Iintroduced into it a copper and a silver coin, electrically connected,that the stuff was rapidly decomposed into the purple vapor, with thegeneration of a powerful current. But the metal seemed not affected atall. That was another puzzling result. My experiments, of course, werecomparatively crude, and when I had gone as far as I could, I reallyknew little more about the silver liquid than in the beginning.

Despite Melvar's warning, and my own precautions, I splashed a dropof it on my arm. She cried out in horror, and I saw that a splotch ofpurple was spreading like a thin film over the skin. There was no pain,but the muscles of the arm were seized with sudden and uncontrollableconvulsions. Melvar tried to wash the stain off with water from mycanteen. In an hour the color had faded, though the limb was still soreand painful.

By that time, the purple disc of the sun was sinking low, and we tookthought of how to spend the night. Naro climbed up on the plain togather a few of the fruits for our supper, and we found a little cavein the bluff that seemed a good place of shelter. I gathered an armfulof the red brush and made a fire.

The leaves burned fiercely, crackling as if they contained oil. Thefire produced a great volume of acrid black smoke. Combustion wasgreatly accelerated on account of the increased atmospheric pressurehere, many thousand feet below sea level. Melvar and Naro wereintensely interested in the performance, although they had seen Austenlight a fire while he was in the city.

Melvar slept in the cavern, and Naro and I took turns at standing guardat the entrance. The darting pencils of crimson were abroad again, butthey passed far overhead, and we heard the sounds of their passage onlyas vast and distant sighs. In the morning we rose early, and clamberedback up the cliffs. I was in rather a puzzling situation. Clearly myduty was to get Austen's equipment to him as quickly as possible, butI liked neither to desert Melvar and her brother, nor to let themaccompany me into the unknown perils of the region beyond. But thelatter course seemed the best, and they were ready enough to go with meanywhere.

The Land of Madness

Having retraced our course of the day before for perhaps a mile, inorder to get upon the upland, we set out for the north. The sun wasjust rising above the black rim when Naro shouted and pointed at themist-clad red hills beyond the Silver Lake. At first I looked in vain;then I caught a faint flicker of amber light, pulsing up through thepurple air.

Abruptly a vast mellow golden beam of light sprang from behind thedistant scarlet hills and spread up toward the zenith in a deepyellow flood. It seemed to vibrate, to throb with incredibly rapidfluctuations. Suddenly, bright swift-changing formless shapes of greenand red flared up within it, shot up the beam, and vanished. Theradiance dimmed and died. I could see nothing, but somehow I felt thatan invisible beam of vibrant force was still pouring up into the sky.Here was another manifestation of the unknown power beyond the sea. Thebeam had come. So far as visibility was concerned, it was gone. Whathad been its meaning, its purpose?

Beyond the Silver Lake, low cliffs rose above a broad sandy beach,faintly veiled by the purple mist. The red hills were fainter stillabove them, and the thicker pall of purple haze that hung over thehidden place beyond, stood out distinctly against the distant, steepblack wall that threw his jagged crags to the sky so far above. Outof that vale of mystery the ray had leapt—and died. Or had it merelyfaded, and was now, invisible ... pulsing still?

All seemed as it had been before, but from the attitude of mycompanions I knew there was more to come. They were gazing up into thesun-bright void above and waiting expectantly.

Then I saw, far, far above, growing gradually brighter against the sky,as if it were being projected there by a great magic lantern behindthe hills, an upright bar of silver haze. Slowly it grew brighter andits outlines sharper until it looked like a vertical bar of silvermetal in the sky—inconceivably huge. The length of the bar must havebeen miles, its diameter, many hundreds of yards. It hung still in theheavens, neither rising nor falling. Here was the display, indeed, ofalien science and power!

Presently I recovered from my first wonder, and became consciousthat the blue eyes of Melvar were upon me quite as much as on theastonishing thing in the sky. "Melvar, have you seen it before?" Iasked. "Is it real—natural? Is it made by man?" I found to my surprisethat my voice was odd and quavery. I had not realized the intensity ofmy nervous strain. I waited eagerly for the reassurance that she couldnot give.

"It comes often," she replied. "Every day for many months of the year.The priests say that it is the evil goddess of the under-earth, wholoves the Purple Sun and flies to the sky to meet him. But the Sun goeson unheeding, and the goddess cries silver tears until her Lord is gonefrom the sky. But there is yet more to see."

I looked up again and saw that a faint colored mist was gatheringabout the bar. It grew brighter, condensed, seemed drawn into swirlingrings by a sort of magnetic attraction. And the iridescent mist-ringsswam about the bar, moved ever faster until they were whirling madly.Their coruscating shapes grew brighter, plainer, until they were vivid,spinning flames of color in the sunshine. I noticed that the red wasabout the center of the silver bar, and that the bands of color aboveand below ran regularly to the other end of the spectrum, with ringsof violet at the bottom and at the top. During all this time I heard nosound. It was as still as death.

Still the color-rings spun and changed, growing ever brighter andsharper edged. The red band grew larger about the center, until itsdiameter was the length of the cylinder. It gleamed with a luridscarlet light. Below and above were spinning, burning circles oforange, yellow, green, and blue, each thinner than the one next nearerthe center, and of smaller diameter. And the violet rings had shrunk togreat globes of violet fire, shining with painful intensity.

Indeed, as Melvar had said, there had been more to see. The thing wasso utterly strange, so utterly inexplicable, that I was grasped ina paralysis of unfamiliar terror, my breath choked off and my heartbeating wild with fear, staring straight at it. It was so definitelydirected by intelligence that I felt it must spring from a weird andawful mind. Indeed, it seemed that I felt the power of a vast and alienwill stealing over me, seizing command of me, making me the slave ofitself. I struggled against it. I clenched my hands and knotted mymuscles with the intensity of my resistance to the spell. Wheelingsparks of red fire swam before my eyes.

Then my efforts weakened. I could hold out no longer. The alien willhad won. Reason and feeling and love flowed away and left me as coldand cruel as a rock in a stormy, wintry coast—a savage, inhumananimal. Care had left me. My soul had lost her throne. I laughed. Awild, unearthly sound it was, like that I had heard as I lay beneaththe tent beyond the barrier.

I whirled around fiercely, but a firm arresting hand was laid on myshoulder. From afar off, deep blue eyes looked into mine—eyes thatwere cool and sane and brave. They shone through the red curtains ofinsanity in my brain. They broke the spell of fear.

Suddenly I was very weak, and trembling and sick. Melvar's lithe armswere close about me. Her throbbing heart was close to mine. And in herdark, warm blue eyes, so close to mine, were sympathy, and tenderness,and love. She was human; she was real. I knew that her love wouldshield me from these terrors. I smiled at her, and sank down weakly inthe red brush. But she had saved my mind. I had wandered on the brinkof the fearful insanity of terror, and she had brought me back.

I looked from her sweet face, so full of anxious concern to the thingin the sky. But now it seemed remote, unreal, and I gazed at it withweak indifference. Presently I saw that the whole thing was beginningto sink as though a weight were being accumulated upon it. Suddenlyan immense gleaming globule of silver fell from the lower violetglobe and dropped straight for the Silver Lake, while the weird formof lights that had made it floated back to its former elevation. Thegreat shining sphere fell and struck the white lake with a deafeningroar, sending out great concentric waves in all directions. The amazingthing sank again, released a second huge drop, and rose. The processwas repeated again and again, the interval being, by my watch, about 3minutes, 15.2 seconds. All day it went on, with the great waves washingup the bluffs above the beach, and before night the level of the SilverLake stood perceptibly higher.

Here was the mystery of the origin of the Silver Lake explained, butby a phenomenon far more inexplicable than the sea itself. In vain Itried to account for it in some rational way, or to assign some naturalcause for the thing. My mind could hardly grasp it. It was almostunbelievable, even as I looked upon it. My reason would not admit thatsuch a thing could be in a rational world.

CHAPTER VIII

Stalked by the Purple Beast

So weak was I after that terrible experience that it was noon before Ifelt able to go on. The thing, as I have said, continued to hang in thesky all day, and to drop regularly its burden of the silver liquid. Butpresently I became accustomed to it, and realized that it threatened uswith no immediate danger.

After a light lunch of the yellow fruit, and a deep draught of waterfrom a little stream that seemed almost parallel to our route of marchfor a mile or two, we retired to the higher ground where the scrub wasnot so dense as in the bottom of the valley, and set out for the northagain. Still I was feeling mentally limp—dully indifferent to what waspassing about—and physically exhausted as well. I was not as much onmy guard against the weird perils of the place as I should have been.

Several times Naro stopped and listened, declaring that somethingwas following us, keeping in the cover of waist-high brush in thebottom of the little valley along the side of which we were traveling.But I could hear nothing. Melvar, for once, had ceased her eagerinterrogation, and was entertaining me with the legendary accountof the past great heroes of Astran. She sang me a few passages fromthe epic in her native tongue. Her voice was clear and pure and verybeautiful. And though the words were strange to me, their sound wasnoble and suggestive, and there was a powerful, compelling rhythm inthe lines. She translated the story into English. It was about suchan epic poem as might have been expected, dealing with the adventuresof an immortal hero, who had once conquered the Purple Ones, set upthe vast palaces of Astran, and at last lost his life on an expeditionacross the Silver Lake to battle the Krimlu.

Suddenly her sweet voice was interrupted by a low, tense cry fromNaro, who had fiercely gripped my arm. I turned in time to see a weirdfigure, gnarled and stooped, with long white hair, slink swiftly andfurtively from a great rock to the shelter of the red brush. Squat andbent as it was, there was no mistaking that it was human in shape, andthat the skin was purple.

In the dull apathy in which I was sunken, I could not realize thedanger. "I guess a rifle bullet will fix it," I said.

"The Purple Ones have more power than you know," cried Melvar. "Let ustry to get on more open ground before it attacks. Then it will have toleave its cover."

So we turned and ran away from the stream, to a rocky hillside, wherethe red scrub grew low and scant. As we ran I heard a crashing behindus. Once I turned quickly, and raised my rifle. The strange figuredarted abruptly into view, and I fired on the instant. I think I hitit, for it spun around quickly, and fell to the ground. But in a momentit was up, and running toward us with an agility that was incredible,springing over the red brush in great bounds, with a motion more likethat of a monstrous hopping insect than of a human being. His whitehair was flying in wild disorder, his shrunken limbs plainly flashingpurple. And a terrible sound came from it as it bounded along—nota scream of rage or of pain, but a weird uncanny laugh, that rangstrangely over the red plain, and somehow made us pause in our race,and tremble with alien terror.

A Narrow Escape

But we broke the icy fingers of fear that gripped our hearts, and ranon until we reached a great flat rock that lay at the upper edge ofthe bare space, in the edge of the thickets again. I lifted Melvar inmy arms until she could reach the top and scramble up. Then I lookedback and saw the purple man leaping across the clearing with incrediblespeed, not two hundred yards away.

Then Naro and I got up on that rock—I have never been able to rememberjust how we did it. I dropped to my knees, seized the rifle that I hadpushed up before me, and began to pump lead at the beast as fast asI could work the bolt. The recoils of the gun seemed almost a steadythrust. I heard the bullets thud into the purple body. I saw it checkedor driven back by the impacts. One bullet took it off its balanceand it fell. But in a moment it was racing on again, empowered bysuper-human energy.

When my rifle was empty it was not twenty feet away. One arm was gone.One side of the body was fearfully torn. The purple face was a hideousmangled thing. It did not bleed, but the wounds were covered with apurple viscous slime. One of the eyes was gone, and the other glaredat us with a wild red light. Anything of ordinary life must long sincehave been dead. But it gathered itself, and leapt for the top of theboulder.

On the day before I had showed Melvar how to use my guns, merely byway of proof that there was nothing supernatural in the working ofthe weapon that had slain so many of the Astranians in the temple.Now I pushed one of the pistols toward her. She was standing theremotionless, calmly even. There was no panic in her face, and I knewthat she would have the courage to use the weapon to save herself fromthe terrible brute, if things came to the worst. She smiled at me, evenas she picked up the gun. Then, looking at the safety, she gripped itin a business-like way.

As the purple monster sprang upon the boulder, I emptied my automaticinto it. Great wounds were torn in the dark flesh, and half the facewas shot away, but the thing seemed immune to death by ordinary means.As the last shot was fired it stood before us on the rock, a terriblemangled thing, the red eye blazing with demonic inhumanity.

Naro sprang out before me, his crystal sword drawn high. As the beastsprang at him, he cut at it with a mighty sweep of the razor-edgedweapon. But the stroke, which would have decapitated an ordinary human,was parried by a terrific blow of the claw-like hand of the thing, andthe boy was sent spinning back against me. We fell together on the rock.

Then it hurled itself toward Melvar. It all happened in the briefest ofmoments, before I could even begin to rise. She swung up the automaticwith a quick, sure, graceful movement. She was like a beautiful goddessof battle, with blue eyes shining brightly, and golden hair gleamingin the sun. Again that mad laugh was ringing out, with a choking sobin it, for the thing's vocal organs were injured. It leapt at her, itslacerated limbs working like machines. Calmly she stood, with automaticraised. The muzzle of the gun was not an inch from the throat of thebeast when she fired. The strange head was blown completely off thebody, and fell rolling and bouncing to the red brush below. The bodycollapsed, writhing and convulsed. It was not quiet for many minutes.

The girl dropped the gun, suddenly trembling, and threw herself intomy arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Her courage and coolness had saved usall, and I admit that I was quite as much unstrung as she after thedanger had passed. What a wonderful being she was!

The Red Ship

It was so late in the day, and we were so completely exhausted that wedecided to go no farther. Naro was not hurt, save for a few scratches;and I suppose he was the least excited of the three. In a few minuteshe threw the quivering purple body off the boulder and carried it andthe head back across the clearing to dispose of them. When he returnedwe found an overhanging shelf on the north side of the boulder thatwould afford some shelter from the flying lights. We gathered some ofthe yellow fruit for supper, cleaned and reloaded the weapons, andprepared to spend the night there.

Naro called me aside and showed me a curious, much-worn silverbracelet, with a singular design upon it. He told me, in his imperfectEnglish, that it had belonged to his father, who had been taken by theflying lights many years before. That was a curious development. Itshowed that there was some connection between the dreaded Purple Ones,and the terrible, pillaging red lights. But the full significance ofit did not dawn upon me until later.

By that time I was in a measure accustomed to the passage of therushing, whistling needles of crimson fire, and during the first partof the night I was able to sleep, while Naro sat up to keep watch. Atmidnight he awakened me, and we changed places. The sky was crossedand recrossed by the faint and flickering tracks of red, and the nightwas weirdly lit by the torpedo-shapes of scarlet flame that sped uponthem. With a fatuous sense of security, I was leaning back against theboulder, smoking my pipe and caressing the cold metal of the rifle inmy hand, dreaming of what Melvar and I might do if ever we were toemerge into the world alive.

The red thing was upon me before I knew it. The light of my pipe musthave been visible to it. In my accursed thoughtlessness, that dangerhad never occurred to me. The thing came plunging down, flooding thelandscape with its lurid crimson radiance, while the earth vibrated toits whistling, hissing scream. There was no need to waken my companionsfor they sprang to their feet in alarm. We all cowered back against therock in the hope of escaping observation. But the thing had alreadyseen us.

I put my arm about the warm, throbbing body of Melvar, and drew herclose to my breast. Her own cool white hand grasped mine as silently wewaited.

The red object came down swiftly, paused just above the crimsonthickets before us, then settled deliberately to earth. It was thefirst opportunity I had had for a close examination of these things.The shape was plainly cylindrical, tapering toward the ends. It wasperhaps ten feet in diameter, and a hundred long. Set on the forwardend was a bright green globe, perhaps three feet in diameter.

A clump of brush about the end of the cylinder burst into flame. Asthe bright crimson hue began to dull, I grasped suddenly the fact thatthe red color was due to the red heat generated by friction with theair, which was very great at the meteor pace the thing attained. It laythere, not fifty yards away, with the fire blazing and crackling aboutthe end on our right, and eating its way into the thickets. The greensphere on the other end seemed to stare at us like a great intent eye.The red color slowly faded. Suddenly Melvar gripped my arm.

"Why wait?" she whispered. "Perhaps it does not see us after all. Letus slip around the boulder."

But on the instant we moved a great oval space swung out of theside of the cylinder. We saw that the door and walls were of abluish white metal, and were very thick. It was very dark inside. Ablood-congealing, eerie laugh sounded out of that darkness, and Ishuddered. Quickly five human-like figures leaped one by one out ofthe oval doorway. With heart-chilling fear, I saw, by the flickeringlight of the burning thicket, that long white hair hanging about faceswrinkled and hideously aged, with toothless gums, red glaring eyes, andskin that was purple. Without a moment's hesitation, the five nakedmonsters rushed down upon us.

The fire was fast blazing higher and burning rapidly into the brushbetween us and the cylinder, and we could see the purple beastsquite plainly in its light. And they were hideous to look upon. Theycame toward us with monstrous springing bounds, actuated by someextraordinary force. Their muscles must have been far stronger thanthose of men, perhaps as strongly constructed as those of insects.Or, since muscular force depends on the intensity of nerve currents,perhaps their nerves were extraordinarily excited. And there wassomething insect-like in the way life had lingered in the body of theone we had killed, when it had already many wounds that should havebeen mortal.

I leveled my rifle, drew a bead on the neck of the foremost one, andfired. I must have had the luck to shatter the bones, for the headdropped limply to the side. The thing stopped abruptly, groping blindlyabout with its talon-like fingers. It seemed very strange that itdid not fall. In an instant one of the others ran close by it. Thecrippled monster sprang savagely at the other, and in a moment theywere writhing and struggling in the brush, tearing at one another withtiger-like ferocity. The others passed by them for a moment, while Ifinished emptying the rifle, without visible results.

Saved by Fire

BY that time the crackle of the swiftly spreading fire had grown to adull roar. It swept fast across the brush, red flames flaring high,and dense smoke rolling up into the night. The purple beasts did notappear to see it. They made no effort to avoid the flames. Were theyinvulnerable to fire? Or was fire merely unknown to them as to thepeople of Astran?

The three rushed straight on toward us, disregarding the rushing wallof flame not a dozen yards to the right of them. I kept firing madly.The leg of one went limp, but he leapt on with scarcely diminishedspeed, laughing terribly, with the white hair flying about the awfulface, and the purple limbs moving frenziedly. The flames rushed overthe fallen two and hid them. In another instant the curtain of fire hadrolled over the others, and even the ship was hidden from our view.

Suddenly I realized that we were in quite as much danger from the fireas from the monsters. Already we were shrinking from the hot wind thatblew before the flames, and half choked by the acrid fumes. For thesecond time we made a mad retreat to the top of the boulder, and layflat. I heard a terrible laugh from the flames, and in a moment one ofthe things dashed out. His hair was gone, and the purple flesh burntblack. I shot as it showed itself, and it fell. In another instant theflames had raced over it again. None of the others appeared.

We lay on the rock for several minutes, gasping in the cooler air thatlingered near its surface. For a time the heat was stifling, but thescanty vegetation had burned off quickly, and soon a cool breeze cameup from the south and lifted the smoke. We saw that the cylinder stilllay where it had been, although the heavy body was closed. The greenlight still shone in the forward end. About it the earth lay black andsmoking, and a low line of flame lay below the pall of smoke in a greatring all about us. Between us and the ship I saw in the darkness theblack shadows that were the five dead beasts.

I was just beginning to wonder if all the crew of the ship were dead,so that we might enter and examine it, when the great oval door in theside swung open again, and something sprang out of it into the night. Iheard a strange hissing, and a clatter of metal. In the semi-darknessI could see nothing plainly, but there was a floating shape ofgreenish mist, with a vague form beneath. I strained my eyes to try todistinguish its shape, while it stood motionless.

Abruptly a narrow, intensely bright beam of orange light shot out of itand impinged upon the rock. There was a dull thud from the rock, andthe ray was dead in a moment. But the granite where it had struck wascut away—obliterated! The beam had shone straight through the boulder,carrying away, or resolving into primary electrons, the matter on whichit had struck! The smooth edges of the cut were glowing with a softviolet radiance.

My rifle was at hand, and on recovering from my surprise, I fired. Iaimed just below the greenish patch. Something must have been explodedby the bullet, for there was a vivid flash of white fire, and a loud,sharp report. The spot of green was visible no longer, and we saw nomotion about the cylinder. At the time I had no idea what it was thatI had shot. I supposed that it had been another of the purple beastsarmed with a strange ray weapon. I imagined that the bullet had struckthe weapon and caused an explosion.

CHAPTER IX

The Battle in the Mist

For perhaps an hour we sat there on the rock. As soon as the smokecleared, we could see the crimson needles flying high upon their vaguered tracks, and we watched them with a sort of hypnotic fascination,dreading the moment when one of them would land to investigate the fateof the ship that lay silent and presumably empty before us. The groundwas still too hot for us to walk upon, and we felt the uselessnessof attempting to escape on foot, even if it had already cooled. Witha feeling of resigned and hopeless horror, we saw one of the crimsonpencils circle lower about the place, then disappear in the directionof its lair beyond the Silver Lake.

Even as the whistling roar of its passage was rolling down upon us,Melvar spoke. How I admire the courage and indomitable resourcefulnessof the girl. When I was hopelessly lost in despair, feeling all thedesolation of this region and the infinite remoteness of the world ofmen, her pure rich voice and the warm living touch of her hand broughtnew courage to me.

"The Krimlu are coming," she cried. "There is no use to try to fightthem, or to try to outrun them. But that ship must be empty. The wallsare metal and strong. Perhaps they could not open it."

While there were several things about the proposition that were notvery attractive, it seemed our best resource; and, besides, I hada keen desire to see the interior of the thing. We gathered up ourequipment, climbed off the boulder, and hurried over to the cylinder. Iwas possessed by a haunting fear that we would find something hideousawaiting us, but the bright pencil of light from my pocket lamprevealed no living being in the long interior, nor could I find evena trace of the green patch that had blown up in front of the door. Wescrambled through the opening without difficulty and I turned a handlethat swung the heavy door shut and evidently locked it.

Then I set about examining the mechanism, for I had an intensecuriosity about the propulsive force that enabled the vessel to attaina speed that must have reached thousands of miles per hour. In oneend were rows of long cylinders of a transparent substance, evidentlyfilled with the metallic fluid from the Silver Lake. Pipes ran fromthem to a complex mechanism in the rear end of the ship, from whichheavy conduits ran all over the inside of the metal hull. While myunderstanding of it all was far from complete, I was able to verifya previous idea—that the strange vessels were driven by use of therocket principle. It seems that the silver fluid was decomposedin the machine, and that the purple gas it formed, at a very hightemperature, was forced out through the various tubes at a terrificvelocity, propelling the ship by its reaction. The whistling roar ofthe things in motion was, of course, the sound of the escaping gas, andthe red-purple tracks were merely the expelled gas hanging in the air.

The green globe in the forward end may have been the objective lensfor a marvelous periscope. At any rate the walls of the forward partof the shell seemed transparent. And the periscope must have utilizedinfra-red rays, for the scene about us seemed much brighter than it,in reality, was. We could see very plainly the burned plain and thegranite rock, and once, through a rift in the clouds of smoke that wererising all about, I caught a glimpse of the gleaming city of Astran,high above us in the west.

I noticed a slender lever, with a corrugated disc at the top, risingout of the floor in the bow of the ship. It occurred to me that it wasthe control lever. I took hold of it and gingerly pushed it back. Greatjets of purple gas rushed past the transparent walls about us, and theship slid backward on the ground. The sensation of motion was mostalarming. The illusion of the transparency of the bow of the ship wasso perfect that it seemed almost as if we were hanging in space a fewfeet in front of the mouth of an open tube. It was impossible for me torealize that I was surrounded by solid walls of metal, until I touchedthem. I think the wonderful telescope worked on much the same principleas television apparatus—that is, that the rays of light were pickedup, converted into electrical impulses, amplified, and then projectedon the metal wall, which served as a screen.

Battle In the Air

I returned to my experiments with the lever. The control was relativelysimple. The vessel was propelled forward when the lever was pushedforward, and reversed when the lever was pulled back. Slipping thelittle disc up or down raised or lowered the prow, and twisting thething accomplished the steering in the horizontal plane.

By the time my cautious experiments had revealed all of that, Melvarhad pointed out three slender crimson craft, wheeling low about us,and evidently preparing to land. I pulled the knob up, and pushed itforward all the way. A pale red beam shot ahead. The black landscapedropped away from us, and we hurtled through the air of the night. Iwas amazed at the lack of any great sensation of motion, and that thejets of gas, for all their appalling roar without, were barely audiblewithin the cylinder. Still the fore part of the ship was transparentfrom within, so that we had the oddest sensation of floating free inspace.

I saw that the three ships had fallen in a line behind us, and werefollowing at the same terrific pace. When we had reached an altitude ofperhaps a mile, I twisted the knob to bring the helm about, and we shotover the Silver Lake, which lay like a white desert of moonlit sandbeneath us, standing out sharply against the dark plain around it. Ina moment we had gone over it, and over the low hills beyond, and intothe bank of purple mist. I had hoped to have time to land and have thevessel on the ground below, but I looked back and saw that our pursuerswere gaining swiftly, and that slender twisting rays of bright orangeand green were darting toward us from the hurtling arrow-like ships ofred.

In the darkness and the mist we could see nothing of the ground below.The only visible things were a few mist-veiled stars above, and thebright scarlet torpedoes that shot after us. Quickly I circled andraised the helm. I was almost intoxicated with excitement, and theindescribable sensations of our swift and lofty flight. I felt releasedfrom all the weaknesses of the body; I felt as if I had conquered theforce that holds all men to earth. I felt a new and wonderful sensationof freedom and power. I had but to move the little piece of metal in myhand to go where I pleased with the speed, almost, of light. But stillcame the line of ships behind us, at an incredible pace, stabbing at uswith the green and orange rays.

Then, high above the others, I brought the ship around in a hair-pinturn, and plunged directly at them. They tried to turn aside, whiletheir rays shot thickly toward us, but our speed was too great. Theforemost suddenly turned broadside toward us, attempting to get out ofour path. I held our bow directly at it; raised it a trifle at thelast instant. The keel of our vessel struck the other amidships. Theterrific crash of the collision hurled us to the floor.

When I regained my feet we were falling in a crazy twisting path, ourship altogether out of control. No sooner was I on my feet than thefloor tilted up again and I fell back to my hands and knees. I saw thatthe one we had struck was broken in two and plunging toward the earthfar behind us, while the other two were circling about, far overhead.The mist about us grew thicker until the other ships, and the fragmentsof the wrecked one, were strangely colored purple; thicker still, untilthey vanished. We floated in a world of purple fog.

I seized the control lever as soon as our wild gyrations enabled me toreach it, but my unskilled efforts only resulted in making us roll andtwist more wildly. So long as we had been on an even keel the pilotinghad been easy enough, although I imagine my success in ramming theother ship had been largely due to luck; but the blow against us hadbeen sidewise, setting the ship to spinning like a top. It seemed thatwe fell an interminable time. Whenever the stern pointed downward fora moment, I pushed the lever forward, to check our fall as much aspossible.

Through the mist I suddenly caught a glimpse of the dark ground below.In another instant the vessel had struck heavily, throwing us againstthe floor again.

Day was beginning to break at last, and we could see that we had fallenon a bare, gravelly hilltop. The clear space was only an acre or soin extent. We were shut in on all sides by a dense, dark forest ofgigantic trees, that rose threateningly, seeming to grasp us, to closein on us. The purple mist hung in a sombre curtain overhead, onlyfaintly lighted by the coming day.

The Silver Falls

Naro and I strapped on our packs, picked up our weapons, and openedthe door. The three of us stepped out to face the perils of anotherworld. What they might be, we did not know. I had no idea, even, whatpart of the country was inhabited by the Krimlu. But Austen had notlet himself be conquered by the mere strangeness of the place. I stillhoped to be able to find him, although a search in such a jungle asthat about us seemed hopeless.

The walls of the rocket-ship were still glowing dully red with the heatof its passage through the air, and we hurried away over the gravelfor fifty yards, to get beyond the fierce heat it radiated. The patchof sky above was a dull, dusky, luminescent purple. It seemed almostas if the mist shut out the daylight and lit the valley with a weirdradiance of its own. All about us towered the forest. As the lightgrew better, we could see that the trees were red. They bore the samefeathery fronds, the same star-like flowers of brilliant white, and thesame golden-brown fruits as the plants of the plain about Astran. Butthey were immensely greater; they towered up hundreds of feet. It waslike a forest of the tree-ferns of the Carboniferous period, save forthe deep bloody scarlet of the leaves. In fact, I think the red plantsare descended from some of them, strangely developed by the unusualclimatic conditions of the crater, or by the purple mist.

The ground all about the gravelly knoll was low and marshy, and the airwas heavy with the odors of rotting vegetation. There was no wind; andthe air, under the great atmospheric pressure, was heavy, moist andhot. It was oppressive. It hung like a weight upon our chests. And thecrimson jungle seemed to possess a terrible life and spirit of its own.It did not belong to our world.

The undergrowth was very thick. The higher branches were dimmed by thepurple mist. They seemed almost to reach the heavy, dull purple sky. Itappeared useless to try to penetrate it. It was an evil being waitingto seize us the moment we crossed its bounds.

I got out my compass, and we decided to try to make our way toward thenorth, in the direction of the pass by which we supposed Austen tohave rounded the Silver Lake. As I had last noted our position abovethe mist, with reference to the lake and the crater walls, we had beenabout fifteen miles south of the pass, at an estimate. I hoped, bytaking a course in that direction, to come across some trace of Austen.

As we approached the north side of the clearing, I made a startlingdiscovery.

In the side of the hill was a deposit of iron pyrites. Not that therewas anything remarkable about that. But the thing that struck me wasthat the vein had been recently worked! I sprang down in the pit andfound on the rock traces of copper that had evidently come from softcopper tools. I knew that Austen would have needed minerals, that,indeed, if he had set up a wireless outfit in here, he must have beencompelled to do an immense amount of work in collecting and refiningthe needed materials. I had little doubt that he had been there, but ithad been evidently weeks or months ago. Any trail that he might havemade through the forest would have already grown up.

I thought the situation over for a while, but still there seemednothing better to do than to follow our original plan of exploring thejungle to the north. We plunged into the crimson gloom. Without thecompass we would have been quickly lost. Even with it, it was hardenough to keep in the same direction, walking over the marshy, soddenground and breaking a path through the heavy undergrowth. We were sooncovered with mud and dyed red with the stain of the weird vegetation.

For many hours we struggled through a wilderness of endless sameness—adank morass, a crimson jungle, with the dusky purple sky hangingheavily in the treetops. The bloody scarlet gloom was startling andterrible.

At first the forest had been quiet, with a silence that was dead anddepressing, for there were no living things about us. No birds, noinsects—not even a bright moth or butterfly. It was a wildernessof death. But presently we heard, far ahead of us, a dull, constantroar, that grew ever louder as we went on. I supposed that we wereapproaching a great waterfall. At last it grew so loud that we had toshout when we wished one another to hear our words. I was glad of theroar, for it drowned the sound of our progress through the jungle. Butthe forest was so dense that there seemed little danger of our captureunless we stumbled unaware on the habitation of the Krimlu.

Abruptly the jungle ended, and we stepped out on a bare ledge of stone.Before us was one of the most magnificent spectacles that I havebeheld. To the west of us a great black cliff rose perhaps a thousandfeet—until it was almost lost against the lowering, smoky purple ofthe sky. Over it plunged a vast sheet of the glowing white liquid ofthe Silver Lake, falling in a gigantic unbroken arch to the immensepool beneath us, where it broke, with a deafening roar, into a gleamingbank of soft silver haze. Surrounding the black rock rims of the pool,the gloomy crimson of the forest closed in. The pool was a thousandfeet across. The whole scene was colossal; it was awe-inspiring andimpressive for the strangeness and intensity of its color.

There was no visible outlet for the silver liquid; so I knew that itmust find its way off underground. I knew that we must be far belowthe level of the Silver Lake and the plain beyond. That fact may haveaccounted for the more luxuriant growth of the red vegetation.

Suddenly Naro reported the discovery of the comparatively fresh printof a hob-nailed boot in a little patch of mould on the rock. That setus to looking again for traces of Austen, and presently we found afairly well-defined trail that led off to the east. We followed iteagerly. When we had gone perhaps a mile we came to an outcropping seamof coal. There I found the plain marks of a copper pick. Evidently agood deal of coal had been dug up and carried off down the trail.

CHAPTER X

Austen's Retreat

Perhaps two hundred yards farther on we came to the camp. It was on alittle hilltop below a giant tree. By the trunk was a little mud-daubedhut, with an open shed in front of it. By the shed was a rude clayfurnace, with piles of coal, some strange ore, and large lumps ofnative copper lying by it. Beneath the shed was what appeared to bea small steam turbine, with a kettle-like boiler of hammered copper.Connected with it was a dynamo of crude but ingenious construction.Also there was a rude forge, and hammers, anvils, saws and drills, allof copper or bronze, and a device that I supposed had been used fordrawing wire.

Simple as it seemed, that camp of Austen's was perhaps the mostremarkable thing I came across in the crater. Austen was a wonderfulman. Having not only an exhaustive knowledge of a half dozen fieldsof science—and he had not mere theories, but a practical, workingknowledge—he had also courage and determination, patience and manualskill, and a great deal of resourcefulness and invention. While theaverage man would hardly have been able to keep alive in the jungle,Austen was able to do such things as smelt and refine ore, and setup complicated and workable electrical machinery. Of course he wasfortunate in finding himself in a place where practically no effortwas needed to satisfy his physical needs, and where he found variousnatural resources in available and easily accessible form. But I shallnever cease to wonder at his accomplishments of less than a year.

I was struck by a sudden fear that we had come too late, and thatsomething had happened to him. "Austen," I shouted, "Austen, are youhere?"

For answer, an old man whom I recognized joyfully as the old scientistappeared in the rude doorway of the hut. His clothing was tatteredbeyond description, and he looked very worn and thin. There were linesof age and care about his wrinkled face. But his hair was neatlybrushed, and he had just been shaving, for his safety razor was in hishand. A smile of astonishment and incredulous joy sprang over his face.For a moment he was speechless. Then the old familiar voice called outuncertainly, almost sobbing with joy.

"Winfield! Melvar! Naro! Can it really be you? At last!"

Then, as if he were a little ashamed of the feeling he had shown, hepulled out his pipe and began to try to fill it, his fingers tremblingwith emotion. But Melvar sprang to him and threw her arms about him ina way that gave me a momentary pang of jealousy. He stuck the pipe backin his pocket, grinning awkwardly, in a way that tightened the stringsof my heart.

"I forgot," he said. "My tobacco was all gone a week ago."

I shook his hand, and it clung to mine for a moment as if he wereseeking support. Then Naro placed his palm upon Austen's shoulder inthe customary greeting of Astran.

"I'd almost given up," the old man said. "The world is so far awaythat it seems almost unreal. After I had sent the wireless call a fewtimes the devilish rustling in the sky got too close for comfort, and Idecided that the hissing red lights, whatever they are, were about tolocate me by the signals. So I quit that. But how did you come over?"

I told him briefly about the adventure with the red ship.

"Yes, I knew that the things were ships of some kind," he said whenI had finished. "I have been working on the quicksilver stuff, andmaking a few exploring trips. I have discovered several things. I hadto work—to work endlessly—to keep going. Sometimes I got to feelingpretty low. Then I would shave, and try to clean up like a civilizedman. And I kept repeating all the poetry I knew—that helped a lot. ButLord—you haven't any idea how glad I am to see you.—By the way, didyou bring the spectroscope and tubes?"

By way of reply, I took off the pack that contained them. He beganto open it with as much enthusiasm as a small boy investigating aChristmas present. Suddenly he paused and looked at us. "But you don'tlook like you've had any holiday yourselves. What has happened to you?"

"Two or three things," I told him. "It hasn't been a holiday at all. Doyou happen to have any coffee left? I left mine in the tent outside thecliffs."

"And how about a little hot Mulligan stew to go with it?" he grinned,beckoning the way inside.

The Scientist Speaks

So we went into the cabin. Most of the room seemed to be devoted to hiscrude laboratory equipment. On one of his benches were several roughlymodeled pottery jars, filled with the liquid from the Silver Sea. Hisbunk was in a screened off corner.

In a few minutes he had the coffee-pot boiling over a charcoal brazier.I believe that aroma is about the most pleasant that ever reached mynostrils. I was too much absorbed in it to do much talking, but Melvarsat down on one of Austen's rustic stools and gave him an account ofour adventures.

When the coffee was done, Austen served a meal consisting in additionof a great pot of steaming soup made of the yellow fruits cooked withthe tender roots of the red plants. That stands out in my memory as oneof the truly magnificent repasts that have ever been laid before me.When we had finished Melvar retired to Austen's bunk, and Naro and Ilay down on a blanket on the laboratory floor. I went to sleep at once,and, if I may credit the word of our host, slept for thirty-seven and ahalf hours. Although I am inclined to believe that is an exaggeration.

At any rate, when I got up, I felt a new man. Austen had set up theapparatus we brought. He had a test tube full of the silver liquid setup in a beam of X-rays, and the spectroscope in position to examine thedense purple gas that was rising from the stuff.

"How is it coming?" I asked him.

He shook his head sadly. "I don't know," he said. "I have a theory, butit doesn't seem to work out right. The key is in sight but it alwayseludes me. There is energy stored in the silver liquid. It may be thatthat amazing thing in the sky stores the energy of sunlight in thestuff. You know that the energy in sunlight amounts to something overone horsepower for each square yard on which it falls. Or perhaps theatomic energy of the gases in the air is released. It seems impossibleto find the key, although I have been able to analyze the stuff prettyaccurately. If I had it I could make the silver stuff go off like tentimes its weight of T.N.T."

"Do you think," I asked him eagerly, "that you could set off some of itand wipe out the Krimlu?"

"Winfield," the old scientist soberly replied, "even if you could,would you wipe out a whole civilization—a science so high as thatwhich made the Silver Lake—a culture equal to, if not above, that ofour own world?"

"If you had seen those purple things—men and women that are old andhideous, and fearfully strong and malignant—you couldn't move tooquickly to blot them off the earth," I cried.

"I have seen," he said seriously. "I have seen the purple monsters, andthey are terrible enough. But they are not the masters. They are butthe servants, or perhaps I should say the machines, of a higher power.I told you that I had been exploring a bit. I have seen some strangethings.

"There is another form of intelligence here, Winfield. A form of lifeunrelated to humanity, without any sympathy for mankind, for any shareof human feelings. Perhaps it is a danger to the human race. The thingswould not hesitate, I suppose, to use all humanity as they have usedthe people of Astran. But that does not solve the problem. Would itbe right to wipe them out? Perhaps it would be better for mankind to gounder. Perhaps they are superior to us. The purposes of the creationof intelligent life might be better met by these things than by man. Ihave given it a great deal of thought, and I can't decide."

He fell silent and presently I said, "You say there is another form oflife here. What is it like?"

"You will know soon enough. I wish I had never seen. It is not a goodthing to talk about. There is no use for me to tell you."

The Chasm of the Strange Machine

He would tell me no more. Presently I left him and went down to bathein the stream of water that flowed back of the camp. The water wassluggish and tepid, certainly not invigorating, but it was cleansing.When I got back Melvar and Naro were up. The girl had been very glad tosee Austen again. She was talking with him, very vivacious, and verybeautiful. When I saw her, I loved her, if possible more than ever.

As soon as we had eaten, Austen began to dismount the spectrometerand other equipment, and to pack them. "I can go no farther with theexperiments here," he said. "I am going to take the outfit to a placewhere we can see one of the engines of the Krimlu, where the silverliquid is broken up. There I may be able to get the clue I need."

In an hour we were ready to depart. Austen led the way, silent andpreoccupied with the details of his work. We went down a narrow trailthrough the stagnating marshes, in the eldritch gloom of the weird redjungle, under the dull purple mist. For many hours we were on the way,until the purple dusk began to thicken, and a distant sighing whistletold us that night had fallen, and that the evil masters were abroadagain.

Suddenly Austen called out in a guarded tone for us to halt. We allcrept forward cautiously until we could see over the brink of a vastcircular chasm. Sheer black walls, ringed by the red jungle, fell for athousand feet. The round floor was a half mile across. Upon it was themost gigantic and amazing mechanical device I have ever seen. The thingwas incredibly huge, and throbbing with strange energy. It made littlesound, but the space about us seemed vibrant with power.

In the center of the pit was a titanic, shining green cylinder,perhaps a hundred feet in diameter and five hundred in length. A riverof gleaming silver fluid ran from an opening in the rock, through agreat open aqueduct, and poured into the cylinder in the middle of theupperside. At each end of the colossal cylinder rose a metal tower. Atthe top of each tower was a fifty-foot globe of blue crystal, slowlyturning. Between and above the spheres arched a high-flung span ofwhite fire—a great pulsing sheet of milky opalescent light—thatroared and crackled like a powerful electric discharge, and lit thechasm with an unearthly radiance.

Toward the farther side of the floor was a second enormous machine,apparently unconnected with the first, resembling a vast telescope.The white metal tube was a full two hundred feet in length, mounted onmassive metal supports. It did not seem to be in action. The barrel ofit was pointing at the sky, like a telescope, or a cannon.

Then I saw a row of openings low down in the side of the vast greencylinder, with shafts of bright green light pouring from them. And Isaw tiny human figures working feverishly about them. They had escapedmy observation at first, so far away was the floor of the pit. Now Isaw that they were taking great blocks of a luminous green substancefrom the doors in the cylinder and carrying them to the tube that waspointing at the sky.

I saw now that the bodies of the toilers were purple. There wassomething in their motion that reminded me of ants. I was amazed attheir strength and agility, at their ceaseless, machine-like activity.They never looked about, never paused, never rested. They were likemachines, or animated corpses, driven to endless toil by some strangeforce. I remembered the time I had splashed the white fluid on my arm,turning it purple, and the strange excitement of my nerves. At once Ilinked up the raids on Astran, the bracelet that Naro had found onthe dead purple beast, and what Austen had told me of superior beingswho enslaved the purple things. I knew that I looked upon the capturedmen and women of Astran, simply man-machines in this strange place!

Perhaps they were already dead. Certainly they moved, not by their ownvolition, but by a stronger mechanical power. They must have beenunder the absolute hypnotic control of the higher intelligences, whotreated their unfortunate captives, perhaps with the argent liquid, toconvert them into unearthly machines, of super-human strength.

We turned away into the night that had fallen on the red jungle whilewe watched. I was sick with horror. Austen's face was white and hishands were trembling. There was a stern, fierce light in his eye.Now I knew, in spite of what he had said, that were the opportunitygiven him, he would not hesitate to wipe out the masters of thepurple slaves. He said nothing, but his hands worked spasmodically,he muttered under his breath, and his dark eyes snapped with angrydetermination.

In a few minutes we set about preparing the apparatus for the work ofthe night. The spectroscope was set up, with telescopic condensers, tocollect and analyze the radiation of the arch of crackling milky flame.We took care to screen ourselves in the jungle fringe, and to exposeno more of the equipment to the sight of the beings below than wasnecessary. Austen had his drawing board set up in a convenient placebehind our shelter, and he alternately peered through the telescope atthe spectrum, and turned to make intricate calculation in the light ofa shaded flashlight. We sat up all night at the work.

All night long the white flame played between the spinning blue crystalspheres above the vast green cylinder, filling the air with its ghostlycrackle and whisper. All night long the tireless purple human machinestoiled in the pit, carrying the great green blocks, and evidentlystacking them in the vast cannon-like tube at the side. WheneverAusten did not need me with the analysis, I spent the time searchingthat amazing scene, but not once did I catch a glimpse of anythingthat might have been the directing intelligence of all that marvelousactivity.

Melvar had been very tired, and I had contrived a hammock for her froma great sheet of fibrous bark torn from the trunk of one of the redtrees. She spent the night asleep in that, while Austen and I carriedon the work, and Naro, not having scientific inclinations, contentedhimself with a couch composed of a few feathery branches torn from theundergrowth.

CHAPTER XI

What the Analysis Showed

Just before daylight Austen completed his calculations, and stated theresult. He was very tired, and his eyes were red. He had worked for aday and two nights since we had found him. He gave his conclusion in acolorless monotone.

"You know," he said, "that there are several rare gases in the air, inaddition to oxygen and nitrogen. The inert gas argon comprises nearlyone per cent of the atmosphere, and there are, in addition, smallerquantities of helium, neon, xenon, and krypton, not to mention thecarbon dioxide and water vapor. Those gases are monatomic and do notordinarily enter into any compounds at all.

"You know that lightning in the air causes a union of nitrogen andoxygen, to form nitrous and nitric acids, which may later releasetheir energy in the explosion of gun powder or nitroglycerine. Inmuch the same way the force that forms the silver fluid utilizesthe photochemical effect of sunlight to build up a complex moleculecontaining oxygen, nitrogen, and the inert gases of the helium group.It is very unstable, and may be disrupted with the release of a greatamount of energy. I was able to detect the characteristic lines ofmost of the gases in the luminous spectrum of the purple gas, but notuntil I had analyzed the light of the opalescent flame, and made mydeductions from that, was I able to derive the equations and arrive atthe precise structural formula, and at the exact wave length necessaryto break down the molecule."

He proceeded to launch into a detailed technical discussion of theprocess of analysis he had used, and of the methods of inductivereasoning by which he had arrived at his conclusion. It was rather deepfor me, and I am afraid some of the salient points have already slippedmy mind. But I doubt that the general reader would be interested in itanyhow.

Something more important was on my mind. "Have you found out enough?" Iasked. "Can you blow up the stuff? Can you wipe out the Krimlu?"

"I am not sure," he said, "but I think, if I could get at that machinewith a little of my equipment I could manipulate it to make it gooff like a thousand tons of dynamite. The silver stuff runs into thecylinder and is converted into pure vibrant energy. If I could justspeed up the process a bit!

"The Krimlu seem to live underground like ants. A month ago I foundan opening into their world near the cliffs, south of the fall. Thereare the shafts where their ships come out, ventilator tubes, andfunnels for the purple smoke from their engines. I will go down one ofthe shafts and see what can be done."

"You mean we will go," I told him. "You don't think—"

"There is no need for you to risk your life," he said in a voicepurposely brusque to hide his emotion. "I can do as much by myself.Then there is Melvar. We must get her out of here if we can. I thinka great deal of her. If we both should go—and not come back—. No, Iwant you to stay on top. I know I can trust you to treat her fairly. IfI can blast down the earth on their underground world, we might be ableto make it back around the Silver Sea, and eventually to the outside."

"You can trust me, sir, to care for her to the best of my ability," Itold him, looking at the sandal on my right foot, and trying, withoutnotable success, to keep my voice even and casual.

"Really," he cried, looking at me intensely, "do you love her?"

A Declaration

I admitted that I did, even using, as I remember the occasion, ratheran enthusiastic, if hackneyed phrase to describe my feeling.

"I had hoped so," Austen said. "She and you are the dearest ones to mein the world. If you were out and safe, I could—go—in peace."

The rude hammock in which Melvar had been lying sprang into violentmotion and erupted her slender, beautiful figure. She came runningtoward me. "I am sorry," she gasped. "No, I mean I am glad. I wasawake, Winfield. I heard you—" Her further statements were notparticularly coherent, since she was kissing me, and I was holding herin my arms and returning the gesture. I gathered on the whole that myfeelings for her were well reciprocated. Some minutes later, when Icame back to earth, I observed that Austen was taking the equipmentdown, and that Naro was standing and looking at us with an expressionof extreme and comical disgust on his frank and boyish face.

By that time it was light, and soon, by the brightening of the purplehaze above, we knew that the sun was rising. I saw that Austen waslooking into the pit. Melvar and I walked to the edge. The great metaltube, which the purple beings had been all night in loading with thegreen bars, was being swung slowly about upon its mounting, untilpresently it was pointing at the sky above the Silver Sea.

For a moment nothing happened; then a low, deep, humming drone reachedour ears, coming apparently from the complex machinery at the base ofthe tube. Steadily the sound rose in pitch, until it was an intolerablyhigh and painful scream. Suddenly, when the high rhythm of it hadbecome unsupportable, we ceased to hear it; but I knew that it hadmerely passed up the scale beyond the range of our ears, and wassounding still.

Abruptly the colossal tube seemed to flash into green incandescence anda broad beam of yellow light, blindingly brilliant, and pulsing withstrange energy, poured up into the dusky purple sky. Then I knew thatit was this machine that made the amazing thing above the Silver Sea,from which the white liquid fell.

As we watched, bright patches of red and green shot up the beam. Slowlythe bright yellow faded from the ray, but still the green luminosityclung about the tube, and still I felt that the flood of radiant,purposeful energy was flowing up into the sky. It was not long before Iheard, far above us, in the distant west beyond the red-clad hill, thesplash of the first great drop of silver into the argent lake. Below usthe white torrent was still pouring into the vast green cylinder, thewhite fire was still arching between the crystal globes, and the purpleslaves were still rushing about the pit with feverish and machine-likeenergy.

We turned away from the place and walked back into the terrible andweird semi-darkness of the scarlet jungle, still beneath the shadow ofthe evil intelligence that ruled the crater. I had the knowledge ofMelvar's love, and the bright charm of her nearness, but I felt theunholy power of the jungle already closing about to crush us.

We reached the camp long before night, and Austen and I went to sleep.The old scientist was up again at daylight. I was amazed at his energyand vitality. He got ready the equipment he intended to take, as wewere soon ready to set out for the entrance of the underworld. Austeninsisted that we leave Melvar and Naro behind. There was no use, hesaid, to expose them to the hardships and dangers of the journey, andit seemed that no harm would be likely to come to them at the cabin.Then, without them, we could travel faster and with less danger ofdetection. I did not like to leave Melvar, but she was very courageousabout it, smiling through her tears. It always takes more courage inthose who stay behind and wait than for those who have the lure ofmystery and adventure to beckon them on.

Melvar walked with me to the edge of the clearing, and there we lefther, taking a dim trail that led through the dense jungle to the south.Austen was saying nothing. He was lost in meditation. But I knew thatwhen the time came for action, he would lose no time in thought. Buthow could I guess the noble thoughts that were passing in his mind?How could I realize that he was marching willingly to his doom? For mypart, I was thinking of the wonderful girl I had left at the cabin. Ithought, too, of the horror of the lights that haunted Astran, and ofthe horror that would be if the lights ever went beyond the rim—intothe outer world.

After several hours Austen stopped. "It is not a half mile to theshafts," he said. "We shall have to make a rope. I have made cords fromthe tough bark of the red trees. That does very well. I want to reachthe bottom of the pit before night. But I have reason to think that thethings are active in their underworld at all hours of the day, emergingonly at night because the magnetic vibration of sunlight interfereswith the operation of the delicate machinery of their bodies." Of that,I came to a better understanding later.

We began to weave a rope of strips of leather-like like bark torn fromthe mighty red trees. We kept at it until we had many hundred feetof the tough strands. As we worked Austen began to talk a little,in a voice that was very low, and a little husky, of his boyhood ona Western farm, and of the bright spots of his life. He told a fewstories of his school and college days, and of the girl he had lovedand lost. But when the rope was finished and coiled, he fell silentagain, and grimly examined his automatic. He adjusted his pack, gotout his pipe and filled it with my tobacco, and grinned. Then he saidsoberly, "We are here. We are ready to play our hand, to win or tolose. And if we lose—"

He thrust out his hand. I shook it and we walked on silently. We hadnow gone more than a hundred yards when the scarlet forest thinned,and we walked out on a level stretch of bare white sand. The clearspace was perhaps a mile long and half as wide. Along the westernside rose a dark precipitous cliff, like that over which the silverfall plunged, with a line of red brush along the top. At the foot wasa great sloping bank of talus, scattered with gigantic boulders. Thecliff and the lofty crimson forest that rimmed the open space on theother three sides, seemed to reach into the dusky purple of obscurityof the low-hanging sky.

Spaced irregularly about the center of the flat were perhaps a dozenlow circular metal structures—evidently the mouths of great whitemetal tubes projecting from the earth. From five of them dense cloudsof purple vapor were pouring.

The Sacrifice

We left the shelter of the jungle and quickly approached the nearestof the wells. The metal curbing was about four feet high, around acircular pit some 20 feet in diameter. We leaned over and looked intoit. The tube was lit faintly for a few feet down the walls, but we sawno light toward the bottom of the tube. A faint humming sound came upout of the darkness, and I felt a strong current of air flowing downthe tube. It was altogether stranger and more terrible than I hadanticipated. I doubt that I could have found the courage to descend.

"Is the rope long enough?" I whispered.

"Yes," he replied in a cautious undertone. "On the day I discovered theplace I dropped a pebble in the well and timed its fall with my watch.The depth is just over five hundred feet."

I put the end of the cord over the metal rim and paid it out untilonly enough was left to hitch around my body. With a smile of forcedcheerfulness, Austen looked to his pack, knocked out the pipe, and putit in his pocket.

"Winfield, my boy, I hope to see you soon again," he said. "It may takeonly an hour or two to lay my mine and return to the shaft. But ofcourse I know nothing of what I am to encounter. You wait and hold therope, and if I need to send you any message I will jerk it three times,and you can pull it up. The note will tell when to put it down againfor me to climb out. Good-by, my boy. You—"

He started to say something more, but his voice broke, and he turnedabruptly to the well. I braced myself against the curbing, and heclimbed over and started down. I looked over and watched him. In a fewmoments his head and shoulders had shrunk to a little blot against thedarkness of the well. Soon he was out of my sight, although for a longtime I felt the tugging of the rope. Suddenly the tension relaxed. Hehad reached the bottom, or—fearful thought!—he had lost his grip onthe rope and was hurtling downward through the darkness. I listened inan agony of suspense. It was several minutes before I was reassured tofeel three twitches of the cord. I pulled it up. On the end was tied apiece of paper, with these words penciled upon it:

Then I saw that he had been planning all along to give up his life. Thenote had been written some time before he left. I cursed the stupiditythat had kept me from perceiving his intention. If I had but thought,I would have known it was impossible for the aged scientist to climbthe rope from the bottom of the pit. Dear old Austen! The truest friendI ever had! His wrinkled, smiling face, his kind blue eyes, his lowfamiliar voice, are gone forever!

CHAPTER XII

The Forest Aflame

I have a very confused recollection of what happened immediatelyafterward. My own actions seem a vague, disordered dream. My bittergrief at Austen's self-sacrifice was the only thing real to me. Ibelieve I began carrying rocks from the boulder-strewn slope at thefoot of the cliff, with the idea of securing the rope to them so Icould go down in search for him. But my memory of that is very faint.

The first thing I remember clearly is that I was staggering back tothe shaft with a heavy rock in my arms, when I caught a whiff ofacrid smoke and awoke to the realization that the purple sky wasdarkened with drifting clouds, and the air was already heavy with thesuffocating pungent odor of the burning red vegetation. My instinctivealarm at the thought of fire served to bring me to myself, and I wassuddenly fearful for the safety of Melvar.

I knew that, had the red-hot rocket-ship in which we had crossed theSilver Sea chanced to fall in the jungle instead of on the barrenhilltop, a conflagration would have spread from it at once. AbruptlyI remembered that the glowing fragments of the one we had wrecked hadfallen in the northern forest. Austen's cabin lay in that direction!I knew that the red vegetation was peculiarly inflammable, and thatthe fire fed on the oxygen of the heavy atmosphere, would advance withterrible speed.

For a moment, in a panic of indecision, I listened. From the north Iheard the crackling roar of a mighty conflagration. Then my mind wasmade up. Any attempt to find Austen and induce him to give up his planof self-sacrifice would be terribly uncertain. Melvar was in immediatedanger, and I knew that Austen valued her life above his own. But eventhen, I knew in my heart that it was too late, though I would not letmyself believe it. Fire is a pitiless and remorseless enemy.

At a dead run I started up the trail by which we had entered theclearing. Ever the smoke became thicker and more acrid, while thecrackling roar of the fire rang ever louder in my ears. I ran onthrough the ghastly gloom of the scarlet jungle, in mad desperation,even after hope was gone, until the hot suffocating breath of theflames was choking me, until the bright lurid curtain of the fire wasspread before my eyes, and the intense heat radiation blistered myskin. The vast wall of flame swept forward like a voracious demoniacthing of crimson, implacable, irresistible, overwhelming. It plungedforward like a rushing tidal wave of red. Already the fire had passedthe site of the cabin!

I was suddenly hopeless, and despairing, and very tired. The flamesrushed forward faster, by far, than a human being could force a waythrough the jungle. With the knowledge that I had just lost the onlytwo beings that in all the world of men ever mattered to me, it hardlyseemed worth while to try to save my own life. For a moment I stoodthere, about to cast myself into the flames. But it is not the natureof an animal to die willingly, no matter how slight the promise of lifemay be.

When I could endure the heat no longer, when the pain of my blisteredskin, and the outcries of my tortured lungs had grown unsupportable, Iturned and ran toward the clearing again. Behind me, the flames roaredlike a lightning express. The fern-like fronds burned explosively, likegun-cotton. My nostrils and lungs were seared and smarting. The hotwind dried my skin and left it scorched and cracked. I was blinded bythe smoke. I longed to throw myself down and seek the temporary ecstasyof a breath of clear air from near the ground, of a cooling plunge intoa muddy pool. The red jungle reeled about me, but I fought my way on,like a man in a dream.

At last I staggered into the open space. The last of the giant treesexploded into flames not a score of yards behind me. Sparks rained uponme. My clothing caught fire. I ran on, fighting at it with my hands.The jungle back of me roared deafeningly, an angry, surging sea oflurid red flames, awful, overwhelming, fantastically terrible. Heatradiation poured across the clearing in a pitiless beam. I struggled onacross the white sand, away from flames that tossed themselves up likevolcano-ridden ranges of scarlet alps, until I reached the shelter of agreat boulder on the slope below the cliff.

I flung myself down behind the rock, gulping down the cool air andrubbing out the fire in my clothing with my blackened hands. For manyhours I lay there, tortured by thirst and pain. At last I fell into alight sleep of troubled dreams, in which huge, winged, green ants flewafter me through burning crimson forests and in which I saw the dearform of Melvar devoured again and again by the flames.

I was awakened, after a time, I know not how long, by a cool wind thathad sprung up from the north. For a moment my mind was lost in blankwonder, and then came the desolate memory that Melvar and Austen werelost. In hopeless misery I got weakly to my feet and walked unsteadilyaround the boulder until I could look across the clearing.

As I leaned against the rock, gazing eastward, it was a strangelyaltered and desolate scene that lay before my eyes. The red forestwas gone. Below me was a region of low rolling hills, black and grimbeneath the lowering, smoky purple sky. The white sand about me stoodout in sharp contrast to the charred and gloomy waste beyond, fromwhich a few slender wisps of dark smoke were still rising. All life wasgone. It was a dead world. But still the dense purple clouds poured outof the shafts of the underworld, adding their weight to the dismal sky.

A great homesickness for the world, and my fellow men came over me.Then I heard a strange humming behind me, and a slight metallicclatter. I turned around in apathetic curiosity.

A Strange Duel

And I came face to face with a monster so utterly strange and weirdlyterrible that the very shock of it almost unseated my wandering reason.But so completely had my interests and hopes in life been severed, sonear was I to the great divide of death, that I was past emotion of anykind. At first I looked on the thing with a curious lack of interest,as the soul of one newly dead might look with numbed faculties on hisnew habitation. But as I looked upon it, an icy current of fear stoleover me like the creeping cold of the north, and clasped me to itsfrozen breast. I had met so many horrors that I had begun to thinkmyself immune to terror. But I had met no such thing as that.

I knew that it was an intelligent, a sentient being. But it was nothuman, not a thing of flesh and blood at all. It was a machine!Or, rather, it was in a machine, for I felt far more of it than Isaw—a will, a cold and alien intellect, a being, malefic, inhuman,inscrutable. It was a thing that belonged, not in the present earth,but in the tomb of the unthinkable past, or beyond the wastes ofinterstellar space, amid the inconceivable horrors of unknown spheres.

There was a bright, gleaming globe, three feet in diameter, litwith vivid flowing fires of violet and green. A strange swirlingmist of brilliant points of many colored lights danced madly aboutit—a coruscating fog of iridescent fire—moving, flickering, in anincredible rhythm.

That unearthly thing rested upon a frame of metal. It was the head of ametallic monster. It was set on an oblong box of white metal, to whichwere attached six long-jointed metal limbs. The being stood nine feethigh, at least. It was standing on three of the limbs and holding myrifle, which I had left where I had been lying, turning it and feelingof it with a cluster of slender, finger-like tentacles on the end ofthe metal arm. It was working the mechanism of the gun, and apparentlylooking at it, though it had no eyes that I could see.

Suddenly the gun went off, throwing up the sand between me and themonster. With a grotesquely half-human attitude of alarmed surprise,the being dropped the gun and sprang back like a gigantic spider. Themotion freed me from my paralysis of horror, and I started backingcautiously around the boulder, afraid to run. As I moved it sprangforward and a slender tube of white metal, in one of the tentacledhands, was suddenly pointed toward me. As the monster moved, there wasa humming sound from it, and little jets of purple gas hissed fromholes in the sides of the box-like body.

I drew my automatic and fired at the metal tube. I must have made anunusually fortunate shot, for the object was carried out of the metalgrasp, and fell spinning on the sand. On the instant, I turned and rantoward another great boulder, as large as a railroad locomotive, thatlay fifty yards to the north. As I ran I heard the clatter and whirringof the mechanical being. I paused at the edge of the rock and took alast glimpse back.

The monster was holding the little tube in one of its limbs, andapparently adjusting it with another. Then it suddenly extended thething toward me. I dived behind the rock. And a bright ray of orangelight shot past the boulder—a beam like that which had come from thebeing in the door of the rocket-ship. Then I knew that here was anentity of the same kind as the one I had destroyed that night—one ofthe ruling intelligences of the crater, the Krimlu.

For several minutes I crouched behind the boulder, expecting theterrible being to come striding around after me at any instant; but itdid not come, so presently I began to think. Perhaps the things werenot so powerful, or so extremely intelligent after all. I had killedone, even if it was just by a chance shot in the dark. This one hadseemed surprised and alarmed when the rifle went off, and I supposedthat a being so intelligent as I had at first thought it to be mighthave inferred the nature and use of the weapon from its appearance.And I thought that it must be afraid of me, after my pistol bullet hadknocked its own weapon out of its grip, or it would have followed mearound the boulder. Then I began to wonder what it was going to do.

It evidently intended to strike me with the ray weapon. And not onlydid it respect me, but it knew that I stood in deathly fear of it. Itknew that I was trying to escape, so it might reasonably expect meto leave the unscalable cliff and attempt a break against the opencountry. And if I were to do that, I would naturally keep in theshelter of my own boulder as long as possible. If the monster thoughtin that way, the logical thing for it to do would be to creep out ofthe upper side of its rock, where I would inevitably come into itssight by whatever direction I left my breastwork.

Of course there was a frightful risk in taking any action on such ahypothesis—a greater risk than I realized at the time. If the monsterwere less intelligent than I supposed, I might blunder on it; if itwere more intelligent, it might have anticipated my plan—might bewaiting to trap me.

But I crawled out along the upper side of my boulder and peered over asmaller rock which would serve me as a breastwork, my automatic ready.I expected to see the creature in my range, and itself intent upon myother lines of retreat. But it was not there. For a moment I thought Iwas doomed, but the orange ray did not strike, and I was forced to theconclusion that the monster was not in a position for action at all.

For a moment I was tempted to precipitate flight across the clearing,but I knew that such a move would put me at the mercy of the ray, andI thought that it might not yet be too late to carry out my originalplan. I lay flat, with the gun trained on the spot where I expected itto appear. For perhaps fifteen minutes nothing happened; then it provedthat my hypothesis was justified. The weird being suddenly sprang intoview, with the strange weapon grasped in its glittering arm. It seemedto be looking beyond my boulder. I was lying ready, with the automaticleveled. It was a matter of the merest instant to aim at the greensphere and pull the trigger.

The globe was shattered as if it had been made of glass. The glitteringfragments showered off the metal box, while the whole mechanical bodysuddenly became very rigid, and fell heavily to the side. A puff ofcoruscating green mist floated out of the globe as it broke, andswiftly dissipated, and the sparkling lights were about the thing nomore. The monster was evidently dead.

For a few moments I hesitated, but I was sure the thing had beenkilled, and my curiosity got the better of my fear. I cautiouslyapproached it. For a moment I marveled at the wonderful workmanship ofthe machine and at the cleverness of its design; then I saw somethingthat made me forget all else. Something beside the crystal shell hadfallen.

The tissue of it was very delicate, and it had been broken by thefall, so that the body juices were running from it. The brain cavityof it was very large—perhaps larger than that of a man—covered onlywith a thin chitinous shell. The limbs were but thin tentacles, almostaltogether atrophied. In fact, the brain seemed three-fourths of thetotal bulk. The body was so badly smashed that I could tell littleabout it, but the tiny limbs were covered with chitin, and there werethe rudimentary stumps of fine, tissue-like wings. There were novisible traces of digestive organs, or of mandibles.

The thing was plainly an insect. From just what species it had sprungin the long process of evolution in the crater it would be difficult tosay. For several reasons, I believe it was an ant. At any rate, it hadreached about the ultimate stage of evolution. Machines had altogetherreplaced bodies of flesh and blood. I believe the thing had beennourished by the sparkling green vapor, which must have circulated likeblood through the protecting crystal sphere.

It seems incredible to find great intelligence in any form of lifeother than human; but science thinks that life and intelligence mustrise and fall in recurring cycles, and that the earth has probably beenruled by many different forms of life, each of which has been blottedout by some cataclysm. The Krimlu were a surviving remnant of archaicages.

CHAPTER XIII

When Austen Struck

I lost little time in the examination of the dead creature. The shaftsfrom which it had come were but a few hundred yards below, and thepurple gas was still rolling out of the funnels. I did not know when asecond monster might follow the first. My mind was too much upset bygrief and terror to be capable of intelligent planning, but I knew Iwanted to get away from here, and I think I had some notion of reachingthe northern pass, and of getting back to an unburned growth of the redvegetation, for I was weak with thirst and hunger. But all that wasvery vague.

I walked around the wells, keeping at a distance; and struck out forthe east as fast as my wearied limbs could carry me. Soon the cliff wasout of sight. All about was the desolate, rolling black landscape, withthe gloomy purple sky overhead. My thoughts were as dark and sere asthe world. Memories of dear old Austen and of lovely Melvar were alwayswith me, even when I tried to banish them and to think rationally of myposition.

When I had gone perhaps three hours from the cliff, and had almost lostmy fear of pursuit, I saw a great cigar-shaped object of gleaming whiteon a low hill before me. So dulled were my perceptions that it was manyminutes before I realized that it was the rocket-ship in which we hadcome over the Silver Sea. Then, bringing a faint thrill of hope, thethought came to me that it was still probably in a condition to fly,and that, if I could succeed in controlling it, it offered a possibleavenue of escape from the crater.

I walked up to the thick metal walls. They seemed undamaged by thefire. Of course, they were used to withstanding the far highertemperatures developed during flight. I walked around the ship, and wassurprised to see that the heavy metal door, which we had left open,had been swung shut. Lying against it was the charred skeleton of aman. About the bones were woven metal garments and crystal armor thatI recognized with a shock as Naro's. So, I thought, the fellow haddeserted his beautiful sister to seek the shelter of the rocket-ship,and had fallen a victim to the flames at the last moment.

For a moment, I stared grimly at the remains; then, animated by asudden ray of hope, I sprang to the door, pulled it open, and leapedinto the ship. There, lying on the floor, was the lovely form ofMelvar. Her clothing was tattered and smeared with stains of red andblack from the burning forest, but she was unharmed. It was almostincredible to me to find her restored. I was half afraid that my mindhad failed at last, and that she was but an illusion. I dropped on myknees beside her, and kissed her warm red lips. She stirred a littleand, still but half awake, put a trustful arm about my shoulder.

"Winfield, I knew you would come," she whispered at last. "But whereare Naro and Austen?"

"They will never come," I said.

She drew me fiercely toward her, as if to use me for a shield againstthe awful truth. It was some time before she was able to talk; butpresently she told me how Naro had seen the smoke, and how she hadthought of seeking shelter from the fire in the rocket-ship. They hadrun down the trail we had made as they left the ship. The fire hadovertaken them just as they reached it. The boy had carried her thelast few yards, had put her through the door, and then had been unableto enter himself. But, a hero to the last, a worthy warrior of oldAstran, he had swung the door shut with his dying motion.

Presently I turned my attention to the ship. The marvelous periscopestill gave the illusion that the bow was transparent. When I moved thelittle control lever, the jets of purple gas rushed out again. After atime I had the vessel worked loose from its place in the earth. Then,once again, I pulled up the little metal knob and pushed it forward.

The blackened terrain was colored by the purple mist. It was dimmed,blurred, blotted out. We shot through the purple cloud and abruptlyplunged into clear air and blessed sunshine. Melvar stood by me, withher arm upon my shoulder. She cried out gladly as we came into thelight. It was not quite noon and the sun was shining very brightly intothe crater. The crescent Silver Lake was still gleaming with the sameargent luster, and Astran shone like a great gem set in the dark redupland beyond.

Suddenly the clouds of purple mist below were thrown up and scatteredin a thousand ragged streamers. A great blaze of opalescence burst outwhere it had been. A flood of fire ran over the Silver Sea. It wasa white, milky light like that we had seen between the blue crystalglobes of the great machine in the chasm. In a moment the whole craterwas a torn and angry ocean of iridescent flame. The red upland wasblotted out, and Astran vanished forever. White flames that were likethe tongues of burning hydrogen that burst from exploding suns, flaredup behind us.

Then we heard the sound of the cataclysm—a crashing roar like thethunder of a thousand falling mountains, as deep, as vast, as awful, asthe crash of colliding worlds. At the same instant we felt the force ofthe greatest explosion that has ever occurred on earth. The rocket shotupward as though shot out of a mighty cannon. The blue sky darkenedabout us, and the stars flamed out like a million scintillating gems,in incredible myriads, gleaming cold and hard against the infiniteempty blackness. We had been hurled out of the atmosphere and intointerplanetary space!

Austen had struck! The world of the Krimlu was no more! The wholeSilver Sea had gone off in a great explosion. From our ever-risingcraft we could see the desert spread out around the mountain like avast yellow sea, rimmed on the south by a steely blue line that wasthe ocean. The white fire dulled, faded, and was gone as quickly as ithad flashed up. The crater of the Mountain of the Moon was left a wildblack ruin of jagged, scattered masses of smoking stone. Of the SilverLake, of the red vegetation upon the upland, of brilliant Astran, nota trace was left!

The crater was left far behind in the long arching flight of therocket. The white frozen brilliance of the stars faded out, the untoldglories of the solar corona were dimmed, and blue was restored to themidnight sky. We were plunging toward the desert in the direction ofKanowna. I pulled back the lever and used the full force of the rocketsto check our meteor-like flight until the fuel was exhausted. A momentafterward we struck the earth.

We climbed out and left the vessel there on the sand. Just as the starswere coming out that night we arrived at the headquarters of a greatsheep ranch. People were very much excited over the earthquake. (Theshock of the explosion of the Silver Lake had been registered at everyseismographic station in the world.)

The rancher and his wife cared for us with great hospitality, ifill-controlled curiosity. After we had had a week of rest, they tookus by automobile to Kanowna. There I astounded them by rewarding theirgenerosity with a magnificent emerald—I still had in my pack a halfpound or so of jewels that Naro had brought me from Astran.

Melvar ever surprised me with her innocent beauty, her grace and poise,with the ease with which she learned to face new situations, and tomeet people. I believe that no one ever suspected that she had nothad a lifetime of training in the best of society. We were married atKanowna, and reached Perth a few days later.

The End

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73724 ***