The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Girl in the Golden Atom, by Raymond King
Cummings
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Title: The Girl in the Golden Atom
Author: Raymond King Cummings
Release Date: April 15, 2007 [eBook #21094]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL IN THE GOLDEN ATOM***
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Transcriber's note:
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book was renewed.
THE GIRL IN THE GOLDEN ATOM
by
RAY CUMMINGS
TO
MY FRIEND AND MENTOR
ROBERT H. DAVIS
WITH GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF
HIS ENCOURAGEMENT AND PRACTICAL
ASSISTANCE TO WHICH I OWE MY
INITIAL SUCCESS
CONTENTS
I. A Universe in an Atom
II. Into the Ring
III. After Forty-eight Hours
IV. Lylda
V. The World in the Ring
VI. Strategy and Kisses
VII. A Modern Gulliver
VIII. "I Must Go Back"
IX. After Five Years
X. Testing the Drugs
XI. The Escape of the Drug
XII. The Start
XIII. Perilous Ways
XIV. Strange Experiences
XV. The Valley of the Scratch
XVI. The Pit of Darkness
XVII. The Welcome of the Master
XVIII. The Chemist and His Son
XIX. The City of Arite
XX. The World of the Ring
XXI. A Life Worth Living
XXII. The Trial
XXIII. Lylda's Plan
XXIV. Lylda Acts
XXV. The Escape of Targo
XXVI. The Abduction
XXVII. Aura
XXVIII. The Attack on the Palace
XXIX. On the Lake
XXX. Word Music
XXXI. The Palace of Orlog
XXXII. An Ant-hill Outraged
XXXIII. The Rescue of Loto
XXXIV. The Decision
XXXV. Good-bye to Arite
XXXVI. The Fight in the Tunnels
XXXVII. A Combat of Titans
XXXVIII. Lost in Size
XXXIX. A Modern Dinosaur
XL. The Adventurers' Return
XLI. The First Christmas
THE GIRL IN THE GOLDEN ATOM
CHAPTER I
A UNIVERSE IN AN ATOM
"Then you mean to say there is no such thing as the _smallest_ particle
of matter?" asked the Doctor.
"You can put it that way if you like," the Chemist replied. "In other
words, what I believe is that things can be infinitely small just as
well as they can be infinitely large. Astronomers tell us of the
immensity of space. I have tried to imagine space as finite. It is
impossible. How can you conceive the edge of space? Something must be
beyond--something or nothing, and even that would be more space,
wouldn't it?"
"Gosh," said the Very Young Man, and lighted another cigarette.
The Chemist resumed, smiling a little. "Now, if it seems probable that
there is no limit to the immensity of space, why should we make its
smallness finite? How can you say that the atom cannot be divided? As a
matter of fact, it already has been. The most powerful microscope will
show you realms of smallness to which you can penetrate no other way.
Multiply that power a thousand times, or ten thousand times, and who
shall say what you will see?"
The Chemist paused, and looked at the intent little group around him.
He was a youngish man, with large features and horn-rimmed glasses, his
rough English-cut clothes hanging loosely over his broad, spare frame.
The Banker drained his glass and rang for the waiter.
"Very interesting," he remarked.
"Don't be an ass, George," said the Big Business Man. "Just because you
don't understand, doesn't mean there is no sense to it."
"What I don't get clearly"--began the Doctor.
"None of it's clear to me," said the Very Young Man.
The Doctor crossed under the light and took an easier chair. "You
intimated you had discovered something unusual in these realms of the
infinitely small," he suggested, sinking back luxuriously. "Will you
tell us about it?"
"Yes, if you like," said the Chemist, turning from one to the other. A
nod of assent followed his glance, as each settled himself more
comfortably.
"Well, gentlemen, when you say I have discovered something unusual in
another world--in the world of the infinitely small--you are right in a
way. I have seen something and lost it. You won't believe me probably,"
he glanced at the Banker an instant, "but that is not important. I am
going to tell you the facts, just as they happened."
The Big Business Man filled up the glasses all around, and the Chemist
resumed:
"It was in 1910, this problem first came to interest me. I had never
gone in for microscopic work very much, but now I let it absorb all my
attention. I secured larger, more powerful instruments--I spent most of
my money," he smiled ruefully, "but never could I come to the end of the
space into which I was looking. Something was always hidden
beyond--something I could almost, but not quite, distinguish.
"Then I realized that I was on the wrong track. My instrument was not
merely of insufficient power, it was not one-thousandth the power I
needed.
"So I began to study the laws of optics and lenses. In 1913 I went
abroad, and with one of the most famous lens-makers of Europe I produced
a lens of an entirely different quality, a lens that I hoped would give
me what I wanted. So I returned here and fitted up my microscope that I
knew would prove vastly more powerful than any yet constructed.
"It was finally completed and set up in my laboratory, and one night I
went in alone to look through it for the first time. It was in the fall
of 1914, I remember, just after the first declaration of war.
"I can recall now my feelings at that moment. I was about to see into
another world, to behold what no man had ever looked on before. What
would I see? What new realms was I, first of all our human race, to
enter? With furiously beating heart, I sat down before the huge
instrument and adjusted the eyepiece.
"Then I glanced around for some object to examine. On my finger I had a
ring, my mother's wedding-ring, and I decided to use that. I have it
here." He took a plain gold band from his little finger and laid it on
the table.
"You will see a slight mark on the outside. That is the place into which
I looked."
His friends crowded around the table and examined a scratch on one side
of the band.
"What did you see?" asked the Very Young Man eagerly.
"Gentlemen," resumed the Chemist, "what I saw staggered even my own
imagination. With trembling hands I put the ring in place, looking
directly down into that scratch. For a moment I saw nothing. I was like
a person coming suddenly out of the sunlight into a darkened room. I
knew there was something visible in my view, but my eyes did not seem
able to receive the impressions. I realize now they were not yet
adjusted to the new form of light. Gradually, as I looked, objects of
definite shape began to emerge from the blackness.
"Gentlemen, I want to make clear to you now--as clear as I can--the
peculiar aspect of everything that I saw under this microscope. I seemed
to be inside an immense cave. One side, near at hand, I could now make
out quite clearly. The walls were extraordinarily rough and indented,
with a peculiar phosphorescent light on the projections and blackness in
the hollows. I say phosphorescent light, for that is the nearest word I
can find to describe it--a curious radiation, quite different from the
reflected light to which we are accustomed.
"I said that the hollows inside of the cave were blackness. But not
blackness--the absence of light--as we know it. It was a blackness that
seemed also to radiate light, if you can imagine such a condition; a
blackness that seemed not empty, but merely withholding its contents
just beyond my vision.
"Except for a dim suggestion of roof over the cave, and its floor, I
could distinguish nothing. After a moment this floor became clearer. It
seemed to be--well, perhaps I might call it black marble--smooth,
glossy, yet somewhat translucent. In the foreground the floor was
apparently liquid. In no way did it differ in appearance from the solid
part, except that its surface seemed to be in motion.
"Another curious thing was the outlines of all the shapes in view. I
noticed that no outline held steady when I looked at it directly; it
seemed to quiver. You see something like it when looking at an object
through water--only, of course, there was no distortion. It was also
like looking at something with the radiation of heat between.
"Of the back and other side of the cave, I could see nothing, except in
one place, where a narrow effulgence of light drifted out into the
immensity of the distance behind.
"I do not know how long I sat looking at this scene; it may have been
several hours. Although I was obviously in a cave, I never felt shut
in--never got the impression of being in a narrow, confined space.
"On the contrary, after a time I seemed to feel the vast immensity of
the blackness before me. I think perhaps it may have been that path of
light stretching out into the distance. As I looked it seemed like the
reversed tail of a comet, or the dim glow of the Milky Way, and
penetrating to equally remote realms of space.
"Perhaps I fell asleep, or at least there was an interval of time during
which I was so absorbed in my own thoughts I was hardly conscious of the
scene before me.
"Then I became aware of a dim shape in the foreground--a shape merged
with the outlines surrounding it. And as I looked, it gradually assumed
form, and I saw it was the figure of a young girl, sitting beside the
liquid pool. Except for the same waviness of outline and phosphorescent
glow, she had quite the normal aspect of a human being of our own world.
She was beautiful, according to our own standards of beauty; her long
braided hair a glowing black, her face, delicate of feature and winsome
in expression. Her lips were a deep red, although I felt rather than saw
the colour.
"She was dressed only in a short tunic of a substance I might describe
as gray opaque glass, and the pearly whiteness of her skin gleamed with
iridescence.
"She seemed to be singing, although I heard no sound. Once she bent over
the pool and plunged her hand into it, laughing gaily.
"Gentlemen, I cannot make you appreciate my emotions, when all at once I
remembered I was looking through a microscope. I had forgotten entirely
my situation, absorbed in the scene before me. And then, abruptly, a
great realization came upon me--the realization that everything I saw
was inside that ring. I was unnerved for the moment at the importance of
my discovery.
"When I looked again, after the few moments my eye took to become
accustomed to the new form of light, the scene showed itself as before,
except that the girl had gone.
"For over a week, each night at the same time I watched that cave. The
girl came always, and sat by the pool as I had first seen her. Once she
danced with the wild grace of a wood nymph, whirling in and out the
shadows, and falling at last in a little heap beside the pool.
"It was on the tenth night after I had first seen her that the accident
happened. I had been watching, I remember, an unusually long time before
she appeared, gliding out of the shadows. She seemed in a different
mood, pensive and sad, as she bent down over the pool, staring into it
intently. Suddenly there was a tremendous cracking sound, sharp as an
explosion, and I was thrown backward upon the floor.
"When I recovered consciousness--I must have struck my head on
something--I found the microscope in ruins. Upon examination I saw that
its larger lens had exploded--flown into fragments scattered around the
room. Why I was not killed I do not understand. The ring I picked up
from the floor; it was unharmed and unchanged.
"Can I make you understand how I felt at this loss? Because of the war
in Europe I knew I could never replace my lens--for many years, at any
rate. And then, gentlemen, came the most terrible feeling of all; I knew
at last that the scientific achievement I had made and lost counted for
little with me. It was the girl. I realized then that the only being I
ever could care for was living out her life with her world, and, indeed,
her whole universe, in an atom of that ring."
The Chemist stopped talking and looked from one to the other of the
tense faces of his companions.
"It's almost too big an idea to grasp," murmured the Doctor.
"What caused the explosion?" asked the Very Young Man.
"I do not know." The Chemist addressed his reply to the Doctor, as the
most understanding of the group. "I can appreciate, though, that through
that lens I was magnifying tremendously those peculiar light-radiations
that I have described. I believe the molecules of the lens were
shattered by them--I had exposed it longer to them that evening than any
of the others."
The Doctor nodded his comprehension of this theory.
Impressed in spite of himself, the Banker took another drink and leaned
forward in his chair. "Then you really think that there is a girl now
inside the gold of that ring?" he asked.
"He didn't say that necessarily," interrupted the Big Business Man.
"Yes, he did."
"As a matter of fact, I do believe that to be the case," said the
Chemist earnestly. "I believe that every particle of matter in our
universe contains within it an equally complex and complete a universe,
which to its inhabitants seems as large as ours. I think, also that the
whole realm of our interplanetary space, our solar system and all the
remote stars of the heavens are contained within the atom of some other
universe as gigantic to us as we are to the universe in that ring."
"Gosh!" said the Very Young Man.
"It doesn't make one feel very important in the scheme of things, does
it?" remarked the Big Business Man dryly.
The Chemist smiled. "The existence of no individual, no nation, no
world, nor any one universe is of the least importance."
"Then it would be possible," said the Doctor, "for this gigantic
universe that contains us in one of its atoms, to be itself contained
within the atom of another universe, still more gigantic, and so on."
"That is my theory," said the Chemist.
"And in each of the atoms of the rocks of that cave there may be other
worlds proportionately minute?"
"I can see no reason to doubt it."
"Well, there is no proof, anyway," said the Banker. "We might as well
believe it."
"I intend to get proof," said the Chemist.
"Do you believe all these innumerable universes, both larger and smaller
than ours, are inhabited?" asked the Doctor.
"I should think probably most of them are. The existence of life, I
believe, is as fundamental as the existence of matter without life."
"How do you suppose that girl got in there?" asked the Very Young Man,
coming out of a brown study.
"What puzzled me," resumed the Chemist, ignoring the question, "is why
the girl should so resemble our own race. I have thought about it a good
deal, and I have reached the conclusion that the inhabitants of any
universe in the next smaller or larger plane to ours probably resemble
us fairly closely. That ring, you see, is in the same--shall we
say--environment as ourselves. The same forces control it that control
us. Now, if the ring had been created on Mars, for instance, I believe
that the universes within its atoms would be inhabited by beings like
the Martians--if Mars has any inhabitants. Of course, in planes beyond
those next to ours, either smaller or larger, changes would probably
occur, becoming greater as you go in or out from our own universe."
"Good Lord! It makes one dizzy to think of it," said the Big Business
Man.
"I wish I knew how that girl got in there," sighed the Very Young Man,
looking at the ring.
"She probably didn't," retorted the Doctor. "Very likely she was created
there, the same as you were here."
"I think that is probably so," said the Chemist. "And yet, sometimes I
am not at all sure. She was very human." The Very Young Man looked at
him sympathetically.
"How are you going to prove your theories?" asked the Banker, in his
most irritatingly practical way.
The Chemist picked up the ring and put it on his finger. "Gentlemen," he
said. "I have tried to tell you facts, not theories. What I saw through
that ultramicroscope was not an unproven theory, but a fact. My theories
you have brought out by your questions."
"You are quite right," said the Doctor; "but you did mention yourself
that you hoped to provide proof."
The Chemist hesitated a moment, then made his decision. "I will tell you
the rest," he said.
"After the destruction of the microscope, I was quite at a loss how to
proceed. I thought about the problem for many weeks. Finally I decided
to work along another altogether different line--a theory about which I
am surprised you have not already questioned me."
He paused, but no one spoke.
"I am hardly ready with proof to-night," he resumed after a moment.
"Will you all take dinner with me here at the club one week from
to-night?" He read affirmation in the glance of each.
"Good. That's settled," he said, rising. "At seven, then."
"But what was the theory you expected us to question you about?" asked
the Very Young Man.
The Chemist leaned on the back of his chair.
"The only solution I could see to the problem," he said slowly, "was to
find some way of making myself sufficiently small to be able to enter
that other universe. I have found such a way and one week from to-night,
gentlemen, with your assistance, I am going to enter the surface of that
ring at the point where it is scratched!"
CHAPTER II
INTO THE RING
The cigars were lighted and dinner over before the Doctor broached the
subject uppermost in the minds of every member of the party.
"A toast, gentlemen," he said, raising his glass. "To the greatest
research chemist in the world. May he be successful in his adventure
to-night."
The Chemist bowed his acknowledgment.
"You have not heard me yet," he said smiling.
"But we want to," said the Very Young Man impulsively.
"And you shall." He settled himself more comfortably in his chair.
"Gentlemen, I am going to tell you, first, as simply as possible, just
what I have done in the past two years. You must draw your own
conclusions from the evidence I give you.
"You will remember that I told you last week of my dilemma after the
destruction of the microscope. Its loss and the impossibility of
replacing it, led me into still bolder plans than merely the visual
examination of this minute world. I reasoned, as I have told you, that
because of its physical proximity, its similar environment, so to speak,
this outer world should be capable of supporting life identical with our
own.
"By no process of reasoning can I find adequate refutation of this
theory. Then, again, I had the evidence of my own eyes to prove that a
being I could not tell from one of my own kind was living there. That
this girl, other than in size, differs radically from those of our race,
I cannot believe.
"I saw then but one obstacle standing between me and this other
world--the discrepancy of size. The distance separating our world from
this other is infinitely great or infinitely small, according to the
viewpoint. In my present size it is only a few feet from here to the
ring on that plate. But to an inhabitant of that other world, we are as
remote as the faintest stars of the heavens, diminished a thousand
times."
He paused a moment, signing the waiter to leave the room.
"This reduction of bodily size, great as it is, involves no deeper
principle than does a light contraction of tissue, except that it must
be carried further. The problem, then, was to find a chemical,
sufficiently unharmful to life, that would so act upon the body cells as
to cause a reduction in bulk, without changing their shape. I had to
secure a uniform and also a proportionate rate of contraction of each
cell, in order not to have the body shape altered.
"After a comparatively small amount of research work, I encountered an
apparently insurmountable obstacle. As you know, gentlemen, our living
human bodies are held together by the power of the central intelligence
we call the mind. Every instant during your lifetime your subconscious
mind is commanding and directing the individual life of each cell that
makes up your body. At death this power is withdrawn; each cell is
thrown under its own individual command, and dissolution of the body
takes place.
"I found, therefore, that I could not act upon the cells separately, so
long as they were under control of the mind. On the other hand, I could
not withdraw this power of the subconscious mind without causing death.
"I progressed no further than this for several months. Then came the
solution. I reasoned that after death the body does not immediately
disintegrate; far more time elapses than I expected to need for the
cell-contraction. I devoted my time, then to finding a chemical that
would temporarily withhold, during the period of cell-contraction, the
power of the subconscious mind, just as the power of the conscious mind
is withheld by hypnotism.
"I am not going to weary you by trying to lead you through the maze of
chemical experiments into which I plunged. Only one of you," he
indicated the Doctor, "has the technical basis of knowledge to follow
me. No one had been before me along the path I traversed. I pursued the
method of pure theoretical deduction, drawing my conclusions from the
practical results obtained.
"I worked on rabbits almost exclusively. After a few weeks I succeeded
in completely suspending animation in one of them for several hours.
There was no life apparently existing during that period. It was not a
trance or coma, but the complete simulation of death. No harmful results
followed the revivifying of the animal. The contraction of the cells was
far more difficult to accomplish; I finished my last experiment less
than six months ago."
"Then you really have been able to make an animal infinitely small?"
asked the Big Business Man.
The Chemist smiled. "I sent four rabbits into the unknown last week," he
said.
"What did they look like going?" asked the Very Young Man. The Chemist
signed him to be patient.
"The quantity of diminution to be obtained bothered me considerably.
Exactly how small that other universe is, I had no means of knowing,
except by the computations I made of the magnifying power of my lens.
These figures, I know, must necessarily be very inaccurate. Then, again,
I have no means of judging by the visual rate of diminution of these
rabbits, whether this contraction is at a uniform rate or accelerated.
Nor can I tell how long it is prolonged, for the quantity of drug
administered, as only a fraction of the diminution has taken place when
the animal passes beyond the range of any microscope I now possess.
"These questions were overshadowed, however, by a far more serious
problem that encompassed them all.
"As I was planning to project myself into this unknown universe and to
reach the exact size proportionate to it, I soon realized such a result
could not be obtained were I in an unconscious state. Only by successive
doses of the drug, or its retardent about which I will tell you later,
could I hope to reach the proper size. Another necessity is that I place
myself on the exact spot on that ring where I wish to enter and to climb
down among its atoms when I have become sufficiently small to do so.
Obviously, this would be impossible to one not possessing all his
faculties and physical strength."
"And did you solve that problem, too?" asked the Banker.
"I'd like to see it done," he added, reading his answer in the other's
confident smile.
The Chemist produced two small paper packages from his wallet. "These
drugs are the result of my research," he said. "One of them causes
contraction, and the other expansion, by an exact reversal of the
process. Taken together, they produce no effect, and a lesser amount of
one retards the action of the other." He opened the papers, showing two
small vials. "I have made them as you see, in the form of tiny pills,
each containing a minute quantity of the drug. It is by taking them
successively in unequal amounts that I expect to reach the desired
size."
"There's one point that you do not mention," said the Doctor. "Those
vials and their contents will have to change size as you do. How are you
going to manage that?"
"By experimentation I have found," answered the Chemist, "that any
object held in close physical contact with the living body being
contracted is contracted itself at an equal rate. I believe that my
clothes will be affected also. These vials I will carry strapped under
my armpits."
"Suppose you should die, or be killed, would the contraction cease?"
asked the Doctor.
"Yes, almost immediately," replied the Chemist. "Apparently, though I am
acting through the subconscious mind while its power is held in
abeyance, when this power is permanently withdrawn by death, the drug no
longer affects the individual cells. The contraction or expansion ceases
almost at once."
The Chemist cleared a space before him on the table. "In a well-managed
club like this," he said, "there should be no flies, but I see several
around. Do you suppose we can catch one of them?"
"I can," said the Very Young Man, and forthwith he did.
The Chemist moistened a lump of sugar and laid it on the table before
him. Then, selecting one of the smallest of the pills, he ground it to
powder with the back of a spoon and sprinkled this powder on the sugar.
"Will you give me the fly, please?"
The Very Young Man gingerly did so. The Chemist held the insect by its
wings over the sugar. "Will someone lend me one of his shoes?"
The Very Young Man hastily slipped off a dancing pump.
"Thank you," said the Chemist, placing it on the table with a quizzical
smile.
The rest of the company rose from their chairs and gathered around,
watching with interested faces what was about to happen.
"I hope he is hungry," remarked the Chemist, and placed the fly gently
down on the sugar, still holding it by the wings. The insect, after a
moment, ate a little.
Silence fell upon the group as each watched intently. For a few moments
nothing happened. Then, almost imperceptibly at first, the fly became
larger. In another minute it was the size of a large horse-fly,
struggling to release its wings from the Chemist's grasp. A minute more
and it was the size of a beetle. No one spoke. The Banker moistened his
lips, drained his glass hurriedly and moved slightly farther away. Still
the insect grew; now it was the size of a small chicken, the multiple
lens of its eyes presenting a most terrifying aspect, while its
ferocious droning reverberated through the room. Then suddenly the
Chemist threw it upon the table, covered it with a napkin, and beat it
violently with the slipper. When all movement had ceased he tossed its
quivering body into a corner of the room.
"Good God!" ejaculated the Banker, as the white-faced men stared at each
other. The quiet voice of the Chemist brought them back to themselves.
"That, gentlemen, you must understand, was only a fraction of the very
first stage of growth. As you may have noticed, it was constantly
accelerated. This acceleration attains a speed of possibly fifty
thousand times that you observed. Beyond that, it is my theory, the
change is at a uniform rate." He looked at the body of the fly, lying
inert on the floor. "You can appreciate now, gentlemen, the importance
of having this growth cease after death."
"Good Lord, I should say so!" murmured the Big Business Man, mopping his
forehead. The Chemist took the lump of sugar and threw it into the open
fire.
"Gosh!" said the Very Young Man, "suppose when we were not looking,
another fly had----"
"Shut up!" growled the Banker.
"Not so skeptical now, eh, George?" said the Big Business Man.
"Can you catch me another fly?" asked the Chemist. The Very Young Man
hastened to do so. "The second demonstration, gentlemen," said the
Chemist, "is less spectacular, but far more pertinent than the one you
have just witnessed." He took the fly by the wings, and prepared another
lump of sugar, sprinkling a crushed pill from the other vial upon it.
"When he is small enough I am going to try to put him on the ring, if he
will stay still," said the Chemist.
The Doctor pulled the plate containing the ring forward until it was
directly under the light, and every one crowded closer to watch; already
the fly was almost too small to be held. The Chemist tried to set it on
the ring, but could not; so with his other hand he brushed it lightly
into the plate, where it lay, a tiny black speck against the gleaming
whiteness of the china.
"Watch it carefully, gentlemen," he said, as they bent closer.
"It's gone," said the Big Business Man.
"No, I can still see it," said the Doctor. Then he raised the plate
closer to his face. "Now it's gone," he said.
The Chemist sat down in his chair. "It's probably still there, only too
small for you to see. In a few minutes, if it took a sufficient amount
of the drug, it will be small enough to fall between the molecules of
the plate."
"Do you suppose it will find another inhabited universe down there?"
asked the Very Young Man.
"Who knows," smiled the Chemist. "Very possibly it will. But the one we
are interested in is here," he added, touching the ring.
"Is it your intention to take this stuff yourself to-night?" asked the
Big Business Man.
"If you will give me your help, I think so, yes. I have made all
arrangements. The club has given us this room in absolute privacy for
forty-eight hours. Your meals will be served here when you want them,
and I am going to ask you, gentlemen, to take turns watching and
guarding the ring during that time. Will you do it?"
"I should say we would," cried the Doctor, and the others nodded assent.
"It is because I wanted you to be convinced of my entire sincerity that
I have taken you so thoroughly into my confidence. Are those doors
locked?" The Very Young Man locked them.
"Thank you," said the Chemist, starting to disrobe. In a moment he stood
before them attired in a woolen bathing-suit of pure white. Over his
shoulders was strapped tightly a narrow leather harness, supporting two
silken pockets, one under each armpit. Into each of these he placed one
of the vials, first laying four pills from one of them upon the table.
At this point the Banker rose from his chair and selected another in the
further corner of the room. He sank into it a crumpled heap and wiped
the beads of perspiration from his face with a shaking hand.
"I have every expectation," said the Chemist, "that this suit and
harness will contract in size uniformly with me. If the harness should
not, then I shall have to hold the vials in my hand."
On the table, directly under the light, he spread a large silk
handkerchief, upon which he placed the ring. He then produced a
teaspoon, which he handed to the Doctor.
"Please listen carefully," he said, "for perhaps the whole success of my
adventure, and my life itself, may depend upon your actions during the
next few minutes. You will realize, of course, that when I am still
large enough to be visible to you I shall be so small that my voice may
be inaudible. Therefore, I want you to know, now, just what to expect.
"When I am something under a foot high, I shall step upon that
handkerchief, where you will see my white suit plainly against its black
surface. When I become less than an inch high, I shall run over to the
ring and stand beside it. When I have diminished to about a quarter of
an inch, I shall climb upon it, and, as I get smaller, will follow its
surface until I come to the scratch.
"I want you to watch me very closely. I may miscalculate the time and
wait until I am too small to climb upon the ring. Or I may fall off. In
either case, you will place that spoon beside me and I will climb into
it. You will then do your best to help me get on the ring. Is all this
quite clear?"
The Doctor nodded assent.
"Very well, watch me as long as I remain visible. If I have an accident,
I shall take the other drug and endeavor to return to you at once. This
you must expect at any moment during the next forty-eight hours. Under
all circumstances, if I am alive, I shall return at the expiration of
that time.
"And, gentlemen, let me caution you most solemnly, do not allow that
ring to be touched until that length of time has expired. Can I depend
on you?"
"Yes," they answered breathlessly.
"After I have taken the pills," the Chemist continued, "I shall not
speak unless it is absolutely necessary. I do not know what my
sensations will be, and I want to follow them as closely as possible."
He then turned out all the lights in the room with the exception of the
center electrolier, that shone down directly on the handkerchief and
ring.
The Chemist looked about him. "Good-by, gentlemen," he said, shaking
hands all round. "Wish me luck," and without hesitation he placed the
four pills in his mouth and washed them down with a swallow of water.
Silence fell on the group as the Chemist seated himself and covered his
face with his hands. For perhaps two minutes the tenseness of the
silence was unbroken, save by the heavy breathing of the Banker as he
lay huddled in his chair.
"Oh, my God! He _is_ growing smaller!" whispered the Big Business Man in
a horrified tone to the Doctor. The Chemist raised his head and smiled
at them. Then he stood up, steadying himself against a chair. He was
less than four feet high. Steadily he grew smaller before their
horrified eyes. Once he made, as if to speak, and the Doctor knelt down
beside him. "It's all right, good-by," he said in a tiny voice.
Then he stepped upon the handkerchief. The Doctor knelt on the floor
beside it, the wooden spoon ready in his hand, while the others, except
the Banker, stood behind him. The figure of the Chemist, standing
motionless near the edge of the handkerchief, seemed now like a little
white wooden toy, hardly more than an inch in height.
Waving his hand and smiling, he suddenly started to walk and then ran
swiftly over to the ring. By the time he reached it, somewhat out of
breath, he was little more than twice as high as the width of its band.
Without pausing, he leaped up, and sat astraddle, leaning over and
holding to it tightly with his hands. In another moment he was on his
feet, on the upper edge of the ring, walking carefully along its
circumference towards the scratch.
The Big Business Man touched the Doctor on the shoulder and tried to
smile. "He's making it," he whispered. As if in answer the little figure
turned and waved its arms. They could just distinguish its white outline
against the gold surface underneath.
"I don't see him," said the Very Young Man in a scared voice.
"He's right near the scratch," answered the Doctor, bending closer.
Then, after a moment, "He's gone." He rose to his feet. "Good Lord! Why
haven't we a microscope!"
"I never thought of that," said the Big Business Man, "we could have
watched him for a long time yet."
"Well, he's gone now," returned the Doctor, "and there is nothing for us
to do but wait."
"I hope he finds that girl," sighed the Very Young Man, as he sat chin
in hand beside the handkerchief.
CHAPTER III
AFTER FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
The Banker snored stertorously from his mattress in a corner of the
room. In an easy-chair near by, with his feet on the table, lay the Very
Young Man, sleeping also.
The Doctor and the Big Business Man sat by the handkerchief conversing
in low tones.
"How long has it been now?" asked the latter.
"Just forty hours," answered the Doctor; "and he said that forty-eight
hours was the limit. He should come back at about ten to-night."
"I wonder if he _will_ come back," questioned the Big Business Man
nervously. "Lord, I wish _he_ wouldn't snore so loud," he added
irritably, nodding in the direction of the Banker.
They were silent for a moment, and then he went on: "You'd better try to
sleep a little while, Frank. You're worn out. I'll watch here."
"I suppose I should," answered the Doctor wearily. "Wake up that kid,
he's sleeping most of the time."
"No, I'll watch," repeated the Big Business Man. "You lie down over
there."
The Doctor did so while the other settled himself more comfortably on a
cushion beside the handkerchief, and prepared for his lonely watching.
The Doctor apparently dropped off to sleep at once, for he did not speak
again. The Big Business Man sat staring steadily at the ring, bending
nearer to it occasionally. Every ten or fifteen minutes he looked at his
watch.
Perhaps an hour passed in this way, when the Very Young Man suddenly sat
up and yawned. "Haven't they come back yet?" he asked in a sleepy voice.
The Big Business Man answered in a much lower tone. "What do you
mean--they?"
"I dreamed that he brought the girl back with him," said the Very Young
Man.
"Well, if he did, they have not arrived. You'd better go back to sleep.
We've got six or seven hours yet--maybe more."
The Very Young Man rose and crossed the room. "No, I'll watch a while,"
he said, seating himself on the floor. "What time is it?"
"Quarter to three."
"He said he'd be back by ten to-night. I'm crazy to see that girl."
The Big Business Man rose and went over to a dinner-tray, standing near
the door. "Lord, I'm hungry. I must have forgotten to eat to-day." He
lifted up one of the silver covers. What he saw evidently encouraged
him, for he drew up a chair and began his lunch.
The Very Young Man lighted a cigarette. "It will be the tragedy of my
life," he said, "if he never comes back."
The Big Business Man smiled. "How about _his_ life?" he answered, but
the Very Young Man had fallen into a reverie and did not reply.
The Big Business Man finished his lunch in silence and was just about to
light a cigar when a sharp exclamation brought him hastily to his feet.
"Come here, quick, I see something." The Very Young Man had his face
close to the ring and was trembling violently.
The other pushed him back. "Let me see. Where?"
"There, by the scratch; he's lying there; I can see him."
The Big Business Man looked and then hurriedly woke the Doctor.
"He's come back," he said briefly; "you can see him there." The Doctor
bent down over the ring while the others woke up the Banker.
"He doesn't seem to be getting any bigger," said the Very Young Man;
"he's just lying there. Maybe he's dead."
"What shall we do?" asked the Big Business Man, and made as if to pick
up the ring. The Doctor shoved him away. "Don't do that!" he said
sharply. "Do you want to kill him?"
"He's sitting up," cried the Very Young Man. "He's all right."
"He must have fainted," said the Doctor. "Probably he's taking more of
the drug now."
"He's much larger," said the Very Young Man; "look at him!"
The tiny figure was sitting sideways on the ring, with its feet hanging
over the outer edge. It was growing perceptibly larger each instant, and
in a moment it slipped down off the ring and sank in a heap on the
handkerchief.
"Good Heavens! Look at him!" cried the Big Business Man. "He's all
covered with blood."
The little figure presented a ghastly sight. As it steadily grew larger
they could see and recognize the Chemist's haggard face, his cheek and
neck stained with blood, and his white suit covered with dirt.
"Look at his feet," whispered the Big Business Man. They were horribly
cut and bruised and greatly swollen.
The Doctor bent over and whispered gently, "What can I do to help you?"
The Chemist shook his head. His body, lying prone upon the handkerchief,
had torn it apart in growing. When he was about twelve inches in length
he raised his head. The Doctor bent closer. "Some brandy, please," said
a wraith of the Chemist's voice. It was barely audible.
"He wants some brandy," called the Doctor. The Very Young Man looked
hastily around, then opened the door and dashed madly out of the room.
When he returned, the Chemist had grown to nearly four feet. He was
sitting on the floor with his back against the Doctor's knees. The Big
Business Man was wiping the blood off his face with a damp napkin.
"Here!" cried the Very Young Man, thrusting forth the brandy. The
Chemist drank a little of it. Then he sat up, evidently somewhat
revived.
"I seem to have stopped growing," he said. "Let's finish it up now. God!
how I want to be the right size again," he added fervently.
The Doctor helped him extract the vials from under his arm, and the
Chemist touched one of the pills to his tongue. Then he sank back,
closing his eyes. "I think that should be about enough," he murmured.
No one spoke for nearly ten minutes. Gradually the Chemist's body grew,
the Doctor shifting his position several times as it became larger. It
seemed finally to have stopped growing, and was apparently nearly its
former size.
"Is he asleep?" whispered the Very Young Man.
The Chemist opened his eyes.
"No," he answered. "I'm all right now, I think." He rose to his feet,
the Doctor and the Big Business Man supporting him on either side.
"Sit down and tell us about it," said the Very Young Man. "Did you find
the girl?"
The Chemist smiled wearily.
"Gentlemen, I cannot talk now. Let me have a bath and some dinner. Then
I will tell you all about it."
The Doctor rang for an attendant, and led the Chemist to the door,
throwing a blanket around him as he did so. In the doorway the Chemist
paused and looked back with a wan smile over the wreck of the room.
"Give me an hour," he said. "And eat something yourselves while I am
gone." Then he left, closing the door after him.
When he returned, fully dressed in clothes that were ludicrously large
for him, the room had been straightened up, and his four friends were
finishing their meal. He took his place among them quietly and lighted a
cigar.
"Well, gentlemen, I suppose that you are interested to hear what
happened to me," he began. The Very Young Man asked his usual question.
"Let him alone," said the Doctor. "You will hear it all soon enough."
"Was it all as you expected?" asked the Banker. It was his first remark
since the Chemist returned.
"To a great extent, yes," answered the Chemist. "But I had better tell
you just what happened." The Very Young Man nodded his eager agreement.
"When I took those first four pills," began the Chemist in a quiet, even
tone, "my immediate sensation was a sudden reeling of the senses,
combined with an extreme nausea. This latter feeling passed after a
moment.
"You will remember that I seated myself upon the floor and closed my
eyes. When I opened them my head had steadied itself somewhat, but I was
oppressed by a curious feeling of drowsiness, impossible to shake off.
"My first mental impression was one of wonderment when I saw you all
begin to increase in size. I remember standing up beside that chair,
which was then half again its normal size, and you"--indicating the
Doctor--"towered beside me as a giant of nine or ten feet high.
"Steadily upward, with a curious crawling motion, grew the room and all
its contents. Except for the feeling of sleep that oppressed me, I felt
quite my usual self. No change appeared happening to me, but everything
else seemed growing to gigantic and terrifying proportions.
"Can you imagine a human being a hundred feet high? That is how you
looked to me as I stepped upon that huge expanse of black silk and
shouted my last good-bye to you!
"Over to my left lay the ring, apparently fifteen or twenty feet away. I
started to walk towards it, but although it grew rapidly larger, the
distance separating me from it seemed to increase rather than lessen.
Then I ran, and by the time I arrived it stood higher than my waist--a
beautiful, shaggy, golden pit.
"I jumped upon its rim and clung to it tightly. I could feel it growing
beneath me, as I sat. After a moment I climbed upon its top surface and
started to walk towards the point where I knew the scratch to be.
"I found myself now, as I looked about, walking upon a narrow, though
ever broadening, curved path. The ground beneath my feet appeared to be
a rough, yellowish quartz. This path grew rougher as I advanced. Below
the bulging edges of the path, on both sides, lay a shining black plain,
ridged and indented, and with a sunlike sheen on the higher portions of
the ridges. On the one hand this black plain stretched in an unbroken
expanse to the horizon. On the other, it appeared as a circular valley,
enclosed by a shining yellow wall.
"The way had now become extraordinarily rough. I bore to the left as I
advanced, keeping close to the outer edge. The other edge of the path I
could not see. I clambered along hastily, and after a few moments was
confronted by a row of rocks and bowlders lying directly across my line
of progress. I followed their course for a short distance, and finally
found a space through which I could pass.
"This transverse ridge was perhaps a hundred feet deep. Behind it and
extending in a parallel direction lay a tremendous valley. I knew then I
had reached my first objective.
"I sat down upon the brink of the precipice and watched the cavern
growing ever wider and deeper. Then I realized that I must begin my
descent if ever I was to reach the bottom. For perhaps six hours I
climbed steadily downwards. It was a fairly easy descent after the first
little while, for the ground seemed to open up before me as I advanced,
changing its contour so constantly that I was never at a loss for an
easy downward path.
"My feet suffered cruelly from the shaggy, metallic ground, and I soon
had to stop and rig a sort of protection for the soles of them from a
portion of the harness over my shoulder. According to the stature I was
when I reached the bottom, I had descended perhaps twelve thousand feet
during this time.
"The latter part of the journey found me nearing the bottom of the
cañon. Objects around me no longer seemed to increase in size, as had
been constantly the case before, and I reasoned that probably my stature
was remaining constant.
"I noticed, too, as I advanced, a curious alteration in the form of
light around me. The glare from above (the sky showed only as a narrow
dull ribbon of blue) barely penetrated to the depths of the cañon's
floor. But all about me there was a soft radiance, seeming to emanate
from the rocks themselves.
"The sides of the cañon were shaggy and rough, beyond anything I had
ever seen. Huge bowlders, hundreds of feet in diameter, were embedded in
them. The bottom also was strewn with similar gigantic rocks.
"I surveyed this lonely waste for some time in dismay, not knowing in
what direction lay my goal. I knew that I was at the bottom of the
scratch, and by the comparison of its size I realized I was well started
on my journey.
"I have not told you, gentlemen, that at the time I marked the ring I
made a deeper indentation in one portion of the scratch and focused the
microscope upon that. This indentation I now searched for. Luckily I
found it, less than half a mile away--an almost circular pit, perhaps
five miles in diameter, with shining walls extending downwards into
blackness. There seemed no possible way of descending into it, so I sat
down near its edge to think out my plan of action.
"I realized now that I was faint and hungry, and whatever I did must be
done quickly. I could turn back to you, or I could go on. I decided to
risk the latter course, and took twelve more of the pills--three times
my original dose."
The Chemist paused for a moment, but his auditors were much too intent
to question him. Then he resumed in his former matter-of-fact tone.
"After my vertigo had passed somewhat--it was much more severe this
time--I looked up and found my surroundings growing at a far more rapid
rate than before. I staggered to the edge of the pit. It was opening up
and widening out at an astounding rate. Already its sides were becoming
rough and broken, and I saw many places where a descent would be
possible.
"The feeling of sleep that had formerly merely oppressed me, combined
now with my physical fatigue and the larger dose of the drug I had
taken, became almost intolerable. I yielded to it for a moment, lying
down on a crag near the edge of the pit. I must have become almost
immediately unconscious, and remained so for a considerable time. I can
remember a horrible sensation of sliding headlong for what seemed like
hours. I felt that I was sliding or falling downward. I tried to rouse
but could not. Then came absolute oblivion.
"When I recovered my senses I was lying partly covered by a mass of
smooth, shining pebbles. I was bruised and battered from head to
foot--in a far worse condition than you first saw me when I returned.
"I sat up and looked around. Beside me, sloped upward at an apparently
increasing angle a tremendous glossy plane. This extended, as far as I
could see, both to the right and left and upward into the blackness of
the sky overhead. It was this plane that had evidently broken my fall,
and I had been sliding down it, bringing with me a considerable mass of
rocks and bowlders.
"As my senses became clearer I saw I was lying on a fairly level floor.
I could see perhaps two miles in each direction. Beyond that there was
only darkness. The sky overhead was unbroken by stars or light of any
kind. I should have been in total darkness except, as I have told you
before, that everything, even the blackness itself, seemed to be
self-luminous.
"The incline down which I had fallen was composed of some smooth
substance suggesting black marble. The floor underfoot was quite
different--more of a metallic quality with a curious corrugation. Before
me, in the dim distance, I could just make out a tiny range of hills.
"I rose, after a time, and started weakly to walk towards these hills.
Though I was faint and dizzy from my fall and the lack of food, I walked
for perhaps half an hour, following closely the edge of the incline. No
change in my visual surroundings occurred, except that I seemed
gradually to be approaching the line of hills. My situation at this
time, as I turned it over in my mind, appeared hopelessly desperate, and
I admit I neither expected to reach my destination nor to be able to
return to my own world.
"A sudden change in the feeling of the ground underfoot brought me to
myself; I bent down and found I was treading on vegetation--a tiny
forest extending for quite a distance in front and to the side of me. A
few steps ahead a little silver ribbon threaded its way through the
trees. This I judged to be water.
"New hope possessed me at this discovery. I sat down at once and took a
portion of another of the pills.
"I must again have fallen asleep. When I awoke, somewhat refreshed, I
found myself lying beside the huge trunk of a fallen tree. I was in what
had evidently once been a deep forest, but which now was almost utterly
desolated. Only here and there were the trees left standing. For the
most part they were lying in a crushed and tangled mass, many of them
partially embedded in the ground.
"I cannot express adequately to you, gentlemen, what an evidence of
tremendous superhuman power this scene presented. No storm, no
lightning, nor any attack of the elements could have produced more than
a fraction of the destruction I saw all around me.
"I climbed cautiously upon the fallen tree-trunk, and from this
elevation had a much better view of my surroundings. I appeared to be
near one end of the desolated area, which extended in a path about half
a mile wide and several miles deep. In front, a thousand feet away,
perhaps, lay the unbroken forest.
"Descending from the tree-trunk I walked in this direction, reaching the
edge of the woods after possibly an hour of the most arduous traveling
of my whole journey.
"During this time almost my only thought was the necessity of obtaining
food. I looked about me as I advanced, and on one of the fallen
tree-trunks I found a sort of vine growing. This vine bore a profusion
of small gray berries, much like our huckleberries. They proved similar
in taste, and I sat down and ate a quantity.
"When I reached the edge of the forest I felt somewhat stronger. I had
seen up to this time no sign of animal life whatever. Now, as I stood
silent, I could hear around me all the multitudinous tiny voices of the
woods. Insect life stirred underfoot, and in the trees above an
occasional bird flitted to and fro.
"Perhaps I am giving you a picture of our own world. I do not mean to do
so. You must remember that above me there was no sky, just blackness.
And yet so much light illuminated the scene that I could not believe it
was other than what we would call daytime. Objects in the forest were as
well lighted--better probably than they would be under similar
circumstances in our own world.
"The trees were of huge size compared to my present stature; straight,
upstanding trunks, with no branches until very near the top. They were
bluish-gray in color, and many of them well covered with the berry-vine
I have mentioned. The leaves overhead seemed to be blue--in fact the
predominating color of all the vegetation was blue, just as in our world
it is green. The ground was covered with dead leaves, mould, and a sort
of gray moss. Fungus of a similar color appeared, but of this I did not
eat.
"I had penetrated perhaps two miles into the forest when I came
unexpectedly to the bank of a broad, smooth-flowing river, its silver
surface seeming to radiate waves of the characteristic phosphorescent
light. I found it cold, pure-tasting water, and I drank long and deeply.
Then I remember lying down upon the mossy bank, and in a moment, utterly
worn out, I again fell asleep."
CHAPTER IV
LYLDA
"I was awakened by the feel of soft hands upon my head and face. With a
start I sat up abruptly; I rubbed my eyes confusedly for a moment, not
knowing where I was. When I collected my wits I found myself staring
into the face of a girl, who was kneeling on the ground before me. I
recognized her at once--she was the girl of the microscope.
"To say I was startled would be to put it mildly, but I read no fear in
her expression, only wonderment at my springing so suddenly into life.
She was dressed very much as I had seen her before. Her fragile beauty
was the same, and at this closer view infinitely more appealing, but I
was puzzled to account for her older, more mature look. She seemed to
have aged several years since the last evening I had seen her through
the microscope. Yet, undeniably, it was the same girl.
"For some moments we sat looking at each other in wonderment. Then she
smiled and held out her hand, palm up, speaking a few words as she did
so. Her voice was soft and musical, and the words of a peculiar quality
that we generally describe as liquid, for want of a better term. What
she said was wholly unintelligible, but whether the words were strange
or the intonation different from anything I had ever heard I could not
determine.
"Afterwards, during my stay in this other world, I found that the
language of its people resembled English quite closely, so far as the
words themselves went. But the intonation with which they were given,
and the gestures accompanying them, differed so widely from our own that
they conveyed no meaning.
"The gap separating us, however, was very much less than you would
imagine. Strangely enough, though, it was not I who learned to speak her
tongue, but she who mastered mine."
The Very Young Man sighed contentedly.
"We became quite friendly after this greeting," resumed the Chemist,
"and it was apparent from her manner that she had already conceived her
own idea of who and what I was.
"For some time we sat and tried to communicate with each other. My words
seemed almost as unintelligible to her as hers to me, except that
occasionally she would divine my meaning, clapping her hands in childish
delight. I made out that she lived at a considerable distance, and that
her name was Lylda. Finally she pulled me by the hand and led me away
with a proprietary air that amused and, I must admit, pleased me
tremendously.
"We had progressed through the woods in this way, hardly more than a few
hundred yards, when suddenly I found that she was taking me into the
mouth of a cave or passageway, sloping downward at an angle of perhaps
twenty degrees. I noticed now, more graphically than ever before, a
truth that had been gradually forcing itself upon me. Darkness was
impossible in this new world. We were now shut in between narrow walls
of crystalline rock, with a roof hardly more than fifty feet above.
"No artificial light of any kind was in evidence, yet the scene was
lighted quite brightly. This, I have explained, was caused by the
phosphorescent radiation that apparently emanated from every particle of
mineral matter in this universe.
"As we advanced, many other tunnels crossed the one we were traveling.
And now, occasionally, we passed other people, the men dressed similarly
to Lylda, but wearing their hair chopped off just above the shoulder
line.
"Later, I found that the men were generally about five and a half feet
in stature: lean, muscular, and with a grayer, harder look to their skin
than the iridescent quality that characterized the women.
"They were fine-looking chaps these we encountered. All of them stared
curiously at me, and several times we were held up by chattering groups.
The intense whiteness of my skin, for it looked in this light the color
of chalk, seemed to both awe and amuse them. But they treated me with
great deference and respect, which I afterwards learned was because of
Lylda herself, and also what she told them about me.
"At several of the intersections of the tunnels there were wide open
spaces. One of these we now approached. It was a vast amphitheater, so
broad its opposite wall was invisible, and it seemed crowded with
people. At the side, on a rocky niche in the wall, a speaker harangued
the crowd.
"We skirted the edge of this crowd and plunged into another passageway,
sloping downward still more steeply. I was so much interested in the
strange scenes opening before me that I remarked little of the distance
we traveled. Nor did I question Lylda but seldom. I was absorbed in the
complete similarity between this and my own world in its general
characteristics, and yet its complete strangeness in details.
"I felt not the slightest fear. Indeed the sincerity and kindliness of
these people seemed absolutely genuine, and the friendly, naïve, manner
of my little guide put me wholly at my ease. Towards me Lylda's manner
was one of childish delight at a new-found possession. Towards those of
her own people with whom we talked, I found she preserved a dignity they
profoundly respected.
"We had hardly more than entered this last tunnel when I heard the sound
of drums and a weird sort of piping music, followed by shouts and
cheers. Figures from behind us scurried past, hastening towards the
sound. Lylda's clasp on my hand tightened, and she pulled me forward
eagerly. As we advanced the crowd became denser, pushing and shoving us
about and paying little attention to me.
"In close contact with these people I soon found I was stronger than
they, and for a time I had no difficulty in shoving them aside and
opening a path for us. They took my rough handling in all good part, in
fact, never have I met a more even-tempered, good-natured people than
these.
"After a time the crowd became so dense we could advance no further. At
this Lylda signed me to bear to the side. As we approached the wall of
the cavern she suddenly clasped her hands high over her head and shouted
something in a clear, commanding voice. Instantly the crowd fell back,
and in a moment I found myself being pulled up a narrow flight of stone
steps in the wall and out upon a level space some twenty feet above the
heads of the people.
"Several dignitaries occupied this platform. Lylda greeted them quietly,
and they made place for us beside the parapet. I could see now that we
were at the intersection of a transverse passageway, much broader than
the one we had been traversing. And now I received the greatest surprise
I had had in this new world, for down this latter tunnel was passing a
broad line of men who obviously were soldiers.
"The uniformly straight lines they held; the glint of light on the
spears they carried upright before them; the weird, but rhythmic, music
that passed at intervals, with which they kept step; and, above all, the
cheering enthusiasm of the crowd, all seemed like an echo of my own
great world above.
"This martial ardor and what it implied came as a distinct shock. All I
had seen before showed the gentle kindliness of a people whose life
seemed far removed from the struggle for existence to which our race is
subjected. I had come gradually to feel that this new world, at least,
had attained the golden age of security, and that fear, hate, and
wrongdoing had long since passed away, or had never been born.
"Yet, here before my very eyes, made wholesome by the fires of
patriotism, stalked the grim God of War. Knowing nothing yet of the
motive that inspired these people, I could feel no enthusiasm, but only
disillusionment at this discovery of the omnipotence of strife.
"For some time I must have stood in silence. Lylda, too, seemed to
divine my thoughts, for she did not applaud, but pensively watched the
cheering throng below. All at once, with an impulsively appealing
movement, she pulled me down towards her, and pressed her pretty cheek
to mine. It seemed almost as if she was asking me to help.
"The line of marching men seemed now to have passed, and the crowd
surged over into the open space and began to disperse. As the men upon
the platform with us prepared to leave, Lylda led me over to one of
them. He was nearly as tall as I, and dressed in the characteristic
tunic that seemed universally worn by both sexes. The upper part of his
body was hung with beads, and across his chest was a thin, slightly
convex stone plate.
"After a few words of explanation from Lylda, he laid his hands on my
shoulders near the base of the neck, smiling with his words of greeting.
Then he held one hand before me, palm up, as Lylda had done, and I laid
mine in it, which seemed the correct thing to do.
"I repeated this performance with two others who joined us, and then
Lylda pulled me away. We descended the steps and turned into the broader
tunnel, finding near at hand a sort of sleigh, which Lylda signed me to
enter. It was constructed evidently of wood, with a pile of leaves, or
similar dead vegetation, for cushions. It was balanced upon a single
runner of polished stone, about two feet broad, with a narrow, slightly
shorter outrider on each side.
"Harnessed to the shaft were two animals, more resembling our reindeers
than anything else, except that they were gray in color and had no
horns. An attendant greeted Lylda respectfully as we approached, and
mounted a seat in front of us when we were comfortably settled.
"We drove in this curious vehicle for over an hour. The floor of the
tunnel was quite smooth, and we glided down its incline with little
effort and at a good rate. Our driver preserved the balance of the
sleigh by shifting his body from side to side so that only at rare
intervals did the siderunners touch the ground.
"Finally, we emerged into the open, and I found myself viewing a scene
of almost normal, earthly aspect. We were near the shore of a smooth,
shining lake. At the side a broad stretch of rolling country, dotted
here and there with trees, was visible. Near at hand, on the lake shore,
I saw a collection of houses, most of them low and flat, with one much
larger on a promontory near the lake.
"Overhead arched a gray-blue, cloudless sky, faintly star-studded, and
reflected in the lake before me I saw that familiar gleaming trail of
star-dust, hanging like a huge straightened rainbow overhead, and ending
at my feet."
CHAPTER V
THE WORLD IN THE RING
The Chemist paused and relighted his cigar. "Perhaps you have some
questions," he suggested.
The Doctor shifted in his chair.
"Did you have any theory at this time"--he wanted to know--"about the
physical conformation of this world? What I mean is, when you came out
of this tunnel were you on the inside or the outside of the world?"
"Was it the same sky you saw overhead when you were in the forest?"
asked the Big Business Man.
"No, it was what he saw in the microscope, wasn't it?" said the Very
Young Man.
"One at a time, gentlemen," laughed the Chemist. "No, I had no
particular theory at this time--I had too many other things to think of.
But I do remember noticing one thing which gave me the clew to a fairly
complete understanding of this universe. From it I formed a definite
explanation, which I found was the belief held by the people
themselves."
"What was that?" asked the Very Young Man.
"I noticed, as I stood looking over this broad expanse of country before
me, one vital thing that made it different from any similar scene I had
ever beheld. If you will stop and think a moment, gentlemen, you will
realize that in our world here the horizon is caused by a curvature of
the earth below the straight line of vision. We are on a convex surface.
But as I gazed over this landscape, and even with no appreciable light
from the sky I could see a distance of several miles, I saw at once that
quite the reverse was true. I seemed to be standing in the center of a
vast shallow bowl. The ground curved upward into the distance. There was
no distant horizon line, only the gradual fading into shadow of the
visual landscape. I was standing obviously on a concave surface, on the
inside, not the outside of the world.
"The situation, as I now understand it, was this: According to the
smallest stature I reached, and calling my height at that time roughly
six feet, I had descended into the ring at the time I met Lylda several
thousand miles, at least. By the way, where is the ring?"
"Here is it," said the Very Young Man, handing it to him. The Chemist
replaced it on his finger. "It's pretty important to me now," he said,
smiling.
"You bet!" agreed the Very Young Man.
"You can readily understand how I descended such a distance, if you
consider the comparative immensity of my stature during the first few
hours I was in the ring. It is my understanding that this country
through which I passed is a barren waste--merely the atoms of the
mineral we call gold.
"Beyond that I entered the hitherto unexplored regions within the atom.
The country at that point where I found the forest, I was told later, is
habitable for several hundred miles. Around it on all sides lies a
desert, across which no one has ever penetrated.
"This surface is the outside of the Oroid world, for so they call their
earth. At this point the shell between the outer and inner surface is
only a few miles in thickness. The two surfaces do not parallel each
other here, so that in descending these tunnels we turned hardly more
than an eighth of a complete circle.
"At the city of Arite, where Lylda first took me, and where I had my
first view of the inner surface, the curvature is slightly greater than
that of our own earth, although, as I have said, in the opposite
direction."
"And the space within this curvature--the heavens you have
mentioned--how great do you estimate it to be?" asked the Doctor.
"Based on the curvature at Arite it would be about six thousand miles in
diameter."
"Has this entire inner surface been explored?" asked the Big Business
Man.
"No, only a small portion. The Oroids are not an adventurous people.
There are only two nations, less than twelve million people all
together, on a surface nearly as extensive as our own."
"How about those stars?" suggested the Very Young Man.
"I believe they comprise a complete universe similar to our own solar
system. There is a central sun-star, around which many of the others
revolve. You must understand, though, that these other worlds are
infinitely tiny compared to the Oroids, and, if inhabited, support
beings nearly as much smaller than the Oroids, as they are smaller than
you."
"Great Caesar!" ejaculated the Banker. "Don't let's go into that any
deeper!"
"Tell us more about Lylda," prompted the Very Young Man.
"You are insatiable on that point," laughed the Chemist. "Well, when we
left the sleigh, Lylda took me directly into the city of Arite. I found
it an orderly collection of low houses, seemingly built of uniformly
cut, highly polished gray blocks. As we passed through the streets, some
of which were paved with similar blocks, I was reminded of nothing so
much as the old jingles of Spotless Town. Everything was immaculately,
inordinately clean. Indeed, the whole city seemed built of some curious
form of opaque glass, newly scrubbed and polished.
"Children crowded from the doorways as we advanced, but Lylda dispersed
them with a gentle though firm, command. As we approached the sort of
castle I have mentioned, the reason for Lylda's authoritative manner
dawned upon me. She was, I soon learned, daughter of one of the most
learned men of the nation and was--handmaiden, do you call it?--to the
queen."
"So it was a monarchy?" interrupted the Big Business Man. "I should
never have thought that."
"Lylda called their leader a king. In reality he was the president,
chosen by the people, for a period of about what we would term twenty
years; I learned something about this republic during my stay, but not
as much as I would have liked. Politics was not Lylda's strong point,
and I had to get it all from her, you know.
"For several days I was housed royally in the castle. Food was served me
by an attendant who evidently was assigned solely to look after my
needs. At first I was terribly confused by the constant, uniform light,
but when I found certain hours set aside for sleep, just as we have
them, when I began to eat regularly, I soon fell into the routine of
this new life.
"The food was not greatly different from our own, although I found not a
single article I could identify. It consisted principally of vegetables
and fruits, the latter of an apparently inexhaustible variety.
"Lylda visited me at intervals, and I learned I was awaiting an audience
with the king. During these days she made rapid progress with my
language--so rapid that I shortly gave up the idea of mastering hers.
"And now, with the growing intimacy between us and our ability to
communicate more readily, I learned the simple, tragic story of her
race--new details, of course, but the old, old tale of might against
right, and the tragedy of a trusting, kindly people, blindly thinking
others as just as themselves.
"For thousands of years, since the master life-giver had come from one
of the stars to populate the world, the Oroid nation had dwelt in peace
and security. These people cared nothing for adventure. No restless
thirst for knowledge led them to explore deeply the limitless land
surrounding them. Even from the earliest times no struggle for
existence, no doctrine of the survival of the fittest, hung over them as
with us. No wild animals harassed them; no savages menaced them. A
fertile boundless land, a perfect climate, nurtured them tenderly.
"Under such conditions they developed only the softer, gentler qualities
of nature. Many laws among them were unnecessary, for life was so
simple, so pleasant to live, and the attainment of all the commonly
accepted standards of wealth so easy, that the incentive to wrongdoing
was almost non-existent.
"Strangely enough, and fortunately, too, no individuals rose among them
with the desire for power. Those in command were respected and loved as
true workers for the people, and they accepted their authority in the
same spirit with which it was given. Indolence, in its highest sense the
wonderful art of doing nothing gracefully, played the greatest part in
their life.
"Then, after centuries of ease and peaceful security, came the
awakening. Almost without warning another nation had come out of the
unknown to attack them.
"With the hurt feeling that comes to a child unjustly treated, they all
but succumbed to this first onslaught. The abduction of numbers of their
women, for such seemed the principal purpose of the invaders, aroused
them sufficiently to repel this first crude attack. Their manhood
challenged, their anger as a nation awakened for the first time, they
sprang as one man into the horror we call war.
"With the defeat of the Malites came another period of ease and
security. They had learned no lesson, but went their indolent way,
playing through life like the kindly children they were. During this
last period some intercourse between them and the Malites took place.
The latter people, whose origin was probably nearly opposite them on the
inner surface, had by degrees pushed their frontiers closer and closer
to the Oroids. Trade between the two was carried on to some extent, but
the character of the Malites, their instinctive desire for power, for
its own sake, their consideration for themselves as superior beings,
caused them to be distrusted and feared by their more simple-minded
companion nation.
"You can almost guess the rest, gentlemen. Lylda told me little about
the Malites, but the loathing disgust of her manner, her hesitancy, even
to bring herself to mention them, spoke more eloquently than words.
"Four years ago, as they measure time, came the second attack, and now,
in a huge arc, only a few hundred miles from Arite, hung the opposing
armies."
The Chemist paused. "That's the condition I found, gentlemen," he said.
"Not a strikingly original or unfamiliar situation, was it?"
"By Jove!" remarked the Doctor thoughtfully, "what a curious thing that
the environment of our earth should so affect that world inside the
ring. It does make you stop and think, doesn't it, to realize how those
infinitesimal creatures are actuated now by the identical motives that
inspire us?"
"Yet it does seem very reasonable, I should say," the Big Business Man
put in.
"Let's have another round of drinks," suggested the Banker--"this is dry
work!"
"As a scientist you'd make a magnificent plumber, George!" retorted the
Big Business Man. "You're about as helpful in this little gathering as
an oyster!"
The Very Young Man rang for a waiter.
"I've been thinking----" began the Banker, and stopped at the smile of
his companion. "Shut up!"--he finished--"that's cheap wit, you know!"
"Go on, George," encouraged the other, "you've been thinking----"
"I've been tremendously interested in this extraordinary story"--he
addressed himself to the Chemist--"but there's one point I don't get at
all. How many days were you in that ring do you make out?"
"I believe about seven, all told," returned the Chemist.
"But you were only away from us some forty hours. I ought to know, I've
been right here." He looked at his crumpled clothes somewhat ruefully.
"The change of time-progress was one of the surprises of my adventure,"
said the Chemist. "It is easily explained in a general way, although I
cannot even attempt a scientific theory of its cause. But I must confess
that before I started the possibility of such a thing never even
occurred to me."
"To get a conception of this change you must analyze definitely what
time is. We measure and mark it by years, months, and so forth, down to
minutes and seconds, all based upon the movements of our earth around
its sun. But that is the measurement of time, not time itself. How would
you describe time?"
The Big Business Man smiled. "Time," he said, "is what keeps everything
from happening at once."
"Very clever," laughed the Chemist.
The Doctor leaned forward earnestly. "I should say," he began, "that
time is the rate at which we live--the speed at which we successively
pass through our existence from birth to death. It's very hard to put
intelligibly, but I think I know what I mean," he finished somewhat
lamely.
"Exactly so. Time is a rate of life-progress, different for every
individual and only made standard because we take the time-duration of
the earth's revolution around the sun, which is constant, and
arbitrarily say: 'That is thirty-one million five hundred thousand odd
seconds.'"
"Is time different for every individual?" asked the Banker
argumentatively.
"Think a moment," returned the Chemist. "Suppose your brain were to work
twice as fast as mine. Suppose your heart beat twice as fast, and all
the functions of your body were accelerated in a like manner. What we
call a second would certainly seem to you twice as long. Further than
that, it actually would be twice as long, so far as you were concerned.
Your digestion, instead of taking perhaps four hours, would take two.
You would eat twice as often. The desire for sleep would overtake you
every twelve hours instead of twenty-four, and you would be satisfied
with four hours of unconsciousness instead of eight. In short, you would
soon be living a cycle of two days every twenty-four hours. Time then,
as we measure it, for you at least would have doubled--you would be
progressing through life at twice the rate that I am through mine."
"That may be theoretically true," the Big Business Man put in.
"Practically, though, it has never happened to any one."
"Of course not, to such a great degree as the instance I put. No one,
except in disease, has ever doubled our average rate of life-progress,
and lived it out as a balanced, otherwise normal existence. But there is
no question that to some much smaller degree we all of us differ one
from the other. The difference, however, is so comparatively slight,
that we can each one reconcile it to the standard measurement of time.
And so, outwardly, time is the same for all of us. But inwardly, why, we
none of us conceive a minute or an hour to be the same! How do you know
how long a minute is to me? More than that, time is not constant even in
the same individual. How many hours are shorter to you than others? How
many days have been almost interminable? No, instead of being constant,
there is nothing more inconstant than time."
"Haven't you confused two different issues?" suggested the Big Business
Man. "Granted what you say about the slightly different rate at which
different individuals live, isn't it quite another thing, how long time
seems to you. A day when you have nothing to do seems long, or, on the
other hand, if you are very busy it seems short. But mind, it only
_seems_ short or long, according to the preoccupation of your mind. That
has nothing to do with the speed of your progress through life."
"Ah, but I think it has," cried the Chemist. "You forget that we none of
us have all of the one thing to the exclusion of the other. Time seems
short; it seems long, and in the end it all averages up, and makes our
rate of progress what it is. Now if any of us were to go through life in
a calm, deliberate way, making time seem as long as possible, he would
live more years, as we measure them, than if he rushed headlong through
the days, accomplishing always as much as possible. I mean in neither
case to go to the extremes, but only so far as would be consistent with
the maintenance of a normal standard of health. How about it?" He turned
to the Doctor. "You ought to have an opinion on that."
"I rather think you are right," said the latter thoughtfully, "although
I doubt very much if the man who took it easy would do as much during
his longer life as the other with his energy would accomplish in the
lesser time allotted to him."
"Probably he wouldn't," smiled the Chemist; "but that does not alter the
point we are discussing."
"How does this apply to the world in the ring?" ventured the Very Young
Man.
"I believe there is a very close relationship between the dimensions of
length, breadth, and thickness, and time. Just what connection with them
it has, I have no idea. Yet, when size changes, time-rate changes; you
have only to look at our own universe to discover that."
"How do you mean?" asked the Very Young Man.
"Why, all life on our earth, in a general way, illustrates the
fundamental fact that the larger a thing is, the slower its
time-progress is. An elephant, for example, lives more years than we
humans. Yet how quickly a fly is born, matured, and aged! There are
exceptions, of course; but in a majority of cases it is true.
"So I believe that as I diminished in stature, my time-progress became
faster and faster. I am seven days older than when I left you day before
yesterday. I have lived those seven days, gentlemen, there is no getting
around that fact."
"This is all tremendously interesting," sighed the Big Business Man;
"but not very comprehensible."
CHAPTER VI
STRATEGY AND KISSES
"It was the morning of my third day in the castle," began the Chemist
again, "that I was taken by Lylda before the king. We found him seated
alone in a little anteroom, overlooking a large courtyard, which we
could see was crowded with an expectant, waiting throng. I must explain
to you now, that I was considered by Lylda somewhat in the light of a
Messiah, come to save her nation from the destruction that threatened
it.
"She believed me a supernatural being, which, indeed, if you come to
think of it, gentlemen, is exactly what I was. I tried to tell her
something of myself and the world I had come from, but the difficulties
of language and her smiling insistence and faith in her own conception
of me, soon caused me to desist. Thereafter I let her have her own way,
and did not attempt any explanation again for some time.
"For several weeks before Lylda found me sleeping by the river's edge,
she had made almost a daily pilgrimage to that vicinity. A maidenly
premonition, a feeling that had first come to her several years before,
told her of my coming, and her father's knowledge and scientific beliefs
had led her to the outer surface of the world as the direction in which
to look. A curious circumstance, gentlemen, lies in the fact that Lylda
clearly remembered the occasion when this first premonition came to her.
And in the telling, she described graphically the scene in the cave,
where I saw her through the microscope." The Chemist paused an instant
and then resumed.
"When we entered the presence of the king, he greeted me quietly, and
made me sit by his side, while Lylda knelt on the floor at our feet. The
king impressed me as a man about fifty years of age. He was
smooth-shaven, with black, wavy hair, reaching his shoulders. He was
dressed in the usual tunic, the upper part of his body covered by a
quite similar garment, ornamented with a variety of metal objects. His
feet were protected with a sort of buskin; at his side hung a
crude-looking metal spear.
"The conversation that followed my entrance, lasted perhaps fifteen
minutes. Lylda interpreted for us as well as she could, though I must
confess we were all three at times completely at a loss. But Lylda's
bright, intelligent little face, and the resourcefulness of her
gestures, always managed somehow to convey her meaning. The charm and
grace of her manner, all during the talk, her winsomeness, and the
almost spiritual kindness and tenderness that characterized her, made me
feel that she embodied all those qualities with which we of this earth
idealize our own womanhood.
"I found myself falling steadily under the spell of her beauty,
until--well, gentlemen, it's childish for me to enlarge upon this side
of my adventure, you know; but--Lylda means everything to me now, and
I'm going back for her just as soon as I possibly can."
"Bully for you!" cried the Very Young Man. "Why didn't you bring her
with you this time?"
"Let him tell it his own way," remonstrated the Doctor. The Very Young
Man subsided with a sigh.
"During our talk," resumed the Chemist, "I learned from the king that
Lylda had promised him my assistance in overcoming the enemies that
threatened his country. He smilingly told me that our charming little
interpreter had assured him I would be able to do this. Lylda's blushing
face, as she conveyed this meaning to me, was so thoroughly captivating,
that before I knew it, and quite without meaning to, I pulled her up
towards me and kissed her.
"The king was more surprised by far than Lylda, at this extraordinary
behavior. Obviously neither of them had understood what a kiss meant,
although Lylda, by her manner evidently comprehended pretty thoroughly.
"I told them then, as simply as possible to enable Lylda to get my
meaning, that I could, and would gladly aid in their war. I explained
then, that I had the power to change my stature, and could make myself
grow very large or very small in a short space of time.
"This, as Lylda evidently told it to him, seemed quite beyond the king's
understanding. He comprehended finally, or at least he agreed to believe
my statement.
"This led to the consideration of practical questions of how I was to
proceed in their war. I had not considered any details before, but now
they appeared of the utmost simplicity. All I had to do was to make
myself a hundred or two hundred feet high, walk out to the battle-lines,
and scatter the opposing army like a set of small boys' playthings."
"What a quaint idea!" said the Banker. "A modern 'Gulliver.'"
The Chemist did not heed this interruption.
"Then like three children we plunged into a discussion of exactly how I
was to perform these wonders, the king laughing heartily as we pictured
the attack on my tiny enemies.
"He then asked me how I expected to accomplish this change of size, and
I very briefly told him of our larger world, and the manner in which I
had come from it into his. Then I showed the drugs that I still carried
carefully strapped to me. This seemed definitely to convince the king of
my sincerity. He rose abruptly to his feet, and strode through a doorway
on to a small balcony overlooking the courtyard below.
"As he stepped out into the view of the people, a great cheer arose. He
waited quietly for them to stop, and then raised his hand and began
speaking. Lylda and I stood hand in hand in the shadow of the doorway,
out of sight of the crowd, but with it and the entire courtyard plainly
in our view.
"It was a quadrangular enclosure, formed by the four sides of the
palace, perhaps three hundred feet across, packed solidly now with
people of both sexes, the gleaming whiteness of the upper parts of their
bodies, and their upturned faces, making a striking picture.
"For perhaps ten minutes the king spoke steadily, save when he was
interrupted by applause. Then he stopped abruptly and, turning, pulled
Lylda and me out upon the balcony. The enthusiasm of the crowd doubled
at our appearance. I was pushed forward to the balcony rail, where I
bowed to the cheering throng.
"Just after I left the king's balcony, I met Lylda's father. He was a
kindly-faced old gentleman, and took a great interest in me and my
story. He it was who told me about the physical conformation of his
world, and he seemed to comprehend my explanation of mine.
"That night it rained--a heavy, torrential downpour, such as we have in
the tropics. Lylda and I had been talking for some time, and, I must
confess, I had been making love to her ardently. I broached now the
principal object of my entrance into her world, and, with an eloquence I
did not believe I possessed, I pictured the wonders of our own great
earth above, begging her to come back with me and live out her life with
mine.
"Much of what I said, she probably did not understand, but the main
facts were intelligible without question. She listened quietly. When I
had finished, and waited for her decision, she reached slowly out and
clutched my shoulders, awkwardly making as if to kiss me. In an instant
she was in my arms, with a low, happy little cry."
CHAPTER VII
A MODERN GULLIVER
"The clattering fall of rain brought us to ourselves. Rising to her
feet, Lylda pulled me over to the window-opening, and together we stood
and looked out into the night. The scene before us was beautiful, with a
weirdness almost impossible to describe. It was as bright as I had ever
seen this world, for even though heavy clouds hung overhead, the light
from the stars was never more than a negligible quantity.
"We were facing the lake--a shining expanse of silver radiation, its
surface shifting and crawling, as though a great undulating blanket of
silver mist lay upon it. And coming down to meet it from the sky were
innumerable lines of silver--a vast curtain of silver cords that broke
apart into great strings of pearls when I followed their downward
course.
"And then, as I turned to Lylda, I was struck with the extraordinary
weirdness of her beauty as never before. The reflected light from the
rain had something the quality of our moonlight. Shining on Lylda's
body, it tremendously enhanced the iridescence of her skin. And her
face, upturned to mine, bore an expression of radiant happiness and
peace such as I had never seen before on a woman's countenance."
The Chemist paused, his voice dying away into silence as he sat lost in
thought. Then he pulled himself together with a start. "It was a sight,
gentlemen, the memory of which I shall cherish all my life.
"The next day was that set for my entrance into the war. Lylda and I had
talked nearly all night, and had decided that she was to return with me
to my world. By morning the rain had stopped, and we sat together in the
window-opening, silenced with the thrill of the wonderful new joy that
had come into our hearts.
"The country before us, under the cloudless, starry sky, stretched
gray-blue and beautiful into the quivering obscurity of the distance. At
our feet lay the city, just awakening into life. Beyond, over the
rolling meadows and fields, wound the road that led out to the
battle-front, and coming back over it now, we could see an endless line
of vehicles. These, as they passed through the street beneath our
window, I found were loaded with soldiers, wounded and dying. I
shuddered at the sight of one cart in particular, and Lylda pressed
close to me, pleading with her eyes for my help for her stricken people.
"My exit from the castle was made quite a ceremony. A band of music and
a guard of several hundred soldiers ushered me forth, walking beside the
king, with Lylda a few paces behind. As we passed through the streets of
the city, heading for the open country beyond, we were cheered
continually by the people who thronged the streets and crowded upon the
housetops to watch us pass.
"Outside Arite I was taken perhaps a mile, where a wide stretch of
country gave me the necessary space for my growth. We were standing upon
a slight hill, below which, in a vast semicircle, fully a hundred
thousand people were watching.
"And now, for the first time, fear overcame me. I realized my
situation--saw myself in a detached sort of way--a stranger in this
extraordinary world, and only the power of my drug to raise me out of
it. This drug you must remember, I had not as yet taken. Suppose it were
not to act? Or were to act wrongly?
"I glanced around. The king stood before me, quietly waiting my
pleasure. Then I turned to Lylda. One glance at her proud, happy little
face, and my fear left me as suddenly as it had come. I took her in my
arms and kissed her, there before that multitude. Then I set her down,
and signified to the king I was ready.
"I took a minute quantity of one of the drugs, and as I had done before,
sat down with my eyes covered. My sensations were fairly similar to
those I have already described. When I looked up after a moment, I found
the landscape dwindling to tiny proportions in quite as astonishing a
way as it had grown before. The king and Lylda stood now hardly above my
ankle.
"A great cry arose from the people--a cry wherein horror, fear, and
applause seemed equally mixed. I looked down and saw thousands of them
running away in terror.
"Still smaller grew everything within my vision, and then, after a
moment, the landscape seemed at rest. I kneeled now upon the ground,
carefully, to avoid treading on any of the people around me. I located
Lylda and the king after a moment; tiny little creatures less than an
inch in height. I was then, I estimated, from their viewpoint, about
four hundred feet tall.
"I put my hand flat upon the ground near Lylda, and after a moment she
climbed into it, two soldiers lifting her up the side of my thumb as it
lay upon the ground. In the hollow of my palm, she lay quite securely,
and very carefully I raised her up towards my face. Then, seeing that
she was frightened, I set her down again.
"At my feet, hardly more than a few steps away, lay the tiny city of
Arite and the lake. I could see all around the latter now, and could
make out clearly a line of hills on the other side. Off to the left the
road wound up out of sight in the distance. As far as I could see, a
line of soldiers was passing out along this road--marching four abreast,
with carts at intervals, loaded evidently with supplies; only
occasionally, now, vehicles passed in the other direction. Can I make it
plain to you, gentlemen, my sensations in changing stature? I felt at
first as though I were tremendously high in the air, looking down as
from a balloon upon the familiar territory beneath me. That feeling
passed after a few moments, and I found that my point of view had
changed. I no longer felt that I was looking down from a balloon, but
felt as a normal person feels. And again I conceived myself but six feet
tall, standing above a dainty little toy world. It is all in the
viewpoint, of course, and never, during all my changes, was I for more
than a moment able to feel of a different stature than I am at this
present instant. It was always everything else that changed.
"According to the directions I had received from the king, I started now
to follow the course of the road. I found it difficult walking, for the
country was dotted with houses, trees, and cultivated fields, and each
footstep was a separate problem.
"I progressed in this manner perhaps two miles, covering what the day
before I would have called about a hundred and thirty or forty miles.
The country became wilder as I advanced, and now was in places crowded
with separate collections of troops.
"I have not mentioned the commotion I made in this walk over the
country. My coming must have been told widely by couriers the night
before, to soldiers and peasantry alike, or the sight of me would have
caused utter demoralization. As it was, I must have been terrifying to a
tremendous degree. I think the careful way in which I picked my course,
stepping in the open as much as possible, helped to reassure the people.
Behind me, whenever I turned, they seemed rather more curious than
fearful, and once or twice when I stopped for a few moments they
approached my feet closely. One athletic young soldier caught the loose
end of the string of one of my buskins, as it hung over my instep close
to the ground and pulled himself up hand over hand, amid the
enthusiastic cheers of his comrades.
"I had walked nearly another mile, when almost in front of me, and
perhaps a hundred yards away, I saw a remarkable sight that I did not at
first understand. The country here was crossed by a winding river
running in a general way at right angles to my line of progress. At the
right, near at hand, and on the nearer bank of the river, lay a little
city, perhaps half the size of Arite, with its back up against a hill.
"What first attracted my attention was that from a dark patch across the
river which seemed to be woods, pebbles appeared to pop up at intervals,
traversing a little arc perhaps as high as my knees, and falling into
the city. I watched for a moment and then I understood. There was a
siege in progress, and the catapults of the Malites were bombarding the
city with rocks.
"I went up a few steps closer, and the pebbles stopped coming. I stood
now beside the city, and as I bent over it, I could see by the battered
houses the havoc the bombardment had caused. Inert little figures lay in
the streets, and I bent lower and inserted my thumb and forefinger
between a row of houses and picked one up. It was the body of a woman,
partly mashed. I set it down again hastily.
"Then as I stood up, I felt a sting on my leg. A pebble had hit me on
the shin and dropped at my feet. I picked it up. It was the size of a
small walnut--a huge bowlder six feet or more in diameter it would have
been in Lylda's eyes. At the thought of her I was struck with a sudden
fit of anger. I flung the pebble violently down into the wooded patch
and leaped over the river in one bound, landing squarely on both feet in
the woods. It was like jumping into a patch of ferns.
"I stamped about me for a moment until a large part of the woods was
crushed down. Then I bent over and poked around with my finger.
Underneath the tangled wreckage of tiny-tree trunks, lay numbers of the
Malites. I must have trodden upon a thousand or more, as one would stamp
upon insects.
"The sight sickened me at first, for after all, I could not look upon
them as other than men, even though they were only the length of my
thumb-nail. I walked a few steps forward, and in all directions I could
see swarms of the little creatures running. Then the memory of my coming
departure from this world with Lylda, and my promise to the king to rid
his land once for all from these people, made me feel again that they,
like vermin, were to be destroyed.
"Without looking directly down, I spent the next two hours stamping over
this entire vicinity. Then I ran two or three miles directly toward the
country of the Malites, and returning I stamped along the course of the
river for a mile or so in both directions. Then I walked back to Arite,
again picking my way carefully among crowds of Oroids, who now feared me
so little that I had difficulty in moving without stepping upon them.
"When I had regained my former size, which needed two successive doses
of the drug, I found myself surrounded by a crowd of the Oroids, pushing
and shoving each other in an effort to get closer to me. The news of my
success over their enemy have been divined by them, evidently. Lord
knows it must have been obvious enough what I was going to do, when they
saw me stride away, a being four hundred feet tall.
"Their enthusiasm and thankfulness now were so mixed with awe and
reverent worship of me as a divine being, that when I advanced towards
Arite they opened a path immediately. The king, accompanied by Lylda,
met me at the edge of the city. The latter threw herself into my arms at
once, crying with relief to find me the proper size once more.
"I need not go into details of the ceremonies of rejoicing that took
place this afternoon. These people seemed little given to pomp and
public demonstration. The king made a speech from his balcony, telling
them all I had done, and the city was given over to festivities and
preparations to receive the returning soldiers."
The Chemist pushed his chair back from the table, and moistened his dry
lips with a swallow of water. "I tell you, gentlemen," he continued, "I
felt pretty happy that day. It's a wonderful feeling to find yourself
the savior of a nation."
At that the Doctor jumped to his feet, overturning his chair, and
striking the table a blow with his fist that made the glasses dance.
"By God!" he fairly shouted, "that's just what you can be here to us."
The Banker looked startled, while the Very Young Man pulled the Chemist
by the coat in his eagerness to be heard. "A few of those pills," he
said in a voice that quivered with excitement, "when you are standing in
France, and you can walk over to Berlin and kick the houses apart with
the toe of your boot."
"Why not?" said the Big Business Man, and silence fell on the group as
they stared at each other, awed by the possibilities that opened up
before them.
CHAPTER VIII
"I MUST GO BACK"
The tremendous plan for the salvation of their own suffering world
through the Chemist's discovery occupied the five friends for some time.
Then laying aside this subject, that now had become of the most vital
importance to them all, the Chemist resumed his narrative.
"My last evening in the world of the ring, I spent with Lylda,
discussing our future, and making plans for the journey. I must tell you
now, gentlemen, that never for a moment during my stay in Arite was I
once free from an awful dread of this return trip. I tried to conceive
what it would be like, and the more I thought about it, the more
hazardous it seemed.
"You must realize, when I was growing smaller, coming in, I was able to
climb down, or fall or slide down, into the spaces as they opened up.
Going back, I could only imagine the world as closing in upon me,
crushing me to death unless I could find a larger space immediately
above into which I could climb.
"And as I talked with Lylda about this and tried to make her understand
what I hardly understood myself, I gradually was brought to realize the
full gravity of the danger confronting us. If only I had made the trip
out once before, I could have ventured it with her. But as I looked at
her fragile little body, to expose it to the terrible possibilities of
such a journey was unthinkable.
"There was another question, too, that troubled me. I had been gone from
you nearly a week, and you were only to wait for me two days. I believed
firmly that I was living at a faster rate, and that probably my time
with you had not expired. But I did not know. And suppose, when I had
come out on to the surface of the ring, one of you had had it on his
finger walking along the street? No, I did not want Lylda with me in
that event.
"And so I told her--made her understand--that she must stay behind, and
that I would come back for her. She did not protest. She said
nothing--just looked up into my face with wide, staring eyes and a
little quiver of her lips. Then she clutched my hand and fell into a
low, sobbing cry.
"I held her in my arms for a few moments, so little, so delicate, so
human in her sorrow, and yet almost superhuman in her radiant beauty.
Soon she stopped crying and smiled up at me bravely.
"Next morning I left. Lylda took me through the tunnels and back into
the forest by the river's edge where I had first met her. There we
parted. I can see, now, her pathetic, drooping little figure as she
trudged back to the tunnel.
"When she had disappeared, I sat down to plan out my journey. I resolved
now to reverse as nearly as possible the steps I had taken coming in.
Acting on this decision, I started back to that portion of the forest
where I had trampled it down.
"I found the place without difficulty, stopping once on the way to eat a
few berries, and some of the food I carried with me. Then I took a small
amount of one of the drugs, and in a few moments the forest trees had
dwindled into tiny twigs beneath my feet.
"I started now to find the huge incline down which I had fallen, and
when I reached it, after some hours of wandering, I followed its bottom
edge to where a pile of rocks and dirt marked my former landing-place.
The rocks were much larger than I remembered them, and so I knew I was
not so large, now, as when I was here before.
"Remembering the amount of the drug I had taken coming down, I took now
twelve of the pills. Then, in a sudden panic, I hastily took two of the
others. The result made my head swim most horribly. I sat or lay down, I
forget which. When I looked up I saw the hills beyond the river and
forest coming towards me, yet dwindling away beneath my feet as they
approached. The incline seemed folding up upon itself, like a telescope.
As I watched, its upper edge came into view, a curved, luminous line
against the blackness above. Every instant it crawled down closer, more
sharply curved, and its inclined surface grew steeper.
"All this time, as I stood still, the ground beneath my feet seemed to
be moving. It was crawling towards me, and folding up underneath where I
was standing. Frequently I had to move to avoid rocks that came at me
and passed under my feet into nothingness.
"Then, all at once, I realized that I had been stepping constantly
backward, to avoid the inclined wall as it shoved itself towards me. I
turned to see what was behind, and horror made my flesh creep at what I
saw. A black, forbidding wall, much like the incline in front, entirely
encircled me. It was hardly more than half a mile away, and towered four
or five thousand feet overhead.
"And as I stared in terror, I could see it closing in, the line of its
upper edge coming steadily closer and lower. I looked wildly around with
an overpowering impulse to run. In every direction towered this rocky
wall, inexorably swaying in to crush me.
"I think I fainted. When I came to myself the scene had not greatly
changed. I was lying at the bottom and against one wall of a circular
pit, now about a thousand feet in diameter and nearly twice as deep. The
wall all around I could see was almost perpendicular, and it seemed
impossible to ascend its smooth, shining sides. The action of the drug
had evidently worn off, for everything was quite still.
"My fear had now left me, for I remembered this circular pit quite well.
I walked over to its center, and looking around and up to its top I
estimated distances carefully. Then I took two more of the pills.
"Immediately the familiar, sickening, crawling sensation began again. As
the walls closed in upon me, I kept carefully in the center of the pit.
Steadily they crept in. Now only a few hundred feet away! Now only a few
paces--and then I reached out and touched both sides at once with my
hands.
"I tell you, gentlemen, it was a terrifying sensation to stand in that
well (as it now seemed), and feel its walls closing up with irresistible
force. But now the upper edge was within reach of my fingers. I leaped
upward and hung for a moment, then pulled myself up and scrabbled out,
tumbling in a heap on the ground above. As I recovered myself, I looked
again at the hole out of which I had escaped; it was hardly big enough
to contain my fist.
"I knew, now, I was at the bottom of the scratch. But how different it
looked than before. It seemed this time a long, narrow cañon, hardly
more than sixty feet across. I glanced up and saw the blue sky overhead,
flooded with light, that I knew was the space of this room above the
ring.
"The problem now was quite a different one than getting out of the pit,
for I saw that the scratch was so deep in proportion to its width that
if I let myself get too big, I would be crushed by its walls before I
could jump out. It would be necessary, therefore, to stay comparatively
small and climb up its side.
"I selected what appeared to be an especially rough section, and took a
portion of another of the pills. Then I started to climb. After an hour
the buskins on my feet were torn to fragments, and I was bruised and
battered as you saw me. I see, now, how I could have made both the
descent into the ring, and my journey back with comparatively little
effort, but I did the best I knew at the time.
"When the cañon was about ten feet in width, and I had been climbing
arduously for several hours, I found myself hardly more than fifteen or
twenty feet above its bottom. And I was still almost that far from the
top. With the stature I had then attained, I could have climbed the
remaining distance easily, but for the fact that the wall above had
grown too smooth to afford a foothold. The effects of the drug had again
worn off, and I sat down and prepared to take another dose. I did
so--the smallest amount I could--and held ready in my hand a pill of the
other kind in case of emergency. Steadily the walls closed in.
"A terrible feeling of dizziness now came over me. I clutched the rock
beside which I was sitting, and it seemed to melt like ice beneath my
grasp. Then I remembered seeing the edge of the cañon within reach above
my head, and with my last remaining strength, I pulled myself up, and
fell upon the surface of the ring. You know the rest. I took another
dose of the powder, and in a few minutes was back among you."
The Chemist stopped speaking, and looked at his friends. "Well," he
said, "you've heard it all. What do you think of it?"
"It is a terrible thing to me," sighed the Very Young Man, "that you did
not bring Llyda with you."
"It would have been a terrible thing if I had brought her. But I am
going back for her."
"When do you plan to go back?" asked the Doctor after a moment.
"As soon as I can--in a day or two," answered the Chemist.
"Before you do your work here? You must not," remonstrated the Big
Business Man. "Our war here needs you, our nation, the whole cause of
liberty and freedom needs you. You cannot go."
"Lylda needs me, too," returned the Chemist. "I have an obligation
towards her now, you know, quite apart from my own feelings. Understand
me, gentlemen," he continued earnestly, "I do not place myself and mine
before the great fight for democracy and justice being waged in this
world. That would be absurd. But it is not quite that way, actually; I
can go back for Lylda and return here in a week. That week will make
little difference to the war. On the other hand, if I go to France
first, it may take me a good many months to complete my task, and during
that time Lylda will be using up her life several times faster than I.
No, gentlemen, I am going to her first."
"That week you propose to take," said the Banker slowly, "will cost this
world thousands of lives that you could save. Have you thought of that?"
The Chemist flushed. "I can recognize the salvation of a nation or a
cause," he returned hotly, "but if I must choose between the lives of a
thousand men who are not dependent on me, and the life or welfare of one
woman who is, I shall choose the woman."
"He's right, you know," said the Doctor, and the Very Young Man agreed
with him fervently.
Two days later the company met again in the privacy of the clubroom.
When they had finished dinner, the Chemist began in his usual quiet way:
"I am going to ask you this time, gentlemen, to give me a full week.
There are four of you--six hours a day of watching for each. It need not
be too great a hardship. You see," he continued, as they nodded in
agreement, "I want to spend a longer period in the ring world this time.
I may never go back, and I want to learn, in the interest of science, as
much about it as I can. I was there such a short time before, and it was
all so strange and remarkable, I confess I learned practically nothing.
"I told you all I could of its history. But of its arts, its science,
and all its sociological and economic questions, I got hardly more than
a glimpse. It is a world and a people far less advanced than ours, yet
with something we have not, and probably never will have--the
universally distributed milk of human kindness. Yes, gentlemen, it is a
world well worth studying."
The Banker came out of a brown study. "How about your formulas for these
drugs?" he asked abruptly; "where are they?" The Chemist tapped his
forehead smilingly. "Well, hadn't you better leave them with us?" the
Banker pursued. "The hazards of your trip--you can't tell----"
"Don't misunderstand me, gentlemen," broke in the Chemist. "I wouldn't
give you those formulas if my life and even Lylda's depended on it.
There again you do not differentiate between the individual and the
race. I know you four very well. You are my friends, with all the bond
that friendship implies. I believe in your integrity--each of you I
trust implicitly. With these formulas you could crush Germany, or you
could, any one of you, rule the world, with all its treasures for your
own. These drugs are the most powerful thing for good in the world
to-day. But they are equally as powerful for evil. I would stake my life
on what you would do, but I will not stake the life of a nation."
"I know what I'd do if I had the formulas," began the Very Young Man.
"Yes, but I don't know what you'd do," laughed the Chemist. "Don't you
see I'm right?" They admitted they did, though the Banker acquiesced
very grudgingly.
"The time of my departure is at hand. Is there anything else, gentlemen,
before I leave you?" asked the Chemist, beginning to disrobe.
"Please tell Lylda I want very much to meet her," said the Very Young
Man earnestly, and they all laughed.
When the room was cleared, and the handkerchief and ring in place once
more, the Chemist turned to them again. "Good-by, my friends," he said,
holding out his hands. "One week from to-night, at most." Then he took
the pills.
No unusual incident marked his departure. The last they saw of him he
was calmly sitting on the ring near the scratch.
Then passed the slow days of watching, each taking his turn for the
allotted six hours.
By the fifth day, they began to hourly expect the Chemist, but it passed
through its weary length, and he did not come. The sixth day dragged by,
and then came the last--the day he had promised would end their
watching. Still he did not come, and in the evening they gathered, and
all four watched together, each unwilling to miss the return of the
adventurer and his woman from another world.
But the minutes lengthened into hours, and midnight found the
white-faced little group, hopeful yet hopeless, with fear tugging at
their hearts. A second week passed, and still they watched, explaining
with an optimism they could none of them feel, the non-appearance of
their friend. At the end of the second week they met again to talk the
situation over, a dull feeling of fear and horror possessing them. The
Doctor was the first to voice what now each of them was forced to
believe. "I guess it's all useless," he said. "He's not coming back."
"I don't hardly dare give him up," said the Big Business Man.
"Me, too," agreed the Very Young Man sadly.
The Doctor sat for some time in silence, thoughtfully regarding the
ring. "My friends," he began finally, "this is too big a thing to deal
with in any but the most careful way. I can't imagine what is going on
inside that ring, but I do know what is happening in our world, and what
our friend's return means to civilization here. Under the circumstances,
therefore, I cannot, I will not give him up.
"I am going to put that ring in a museum and pay for having it watched
indefinitely. Will you join me?" He turned to the Big Business Man as he
spoke.
"Make it a threesome," said the Banker gruffly. "What do you take me
for?" and the Very Young Man sighed with the tragedy of youth.
CHAPTER IX
AFTER FIVE YEARS
Four men sat in the clubroom, at their ease in the luxurious leather
chairs, smoking and talking earnestly. Near the center of the room stood
a huge mahogany table. On its top, directly in the glare of light from
an electrolier overhead, was spread a large black silk handkerchief. In
the center of this handkerchief lay a heavy gold band--a woman's
wedding-ring.
An old-fashioned valise stood near a corner of the table. Its sides were
perforated with small brass-rimmed holes; near the top on one side was a
small square aperture covered with a wire mesh through which one might
look into the interior. Altogether, from the outside, the bag looked
much like those used for carrying small animals.
As it lay on the table now its top was partly open. The inside was
brightly lighted by a small storage battery and electric globe, fastened
to the side. Near the bottom of the bag was a tiny wire rack, held
suspended about an inch from the bottom by transverse wires to the
sides. The inside of the bag was lined with black plush.
On an arm of the Doctor's chair lay two white tin boxes three or four
inches square. In his hand he held an opened envelope and several letter
pages.
"A little more than five years ago to-night, my friends," he began
slowly, "we sat in this room with that"--he indicated the ring--"under
very different circumstances." After a moment, he went on:
"I think I am right when I say that for five years the thought uppermost
in our minds has always been that ring and what is going on within one
of its atoms."
"You bet," said the Very Young Man.
"For five years now we have had the ring watched," continued the Doctor,
"but Rogers has never returned."
"You asked us here to-night because you had something special to tell
us," began the Very Young Man, with a questioning look at the valise and
the ring.
The Doctor smiled. "I'm sorry," he said, "I don't mean to be
aggravating."
"Go ahead in your own way, Frank," the Big Business Man put in. "We'll
wait if we have to."
The Doctor glanced at the papers in his hand; he had just taken them
from the envelope. "You are consumed with curiosity, naturally, to know
what I have to say--why I have brought the ring here to-night.
Gentlemen, you have had to restrain that curiosity less than five
minutes; I have had a far greater curiosity to endure--and restrain--for
over five years.
"When Rogers left us on his last journey into the ring, he gave into my
keeping, unknown to you, this envelope." The Doctor held it up.
"He made me swear I would keep its existence secret from every living
being, until the date marked upon it, at which time, in the event of his
not having returned, it was to be opened. Look at it." The Doctor laid
the envelope on the table.
"It is inscribed, as you see, 'To be opened by Dr. Frank Adams at
8 P. M. on September 4th, 1923.' For five years, gentlemen, I kept that
envelope, knowing nothing of its contents and waiting for the moment
when I might, with honor, open it. The struggle has been a hard one.
Many times I have almost been able to persuade myself, in justice to our
friend's safety--his very life, probably--that it would be best to
disregard his instructions. But I did not; I waited until the date set
and then, a little more than a month ago, alone in my office, I opened
the envelope."
The Doctor leaned forward in his chair and shuffled the papers he held
in his hand. His three friends sat tense, waiting.
"The envelope contained these papers. Among them is a letter in which I
am directed to explain everything to you as soon as I succeed in doing
certain other things. Those things I have now accomplished. So I have
sent for you. I'll read you the letter first."
No one spoke when the Doctor paused. The Banker drew a long breath. Then
he bit the end off a fresh cigar and lit it with a shaking hand. The
Doctor shifted his chair closer to the table under the light.
"The letter is dated September 14th, 1918. It begins: 'This will be read
at 8 P. M. on September 4th, 1923, by Dr. Frank Adams with no one else
present. If the envelope has been opened by him previous to that date I
request him to read no further. If it has fallen into other hands than
his I can only hope that the reader will immediately destroy it
unread.'" The Doctor paused an instant, then went on.
"Gentlemen, we are approaching the most important events of our lives.
An extraordinary duty--a tremendous responsibility, rests with us, of
all the millions of people on this earth. I ask that you listen most
carefully."
His admonition was quite unnecessary, for no one could have been more
intent than the three men silently facing him.
The Doctor continued reading: "'From Dr. Frank Adams, I exact the
following oath, before he reads further. You, Dr. Adams, will divulge to
no one, for a period of thirty days, the formulas set down in these
papers; you will follow implicitly the directions given you; you will do
nothing that is not expressly stated here. Should you be unable to carry
out these directions, you will destroy this letter and the formulas, and
tell no one of their ever having been in existence. I must have your
oath, Dr. Adams, before you proceed further.'"
The Doctor's voice died away, and he laid the papers on the table.
"Gentlemen," he went on, "later on in the letter I am directed to
consult with you three, setting before you this whole matter. But before
I do so I must exact a similar oath from each of you. I must have your
word of honor, gentlemen, that you will not attempt to transgress the
instructions given us, and that you will never, by word or action, allow
a suggestion of what passes between us here in this room to-night, to
reach any other person. Have I your promise?"
Each of his three hearers found voice to agree. The Banker's face was
very red, and he mopped his forehead nervously with his handkerchief.
The Doctor picked up the papers. "The letter goes on: 'I am about to
venture back into the unknown world of the ring. What will befall me
there I cannot foretell. If by September 4th, 1923, I have not returned,
or no other mortal has come out of the ring, it is my desire that you
and the three gentlemen with you at the time of my departure, use this
discovery of mine for the benefit of humanity in your world, or the
world in the ring, exactly as I myself would have used it were I there.
"'Should the European war be in progress at that time, I direct that you
four throw your power on the side of the United States for the defeat of
the Central Powers. That you will be able to accomplish that defeat I
cannot doubt.
"'If, on September 4th, 1923, the United States is formally at peace
with the powers of the world, you are forbidden to use these chemicals
for any purpose other than joining me in the world of the ring. If any
among you wish to make the venture, which I hope may be the case, I
request that you do so.
"'Among these pages you will find a list of fourteen chemicals to be
used by Dr. Frank Adams during the month following September 4, 1923,
for the compounding of my powders. Seven of these chemicals (marked A),
are employed in the drug used to diminish bodily size. Those seven
marked B are for the drug of opposite action.
"'You will find here a separate description of each chemical. Nine are
well known and fairly common. Dr. Adams will be able to purchase each of
them separately without difficulty. Three others will have to be
especially compounded and I have so stated in the directions for each of
them. Dr. Adams can have them prepared by any large chemical
manufacturer; I suggest that he have not more than one of them
compounded by the same company.
"'The two remaining chemicals must be prepared by Dr. Adams personally.
Their preparation, while intricate, demands no complicated or extensive
apparatus. I have tried to explain thoroughly the making of these two
chemicals, and I believe no insurmountable obstacle will be met in
completing them.
"'When Dr. Adams has the specified quantities of each of these fourteen
chemicals in his possession, he will proceed according to my further
directions to compound the two drugs. If he is successful in making
these drugs, I direct that he make known to the three other men referred
to, the contents of this letter, after first exacting an oath from each
that its provisions will be carried out.
"'I think it probable that Dr. Adams will succeed in compounding these
two drugs. It also seems probable that at that time the United States no
longer will be at war. I make the additional assumption that one or more
of you gentlemen will desire to join me in the ring. Therefore, you will
find herewith memoranda of my first journey into the ring which I have
already described to you; I give also the quantities of each drug to be
taken at various stages of the trip. These notes will refresh your
memory and will assist you in your journey.
"'I intend to suggest to Dr. Adams to-day when I hand him this letter,
that in the event of my failure to return within a week, he make some
adequate provision for guarding the ring in safety. And I must caution
you now, before starting to join me, if you conclude to do so, that you
continue this provision, so as to make possible your safe return to your
own world.
"'If our country is at war at the time you read this, your duty is
plain. I have no fears regarding your course of action. But if not, I do
not care to influence unduly your decision about venturing into this
unknown other world. The danger into which I personally may have fallen
must count for little with you, in a decision to hazard your own lives.
I may point out, however, that such a journey successfully accomplished
cannot fail but be the greatest contribution to science that has ever
been made. Nor can I doubt but that your coming may prove of tremendous
benefit to the humanity of this other equally important, though, in our
eyes, infinitesimal world.
"'I therefore suggest, gentlemen, that you start your journey into the
ring at 8 P. M. on the evening of November 4, 1923. You will do your
best to find your way direct to the city of Arite, where, if I am alive,
I will be awaiting you.'"
CHAPTER X
TESTING THE DRUGS
The Doctor laid his papers on the table and looked up into the white
faces of the three men facing him. "That's all, gentlemen," he said.
For a moment no one spoke, and on the face of each was plainly written
the evidence of an emotion too deep for words. The Doctor sorted out the
papers in silence, glanced over them for a moment, and then reached for
a large metal ash tray that stood near him on the table. Taking a match
from his pocket he calmly lighted a corner of the papers and dropped
them burning into the metal bowl. His friends watched him in awed
silence; only the Very Young Man found words to protest.
"Say now, wait," he began, "why----"
The Doctor looked at him. "The letter requests me to do that," he said.
"But I say, the formulas----" persisted the Very Young Man, looking
wildly at the burning papers.
The Doctor held up one of the white tin boxes lying on the arm of his
chair.
"In these tins," he said, "I have vials containing the specified
quantity of each drug. It is ample for our purpose. I have done my best
to memorize the formulas. But in any event, I was directed to burn them
at the time of reading you the letter. I have done so."
The Big Business Man came out of a brown study.
"Just three weeks from to-night," he murmured, "three weeks from
to-night. It's too big to realize."
The Doctor put the two boxes on the table, turned his chair back toward
the others, and lighted a cigar.
"Gentlemen, let us go over this matter thoroughly," he began. "We have a
momentous decision to make. Either we destroy those boxes and their
contents, or three weeks from to-night some or all of us start our
journey into the ring. I have had a month to think this matter over; I
have made my decision.
"I know there is much for you to consider, before you can each of you
choose your course of action. It is not my desire or intention to
influence you one way or the other. But we can, if you wish, discuss the
matter here to-night; or we can wait, if you prefer, until each of you
has had time to think it out for himself."
"I'm going," the Very Young Man burst out.
His hands were gripping the arms of his chair tightly; his face was very
pale, but his eyes sparkled.
The Doctor turned to him gravely.
"Your life is at stake, my boy," he said, "this is not a matter for
impulse."
"I'm going whether any one else does or not," persisted the Very Young
Man. "You can't stop me, either," he added doggedly. "That letter
said----"
The Doctor smiled at the youth's earnestness. Then abruptly he held out
his hand.
"There is no use my holding back my own decision. I am going to attempt
the trip. And since, as you say, I cannot stop you from going," he added
with a twinkle, "that makes two of us."
They shook hands. The Very Young Man lighted a cigarette, and began
pacing up and down the room, staring hard at the floor.
"I can remember trying to imagine how I would feel," began the Big
Business Man slowly, "if Rogers had asked me to go with him when he
first went into the ring. It is not a new idea to me, for I have thought
about it many times in the abstract, during the past five years. But now
that I am face to face with it in reality, it sort of----" He broke off,
and smiled helplessly around at his companions.
The Very Young Man stopped in his walk. "Aw, come on in," he began,
"the----"
"Shut up," growled the Banker, speaking for the first time in many
minutes.
"I'm sure we would all like to go," said the Doctor. "The point is,
which of us are best fitted for the trip."
"None of us are married," put in the Very Young Man.
"I've been thinking----" began the Banker. "Suppose we get into the
ring--how long would we be gone, do you suppose?"
"Who can say?" answered the Doctor smiling. "Perhaps a month--a
year--many years possibly. That is one of the hazards of the venture."
The Banker went on thoughtfully. "Do you remember that argument we had
with Rogers about time? Time goes twice as fast, didn't he say, in that
other world?"
"Two and a half times faster, if I remember rightly, he estimated,"
replied the Doctor.
The Banker looked at his skinny hands a moment. "I owned up to
sixty-four once," he said quizzically. "Two years and a half in one
year. No, I guess I'll let you young fellows tackle that; I'll stay here
in this world where things don't move so fast."
"Somebody's got to stay," said the Very Young Man. "By golly, you know
if we're all going into that ring it would be pretty sad to have
anything happen to it while we were gone."
"That's so," said the Banker, looking relieved. "I never thought of
that."
"One of us should stay at least," said the Doctor. "We cannot take any
outsider into our confidence. One of us must watch the others go, and
then take the ring back to its place in the Museum. We will be gone too
long a time for one person to watch it here."
The Very Young Man suddenly went to one of the doors and locked it.
"We don't want any one coming in," he explained as he crossed the room
and locked the others.
"And another thing," he went on, coming back to the table. "When I saw
the ring at the Biological Society the other day, I happened to think,
suppose Rogers was to come out on the underneath side? It was lying
flat, you know, just as it is now." He pointed to where the ring lay on
the handkerchief before them. "I meant to speak to you about it," he
added.
"I thought of that," said the Doctor. "When I had that case built to
bring the ring here, you notice I raised it above the bottom a little,
holding it suspended in that wire frame."
"We'd better fix up something like that at the Museum, too," said the
Very Young Man, and went back to his walk.
The Big Business Man had been busily jotting down figures on the back of
an envelope. "I can be in shape to go in three weeks," he said suddenly.
"Bully for you," said the Very Young Man. "Then it's all settled." The
Big Business Man went back to his notes.
"I knew what your answer would be," said the Doctor. "My patients can go
to the devil. This is too big a thing."
The Very Young Man picked up one of the tin boxes. "Tell us how you made
the powders," he suggested.
The Doctor took the two boxes and opened them. Inside each were a number
of tiny glass vials. Those in one box were of blue glass; those in the
other were red.
"These vials," said the Doctor, "contain tiny pellets of the completed
drug. That for diminishing size I have put in the red vials; those of
blue are the other drug.
"I had rather a difficult time making them--that is, compared to what I
anticipated. Most of the chemicals I bought without difficulty. But when
I came to compound those two myself"--the Doctor smiled--"I used to
think I was a fair chemist in my student days. But now--well, at least I
got the results, but only because I have been working almost night and
day for the past month. And I found myself with a remarkably complete
experimental laboratory when I finished," he added. "That was yesterday;
I spent nearly all last night destroying the apparatus, as soon as I
found that the drugs had been properly made."
"They do work?" said the Very Young Man anxiously.
"They work," answered the Doctor. "I tried them both very carefully."
"On yourself?" said the Big Business Man.
"No, I didn't think that necessary. I used several insects."
"Let's try them now," suggested the Very Young Man eagerly.
"Not the big one," said the Banker. "Once was enough for that."
"All right," the Doctor laughed. "We'll try the other if you like."
The Big Business Man looked around the room. "There's a few flies around
here if we can catch one," he suggested.
"I'll bet there's a cockroach in the kitchen," said the Very Young Man,
jumping up.
The Doctor took a brass check from his pocket. "I thought probably you'd
want to try them out. Will you get that box from the check-room?" He
handed the check to the Very Young Man, who hurried out of the room. He
returned in a moment, gingerly carrying a cardboard box with holes
perforated in the top. The Doctor took the box and lifted the lid
carefully. Inside, the box was partitioned into two compartments. In one
compartment were three little lizards about four inches long; in the
other were two brown sparrows. The Doctor took out one of the sparrows
and replaced the cover.
"Fine," said the Very Young Man with enthusiasm.
The Doctor reached for the boxes of chemicals.
"Not the big one," said the Banker again, apprehensively.
"Hold him, will you," the Doctor said.
The Very Young Man took the sparrow in his hands.
"Now," continued the Doctor, "what we need is a plate and a little
water."
"There's a tray," said the Very Young Man, pointing with his hands
holding the sparrow.
The Doctor took a spoon from the tray and put a little water in it. Then
he took one of the tiny pellets from a red vial and crushing it in his
fingers, sprinkled a few grains into that water.
"Hold that a moment, please." The Big Business Man took the proffered
spoon.
Then the Doctor produced from his pocket a magnifying glass and a tiny
pair of silver callipers such as are used by jewelers for handling small
objects.
"What's the idea?" the Very Young Man wanted to know.
"I thought I'd try and put him on the ring," explained the Doctor. "Now,
then hold open his beak."
The Very Young Man did so, and the Doctor poured the water down the
bird's throat. Most of it spilled; the sparrow twisted its head
violently, but evidently some of the liquid had gone down the bird's
throat.
Silence followed, broken after a moment by the scared voice of the Very
Young Man. "He's getting smaller, I can feel him. He's getting smaller."
"Hold on to him," cautioned the Doctor. "Bring him over here." They went
over to the table by the ring, the Banker and the Big Business Man
standing close beside them.
"Suppose he tries to fly when we let go of him," suggested the Very
Young Man almost in a whisper.
"He'll probably be too confused," answered the Doctor. "Have you got
him?" The sparrow was hardly bigger than a large horse-fly now, and the
Very Young Man was holding it between his thumb and forefinger.
"Better give him to me," said the Doctor. "Set him down."
"He might fly away," remonstrated the Very Young Man.
"No, he won't."
The Very Young Man put the sparrow on the handkerchief beside the ring
and the Doctor immediately picked it up with the callipers.
"Don't squeeze him," cautioned the Very Young Man.
The sparrow grew steadily smaller, and in a moment the Doctor set it
carefully on the rim of the ring.
"Get him up by the scratch," whispered the Very Young Man.
The men bent closer over the table, as the Doctor looking through his
magnifying glass shoved the sparrow slowly along the top of the ring.
"I can't see him," said the Banker.
"I can," said the Very Young Man, "right by the scratch." Then after a
moment, "he's gone."
"I've got him right over the scratch," said the Doctor, leaning farther
down. Then he raised his head and laid the magnifying glass and the
callipers on the table. "He's gone now."
"Gosh," said the Very Young Man, drawing a long breath.
The Banker flung himself into a chair as though exhausted from a great
physical effort.
"Well, it certainly does work," said the Big Business Man, "there's no
question about that."
The Very Young Man was shaking the cardboard box in his hands and
lifting its cover cautiously to see inside. "Let's try a lizard," he
suggested.
"Oh, what's the use," the Banker protested wearily, "we know it works."
"Well, it can't hurt anything to try it, can it?" the Very Young Man
urged. "Besides, the more we try it, the more sure we are it will work
with us when the time comes. You don't want to try it on yourself, now,
do you?" he added with a grin.
"No, thank you," retorted the Banker with emphasis.
"I think we might as well try it again," said the Big Business Man.
The Very Young Man took one of the tiny lizards from the box, and in a
moment they had dropped some water containing the drug down its throat.
"Try to put him on the scratch, too," said the Very Young Man.
When the lizard was small enough the Doctor held it with the callipers
and then laid it on the ring.
"Look at him walk; look at him walk," whispered the Very Young Man
excitedly. The lizard, hardly more than an eighth of an inch long now,
but still plainly visible, was wriggling along the top of the ring.
"Shove him up by the scratch," he added.
In a moment more the reptile was too small for any but the Doctor with
his glass to see. "I guess he got there," he said finally with a smile,
as he straightened up. "He was going fast."
"Well, _that's_ all right," said the Very Young Man with a sigh of
relief.
The four men again seated themselves; the Big Business Man went back to
his figures.
"When do you start?" asked the Banker after a moment.
"November 4th--8 P. M.," answered the Doctor. "Three weeks from
to-night."
"We've a lot to do," said the Banker.
"What will this cost, do you figure?" asked the Big Business Man,
looking up from his notes.
The Doctor considered a moment.
"We can't take much with us, you know," he said slowly. Then he
took a sheet of memoranda from his pockets. "I have already spent
for apparatus and chemicals to prepare the drugs"--he consulted his
figures--"seventeen hundred and forty dollars, total. What we have still
to spend will be very little, I should think. I propose we divide it
three ways as we have been doing with the Museum?"
"Four ways," said the Very Young Man. "I'm no kid any more. I got a good
job--that is," he added with a rueful air, "I had a good job. To-morrow
I quit."
"Four ways," the Doctor corrected himself gravely. "I guess we can
manage that."
"What can we take with us, do you think?" asked the Big Business Man.
"I think we should try strapping a belt around our waists, with pouches
in it," said the Doctor. "I doubt if it would contract with our bodies,
but still it might. If it didn't there would be no harm done; we could
leave it behind."
"You want food and water," said the Banker. "Remember that barren
country you are going through."
"And something on our feet," the Big Business Man put in.
"I'd like to take a revolver, too," said the Very Young Man. "It might
come in awful handy."
"As I remember Rogers's description," said the Doctor thoughtfully, "the
trip out is more difficult than going down. We mustn't overlook
preparations for that; it is most imperative we should be careful."
"Say, talking about getting back," burst out the Very Young Man. "I'd
like to see that other drug work first. It would be pretty rotten to get
in there and have it go back on us, wouldn't it? Oh, golly!" The Very
Young Man sank back in his chair overcome by the picture he had conjured
up.
"I tried it," said the Doctor. "It works."
"I'd like to see it again with something different," said the Big
Business Man. "It can't do any harm." The Banker looked his protest, but
said nothing.
"What shall we try, a lizard?" suggested the Very Young Man. The Doctor
shrugged his shoulders.
"What'll we kill it with? Oh, I know." The Very Young Man picked up a
heavy metal paper-weight from the desk. "This'll do the trick, fine," he
added.
Then, laying the paper-weight carefully aside, he dipped up a spoonful
of water and offered it to the Doctor.
"Not that water this time," said the Doctor, shaking his head with a
smile.
The Very Young Man looked blank.
"Organisms in it," the Doctor explained briefly. "All right for them to
get small from the other chemical, but we don't want them to get large
and come out at us, do we?"
"Holy Smoke, I should say not," said the Very Young Man, gasping; and
the Banker growled:
"Something's going to happen to us, playing with fire like this."
The Doctor produced a little bottle. "I boiled this water," he said. "We
can use this."
It took but a moment to give the other drug to one of the remaining
lizards, although they spilled more of the water than went down its
throat.
"Don't forget to hit him, and don't you wait very long," said the Banker
warningly, moving nearer the door.
"Oh, I'll hit him all right, don't worry," said the Very Young Man,
brandishing the paper-weight.
The Doctor knelt down, and held the reptile pinned to the floor; the
Very Young Man knelt beside him. Slowly the lizard began to increase in
size.
"He's growing," said the Banker. "Hit him, boy, what's the use of
waiting; he's growing."
The lizard was nearly a foot long now, and struggling violently between
the Doctor's fingers.
"You'd better kill him," said the Doctor, "he might get away from me."
The Very Young Man obediently brought his weapon down with a thump upon
the reptile's head.
"Keep on," said the Banker. "Be sure he's dead."
The Very Young Man pounded the quivering body for a moment. The Big
Business Man handed him a napkin from the tray and the Very Young Man
wrapped up the lizard and threw it into the waste-basket.
Then he rose to his feet and tossed the paper-weight on to the desk with
a crash.
"Well, gentlemen," he said, turning back to them with flushed face,
"those drugs sure do work. We're going into the ring all right, three
weeks from to-night, and nothing on earth can stop us."
CHAPTER XI
THE ESCAPE OF THE DRUG
For the next hour the four friends busily planned their preparations for
the journey. When they began to discuss the details of the trip, and
found themselves face to face with so hazardous an adventure, each
discovered a hundred things in his private life that needed attention.
The Doctor's phrase, "My patients can go to the devil," seemed to
relieve his mind of all further responsibility towards his personal
affairs.
"That's all very well for you," said the Big Business Man, "I've too
many irons in the fire just to drop everything--there are too many other
people concerned. And I've got to plan as though I were never coming
back, you know."
"Your troubles are easy," said the Very Young Man. "I've got a girl. I
wonder what she'll say. Oh, gosh, I can't tell her where I'm going, can
I? I never thought of that." He scratched his head with a perplexed air.
"That's tough on her. Well, I'm glad I'm an orphan, anyway."
The actual necessities of the trip needed a little discussion, for what
they could take with them amounted to practically nothing.
"As I understand it," said the Banker, "all I have to do is watch you
start, and then take the ring back to the Museum."
"Take it carefully," continued the Very Young Man. "Remember what it's
got in it."
"You will give us about two hours to get well started down," said the
Doctor. "After that it will be quite safe to move the ring. You can take
it back to the Society in that case I brought it here in."
"Be sure you take it yourself," put in the Very Young Man. "Don't trust
it to anybody else. And how about having that wire rack fixed for it at
the Museum," he added. "Don't forget that."
"I'll have that done myself this week," said the Doctor.
They had been talking for perhaps an hour when the Banker got up from
his chair to get a fresh cigar from a box that lay upon the desk. He
happened to glance across the room and on the floor in the corner by the
closed door he saw a long, flat object that had not been there before.
It was out of the circle of light and being brown against the polished
hardwood floor, he could not make it out clearly. But something about it
frightened him.
"What's that over there?" he asked, standing still and pointing.
The Big Business Man rose from his seat and took a few steps in the
direction of the Banker's outstretched hand. Then with a muttered oath
he jumped to the desk in a panic and picking up the heavy paper-weight
flung it violently across the room. It struck the panelled wall with a
crash and bounded back towards him. At the same instant there came a
scuttling sound from the floor, and a brown shape slid down the edge of
the room and stopped in the other corner.
All four men were on their feet in an instant, white-faced and
trembling.
"Good God," said the Big Business Man huskily, "that thing over
there--that----"
"Turn on the side lights--the side lights!" shouted the Doctor, running
across the room.
In the glare of the unshaded globes on the wall the room was brightly
lighted. On the floor in the corner the horrified men saw a cockroach
nearly eighteen inches in length, with its head facing the angle of
wall, and scratching with its legs against the base board as though
about to climb up. For a moment the men stood silent with surprise and
terror. Then, as they stared they saw the cockroach was getting larger.
The Big Business Man laid his hand on the Doctor's arm with a grip that
made the Doctor wince.
"Good God, man, look at it--it's growing," he said in a voice hardly
above a whisper.
"It's growing," echoed the Very Young Man; "_it's growing_!"
And then the truth dawned upon them, and brought with it confusion,
almost panic. The cockroach, fully two feet long now, had raised the
front end of its body a foot above the floor, and was reaching up the
wall with its legs.
The Banker made a dash for the opposite door. "Let's get out of here.
Come on!" he shouted.
The Doctor stopped him. Of the four men, he was the only one who had
retained his self-possession.
"Listen to me," he said. His voice trembled a little in spite of his
efforts to control it. "Listen to me. That--that--thing cannot harm us
yet." He looked from one to the other of them and spoke swiftly. "It's
gruesome and--and loathsome, but it is not dangerous--yet. But we cannot
run from it. We must kill it--here, now, before it gets any larger."
The Banker tore himself loose and started again towards the door.
"You fool!" said the Doctor, with a withering look. "Don't you see, it's
life or death later. That--that thing will be as big as this house in
half an hour. Don't you know that? As big as this house. We've got to
kill it now--now."
The Big Business Man ran towards the paper-weight. "I'll hit it with
this," he said.
"You can't," said the Doctor, "you might miss. We haven't time. Look at
it," he added.
The cockroach was noticeably larger now--considerably over two feet; it
had turned away from the wall to face them.
The Very Young Man had said nothing; only stood and stared with
bloodless face and wide-open eyes. Then suddenly he stooped, and picking
up a small rug from the floor--a rug some six feet long and half as
wide--advanced slowly towards the cockroach.
"That's the idea," encouraged the Doctor. "Get it under that. Here, give
me part of it." He grasped a corner of the rug. "You two go up the other
sides"--he pointed with his free hand--"and head it off if it runs."
Slowly the four men crept forward. The cockroach, three feet long now,
was a hideous, horrible object as it stood backed into the corner of the
room, the front part of its body swaying slowly from side to side.
"We'd better make a dash for it," whispered the Very Young Man; and
jerking the rug loose from the Doctor's grasp, he leaped forward and
flung himself headlong upon the floor, with the rug completely under
him.
"I've got the damned thing. I've got it!" he shouted. "Help--you. Help!"
The three men leaped with him upon the rug, holding it pinned to the
floor. The Very Young Man, as he lay, could feel the curve of the great
body underneath, and could hear the scratch of its many legs upon the
floor.
"Hold down the edges of the rug!" he cried. "Don't let it out. Don't let
it get out. I'll smash it." He raised himself on his hands and knees,
and came down heavily. The rug gave under his thrust as the insect
flattened out; then they could hear again the muffled scratching of its
legs upon the floor as it raised the rug up under the Very Young Man's
weight.
"We can't kill it," panted the Big Business Man. "Oh, we can't kill it.
Good God, how big it is!"
The Very Young Man got to his feet and stood on the bulge of the rug.
Then he jumped into the air and landed solidly on his heels. There was a
sharp crack as the shell of the insect broke under the sharpness of his
blow.
"That did it; that'll do it!" he shouted. Then he leaped again.
"Let me," said the Big Business Man. "I'm heavier"; and he, too, stamped
upon the rug with his heels.
They could hear the huge shell of the insect's back smash under his
weight, and when he jumped again, the squash of its body as he mashed it
down.
"Wait," said the Doctor. "We've killed it."
They eased upon the rug a little, but there was no movement from
beneath.
"Jump on it harder," said the Very Young Man. "Don't let's take a
chance. Mash it good."
The Big Business Man continued stamping violently upon the rug; joined
now by the Very Young Man. The Doctor sat on the floor beside it,
breathing heavily; the Banker lay in a heap at its foot in utter
collapse.
As they stamped, the rug continued to flatten down; it sank under their
tread with a horrible, sickening, squashing sound.
"Let's look," suggested the Very Young Man. "It must be dead"; and he
threw back a corner of the rug. The men turned sick and faint at what
they saw.
Underneath the rug, mashed against the floor, lay a great, noisome,
semi-liquid mass of brown and white. It covered nearly the entire
under-surface of the rug--a hundred pounds, perhaps, of loathsome pulp
and shell, from which a stench arose that stopped their breathing.
With a muttered imprecation the Doctor flung back the rug to cover it,
and sprang to his feet, steadying himself against a chair.
"We killed it in time, thank God," he murmured and dropped into the
chair, burying his face in his hands.
For a time silence fell upon the room, broken only by the labored
breathing of the four men. Then the Big Business Man sat up suddenly.
"Oh, my God, what an experience!" he groaned, and got unsteadily to his
feet.
The Very Young Man helped the Banker up and led him to a seat by the
window, which he opened, letting in the fresh, cool air of the night.
"How did the drug get loose, do you suppose?" asked the Very Young Man,
coming back to the center of the room. He had recovered his composure
somewhat, though he was still very pale. He lighted a cigarette and sat
down beside the Doctor.
The Doctor raised his head wearily. "I suppose we must have spilled some
of it on the floor," he said, "and the cockroach----" He stopped
abruptly and sprang to his feet.
"Good God!" he cried. "Suppose another one----"
On the bare floor beside the table they came upon a few drops of water.
"That must be it," said the Doctor. He pulled his handkerchief from his
pocket; then he stopped in thought. "No, that won't do. What shall we do
with it?" he added. "We must destroy it absolutely. Good Lord, if that
drug ever gets loose upon the world----"
The Big Business Man joined them.
"We must destroy it absolutely," repeated the Doctor. "We can't just
wipe it up."
"Some acid," suggested the Big Business Man.
"Suppose something else has got at it already," the Very Young Man said
in a scared voice, and began hastily looking around the floor of the
room.
"You're right," agreed the Doctor. "We mustn't take any chance; we must
look thoroughly."
Joined by the Banker, the four men began carefully going over the room.
"You'd better watch that nothing gets at it," the Very Young Man thought
suddenly to say. The Banker obediently sat down by the little pool of
water on the floor.
"And I'll close the window," added the Very Young Man; "something might
get out."
They searched the room thoroughly, carefully scanning its walls and
ceiling, but could see nothing out of the ordinary.
"We'll never be quite sure," said the Doctor finally, "but I guess we're
safe. It's the best we can do now, at any rate."
He joined the Banker by the table. "I'll get some nitric acid," he
added. "I don't know what else----"
"We'll have to get that out of here, too," said the Big Business Man,
pointing to the rug. "God knows how we'll explain it."
The Doctor picked up one of the tin boxes of drugs and held it in his
hand meditatively. Then he looked over towards the rug. From under one
side a brownish liquid was oozing; the Doctor shuddered.
"My friends," he said, holding up the box before them, "we can realize
now something of the terrible power we have created and imprisoned here.
We must guard it carefully, gentlemen, for if it escapes--it will
destroy the world."
CHAPTER XII
THE START
On the evening of November 4th, 1923, the four friends again assembled
at the Scientific Club for the start of their momentous adventure. The
Doctor was the last to arrive, and found the other three anxiously
awaiting him. He brought with him the valise containing the ring and a
suitcase with the drugs and equipment necessary for the journey. He
greeted his friends gravely.
"The time has come, gentlemen," he said, putting the suitcase on the
table.
The Big Business Man took out the ring and held it in his hand
thoughtfully.
"The scene of our new life," he said with emotion. "What does it hold in
store for us?"
"What time is it?" asked the Very Young Man. "We've got to hurry. We
want to get started on time--we mustn't be late."
"Everything's ready, isn't it?" asked the Banker. "Who has the belts?"
"They're in my suitcase," answered the Very Young Man. "There it is."
The Doctor laid the ring and handkerchief on the floor under the light
and began unpacking from his bag the drugs and the few small articles
they had decided to try and take with them. "You have the food and
water," he said.
The Big Business Man produced three small flasks of water and six flat,
square tins containing compressed food. The Very Young Man opened one of
them. "Chocolate soldiers we are," he said, and laughed.
The Banker was visibly nervous and just a little frightened. "Are you
sure you haven't forgotten something?" he asked, quaveringly.
"It wouldn't make a great deal of difference if we had," said the
Doctor, with a smile. "The belts may not contract with us at all; we may
have to leave them behind."
"Rogers didn't take anything," put in the Very Young Man. "Come on;
let's get undressed."
The Banker locked the doors and sat down to watch the men make their
last preparations. They spoke little while they were disrobing; the
solemnity of what they were about to do both awed and frightened them.
Only the Very Young Man seemed exhilarated by the excitement of the
coming adventure.
In a few moments the three men were dressed in their white woolen
bathing suits. The Very Young Man was the first to be fully equipped.
"I'm ready," he announced. "All but the chemicals. Where are they?"
Around his waist he had strapped a broad cloth belt, with a number of
pockets fastened to it. On his feet were felt-lined cloth shoes, with
hard rubber soles; he wore a wrist watch. Under each armpit was fastened
the pouch for carrying the drugs.
"Left arm for red vials," said the Doctor. "Be sure of that--we mustn't
get them mixed. Take two of each color." He handed the Very Young Man
the tin boxes.
All the men were ready in a moment more.
"Five minutes of eight," said the Very Young Man, looking at his watch.
"We're right on time; let's get started."
The Banker stood up among them. "Tell me what I've got to do," he said
helplessly. "You're going all but me; I'll be left behind alone."
The Big Business Man laid his hand on the Banker's shoulder
affectionately. "Don't look so sad, George," he said, with an attempt at
levity. "We're not leaving you forever--we're coming back."
The Banker pressed his friend's hand. His usual crusty manner was quite
gone now; he seemed years older.
The Doctor produced the same spoon he had used when the Chemist made his
departure into the ring. "I've kept it all this time," he said, smiling.
"Perhaps it will bring us luck." He handed it to the Banker.
"What you have to do is this," he continued seriously. "We shall all
take an equal amount of the drug at the same instant. I hope it will act
upon each of us at the same rate, so that we may diminish uniformly in
size, and thus keep together."
"Gosh!" said the Very Young Man. "I never thought of that. Suppose it
doesn't?"
"Then we shall have to adjust the difference by taking other smaller
amounts of the drug. But I think probably it will.
"You must be ready," he went on to the Banker, "to help us on to the
ring if necessary."
"Or put us back if we fall off," said the Very Young Man. "I'm going to
sit still until I'm pretty small. Gracious, it's going to feel funny."
"After we have disappeared," continued the Doctor, "you will wait, say,
until eleven o'clock. Watch the ring carefully--some of us may have to
come back before that time. At eleven o'clock pack up everything"--he
looked around the littered room with a smile--"and take the ring back to
the Biological Society."
"Keep your eye on it on the way back," warned the Very Young Man.
"Suppose we decide to come out some time later to-night--you can't
tell."
"I'll watch it all night to-night, here and at the Museum," said the
Banker, mopping his forehead.
"Good scheme," said the Very Young Man approvingly. "Anything might
happen."
"Well, gentlemen," said the Doctor, "I believe we're all ready. Come on,
Will."
The Big Business Man was standing by the window, looking out intently.
He evidently did not hear the remark addressed to him, for he paid no
attention. The Doctor joined him.
Through the window they could see the street below, crowded now with
scurrying automobiles. The sidewalks were thronged with
people--theater-goers, hurrying forward, seeking eagerly their evening's
pleasure. It had been raining, and the wet pavements shone with long,
blurred yellow glints from the thousands of lights above. Down the
street they could see a huge blazing theater sign, with the name of a
popular actress spelt in letters of fire.
The Big Business Man threw up the window sash and took a deep breath of
the moist, cool air of the night.
"Good-by, old world," he murmured with emotion. "Shall I see you again,
I wonder?" He stood a moment longer, silently staring at the scene
before him. Then abruptly he closed the window, pulled down the shade,
and turned back to the room.
"Come on," said the Very Young Man impatiently. "It's five minutes after
eight. Let's get started."
"Just one thing before we start," said the Doctor, as they gathered in
the center of the room. "We must understand, gentlemen, from the moment
we first take the drug, until we reach our final smallest size, it is
imperative, or at least highly desirable, that we keep together. We
start by taking four of the pellets each, according to the memoranda
Rogers left. By Jove!" he interrupted himself, "that's one thing
important we did nearly forget."
He went to his coat, and from his wallet took several typewritten sheets
of paper.
"I made three copies," he said, handing them to his companions. "Put
them away carefully; the front pocket will be most convenient, probably.
"It may not be hard for us to keep together," continued the Doctor. "On
the other hand, we may find it extremely difficult, if not quite
impossible. In the latter event we will meet at the city of Arite.
"There are two things we must consider. First, we shall be constantly
changing size with relation to our surroundings. In proportion to each
other, we must remain normal in size if we can. Secondly we shall be
traveling--changing position in our surroundings. So far as that aspect
of the trip is concerned, it will not be more difficult for us to keep
together, probably, than during any adventurous journey here in this
world.
"If through accident or any unforeseen circumstance we are separated in
size, the one being smallest shall wait for the others. That can be
accomplished by taking a very small quantity of the other drug--probably
merely by touching one of the pellets to the tongue. Do I make myself
clear?" His friends nodded assent.
"If any great separation in relative size occurs," the Doctor went on,
"a discrepancy sufficient to make the smallest of us invisible for a
time to the others, then another problem presents itself. We must be
very careful, in that event, not to change our position in space--not to
keep on traveling, in other words--or else, when we become the same size
once more, we will be out of sight of one another. Geographically
separated, so to speak," the Doctor finished with a smile.
"I am so explicit on this point of keeping together," he continued,
"because--well, I personally do not want to undertake even part of this
journey alone."
"You're darn right--me neither," agreed the Very Young Man emphatically.
"Let's get going."
"I guess that's all," said the Doctor, with a last glance around, and
finally facing the Banker. "Good-by, George."
The Banker was quite overcome, and without a word he shook hands with
each of his friends.
The three men sat beside each other on the floor, close to the
handkerchief and ring; the Banker sat in his chair on the other side,
facing them, spoon in hand. In silence they each took four of the
pellets. Then the Banker saw them close their eyes; he saw the Big
Business Man put his hands suddenly on the floor as though to steady
himself.
The Banker gripped the arms of his chair firmly. He knew exactly what to
expect, yet now when his friends began slowly to diminish in size he was
filled with surprise and horror. For several minutes no one spoke. Then
the Very Young Man opened his eyes, looked around dizzily for an
instant, and began feeling with his hands the belt at his waist, his
shoes, wrist-watch, and the pouches under his armpits.
"It's all right," he said with an enthusiasm that contrasted strangely
with the tremor in his voice. "The belt's getting smaller, too. We're
going to be able to take everything with us."
Again silence fell on the room, broken only by the sound of the three
men on the floor continually shifting their positions as they grew
smaller. In another moment the Doctor clambered unsteadily to his feet
and, taking a step backward, leaned up against the cylindrical mahogany
leg of the center-table, flinging his arms around it. His head did not
reach the table-top.
The Very Young Man and the Big Business Man were on their feet now, too,
standing at the edge of the handkerchief, and clinging to one another
for support. The Banker looked down at them and tried to smile. The Very
Young Man waved his hand, and the Banker found voice to say: "Good-by,
my boy."
"Good-by, sir," echoed the Very Young Man. "We're making it."
Steadily they grew smaller. By this time the Doctor had become far too
small for his arms to encircle the leg of the table. The Banker looked
down to the floor, and saw him standing beside the table leg, leaning
one hand against it as one would lean against the great stone column of
some huge building.
"Good-by, Frank," said the Banker. But the Doctor did not answer; he
seemed lost in thought.
Several minutes more passed in silence. The three men had diminished in
size now until they were not more than three inches high. Suddenly the
Very Young Man let go of the Big Business Man's arm and looked around to
where the Doctor was still leaning pensively against the table leg. The
Banker saw him speak swiftly to the Big Business Man, but in so small a
voice he could not catch the words. Then both little figures turned
towards the table, and the Banker saw the Very Young Man put his hands
to his mouth and shout. And upward to him came the shrillest, tiniest
little voice he had ever heard, yet a voice still embodying the
characteristic intonation of the Very Young Man.
"Hey, Doctor!" came the words. "You'll never get here if you don't come
now."
The Doctor looked up abruptly; he evidently heard the words and realized
his situation. (He was by this time not more than an inch and a half in
height.) He hesitated only a moment, and then, as the other two little
figures waved their arms wildly, he began running towards them. For more
than a minute he ran. The Very Young Man started towards him, but the
Doctor waved him back, redoubling his efforts.
When he arrived at the edge of the handkerchief, evidently he was nearly
winded, for he stopped beside his friends, and stood breathing heavily.
The Banker leaned forwards, and could see the three little figures (they
were not as big as the joint of his little finger) talking earnestly;
the Very Young Man was gesticulating wildly, pointing towards the ring.
One of them made a start, but the others called him back.
Then they began waving their arms, and all at once the Banker realized
they were waving at him. He leaned down, and by their motions knew that
something was wrong--that they wanted him to do something.
Trembling with fright, the Banker left his chair and knelt upon the
floor. The Very Young Man made a funnel of his hands and shouted up:
"It's too far away. We can't make it--we're too small!"
The Banker looked his bewilderment. Then he thought suddenly of the
spoon that he still held in his hand, and he put it down towards them.
The three little figures ducked and scattered as the spoon in the
Banker's trembling fingers neared them.
"Not that--the ring. Bring it closer. Hurry--Hurry!" shouted the Very
Young Man. The Banker, leaning closer, could just hear the words.
Comprehending at last, he picked up the ring and laid it near the edge
of the handkerchief. Immediately the little figures ran over to it and
began climbing up.
The Very Young Man was the first to reach it; the Banker could see him
vault upwards and land astraddle upon its top. The Doctor was up in a
moment more, and the two were reaching down their hands to help up the
Big Business Man. The Banker slid the spoon carefully along the floor
towards the ring, but the Big Business Man waved it away. The Banker
laid the spoon aside, and when he looked at the ring again the Big
Business Man was up beside his companions, standing upright with them
upon the top of the ring.
The Banker stared so long and intently, his vision blurred. He closed
his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again the little figures
on the top of the ring had disappeared.
The Banker felt suddenly sick and faint in the closeness of the room.
Rising to his feet, he hurried to a window and threw up the sash. A gust
of rain and wind beat against his face as he stood leaning on the sill.
He felt much better after a few moments; and remembering his friends, he
closed the window and turned back towards the ring. At first he thought
he could just make them out, but when he got down on the floor close
beside the ring, he saw nothing.
Almost unnerved, he sat down heavily upon the floor beside the
handkerchief, leaning on one elbow. A corner of the handkerchief was
turned back, and one side was ruffled where the wind from the opened
window had blown it up. He smoothed out the handkerchief carefully.
For some time the Banker sat quiet, reclining uncomfortably upon the
hard floor. The room was very still--its silence oppressed him. He
stared stolidly at the ring, his head in a turmoil. The ring looked
oddly out of place, lying over near one edge of the handkerchief; he had
always seen it in the center before. Abruptly he put out his hand and
picked it up. Then remembrance of the Doctor's warning flooded over him.
In sudden panic he put the ring down again, almost in the same place at
the edge of the handkerchief.
Trembling all over, he looked at his watch; it was a quarter to nine. He
rose stiffly to his feet and sank into his chair. After a moment he
lighted a cigar. The handkerchief lay at his feet; he could just see the
ring over the edge of his knees. For a long time he sat staring.
The striking of a church clock nearby roused him. He shook himself
together and blinked at the empty room. In his hand he held an unlighted
cigar; mechanically he raised it to his lips. The sound of the church
bells died away; the silence of the room and the loneliness of it made
him shiver. He looked at his watch again. Ten o'clock! Still another
hour to wait and watch, and then he could take the ring back to the
Museum. He glanced down at the ring; it was still lying by the edge of
the handkerchief.
Again the Banker fell into a stupor as he stared at the glistening gold
band lying on the floor at his feet. How lonely he felt! Yet he was not
alone, he told himself. His three friends were still there, hardly two
feet from the toe of his shoe. He wondered how they were making out.
Would they come back any moment? Would they ever come back?
And then the Banker found himself worrying because the ring was not in
the center of the handkerchief.
He felt frightened, and he wondered why. Again he looked at his watch.
They had been gone more than two hours now. Swiftly he stooped, and
lifting the ring, gazed at it searchingly, holding it very close to his
eyes. Then he carefully put it down in the center of the handkerchief,
and lay back in his chair with a long sigh of relief. It was all right
now; just a little while to wait, and then he could take it back to the
Museum. In a moment his eyes blinked, closed, and soon he was fast
asleep, lying sprawled out in the big leather chair and breathing
heavily.
CHAPTER XIII
PERILOUS WAYS
The Very Young Man sat on the floor, between his two friends at the edge
of the handkerchief, and put the first pellets of the drug to his
tongue. His heart was beating furiously; his forehead was damp with the
sweat of excitement and of fear. The pellets tasted sweet, and yet a
little acrid. He crushed them in his mouth and swallowed them hastily.
In the silence of the room, the ticking of his watch suddenly sounded
very loud. He raised his arm and looked at its face; it was just ten
minutes past eight. He continued to stare at its dial, wondering why
nothing was happening to him. Then all at once the figures on the watch
became very sharp and vivid; he could see them with microscopic
clearness. A buzzing sounded in his ears.
He remembered having felt the same way just before he fainted. He drew a
deep breath and looked around the room; it swam before his gaze. He
closed his eyes and waited, wondering if he would faint. The buzzing in
his head grew louder; a feeling of nausea possessed him.
After a moment his head cleared; he felt better. Then all at once he
realized that the floor upon which he sat was moving. It seemed to be
shifting out from under him in all directions. He sat with his feet flat
upon the floor, his knees drawn close against his chin. And the floor
seemed to be carrying his feet farther out; he constantly had to be
pulling them back against him. He put one hand down beside him, and
could feel his fingers dragging very slowly as the polished surface
moved past. The noise in his head was almost gone now. He opened his
eyes.
Before him, across the handkerchief the Banker sat in his chair. He had
grown enormously in size, and as the Very Young Man looked he could see
him and the chair growing steadily larger. He met the Banker's anxious
glance, and smiled up at him. Then he looked at his two friends, sitting
on the floor beside him. They alone, of everything within his range of
vision, had grown no larger.
The Very Young Man thought of the belt around his waist. He put his hand
to it, and found it tight as before. So, after all, they would not have
to leave anything behind, he thought.
The Doctor rose to his feet and turned away, back under the huge table
that loomed up behind him. The Very Young Man got up, too, and stood
beside the Big Business Man, holding to him for support. His head felt
strangely confused; his legs were weak and shaky.
Steadily larger grew the room and everything in it. The Very Young Man
turned his eyes up to the light high overhead. Its great electric bulbs
dazzled him with their brilliancy; its powerful glare made objects
around as bright as though in daylight. After a moment the Big Business
Man's grip on his arm tightened.
"God, it's weird!" he said in a tense whisper. "Look!"
Before them spread a great, level, shining expanse of black, with the
ring in its center--a huge golden circle. Beyond the farther edge of the
black they could see the feet of the banker, and the lower part of his
legs stretching into the air far above them.
The Very Young Man looked up still higher, and saw the Banker staring
down at him, "Good-by, my boy," said the Banker. His voice came from far
away in a great roar to the Very Young Man's ears.
"Good-by, sir," said the Very Young Man, and waved his hand.
Several minutes passed, and still the Very Young Man stood holding to
his companion, and watching the expanse of handkerchief widening out and
the gleaming ring growing larger. Then he thought of the Doctor, and
turned suddenly to look behind him. Across the wide, glistening surface
of the floor stood the Doctor, leaning against the tremendous column
that the Very Young Man knew was the leg of the center-table. And as the
Very Young Man stood staring, he could see this distance between them
growing steadily greater. A sudden fear possessed him, and he shouted to
his friend.
"Good Lord, suppose he can't make it!" said the Big Business Man
fearfully.
"He's coming," answered the Very Young Man. "He's got to make it."
The Doctor was running towards them now, and in a few moments he was
beside them, breathing heavily.
"Close call, Frank," said the Big Business Man, shaking his head. "You
were the one said we must keep together." The Doctor was too much out of
breath to answer.
"This is worse," said the Very Young Man. "Look where the ring is."
More than two hundred yards away across the black expanse of silk
handkerchief lay the ring.
"It's almost as high as our waist now, and look how far it is!" added
the Very Young Man excitedly.
"It's getting farther every minute," said the Big Business Man. "Come
on," and he started to run towards the ring.
"I can't make it. It's too far!" shouted the Doctor after him.
The Big Business Man stopped short. "What'll we do?" he asked. "We've
got to get there."
"That ring will be a mile away in a few minutes, at the rate it's
going," said the Very Young Man.
"We'll have to get him to move it over here," decided the Doctor,
looking up into the air, and pointing.
"Gee, I never thought of that!" said the Very Young Man. "Oh, great
Scott, look at him!"
Out across the broad expanse of handkerchief they could see the huge
white face of their friend looming four or five hundred feet in the air
above them. It was the most astounding sight their eyes had ever beheld;
yet so confused were they by the flood of new impressions to which they
were being subjected that this colossal figure added little to their
surprise.
"We must make him move the ring over here," repeated the Doctor.
"You'll never make him hear you," said the Big Business Man, as the Very
Young Man began shouting at the top of his voice.
"We've got to," said the Very Young Man breathlessly. "Look at that
ring. We can't get to it now. We're stranded here. Good Lord! What's the
matter with him--can't he see us?" he added, and began shouting again.
"He's getting up," said the Doctor. They could see the figure of the
Banker towering in the air a thousand feet above the ring, and then with
a swoop of his enormous face come down to them as he knelt upon the
floor.
With his hands to his mouth, the Very Young Man shouted up: "It's too
far away. We can't make it--we're too small." They waited. Suddenly,
without warning, a great wooden oval bowl fifteen or twenty feet across
came at them with tremendous speed. They scattered hastily in terror.
"Not that--the ring!" shouted the Very Young Man, as he realized it was
the spoon in the Banker's hand that had frightened them.
A moment more and the ring was before them, lying at the edge of the
handkerchief--a circular pit of rough yellow rock breast high. They ran
over to it and climbed upon its top.
Another minute and the ring had grown until its top became a narrow
curving path upon which they could stand. They got upon their feet and
looked around curiously.
"Well, we're here," remarked the Very Young Man. "Everything's O.K. so
far. Let's get right around after that scratch."
"Keep together," cautioned the Doctor, and they started off along the
path, following its inner edge.
As they progressed, the top of the ring steadily became broader; the
surface underfoot became rougher. The Big Business Man, walking nearest
the edge, pulled his companion towards him. "Look there!" he said. They
stood cautiously at the edge and looked down.
Beneath them the ring bulged out. Over the bulge they could see the
black of the handkerchief--a sheer hundred-feet drop. The ring curved
sharply to the left; they could follow its wall all the way around; it
formed a circular pit some two hundred and fifty feet in diameter.
A gentle breeze fanned their faces as they walked. The Very Young Man
looked up into the gray of the distance overhead. A little behind, over
his shoulder he saw above him in the sky a great, gleaming light many
times bigger than the sun. It cast on the ground before him an opaque
shadow, blurred about the edges.
"Pretty good day, at that," remarked the Very Young Man, throwing out
his chest.
The Doctor laughed. "It's half-past eight at night," he said. "And if
you'll remember half an hour ago, it's a very stormy night, too."
The Big Business Man stopped short in his walk. "Just think," he said
pointing up into the gray of the sky, with a note of awe in his voice,
"over there, not more than fifteen feet away, is a window, looking down
towards the Gaiety Theater and Broadway."
The Very Young. Man looked bewildered. "That window's a hundred miles
away," he said positively.
"Fifteen feet," said the Big Business Man. "Just beyond the table."
"It's all in the viewpoint" said the Doctor, and laughed again.
They had recovered their spirits by now, the Very Young Man especially
seeming imbued with the enthusiasm of adventure.
The path became constantly rougher as they advanced.
The ground underfoot--a shaggy, yellow, metallic ore--was strewn now
with pebbles. These pebbles grew larger farther on, becoming huge rocks
and bowlders that greatly impeded their progress.
They soon found it difficult to follow the brink of the precipice. The
path had broadened now so that its other edge was out of sight, for they
could see only a short distance amid the bowlders that everywhere
tumbled about, and after a time they found themselves wandering along,
lost in the barren waste.
"How far is the scratch, do you suppose?" the Very Young Man wanted to
know.
They stopped and consulted a moment; then the Very Young Man clambered
up to the top of a rock. "There's a range of hills over there pretty
close," he called down to them. "That must be the way."
They had just started again in the direction of the hills when, almost
without warning, and with a great whistle and roar, a gale of wind swept
down upon them. They stood still and looked at each other with startled
faces, bracing with their feet against its pressure.
"Oh, golly, what's this?" cried the Very Young Man, and sat down
suddenly upon the ground to keep from being blown forward.
The wind increased rapidly in violence until, in a moment, all three of
the men were crouching upon the ground for shelter.
"Great Scott, this is a tornado!" ejaculated the Big Business Man. His
words were almost lost amid the howling of the blast as it swept across
the barren waste of rocks.
"Rogers never told us anything about this. It's getting worse every
minute. I----" A shower of pebbles and a great cloud of metallic dust
swept past, leaving them choking and gasping for breath.
The Very Young Man got upon his hands and knees.
"I'm going over there," he panted. "It's better."
CHAPTER XIV
STRANGE EXPERIENCES
Led by the Very Young Man, the three crawled a few yards to where a
cluster of bowlders promised better shelter. Huddled behind this mass of
rock, they found themselves protected in a measure from the violence of
the storm. Lying there, they could see yellowish-gray clouds of sand go
sweeping by, with occasionally a hail of tiny pebbles, blowing almost
horizontal. Overhead, the sky was unchanged. Not a vestige of cloud was
visible, only the gray-blue of an immense distance, with the huge
gleaming light, like an enormous sun, hung in its center.
The Very Young Man put his hand on the Doctor's arm. "It's going down,"
he said. Hardly were the words out of his mouth before, with even less
warning than it began, the gale abruptly ceased. There remained only the
pleasantly gentle breeze of a summer afternoon blowing against their
faces. And this came from almost an opposite direction to the storm.
The three men looked at one another in amazement.
"Well, I'll be----" ejaculated the Very Young Man. "What next?"
They waited for some time, afraid to venture out from the rocks among
which they had taken refuge. Then, deciding that the storm, however
unexplainable, was over for the time at least, they climbed to their
feet and resumed their journey with bruised knees, but otherwise none
the worse for the danger through which they had passed.
After walking a short distance, they came up a little incline, and
before them, hardly more than a quarter of a mile away, they could see a
range of hills.
"The scratch must be behind those hills," said the Very Young Man,
pointing.
"It's a long distance," said the Big Business Man thoughtfully. "We're
still growing smaller--look."
Their minds had been so occupied that for some time they had forgotten
the effect of the drug upon their stature. As they looked about them now
they could see the rocks around them still increasing steadily in size,
and could feel the ground shifting under their feet when they stood
still.
"You're right; we're getting smaller," observed the Very Young Man. "How
long before we'll stop, do you suppose?"
The Doctor drew the Chemist's memoranda from the pouch of his belt. "It
says about five or six hours for the first four pellets," he read.
The Very Young Man looked at his watch. "Quarter to nine. We've been
less than an hour yet. Come on, let's keep going," and he started
walking rapidly forward.
They walked for a time in silence. The line of hills before them grew
visibly in size, and they seemed slowly to be nearing it.
"I've been thinking," began the Doctor thoughtfully as he glanced up at
the hills. "There's one theory of Rogers's that was a fallacy. You
remember he was quite positive that this change of stature became
steadily more rapid, until it reached its maximum rate and then remained
constant. If that were so we should probably be diminishing in size more
rapidly now than when we first climbed on to the ring. If we had so much
trouble getting to the ring then"--he smiled at the remembrance of their
difficulty--"I don't see how we could ever get to those hills now."
"Gee, that's so," said the Very Young Man. "We'd never be able to get
anywhere, would we?"
"How do you figure it works?" asked the Big Business Man.
The Doctor folded up the paper and replaced it in his belt. "I don't
know," he answered. "I think probably it proceeds in cycles, like the
normal rate of growth--times of rapid progress succeeded by periods of
comparative inactivity."
"I never knew people grew that way," observed the Very Young Man.
"They do," said the Doctor. "And if these drugs produce the same effect
we----" He got no further, for suddenly the earth seemed to rise swiftly
under them, and they were thrown violently to the ground.
The Very Young Man, as he lay prone, looked upward, and saw the sunlike
light above fall swiftly down across the sky and disappear below the
horizon, plunging the world about them into the gloom of a
semi-twilight. A wind, fiercer than before, swept over them with a roar.
"The end of the world," murmured the Very Young Man to himself. And he
wondered why he was not frightened.
Then came the feeling of an extraordinary lightness of body, as though
the ground were dropping away from under him. The wind abruptly ceased
blowing. He saw the ball of light rise swiftly from the horizon and
mount upward in a great, gleaming arc to the zenith, where again it hung
motionless.
The three men lay quiet, their heads reeling. Then the Very Young Man
sat up dizzily and began feeling himself all over. "There's nothing
wrong with me," he said lugubriously, meeting the eyes of his friends
who apparently were also more surprised than hurt. "But--oh, my gosh,
the whole universe went nutty!" he added to himself in awe.
"What did that?" asked the Big Business Man. He climbed unsteadily to
his feet and sat upon a rock, holding his head in his hands.
The Doctor was up in a moment beside him. "We're not hurt," he said,
looking at his companions. "Don't let's waste any more time--let's get
into that valley." The Very Young Man could see by his manner that he
knew or guessed what had happened.
"But say; what----" began the Very Young Man.
"Come on," interrupted the Doctor, and started walking ahead swiftly.
There was nothing for his two friends to do but to follow. They walked
in silence, in single file, picking their way among the rocks. For a
quarter of an hour or more they kept going, until finally they came to
the ridge of hills, finding them enormous rocks, several hundred feet
high, strewn closely together.
"The valley must be right beyond," said the Doctor. "Come on."
The spaces between these huge rocks were, some of them, fifty feet or
more in width. Inside the hills the travelers found the ground even
rougher than before, and it was nearly half an hour before they emerged
on the other side.
Instead of the shallow valley they expected to find, they came upon a
precipice--a sheer drop into a tremendous cañon, half as wide possibly
as it was deep. They could see down to its bottom from where they
stood--the same rocky, barren waste as that through which they had been
traveling. Across the cañon, on the farther side, lay another line of
hills.
"It's the scratch all right," said the Very Young Man, as they stopped
near the brink of the precipice, "but, holy smoke! Isn't it big?"
"That's two thousand feet down there," said the Big Business Man,
stepping cautiously nearer to the edge. "Rogers didn't say it was so
deep."
"That's because we've been so much longer getting here," explained the
Doctor.
"How are we going to get down?" asked the Very Young Man as he stood
beside the Big Business Man within a few feet of the brink. "It's
getting deeper every minute, don't forget that."
The Big Business Man knelt down and carefully approached to the very
edge of the precipice. Then, as he looked over, he got upon his feet
with a laugh of relief. "Come here," he said.
They joined him at the edge and, looking over, could see that the jagged
roughness of the wall made the descent, though difficult, not
exceptionally hazardous. Below them, not more than twenty feet, a wide
ledge jutted out, and beyond that they could see other similar ledges
and crevices that would afford a foothold.
"We can get down that," said the Very Young Man. "There's an easy
place," and he pointed farther along the brink, to where a break in the
edge seemed to offer a means of descent to the ledge just below.
"It's going to be a mighty long climb down," said the Big Business Man.
"Especially as we're getting smaller all the time. I wonder," he added
thoughtfully, "how would it be if we made ourselves larger before we
started. We could get big enough, you know, so that it would only be a
few hundred feet down there. Then, after we got down, we could get small
again."
"That's a thought," said the Very Young Man.
The Doctor sat down somewhat wearily, and again took the papers from his
belt. "The idea is a good one," he said. "But there's one thing you
overlook. The larger we get, the smoother the wall is going to be. Look,
can't you see it changing every moment?"
It was true. Even in the short time since they had first looked down,
new crevices had opened up. The descent, though longer, was momentarily
becoming less dangerous.
"You see," continued the Doctor, "if the valley were only a few hundred
feet deep, the precipice might then be so sheer we could not trust
ourselves to it at all."
"You're right," observed the Big Business Man.
"Well, it's not very hard to get down now," said the Very Young Man.
"Let's get going before it gets any deeper. Say," he added, "how about
stopping our size where it is? How would that work?"
The Doctor was reading the papers he held in his hand. "I think," he
said, "it would be our wisest course to follow as closely as possible
what Rogers tells us to do. It may be harder, but I think we will avoid
trouble in the end."
"We could get lost in size just as easily as in space, couldn't we?" the
Big Business Man put in. "That's a curious idea, isn't it?"
"It's true," agreed the Doctor. "It is something we must guard against
very carefully."
"Well, come on then, let's get going," said the Very Young Man, pulling
the Doctor to his feet.
The Big Business Man glanced at his watch. "Twenty to ten," he said.
Then he looked up into the sky. "One hour and a half ago," he added
sentimentally, "we were up there. What will another hour bring--I
wonder?"
"Nothing at all," said the Very Young Man, "if we don't ever get
started. Come on."
He walked towards the place he had selected, followed by his companions.
And thus the three adventurers began their descent into the ring.
CHAPTER XV
THE VALLEY OF THE SACRIFICE
For the first half-hour of their climb down into the valley of the
scratch, the three friends were too preoccupied with their own safety to
talk more than an occasional sentence. They came upon many places that
at first glance appeared impassable, or at least sufficiently hazardous
to cause them to hesitate, but in each instance the changing contour of
the precipice offered some other means of descent.
After thirty minutes of arduous effort, the Big Business Man sat down
suddenly upon a rock and began to unlace his shoes.
"I've got to rest a while," he groaned. "My feet are in terrible shape."
His two companions were glad of the opportunity to sit with him for a
moment.
"Gosh, I'm all in, too!" said the Very Young Man with a sigh.
They were sitting upon a ledge about twenty feet wide, with the wall
down which they had come at their back.
"I'll swear that's as far down there as it ever was," said the Big
Business Man, with a wave of his hand towards the valley below them.
"Further," remarked the Very Young Man. "I've known that right along."
"That's to be expected," said the Doctor. "But we're a third the way
down, just the same; that's the main thing." He glanced up the rocky,
precipitous wall behind them. "We've come down a thousand feet, at
least. The valley must be three thousand feet deep or more now."
"Say, how deep does it get before it stops?" inquired the Very Young
Man.
The Doctor smiled at him quietly. "Rogers's note put it about twelve
thousand," he answered. "It should reach that depth and stop about"--he
hesitated a moment, calculating--"about two o'clock," he finished.
"Some climb," commented the Very Young Man. "We could do this a lot
better than we're doing it, I think."
For some time they sat in silence. From where they sat the valley had
all the appearance of a rocky, barren cañon of their own world above, as
it might have looked on the late afternoon of a cloudless summer day. A
gentle breeze was blowing, and in the sky overhead they could still see
the huge light that for them was the sun.
"The weather is certainly great down here anyway," observed the Very
Young Man, "that's one consolation."
The Big Business Man had replaced his shoes, taken a swallow of water,
and risen to his feet, preparing to start downward again, when suddenly
they all noticed a curious swaying motion, as though the earth were
moving under them.
"Now what?" ejaculated the Very Young Man, standing up abruptly, with
his feet spread wide apart.
The ground seemed pressing against his feet as if he were weighted down
with a heavy load. And he felt a little also as though in a moving train
with a side thrust to guard against. The sun was no longer visible, and
the valley was plunged in the semidarkness of twilight. A strong wind
sprang up, sweeping down upon them from above.
The Very Young Man and the Big Business Man looked puzzled; the Doctor
alone of the three seemed to understand what was happening.
"He's moving the ring," he explained, with a note of apprehension in his
voice.
"Oh," ejaculated the Big Business Man, comprehending at last, "so that's
the----"
The Very Young Man standing with his back to the wall and his legs
spread wide looked hastily at his watch. "Moving the ring? Why, damn
it----" he began impetuously.
The Big Business Man interrupted him. "Look there, look!" he almost
whispered, awestruck.
The sky above the valley suddenly had become suffused with red. As they
watched it seemed to take form, appearing no longer space, but filled
with some enormous body of reddish color. In one place they could see it
broken into a line of gray, and underneath the gray, two circular holes
of light gleamed down at them.
The Doctor shuddered and closed his eyes; his two friends stared upward,
fascinated into immobility.
"What--is--that?" the Very Young Man whispered.
Before he could be answered, the earth swayed under them more violently
than before. The red faded back out of the sky, and the sun appeared
sweeping up into the zenith, where it hung swaying a moment and then
poised motionless. The valley was flooded again with light; the ground
steadied under them and became quiet. The wind died rapidly away, and in
another moment it was as though nothing unusual had occurred.
For a time the three friends stood silent, too astonished for words at
this extraordinary experience. The Doctor was the first to recover
himself. "He moved the ring," he said hurriedly. "That's twice. We must
hurry."
"It's only quarter past ten. We told him not till eleven," protested the
Very Young Man.
"Even that is too soon for safety," said the Doctor back over his
shoulder, for already he had started downward.
It was nearly twelve o'clock when they stopped again for rest. At this
time the valley appeared about seven or eight thousand feet deep: they
estimated themselves to be slightly more than half-way down. From eleven
until twelve they had momentarily expected some disturbing phenomena
attendant upon the removal of the ring by the Banker from the clubroom
to its place in the Museum. But nothing unusual had occurred.
"He probably decided to leave it alone for a while," commented the Big
Business Man, as they were discussing the matter. "Glad he showed that
much sense."
"It would not bother us much now," the Doctor replied. "We're too far
down. See how the light is changing."
The sky showed now only as a narrow ribbon of blue between the edges of
the cañon's walls. The sun was behind the wall down which they were
climbing, out of sight, and throwing their side of the valley into
shadow. And already they could begin to see a dim phosphorescence
glowing from the rocks near at hand.
The Very Young Man, sitting beside the Doctor, suddenly gripped his
friend by the arm. "A bird," he said, pointing down the valley. "See it
there?"
From far off they could see a bird coming up the center of the valley at
a height apparently almost level with their own position, and flying
towards them. They watched it in silence as it rapidly approached.
"Great Scott, it's big!" muttered the Big Business Man in an undertone.
As the bird came closer they saw it was fully fifty feet across the
wings. It was flying straight down the valley at tremendous speed. When
it was nearly opposite them they heard a familiar "cheep, cheep," come
echoing across the valley.
"The sparrow," whispered the Very Young Man. "Oh, my gosh, look how big
it is!"
In another moment it had passed them; they watched in silence until it
disappeared in the distance.
"Well," said the Very Young Man, "if that had ever seen us----" He drew
a long breath, leaving the rest to the imagination of his hearers.
"What a wonderful thing!" said the Big Business Man, with a note of awe
in his voice. "Just think--that sparrow when we last saw it was
infinitesimally small."
The Doctor laughed. "It's far smaller now than it was then," he said.
"Only since we last saw it we have changed size to a much greater extent
than it has."
"Foolish of us to have sent it in here," remarked the Big Business Man
casually. "Suppose that----" He stopped abruptly.
The Very Young Man started hastily to his feet.
"Oh, golly!" he exclaimed as the same thought occurred to him. "That
lizard----" He looked about him wildly.
"It was foolish perhaps." The Doctor spoke quietly. "But we can't help
it now. The sparrow has gone. That lizard may be right here at our
feet"--The Very Young Man jumped involuntarily--"and so small we can't
see it," the Doctor finished with a smile. "Or it may be a hundred miles
away and big as a dinosaur." The Very Young Man shuddered.
"It was senseless of us to let them get in here anyway," said the Big
Business Man. "That sparrow evidently has stopped getting smaller. Do
you realize how big it will be to us, after we've diminished a few
hundred more times?"
"We needn't worry over it," said the Doctor. "Even if we knew the lizard
got into the valley the chances of our seeing it here are one in a
million. But we don't even know that. If you'll remember it was still
some distance away from the scratch when it became invisible; I doubt
very much if it even got there. No, I think probably we'll never see it
again."
"I hope not," declared the Very Young Man emphatically.
For another hour they climbed steadily downward, making more rapid
progress than before, for the descent became constantly less difficult.
During this time they spoke little, but it was evident that the Very
Young Man, from the frequent glances he threw around, never for a moment
forgot the possibility of encountering the lizard. The sparrow did not
return, although for that, too, they were constantly on the look-out.
It was nearly half-past one when the Big Business Man threw himself upon
the ground exhausted. The valley at this time had reached a depth of
over ten thousand feet. It was still growing deeper, but the travelers
had made good progress and were not more than fifteen hundred feet above
its bottom.
They had been under tremendous physical exertion for over five hours,
too absorbed in their strange experiences to think of eating, and now
all three agreed it was foolish to attempt to travel farther without
food and rest.
"We had better wait here an hour or two," the Doctor decided. "Our size
will soon remain constant and it won't take us long to get down after
we've rested."
"I'm hungry," suggested the Very Young Man, "how about you?"
They ate and drank sparingly of the little store they had brought with
them. The Doctor would not let them have much, both because he wanted to
conserve their supply, and because he knew in their exhausted condition
it would be bad for them to eat heartily.
It was about two o'clock when they noticed that objects around them no
longer were increasing in size. They had finished their meal and felt
greatly refreshed.
"Things have stopped growing," observed the Very Young Man. "We've done
four pills' worth of the journey anyway," he added facetiously. He rose
to his feet, stretching. He felt sore and bruised all over, but with the
meal and a little rest, not particularly tired.
"I move we go on down now," he suggested, walking to the edge of the
huge crevice in which they were sitting. "It's only a couple of thousand
feet."
"Perhaps we might as well," agreed the Doctor, rising also. "When we get
to the floor of the valley, we can find a good spot and turn in for the
night."
The incongruity of his last words with the scene around made the Doctor
smile. Overhead the sky still showed a narrow ribbon of blue. Across the
valley the sunlight sparkled on the yellowish crags of the rocky wall.
In the shadow, on the side down which they were climbing, the rocks now
shone distinctly phosphorescent, with a peculiar waviness of outline.
"Not much like either night or day, is it?" added the Doctor. "We'll
have to get used to that."
They started off again, and in another two hours found themselves going
down a gentle rocky slope and out upon the floor of the valley.
"We're here at last," said the Big Business Man wearily.
The Very Young Man looked up the great, jagged precipice down which they
had come, to where, far above, its edge against the strip of blue marked
the surface of the ring.
"Some trip," he remarked. "I wouldn't want to tackle that every day."
"Four o'clock," said the Doctor, "the light up there looks just the
same. I wonder what's happened to George."
Neither of his companions answered him. The Big Business Man lay
stretched full length upon the ground near by, and the Very Young Man
still stood looking up the precipice, lost in thought.
"What a nice climb going back," he suddenly remarked.
The Doctor laughed. "Don't let's worry about that, Jack. If you remember
how Rogers described it, getting back is easier than getting in. But the
main point now," he added seriously, "is for us to make sure of getting
down to Arite as speedily as possible."
The Very Young Man surveyed the barren waste around them in dismay. The
floor of the valley was strewn with even larger rocks and bowlders than
those on the surface above, and looked utterly pathless and desolate.
"What do we do first?" he asked dubiously.
"First," said the Doctor, smiling at the Big Business Man, who lay upon
his back staring up into the sky and paying no attention to them
whatever, "I think first we had better settle ourselves for a good long
rest here."
"If we stop at all, let's sleep a while," said the Very Young Man. "A
little rest only gets you stiff. It's a pretty exposed place out here
though, isn't it, to sleep?" he added, thinking of the sparrow and the
lizard.
"One of us will stay awake and watch," answered the Doctor.
CHAPTER XVI
THE PIT OF DARKNESS
At the suggestion of the Very Young Man they located without much
difficulty a sort of cave amid the rocks, which offered shelter for
their rest. Taking turns watching, they passed eight hours in fair
comfort, and by noon next day, after another frugal meal they felt
thoroughly refreshed and eager to continue the journey.
"We sure are doing this classy," observed the Very Young Man. "Think of
Rogers--all he could do was fall asleep when he couldn't stay awake any
more. Gosh, what chances he took!"
"We're playing it safe," agreed the Big Business Man.
"But we mustn't take it too easy," added the Doctor.
The Very Young Man stretched himself luxuriously and buckled his belt on
tighter. "Well, I'm ready for anything," he announced. "What's next?"
The Doctor consulted his papers. "We find the circular pit Rogers made
in the scratch and we descend into it. We take twelve more pills at the
edge of the pit," he said.
The Very Young Man leaped to the top of a rock and looked out over the
desolate waste helplessly. "How are we going to find the pit?" he asked
dubiously. "It's not in sight, that's sure."
"It's down there--about five miles," said the Doctor. "I saw it
yesterday as we came down."
"That's easy," said the Very Young Man, and he started off
enthusiastically, followed by the others.
In less than two hours they found themselves at the edge of the pit. It
appeared almost circular in form, apparently about five miles across,
and its smooth, shining walls extended almost perpendicularly down into
blackness. Somewhat awed by the task confronting them in getting down
into this abyss, the three friends sat down near its brink to discuss
their plan of action.
"We take twelve pills here," said the Doctor. "That ought to make us
small enough to climb down into that."
"Do you think we need so many?" asked the Big Business Man thoughtfully.
"You know, Frank, we're making an awful lot of work for ourselves,
playing this thing so absolutely safe. Think of what a distance down
that will be after we have got as small as twelve pills will make us. It
might take us days to get to the bottom."
"How did Rogers get down?" the Very Young Man wanted to know.
"He took the twelve pills here," the Doctor answered.
"But as I understand it, he fell most of the way down while he was still
big, and then got small afterwards at the bottom." This from the Big
Business Man.
"I don't know how about you," said the Very Young Man drily, "but I'd
much rather take three days to walk down than fall down in one day."
The Doctor smiled. "I still think," he said, "that we had better stick
to the directions Rogers left us. Then at least there is no danger of
our getting lost in size. But I agree with you, Jack. I'd rather not
fall down, even if it takes longer to walk."
"I wonder----" began the Big Business Man. "You know I've been
thinking--it does seem an awful waste of energy for us to let ourselves
get smaller than absolutely necessary in climbing down these places.
Maybe you don't realize it."
"I do," said the Very Young Man, looking sorrowfully at the ragged shoes
on his feet and the cuts and bruises on his legs.
"What I mean is----" persisted the Big Business Man.
"How far do you suppose we have actually traveled since we started last
night?"
"That's pretty hard to estimate," said the doctor. "We have walked
perhaps fifteen miles altogether, besides the climb down. I suppose we
actually came down five or six thousand feet."
"And at the size we are now it would have been twelve thousand feet
down, wouldn't it?"
"Yes," answered the Doctor, "it would."
"And just think," went on the Big Business Man, "right now, based on the
size we were when we began, we've only gone some six feet altogether
from the place we started."
"And a sixteenth of an inch or less since we left the surface of the
ring," said the Doctor smiling.
"Gee, that's a weird thought," the Very Young Man said, as he gazed in
awe at the lofty heights about them.
"I've been thinking," continued the Big Business Man. "You say we must
be careful not to get lost in size. Well, suppose instead of taking
twelve pills here, we only take six. That should be enough to get us
started--possibly enough to get us all the way down. Then before we
moved at all we could take the other six. That would keep it straight,
wouldn't it?"
"Great idea," said the Very Young Man. "I'm in favor of that."
"It sounds feasible--certainly if we can get all the way down with six
pills we will save a lot of climbing."
"If six aren't enough, we can easily take more," added the Big Business
Man.
And so they decided to take only six pills of the drug and to get down
to the bottom of the pit, if possible, without taking more. The pit, as
they stood looking down into it now, seemed quite impossible of descent,
for its almost perpendicular wall was smooth and shining as polished
brass.
They took the drug, standing close together at the edge of the pit.
Immediately began again the same crawling sensation underfoot, much more
rapid this time, while all around them the rocks began very rapidly
increasing in size.
The pit now seemed widening out at an astounding rate. In a few minutes
it had broadened so that its opposite side could not be seen. The wall
at the brink of which they stood had before curved in a great sweeping
arc to enclose the circular hole; now it stretched in a nearly straight,
unbroken line to the right and left as far as they could see. Beneath
them lay only blackness; it was as though they were at the edge of the
world.
"Good God, what a place to go down into," gasped the Big Business Man,
after they had been standing nearly half an hour in silence, appalled at
the tremendous changes taking place around them.
For some time past the wall before them had become sufficiently indented
and broken to make possible their descent. It was the Doctor who first
realized the time--or perhaps it should be said, the size--they were
losing by their inactivity; and when with a few crisp words he brought
them to themselves, they immediately started downward.
For another six hours they traveled downward steadily, stopping only
once to eat. The descent during this time was not unlike that down the
side of the valley, although towards the last it began rapidly to grow
less precipitous.
They now found themselves confronted frequently with gentle slopes
downward, half a mile or more in extent, and sometimes by almost level
places, succeeded by another sharp descent.
During this part of the trip they made more rapid progress than at any
time since starting, the Very Young Man in his enthusiasm at times
running forward and then sitting down to wait for the others to overtake
him.
The light overhead gradually faded into the characteristic luminous
blackness the Chemist had described. As it did so, the phosphorescent
quality of the rocks greatly increased, or at least became more
noticeable, so that the light illuminating the landscape became hardly
less in volume, although totally different in quality.
The ground underfoot and the rocks themselves had been steadily
changing. They had lost now almost entirely the yellowishness, metal
look, and seemed to have more the quality of a gray opaque glass, or
marble. They appeared rather smoother, too, than before, although the
huge bowlders and loosely strewn rocks and pebbles still remained the
characteristic feature of the landscape.
The three men were still diminishing in size; in fact, at this time the
last dose of the drug seemed to have attained its maximum power, for
objects around them appeared to be growing larger at a dizzying rate.
They were getting used to this effect, however, to a great extent, and
were no longer confused by the change as they had been before.
It was the Big Business Man who first showed signs of weakening, and at
the end of six hours or more of steady--and, towards the end, extremely
rapid--traveling he finally threw himself down and declared he could go
no farther. At this point they rested again several hours, taking turns
at watch, and each of them getting some measure of sleep. Of the three,
the Very Young Man appeared in the best condition, although possibly it
was his enthusiasm that kept him from admitting even to himself any
serious physical distress.
It was perhaps ten or twelve hours after they had taken the six pills
that they were again ready to start downward. Before starting the three
adventurers discussed earnestly the advisability of taking the other six
pills. The action of the drug had ceased some time before. They decided
not to, since apparently there was no difficulty facing them at this
part of the journey, and decreasing their stature would only
immeasurably lengthen the distance they had to go.
They had been traveling downward, through a barren land that now showed
little change of aspect, for hardly more than another hour, when
suddenly, without warning, they came upon the tremendous glossy incline
that they had been expecting to reach for some time. The rocks and
bowlders stopped abruptly, and they found at their feet, sloping
downward at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, a great, smooth
plane. It extended as far as they could see both to the right and left
and downward, at a slightly lessening angle, into the luminous darkness
that now bounded their entire range of vision in every direction.
This plane seemed distinctly of a different substance than anything they
had hitherto encountered. It was, as the Chemist had described it,
apparently like a smooth black marble. Yet it was not so smooth to them
now as he had pictured it, for its surface was sufficiently indented and
ridged to afford foothold.
They started down this plane gingerly, yet with an assumed boldness they
were all of them far from feeling. It was slow work at first, and
occasionally one or the other of them would slide headlong a score of
feet, until a break in the smoothness brought him to a stop. Their
rubber-soled shoes stood them in good stead here, for without the aid
given by them this part of the journey would have been impossible.
For several hours they continued this form of descent. The incline grew
constantly less steep, until finally they were able to walk down it
quite comfortably. They stopped again to eat, and after traveling what
seemed to them some fifteen miles from the top of the incline they
finally reached its bottom.
They seemed now to be upon a level floor--a ground of somewhat metallic
quality such as they had become familiar with above. Only now there were
no rocks or bowlders, and the ground was smoother and with a peculiar
corrugation. On one side lay the incline down which they had come. There
was nothing but darkness to be seen in any other direction. Here they
stopped again to rest and recuperate, and then they discussed earnestly
their next movements.
The Doctor, seated wearily upon the ground, consulted his memoranda
earnestly. The Very Young Man sat close beside him. As usual the Big
Business Man lay prone upon his back nearby, waiting for their decision.
"Rogers wasn't far from a forest when he got here," said the Very Young
Man, looking sidewise at the papers in the Doctor's hand. "And he speaks
of a tiny range of hills; but we can't see anything from here."
"We may not be within many miles of where Rogers landed," answered the
Doctor.
"No reason why we should be, at that, is there? Do you think we'll ever
find Arite?"
"Don't overlook the fact we've got six more pills to take here," called
the Big Business Man.
"That's just what I was considering," said the Doctor thoughtfully.
"There's no use our doing anything until we have attained the right
size. Those hills and the forest and river we are looking for might be
here right at our feet and we couldn't see them while we are as big as
this."
"We'd better take the pills and stay right here until their action wears
off. I'm going to take a sleep," said the Big Business Man.
"I think we might as well all sleep," said the Doctor. "There could not
possibly be anything here to harm us."
They each took the six additional pills without further words.
Physically exhausted as they were, and with the artificial drowsiness
produced by the drug, they were all three in a few moments fast asleep.
CHAPTER XVII
THE WELCOME OF THE MASTER
It was nearly twelve hours later, as their watches showed them, that the
first of the weary adventurers awoke. The Very Young Man it was who
first opened his eyes with a confused sense of feeling that he was in
bed at home, and that this was the momentous day he was to start his
journey into the ring. He sat up and rubbed his eyes vigorously to see
more clearly his surroundings.
Beside him lay his two friends, fast asleep. With returning
consciousness came the memory of the events of the day and night before.
The Very Young Man sprang to his feet and vigorously awoke his
companions.
The action of the drug again had ceased, and at first glance the scene
seemed to have changed very little. The incline now was some distance
away, although still visible, stretching up in a great arc and fading
away into the blackness above. The ground beneath their feet still of
its metallic quality, appeared far rougher than before. The Very Young
Man bent down and put his hand upon it. There was some form of
vegetation there, and, leaning closer, he could see what appeared to be
the ruins of a tiny forest, bent and trampled, the tree-trunks no larger
than slender twigs that he could have snapped asunder easily between his
fingers.
"Look at this," he exclaimed. "The woods--we're here."
The others knelt down with him.
"Be careful," cautioned the Doctor. "Don't move around. We must get
smaller." He drew the papers from his pocket.
"Rogers was in doubt about this quantity to take," he added. "We should
be now somewhere at the edge or in the forest he mentions. Yet we may be
very far from the point at which he reached the bottom of that incline.
I think, too, that we are somewhat larger than he was. Probably the
strength of our drug differs from his to some extent."
"How much should we take next, I wonder?" said the Big Business Man as
he looked at his companions.
The Doctor took a pill and crushed it in his hand. "Let us take so
much," he said, indicating a small portion of the powder. The others
each crushed one of the pills and endeavored to take as nearly as
possible an equal amount.
"I'm hungry," said the Very Young Man. "Can we eat right after the
powder?"
"I don't think that should make any difference," the Doctor answered,
and so accustomed to the drug were they now that, quite nonchalantly,
they sat down and ate.
After a few moments it became evident that in spite of their care the
amounts of the drug they had taken were far from equal.
Before they had half finished eating, the Very Young Man was hardly more
than a third the size of the Doctor, with the Big Business Man about
half-way between. This predicament suddenly struck them as funny, and
all three laughed heartily at the effect of the drug.
"Hey, you, hurry up, or you'll never catch me," shouted the Very Young
Man gleefully. "Gosh, but you're big!" He reached up and tried to touch
the Doctor's shoulder. Then, seeing the huge piece of chocolate in his
friend's hand and comparing it with the little one in his own, he added:
"Trade you chocolate. That's a regular meal you got there."
"That's a real idea," said the Big Business Man, ceasing his laughter
abruptly. "Do you know, if we ever get really low on food, all we have
to do is one of us stay big and his food would last the other two a
month."
"Fine; but how about the big one?" asked the Very Young Man, grinning.
"He'd starve to death on that plan, wouldn't he?"
"Well, then he could get much smaller than the other two, and they could
feed him. It's rather involved, I'll admit, but you know what I mean,"
the Big Business Man finished somewhat lamely.
"I've got a much better scheme than that," said the Very Young Man. "You
let the food stay large and you get small. How about that?" he added
triumphantly. Then he laid carefully on the ground beside him a bit of
chocolate and a few of the hard crackers they were eating. "Stay there,
little friends, when you grow up, I'll take you back," he added in a
gleeful tone of voice.
"Strange that should never have occurred to us," said the Doctor. "It's
a perfect way of replenishing our food supply," and quite seriously both
he and the Big Business Man laid aside some of their food.
"Thank me for that brilliant idea," said the Very Young Man. Then, as
another thought occurred to him, he scratched his head lugubriously.
"Wouldn't work very well if we were getting bigger, would it? Don't
let's ever get separated from any food coming out."
The Doctor was gigantic now in proportion to the other two, and both he
and the Big Business Man took a very small quantity more of the drug in
an effort to equalize their rate of bodily reduction. They evidently hit
it about right, for no further change in their relative size occurred.
All this time the vegetation underneath them had been growing steadily
larger. From tiny broken twigs it grew to sticks bigger than their
fingers, then to the thickness of their arms. They moved slightly from
time to time, letting it spread out from under them, or brushing it
aside and clearing a space in which they could sit more comfortably.
Still larger it grew until the tree-trunks, thick now almost as their
bodies, were lying broken and twisted, all about them. Over to one side
they could see, half a mile away, a place where the trees were still
standing--slender saplings, they seemed, growing densely together.
In half an hour more the Very Young Man announced he had stopped getting
smaller. The action of the drug ceased in the others a few minutes
later. They were still not quite in their relative sizes, but a few
grains of the powder quickly adjusted that.
They now found themselves near the edge of what once was a great forest.
Huge trees, whose trunks measured six feet or more in diameter, lay
scattered about upon the ground; not a single one was left standing. In
the distance they could see, some miles away, where the untrodden forest
began.
They had replaced the food in their belts some time before, and now
again they were ready to start. Suddenly the Very Young Man spied a
huge, round, whitish-brown object lying beside a tree-trunk near by. He
went over and stood beside it. Then he called his friends excitedly. It
was irregularly spherical in shape and stood higher than his knees--a
great jagged ball. The Very Young Man bent down, broke off a piece of
the ball, and, stuffing it into his mouth, began chewing with
enthusiasm.
"Now, what do you think of that?" he remarked with a grin. "A cracker
crumb I must have dropped when we first began lunch!"
They decided now to make for the nearest part of the unbroken forest. It
was two hours before they reached it, for among the tangled mass of
broken, fallen trees their progress was extremely difficult and slow.
Once inside, among the standing trees, they felt more lost than ever.
They had followed implicitly the Chemist's directions, and in general
had encountered the sort of country they expected. Nevertheless, they
all three realized that it was probable the route they had followed
coming in was quite different from that taken by the Chemist; and in
what direction lay their destination, and how far, they had not even the
vaguest idea, but they were determined to go on.
"If ever we find this city of Arite, it'll be a miracle sure," the Very
Young Man remarked as they were walking along in silence.
They had gone only a short distance farther when the Big Business Man,
who was walking in front, stopped abruptly.
"What's that?" he asked in a startled undertone.
They followed the direction of his hand, and saw, standing rigid against
a tree-trunk ahead, the figure of a man little more than half as tall as
themselves, his grayish body very nearly the color of the blue-gray tree
behind him.
The three adventurers stood motionless, staring in amazement.
As the Big Business Man spoke, the little figure, which had evidently
been watching them for some time, turned irresolutely as though about to
run. Then with gathering courage it began walking slowly towards them,
holding out its arms with the palm up.
"He's friendly," whispered the Very Young Man; and they waited, silent,
as the man approached.
As he came closer, they could see he was hardly more than a boy, perhaps
twenty years of age. His lean, gray body was nearly naked. Around his
waist he wore a drab-colored tunic, of a substance they could not
identify. His feet and legs were bare. On his chest were strapped a thin
stone plate, slightly convex. His thick, wavy, black hair, cut at the
base of his neck, hung close about his ears. His head was uncovered. His
features were regular and pleasing; his smile showed an even row of very
white teeth.
The three men did not speak or move until, in a moment, more, he stood
directly before them, still holding out his hands palm up. Then abruptly
he spoke.
"The Master welcomes his friends," he said in a soft musical voice. He
gave the words a most curious accent and inflexion, yet they were quite
understandable to his listeners.
"The Master welcomes his friends," he repeated, dropping his arms to his
sides and smiling in a most friendly manner.
The Very Young Man caught his breath. "He's been sent to meet us; he's
from Rogers. What do you think of that? We're all right now!" he
exclaimed excitedly.
The Doctor held out his hand, and the Oroid, hesitating a moment in
doubt, finally reached up and grasped it.
"Are you from Rogers?" asked the Doctor.
The Oroid looked puzzled. Then he turned and flung out his arm in a
sweeping gesture towards the deeper woods before them. "Rogers--Master,"
he said.
"You were waiting for us?" persisted the Doctor; but the other only
shook his head and smiled his lack of comprehension.
"He only knows the first words he said," the Big Business Man suggested.
"He must be from Rogers," the Very Young Man put in. "See, he wants us
to go with him."
The Oroid was motioning them forward, holding out his hand as though to
lead them.
The Very Young Man started forward, but the Big Business Man held him
back.
"Wait a moment," he said. "I don't think we ought to go among these
people as large as we are. Rogers is evidently alive and waiting for us.
Why wouldn't it be better to be about his size, instead of ten-foot
giants as we would look now?"
"How do you know how big Rogers is?" asked the Very Young Man.
"I think that a good idea," agreed the Doctor. "Rogers described these
Oroid men as being some six inches shorter than himself, on the
average."
"This one might be a pygmy, for all we know," said the Very Young Man.
"We might chance it that he's of normal size," said the Doctor, smiling.
"I think we should make ourselves smaller."
The Oroid stood patiently by and watched them with interested eyes as
each took a tiny pellet from a vial under his arm and touched it to his
tongue. When they began to decrease in size his eyes widened with fright
and his legs shook under him. But he stood his ground, evidently assured
by their smiles and friendly gestures.
In a few minutes the action of the drug was over, and they found
themselves not more than a head taller than the Oroid. In this size he
seemed to like them better, or at least he stood in far less awe of
them, for now he seized them by the arms and pulled them forward
vigorously.
They laughingly yielded, and, led by this strange being of another
world, they turned from the open places they had been following and
plunged into the depths of the forest.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CHEMIST AND HIS SON
For an hour or more the three adventurers followed their strange guide
in silence through the dense, trackless woods. He walked very rapidly,
looking neither to the right nor to the left, finding his way apparently
by an intuitive sense of direction. Occasionally he glanced back over
his shoulder and smiled.
Walking through the woods here was not difficult, and the party made
rapid progress. The huge, upstanding tree-trunks were devoid of limbs
for a hundred feet or more above the ground. On some of them a luxuriant
vine was growing--a vine that bore a profusion of little gray berries.
In the branches high overhead a few birds flew to and fro, calling out
at times with a soft, cooing note. The ground--a gray, finely powdered
sandy loam--was carpeted with bluish fallen leaves, sometimes with a
species of blue moss, and occasional ferns of a like color.
The forest was dense, deep, and silent; the tree branches overhead
locked together in a solid canopy, shutting out the black sky above. Yet
even in this seclusion the scene remained as light as it had been
outside the woods in the open. Darkness indeed was impossible in this
land; under all circumstances the light seemed the same--neither too
bright nor too dim--a comfortable, steady glow, restful, almost hypnotic
in its sameness.
They had traveled perhaps six miles from the point where they met their
Oroid guide when suddenly the Very Young Man became aware that other
Oroids were with them. Looking to one side, he saw two more of these
strange gray men, silently stalking along, keeping pace with them.
Turning, he made out still another, following a short distance behind.
The Very Young Man was startled, and hurriedly pointed them out to his
companions.
"Wait," called the Doctor to their youthful guide, and abruptly the
party came to a halt.
By these signs they made their guide understand that they wanted these
other men to come closer. The Oroid shouted to them in his own quaint
tongue, words of a soft, liquid quality with a wistful sound--words
wholly unintelligible to the adventurers.
The men came forward diffidently, six of them, for three others appeared
out of the shadows of the forest, and stood in a group, talking among
themselves a little and smiling at their visitors. They were all dressed
similarly to Lao--for such was the young Oroid's name--and all of them
older than he, and of nearly the same height.
"Do any of you speak English?" asked the Doctor, addressing them
directly.
Evidently they did not, for they answered only by shaking their heads
and by more smiles.
Then one of them spoke. "The Master welcomes his friends," he said. And
all the others repeated it after him, like children in school repeating
proudly a lesson newly learned.
The Doctor and his two friends laughed heartily, and, completely
reassured by this exhibition of their friendliness, they signified to
Lao that they were ready again to go forward.
As they walked onward through the apparently endless and unchanging
forest, surrounded by what the Very Young Man called their "guard of
honor," they were joined from time to time by other Oroid men, all of
whom seemed to know who they were and where they were going, and who
fell silently into line with them. Within an hour their party numbered
twenty or more.
Seeing one of the natives stop a moment and snatch some berries from one
of the vines with which many of the trees were encumbered, the Very
Young Man did the same. He found the berries sweet and palatable, and he
ate a quantity. Then discovering he was hungry, he took some crackers
from his belt and ate them walking along. The Doctor and the Big
Business Man ate also, for although they had not realized it, all three
were actually famished.
Shortly after this the party came to a broad, smooth-flowing river, its
banks lined with rushes, with here and there a little spot of gray,
sandy beach. It was apparent from Lao's signs that they must wait at
this point for a boat to take them across. This they were glad enough to
do, for all three had gone nearly to the limit of their strength. They
drank deep of the pure river water, laved their aching limbs in it
gratefully, and lay down, caring not a bit how long they were forced to
wait.
In perhaps another hour the boat appeared. It came from down the river,
propelled close inshore by two members of their own party who had gone
to fetch it. At first the travelers thought it a long, oblong raft. Then
as it came closer they could see it was constructed of three canoes,
each about thirty feet long, hollowed out of tree-trunks. Over these was
laid a platform of small trees hewn roughly into boards. The boat was
propelled by long, slender poles in the hands of the two men, who, one
on each side, dug them into the bed of the river and walked with them
the length of the platform.
On to this boat the entire party crowded and they were soon well out on
the shallow river, headed for its opposite bank. The Very Young Man,
seated at the front end of the platform with his legs dangling over and
his feet only a few inches above the silver phosphorescence of the
rippling water underneath, sighed luxuriously.
"This beats anything we've done yet," he murmured. "Gee, it's nice
here!"
When they landed on the farther bank another group of natives was
waiting for them. The party, thus strengthened to nearly forty, started
off immediately into the forest, which on this side of the river
appeared equally dense and trackless.
They appeared now to be paralleling the course of the river a few
hundred yards back from its bank. After half an hour of this traveling
they came abruptly to what at first appeared to be the mouth of a large
cave, but which afterwards proved to be a tunnel-like passageway. Into
this opening the party unhesitatingly plunged.
Within this tunnel, which sloped downward at a considerable angle, they
made even more rapid progress than in the forest above. The tunnel walls
here were perhaps twenty feet apart--walls of a glistening, radiant,
crystalline rock. The roof of the passageway was fully twice as high as
its width; its rocky floor was smooth and even.
After a time this tunnel was crossed by another somewhat broader and
higher, but in general of similar aspect. It, too, sloped downward, more
abruptly from the intersection. Into this latter passageway the party
turned, still taking the downward course.
As they progressed, many other passageways were crossed, the
intersections of which were wide at the open spaces. Occasionally the
travelers encountered other natives, all of them men, most of whom
turned and followed them.
The Big Business Man, after over an hour of this rapid walking downward,
was again near the limit of his endurance, when the party, after
crossing a broad, open square, came upon a sort of sleigh, with two
animals harnessed to it. It was standing at the intersection of a still
broader, evidently more traveled passageway, and in it was an attendant,
apparently fast asleep.
Into this sleigh climbed the three travelers with their guide Lao; and,
driven by the attendant, they started down the broader tunnel at a rapid
pace. The sleigh was balanced upon a broad single runner of polished
stone, with a narrow, slightly shorter outrider on each side; it slid
smoothly and easily on this runner over the equally smooth, metallic
rock of the ground.
The reindeer-like animals were harnessed by their heads to a single
shaft. They were guided by a short, pointed pole in the hands of the
driver, who, as occasion demanded, dug it vigorously into their flanks.
In this manner the travelers rode perhaps half an hour more. The
passageway sloped steeply downward, and they made good speed. Finally
without warning, except by a sudden freshening of the air, they emerged
into the open, and found themselves facing a broad, rolling stretch of
country, dotted here and there with trees--the country of the Oroids at
last.
For the first time since leaving their own world the adventurers found
themselves amid surroundings that at least held some semblance of an
aspect of familiarity. The scene they faced now might have been one of
their own land viewed on an abnormally bright though moonless evening.
For some miles they could see a rolling, open country, curving slightly
upward into the dimness of the distance. At their right, close by, lay a
broad lake, its surface wrinkled under a gentle breeze and gleaming
bright as a great sheet of polished silver.
Overhead hung a gray-blue, cloudless sky, studded with a myriad of
faint, twinkling, golden-silver stars. On the lake shore lay a
collection of houses, close together, at the water's edge and spreading
back thinly into the hills behind. This they knew to be Arite--the city
of their destination.
At the end of the tunnel they left the sleigh, and, turning down the
gentle sloping hillside, leisurely approached the city. They were part
way across an open field separating them from the nearest houses, when
they saw a group of figures coming across the field towards them. This
group stopped when still a few hundred yards away, only two of the
figures continuing to come forward. They came onward steadily, the tall
figure of a man clothed in white, and by his side a slender, graceful
boy.
In a moment more Lao, walking in front of the Doctor and his two
companions, stopped suddenly and, turning to face them, said quietly,
"The Master."
The three travelers, with their hearts pounding, paused an instant. Then
with a shout the Very Young Man dashed forward, followed by his two
companions.
"It's Rogers--it's Rogers!" he called; and in a moment more the three
men were beside the Chemist, shaking his hand and pouring at him
excitedly their words of greeting.
The Chemist welcomed them heartily, but with a quiet, curious air of
dignity that they did not remember he possessed before. He seemed to
have aged considerably since they had last seen him. The lines in his
face had deepened; the hair on his temples was white. He seemed also to
be rather taller than they remembered him, and certainly he was stouter.
He was dressed in a long, flowing robe of white cloth, gathered in at
the waist by a girdle, from which hung a short sword, apparently of gold
or of beaten brass. His legs were bare; on his feet he wore a form of
sandal with leather thongs crossing his insteps. His hair grew long over
his ears and was cut off at the shoulder line in the fashion of the
natives.
When the first words of greeting were over, the Chemist turned to the
boy, who was standing apart, watching them with big, interested eyes.
"My friends," he said quietly, yet with a little underlying note of
pride in his voice, "this is my son."
The boy approached deferentially. He was apparently about ten or eleven
years of age, tall as his father's shoulder nearly, extremely slight of
build, yet with a body perfectly proportioned. He was dressed in a white
robe similar to his father's, only shorter, ending at his knees. His
skin was of a curious, smooth, milky whiteness, lacking the gray, harder
look of that of the native men, and with just a touch of the iridescent
quality possessed by the women. His features were cast in a delicate
mold, pretty enough almost to be called girlish, yet with a firm
squareness of chin distinctly masculine.
His eyes were blue; his thick, wavy hair, falling to his shoulders, was
a chestnut brown. His demeanor was graceful and dignified, yet with a
touch of ingenuousness that marked him for the care-free child he really
was. He held out his hands palms up as he approached.
"My name is Loto," he said in a sweet, soft voice, with perfect
self-possession. "I'm glad to meet my father's friends." He spoke
English with just a trace of the liquid quality that characterized his
mother's tongue.
"You are late getting here," remarked the Chemist with a smile, as the
three travelers, completely surprised by this sudden introduction,
gravely shook hands with the boy.
During this time the young Oroid who had guided them down from the
forest above the tunnels, had been standing respectfully behind them, a
few feet away. A short distance farther on several small groups of
natives were gathered, watching the strangers. With a few swift words
Loto now dismissed their guide, who bowed low with his hands to his
forehead and left them.
Led by the Chemist, they continued on down into the city, talking
earnestly, telling him the details of their trip. The natives followed
them as they moved forward, and as they entered the city others looked
at them curiously and, the Very Young Man thought, with a little
hostility, yet always from a respectful distance. Evidently it was
night, or at least the time of sleep at this hour, for the streets they
passed through were nearly deserted.
CHAPTER XIX
THE CITY OF ARITE
The city of Arite, as it looked to them now, was strange beyond anything
they had ever seen, but still by no means as extraordinary as they had
expected it would be. The streets through which they walked were broad
and straight, and were crossed by others at regular intervals of two or
three hundred feet. These streets paralleled each other with
mathematical regularity. The city thus was laid out most orderly, but
with one peculiarity; the streets did not run in two directions crossing
each other at right angles, but in three, each inclined to an equal
degree with the others. The blocks of houses between them, therefore,
were cut into diamond-shaped sections and into triangles, never into
squares or oblongs.
Most of the streets seemed paved with large, flat gray blocks of a
substance resembling highly polished stone, or a form of opaque glass.
There were no sidewalks, but close up before the more pretentious of the
houses, were small trees growing.
The houses themselves were generally triangular or diamond-shaped,
following the slope of the streets. They were, most of them, but two
stories in height, with flat roofs on some of which flowers and
trellised vines were growing. They were built principally of the same
smooth, gray blocks with which the streets were paved. Their windows
were large and numerous, without window-panes, but closed now, nearly
all of them by shining, silvery curtains that looked as though they
might have been woven from the metal itself. The doors were of heavy
metal, suggesting brass or gold. On some of the houses tiny low-railed
balconies hung from the upper windows out over the street.
The party proceeded quietly through this now deserted city, crossing a
large tree-lined square, or park, that by the confluence of many streets
seemed to mark its center, and turned finally into another diagonal
street that dropped swiftly down towards the lake front. At the edge of
a promontory this street abruptly terminated in a broad flight of steps
leading down to a little beach on the lake shore perhaps a hundred feet
below.
The Chemist turned sharp to the right at the head of these steps, and,
passing through the opened gateway of an arch in a low gray wall, led
his friends into a garden in which were growing a profusion of flowers.
These flowers, they noticed, were most of them blue or gray, or of a
pale silvery whiteness, lending to the scene a peculiarly wan, wistful
appearance, yet one of extraordinary, quite unearthly beauty.
Through the garden a little gray-pebbled path wound back to where a
house stood, nearly hidden in a grove of trees, upon a bluff directly
overlooking the lake.
"My home, gentlemen," said the Chemist, with a wave of his hand.
As they approached the house they heard, coming from within, the mellow
voice of a woman singing--an odd little minor theme, with a quaint,
lilting rhythm, and words they could not distinguish. Accompanying the
voice were the delicate tones of some stringed instrument suggesting a
harp.
"We are expected," remarked the Chemist with a smile. "Lylda is still
up, waiting for us." The Very Young Man's heart gave a leap at the
mention of the name.
From the outside, the Chemist's house resembled many of the larger ones
they had seen as they came through the city. It was considerably more
pretentious than any they had yet noticed, diamond-shaped--that is to
say, a flattened oblong--two stories in height and built of large blocks
of the gray polished stone.
Unlike the other houses, its sides were not bare, but were partly
covered by a luxuriant growth of vines and trellised flowers. There were
no balconies under its windows, except on the lake side. There, at the
height of the second story, a covered balcony broad enough almost to be
called a veranda, stretched the full width of the house.
A broad door of brass, fronting the garden, stood partly open, and the
Chemist pushed it wide and ushered in his friends. They found themselves
now in a triangular hallway, or lobby, with an open arch in both its
other sides giving passage into rooms beyond. Through one of these
archways the Chemist led them, into what evidently was the main
living-room of the dwelling.
It was a high-ceilinged room nearly triangular in shape, thirty feet
possibly at its greatest width. In one wall were set several
silvery-curtained windows, opening out on to the lake. On the other side
was a broad fireplace and hearth with another archway beside it leading
farther into the house. The walls of the room were lined with small gray
tiles; the floor also was tiled with gray and white, set in design.
On the floor were spread several large rugs, apparently made of grass or
fibre. The walls were bare, except between the windows, where two long,
narrow, heavily embroidered strips of golden cloth were hanging.
In the center of the room stood a circular stone table, its top a highly
polished black slab of stone. This table was set now for a meal, with
golden metal dishes, huge metal goblets of a like color, and beautifully
wrought table utensils, also of gold. Around the table were several
small chairs, made of wicker. In the seat of each lay a padded fiber
cushion, and over the back was hung a small piece of embroidered cloth.
With the exception of these chairs and table, the room was practically
devoid of furniture. Against one wall was a smaller table of stone, with
a few miscellaneous objects on its top, and under each window stood a
small white stone bench.
A fire glowed in the fireplace grate--a fire that burned without flame.
On the hearth before it, reclining on large silvery cushions, was a
woman holding in her hands a small stringed instrument like a tiny harp
or lyre. When the men entered the room she laid her instrument aside and
rose to her feet.
As she stood there for an instant, expectant, with the light of welcome
in her eyes, the three strangers beheld what to them seemed the most
perfect vision of feminine loveliness they had ever seen.
The woman's age was at first glance indeterminate. By her face, her
long, slender, yet well-rounded neck, and the slim curves of her girlish
figure, she might have been hardly more than twenty. Yet in her bearing
there was that indefinable poise and dignity that bespoke the more
mature, older woman.
She was about five feet tall, with a slender, almost fragile, yet
perfectly rounded body. Her dress consisted of a single flowing garment
of light-blue silk, reaching from the shoulders to just above her knees.
It was girdled at the waist by a thick golden cord that hung with golden
tasseled pendants at her side.
A narrower golden cord crossed her breast and shoulders. Her arms, legs,
and shoulders were bare. Her skin was smooth as satin, milky white, and
suffused with the delicate tints of many colors. Her hair was thick and
very black; it was twisted into two tresses that fell forward over each
shoulder nearly to her waist and ended with a little silver ribbon and
tassel tied near the bottom.
Her face was a delicate oval. Her lips were full and of a color for
which in English there is no name. It would have been red doubtless by
sunlight in the world above, but here in this silver light of
phosphorescence, the color red, as we see it, was impossible.
Her nose was small, of Grecian type. Her slate-gray eyes were rather
large, very slightly upturned at the corners, giving just a touch of the
look of our women of the Orient. Her lashes were long and very black. In
conversation she lowered them at times with a charming combination of
feminine humility and a touch of coquetry. Her gaze from under them had
often a peculiar look of melting softness, yet always it was direct and
honest.
Such was the woman who quietly stood beside her hearth, waiting to
welcome these strange guests from another world.
As the men entered through the archway, the boy Loto pushed quickly past
them in his eagerness to get ahead, and, rushing across the room, threw
himself into the woman's arms crying happily, "_Mita, mita._"
The woman kissed him affectionately. Then, before she had time to speak,
the boy pulled her forward, holding her tightly by one hand.
"This is my mother," he said with a pretty little gesture. "Her name is
Lylda."
The woman loosened herself from his grasp with a smile of amusement,
and, native fashion, bowed low with her hands to her forehead.
"My husband's friends are welcome," she said simply. Her voice was soft
and musical. She spoke English perfectly, with an intonation of which
the most cultured woman might be proud, but with a foreign accent much
more noticeable than that of her son.
"A very long time we have been waiting for you," she added; and then, as
an afterthought, she impulsively offered them her hand in their own
manner.
The Chemist kissed his wife quietly. In spite of the presence of
strangers, for a moment she dropped her reserve, her arms went up around
his neck, and she clung to him an instant. Gently putting her down, the
Chemist turned to his friends.
"I think Lylda has supper waiting," he said. Then as he looked at their
torn, woolen suits that once were white, and the ragged shoes upon their
feet, he added with a smile, "But I think I can make you much more
comfortable first."
He led them up a broad, curving flight of stone steps to a room above,
where they found a shallow pool of water, sunk below the level of the
floor. Here he left them to bathe, getting them meanwhile robes similar
to his own, with which to replace their own soiled garments. In a little
while, much refreshed, they descended to the room below, where Lylda had
supper ready upon the table waiting for them.
"Only a little while ago my father and Aura left," said Lylda, as they
sat down to eat.
"Lylda's younger sister," the Chemist explained. "She lives with her
father here in Arite."
The Very Young Man parted his lips to speak. Then, with heightened color
in his cheeks, he closed them again.
They were deftly served at supper by a little native girl who was
dressed in a short tunic reaching from waist to knees, with circular
discs of gold covering her breasts. There was cooked meat for the meal,
a white starchy form of vegetable somewhat resembling a potato, a number
of delicious fruits of unfamiliar variety, and for drink the juice of a
fruit that tasted more like cider than anything they could name.
At the table Loto perched himself beside the Very Young Man, for whom he
seemed to have taken a sudden fancy.
"I like you," he said suddenly, during a lull in the talk.
"I like you, too," answered the Very Young Man.
"Aura is very beautiful; you'll like her."
"I'm sure I will," the Very Young Man agreed soberly.
"What's your name?" persisted the boy.
"My name's Jack. And I'm glad you like me. I think we're friends, don't
you?"
And so they became firm friends, and, as far as circumstances would
permit, inseparable companions.
Lylda presided over the supper with the charming grace of a competent
hostess. She spoke seldom, yet when the conversation turned to the great
world above in which her husband was born, she questioned intelligently
and with eager interest. Evidently she had a considerable knowledge of
the subject, but with an almost childish insatiable curiosity she sought
from her guests more intimate details of the world they lived in.
When in lighter vein their talk ran into comments upon the social life
of their own world, Lylda's ready wit, combined with her ingenuous
simplicity, put to them many questions which made the giving of an
understandable answer sometimes amusingly difficult.
When the meal was over the three travelers found themselves very sleepy,
and all of them were glad when the Chemist suggested that they retire
almost immediately. He led them again to the upper story into the
bedroom they were to occupy. There, on the low bedsteads, soft with many
quilted coverings, they passed the remainder of the time of sleep in
dreamless slumber, utterly worn out by their journey, nor guessing what
the morning would bring forth.
CHAPTER XX
THE WORLD OF THE RING
Next morning after breakfast the four men sat upon the balcony
overlooking the lake, and prepared to hear the Chemist's narrative of
what had happened since he left them five years before. They had already
told him of events in their world, the making of the chemicals and their
journey down into the ring, and now they were ready to hear his story.
At their ease here upon the balcony, reclining in long wicker chairs of
the Chemist's own design, as he proudly admitted, they felt at peace
with themselves and the world. Below them lay the shining lake, above
spread a clear, star-studded sky. Against their faces blew the cool
breath of a gentle summer's breeze.
As they sat silent for a moment, enjoying almost with awe the beauties
of the scene, and listening to the soft voice of Lylda singing to
herself in the garden, the Very Young Man suddenly thought of the one
thing lacking to make his enjoyment perfect.
"I wish I had a cigarette," he remarked wistfully.
The Chemist with a smile produced cigars of a leaf that proved a very
good substitute for tobacco. They lighted them with a tiny metal lighter
of the flint-and-steel variety, filled with a fluffy inflammable wick--a
contrivance of the Chemist's own making--and then he started his
narrative.
"There is much to tell you, my friends," he began thoughtfully. "Much
that will interest you, shall we say from a socialistic standpoint? I
shall make it brief, for we have no time to sit idly talking.
"I must tell you now, gentlemen, of what I think you have so far not
even had a hint. You have found me living here," he hesitated and
smiled, "well at least under pleasant and happy circumstances. Yet as a
matter of fact, your coming was of vital importance, not only to me and
my family, but probably to the future welfare of the entire Oroid
nation.
"We are approaching a crisis here with which I must confess I have felt
myself unable to cope. With your help, more especially with the power of
the chemicals you have brought with you, it may be possible for us to
deal successfully with the conditions facing us."
"What are they?" asked the Very Young Man eagerly.
"Perhaps it would be better for me to tell you chronologically the
events as they have occurred. As you remember when I left you twelve
years ago----"
"Five years," interrupted the Very Young Man.
"Five or twelve, as you please," said the Chemist smiling. "It was my
intention then, as you know, to come back to you after a comparatively
short stay here."
"And bring Mrs.--er--Lylda, with you," put in the Very Young Man,
hesitating in confusion over the Christian name.
"And bring Lylda with me," finished the Chemist. "I got back here
without much difficulty, and in a very much shorter time and with less
effort than on my first trip. I tried an entirely different method; I
stayed as large as possible while descending, and diminished my size
materially only after I had reached the bottom."
"I told you----" said the Big Business Man.
"It was a dangerous method of procedure, but I made it successfully
without mishap.
"Lylda and I were married in native fashion shortly after I reached
Arite."
"How was that; what fashion?" the Very Young Man wanted to know, but the
Chemist went on.
"It was my intention to stay here only a few weeks and then return with
Lylda. She was willing to follow me anywhere I might take her,
because--well, perhaps you would hardly understand, but--women here are
different in many ways than you know them.
"I stayed several months, still planning to leave almost at any time. I
found this world an intensely interesting study. Then, when--Loto was
expected, I again postponed my departure.
"I had been here over a year before I finally gave up my intention of
ever returning to you. I have no close relatives above, you know, no one
who cares much for me or for whom I care, and my life seemed thoroughly
established here.
"I am afraid gentlemen, I am offering excuses for myself--for my
desertion of my own country in its time of need. I have no defense. As
events turned out I could not have helped probably, very much, but
still--that is no excuse. I can only say that your world up there seemed
so very--very--far away. Events up there had become to me only vague
memories as of a dream. And Lylda and my little son were so near, so
real and vital to me. Well, at any rate I stayed, deciding definitely to
make my home and to end my days here."
"What did you do about the drugs?" asked the Doctor.
"I kept them hidden carefully for nearly a year," the Chemist replied.
"Then fearing lest they should in some way get loose, I destroyed them.
They possess a diabolical power, gentlemen; I am afraid of it."
"They called you the Master," suggested the Very Young Man, after a
pause. "Why was that?"
The Chemist smiled. "They do call me the Master. That has been for
several years. I suppose I am the most important individual in the
nation to-day."
"I should think you would be," said the Very Young Man quickly. "What
you did, and with the knowledge you have."
The Chemist went on. "Lylda and I lived with her father and Aura--her
mother is dead you know--until after Loto was born. Then we had a house
further up in the city. Later, about eight years ago, I built this house
we now occupy and Lylda laid out its garden which she is tremendously
proud of, and which I think is the finest in Arite.
"Because of what I had done in the Malite war, I became naturally the
King's adviser. Every one felt me the savior of the nation, which, in a
way, I suppose I was. I never used the drugs again and, as only a very
few of the people ever understood them, or in fact ever knew of them or
believed in their existence, my extraordinary change in stature was
ascribed to some supernatural power. I have always since been credited
with being able to exert that power at will, although I never used it
but that once."
"You have it again now," said the Doctor smiling.
"Yes, I have, thank God," answered the Chemist fervently, "though I hope
I never shall have to use it."
"Aren't you planning to go back with us," asked the Very Young Man,
"even for a visit?"
The Chemist shook his head. "My way lies here," he said quietly, yet
with deep feeling.
A silence followed; finally the Chemist roused himself from his reverie,
and went on. "Although I never again changed my stature, there were a
thousand different ways in which I continued to make myself--well,
famous throughout the land. I have taught these people many things,
gentlemen--like this for instance." He indicated his cigar, and the
chair in which he was sitting. "You cannot imagine what a variety of
things one knows beyond the knowledge of so primitive a race as this.
"And so gradually, I became known as the Master. I have no official
position, but everywhere I am known by that name. As a matter of fact,
for the past year at least, it has been rather too descriptive a
title----" the Chemist smiled somewhat ruefully--"for I have had in
reality, and have now, the destiny of the country on my shoulders."
"You're not threatened with another war?" asked the Very Young Man.
"No, not exactly that. But I had better go on with my story first. This
is a very different world now, gentlemen, from that I first entered
twelve years ago. I think first I should tell you about it as it was
then."
His three friends nodded their agreement and the Chemist continued.
"I must make it clear to you gentlemen, the one great fundamental
difference between this world and yours. In the evolution of this race
there has been no cause for strife--the survival of the fittest always
has been an unknown doctrine--a non-existent problem.
"In extent this Inner Surface upon which we are now living is nearly as
great as the surface of your own earth. From the earliest known times it
has been endowed with a perfect climate--a climate such as you are now
enjoying."
The Very Young Man expanded his chest and looked his appreciation.
"The climate, the rainfall, everything is ideal for crops and for living
conditions. In the matter of food, one needs in fact do practically
nothing. Fruits of a variety ample to sustain life, grow wild in
abundance. Vegetables planted are harvested seemingly without blight or
hazard of any kind. No destructive insects have ever impeded
agriculture; no wild animals have ever existed to harass humanity.
Nature in fact, offers every help and no obstacle towards making a
simple, primitive life easy to live.
"Under such conditions the race developed only so far as was necessary
to ensure a healthful pleasant existence. Civilization here is what you
would call primitive: wants are few and easily supplied--too easily,
probably, for without strife these people have become--well shall I say
effeminate? They are not exactly that--it is not a good word."
"I should think that such an unchanging, unrigorous climate would make a
race deteriorate in physique rapidly," observed the Doctor.
"How about disease down here?" asked the Big Business Man.
"It is a curious thing," replied the Chemist. "Cleanliness seems to be a
trait inborn with every individual in this race. It is more than
godliness; it is the one great cardinal virtue. You must have noticed
it, just in coming through Arite. Personal cleanliness of the people,
and cleanliness of houses, streets--of everything. It is truly
extraordinary to what extent they go to make everything inordinately,
immaculately clean. Possibly for that reason, and because there seems
never to have been any serious disease germs existing here, sickness as
you know it, does not exist."
"Guess you better not go into business here," said the Very Young Man
with a grin at the Doctor.
"There is practically no illness worthy of the name," went on the
Chemist. "The people live out their lives and, barring accident, die
peacefully of old age."
"How old do they live to be?" asked the Big Business Man.
"About the same as with you," answered the Chemist. "Only of course as
we measure time."
"Say how about that?" the Very Young Man asked. "My watch is still
going--is it ticking out the old time or the new time down here?"
"I should say probably--certainly--it was giving time of your own world,
just as it always did," the Chemist replied.
"Well, there's no way of telling, is there?" said the Big Business Man.
"What is the exact difference in time?" the Doctor asked.
"That is something I have had no means of determining. It was rather a
curious thing; when I left that letter for you," the Chemist turned to
the Doctor--"it never occurred to me that although I had told you to
start down here on a certain day, I would be quite at a loss to
calculate when that day had arrived. It was my estimation after my first
trip here that time in this world passed at a rate about two and
two-fifth times faster than it does in your world. That is as near as I
ever came to it. We can calculate it more closely now, since we have
only the interval of your journey down as an indeterminate quantity."
"How near right did you hit it? When did you expect us?" asked the
Doctor.
"About thirty days ago; I have been waiting since then. I sent nearly a
hundred men through the tunnels into the forest to guide you in."
"You taught them pretty good English," said the Very Young Man. "They
were tickled to death that they knew it, too," he added with a
reminiscent grin.
"You say about thirty days; how do you measure time down here?" asked
the Big Business Man.
"I call a day, one complete cycle of sleeping and eating," the Chemist
replied. "I suppose that is the best translation of the Oroid word; we
have a word that means about the same thing."
"How long is a day?" inquired the Very Young Man.
"It seems in the living about the same as your twenty-four hours; it
occupies probably about the interval of time of ten hours in your world.
"You see," the Chemist went on, "we ordinarily eat twice between each
time of sleep--once after rising--and once a few hours before bedtime.
Workers at severe muscular labor sometimes eat a light meal in between,
but the custom is not general. Time is generally spoken of as so many
meals, rather than days."
"But what is the arbitrary standard?" asked the Doctor. "Do you have an
equivalent for weeks, or months or years?"
"Yes," answered the Chemist, "based on astronomy the same as in your
world. But I would rather not explain that now. I want to take you,
later to-day, to see Lylda's father. You will like him. He is--well,
what we might call a scientist. He talks English fairly well. We can
discuss astronomy with him; you will find him very interesting."
"How can you tell time?" the Very Young Man wanted to know. "There is no
sun to go by. You have no clocks, have you?"
"There is one downstairs," answered the Chemist, "but you didn't notice
it. Lylda's father has a very fine one; he will show it to you."
"It seems to me," began the Doctor thoughtfully after a pause, reverting
to their previous topic, "that without sickness, under such ideal living
conditions as you say exist here, in a very short time this world would
be over-populated."
"Nature seems to have taken care of that," the Chemist answered, "and as
a matter of fact quite the reverse is true. Women mature in life at an
age you would call about sixteen. But early marriages are not the rule;
seldom is a woman married before she is twenty--frequently she is much
older. Her period of child-bearing, too, is comparatively
short--frequently less than ten years. The result is few children, whose
rate of mortality is exceedingly slow."
"How about the marriages?" the Very Young Man suggested. "You were going
to tell us."
"Marriages are by mutual consent," answered the Chemist, "solemnized by
a simple, social ceremony. They are for a stated period of time, and are
renewed later if both parties desire. When a marriage is dissolved
children are cared for by the mother generally, and her maintenance if
necessary is provided for by the government. The state becomes the
guardian also of all illegitimate children and children of unknown
parentage. But of both these latter classes there are very few. They
work for the government, as do many other people, until they are of age,
when they become free to act as they please."
"You spoke about women being different than we knew them; how are they
different?" the Very Young Man asked. "If they're all like Lylda I think
they're great," he added enthusiastically, flushing a little at his own
temerity.
The Chemist smiled his acknowledgment of the compliment. "The status of
women--and their character--is I think one of the most remarkable things
about this race. You will remember, when I returned from here the first
time, that I was much impressed by the kindliness of these people.
Because of their history and their government they seem to have become
imbued with the milk of human kindness to a degree approaching the
Utopian.
"Crime here is practically non-existent; there is nothing over which
contention can arise. What crimes are committed are punished with a
severity seemingly out of all proportion to what you would call justice.
A persistent offender even of fairly trivial wrongdoing is put to death
without compunction. There is no imprisonment, except for those awaiting
trial. Punishment is a reprimand with the threat of death if the offense
is committed again, or death itself immediately. Probably this very
severity and the swiftness with which punishment is meted out, to a
large extent discourages wrongdoing. But, fundamentally, the capacity
for doing wrong is lacking in these people.
"I have said practically nothing exists over which contention can arise.
That is not strictly true. No race of people can develop without some
individual contention over the possession of their women. The passions
of love, hate and jealousy, centering around sex and its problems, are
as necessarily present in human beings as life itself.
"Love here is deep, strong and generally lasting; it lacks fire,
intensity--perhaps. I should say it is rather of a placid quality.
Hatred seldom exists; jealousy is rare, because both sexes, in their
actions towards the other, are guided by a spirit of honesty and
fairness that is really extraordinary. This is true particularly of the
women; they are absolutely honest--square, through and through.
"Crimes against women are few, yet in general they are the most
prevalent type we have. They are punishable by death--even those that
you would characterize as comparatively slight offenses. It is
significant too, that, in judging these crimes, but little evidence is
required. A slight chain of proven circumstances and the word of the
woman is all that is required.
"This you will say, places a tremendous power in the hands of women. It
does; yet they realize it thoroughly, and justify it. Although they know
that almost at their word a man will be put to death, practically never,
I am convinced, is this power abused. With extreme infrequency, a female
is proven guilty of lying. The penalty is death, for there is no place
here for such a woman!
"The result is that women are accorded a freedom of movement far beyond
anything possible in your world. They are safe from harm. Their morals
are, according to the standard here, practically one hundred per cent
perfect. With short-term marriages, dissolvable at will, there is no
reason why they should be otherwise. Curiously enough too, marriages are
renewed frequently--more than that, I should say, generally--for
life-long periods. Polygamy with the consent of all parties is
permitted, but seldom practiced. Polyandry is unlawful, and but few
cases of it ever appear.
"You may think all this a curious system, gentlemen, but it works."
"That's the answer," muttered the Very Young Man. It was obvious he was
still thinking of Lylda and her sister and with a heightened admiration
and respect.
CHAPTER XXI
A LIFE WORTH LIVING
The appearance of Lylda at one of the long windows of the balcony,
interrupted the men for a moment. She was dressed in a tunic of silver,
of curious texture, like flexible woven metal, reaching to her knees. On
her feet were little fiber sandals. Her hair was twisted in coils, piled
upon her head, with a knot low at the back of the neck. From her head in
graceful folds hung a thin scarf of gold.
She stood waiting in the window a moment for them to notice her; then
she said quietly, "I am going for a time to the court." She hesitated an
instant over the words. The Chemist inclined his head in agreement, and
with a smile at her guests, and a little bow, she withdrew.
The visitors looked inquiringly at their host.
"I must tell you about our government," said the Chemist. "Lylda plays
quite an important part in it." He smiled at their obvious surprise.
"The head of the government is the king. In reality he is more like the
president of a republic; he is chosen by the people to serve for a
period of about twenty years. The present king is now in--well let us
say about the fifteenth year of his service. This translation of time
periods into English is confusing," he interjected somewhat
apologetically. "We shall see the king to-morrow; you will find him a
most intelligent, likeable man.
"As a sort of congress, the king has one hundred and fifty advisers,
half of them women, who meet about once a month. Lylda is one of these
women. He also has an inner circle of closer, more intimate counselors
consisting of four men and four women. One of these women is the queen;
another is Lylda. I am one of the men.
"The capital of the nation is Arite. Each of the other cities governs
itself in so far as its own local problems are concerned according to a
somewhat similar system, but all are under the central control of the
Arite government."
"How about the country in between, the--the rural population?" asked the
Big Business Man.
"It is all apportioned off to the nearest city," answered the Chemist.
"Each city controls a certain amount of the land around it.
"This congress of one hundred and fifty is the law-making body. The
judiciary is composed of one court in each city. There is a leader of
the court, or judge, and a jury of forty--twenty men and twenty women.
The juries are chosen for continuous service for a period of five years.
Lylda is at present serving in the Arite court. They meet very
infrequently and irregularly, called as occasion demands. A two-thirds
vote is necessary for a decision; there is no appeal."
"Are there any lawyers?" asked the Big Business Man.
"There is no one who makes that his profession, no. Generally the
accused talks for himself or has some relative, or possibly some friend
to plead his case."
"You have police?" the Doctor asked.
"A very efficient police force, both for the cities and in the country.
Really they are more like detectives than police; they are the men I
sent up into the forest to meet you. We also have an army, which at
present consists almost entirely of this same police force. After the
Malite war it was of course very much larger, but of late years it has
been disbanded almost completely.
"How about money?" the Very Young Man wanted to know.
"There is none!" answered the Chemist with a smile.
"Great Scott, how can you manage that?" ejaculated the Big Business Man.
"Our industrial system undoubtedly is peculiar," the Chemist replied,
"but I can only say again, it works. We have no money, and, so far, none
apparently is needed. Everything is bought and sold as an exchange. For
instance, suppose I wish to make a living as a farmer. I have my
land----"
"How did you get it?" interrupted the Very Young Man quickly.
"All the land is divided up _pro rata_ and given by each city to its
citizens. At the death of its owner it reverts to the government, and
each citizen coming of age receives his share from the surplus always
remaining."
"What about women? Can they own land too?" asked the Very Young Man.
"They have identical rights with men in everything," the Chemist
answered.
"But women surely cannot cultivate their own land?" the Doctor said.
Evidently he was thinking of Lylda's fragile little body, and certainly
if most of the Oroid women were like her, labour in the fields would be
for them quite impossible.
"A few women, by choice, do some of the lighter forms of manual
labor--but they are very few. Nearly every woman marries within a few
years after she receives her land; if it is to be cultivated, her
husband then takes charge of it."
"Is the cultivation of land compulsory?" asked the Big Business Man.
"Only when in a city's district a shortage of food is threatened. Then
the government decides the amount and kind of food needed, and the
citizens, drawn by lot, are ordered to produce it. The government
watches very carefully its food supply. In the case of overproduction,
certain citizens, those less skillful, are ordered to work at something
else.
"This supervision over supply and demand is exercised by the government
not only in the question of food but in manufactures, in fact, in all
industrial activities. A very nice balance is obtained, so that
practically no unnecessary work is done throughout the nation.
"And gentlemen, do you know, as a matter of fact, I think that is the
secret of a race of people being able to live without having to work
most of its waking hours? If your civilization could eliminate all its
unnecessary work, there would be far less work to do."
"I wonder--isn't this balance of supply and demand very difficult to
maintain?" asked the Big Business Man thoughtfully.
"Not nearly so difficult as you would think," the Chemist answered. "In
the case of land cultivation, the government has a large reserve, the
cultivation of which it adjusts to maintain this balance. Thus, in some
districts, the citizens do as they please and are never interfered with.
"The same is true of manufactures. There is no organized business in the
nation--not even so much as the smallest factory--except that conducted
by the government. Each city has its own factories, whose production is
carefully planned exactly to equal the demand."
"Suppose a woman marries and her land is far away from her husband's?
That would be sort of awkward, wouldn't it?" suggested the Very Young
Man.
"Each year at a stated time," the Chemist answered, "transfers of land
are made. There are generally enough people who want to move to make
satisfactory changes of location practical. And then of course, the
government always stands ready to take up any two widely separate pieces
of land, and give others in exchange out of its reserve."
"Suppose you don't like the new land as well?" objected the Very Young
Man.
"Almost all land is of equal value," answered the Chemist. "And of
course, its state of cultivation is always considered."
"You were speaking about not having money," prompted the Very Young Man.
"The idea is simply this: Suppose I wish to cultivate nothing except,
let us say, certain vegetables. I register with the government my
intention and the extent to which I propose to go. I receive the
government's consent. I then take my crops as I harvest them and
exchange them for every other article I need."
"With whom do you exchange them?" asked the Doctor.
"Any one I please--or with the government. Ninety per cent of everything
produced is turned in to the government and other articles are taken
from its stores."
"How is the rate of exchange established?" asked the Big Business Man.
"It is computed by the government. Private exchanges are supposed to be
made at the same rate. It is against the law to cut under the government
rate. But it is done, although apparently not with sufficient frequency
to cause any trouble."
"I should think it would be tremendously complicated and annoying to
make all these exchanges," observed the Big Business Man.
"Not at all," answered the Chemist, "because of the governmental system
of credits. The financial standing of every individual is carefully kept
on record."
"Without any money? I don't get you," said the Very Young Man with a
frown of bewilderment.
The Chemist smiled. "Well, I don't blame you for that. But I think I can
make myself clear. Let us take the case of Loto, for instance, as an
individual. When he comes of age he will be allotted his section of
land. We will assume him to be without family at that time, entirely
dependent on his own resources."
"Would he never have worked before coming of age?" the Very Young Man
asked.
"Children with parents generally devote their entire minority to getting
an education, and to building their bodies properly. Without parents,
they are supported by the government and live in public homes. Such
children, during their adolescence, work for the government a small
portion of their time.
"Now when Loto comes of age and gets his land, located approximately
where he desires it, he will make his choice as to his vocation. Suppose
he wishes not to cultivate his land but to work for the government. He
is given some congenial, suitable employment at which he works
approximately five hours a day. No matter what he elects to do at the
time he comes of age the government opens an account with him. He is
credited with a certain standard unit for his work, which he takes from
the government in supplies at his own convenience."
"What is the unit?" asked the Big Business Man.
"It is the average work produced by the average worker in one
day--purely an arbitrary figure."
"Like our word horse-power?" put in the Doctor.
"Exactly. And all merchandise, food and labor is valued in terms of it.
"Thus you see, every individual has his financial standing--all in
relation to the government. He can let his balance pile up if he is
able, or he can keep it low."
"Suppose he goes into debt?" suggested the Very Young Man.
"In the case of obvious, verified necessity, the government will allow
him a limited credit. Persistent--shall I say willful--debt is a crime."
"I thought at first," said the Big Business Man, "that everybody in this
nation was on the same financial footing--that there was no premium put
upon skill or industriousness. Now I see that one can accumulate, if not
money, at least an inordinate amount of the world's goods."
"Not such an inordinate amount," said the Chemist smiling. "Because
there is no inheritance. A man and woman, combining their worldly
wealth, may by industry acquire more than others, but they are welcome
to enjoy it. And they cannot, in one lifetime, get such a preponderance
of wealth as to cause much envy from those lacking it."
"What happens to this house when you and Lylda die, if Loto cannot have
it?" the Big Business Man asked.
"It is kept in repair by the government and held until some one with a
sufficiently large balance wants to buy it."
"Are all workers paid at the same rate?" asked the Doctor.
"No, but their wages are much nearer equal than in your world."
"You have to hire people to work for you, how do you pay them?" the
Doctor inquired.
"The rate is determined by governmental standard. I pay them by having
the amount deducted from my balance and added to theirs."
"When you built this house, how did you go about doing it?" asked the
Big Business Man.
"I simply went to the government, and they built it for me according to
my own ideas and wishes, deducting its cost from my balance."
"What about the public work to be done?" asked the Big Business Man.
"Caring for the city streets, the making of roads and all that. Do you
have taxes?"
"No," answered the Chemist smiling, "we do not have taxes. Quite the
reverse, we sometimes have dividends.
"The government, you must understand, not only conducts a business
account with each of its citizens, but one with itself also. The value
of articles produced is computed with a profit allowance, so that by a
successful business administration, the government is enabled not only
to meet its public obligations, but to acquire a surplus to its own
credit in the form of accumulated merchandise. This surplus is divided
among the people every five years--a sort of dividend."
"I should think some cities might have much more than others," said the
Big Business Man. "That would cause discontent, wouldn't it?"
"It would probably cause a rush of people to the more successful cities.
But it doesn't happen, because each city reports to the National
government and the whole thing is averaged up. You see it is all quite
simple," the Chemist finished. "And it makes life here very easy to
live, and very worth the living."
Unnoticed by the four interested men, a small compact-looking gray cloud
had come sweeping down from the horizon above the lake and was scudding
across the sky toward Arite. A sudden sharp crack of thunder interrupted
their conversation.
"Hello, a storm!" exclaimed the Chemist, looking out over the lake.
"You've never seen one, have you? Come upstairs."
They followed him into the house and upstairs to its flat roof. From
this point of vantage they saw that the house was built with an interior
courtyard or _patio_. Looking down into this courtyard from the roof
they could see a little, splashing fountain in its center, with flower
beds, a narrow gray path, and several small white benches.
The roof, which was guarded with a breast-high parapet around both its
inner and outer edges, was beautifully laid out with a variety of
flowers and with trellised flower-bearing vines. In one corner were
growing a number of small trees with great fan-shaped leaves of blue and
bearing a large bell-shaped silver blossom.
One end of the roof on the lake side was partially enclosed. Towards
this roofed enclosure the Chemist led his friends. Within it a large
fiber hammock hung between two stone posts. At one side a depression in
the floor perhaps eight feet square was filled with what might have been
blue pine needles, and a fluffy bluish moss. This rustic couch was
covered at one end by a canopy of vines bearing a little white flower.
As they entered the enclosure, it began to rain, and the Chemist slid
forward several panels, closing them in completely. There were shuttered
windows in these walls, through which they could look at the scene
outside--a scene that with the coming storm was weird and beautiful
beyond anything they had ever beheld.
The cloud had spread sufficiently now to blot out the stars from nearly
half of the sky. It was a thick cloud, absolutely opaque, and yet it
caused no appreciable darkness, for the starlight it cut off was
negligible and the silver radiation from the lake had more than doubled
in intensity.
Under the strong wind that had sprung up the lake assumed now an
extraordinary aspect. Its surface was raised into long, sweeping waves
that curved sharply and broke upon themselves. In their tops the silver
phosphorescence glowed and whirled until the whole surface of the lake
seemed filled with a dancing white fire, twisting, turning and seeming
to leap out of the water high into the air.
Several small sailboats, square, flat little catamarans, they looked,
showed black against the water as they scudded for shore, trailing lines
of silver out behind them.
The wind increased in force. Below, on the beach, a huge rock lay in the
water, against which the surf was breaking. Columns of water at times
shot into the air before the face of the rock, and were blown away by
the wind in great clouds of glistening silver. Occasionally it thundered
with a very sharp intense crack accompanied by a jagged bolt of bluish
lightning that zigzagged down from the low-hanging cloud.
Then came the rain in earnest, a solid, heavy torrent, that bent down
the wind and smoothed the surface of the lake. The rain fell almost
vertically, as though it were a tremendous curtain of silver strings.
And each of these strings broke apart into great shining pearls as the
eye followed downward the course of the raindrops.
For perhaps ten minutes the silver torrent poured down. Then suddenly it
ceased. The wind had died away; in the air there was the fresh warm
smell of wet and steaming earth. From the lake rolled up a shimmering
translucent cloud of mist, like an enormous silver fire mounting into
the sky. And then, as the gray cloud swept back behind them, beyond the
city, and the stars gleamed overhead, they saw again that great trail of
star-dust which the Chemist first had seen through his microscope,
hanging in an ever broadening arc across the sky, and ending vaguely at
their feet.
CHAPTER XXII
THE TRIAL
In a few moments more the storm had passed completely; only the wet city
streets, the mist over the lake, and the moist warmth of the air
remained. For some time the three visitors to this extraordinary world
stood silent at the latticed windows, awed by what they had seen. The
noise of the panels as the Chemist slid them back brought them to
themselves.
"A curious land, gentlemen," he remarked quietly.
"It's--it's weird," the Very Young Man ejaculated.
The Chemist led them out across the roof to its other side facing the
city. The street upon which the house stood sloped upwards over the hill
behind. It was wet with the rain and gleamed like a sheet of burnished
silver. And down its sides now ran two little streams of liquid silver
fire.
The street, deserted during the storm, was beginning to fill again with
people returning to their tasks. At the intersection with the next road
above, they could see a line of sleighs passing. Beneath them, before
the wall of the garden a little group of men stood talking; on a
roof-top nearby a woman appeared with a tiny naked infant which she sat
down to nurse in a corner of her garden.
"A city at work," said the Chemist with a wave of his hand. "Shall we go
down and see it?"
His three friends assented readily, the Very Young Man suggesting
promptly that they first visit Lylda's father and Aura.
"He is teaching Loto this morning," said the Chemist smiling.
"Why not go to the court?" suggested the Big Business Man.
"Is the public admitted?" asked the Doctor.
"Nothing is secret here," the Chemist answered. "By all means, we will
go to the court first, if you wish; Lylda should be through very
shortly."
The court of Arite stood about a mile away near the lake shore. As they
left the house and passed through the city streets the respect accorded
the Chemist became increasingly apparent. The three strangers with him
attracted considerable attention, for, although they wore the
conventional robes in which the more prominent citizens were generally
attired, their short hair and the pallid whiteness of their skins made
them objects of curiosity. No crowd gathered; those they passed stared a
little, raised their hands to their foreheads and went their way, yet
underneath these signs of respect there was with some an air of
sullenness, of hostility, that the visitors could not fail to notice.
The Oroid men, in street garb, were dressed generally in a short
metallic-looking tunic of drab, with a brighter-colored girdle. The
women, most of them, wore only a sort of skirt, reaching from waist to
knees; a few had circular discs covering their breasts. There were
hardly any children to be seen, except occasionally a little face
staring at them from a window, or peering down from a roof-top. Once or
twice they passed a woman with an infant slung across her back in a sort
of hammock.
The most common vehicle was the curious form of sleigh in which they had
ridden down through the tunnels. They saw also a few little two-wheeled
carts, with wheels that appeared to be a solid segment of tree-trunk.
All the vehicles were drawn by meek-looking little gray animals like a
small deer without horns.
The court-house of Arite, though a larger building, from the outside was
hardly different than most others in the city. It was distinct, however,
in having on either side of the broad doorway that served as its main
entrance, a large square stone column.
As they entered, passing a guard who saluted them respectfully, the
visitors turned from a hallway and ascended a flight of steps. At the
top they found themselves on a balcony overlooking the one large room
that occupied almost the entire building. The balcony ran around all
three sides (the room was triangular in shape) and was railed with a low
stone parapet. On it were perhaps fifty people, sitting quietly on stone
benches that lay close up behind the parapet. An attendant stood at each
of the corners of the balcony; the one nearest bowed low as the Chemist
and his companions entered silently and took their seats.
From the balcony the entire room below was in plain view. At the apex of
its triangle sat the judge, on a raised dais of white stone with a
golden canopy over it. He was a man about fifty--this leader of the
court--garbed in a long loose robe of white. His hair, that fell on his
shoulders, was snowy white, and around his forehead was a narrow white
band. He held in his hand a sort of scepter of gold with a heavy golden
triangle at its end.
In six raised tiers of unequal length, like a triangular flight of
stairs across the angle of the room, and directly in front of the judge,
was the jury--twenty men and twenty women, seated in alternate rows. The
men wore loose robes of gray; the women robes of blue. On a seat raised
slightly above the others sat a man who evidently was speaker for the
men of the jury. On a similar elevated seat was the woman speaker; this
latter was Lylda.
Near the center of the room, facing the judge and jury were two
triangular spaces about twenty feet across, enclosed with a breast-high
wall of stone. Within each of these enclosures were perhaps ten or
twelve people seated on small stone benches. Directly facing the members
of the jury and between them and the two enclosures, was a small
platform raised about four feet above the floor, with several steps
leading up to it from behind.
A number of attendants dressed in the characteristic short tunics, with
breastplates and a short sword hanging from the waist, stood near the
enclosures, and along the sides of the room.
The Chemist leaned over and whispered to his friends: "Those two
enclosed places in the center are for the witnesses. Over there are
those testifying for the accused; the others are witnesses for the
government. The platform is where the accused stands when----"
He broke off suddenly. An expectant hush seemed to run over the room. A
door at the side opened, and preceded and followed by two attendants a
man entered, who walked slowly across the floor and stood alone upon the
raised platform facing the jury.
He was a man of extraordinarily striking look and demeanor. He stood
considerably over six feet in height, with a remarkably powerful yet
lean body. He was naked except for a cloth breech clout girdled about
his loins. His appearance was not that of an Oroid, for beside his
greater height, and more muscular physique, his skin was distinctly of a
more brownish hue. His hair was cut at the base of the neck in Oroid
fashion; it was black, with streaks of silver running through it. His
features were large and cast in a rugged mold. His mouth was cruel, and
wore now a sardonic smile. He stood erect with head thrown back and arms
folded across his breast, calmly facing the men and women who were to
judge him.
The Very Young Man gripped the Chemist by the arm. "Who is that?" he
whispered.
The Chemist's lips were pressed together; he seemed deeply affected. "I
did not know they caught him," he answered softly. "It must have been
just this morning."
The Very Young Man looked at Lylda. Her face was placid, but her breast
was rising and falling more rapidly than normal, and her hands in her
lap were tightly clenched.
The judge began speaking quietly, amid a deathlike silence. For over
five minutes he spoke; once he was interrupted by a cheer, instantly
stifled, and once by a murmur of dissent from several spectators on the
balcony that called forth instant rebuke from the attendant stationed
there.
The judge finished his speech, and raised his golden scepter slowly
before him. As his voice died away, Lylda rose to her feet and facing
the judge bowed low, with hands to her forehead. Then she spoke a few
words, evidently addressing the women before her. Each of them raised
her hands and answered in a monosyllable, as though affirming an oath.
This performance was repeated by the men.
The accused still stood silent, smiling sardonically. Suddenly his voice
rasped out with a short, ugly intonation and he threw his arms straight
out before him. A murmur rose from the spectators, and several
attendants leaned forward towards the platform. But the man only looked
around at them contemptuously and again folded his arms.
From one of the enclosures a woman came, and mounted the platform beside
the man. The Chemist whispered, "His wife; she is going to speak for
him." But with a muttered exclamation and wave of his arm, the man swept
her back, and without a word she descended the steps and reentered the
railed enclosure.
Then the man turned and raising his arms spoke angrily to those seated
in the enclosure. Then he appealed to the judge.
The Chemist whispered in explanation: "He refuses any witnesses."
At a sign from the judge the enclosure was opened and its occupants left
the floor, most of them taking seats upon the balcony.
"Who is he?" the Very Young Man wanted to know, but the Chemist ignored
his question.
For perhaps ten minutes the man spoke, obviously in his own defence. His
voice was deep and powerful, yet he spoke now seemingly without anger;
and without an air of pleading. In fact his whole attitude seemed one of
irony and defiance. Abruptly he stopped speaking and silence again fell
over the room. A man and a woman left the other enclosure and mounted
the platform beside the accused. They seemed very small and fragile, as
he towered over them, looking down at them sneeringly.
The man and woman conferred a moment in whispers. Then the woman spoke.
She talked only a few minutes, interrupted twice by the judge, once by a
question from Lylda, and once by the accused himself.
Then for perhaps ten minutes more her companion addressed the court. He
was a man considerably over middle age, and evidently, from his dress
and bearing, a man of prominence in the nation. At one point in his
speech it became obvious that his meaning was not clearly understood by
the jury. Several of the women whispered together, and one rose and
spoke to Lylda. She interrupted the witness with a quiet question. Later
the accused himself questioned the speaker until silenced by the judge.
Following this witness came two others. Then the judge rose, and looking
up to the balcony where the Chemist and his companions were sitting,
motioned to the Chemist to descend to the floor below.
The Very Young Man tried once again with his whispered question "What is
it?" but the Chemist only smiled, and rising quietly left them.
There was a stir in the court-room as the Chemist crossed the main
floor. He did not ascend the platform with the prisoner, but stood
beside it. He spoke to the jury quietly, yet with a suppressed power in
his voice that must have been convincing. He spoke only a moment, more
with the impartial attitude of one who gives advice than as a witness.
When he finished, he bowed to the court and left the floor, returning at
once to his friends upon the balcony.
Following the Chemist, after a moment of silence, the judge briefly
addressed the prisoner, who stolidly maintained his attitude of ironic
defiance.
"He is going to ask the jury to give its verdict now," said the Chemist
in a low voice.
Lylda and her companion leader rose and faced their subordinates, and
with a verbal monosyllable from each member of the jury the verdict was
unhesitatingly given. As the last juryman's voice died away, there came
a cry from the back of the room, a woman tore herself loose from the
attendants holding her, and running swiftly across the room leaped upon
the platform. She was a slight little woman, almost a child in
appearance beside the man's gigantic stature. She stood looking at him a
moment with heaving breast and great sorrowful eyes from which the tears
were welling out and flowing down her cheeks unheeded.
The man's face softened. He put his hands gently upon the sides of her
neck. Then, as she began sobbing, he folded her in his great arms. For
an instant she clung to him. Then he pushed her away. Still crying
softly, she descended from the platform, and walked slowly back across
the room.
Hardly had she disappeared when there arose from the street outside a
faint, confused murmur, as of an angry crowd gathering. The judge had
left his seat now and the jury was filing out of the room.
The Chemist turned to his friends. "Shall we go?" he asked.
"This trial--" began the Big Business Man. "You haven't told us its
significance. This man--good God what a figure of power and hate and
evil. Who is he?"
"It must have been evident to you, gentlemen," the Chemist said quietly,
"that you have been witnessing an event of the utmost importance to us
all. I have to tell you of the crisis facing us; this trial is its
latest development. That man--"
The insistent murmur from the street grew louder. Shouts arose and then
a loud pounding from the side of the building.
The Chemist broke off abruptly and rose to his feet. "Come outside," he
said.
They followed him through a doorway on to a balcony, overlooking the
street. Gathered before the court-house was a crowd of several hundred
men and women. They surged up against its entrance angrily, and were
held in check there by the armed attendants on guard. A smaller crowd
was pounding violently upon a side door of the building. Several people
ran shouting down the street, spreading the excitement through the city.
The Chemist and his companions stood in the doorway of the balcony an
instant, silently regarding this ominous scene. The Chemist was just
about to step forward, when, upon another balcony, nearer the corner of
the building a woman appeared. She stepped close to the edge of the
parapet and raised her arms commandingly.
It was Lylda. She had laid aside her court robe and stood now in her
glistening silver tunic. Her hair was uncoiled, and fell in dark masses
over her white shoulders, blowing out behind her in the wind.
The crowd hesitated at the sight of her, and quieted a little. She stood
rigid as a statue for a moment, holding her arms outstretched. Then,
dropping them with a gesture of appeal she began to speak.
At the sound of her voice, clear and vibrant, yet soft, gentle and
womanly, there came silence from below, and after a moment every face
was upturned to hers. Gradually her voice rose in pitch. Its gentle tone
was gone now--it became forceful, commanding. Then again she flung out
her arms with a dramatic gesture and stood rigid, every line of her body
denoting power--almost imperious command. Abruptly she ceased speaking,
and, as she stood motionless, slowly at first, the crowd silently
dispersed.
The street below was soon clear. Even those onlookers at a distance
turned the corner and disappeared. Another moment passed, and then Lylda
swayed and sank upon the floor of the balcony, with her head on her arms
against its low stone railing--just a tired, gentle, frightened little
woman.
"She did it--how wonderfully she did it," the Very Young Man murmured in
admiration.
"We can handle them now," answered the Chemist. "But each time--it is
harder. Let us get Lylda and go home, gentlemen. I want to tell you all
about it." He turned to leave the balcony.
"Who was the man? What was he tried for?" the Very Young Man demanded.
"That trial was the first of its kind ever held," the Chemist answered.
"The man was condemned to death. It was a new crime--the gravest we have
ever had to face--the crime of treason."
CHAPTER XXIII
LYLDA'S PLAN
Back home, comfortably seated upon the broad balcony overlooking the
lake, the three men sat waiting to hear their host's explanation of the
strange events they had witnessed. Lylda busied herself preparing a
light noonday meal, which she served charmingly on the balcony while
they talked.
"My friends," the Chemist began. "I tried to give you this morning, a
picture of this world and the life I have been leading here. I think you
understand, although I did not specifically say so, that all I said
related to the time when I first came here. That you would call this
life Utopia, because of the way I outlined it, I do not doubt; or at
least you would call it a state of affairs as near Utopian as any human
beings can approach.
"All that is true; it was Utopia. But gentlemen, it is so no longer.
Things have been changing of recent years, until now--well you saw what
happened this morning.
"I cannot account for the first cause of this trouble. Perhaps the
Malite war, with its disillusionment to our people--I do not know. Faith
in human kindness was broken: the Oroids could no longer trust
implicitly in each other. A gradual distrust arose--a growing unrest--a
dissatisfaction, which made no demands at first, nor seemed indeed to
have any definite grievances of any sort. From it there sprang leaders,
who by their greater intelligence created desires that fed and nourished
their dissatisfaction--gave it a seemingly tangible goal that made it
far more dangerous than it ever had been before.
"About a year ago there first came into prominence the man whom you saw
this morning condemned to death. His name is Targo--he is a
Malite--full-blooded I believe, although he says not. For twenty years
or more he has lived in Orlog, a city some fifty miles from Arite. His
wife is an Oroid.
"Targo, by his eloquence, and the power and force of his personality,
won a large following in Orlog, and to a lesser degree in many other
cities. Twice, some months ago, he was arrested and reprimanded; the
last time with a warning that a third offence would mean his death."
"What is he after?" asked the Very Young Man.
"The Targos, as they are called, demand principally a different division
of the land. Under the present system, approximately one-third of all
the land is in the hands of the government. Of that, generally more than
half lies idle most of the time. The Targos wish to have this land
divided among the citizens. They claim also that most of the city
organizations do not produce as large a dividend as the Targos could
show under their own management. They have many other grievances that
there is no reason for me to detail."
"Why not let them try out their theories in some city?" suggested the
Big Business Man.
"They are trying them," the Chemist answered. "There was a revolution in
Orlog about six months ago. Several of its officials were
assassinated--almost the first murders we have ever had. The Targos took
possession of the government--a brother of this man you saw this morning
became leader of the city. Orlog withdrew from the Oroid government and
is now handling its affairs as a separate nation."
"I wonder----" began the Big Business Man thoughtfully. "Well, why not
let them run it that way, if they want to?"
"No reason, if they were sincere. But they are not sincere nor honest
fundamentally. Their leaders are for the most part Malites, or Oroids
with Malite blood. And they are fooling the people. Their followers are
all the more unintelligent, more gullible individuals, or those in whom
there lies a latent criminal streak.
"The thing doesn't work. Sexual license is growing in Orlog. Crimes
against women are becoming more and more frequent. Offences committed by
those prominent, or in authority, go unpunished. Women's testimony is
discredited, often by concerted lying on the part of men witnesses.
"Many families are leaving Orlog--leaving their land and their homes
deserted. In other cities where the Targos threaten to gain control the
same thing is happening. Most of these refugees come to Arite. We cannot
take care of them; there is not enough land here."
"Why not take your army and clean them up?" suggested the Very Young
Man.
They were seated around a little table, at which Lylda was serving
lunch. At the question she stopped in the act of pouring a steaming
liquid from a little metal kettle into their dainty golden drinking cups
and looked at the Very Young Man gravely.
"Very easy it would be to do that perhaps," she said quietly. "But these
Targos, except a few--they are our own people. And they too are armed.
We cannot fight them; we cannot kill them--our own people."
"We may have to," said the Chemist. "But you see, I did not realize, I
could not believe the extent to which this Targo could sway the people.
Nor did I at first realize what evils would result if his ideas were
carried out. He has many followers right here in Arite. You saw that
this morning."
"How did you catch him?" interrupted the Very Young Man.
"Yesterday he came to Arite," said Lylda. "He came to speak. With him
came fifty others. With them too came his wife to speak here, to our
women. He thought we would do nothing; he defied us. There was a
fight--this morning--and many were killed. And we brought him to the
court--you saw."
"It is a serious situation," said the Doctor. "I had no idea----"
"We can handle it--we must handle it," said the Chemist. "But as Lylda
says, we cannot kill our own people--only as a last desperate measure."
"Suppose you wait too long," suggested the Big Business Man. "You say
these Targos are gaining strength every day. You might have a very bad
civil war."
"That was the problem," answered the Chemist.
"But now you come," said Lylda. "You change it all when you come down to
us out of the great beyond. Our people, they call you genii of the
Master, they----"
"Oh gee, I never thought of that," murmured the Very Young Man. "What
_do_ you think of us?"
"They think you are supernatural beings of course," the Chemist said
smiling. "Yet they accept you without fear and they look to you and to
me for help."
"This morning, there at the court," said Lylda, "I heard them say that
Targo spoke against you. Devils, he said, from the Great Blue Star, come
here with evil for us all. And they believe him, some of them. It was
for that perhaps they acted as they did before the court. In Arite now,
many believe in Targo. And it is bad, very bad."
"The truth is," added the Chemist, "your coming, while it gives us
unlimited possibilities for commanding the course of events, at the same
time has precipitated the crisis. Naturally no one can understand who or
what you are. And as Lylda says, the Targos undoubtedly are telling the
people you come to ally yourself with me for evil. There will be
thousands who will listen to them and fear and hate you--especially in
some of the other cities."
"What does the king say?" asked the Doctor.
"We will see him to-morrow. He has been anxiously waiting for you. But
you must not forget," the Chemist added with a smile, "the king has had
little experience facing strife or evil-doing of any kind. It was almost
unknown until recently. It is I, and you, gentlemen, who are facing the
problem of saving this nation."
The Very Young Man's face was flushed, and his eyes sparkled with
excitement. "We can do anything we like," he said. "We have the power."
"Ay, that is it," said Lylda. "The power we have. But my friend, we
cannot use it. Not for strife, for death; we cannot."
"The execution of Targo will cause more trouble," said the Chemist
thoughtfully. "It is bound to make----"
"When will you put him to death?" asked the Big Business Man.
"To-morrow he dies," Lylda answered. "To-morrow, before the time of
sleep."
"There will be trouble," said the Chemist again. "We are in no personal
danger of course, but, for the people who now believe in Targo, I am
afraid----"
"A plan I have made," said Lylda. She sat forward tensely in her chair,
brushing her hair back from her face with a swift gesture. "A plan I
have made. It is the only way--I now think--that may be there comes no
harm to our people. It is that we want to do, if we can." She spoke
eagerly, and without waiting for them to answer, went swiftly on.
"This drug that you have brought, I shall take it. And I shall get big.
Oh, not so very big, but big enough to be the height of a man it may be
ten times. Then shall I talk to the people--I, Lylda--woman of the
Master, and then shall I tell them that this power, this magic, is for
good, not for evil, if only they will give up Targo and all who are with
him."
"I will take it with you," said the Chemist. "Together we----"
"No, no, my husband. Alone I must do this. Ah, do you not know they say
these stranger devils with their magic come for evil? And you too, must
you not forget, once were a stranger just as they. That the people
know--that they remember.
"But I--I--Lylda--a woman of the Oroids I am--full-blooded Oroid, no
stranger. And they will believe me--a woman--for they know I cannot lie.
"I shall tell them I am for good, for kindness, for all we had, that
time before the Malite war, when every one was happy. And if they will
not believe, if as I say they will not do, then shall my power be indeed
for evil, and all who will obey me not shall die. But they will
believe--no need will there be to threaten.
"To many cities I will go. And in them, all of those who want to live by
Targo's law will I send to Orlog. And all in Orlog who believe him not,
will I tell to leave, and to the other cities go to make their homes.
Then Orlog shall be Targo's city. And to-morrow he will not die, but go
there into Orlog and become their king. For I shall say it may be there
are some who like his rule of evil. Or it may be he is good in different
fashion, and in time can make us see that his law too, is just and kind.
"Then shall live in Orlog all who wish to stay, and we shall watch their
rule, but never shall we let them pass beyond their borders. For if they
do, then shall we kill them.
"All this I can do, my husband, if you but will let me try. For me they
will believe, a woman, Oroid all of blood--for they know women do not
lie." She stopped and the fire in her eyes changed to a look of gentle
pleading. "If you will but let me try," she finished. "My
husband--please."
The Chemist glanced at his friends who sat astonished by this flow of
eager, impassioned words. Then he turned again to Lylda's intent,
pleading face, regarding her tenderly. "You are very fine, little mother
of my son," he said gently, lapsing for a moment into her own style of
speech. "It could do no harm," he added thoughtfully "and perhaps----"
"Let her try it," said the Doctor. "No harm could come to her."
"No harm to me could come," said Lylda quickly. "And I shall make them
believe. I can, because I am a woman, and they will know I tell the
truth. Ah, you will let me try, my husband--please?"
The Chemist appealed to the others. "They will believe her, many of
them," he said. "They will leave Orlog as she directs. But those in
other cities will still hold to Targo, they will simply remain silent
for a time. What their feelings will be or are we cannot tell. Some will
leave and go to Orlog of course, for Lylda will offer freedom of their
leader and to secure that they will seem to agree to anything.
"But after all, they are nothing but children at heart, most of them.
To-day, they might believe in Lylda; to-morrow Targo could win them
again."
"He won't get a chance," put in the Very Young Man quickly. "If she says
we kill anybody who talks for Targo outside of Orlog, that goes. It's
the only way, isn't it?"
"And she might really convince them--or most of them," added the Doctor.
"You will let me try?" asked Lylda softly. The Chemist nodded.
Lylda sprang to her feet. Her frail little body was trembling with
emotion; on her face was a look almost of exaltation.
"You _will_ let me try," she cried. "Then I shall make them believe.
Here, now, this very hour, I shall make them know the truth. And they,
my own people, shall I save from sorrow, misery and death."
She turned to the Chemist and spoke rapidly.
"My husband, will you send Oteo now, up into the city. Him will you tell
to have others spread the news. All who desire an end to Targo's rule,
shall come here at once. And all too, who in him believe, and who for
him want freedom, they shall come too. Let Oteo tell them magic shall be
performed and Lylda will speak with them.
"Make haste, my husband, for now I go to change my dress. Not as the
Master's woman will I speak, but as Lylda--Oroid woman--woman of the
people." And with a flashing glance, she turned and swiftly left the
balcony.
CHAPTER XXIV
LYLDA ACTS
"She'll do it," the Very Young Man murmured, staring at the doorway
through which Lylda had disappeared. "She can do anything."
The Chemist rose to his feet. "I'll send Oteo. Will you wait here
gentlemen? And will you have some of the drugs ready for Lylda? You have
them with you?" The men nodded.
"How about Lylda carrying the drugs?" asked the Very Young Man. "And
what about her clothes?"
"I have already made a belt for Lylda and for myself--some time ago,"
the Chemist answered. "During the first year I was here I made several
experiments with the drugs. I found that almost anything within the
immediate--shall I say influence of the body, will contract with it.
Almost any garment, even a loose robe will change size. You found that
to be so to some extent. Those belts you wore down--"
"That's true," agreed the Doctor, "there seems to be considerable
latitude----"
"I decided," the Chemist went on, "that immediately after your arrival
we should all wear the drugs constantly. You can use the armpit pouches
if you wish; Lylda and I will wear these belts I have made."
Oteo, the Chemist's personal servant, a slim youth with a bright,
intelligent face, listened carefully to his master's directions and then
left the house hurriedly, running up the street towards the center of
the city. Once or twice he stopped and spoke to passers-by for a moment,
gathering a crowd around him each time.
The Chemist rejoined his friends on the balcony. "There will be a
thousand people here in half an hour," he said quietly. "I have sent a
message to the men in charge of the government workshops; they will have
their people cease work to come here."
Lylda appeared in a few moments more. She was dressed as the Chemist had
seen her first through the microscope--in a short, grey skirt reaching
from waist to knees. Only now she wore also two circular metal discs
strapped over her breasts. Her hair was unbound and fell in masses
forward over her shoulders. Around her waist was a broad girdle of
golden cloth with small pouches for holding the chemicals. She took her
place among the men quietly.
"See, I am ready," she said with a smile. "Oteo, you have sent him?" The
Chemist nodded.
Lylda turned to the Doctor. "You will tell me, what is to do with the
drugs?"
They explained in a few words. By now a considerable crowd had gathered
before the house, and up the street many others were hurrying down.
Directly across from the entrance to Lylda's garden, back of the bluff
at the lake front, was a large open space with a fringe of trees at its
back. In this open space the crowd was collecting.
The Chemist rose after a moment and from the roof-top spoke a few words
to the people in the street below. They answered him with shouts of
applause mingled with a hum of murmured anger underneath. The Chemist
went back to his friends, his face set and serious.
As he dropped in his chair Lylda knelt on the floor before him, laying
her arms on his knees. "I go to do for our people the best I can," she
said softly, looking up into his face. "Now I go, but to you I will come
back soon." The Chemist tenderly put his hand upon the glossy smoothness
of her hair.
"I go--now," she repeated, and reached for one of the vials under her
arm. Holding it in her hand, she stared at it a moment, silently, in
awe. Then she shuddered like a frightened child and buried her face in
the Chemist's lap, huddling her little body up close against his legs as
if for protection.
The Chemist did not move nor speak, but sat quiet with his hand gently
stroking her hair. In a moment she again raised her face to his. Her
long lashes were wet with tears, but her lips were smiling.
"I am ready--now," she said gently. She brushed her tears from her eyes
and rose to her feet. Drawing herself to her full height, she tossed
back her head and flung out her arms before her.
"No one can know I am afraid--but you," she said. "And I--shall forget."
She dropped her arms and stood passive.
"I go now to take the drug--there in the little garden behind, where no
one can notice. You will come down?"
The Big Business Man cleared his throat. When he spoke his voice was
tremulous with emotion.
"How long will you be gone--Lylda?" he asked.
The woman turned to him with a smile. "Soon will I return, so I
believe," she answered. "I go to Orlog, to Raito, and to Tele. But never
shall I wait, nor speak long, and fast will I walk.... Before the time
of sleep has descended upon us, I shall be here."
In the little garden behind the house, out of sight of the crowd on the
other side, Lylda prepared to take the drug. She was standing there,
with the four men, when Loto burst upon them, throwing himself into his
mother's arms.
"Oh, _mamita_, _mamita_," he cried, clinging to her. "There in the
street outside, they say such terrible things----of you _mamita_. 'The
master's woman' I heard one say, 'She has the evil magic.' And another
spoke of Targo. And they say he must not die, or there will be death for
those who kill him."
Lylda held the boy close as he poured out his breathless frightened
words.
"No matter, little son," she said tenderly. "To _mamita_ no harm can
come--you shall see. Did my father teach you well to-day?"
"But _mamita_, one man who saw me standing, called me an evil name and
spoke of you, my mother Lylda. And a woman looked with a look I never
saw before. I am afraid, _mamita_."
With quivering lips that smiled, Lylda kissed the little boy tenderly
and gently loosening his hold pushed him towards his father.
"The Master's son, Loto, never can he be afraid," she said with gentle
reproof. "That must you remember--always."
The little group in the garden close up against the house stood silent
as Lylda took a few grains of the drug. The noise and shouts of the
crowd in front were now plainly audible. One voice was raised above the
others, as though someone were making a speech.
Loto stood beside his father, and the Chemist laid his arm across the
boy's shoulder. As Lylda began visibly to increase in size, the boy
uttered a startled cry. Meeting his mother's steady gaze he shut his
lips tight, and stood rigid, watching her with wide, horrified eyes.
Lylda had grown nearly twice her normal size before she spoke. Then,
smiling down at the men, she said evenly, "From the roof, perhaps, you
will watch."
"You know what to do if you grow too large," the Doctor said huskily.
"I know, my friend. I thank you all. And good-bye." She met the
Chemist's glance an instant. Then abruptly she faced about and walking
close to the house, stood at its further corner facing the lake.
After a moment's hesitation the Chemist led his friends to the roof. As
they appeared at the edge of the parapet a great shout rolled up from
the crowd below. Nearly a thousand people had gathered. The street was
crowded and in the open space beyond they stood in little groups. On a
slight eminence near the lake bluff, a man stood haranguing those around
him. He was a short, very thickset little man, with very long arms--a
squat, apelike figure. He talked loudly and indignantly; around him
perhaps a hundred people stood listening, applauding at intervals.
When the Chemist appeared this man stopped with a final phrase of
vituperation and a wave of his fist towards the house.
The Chemist stood silent, looking out over the throng. "How large is she
now?" he asked the Very Young Man softly. The Very Young Man ran across
the roof to its farther corner and was back in an instant.
"They'll see her soon--look there." His friends turned at his words. At
the corner of the house they could just see the top of Lylda's head
above the edge of the parapet. As they watched she grew still taller and
in another moment her forehead appeared. She turned her head, and her
great eyes smiled softly at them across the roof-top. In a few moments
more (she had evidently stopped growing) with a farewell glance at her
husband, she stepped around the corner of the house into full view of
the crowd--a woman over sixty feet tall, standing quietly in the garden
with one hand resting upon the roof of the house behind her.
A cry of terror rose from the people as she appeared. Most of those in
the street ran in fright back into the field behind. Then, seeing her
standing motionless with a gentle smile on her face, they stopped,
irresolute. A few held their ground, frankly curious and unafraid.
Others stood sullen and defiant.
When the people had quieted a little Lylda raised her arms in greeting
and spoke, softly, yet with a voice that carried far away over the
field. As she talked the people seemed to recover their composure
rapidly. Her tremendous size no longer seemed to horrify them. Those who
obviously at first were friendly appeared now quite at ease; the others,
with their lessening terror, were visibly more hostile.
Once Lylda mentioned the name of Targo. A scattered shout came up from
the crowd; the apelike man shouted out something to those near him, and
then, leaving his knoll disappeared.
As Lylda continued, the hostile element in the crowd grew more
insistent. They did not listen to her now but shouted back, in derision
and defiance. Then suddenly a stone was thrown; it struck Lylda on the
breast, hitting her metal breastplate with a thud and dropping at her
feet.
As though at a signal a hail of stones flew up from the crowd, most of
them striking Lylda like tiny pebbles, a few of the larger ones bounding
against the house, or landing on its roof.
At this attack Lylda abruptly stopped speaking and took a step forward
menacingly. The hail of stones continued. Then she turned towards the
roof-top, where the men and the little boy stood behind the parapet,
sheltering themselves from the flying stones.
"Only one way there is," said Lylda sadly, in a soft whisper that they
plainly heard above the noise of the crowd. "I am sorry, my husband--but
I must."
A stone struck her shoulder. She faced the crowd again; a gentle look of
sorrow was in her eyes, but her mouth was stern. In the street below at
the edge of the field the squat little man had reappeared. It was from
here that most of the stones seemed to come.
"That man there--by the road----" The Chemist pointed. "One of
Targo's----"
In three swift steps Lylda was across the garden, with one foot over the
wall into the street. Reaching down she caught the man between her huge
fingers, and held him high over her head an instant so that all might
see.
The big crowd was silent with terror; the man high in the air over their
heads screamed horribly. Lylda hesitated only a moment more; then she
threw back her arm and, with a great great sweep, flung her screaming
victim far out into the lake.
CHAPTER XXV
THE ESCAPE OF TARGO
"I am very much afraid it was a wrong move," said the Chemist gravely.
They were sitting in a corner of the roof, talking over the situation.
Lylda had left the city; the last they had seen of her, she was striding
rapidly away, over the country towards Orlog. The street and field
before the house now was nearly deserted.
"She had to do it, of course," the Chemist continued, "but to kill
Targo's brother----"
"I wonder," began the Big Business Man thoughtfully. "It seems to me
this disturbance is becoming far more serious than we think. It isn't so
much a political issue now between your government and the followers of
Targo, as it is a struggle against those of us who have this magic, as
they call it."
"That's just the point," put in the Doctor quickly. "They are making the
people believe that our power of changing size is a menace that----"
"If I had only realized," said the Chemist. "I thought your coming would
help. Apparently it was the very worst thing that could have happened."
"Not for you personally," interjected the Very Young Man. "We're
perfectly safe--and Lylda, and Loto." He put his arm affectionately
around the boy who sat close beside him. "You are not afraid, are you,
Loto?"
"Now I am not," answered the boy seriously. "But this morning, when I
left my grandfather, coming home----"
"You were afraid for your mother. That was it, wasn't it?" finished the
Very Young Man. "Does your grandfather teach you?"
"Yes--he, and father, and mother."
"I want you to see Lylda's father," said the Chemist. "There is nothing
we can do now until Lylda returns. Shall we walk up there?" They all
agreed readily.
"I may go, too?" Loto asked, looking at his father.
"You have your lessons," said the Chemist.
"But, my father, it is so very lonely without mother," protested the
boy.
The Chemist smiled gently. "Afraid, little son, to stay with Oteo?"
"He's not afraid," said the Very Young Man stoutly.
The little boy looked from one to the other of them a moment silently.
Then, calling Oteo's name, he ran across the roof and down into the
house.
"Five years ago," said the Chemist, as the child disappeared, "there was
hardly such an emotion in this world as fear or hate or anger. Now the
pendulum is swinging to the other extreme. I suppose that's natural,
but----" He ended with a sigh, and, breaking his train of thought, rose
to his feet. "Shall we start?"
Lylda's father greeted them gravely, with a dignity, and yet obvious
cordiality that was quite in accord with his appearance. He was a man
over sixty. His still luxuriant white hair fell to his shoulders. His
face was hairless, for in this land all men's faces were as devoid of
hair as those of the women. He was dressed in a long, flowing robe
similar to those his visitors were wearing.
"Because--you come--I am glad," he said with a smile, as he shook hands
in their own manner. He spoke slowly, with frequent pauses, as though
carefully picking his words. "But--an old man--I know not the language
of you."
He led them into a room that evidently was his study, for in it they saw
many strange instruments, and on a table a number of loosely bound
sheets of parchment that were his books. They took the seats he offered
and looked around them curiously.
"There is the clock we spoke of," said the Chemist, indicating one of
the larger instruments that stood on a pedestal in a corner of the room.
"Reoh will explain it to you."
Their host addressed the Chemist. "From Oteo I hear--the news to-day is
bad?" he asked with evident concern.
"I am afraid it is," the Chemist answered seriously.
"And Lylda?"
The Chemist recounted briefly the events of the day. "We can only wait
until Lylda returns," he finished. "To-morrow we will talk with the
king."
"Bad it is," said the old man slowly; "very bad. But--we shall see----"
The Very Young Man had risen to his feet and was standing beside the
clock.
"How does it work?" he asked. "What time is it now?"
Reoh appealed to his son-in-law. "To tell of it--the words I know not."
The Chemist smiled. "You are too modest, my father. But I will help you
out, if you insist." He turned to the others, who were gathered around
him, looking at the clock.
"Our measurement of our time here," he began, "like yours, is based
on----"
"Excuse me," interrupted the Very Young Man. "I just want to know first
what time it is now?"
"It is in the fourth eclipse," said the Chemist with a twinkle.
The Very Young Man was too surprised by this unexpected answer to
question further, and the Chemist went on.
"We measure time by the astronomical movements, just as you do in your
world. One of the larger stars has a satellite which revolves around it
with extreme rapidity. Here at Arite, this satellite passes nearly
always directly behind its controlling star. In other words, it is
eclipsed. Ten of these eclipses measure the passage of our day. We rise
generally at the first eclipse or about that time. It is now the fourth
eclipse; you would call it late afternoon. Do you see?"
"How is the time gauged here?" asked the Big Business Man, indicating
the clock.
The instrument stood upon a low stone pedestal. It consisted of a
transparent cylinder about twelve inches in diameter and some four feet
high, surmounted by a large circular bowl. The cylinder was separated
from the bowl by a broad disc of porous stone; a similar stone section
divided the cylinder horizontally into halves. From the bowl a fluid was
dropping in a tiny stream through the top stone segment into the upper
compartment, which was now about half full. This in turn filtered
through the second stone into the lower compartment. This lower section
was marked in front with a large number of fine horizontal lines, an
equal distance apart, but of unequal length. In it the fluid stood now
just above one of the longer lines-the fourth from the bottom. On the
top of this fluid floated a circular disc almost the size of the inside
diameter of the cylinder.
The Chemist explained. "It really is very much like the old hour-glass
we used to have in your world. This filters liquid instead of sand. You
will notice the water filters twice." He indicated the two compartments.
"That is because it is necessary to have a liquid that is absolutely
pure in order that the rate at which it filters through this other stone
may remain constant. The clock is carefully tested, so that for each
eclipse the water will rise in this lower part of the cylinder, just the
distance from here to here."
The Chemist put his fingers on two of the longer marks.
"Very ingenious," remarked the Doctor. "Is it accurate?"
"Not so accurate as your watches, of course," the Chemist answered. "But
still, it serves the purpose. These ten longer lines, you see, mark the
ten eclipses that constitute one of our days. The shorter lines between
indicate halves and quarter intervals."
"Then it is only good for one day?" asked the Very Young Man. "How do
you set it?"
"It resets automatically each day, at the beginning of the first
eclipse. This disc," the Chemist pointed to the disc floating on the
water in the lower compartment. "This disc rises with the water on which
it is floating. When it reaches the top of it, it comes in contact with
a simple mechanism--you'll see it up there--which opens a gate below and
drains out the water in a moment. So that every morning it is emptied
and starts filling up again. All that is needed is to keep this bowl
full of water."
"It certainly seems very practical," observed the Big Business Man. "Are
there many in use?"
"Quite a number, yes. This clock was invented by Reoh, some thirty years
ago. He is the greatest scientist and scholar we have." The old man
smiled deprecatingly at this compliment.
"Are these books?" asked the Very Young Man; he had wandered over to the
table and was fingering one of the bound sheets of parchment.
"They are Reoh's chronicles," the Chemist answered. "The only ones of
their kind in Arite."
"What's this?" The Very Young Man pointed to another instrument.
"That is an astronomical instrument, something like a sextant--also an
invention of Reoh's. Here is a small telescope and----" The Chemist
paused and went over to another table standing at the side of the room.
"That reminds me, gentlemen," he continued; "I have something here in
which you will be greatly interested."
"What you--will see," said Reoh softly, as they gathered around the
Chemist, "you only, of all people, can understand. Each day I look, and
I wonder; but never can I quite believe."
"I made this myself, nearly ten years ago," said the Chemist, lifting up
the instrument; "a microscope. It is not very large, you see; nor is it
very powerful. But I want you to look through it." With his
cigar-lighter he ignited a short length of wire that burned slowly with
a brilliant blue spot of light. In his hand he held a small piece of
stone.
"I made this microscope hoping that I might prove with it still more
conclusively my original theory of the infinite smallness of human life.
For many months I searched into various objects, but without success.
Finally I came upon this bit of rock." The Chemist adjusted it carefully
under the microscope with the light shining brilliantly upon it.
"You see I have marked one place; I am going to let you look into it
there."
The Doctor stepped forward. As he looked they heard his quick intake of
breath. After a moment he raised his head. On his face was an expression
of awe too deep for words. He made place for the others, and stood
silent.
When the Very Young Man's turn came he looked into the eyepiece
awkwardly. His heart was beating fast; for some reason he felt
frightened.
At first he saw nothing. "Keep the other eye open," said the Chemist.
The Very Young Man did as he was directed. After a moment there appeared
before him a vast stretch of open country. As from a great height he
stared down at the scene spread out below him. Gradually it became
clearer. He saw water, with the sunlight--his own kind of sunlight it
seemed--shining upon it. He stared for a moment more, dazzled by the
light. Then, nearer to him, he saw a grassy slope, that seemed to be on
a mountain-side above the water. On this slope he saw animals grazing,
and beside them a man, formed like himself.
The Chemist's voice came to him from far away. "We are all of us here in
a world that only occupies a portion of one little atom of the gold of a
wedding-ring. Yet what you see there in that stone----"
The Very Young Man raised his head. Before him stood the microscope,
with its fragment of stone gleaming in the blue light of the burning
wire. He wanted to say something to show them how he felt, but no words
came. He looked up into the Chemist's smiling face, and smiled back a
little foolishly.
"Every day I look," said Reoh, breaking the silence. "And I
see--wonderful things. But never really--can I believe."
At this moment there came a violent rapping upon the outer door. As Reoh
left the room to open it, the Very Young Man picked up the bit of stone
that the Chemist had just taken from the microscope.
"I wish--may I keep it?" he asked impulsively.
The Chemist smiled and nodded, and the Very Young Man was about to slip
it into the pocket of his robe when Reoh hastily reentered the room,
followed by Oteo. The youth was breathing heavily, as though he had been
running, and on his face was a frightened look.
"Bad; very bad," said the old man, in a tone of deep concern, as they
came through the doorway.
"What is it, Oteo?" asked the Chemist quickly. The boy answered him with
a flood of words in his native tongue.
The Chemist listened quietly. Then he turned to his companions.
"Targo has escaped," he said briefly. "They sent word to me at home, and
Oteo ran here to tell me. A crowd broke into the court-house and
released him. Oteo says they went away by water, and that no one is
following them."
The youth, who evidently understood English, added something else in his
own language.
"He says Targo vowed death to all who have the magic power. He spoke in
the city just now, and promised them deliverance from the giants."
"Good Lord," murmured the Very Young Man.
"He has gone to Orlog probably," the Chemist continued. "We have nothing
to fear for the moment. But that he could speak, in the centre of Arite,
after this morning, and that the people would listen--"
"It seems to me things are getting worse every minute," said the Big
Business Man.
Oteo spoke again. The Chemist translated. "The police did nothing. They
simply stood and listened, but took no part."
"Bad; very bad," repeated the old man, shaking his head.
"What we should do I confess I cannot tell," said the Chemist soberly.
"But that we should do something drastic is obvious."
"We can't do anything until Lylda gets back," declared the Very Young
Man. "We'll see what she has done. We might have had to let Targo go
anyway."
The Chemist started towards the door. "To-night, by the time of sleep,
Reoh," he said to the old man, "I expect Lylda will have returned. You
had better come to us then with Aura. I do not think you should stay
here alone to sleep to-night."
"In a moment--Aura comes," Reoh answered. "We shall be with you--very
soon."
The Chemist motioned to his companions, and with obvious reluctance on
the part of the Very Young Man they left, followed by Oteo.
On the way back the city seemed quiet--abnormally so. The streets were
nearly deserted; what few pedestrians they met avoided them, or passed
them sullenly. They were perhaps half-way back to the Chemist's house
when the Very Young Man stopped short.
"I forgot that piece of stone," he explained, looking at them queerly.
"Go on. I'll be there by the time you are," and disregarding the
Chemist's admonition that he might get lost he left them abruptly and
walked swiftly back over the way they had come.
Without difficulty, for they had made few turns, the Very Young Man
located Reoh's house. As he approached he noticed the figure of a man
lounging against a further corner of the building; the figure
disappeared almost as soon as he saw it.
It was a trivial incident, but, somehow, to the Very Young Man, it held
something in it of impending danger. He did not knock on the outer door,
but finding it partly open, he slowly pushed it wider and stepped
quietly into the hallway beyond. He was hardly inside when there came
from within the house a girl's scream--a cry of horror, abruptly
stifled.
For an instant, the Very Young Man stood hesitating. Then he dashed
forward through an open doorway in the direction from which the cry had
seemed to come.
The room into which he burst was Reoh's study; the room he had left only
a few moments before. On the floor, almost across his path, lay the old
man, with the short blade of a sword buried to the hilt in his breast.
In a corner of the room a young Oroid girl stood with her back against
the wall. Her hands were pressed against her mouth; her eyes were wide
with terror. Bending over the body on the floor with a hand at its
armpit, knelt the huge, gray figure of a man. At the sound of the
intruder's entrance he looked up quickly and sprang to his feet.
The Very Young Man saw it was Targo!
CHAPTER XXVI
THE ABDUCTION
When the Very Young Man left them so unceremoniously the Chemist and his
companions continued on their way home, talking earnestly over the
serious turn affairs had taken. Of the three, the Big Business Man
appeared the most perturbed.
"Lylda isn't going to accomplish anything," he said. "It won't work. The
thing has gone too far. It isn't politics any longer; it's a struggle
against us--a hatred and fear of our supernatural powers."
"If we had never come----" began the Doctor.
"It probably would have worked out all right," finished the Big Business
Man. "But since we're here----"
"We could leave," the Doctor suggested.
"It has gone too far; I agree with you," the Chemist said. "Your going
would not help. They would never believe I did not still possess the
magic. And now, without the drugs I might not be able to cope with
affairs. It is a very serious situation."
"And getting worse all the time," added the Big Business Man.
When they arrived at the Chemist's home Loto did not run out to meet
them as the Chemist expected. They called his name, but there was no
answer. Inside the house they perceived at once that something was
wrong. The living-room was in disorder; some of the pieces of furniture
had been overturned, and many of the smaller articles were scattered
about the floor. Even the wall-hangings had been torn down.
In sudden fear the Chemist ran through the building, calling to Loto.
Everywhere he saw evidence of intruders, who had ransacked the rooms, as
though making a hasty search. In one of the rooms, crouched on the
floor, he came upon Eena, Lylda's little serving-maid. The girl was
stricken dumb with terror. At the sight of her master she sobbed with
relief, and after a few moments told him what had happened.
When the Chemist rejoined his friends in the lower room his face was set
and white. The girl followed him closely, evidently afraid to be left
alone. The Chemist spoke quietly, controlling his emotion with obvious
difficulty.
"Loto has been stolen!" he said. "Targo and four of his men were here
soon after we left. Eena saw them and hid. They searched the house----"
"For the drugs," muttered the Doctor under his breath.
"----and then left, taking Loto with them."
"Which way did they go?" asked the Big Business Man. "Good God, what a
thing!"
"They went by water, in a large boat that was waiting for them here,"
answered the Chemist.
"How long ago?" asked the Doctor quickly. "We have not been gone very
long."
"An hour probably, not much more." Eena said something to her master and
began to cry softly.
"She says they left a little while ago. Three of the men took Loto away
in the boat. She watched them from the window upstairs."
"_Targo aliá_," said the girl.
"One of the men was Targo," said the Chemist. He went to one of the
windows overlooking the lake; the Doctor stood beside him. There was no
boat in sight.
"They cannot have got very far," said the Doctor. "Those islands
there----"
"They would take him to Orlog," said the Chemist. "About fifty miles."
The Doctor turned back to the room. "We can get them. You forget--these
drugs--the power they give us. Oh, Will." He called the Big Business Man
over to them; he spoke hurriedly, with growing excitement. "What do you
think, Will? That boat--they've got Loto--it can't be very far. We can
make ourselves so large in half an hour we can wade all over the lake.
We can get it. What do you think?"
The Chemist dropped into a chair with his head in his hands. "Let me
think--just a moment, Frank. I know the power we have; I know we can do
almost anything. That little boy of mine--they've got him. Let me
think--just a moment."
He sat motionless. The Doctor continued talking in a lower tone to the
Big Business Man by the window. In the doorway Oteo stood like a statue,
motionless, except for his big, soft eyes that roved unceasingly over
the scene before him. After a moment Eena ceased her sobbing and knelt
beside the Chemist, looking up at him sorrowfully.
"I cannot believe," said the Chemist finally, raising his head, "that
the safest way to rescue Loto is by the plan you have suggested." He
spoke with his usual calm, judicial manner, having regained control of
himself completely. "I understand now, thoroughly, and for the first
time, the situation we are facing. It is, as you say, a political issue
no longer. Targo and his closest followers have convinced a very large
proportion of our entire nation, I am certain, that myself, and my
family, and you, the strangers, are possessed of a diabolical power that
must be annihilated. Targo will never rest until he has the drugs. That
is why he searched this house.
"He has abducted Loto for the same purpose. He will--not hurt Loto--I am
convinced of that. Probably he will send someone to-morrow to demand the
drugs as the price of Loto's life. But don't you understand? Targo and
his advisers, and even the most ignorant of the people, realize what
power we have. Lylda showed them that when she flung Targo's brother out
into the lake to-day. But we cannot use this power openly. For, while it
makes us invincible, it makes them correspondingly desperate. They are a
peculiar people. Throughout the whole history of the race they have been
kindly, thoughtless children. Now they are aroused. The pendulum has
swung to the other extreme. They care little for their lives. They are
still children--children who will go to their death unreasoning,
fighting against invincibility.
"That is something we must never overlook, for it is a fact. We cannot
run amuck as giants over this world and hope to conquer it. We could
conquer it, yes; but only when the last of its inhabitants had been
killed; stamped out like ants defending their hill from the attacks of
an elephant. Don't you see I am right?"
"Then Lylda----" began the Doctor, as the Chemist paused.
"Lylda will fail. Her venture to-day will make matters immeasurably
worse."
"You're right," agreed the Big Business Man. "We should have realized."
"So you see we cannot make ourselves large and recapture Loto by force.
They would anticipate us and kill him."
"Then what shall we do?" demanded the Doctor. "We must do something."
"That we must decide carefully, for we must make no more mistakes. But
we can do nothing at this moment. The lives of all of us are threatened.
We must not allow ourselves to become separated. We must wait here for
Lylda. Reoh and Aura must stay with us. Then we can decide how to rescue
Loto and what to do after that. But we must keep together."
"Jack ought to be here by now," said the Big Business Man. "I hope Reoh
and Aura come with him."
For over an hour they waited, and still the Very Young Man did not come.
They had just decided to send Oteo to see what had become of him and to
bring down Reoh and his daughter, when Lylda unexpectedly returned. It
was Eena, standing at one of the side windows, who first saw her
mistress. A cry from the girl brought them all to the window. Far away
beyond the city they could see the gigantic figure of Lylda, towering
several hundred feet in the air.
As she came closer she seemed to stop, near the outskirts of the city,
and then they saw her dwindling in size until she disappeared, hidden
from their view by the houses near at hand.
In perhaps half an hour more she reappeared, picking her way carefully
down the deserted street towards them. She was at this time about forty
feet tall. At the corner, a hundred yards away from them a little group
of people ran out, and, with shouts of anger, threw something at her as
she passed.
She stooped down towards them, and immediately they scurried for safety
out of her reach.
Once inside of her own garden, where the Chemist and his companions were
waiting, Lylda lost no time in becoming her normal size again. As she
grew smaller, she sat down with her back against a little tree. Her face
was white and drawn; her eyes were full of tears as she looked at her
husband and his friends.
When the drug had ceased to act, the Chemist sat beside her. She had
started out only a few hours before a crusader, dominant, forceful; she
came back now, a tired, discouraged little woman. The Chemist put his
arm around her protectingly, drawing her drooping body towards him.
"Very bad news, Lylda, we know," he said gently.
"Oh, my husband," she cried brokenly. "So sorry I am--so very sorry. The
best I knew I did. And it was all so very bad--so very bad----" she
broke off abruptly, looking at him with her great, sorrowful eyes.
"Tell us Lylda," he said softly.
"To many cities I went," she answered. "And I told the people all I
meant to say. Some of them believed. But they were not many, and of the
others who did not believe, they were afraid, and so kept they silent.
Then into Orlog I went, and in the public square I spoke--for very long,
because, for some reason I know not, at first they listened.
"But no one there believed. And then, my husband, at last I knew why I
could not hope to gain my way. It is not because they want Targo's rule
that they oppose us. It was, but it is so no longer. It is because they
have been made to fear these drugs we have. For now, in Orlog, they are
shouting death to all the giants. Forgotten are all their cries for
land--the things that Targo promised, and we in Arite would not give. It
is death to all the giants they are shouting now: death to you, to me,
to us all, because we have these drugs."
"Did they attack you?" asked the Big Business Man.
"Many things they threw," Lylda answered. "But I was so big," she smiled
a little sad, twisted smile. "What they could do was as nothing. And
because of that they fear and hate us so; yet never have I seen such
fearless things as those they did. Death to the giants was their only
cry. And I could have killed them--hundreds, thousands--yet never could
I have made them stop while yet they were alive.
"I told them Targo I would free. And in Orlog they laughed. For they
said that he would free himself before I had returned."
"He did," muttered the Big Business Man.
"Targo escaped this afternoon," the Chemist explained. "He went to Orlog
by boat and took----" He stopped abruptly. "Come into the house, Lylda,"
he added gently; "there are other things, my wife, of which we must
speak." He rose to his feet, pulling her up with him.
"Where is Jack," she asked, looking at the Big Business Man, who stood
watching her gravely. "And where is Loto? Does he not want to see his
mother who tried so----" She put her arms around the Chemist's neck. "So
very hard I tried," she finished softly. "So very hard, because--I
thought----"
The Chemist led her gently into the house. The Doctor started to follow,
but the Big Business Man held him back. "It is better not," he said in
an undertone, "don't you think?" Oteo was standing near them, and the
Big Business Man motioned to him. "Besides," he added, "I'm worried
about Jack. I think we ought to go up after him. I don't think it ought
to take us very long."
"With Oteo--he knows the way," agreed the Doctor. "It's devilish strange
what's keeping that boy."
They found that although Oteo spoke only a few words of English, he
understood nearly everything they said, and waiting only a moment more,
they started up into the city towards Reoh's home.
In the living-room of the house, the Chemist sat Lylda gently down on a
cushion in front of the hearth. Sitting beside her, he laid his hand on
hers that rested on her knee.
"For twelve years, Lylda, we have lived together," he began slowly. "And
no sorrow has come to us; no danger has threatened us or those we
loved." He met his wife's questioning gaze unflinchingly and went on:
"You have proved yourself a wonderful woman, my wife. You never
knew--nor those before you--the conflict of human passions. No danger
before has ever threatened you or those you loved." He saw her eyes grow
wider.
"Very strange you talk, my husband. There is something----"
"There is something, Lylda. To-day you have seen strife, anger, hate
and--and death. You have met them all calmly; you have fought them all
justly, like a woman--a brave, honest Oroid woman, who can wrong no one.
There is something now that I must tell you." He saw the growing fear in
her eyes and hurried on.
"Loto, to-day--this afternoon----"
The woman gave a little, low cry of anguish, instantly repressed. Her
hand gripped his tightly.
"No, no, Lylda, not that," he said quickly, "but this afternoon while we
were all away--Loto was here alone with Eena--Targo with his men came.
They did not hurt Loto; they took him away in a boat to Orlog." He
stopped abruptly. Lylda's eyes never left his face. Her breath came
fast; she put a hand to her mouth and stifled the cry that rose to her
lips.
"They will not hurt him, Lylda; that I know. And soon we will have him
back."
For a moment more her searching eyes stared steadily into his. He heard
the whispered words, "My little son--with Targo," come slowly from her
lips; then with a low, sobbing cry she dropped senseless into his arms.
CHAPTER XXVII
AURA
The Very Young Man involuntarily took a step backward as he met Targo's
eyes, glaring at him across the old man's body. The girl in the corner
gave another cry--a cry of fright and horror, yet with a note of relief.
The Very Young Man found himself wondering who she was; then he knew.
His first impulse was to leap across the room towards her. He thought of
the chemicals and instinctively his hand went to his armpit. But he knew
there was no time for that. He hesitated one brief instant. As he stood
rigid Targo stooped swiftly and grasped the dagger in his victim's
breast.
The girl screamed again, louder this time, and like a mask the Very
Young Man's indecision fell from him. He stood alert, clear-headed. Here
was an enemy threatening him--an enemy he must fight and overcome.
In the second that Targo bent down the Very Young Man bounded forward,
and with a leap that his football days had taught him so well how to
make, he landed squarely upon the bare, broad back of his antagonist.
The impact of his weight forced Targo down upon the floor, and losing
his balance he fell, with the Very Young Man on top of him. They hit the
leg of the table as they rolled over, and something dropped from it to
the floor, striking the stone surface with a thud.
The knife still stuck in the dead man's body. The Very Young Man thought
he could reach it, but his opponent's great arms were around him now and
held him too tightly. He tried to pull himself loose, but could not.
Then he rolled partly over again, and met Targo's eyes above, leering
triumphantly down at him. He looked away and wrenched his right arm
free. Across the room he could see the girl still crouching in the
corner. His right hand sweeping along the floor struck something heavy
lying there. His fingers closed over it; he raised it up, and hardly
knowing what he did, crashed it against his enemy's head.
He felt the tense muscles of the man relax, and then the weight of his
inert body as it pressed down upon him. He wriggled free, and sprang to
his feet. As he stood weak and trembling, looking down at the
unconscious form of Targo lying upon the floor, the girl suddenly ran
over and stood beside him. Her slim little body came only a little above
his shoulder; instinctively he put his arm about her.
A voice, calling from outside the room, made the girl look up into his
face with new terror.
"Others are coming," she whispered tensely and huddled up against him.
The Very Young Man saw that the room had two doors--the one through
which he had entered, and another in one of its other walls. There were
no windows. He pulled the girl now towards the further door, but she
held him back.
"They come that way," she whispered.
Another voice sounded behind him and the Very Young Man knew that a man
was coming up along the passageway from the front entrance. Targo's men!
He remembered now the skulking figure he had seen outside the house.
There were more than two, for now he heard other voices, and some one
calling Targo's name.
He held the girl closer and stood motionless. Like rats in a trap, he
thought. He felt the fingers of his right hand holding something heavy.
It was a piece of stone--the stone he had looked at through the
microscope--the stone with which he had struck Targo. He smiled to
himself, and slipped it into his pocket.
The girl had slowly pulled him over to the inner wall of the room. The
footsteps came closer. They would be here in a moment. The Very Young
Man wondered how he should fight them all; then he thought of the knife
that was still in the murdered man's body. He thought he ought to get it
now while there was still time. He heard a click and the wall against
which he and the girl were leaning yielded with their weight. A door
swung open--a door the Very Young Man had not seen before. The girl
pulled him through the doorway, and swung the door softly closed behind
them.
The Very Young Man found himself now in a long, narrow room with a very
high ceiling. It had, apparently, no other door, and no windows. It was
evidently a storeroom--piled high with what looked like boxes, and with
bales of silks and other fabrics.
The Very Young Man looked around him hastily. Then he let go of the
girl, and, since locks were unknown in this world, began piling as many
heavy objects as possible against the door. The girl tried to help him,
but he pushed her away. Once he put his ear to the door and listened. He
heard voices outside in the strange Oroid tongue.
The girl stood beside him. "They are lifting Targo up. He speaks; he is
not dead," she whispered.
For several minutes they stood there listening. The voices continued in
a low murmur. "They'll know we are in here," said the Very Young Man
finally, in an undertone. "Is there any other way out of this room?"
The girl shook her head. The Very Young Man forgot the import of her
answer, and suddenly found himself thinking she was the prettiest girl
he had ever seen. She was hardly more than sixteen, with a slender, not
yet matured, yet perfectly rounded little body. She wore, like Lylda, a
short blue silk tunic, with a golden cord crossing her breast and
encircling her waist. Her raven black hair hung in two twisted locks
nearly to her knees. Her skin was very white and, even more than
Lylda's, gleamed with iridescent color.
"Only this one door," said the girl. The words brought the Very Young
Man to himself with a start.
No other way out of the room! He knew that Targo and his men would force
their way in very soon. He could not prevent them. But it would take
time. The Very Young Man remembered that now he had time to take the
chemicals. He put his hand to his armpit and felt the pouch that held
the drug. He wondered which to take. The ceiling was very high; but to
fight in the narrow confines of such a room----
He led the girl over to a pile of cushions and sat down beside her.
"Listen," he said briefly. "We are going to take a medicine; it will
make us very small. Then we will hide from Targo and his men till they
are gone. This is not magic; it is science. Do you understand?"
"I understand," the girl answered readily. "One of the strangers you
are--my brother's friend."
"You will not be afraid to take the drug?"
"No." But though she spoke confidently, she drew closer to him and
shivered a little.
The Very Young Man handed her one of the tiny pellets. "Just touch it to
the tip of your tongue as I do," he said warningly.
They took the drug. When it had ceased to act, they found themselves
standing on the rough uneven stone surface that was the floor of the
room. Far overhead in the dim luminous blackness they could just make
out the great arching ceiling, stretching away out of sight down the
length of the room. Beside them stood a tremendous shaggy pile of
coarsely woven objects that were the silk pillows on which they had been
sitting a moment before--pillows that seemed forty or fifty feet square
now and loomed high above their heads.
The Very Young Man took the frightened girl by the hand and led her
along the tremendous length of a pile of boxes, blocks long it seemed.
These boxes, from their size, might have been rectangular, windowless
houses, jammed closely together, and piled one upon the other up into
the air almost out of sight.
Finally they came to a broad passageway between the boxes--a mere crack
it would have been before. They turned into it, and, a few feet beyond,
came to a larger square space with a box making a roof over it some
twenty feet above their heads.
From this retreat they could see the lower part of the door leading into
the other room and could hear from beyond it a muffled roar--the voices
of Targo and his men. Hardly were they hidden when the door opened a
little. It struck against the bales the Very Young Man had piled against
it. For a moment it held, but with the united efforts of the men pushing
from the other side, it slowly yielded and swung open.
Targo stepped into the room. To the Very Young Man he seemed nearly a
hundred feet high. Only his feet and ankles were visible at first, from
where the Very Young Man was watching. Three other men came with him.
They stamped back and forth for a time, moving some of the bales and
boxes. Luckily they left undisturbed those nearest the fugitives; after
a moment they left, leaving the door open.
The Very Young Man breathed a long sigh of relief. "Gosh, I'm glad
that's over." He spoke in a low tone, although the men in the other room
seemed so far away they would hardly have heard him if he had shouted at
the top of his voice.
Alone with the girl now in this great silent room, the Very Young Man
felt suddenly embarrassed. "I am one of your brother's friends," he
said. "My name's Jack; is yours Aura?"
"Lylda's sister I am," she answered quietly. "My father told me about
you----" Then with a rush came the memory of her father's death, which
the startling experiences of the past half-hour had made her forget. Her
big, soft eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered. Involuntarily
the Very Young Man put his arm about her again and held her close to
him. She was so little and frail--so pathetic and so wholly adorable.
For a long time they sat in silence; then the girl gently drew away.
At the doorway they stood and listened; Targo and his followers were
still in the adjoining room, talking earnestly. "Loto they have
captured," Aura whispered suddenly. "Others of Targo's men have taken
him--in a boat--to Orlog. To-morrow they send a messenger to my brother
to demand he give up these drugs--or Loto they will kill."
The Very Young Man waited, breathless. Suddenly he heard Targo laugh--a
cruel, cynical laugh. Aura shuddered.
"And when he has the drug, all of us will he kill. And all in the land
too who will not do as he bids."
The men were rising, evidently in preparation to leave. Aura continued:
"They go--now--to Orlog--all but Targo. A little way from here, up the
lake shore, a boat is waiting. It will take them there fast."
With a last look around, Targo and his followers disappeared through the
back door of the room. An outer door clanged noisily, and the Very Young
Man and Aura were left alone in the house.
Reoh murdered, Loto stolen! The Very Young Man thought of Lylda and
wondered if anything could have happened to her. "Did they speak of your
sister?" he asked.
"Targo said--he--he would put her to death," Aura answered with a
shudder. "He said--she killed his brother to-day." She turned to the
Very Young Man impulsively, putting her little hands up on his
shoulders. "Oh, my friend," she exclaimed. "You can do something to save
my family? Targo is so strong, so cruel. My father----" She stopped, and
choked back a sob.
"Did they say where Lylda was now?"
"They did not know. She grew very big and went away."
"Where is your brother and my two friends?"
"Targo said they were here when he--he took Loto. Now they have gone
home. He was afraid of them--now--because they have the drugs."
"To-morrow they are going to send a messenger from Orlog to demand the
drugs?"
"He said to-morrow. Oh, you will do something for us? You can save
Loto?"
The Very Young Man was beginning to formulate a plan. "And to-night," he
asked, "from what they said--are you sure they will not hurt Loto?"
"They said no. But he is so little--so----" The girl burst into tears,
and at every sob the Very Young Man's heart leaped in his breast. He
wanted to comfort her, but he could think of no word to say; he wanted
to help her--to do the best thing in what he saw was a grave crisis.
What he should have done was to have taken her back to the Chemist and
his friends, and then with them planned the rescue of Loto. But with the
girl's hands upon his shoulders, and her sorrowful little tear-stained
face looking up to his, he did not think of that. He thought only of her
and her pathetic appeal. "You will do something, my friend? You can save
Loto?" He could save Loto! With the power of the drugs he could do
anything!
The Very Young Man made a sudden decision. "I don't know the way to
Orlog; you do?" he asked abruptly.
"Oh yes, I know it well."
"We will go to Orlog, you and I--now, and rescue Loto. You will not be
afraid?"
The girl's eyes looked into his with a clear, steady gaze. The Very
Young Man stared down into their depths with his heart pounding. "I
shall not be afraid--with you," said the girl softly.
The Very Young Man drew a long breath. He knew he must think it all out
carefully. The drug would make them very large, and in a short time they
could walk to Orlog. No harm could come to them. Once in Orlog they
would find Loto--probably in Targo's palace--and bring him back with
them. The Very Young Man pictured the surprise and gratification of the
Chemist and his friends. Lylda would be back by then; no sooner would
she have heard of Loto's loss than he would bring him back to her. Or
perhaps they would meet Lylda and she would join them.
The Very Young Man produced the drug and was about to give Aura one of
the pellets when another thought occurred to him. Targo would not harm
Loto now because he was valuable as a hostage. But suppose he saw these
two giants coming to the rescue? The Very Young Man knew that probably
the boy would be killed before he could save him. That way would not do.
He would have to get to Orlog unseen--rescue Loto by a sudden rush,
before they could harm him.
But first it would be necessary for him and Aura to get out of Arite
quietly without causing any excitement. Once in the open country they
could grow larger and travel rapidly to Orlog. The Very Young Man
thought it would be best to be normal size while leaving Arite. He
explained his plan to Aura briefly.
It took several successive tastes of the different drugs before this
result was accomplished, but in perhaps half an hour they were ready to
leave the house. To the Very Young Man this change of size was no longer
even startling. Aura, this time, with him beside her, seemed quite
unafraid.
"Now we're ready," said the Very Young Man, in a matter-of-fact tone
that was far from indicating his true feeling. "Take the way where we
are least likely to be noticed--towards Orlog. When we get in the open
country we can get bigger."
He led the girl across Reoh's study. She kept her face averted as they
passed the body lying on the floor, and in a moment they were outside
the house. They walked rapidly, keeping close to the walls of the
houses. The streets were nearly deserted and no one seemed to notice
them.
The Very Young Man was calculating the time. "Probably they are just
getting to Orlog with Loto," he said. "Once we get out of Arite we'll
travel fast; we'll have him back in two or three hours."
Aura said nothing, but walked beside him. Once or twice she looked back
over her shoulder.
They were in the outskirts of the city, when suddenly the girl gripped
her companion by the arm.
"Some one--behind us," she whispered. The Very Young Man resisted an
impulse to look around. They had come to a cross street; the Very Young
Man abruptly turned the corner, and clutching Aura by the hand ran
swiftly forward a short distance. When they had slowed down to a walk
again the Very Young Man looked cautiously back over his shoulder. As he
did so he caught a glimpse of three men who had just reached the corner,
and who darted hastily back out of sight as he turned his head.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE ATTACK ON THE PALACE
Oteo led the two men swiftly through the city towards Reoh's house.
There were few pedestrians about and no one seemed particularly to
notice them. Yet somehow, the Big Business Man thought, there hung about
the city an ominous air of unrest. Perhaps it was the abnormal
quiet--that solemn sinister look of deserted streets; or perhaps it was
an occasional face peering at them from a window, or a figure lurking in
a doorway disappearing at their approach. The Big Business Man found his
heart beating fast. He suddenly felt very much alone. The realization
came to him that he was in a strange world, surrounded by beings of
another race, most of whom, he knew now, hated and feared him and those
who had come with him.
Then his thoughts took another turn. He looked up at the brilliant
galaxy of stars overhead. New, unexplored worlds! Thousands, millions of
them! In one tiny, little atom of a woman's wedding-ring! Then he
thought of his friend the Banker. Perhaps the ring had not been moved
from its place in the clubroom. Then--he looked at the sky again--then
Broadway--only thirty feet away from him this moment! He smiled a little
at this conception, and drew a long breath--awed by his thoughts.
Oteo was plucking at his sleeve and pointing. Across the street stood
Reoh's house. The Doctor knocked upon its partially open front door,
and, receiving no answer, they entered silently, with the dread sense of
impending evil hanging over them. The Doctor led the way into the old
man's study. At the threshold he stopped, shocked into immobility. Upon
the floor, with the knife still in it, lay Reoh's body. The Doctor made
a hasty examination, although the presence of the knife obviously made
it unnecessary.
A hurried search of the house convinced them that Aura and the Very
Young Man were not there. The two men, confused by this double disaster,
were at a loss to know what to do.
"They've got him," said the Big Business Man with conviction. "And the
girl too, probably. He must have come back just as they were killing
Reoh."
"There wasn't much time," the Doctor said. "He was back here in ten
minutes. But they've got him--you're right--or he would have been back
with us before this."
"They'll take him and the girl to Orlog. They won't hurt them because
they----" The Big Business Man stopped abruptly; his face went white.
"Good God, Frank, do you realize? They've got the drugs now!"
Targo had the drugs! The Big Business Man shuddered with fear at the
thought. Their situation would be desperate, indeed, if that were so.
The Doctor reasoned it out more calmly. "I hadn't thought of that," he
said slowly. "And it makes me think perhaps they have not captured Jack.
If they had the drugs they would lose no time in using them. They
haven't used them yet--that's evident."
The Big Business Man was about to reply when there came a shouting from
the street outside, and the sound of many feet rushing past the house.
They hurried to the door. A mob swept by--a mob of nearly a thousand
persons. Most of them were men. Some were armed with swords; others
brandished huge stones or lengths of beaten gold implements, perhaps
with which they had been working, and which now they held as weapons.
The mob ran swiftly, with vainglorious shouts from its leaders. It
turned a corner nearby and disappeared.
From every house now people appeared, and soon the streets were full of
scurrying pedestrians. Most of them followed the direction taken by the
mob. The listeners in the doorway could hear now, from far away, the
sound of shouts and cheering. And from all around them came the buzz and
hum of busy streets. The city was thoroughly awake--alert and expectant.
The Big Business Man flung the door wide. "I'm going to follow that
crowd. See what's going on. We can't stay here in the midst of this."
The Doctor and Oteo followed him out into the street, and they mingled
with the hastening crowd. In their excitement they walked freely among
the people. No one appeared to notice them, for the crowd was as excited
as they, hurrying along, heedless of its immediate surroundings. As they
advanced, the street became more congested.
Down another street they saw fighting going on--a weaponless crowd
swaying and struggling aimlessly. A number of armed men charged this
crowd--men who by their breastplates and swords the Big Business Man
recognized as the police. The crowd ceased struggling and dispersed,
only to gather again in another place.
The city was in a turmoil of excitement without apparent reason, or
definite object. Yet there was a steady tide in the direction the first
armed mob had gone, and with that tide went the Big Business Man and his
two companions.
After a time they came to an open park, beyond which, on a prominence,
with the lake behind, stood a large building that the Chemist had
already pointed out to them as the king's palace.
Oteo led them swiftly into a side street to avoid the dense crowd around
the park. Making a slight detour they came back to it again--much nearer
the palace now--and approached from behind a house that fronted the open
space near the palace.
"Friend of the Master--his house!" Oteo explained as he knocked
peremptorily at a side door.
They waited a moment, but no one came. Oteo pushed the door and led them
within. The house was deserted, and following Oteo, they went to the
roof. Here they could see perfectly what was going on around the palace,
and in the park below them.
This park was nearly triangular in shape--a thousand feet possibly on
each side. At the base of the triangle, on a bluff with the lake behind
it, stood the palace. Its main entrance, two huge golden doors, stood at
the top of a broad flight of stone steps. On these steps a fight was in
progress. A mob surged up them, repulsed at the top by a score or more
of men armed with swords, who were defending the doorway.
The square was thronged with people watching the palace steps and
shouting almost continuously. The fight before the palace evidently had
been in progress for some time. Many dead were lying in the doorway and
on the steps below it. The few defenders had so far resisted
successfully against tremendous odds, for the invaders, pressed upward
by those behind, could not retreat, and were being killed at the top
from lack of space in which to fight.
"Look there," cried the Big Business Man suddenly. Coming down a cross
street, marching in orderly array with its commander in front, was a
company of soldier police. It came to a halt almost directly beneath the
watchers on the roof-tops, and its leader brandishing his sword after a
moment of hesitation, ordered his men to charge the crowd. They did not
move at the order, but stood sullenly in their places. Again he ordered
them forward, and, as they refused to obey, made a threatening move
towards them.
In sudden frenzy, those nearest leaped upon him, and in an instant he
lay dead upon the ground, with half a dozen swords run through his body.
Then the men stood, in formation still, apathetically watching the
events that were going on around them.
Meanwhile the fight on the palace steps raged more furiously than ever.
The defenders were reduced now to a mere handful.
"A moment more--they'll be in," said the Doctor breathlessly. Hardly had
he spoken when, with a sudden, irresistible rush, the last of the guards
were swept away, and the invaders surged through the doorway into the
palace.
A great cry went up from the crowd in the park as the palace was
taken--a cry of applause mingled with awe, for they were a little
frightened at what they were seeing.
Perhaps a hundred people crowded through the doorway into the palace;
the others stood outside--on the steps and on the terrace
below--waiting. Hardly more than five minutes went by when a man
appeared on the palace roof. He advanced to the parapet with several
others standing respectfully behind him.
"Targo!" murmured Oteo.
It was Targo--Targo triumphantly standing with uplifted arms before the
people he was to rule. When the din that was raised at his appearance
had subsided a little he spoke; one short sentence, and then he paused.
There was a moment of indecision in the crowd before it broke into
tumultuous cheers.
"The king--he killed," Oteo said softly, looking at his master's friends
with big, frightened eyes.
The Big Business Man stared out over the waving, cheering throng, with
the huge, dominant, triumphant figure of Targo above and muttered to
himself, "The king is dead; long live the king."
When he could make himself heard, Targo spoke again. The Doctor and the
Big Business Man were leaning over the parapet watching the scene, when
suddenly a stone flew up from the crowd beneath, and struck the railing
within a few feet of where they were standing. They glanced down in
surprise, and realized, from the faces that were upturned, that they
were recognized. A murmur ran over the crowd directly below, and then
someone raised a shout. Four words it seemed to be, repeated over and
over. Gradually the shout spread--"Death to the Giants," the Big
Business Man knew it was--"Death to the Giants," until the whole mass of
people were calling it rhythmically--drowning out Targo's voice
completely. A thousand faces now stared up at the men on the roof-top
and a rain of stones began falling around them.
The Doctor clutched his friend by the arm and pulled him back from the
parapet. "They know us--good God, don't you see?" he said tensely. "Come
on. We must get out of this. There'll be trouble." He started across the
roof towards the opening that led down into the house.
The Big Business Man jerked himself free from the grasp that held him.
"I do see," he cried a little wildly. "I do see we've been damn fools.
There'll be trouble. You're right--there will be trouble; but it won't
be ours. I'm through--through with this miserable little atom and its
swarm of insects." He gripped the Doctor by both shoulders. "My God,
Frank, can't you understand? We're men, you and I--men! These
creatures"--he waved his arm back towards the city--"nothing but
insects--infinitesimal--smaller than the smallest thing we ever dreamed
of. And we take them seriously. Don't you understand? Seriously! God,
man, that's funny, not tragic."
He fumbled at the neck of his robe, and tearing it away, brought out a
vial of the drugs.
"Here," he exclaimed, and offered one of the pellets.
"Not too much," warned the Doctor vehemently, "only touch it to your
tongue."
Oteo, with pleading eyes, watched them taking the drug, and the Doctor
handed him a pellet, showing him how to take it.
As they stood together upon the roof-top, clinging to one another, the
city dwindled away rapidly beneath them. By the time the drug had ceased
to act there was hardly room for them to stand on the roof, and the
house, had it not been built solidly of stone, would have been crushed
under their weight. At first they felt a little dizzy, as though they
were hanging in mid-air, or were in a balloon, looking down at the city.
Then gradually, they seemed to be of normal size again, balancing
themselves awkwardly upon a little toy-house whose top was hardly bigger
than their feet.
The park, only a step now beneath the house-top, swarmed with tiny
figures less than two inches in height. Targo still stood upon the
palace roof; they could have reached down and picked him up between
thumb and forefinger. The whole city lay within a radius of a few
hundred feet around them.
When they had stopped increasing in size, they leaped in turn over the
palace, landing upon the broad beach of the lake. Then they began
walking along it. There was only room for one on the sand, and the other
two, for they walked abreast, waded ankle-deep in the water. From the
little city below them they could hear the hum of a myriad of tiny
voices--thin, shrill and faint. Suddenly the Big Business Man laughed.
There was no hysteria in his voice now--just amusement and relief.
"And we took that seriously," he said. "Funny, isn't it?"
CHAPTER XXIX
ON THE LAKE
"You're right--we are being followed," the Very Young Man said soberly.
He had pulled the girl over close against the wall of a house. "Did you
see that?"
"Three, they are," Aura answered. "I saw them before--in the street
below--Targo's men."
Evidently the three men had been watching the house from which they had
come and had followed them from there. If they were Targo's men, as
seemed very probable, the Very Young Man could not understand why they
had not already attacked him. Perhaps they intended to as soon as he and
Aura had reached a more secluded part of the city. They must know he had
the drugs, and to gain possession of those certainly was what they were
striving for. The Very Young Man realized he must take no chances; to
lose the drugs would be fatal to them all.
"Are we near the edge of the city?" he asked.
"Yes, very near."
"Then we shall get large here. If we make a run for it we will be in the
country before we are big enough to attract too much attention.
Understand, Aura?"
"I understand."
"We mustn't stir up the city if we can help it; with giants running
around, the people would get worked up to a frenzy. You could see that
with Lylda this afternoon. Not that you can blame them altogether, but
we want to get Loto back before we start anything here in Arite." He
took the pellets out as he spoke, and they each touched one of them to
the tip of their tongues.
"Now, then, come on--not too fast, we want to keep going," said the Very
Young Man, taking the girl by the hand again.
As they started off, running slowly down the street, the Very Young Man
looked back. The three men were running after them--not fast, seeming
content merely to keep their distance. The Very Young Man laughed. "Wait
till they see us get big. Fine chance they've got."
Aura, her lithe, young body in perfect condition, ran lightly and easily
as a fawn. She made a pretty picture as she ran, with her long, black
hair streaming out behind her, and the short silk tunic flapping about
her lean, round thighs. She still held the Very Young Man by the hand,
running just in advance of him, guiding him through the streets, which
in this part of the city were more broken up and irregular.
They had not gone more than a hundred yards when the pavement began to
move unsteadily under them, as the deck of a plunging ship feels to one
who runs its length, and the houses they were swiftly passing began
visibly to decrease in size. The Very Young Man felt the girl falter in
her stride. He dropped her hand and slipped his arm about her waist,
holding her other hand against it. She smiled up into his eyes, and thus
they ran on, side by side.
A few moments more and they were in the open country, running on a road
that wound through the hills, between cultivated fields dotted here and
there with houses. The landscape dwindled beneath them steadily, until
they seemed to be running along a narrow, curving path, bordered by
little patches of different-colored ground, like a checkerboard. The
houses they passed now hardly reached as high as their knees. Sometimes
peasants stood in the doorways of these houses watching them in terror.
Occasionally they passed a farmer ploughing his field, who stopped his
work, stricken dumb, and stared at them as they went swiftly by.
When they were well out into the country, perhaps a quarter of the way
to Orlog--for to beings so huge as they the distance was not great--the
Very Young Man slowed down to a walk.
"How far have we gone?" he asked.
Aura stopped abruptly and looked around her. They seemed now to be at
the bottom of a huge, circular, shallow bowl. In every direction from
where they stood the land curved upward towards the rim of the bowl that
was the horizon--a line, not sharp and well defined, but dim and hazy,
melting away into the blackness of the star-studded sky. Behind them,
hardly more than a mile away, according to their present stature--they
had stopped growing entirely now--lay the city of Arite. They could see
completely across it and out into the country beyond.
The lake, with whose shore they had been running parallel, was much
closer to them. Ahead, up near the rim of the horizon, lay a black
smudge. Aura pointed. "Orlog is there," she said. "You see it?"
To the Very Young Man suddenly came the realization that already he was
facing the problem of how to get into Orlog unheralded. If they remained
in their present size they could easily walk there in an hour or less.
But long before that they would be seen and recognized.
The Very Young Man feared for Loto's safety if he allowed that to
happen. He seemed to be able to make out the city of Orlog now. It was
smaller than Arite, and lay partially behind a hill, with most of its
houses strung along the lake shore. If only they were not so tall they
could not be seen so readily. But if they became smaller it would take
them much longer to get there. And eventually they would have to become
normal Oroid size, or even smaller, in order to get into the city
unnoticed. The Very Young Man thought of the lake. Perhaps that would be
the best way.
"Can you swim?" he asked. And Aura, with her ready smile, answered that
she could. "If we are in the water," she added, seeming to have followed
his thoughts, "they would not see us. I can swim very far--can you?"
The Very Young Man nodded.
"If we could get near to Orlog in the water," he said, "we might get a
boat. And then when we were small, we could sail up. They wouldn't see
us then."
"There are many boats," answered the girl in agreement. "Look!"
There were, indeed, on the lake, within sight of them now, several
boats. "We must get the one nearest Orlog," the Very Young Man said. "Or
else it will beat us in and carry the news."
In a few minutes more they were at the lake shore. The Very Young Man
wore, underneath his robe, a close-fitting knitted garment very much
like a bathing-suit. He took off his robe now, and rolling it up, tied
it across his back with the cord he had worn around his waist. Aura's
tunic was too short to impede her swimming and when the Very Young Man
was ready, they waded out into the water together. They found the lake
no deeper than to Aura's shoulders, but as it was easier to swim than to
wade, they began swimming--away from shore towards the farthest boat
that evidently was headed for Orlog.
The Very Young Man thought with satisfaction that, with only their heads
visible, huge as they would appear, they could probably reach this boat
without being seen by any one in Orlog. The boat was perhaps a quarter
of a mile from them--a tiny little toy vessel, it seemed, that they
never would have seen except for its sail.
They came up to it rapidly, for they were swimming very much faster than
it could sail, passing close to one of the others and nearly swamping it
by the waves they made. As they neared the boat they were pursuing--it
was different from any the Very Young Man had seen so far, a single,
canoe-shaped hull, with out-riders on both sides--they could see it held
but a single occupant, a man who sat in its stern--a figure about as
long as one of the Very Young Man's fingers.
The Very Young Man and Aura were swimming side by side, now. The water
was perfect in temperature--neither too hot nor too cold; they had not
been swimming fast, and were not winded.
"We've got him, what'll we do with him," the Very Young Man wanted to
know in dismay, as the thought occurred to him. He might have been more
puzzled at how to take the drug to make them smaller while they were
swimming, but Aura's answer solved both problems.
"There is an island," she said flinging an arm up out of the water. "We
can push the boat to it, and him we can leave there. Is that not the
thing to do?"
"You bet your life," the Very Young Man agreed, enthusiastically.
"That's just the thing to do."
As they came within reach of the boat the Very Young Man stopped
swimming and found that the water was not much deeper than his waist.
The man in the boat appeared now about to throw himself into the lake
from fright.
"Tell him, Aura," the Very Young Man said. "We won't hurt him."
Wading through the water, they pushed the boat with its terrified
occupant carefully in front of them towards the island, which was not
more than two or three hundred yards away. The Very Young Man found this
rather slow work; becoming impatient, he seized the boat in his hand,
pinning the man against its seat with his forefinger so he would not
fall out. Then raising the boat out of the water over his head he waded
forward much more rapidly.
The island, which they reached in a few moments more, was circular in
shape, and about fifty feet in diameter. It had a beach entirely around
it; a hill perhaps ten feet high rose near its center, and at one end it
was heavily wooded. There were no houses to be seen.
The Very Young Man set the boat back on the water, and they pushed it up
on the beach. When it grounded the tiny man leaped out and ran swiftly
along the sand. The Very Young Man and Aura laughed heartily as they
stood ankle-deep in the water beside the boat, watching him. For nearly
five minutes he ran; then suddenly he ducked inland and disappeared in
the woods.
When they were left alone they lost no time in becoming normal Oroid
size. The boat now appeared about twenty-five feet long--a narrow,
canoe-shaped hull hollowed out of a tree-trunk. They climbed into it,
and with a long pole they found lying in its bottom, the Very Young Man
shoved it off the beach.
CHAPTER XXX
WORD MUSIC
The boat had a mast stepped near the bow, and a triangular cloth sail.
The Very Young Man sat in the stern, steering with a short, broad-bladed
paddle; Aura lay on a pile of rushes in the bottom of the boat, looking
up at him.
For about half a mile the Very Young Man sailed along parallel with the
beach, looking for the man they had marooned. He was nowhere in sight,
and they finally headed out into the lake towards Orlog, which they
could just see dimly on the further shore.
The breeze was fresh, and they made good time. The boat steered easily,
and the Very Young Man, reclining on one elbow, with Aura at his feet,
felt at peace with himself and with the world. Again he thought this
girl the prettiest he had ever seen. There was something, too, of a
spiritual quality in the delicate smallness of her features--a sweetness
of expression in her quick, understanding smile, and an honest clearness
in her steady gaze that somehow he seemed never to have seen in a girl's
face before.
He felt again, now that he had time to think more of her, that same old
diffidence that had come to him before when they were alone in the
storeroom of her home. That she did not share this feeling was obvious
from the frankness and ease of her manner.
For some time after leaving the island neither spoke. The Very Young Man
felt the girl's eyes fixed almost constantly upon him--a calm gaze that
held in it a great curiosity and wonderment. He steered steadily onward
towards Orlog. There was, for the moment, nothing to discuss concerning
their adventure, and he wondered what he should say to this girl who
stared at him so frankly. Then he met her eyes, and again she smiled
with that perfect sense of comradeship he had so seldom felt with women
of his own race.
"You're very beautiful," said the Very Young Man abruptly.
The girl's eyes widened a little, but she did not drop her lashes. "I
want to be beautiful; if you think it is so, I am very glad."
"I do. I think you're the prettiest girl I ever saw." He blurted out the
words impetuously. He was very earnest, very sincere, and very young.
A trace of coquetry came into the girl's manner. "Prettier than the
girls of your world? Are they not pretty?"
"Oh, yes--of course; but----"
"What?" she asked when he paused.
The Very Young Man considered a moment. "You're--you're different," he
said finally. She waited. "You--you don't know how to flirt, for one
thing."
The girl turned her head away and looked at him a little sidewise
through lowered lashes.
"How do you know that?" she asked demurely; and the Very Young Man
admitted to himself with a shock of surprise that he certainly was
totally wrong in that deduction at least.
"Tell me of the girls in your world," she went on after a moment's
silence. "My sister's husband many times he has told me of the wonderful
things up there in that great land. But more I would like to hear."
He told her, with an eloquence and enthusiasm born of youth, about his
own life and those of his people. She questioned eagerly and with an
intelligence that surprised him, for she knew far more of the subject
than he realized.
"These girls of your country," she interrupted him once. "They, too, are
very beautiful; they wear fine clothes--I know--my brother he has told
me."
"Yes," said the Very Young Man.
"And are they very learned--very clever--do they work and govern, like
the men?"
"Some are very learned. And they are beginning to govern, like the men;
but not so much as you do here."
The girl's forehead wrinkled. "My brother he once told me," she said
slowly, "that in your world many women are bad. Is that so?"
"Some are, of course. And some men think that most are. But I don't; I
think women are splendid."
"If that is so, then better I can understand what I have heard," the
girl answered thoughtfully. "If Oroid women were as I have heard my
brother talk of some of yours, this world of ours would soon be full of
evil."
"You are different," the Very Young Man said quickly. "You--and Lylda."
"The women here, they have kept the evil out of life," the girl went on.
"It is their duty--their responsibility to their race. Your good
women--they have not always governed as we have. Why is that?"
"I do not know," the Very Young Man admitted. "Except because the men
would not let them."
"Why not, if they are just as learned as the men?" The girl was
smiling--a little roguish, twisted smile.
"There are very clever girls," the Very Young Man went on hastily; he
found himself a little on the defensive, and he did not know just why.
"They are able to do things in the world. But--many men do not like
them."
Aura was smiling openly now, and her eyes twinkled with mischief.
"Perhaps it is the men are jealous. Could that not be so?"
The Very Young Man did not answer, and the girl went on more seriously.
"The women of my race, they are very just. Perhaps you know that, Jack.
Often has my brother told us of his own great world and of its problems.
And the many things he has told us--Lylda and I--we have often wondered.
For every question has its other side, and we cannot judge--from him
alone."
The Very Young Man, surprised at the turn their conversation had taken,
and confused a little by this calm logic from a girl--particularly from
so young and pretty a girl--was at a loss how to go on.
"You cannot understand, Aura," he finally said seriously. "Women may be
all kinds; some are bad--some are good. Down here I know it is not that
way. Sometimes when a girl is smart she thinks she is smarter than any
living man. You would not like that sort of girl would you?"
"My brother never said it just that way," she answered with equal
seriousness. "No, that would be bad--very bad. In our land women are
only different from men. They know they are not better or worse--only
different."
The Very Young Man was thinking of a girl he once knew. "I hate clever
girls," he blurted out.
Aura's eyes were teasing him again. "I am so sorry," she said sadly.
The Very Young Man looked his surprise. "Why are you sorry?"
"My sister, she once told me I was clever. My brother said it, too, and
I believed them."
The Very Young Man flushed.
"You're different," he repeated.
"How--different?" She was looking at him sidewise again.
"I don't know; I've been trying to think--but you are. And I don't hate
you--I like you--very, very much."
"I like you, too," she answered frankly, and the Very Young Man thought
of Loto as she said it. He was leaning down towards her, and their hands
met for an instant.
The Very Young Man had spread his robe out to dry when he first got into
the boat, and now he put it on while Aura steered. Then he sat beside
her on the seat, taking the paddle again.
"Do you go often to the theater?" she asked after a time.
"Oh, yes, often."
"Nothing like that do we have here," she added, a little wistfully.
"Only once, when we played a game in the field beyond my brother's home.
Lylda was the queen and I her lady. And do you go to the opera, too? My
brother he has told me of the opera. How wonderful must that be! So
beautiful--more beautiful even it must be than Lylda's music. But never
shall it be for me." She smiled sadly: "Never shall I be able to hear
it."
An eager contradiction sprang to the Very Young Man's lips, but the girl
shook her head quietly.
For several minutes they did not speak. The wind behind them blew the
girl's long hair forward over her shoulders. A lock of it fell upon the
Very Young Man's hand as it lay on the seat between them, and unseen he
twisted it about his fingers. The wind against his neck felt warm and
pleasant; the murmur of the water flowing past sounded low and sweet and
soothing. Overhead the stars hung very big and bright. It was like
sailing on a perfect night in his own world. He was very conscious of
the girl's nearness now--conscious of the clinging softness of her hair
about his fingers. And all at once he found himself softly quoting some
half-forgotten lines:
"If I were king, ah, love! If I were king
What tributary nations I would bring
To bow before your scepter and to swear
Allegiance to your lips and eyes and hair."
Aura's questioning glance of surprise brought him to himself. "That is
so pretty--what is that?" she asked eagerly. "Never have I heard one
speak like that before."
"Why, that's poetry; haven't you ever heard any poetry?"
The girl shook her head. "It's just like music--it sings. Do it again."
The Very Young Man suddenly felt very self-conscious.
"Do it again--please." She looked pleadingly up into his face and the
Very Young Man went on:
"Beneath your feet what treasures I would fling!
The stars would be your pearls upon a string;
The world a ruby for your finger-ring;
And you could have the sun and moon to wear
If I were king."
The girl clapped her hands artlessly. "Oh, that is so pretty. Never did
I know that words could sound like that. Say it some more, please."
And the Very Young Man, sitting under the stars beside this beautiful
little creature of another world, searched into his memory and for her
who never before had known that words could rhyme, opened up the realm
of poetry.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE PALACE OF ORLOG
Engrossed with each other the Very Young Man and Aura sailed close up to
the water-front of Orlog before they remembered their situation. It was
the Very Young Man who first became aware of the danger. Without
explanation he suddenly pulled Aura into the bottom of the boat, leaving
it to flutter up into the wind unguided.
"They might see us from here," he said hurriedly. "We must decide what
is best for us to do now."
They were then less than a quarter of a mile from the stone quay that
marked the city's principal landing-place. Nearer to them was a broad,
sandy beach behind which, in a long string along the lake shore, lay the
city. Its houses were not unlike those of Arite, although most of them
were rather smaller and less pretentious. On a rise of ground just
beyond the beach, and nearly in front of them, stood an elaborate
building that was Targo's palace.
"We daren't go much closer," the Very Young Man said. "They'd recognize
us."
"You they would know for one of the strangers," said Aura. "But if I
should steer and you were hidden no one would notice."
The Very Young Man realized a difficulty. "We've got to be very small
when we go into the city."
"How small would you think?" asked Aura.
The Very Young Man held his hands about a foot apart. "You see, the
trouble is, we must be small enough to get around without too much
danger of being seen; but if we get too small it would be a terrible
walk up there to Targo's palace."
"We cannot sail this boat if we are such a size," Aura declared. "Too
large it would be for us to steer."
"That's just it, but we can't go any closer this way."
Aura thought a moment. "If you lie there," she indicated the bottom of
the boat under a forward seat, "no one can see. And I will steer--there
to the beach ahead; me they will not notice. Then at the beach we will
take the drug."
"We've got to take a chance," said the Very Young Man. "Some one may
come along and see us getting small."
They talked it over very carefully for some time. Finally they decided
to follow Aura's plan and run the boat to the beach under her guidance;
then to take the drug. There were few people around the lake front at
this hour; the beach itself, as far as they could see, was entirely
deserted, and the danger of discovery seemed slight. Aura pointed out,
however, that once on shore, if their stature were so great as a foot
they would be even more conspicuous than when of normal size even
allowing for the strangeness of the Very Young Man's appearance. The
Very Young Man made a calculation and reached the conclusion that with a
height of six or seven inches they would have to walk about a mile from
the landing-place to reach Targo's palace. They decided to become as
near that size as they conveniently could.
When both fully understood what they intended to do, the Very Young Man
gave Aura one of the pellets of the drug and lay down in the bow of the
boat. Without a word the girl took her seat in the stern and steered for
the beach. When they were close inshore Aura signalled her companion and
at the same moment both took the drug. Then she left her seat and lay
down beside the Very Young Man. The boat, from the momentum it had
gained, floated inshore and grounded gently on the beach.
As they lay there, the Very Young Man could see the sides of the boat
growing up steadily above their heads. The gunwale was nearly six feet
above them before he realized a new danger. Scrambling to his feet he
pulled the girl up with him; even when standing upright their heads came
below the sides of the vessel.
"We've got to get out right now," the Very Young Man said in an excited
whisper. "We'd be too small." He led the girl hastily into the bow and
with a running leap clambered up and sat astride the gunwale. Then,
reaching down he pulled Aura up beside him.
In a moment they had dropped overboard up to their shoulders in the
water. High overhead loomed the hull of the boat--a large sailing vessel
it seemed to them now. They started wading towards shore immediately,
but, because they were so rapidly diminishing in size, it was nearly
five minutes before they could get there.
Once on shore they lay prone upon the sand, waiting for the drug to
cease its action. When, by proper administering of both chemicals, they
had reached approximately their predetermined stature, which, in itself,
required considerable calculation on the Very Young Man's part, they
stood up near the water's edge and looked about them.
The beach to them now, with its coarse-grained sand, seemed nearly a
quarter of a mile wide; in length it extended as far as they could see
in both directions. Beyond the beach, directly in front of them on a
hill perhaps a thousand feet above the lake level, and about a mile or
more away, stood Targo's palace. To the Very Young Man it looked far
larger than any building he had ever seen.
The boat in which they had landed lay on the water with its bow on the
beach beside them. It was now a vessel some two hundred and fifty feet
in length, with sides twenty feet high and a mast towering over a
hundred feet in the air.
There was no one in sight from where they stood. "Come on, Aura," said
the Very Young Man, and started off across the beach towards the hill.
It was a long walk through the heavy sand to the foot of the hill. When
they arrived they found themselves at the beginning of a broad stone
roadway--only a path to those of normal Oroid size--that wound back and
forth up the hill to the palace. They walked up this road, and as they
progressed, saw that it was laid through a grassy lawn that covered the
entire hillside--a lawn with gray-blue blades of grass half as high as
their bodies.
After walking about ten minutes they came to a short flight of steps.
Each step was twice as high as their heads--impossible of ascent--so
they made a detour through the grass.
Suddenly Aura clutched the Very Young Man by the arm with a whispered
exclamation, and they both dropped to the ground. A man was coming down
the roadway; he was just above the steps when they first saw him--a man
so tall that, standing beside him, they would have reached hardly above
his ankles. The long grass in which they were lying hid them effectually
from his sight and he passed them by unnoticed. When he was gone the
Very Young Man drew a long breath. "We must watch that," he said
apprehensively. "If any one sees us now it's all off. We must be
extremely careful."
It took the two adventurers over an hour to get safely up the hill and
into the palace. Its main entrance, approached by a long flight of
steps, was an impossible means of ingress, but Aura fortunately knew of
a smaller door at the side which led into the basement of the building.
This door they found slightly ajar. It was open so little, however, that
they could not get past, and as they were not strong enough even with
their combined efforts, to swing the door open, they were again brought
to a halt.
"We'd better get still smaller," the Very Young Man whispered somewhat
nervously. "There's less danger that way."
They reduced their size, perhaps one half, and when that was
accomplished the crack in the door had widened sufficiently to let them
in. Within the building they found themselves in a hallway several
hundred feet wide and half a mile or more in length--its ceiling high as
the roof of some great auditorium. The Very Young Man looked about in
dismay. "Great Scott," he ejaculated, "this won't do at all."
"Many times I have been here," said Aura. "It looks so very different
now, but I think I know the way."
"That may be," agreed the Very Young Man dubiously, "but we'd have to
walk miles if we stay as small as this."
A heavy tread sounded far away in the distance. The Very Young Man and
Aura shrank back against the wall, close by the door. In a moment a
man's feet and the lower part of his legs came into view. He stopped by
the door, pulling it inward. The Very Young Man looked up into the air;
a hundred and fifty feet, perhaps, above their heads he saw the man's
face looking out through the doorway.
In a moment another man joined him, coming from outside, and they spoke
together for a time. Their roaring voices, coming down from this great
height, were nevertheless distinctly audible.
"In the audience room," Aura whispered, after listening an instant,
"Targo's younger brother talks with his counsellors. Big things they are
planning." The Very Young Man did not answer; the two men continued
their brief conversation and parted.
When the Very Young Man and Aura were left alone, he turned to the girl
eagerly. "Did they mention Loto? Is he here?"
"Of him they did not speak," Aura answered. "It is best that we go to
the audience room, where they are talking. Then, perhaps, we will know."
The Very Young Man agreed, and they started off.
For nearly half an hour they trudged onward along this seemingly endless
hallway. Then again they were confronted with a flight of steps--this
time steps that were each more than three times their own height.
"We've got to chance it," said the Very Young Man, and after listening
carefully and hearing no one about, they again took the drug, making
themselves sufficiently large to ascend these steps to the upper story
of the building.
It was nearly an hour before the two intruders, after several narrow
escapes from discovery, and by alternating doses of both drugs,
succeeded in getting into the room where Targo's brother and his
advisers were in conference.
They entered through the open door--a doorway so wide that a hundred
like them could have marched through it abreast. A thousand feet away
across the vastness of the room they could see Targo's brother and ten
of his men--sitting on mats upon the floor, talking earnestly. Before
them stood a stone bench on which were a number of golden goblets and
plates of food.
The adventurers ran swiftly down the length of the room, following its
wall. It echoed with their footfalls, but they knew that this sound, so
loud to their ears, would be inaudible to the huge figures they were
approaching.
"They won't see us," whispered the Very Young Man, "let's get up close."
And in a few moments more they were standing beside one of the figures,
sheltered from sight by a corner of the mat upon which the man was
sitting. His foot, bent sidewise under him upon the floor, was almost
within reach of the Very Young Man's hand. The fibre thong that fastened
its sandal looked like a huge rope thick as the Very Young Man's ankle,
and each of its toes were half as long as his entire body.
Targo's brother, a younger man than those with him, appeared to be doing
most of the talking. He it was beside whom Aura and the Very Young Man
were standing.
"You tell me if they mention Loto," whispered the Very Young Man. Aura
nodded and they stood silent, listening. The men all appeared deeply
engrossed with what their leader was saying. The Very Young Man,
watching his companion's face, saw an expression of concern and fear
upon it. She leaned towards him.
"In Arite, to-night," she whispered, "Targo is organizing men to attack
the palace of the king. Him will they kill--then Targo will be
proclaimed leader of all the Oroid nation."
"We must get back," the Very Young Man answered in an anxious whisper.
"I wish we knew where Loto was; haven't they mentioned him--or any of
us?"
Aura did not reply, and the Very Young Man waited silent. Once one of
the men laughed--a laugh that drifted out into the immense distances of
the room in great waves of sound. Aura gripped her companion by the arm.
"Then when Targo rules the land, they will send a messenger to my
brother. Him they will tell that the drugs must be given to Targo, or
Loto will be killed--wait--when they have the drugs," Aura translated in
a swift, tense whisper, "then all of us they will kill." She shuddered.
"And with the drugs they will rule as they desire--for evil."
"They'll never get them," the Very Young Man muttered.
Targo's brother leaned forward and raised a goblet from the table. The
movement of his foot upon the floor made the two eavesdroppers jump
aside to avoid being struck.
Again Aura grasped her companion by the arm. "He is saying Loto is
upstairs," she whispered after a moment. "I know where."
"I knew it," said the Very Young Man exultingly. "You take us there.
Come on--let's get out of here--we mustn't waste a minute."
They started back towards the wall nearest them--some fifty feet
away--and following along its edge, ran down towards the doorway through
which they had entered the room. They were still perhaps a hundred yards
away from it, running swiftly, when there appeared in the doorway the
feet and legs of two men who were coming in. The Very Young Man and Aura
stopped abruptly, shrinking up against the side of the wall. Then there
came a heavy metallic clanging sound; the two men entered the room,
closing the door.
CHAPTER XXXII
AN ANT-HILL OUTRAGED
"We'll have to get smaller," said the Doctor.
"There's Rogers' house."
They had been walking along the beach from the king's palace hardly more
than a hundred yards. The Doctor and the Big Business Man were in front,
and Oteo, wide-eyed and solemn, was close behind them.
The Doctor was pointing down at the ground a few feet ahead. There, at a
height just above their ankles, stood the Chemist's house--a little
building whose roof did not reach more than half-way to their knees,
even though it stood on higher ground than the beach upon which they
were walking. On the roof they could see two tiny figures--the Chemist
and Lylda--waving their arms.
The Big Business Man stopped short. "Now see here, Frank, let's
understand this. We've been fooling with this thing too damned long.
We've made a hell of a mess of it, you know that." He spoke
determinedly, with a profanity unusual with him. The Doctor did not
answer.
"We got here--yesterday. We found a peaceful world. Dissatisfaction in
it--yes. But certainly a more peaceful world than the one we left. We've
been here one day--one day, Frank, and now look at things. This child,
Loto--stolen. Jack disappeared--God knows what's happened to him. A
revolution--the whole place in an uproar. All in one day, since we took
our place in this world and tried to mix up in its affairs.
"It's time to call a halt, Frank. If only we can get Jack back. That's
the bad part--we've got to find Jack. And then get out; we don't belong
here anyway. It's nothing to us--why, man, look at it." He waved his arm
out over the city. In the street beside them they could see a number of
little figures no bigger than their fingers, staring up into the air.
"What is all that to us now, as we stand here. Nothing. Nothing but a
kid's toy; with little animated mannikins for a child to play with."
"We've got to find Jack," said the Doctor.
"Certainly we have--and then get out. We're only hurting these little
creatures, anyway, by being here."
"But there's Rogers and Lylda," added the Doctor. "And Loto and Lylda's
sister."
"Take them with us. They'll have to go--they can't stay here now. But we
must find Jack--that's the main thing."
"Look," the Doctor said, moving forward. "They're shouting to us."
They walked up and bent over the Chemist's house. Their friend was
making a funnel of his hands and trying to attract their attention. The
Big Business Man knelt upon the beach and put his head down beside the
house. "Make yourselves smaller," he heard the Chemist shouting in a
shrill little voice.
"We think it best not to. You must come up to us. Serious things have
happened. Take the drug now--then we'll tell you." The Big Business Man,
with his knees upon the beach, had one hand on the sand and the other at
the gate of Lylda's garden. His face was just above the roof-top.
The two little figures consulted a moment; then the Chemist shouted up,
"All right; wait," and he and Lylda disappeared into the house. A moment
afterwards they reappeared in the garden; Eena was with them. They
crossed the garden and turned into the street towards the flight of
steps that led down to the lake.
The Big Business Man had regained his feet and was standing ankle-deep
in the water talking to the Doctor when Oteo suddenly plucked at his
sleeve.
"The Master--" he cried. The youth was staring down into the street,
with a look of terror on his face. The Big Business Man followed the
direction of his glance; at the head of the steps a number of men had
rushed upon the Chemist and the two women, and were dragging them back
up the hill. The Big Business Man hesitated only a moment; then he
reached down and plucking a little figure from one of the struggling
groups, flung it back over his shoulder into the lake.
The other assailants did not run, as he had expected, so he gently pried
them apart with his fingers from their captives, and, one by one, flung
them into the air behind him. One who struck Lylda, he squashed upon the
flagstones of the street with his thumb.
Only one escaped. He had been holding Eena; when he saw he was the last,
he suddenly dropped his captive and ran shrieking up the hill into the
city.
The Big Business Man laughed grimly, and got upon his feet a little
unsteadily. His face was white.
"You see, Frank," he said, and his voice trembled a little. "Good God,
suppose we had been that size, too."
In a few moments more the Chemist, Lylda and Eena had taken the drug and
were as large as the others. All six stood in the water beside the
Chemist's house. The Chemist had not spoken while he was growing; now he
greeted his friends quietly. "A close call, gentlemen. I thank you." He
smiled approvingly at the Big Business Man.
Eena and Oteo stood apart from the others. The girl was obviously
terror-stricken by the experiences she had undergone. Oteo put his arm
across her shoulders, and spoke to her reassuringly.
"Where is Jack?" Lylda asked anxiously. "And my father--and Aura?" The
Big Business Man thought her face looked years older than when he had
last seen it. Her expression was set and stern, but her eyes stared into
his with a gentle, sorrowful gaze that belied the sternness of her lips.
They told her, as gently as they could, of the death of her father and
the disappearance of the Very Young Man, presumably with Aura. She bore
up bravely under the news of her father's death, standing with her hand
on her husband's arm, and her sorrowful eyes fixed upon the face of the
Big Business Man who haltingly told what had befallen them. When he came
to a description of the attack on the palace, the death of the king, and
the triumph of Targo, the Chemist raised his hands with a hopeless
gesture.
The Doctor put in: "It's a serious situation--most serious."
"There's only one thing we can do," the Big Business Man added quickly.
"We must find Jack and your sister," he addressed Lylda, whose eyes had
never left his face, "and then get out of this world as quickly as we
can--before we do it any more harm."
The Chemist began pacing up and down the strip of the beach. He had
evidently reached the same conclusion--that it was hopeless to continue
longer to cope with so desperate a situation. But he could not bring
himself so easily to a realization that his life in this world, of which
he had been so long virtually the leader, was at an end. He strode back
and forth thinking deeply; the water that he kicked idly splashed up
sometimes over the houses of the tiny city at his side.
The Big Business Man went on, "It's the only way--the best way for all
of us and for this little world, too."
"The best way for you--and you." Lylda spoke softly and with a sweet,
gentle sadness. "It is best for you, my friends. But for me----" She
shook her head.
The Big Business Man laid his hands gently on her shoulders. "Best for
you, too, little woman. And for these people you love so well. Believe
me--it is."
The Chemist paused in his walk. "Probably Aura and Jack are together. No
harm has come to them so far--that's certain. If his situation were
desperate he would have made himself as large as we are and we would see
him."
"If he got the chance," the Doctor murmured.
"Certainly he has not been killed or captured," the Chemist reasoned,
"for we would have other giants to face immediately that happened."
"Perhaps he took the girl with him and started off to Orlog to find
Loto," suggested the Doctor. "That crazy boy might do anything."
"He should be back by now, even if he had," said the Big Business Man.
"I don't see how anything could happen to him--having those----" He
stopped abruptly.
While they had been talking a crowd of little people had gathered in the
city beside them--a crowd that thronged the street before the Chemist's
house, filled the open space across from it and overflowed down the
steps leading to the beach. It was uncanny, standing there, to see these
swarming little creatures, like ants whose hill had been desecrated by
the foot of some stray passer-by. They were enraged, and with an ant's
unreasoning, desperate courage they were ready to fight and to die,
against an enemy irresistibly strong.
"Good God, look at them," murmured the Big Business Man in awe.
The steps leading to the beach were black with them now--a swaying,
struggling mass of little human forms, men and women, hardly a finger's
length in height, coming down in a steady stream and swarming out upon
the beach. In a few moments the sand was black with them, and always
more appeared in the city above to take their places.
The Big Business Man felt a sharp sting in his foot above the sandal.
One of the tiny figures was clinging to its string and sticking a sword
into his flesh. Involuntarily he kicked; a hundred of the little
creatures were swept aside, and when he put his foot back upon the sand
he could feel them smash under his tread. Their faint, shrill, squeaking
shrieks had a ghostly semblance to human voices, and he turned suddenly
sick and faint.
Then he glanced at Lylda's face; it bore an expression of sorrow and of
horror that made him shudder. To him at first these had been savage,
vicious little insects, annoying, but harmless enough if one kept upon
one's feet; but to her, he knew, they were men and women--misguided,
frenzied--but human, thinking beings like herself. And he found himself
wondering, vaguely, what he should do to repel them.
The attack was so unexpected, and came so quickly that the giants had
stood motionless, watching it with awe. Before they realized their
situation the sand was so crowded with the struggling little figures
that none of them could stir without trampling upon scores.
Oteo and Eena, standing ankle-deep in the water, were unattacked, and at
a word from the Chemist the others joined them, leaving little heaps of
mangled human forms upon the beach where they had trod.
All except Lylda. She stood her ground--her face bloodless, her eyes
filled with tears. Her feet were covered now; her ankles bleeding from a
dozen tiny knives hacking at her flesh. The Chemist called her to him,
but she only raised her arms with a gesture of appeal.
"Oh, my husband," she cried. "Please, I must. Let me take the drug now
and grow small--like them. Then will they see we mean them no harm. And
I shall tell them we are their friends--and you, the Master, mean only
good----"
The Big Business Man started forward. "They'll kill her. God,
that's----" But the Chemist held them back.
"Not now, Lylda," he said gently. "Not now. Don't you see? There's
nothing you can do; it's too late now." He met her gaze unyielding. For
a moment she stared; then her figure swayed and with a low sob she
dropped in a heap upon the sand.
As Lylda fell, the Chemist leaped forward, the other three men at his
side. A strident cry came up from the swarming multitude, and in an
instant hundreds of them were upon her, climbing over her and thrusting
their swords into her body.
The Chemist and the Big Business Man picked her up and carried her into
the water, brushing off the fighting little figures that still clung to
her. There they laid her down, her head supported by Eena, who knelt in
the water beside her mistress.
The multitude on the sand crowded up to the water's edge; hundreds,
forced forward by the pressure of those behind, plunged in, swam about,
or sank and were rolled back by the surf, lifeless upon the shore. The
beach crawled with their struggling forms, only the spot where Lylda had
fallen was black and still.
"She's all right," said the Doctor after a moment, bending over Lylda. A
cry from Oteo made him straighten up quickly. Out over the horizon,
towards Orlog, there appeared the dim shape of a gigantic human form,
and behind it others, faint and blurred against the stars!
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE RESCUE OF LOTO
The Very Young Man heard the clang of the closing door with sinking
heart. The two newcomers, passing close to him and Aura as they stood
shrinking up against the wall, joined their friends at the table. The
Very Young Man turned to Aura with a solemn face.
"Are there any other doors?" he asked.
The girl pointed. "One other, there--but see, it, too, is closed."
Far across the room the Very Young Man could make out a heavy metal door
similar to that through which they had entered. It was closed--he could
see that plainly. And to open it--so huge a door that its great golden
handle hung nearly a hundred feet above them--was an utter
impossibility.
The Very Young Man looked at the windows. There were four of them, all
on one side of the room--enormous curtained apertures, two hundred feet
in length and half as broad--but none came even within fifty feet of the
floor. The Very Young Man realized with dismay that there was apparently
no way of escape out of the room.
"We can't get out, Aura," he said, and in spite of him his voice
trembled. "There's no way."
The girl had no answer but a quiet nod of agreement. Her face was
serious, but there was on it no sign of panic. The Very Young Man
hesitated a moment; then he started off down the room towards one of the
doors, with Aura close at his side.
They could not get out in their present size, he knew. Nor would they
dare make themselves sufficiently large to open the door, or climb
through one of the windows, even if the room had been nearer the ground
than it actually was. Long before they could escape they would be
discovered and seized.
The Very Young Man tried to think it out clearly. He knew, except for a
possible accident, or a miscalculation on his part, that they were in no
real danger. But he did not want to make a false move, and now for the
first time he realized his responsibility to Aura, and began to regret
the rashness of his undertaking.
They could wait, of course, until the conference was over, and then slip
out unnoticed. But the Very Young Man felt that the chances of their
rescuing Loto were greater now than they would be probably at any time
in the future. They must get out now, he was convinced of that. But how?
They were at the door in a moment more. Standing so close it seemed,
now, a tremendous shaggy walling of shining metal. They walked its
length, and then suddenly the Very Young Man had an idea. He threw
himself face down upon the floor. Underneath the door's lower edge there
was a tiny crack. To one of normal Oroid size it would have been
unnoticeable--a space hardly so great as the thickness of a thin sheet
of paper. But the Very Young Man could see it plainly; he gauged its
size by slipping the edge of his robe into it.
This crack was formed by the bottom of the door and the level surface of
the floor; there was no sill. The door was perfectly hung, for the crack
seemed to be of uniform size. The Very Young Man showed it to Aura.
"There's the way out," he whispered. "Through there and then large again
on the other side."
He made his calculation of size carefully, and then, crushing one of the
pills into powder, divided a portion of it between himself and the girl.
Aura seemed tired and the drug made her very dizzy. They both sat upon
the stone floor, close up to the door, and closed their eyes. When, by
the feeling of the floor beneath them, they knew the action of the drug
was over, they stood up unsteadily and looked around them.
They now found themselves standing upon a great stone plain. The ground
beneath their feet was rough, but as far away as they could see, out up
to the horizon, it was mathematically level. This great expanse was
empty except in one place; over to the right there appeared a huge,
irregular, blurred mass that might have been, by its look, a range of
mountains. But the mass moved as they stared at it, and the Very Young
Man knew it was the nearest one of Targo's men, sitting beside the
table.
In the opposite direction, perhaps a hundred yards away from where they
were standing, they could see the bottom of the door. It hung in the air
some fifty feet above the surface of the ground. They walked over and
stood underneath; like a great roof it spread over them--a flat, level
surface parallel with the floor beneath.
At this extraordinary change in their surroundings Aura seemed
frightened, but seeing the matter-of-fact way in which her companion
acted, she maintained her composure and soon was much interested in this
new aspect of things. The Very Young Man took a last careful look around
and then, holding Aura by the hand, started to cross under the door in a
direction he judged to be at right angles to its length.
They walked swiftly, trying to keep their sense of direction, but having
no means of knowing whether they were doing so or not. For perhaps ten
minutes they walked; then they emerged on the other side of the door and
again faced a great level, empty expanse.
"We're under," the Very Young Man remarked with relief. "Do you know
where Loto is from here?"
Aura had recovered her self-possession sufficiently to smile.
"I might, perhaps," she answered, with a pretty little shrug. "But it's
a long way, don't you think? A hundred miles, it may be?"
"We get large here," said the Very Young Man, with an answering smile.
He was greatly relieved to be outside the audience room; the way seemed
easy before them now.
They took the opposite drug, and after several successive changes of
size, succeeded in locating the upper room in the palace in which Loto
was held. At this time they were about the same relative size to their
enemies as when they entered the audience chamber on the floor below.
"That must be it," the Very Young Man whispered, as they cautiously
turned a hallway corner. A short distance beyond, in front of a closed
door, sat two guards.
"That is the room of which they spoke," Aura answered. "Only one door
there is, I think."
"That's all right," said the Very Young Man confidently. "We'll do the
same thing--go under the door."
They went close up to the guards, who were sitting upon the floor
playing some sort of a game with little golden balls. This door, like
the other, had a space beneath it, rather wider than the other, and in
ten minutes more the Very Young Man and Aura were beneath it, and inside
the room.
As they grew larger again the Very Young Man at first thought the room
was empty. "There he is," cried Aura happily. The Very Young Man looked
and could see across the still huge room, the figure of Loto, standing
at a window opening.
"Don't let him see us till we're his size," cautioned the Very Young
Man. "It might frighten him. And if he made any noise----" He looked at
the door behind them significantly.
Aura nodded eagerly; her face was radiant. Steadily larger they grew.
Loto did not turn round, but stood quiet, looking out of the window.
They crept up close behind him, and when they were normal size Aura
whispered his name softly. The boy turned in surprise and she faced him
with a warning finger on her lips. He gave a low, happy little cry, and
in another instant was in her arms, sobbing as she held him close to her
breast.
The Very Young Man's eyes grew moist as he watched them, and heard the
soft Oroid words of endearment they whispered to each other. He put his
arms around them, too, and all at once he felt very big and very strong
beside these two delicate, graceful little creatures of whom he was
protector.
A noise in the hallway outside brought the Very Young Man to himself.
"We must get out," he said swiftly. "There's no time to lose." He went
to the window; it faced the city, fifty feet or more above the ground.
The Very Young Man make a quick decision. "If we go out the way we came,
it will take a very long time," he explained. "And we might be seen. I
think we'd better take the quick way; get big here--get right out," he
waved his hands towards the roof, "and make a run for it back to Arite."
He made another calculation. The room in which they were was on the top
floor of the palace; Aura had told him that. It was a room about fifty
feet in length, triangular in shape, and some thirty feet from floor to
ceiling. The Very Young Man estimated that when they had grown large
enough to fill the room, they could burst through the palace roof and
leap to the ground. Then in a short time they could run over the
country, back to Arite. He measured out the drug carefully, and without
hesitation his companions took what he gave them.
As they all three started growing--it was Loto's first experience, and
he gave an exclamation of fright at the sensation and threw his arms
around Aura again--the Very Young Man made them sit upon the floor near
the center of the room. He sat himself beside them, staring up at the
ceiling that was steadily folding up and coming down towards them. For
some time he stared, fascinated by its ceaseless movement.
Then suddenly he realized with a start that it was almost down upon
them. He put up his hand and touched it, and a thrill of fear ran over
him. He looked around. Beside him sat Aura and Loto, huddled close
together. The walls of the room had nearly closed in upon them now; its
few pieces of furniture had been pushed aside, unnoticed, by the growth
of their enormous bodies. It was as though they were crouching in a
triangular box, almost entirely filling it.
The Very Young Man laid his hand on Aura's arm, and she met his anxious
glance with her fearless, trusting smile.
"We'll have to break through the roof now," whispered the Very Young
Man, and the girl answered calmly: "What you say to do, we will do."
Their heads were bent down now by the ever-lowering ceiling; the Very
Young Man pressed his shoulder against it and heaved upwards. He could
feel the floor under him quiver and the roof give beneath his thrust,
but he did not break through. In sudden horror he wondered if he could.
If he did not, soon, they would be crushed to death by their own growth
within the room.
The Very Young Man knew there was still time to take the other drug. He
shoved again, but with the same result. Their bodies were bent double
now. The ceiling was pressing close upon them; the walls of the room
were at their elbow. The Very Young Man crooked his arm through the
little square orifice window that he found at his side, and, with a
signal to his companions, all three in unison heaved upwards with all
their strength. There came one agonizing instant of resistance; then
with a wrenching of wood, the clatter of falling stones and a sudden
crash, they burst through and straightened upright into the open air
above.
The Very Young Man sat still for a moment, breathing hard. Overhead
stretched the canopy of stars; around lay the city, shrunken now and
still steadily diminishing. Then he got unsteadily upon his feet,
pulling his companions up with him and shaking the bits of stone and
broken wood from him as he did so.
In a moment more the palace roof was down to their knees, and they
stepped out of the room. They heard a cry from below and saw the two
guards, standing amidst the debris, looking up at them through the torn
roof in fright and astonishment.
There came other shouts from within the palace now, and the sound of the
hurrying of many little feet. For some minutes more they grew larger, as
they stood upon the palace roof, clinging to one another and listening
to the spreading cries of excitement within the building and in the city
streets below them.
"Come on," said the Very Young Man finally, and he jumped off the roof
into the street. A group of little figures scattered as he landed, and
he narrowly escaped treading upon them.
So large had they grown that it was hardly more than a step down from
the roof; Aura and Loto were by the Very Young Man's side in a moment,
and immediately they started off, picking their way single file out of
the city. For a short time longer they continued growing; when they had
stopped the city houses stood hardly above their ankles.
It was difficult walking, for the street was narrow and the frightened
people in it were often unable to avoid their tread, but fortunately the
palace stood near the edge of the city, and soon they were past its last
houses and out into the open country.
"Well, we did it," said the Very Young Man, exulting. Then he patted
Loto affectionately upon the shoulder, adding. "Well, little brother, we
got you back, didn't we?"
Aura stopped suddenly. "Look there--at Arite," she said, pointing up at
the horizon ahead of them.
Far in the distance, at the edge of the lake, and beside a dim smudge he
knew to be the houses of Arite, the Very Young Man saw the giant figure
of a man, huge as himself, towering up against the background of sky.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE DECISION
"Giants!" exclaimed the Doctor, staring across the country towards
Orlog. There was dismay in his voice.
The Big Business Man, standing beside him, clutched at his robe. "How
many do you make out; they look like three to me."
The Doctor strained his eyes into the dim, luminous distance. "Three, I
think--one taller than the others; it must be Jack." His voice was a
little husky, and held none of the confidence his words were intended to
convey.
Lylda was upon her feet now, standing beside the Chemist. She stared
towards Orlog searchingly, then turned to him and said quietly, "It must
be Jack and Aura, with Loto." She stopped with quivering lips; then with
an obvious effort went on confidently. "It cannot be that the God you
believe in would let anything happen to them."
"They're coming this way--fast," said the Big Business Man. "We'll know
in a few moments."
The figures, plainly visible now against the starry background, were out
in the open country, half a mile perhaps from the lake, and were
evidently rapidly approaching Arite.
"If it should be Targo's men," the Big Business Man added, "we must take
more of the drug. It is death then for them or for us."
In silence the six of them stood ankle deep in the water waiting. The
multitude of little people on the beach and in the nearby city streets
were dispersing now. A steady stream was flowing up the steps from the
beach, and back into the city. Five minutes more and only a fringe of
those in whom frenzy still raged remained at the water's edge; a few of
these, more daring, or more unreasoning than the others, plunged into
the lake and swam about the giants' ankles unnoticed.
Suddenly Lylda gave a sigh of relief. "Aura it is," she cried. "Can you
not see, there at the left? Her short robe--you see--and her hair,
flowing down so long; no man is that."
"You're right," said the Big Business Man. "The smallest one on this
side is Loto; I can see him. And Jack is leading. It's all right;
they're safe. Thank God for that; they're safe, thank God!" The fervent
relief in his voice showed what a strain he had been under.
It was Jack; a moment more left no doubt of that. The Big Business Man
turned to the Chemist and Lylda, where they stood close together, and
laying a hand upon the shoulder of each said with deep feeling: "We have
all come through it safely, my friends. And now the way lies clear
before us. We must go back, out of this world, to which we have brought
only trouble. It is the only way; you must see that."
Lylda avoided his eyes.
"All through it safely," she murmured after him. "All safe
except--except my father." Her arm around the Chemist tightened. "All
safe--except those." She turned her big, sorrowful eyes towards the
beach, where a thousand little mangled figures lay dead and dying. "All
safe--except those."
It was only a short time before the adventurers from Orlog arrived, and
Loto was in his mother's arms. The Very Young Man, with mixed feelings
of pride at his exploit and relief at being freed from so grave a
responsibility, happily displayed Aura to his friends.
"Gosh, I'm glad we're all together again; it had me scared, that's a
fact." His eye fell upon the beach. "Great Scott, you've been having a
fight, too? Look at that." The Big Business Man and the Doctor outlined
briefly what had happened, and the Very Young Man answered in turn with
an account of his adventures.
Aura joined her sister and Loto. The Chemist after a moment stood apart
from the others thinking deeply. He had said little during all the
events of the afternoon and evening. Now he reached the inevitable
decision that events had forced upon him. His face was very serious as
he called his companions around him.
"We must decide at once," he began, looking from one to the other, "what
we are to do. Our situation here has become intolerable--desperate. I
agree with you," his glance rested on the Big Business Man an instant;
"by staying here we can only do harm to these misguided people."
"Of course," the Big Business Man interjected under his breath.
"If the drugs should ever get out of our possession down here,
immeasurable harm would result to this world, as well as causing our own
deaths. If we leave now, we save ourselves; although we leave the Oroids
ruled by Targo. But without the power of the drugs, he can do only
temporary harm. Eventually he will be overthrown. It is the best way, I
think. And I am ready to leave."
"It's the only way," the Big Business Man agreed. "Don't you think so?"
The Doctor and the Very Young Man both assented.
"The sooner the better," the Very Young Man added. He glanced at Aura,
and the thought that flashed into his mind made his heart jump
violently.
The Chemist turned to Lylda. "To leave your people," he said gently, "I
know how hard it is. But your way now lies with me--with us." He pulled
Loto up against him as he spoke.
Lylda bowed her head. "You speak true, my husband, my way does lie with
you. I cannot help the feeling that we should stay. But with you my way
does lie; whither you direct, we shall go--for ever."
The Chemist kissed her tenderly. "My sister also?" he smiled gently at
Aura.
"My way lies with you, too," the girl answered simply. "For no man here
has held my heart."
The Very Young Man stepped forward. "Do we take them with us?" He
indicated Oteo and Eena, who stood silently watching.
"Ask them, Lylda," said the Chemist.
Calling them to her, Lylda spoke to the youth and the girl in her native
tongue. They listened quietly; Oteo with an almost expressionless
stolidity of face, but with his soft, dog-like eyes fixed upon his
mistress; Eena with heaving breast and trembling limbs. When Lylda
paused they both fell upon their knees before her. She put her hands
upon their heads and smiling wistfully, said in English:
"So it shall be; with me you shall go, because that is what you wish."
The Very Young Man looked around at them all with satisfaction. "Then
it's all settled," he said, and again his glance fell on Aura. He
wondered why his heart was pounding so, and why he was so thrilled with
happiness; and he was glad he was able to speak in so matter-of-fact a
tone.
"I don't know how about you," he added, "but, Great Scott, I'm hungry."
"Since we have decided to go," the Chemist said, "we had better start as
soon as possible. Are there things in the house, Lylda, that you care to
take?"
Lylda shook her head. "Nothing can I take but memories of this world,
and those would I rather leave." She smiled sadly. "There are some
things I would wish to do--my father----"
"It might be dangerous to wait," the Big Business Man put in hurriedly.
"The sooner we start, the better. Another encounter would only mean more
death." He looked significantly at the beach.
"We've got to eat," said the Very Young Man.
"If we handle the drugs right," the Chemist said, "we can make the trip
out in a very short time. When we get above the forest and well on our
way we can rest safely. Let us start at once."
"We've got to eat," the Very Young Man insisted. "And we've got to have
food with us."
The Chemist smiled. "What you say is quite true, Jack, we have got to
have food and water; those are the only things necessary to our trip."
"We can make ourselves small now and have supper," suggested the Very
Young Man. "Then we can fill up the bottles for our belts and take
enough food for the trip."
"No, we won't," interposed the Big Business Man positively. "We won't
get small again. Something might happen. Once we get through the
tunnels----" He stopped abruptly.
"Great Scott! We never thought of that," ejaculated the Very Young Man,
as the same thought occurred to him. "We'll have to get small to get
through the tunnels. Suppose there's a mob there that won't let us in?"
"Is there any other way up to the forest?" the Doctor asked.
The Chemist shook his head. "There are a dozen different tunnels, all
near here, and several at Orlog, that all lead to the upper surface. But
I think that is the only way."
"They might try to stop us," the Big Business Man suggested. "We
certainly had better get through them as quickly as we possibly can."
It was Aura who diffidently suggested the plan they finally adopted.
They all reduced their size first to about the height of the Chemist's
house. Then the Very Young Man prepared to make himself sufficiently
small to get the food and water-bottles, and bring them up to the larger
size.
"Keep your eye on me," he warned. "Somebody might jump on me."
They stood around the house, while the Very Young Man, in the garden,
took the drug and dwindled in stature to Oroid size. There were none of
the Oroids in sight, except some on the beach and others up the street
silently watching. As he grew smaller the Very Young Man sat down
wearily in the wreck of what once had been Lylda's beautiful garden. He
felt very tired and hungry, and his head was ringing.
When he was no longer changing size he stood up in the garden path. The
house, nearly its proper dimensions once more, was close at hand, silent
and deserted. Aura stood in the garden beside it, her shoulders pushing
aside the great branches of an overhanging tree, her arm resting upon
the roof-top. The Very Young Man waved up at her and shouted: "Be out in
a minute," and then plunged into the house.
CHAPTER XXXV
GOOD-BY TO ARITE
Once inside he went swiftly to the room where they had left their
water-bottles and other paraphernalia. He found them without difficulty,
and retraced his steps to the door he had entered. Depositing his load
near it, he went back towards the room which Lylda had described to him,
and in which the food was stored.
Walking along this silent hallway, listening to the echoes of his own
footsteps on its stone floor, the Very Young Man found himself oppressed
by a feeling of impending danger. He looked back over his shoulder--once
he stood quite still and listened. But he heard nothing; the house was
quite silent, and smiling at his own fear he went on again.
Selecting the food they needed for the trip took him but a moment. He
left the storeroom, his arms loaded, and started back toward the garden
door. Several doorways opened into the hall below, and all at once the
Very Young Man found himself afraid as he passed them. He was within
sight of the garden door, not more than twenty feet away, when he
hesitated. Just ahead, at his right, an archway opened into a room
beside the hall. The Very Young Man paused only an instant; then,
ashamed of his fear, started slowly forward. He felt an impulse to run,
but he did not. And then, from out of the silence, there came a low,
growling cry that made his heart stand still, and the huge gray figure
of a man leaped upon him and bore him to the ground.
As he went down, with the packages of food flying in all directions, the
Very Young Man gripped the naked body of his antagonist tightly. He
twisted round as he fell and lay with his foe partly on top of him. He
knew instinctively that his situation was desperate. The man's huge
torso, with its powerful muscles that his arms encircled, told him that
in a contest of strength such as this, inevitably he would find himself
overcome.
The man raised his fist to strike, and the Very Young Man caught him by
the wrist. Over his foe's shoulder now he could see the open doorway
leading into the garden, not more than six or eight feet away. Beyond it
lay safety; that he knew. He gave a mighty lunge and succeeded in
rolling over toward the doorway. But he could not stay above his
opponent, for the man's greater strength lifted him up and over, and
again pinned him to the floor.
He was nearer the door now, and just beyond it he caught a glimpse of
the white flesh of Aura's ankle as she stood beside the house. The man
put a hand on the Very Young Man's throat. The Very Young Man caught it
by the wrist, but he could feel the growing pressure of its fingers
cutting off his breath. He tried to pull the hand back, but could not;
he tried to twist his body free, but the weight of his foe held him
tightly against the floor. A great roaring filled his ears; the hallway
began fading from his sight. With a last despairing breath, he gave a
choking cry: "Aura! Aura!"
The man's fingers at his throat loosened a little; he drew another
breath, and his head cleared. His eyes were fixed on the strip of garden
he could see beyond the doorway. Suddenly Aura's enormous body came into
view, as she stooped and then lay prone upon the ground. Her face was
close to the door; she was looking in. The Very Young Man gave another
cry, half stifled. And then into the hallway he saw come swiftly a huge
hand, whose fingers gripped him and his antagonist and jerked them
hurriedly down the hall and out into the garden.
As they lay struggling on the ground outside, the Very Young Man felt
himself held less closely. He wrenched himself free and sprang to his
feet, standing close beside Aura's face. The man was up almost as
quickly, preparing again to spring upon his victim. Something moved
behind the Very Young Man, and he looked up into the air hurriedly. The
Big Business Man stood behind him; the Very Young Man met his anxious
glance.
"I'm all right," he shouted. His antagonist leaped forward and at the
same instant a huge, flat object, that was the Big Business Man's foot,
swept through the air and mashed the man down into the dirt of the
garden. The Very Young Man turned suddenly sick as he heard the agonized
shriek and the crunching of the breaking bones. The Big Business Man
lifted his foot, and the mangled figure lay still. The Very Young Man
sat down suddenly in the garden path and covered his face with his
hands.
When he raised his head his friends were all standing round him,
crowding the garden. The body of the man who had attacked him had
disappeared. The Very Young Man looked up into Aura's face--she was on
her feet now with the others and tried to smile.
"I'm all right," he repeated. "I'll go get the food and things."
In a few minutes more he had made himself as large as his companions,
and had brought with him most of the food. There still remained in the
smaller size the water-bottles, some of the food, the belts with which
to carry it, and a few other articles they needed for the trip.
"I'll get them," said the Big Business Man; "you sit down and rest."
The Very Young Man was glad to do as he was told, and sat beside Aura in
the garden, while the Big Business Man brought up to their size the
remainder of the supplies.
When they had divided the food, and all were equipped for the journey,
they started at once for the tunnels. Lylda's eyes again filled with
tears as she left so summarily, and probably for the last time, this
home in which she had been so happy.
As they passed the last houses of the city, heading towards the tunnel
entrances that the Chemist had selected, the Big Business Man and the
Chemist walked in front, the others following close behind them. A crowd
of Oroids watched them leave, and many others were to be seen ahead; but
these scattered as the giants approached. Occasionally a few stood their
ground, and these the Big Business Man mercilessly trampled under foot.
"It's the only way; I'm sorry," he said, half apologetically. "We cannot
take any chances now; we must get out."
"It's shorter through these tunnels I'm taking," the Chemist said after
a moment.
"My idea," said the Big Business man, "is that we should go through the
tunnels that are the largest. They're not all the same size, are they?"
"No," the Chemist answered; "some are a little larger."
"You see," the Big Business Man continued, "I figure we are going to
have a fight. They're following us. Look at that crowd over there.
They'll never let us out if they can help it. When we get into the
tunnels, naturally we'll have to be small enough to walk through them.
The larger we are the better; so let's take the very biggest."
"These are," the Chemist answered. "We can make it at about so high." He
held his hand about the level of his waist.
"That won't be so bad," the Big Business Man commented.
Meanwhile the Very Young Man, walking with Aura behind the leaders, was
talking to her earnestly. He was conscious of a curious sense of
companionship with this quiet girl--a companionship unlike anything he
had ever felt for a girl before. And now that he was taking her with
him, back to his own world----
"Climb out on to the surface of the ring," he was saying, "and then, in
a few minutes more, we'll be there. Aura, you cannot realize how
wonderful it will be."
The girl smiled her quiet smile; her face was sad with the memory of
what she was leaving, but full of youthful, eager anticipation of that
which lay ahead.
"So much has happened, and so quickly, I cannot realize it yet, I know,"
she answered. "But that it will be very wonderful, up there above, I do
believe. And I am glad that we are going, only----"
The Very Young Man took her hand, holding it a moment. "Don't, Aura. You
mustn't think of that." He spoke gently, with a tender note in his
voice.
"Don't think of the past, Aura," he went on earnestly. "Think only of
the future--the great cities, the opera, the poetry I am going to teach
you."
The girl laid her hand on his arm. "You are so kind, my friend Jack. You
will have much to teach me, will you not? Is it sure you will want to? I
shall be like a little child up there in your great world."
An answer sprang to the Very Young Man's lips--words the thinking of
which made his heart leap into his throat. But before he could voice
them Loto ran up to him from behind, crying. "I want to walk by you,
Jack; _mamita_ talks of things I know not."
The Very Young Man put his arm across the child's shoulders. "Well,
little boy," he said laughing, "how do you like this adventure?"
"Never have I been in the Great Forests," Loto answered, turning his
big, serious eyes up to his friend's face. "I shall not be afraid--with
my father, and _mamita_, and with you."
"The Great Forests won't seem very big, Loto, after a little while," the
Very Young Man said. "And of course you won't be afraid of anything.
You're going to see many things, Loto--very many strange and wonderful
things for such a little boy."
They reached the entrance to the tunnel in a few moments more, and
stopped before it. As they approached, a number of little figures darted
into its luminous blackness and disappeared. There were none others in
sight now, except far away towards Arite, where perhaps a thousand stood
watching intently.
The tunnel entrance, against the side of a hill, stood nearly breast
high.
"I'm wrong," said the Chemist, as the others came up. "It's not so high
all the way through. We shall have to make ourselves much smaller than
this."
"This is a good time to eat," suggested the Very Young Man. The others
agreed, and without making themselves any smaller--the Big Business Man
objected to that procedure--they sat down before the mouth of the tunnel
and ate a somewhat frugal meal.
"Have you any plans for the trip up?" asked the Doctor of the Chemist
while they were eating.
"I have," interjected the Big Business Man, and the Chemist answered:
"Yes, I am sure I can make it far easier than it was for me before. I'll
tell you as we go up; the first thing is to get through the tunnels."
"I don't anticipate much difficulty in that," the Doctor said. "Do you?"
The Chemist shook his head. "No, I don't."
"But we mustn't take any chances," put in the Big Business Man quickly.
"How small do you suppose we should make ourselves?"
The Chemist looked at the tunnel opening. "About half that," he replied.
"Not at the start," said the Big Business Man. "Let's go in as large as
possible; we can get smaller when we have to."
It took them but a few minutes to finish the meal. They were all tired
from the exciting events of the day, but the Big Business Man would not
hear of their resting a moment more than was absolutely necessary.
"It won't be much of a trip up to the forests," he argued. "Once we get
well on our way and into one of the larger sizes, we can sleep safely.
But not now; it's too dangerous."
They were soon ready to start, and in a moment more all had made
themselves small enough to walk into the tunnel opening. They were, at
this time, perhaps six times the normal height of an adult Oroid. The
city of Arite, apparently much farther away now, was still visible up
against the distant horizon. As they were about to start, Lylda, with
Aura close behind her, turned to face it.
"Good-by to our own world now we must say, my sister," she said sadly.
"The land that bore us--so beautiful a world, and once so kindly. We
have been very happy here. And I cannot think it is right for me to
leave."
"Your way lies with your husband," Aura said gently. "You yourself have
said it, and it is true."
Lylda raised her arms up towards the far-away city with a gesture almost
of benediction.
"Good future to you, land that I love." Her voice trembled. "Good future
to you, for ever and ever."
The Very Young Man, standing behind them with Loto, was calling:
"They're started; come on."
With one last sorrowful glance Lylda turned slowly, and, walking with
her arm about her sister, followed the others into the depths of the
tunnel.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE FIGHT IN THE TUNNELS
For some time this strange party of refugees from an outraged world
walked in silence. Because of their size, the tunnel appeared to them
now not more than eight or nine feet in height, and in most places of
nearly similar width. For perhaps ten minutes no one spoke except an
occasional monosyllable. The Chemist and Big Business Man, walking
abreast, were leading; Aura and Lylda with the Very Young man, and Loto
close in front of them, brought up the rear.
The tunnel they were traversing appeared quite deserted; only once, at
the intersection of another smaller passageway, a few little
figures--not more than a foot high--scurried past and hastily
disappeared. Once the party stopped for half an hour to rest.
"I don't think we'll have any trouble getting through," said the
Chemist. "The tunnels are usually deserted at the time of sleep."
The Big Business Man appeared not so sanguine, but said nothing. Finally
they came to one of the large amphitheaters into which several of the
tunnels opened. In size, it appeared to them now a hundred feet in
length and with a roof some twelve feet high. The Chemist stopped to let
the others come up.
"I think our best route is there," he pointed.
"It is not so high a tunnel; we shall have to get smaller. Beyond it
they are larger again. It is not far--half an hour, perhaps, walking as
we----"
A cry from Aura interrupted him.
"My brother, see, they come," she exclaimed.
Before them, out of several of the smaller passageways, a crowd of
little figures was pouring. There were no shouts; there was seemingly no
confusion; just a steady, flowing stream of human forms, emptying from
the tunnels into the amphitheater and spreading out over its open
surface.
The fugitives stared a moment in horror. "Good God! they've got us," the
Doctor muttered, breaking the tenseness of the silence.
The little people kept their distance at first, and then as the open
space filled up, slowly they began coming closer, in little waves of
movement, irresistible as an incoming tide.
Aura turned towards the passageway through which they had entered. "We
can go back," she said. And then. "No--see, they come there, too." A
crowd of the little gray figures blocked that entrance also--a crowd
that hesitated an instant and then came forward, spreading out fan-shape
as it came.
The Big Business Man doubled up his fists.
"It's fight," he said grimly. "By God! we'll----" but Lylda, with a low
cry, flung herself before him.
"No, no," she said passionately. "Not that; it cannot be that now, just
at the last----"
Aura laid a hand upon her sister's shoulder.
"Wait, my sister," she said gently. "There is no matter of justice
here--for you, a woman--to decide. This is for men to deal with--a
matter for men--our men. And what they say to do--that must be done."
She turned to the Chemist and the Very Young Man, who were standing side
by side.
"A woman--cannot kill," she said slowly. "Unless--her man--says it so.
Or if to save him----"
Her eyes flashed fire; she held her slim little body erect and rigid--an
Amazon ready to fight to the death for those she loved.
The Chemist hesitated a moment. Before he could answer, a single shrill
cry sounded from somewhere out in the silent, menacing throng. As though
at a signal, a thousand little voices took it up, and with a great rush
the crowd swept forward.
In the first moment of surprise and indecision the group of fugitives
stood motionless. As the wave of little, struggling human forms closed
in around them, the Very Young Man came to himself with a start. He
looked down. They were black around him now, swaying back and forth
about his legs. Most of them were men, armed with the short,
broad-bladed swords, or with smaller knives. Some brandished other
improvised weapons; still others held rocks in their hands.
A little pair of arms clutched the Very Young Man about his leg; he gave
a violent kick, scattering a number of the struggling figures and
clearing a space into which he leaped.
"Back--Aura, Lylda," he shouted. "Take Loto and Eena. Get back behind
us."
The Big Business Man, kicking violently, and sometimes stooping down to
sweep the ground with great swings of his arm, had cleared a space
before them. Taking Loto, who looked on with frightened eyes, the three
women stepped back against the side wall of the amphitheater.
The Very Young Man swiftly discarded his robe, standing in the knitted
under-suit in which he had swam the lake; the other men followed his
example. For ten minutes or more in ceaseless waves, the little
creatures threw themselves forward, and were beaten back. The confined
space echoed with their shouts, and with the cries of the wounded. The
five men fought silently. Once the Doctor stumbled and fell. Before his
friends could get to him, his body was covered with his foes. When he
got back upon his feet, knocking them off, he was bleeding profusely
from an ugly-looking wound in his shoulder.
"Good God!" he panted as the Chemist and the Big Business Man leaped
over to him. "They'll get us--if we go down."
"We can get larger," said the Big Business Man, pointing upwards to the
roof overhead. "Larger--and then----" He swayed a trifle, breathing
hard. His legs were covered with blood from a dozen wounds.
Oteo, fighting back and forth before them, was holding the crowd in
check; a heap of dead lay in a semicircle in front of him.
"I'm going across," shouted the Very Young Man suddenly, and began
striding forward into the struggling mass.
The crowd, thus diverted, eased its attack for a moment. Slowly the Very
Young Man waded into it. He was perhaps fifty feet out from the side
wall when a stone struck him upon the temple. He went down, out of sight
in the seething mass.
"Come on," shouted the Big Business Man. But before he could move, Aura
dashed past him, fighting her way out to where the Very Young Man lay.
In a moment she was beside him. Her fragile body seemed hopelessly
inadequate for such a struggle, but the spirit within her made her fight
like a wild-cat.
Catching one of the little figures by the legs she flung him about like
a club, knocking a score of the others back and clearing a space about
the Very Young Man. Then abruptly she dropped her victim and knelt down,
plucking away the last of the attacking figures who was hacking at the
Very Young Man's arm with his sword.
The Chemist and Big Business Man were beside her now, and together they
carried the Very Young Man back. He had recovered consciousness, and
smiled up at them feebly. They laid him on the ground against the wall,
and Aura sat beside him.
"Gosh, I'm all right," he said, waving them away. "Be with you in a
minute; give 'em hell!"
The Doctor knelt beside the Very Young Man for a moment, and, finding he
was not seriously hurt, left him and rejoined the Chemist and Big
Business Man, who, with Oteo, had forced the struggling mass of little
figures some distance away.
"I'm going to get larger," shouted the Big Business Man a moment later.
"Wipe them all out, damn it; I can do it. We can't keep on this way."
The Doctor was by his side.
"You can't do it--isn't room," he shouted in answer, pausing as he waved
one of his assailants in the air above his head. "You might take too
much."
The Big Business Man was reaching with one hand under his robe. With his
feet he kicked violently to keep the space about him clear. A tiny stone
flew by his head; another struck him on the chest, and all at once he
realized that he was bruised all over from where other stones had been
hitting him. He looked across to the opposite wall of the amphitheater.
Through the tunnel entrance there he saw that the stream of little
people was flowing the other way now. They were trying to get out,
instead of pouring in.
The Big Business Man waved his arms. "They're running away--look," he
shouted. "They're running--over there--come on." He dashed forward, and,
followed by his companions, redoubled his efforts.
The crowd wavered; the shouting grew less; those further away began
running back.
Then suddenly a shrill cry arose--just a single little voice it was at
first. After a moment others took it up, and still others, until it
sounded from every side--three Oroid words repeated over and over.
The Chemist abruptly stopped fighting. "It's done," he shouted. "Thank
God it's over."
The cry continued. The little figures had ceased attacking now and were
struggling in a frenzy to get through the tunnels.
"No more," shouted the Chemist. "They're going. See them going? Stop."
His companions stood by his side, panting and weak from loss of blood.
The Chemist tried to smile. His face was livid; he swayed unsteadily on
his feet. "No more," he repeated. "It's over. Thank God, it's over!"
Meanwhile the Very Young Man, lying on the floor with Aura sitting
beside him, revived a little. He tried to sit up after a few moments,
but the girl pulled him down.
"But I got to go--give 'em hell," he protested weakly. His head was
still confused; he only knew he should be back, fighting beside his
friends.
"Not yet," Aura said gently. "There is no need--yet. When there is, you
may trust me, Jack; I shall say it."
The Very Young Man closed his eyes. The blurred, iridescent outlines of
the rocks confused him; his head was ringing. The girl put an arm under
his neck. He found one of her hands, and held it tightly. For a moment
he lay silent. Then his head seemed to clear a little; he opened his
eyes.
"What are they doing now, Aura?" he asked.
"It is no different," the girl answered softly. "So terrible a thing--so
terrible----" she finished almost to herself.
"I'll wait--just a minute more," he murmured and closed his eyes again.
He held the girl's hand tighter. He seemed to be floating away, and her
hand steadied him. The sounds of the fighting sounded very distant
now--all blurred and confused and dreamlike. Only the girl's nearness
seemed real--the touch of her little body against his as she sat beside
him.
"Aura," he whispered. "Aura."
She put her face down to his. "Yes, Jack," she answered gently.
"It's very bad--there--don't you think?"
She did not answer.
"I was just thinking," he went on; he spoke slowly, almost in a whisper.
"Maybe--you know--we won't come through this." He paused; his thoughts
somehow seemed too big to put into words. But he knew he was very happy.
"I was just thinking, Aura, that if we shouldn't come through I just
wanted you to know----" Again he stopped. From far away he heard the
shrill, rhythmic cry of many voices shouting in unison. He listened, and
then it all came back. The battle--his friends there fighting--they
needed him. He let go of the girl's hand and sat up, brushing back his
moist hair.
"Listen, Aura. Hear them shouting; I mustn't stay here." He tried,
weakly, to get upon his feet, but the girl's arm about his waist held
him down.
"Wait," she said. Surprised by the tenseness of her tone, he relaxed.
The cry grew louder, rolling up from a thousand voices and echoing back
and forth across the amphitheater. The Very Young Man wondered vaguely
what it could mean. He looked into Aura's face. Her lips were smiling
now.
"What is it, Aura?" he whispered.
The girl impulsively put her arms about him and held him close.
"But we are coming through, my friend Jack. We are coming through." The
Very Young Man looked wonderingly into her eyes. "Don't you hear? That
cry--the cry of fear and despair. It means--life to us; and no more
death--to them."
The Chemist's voice came out of the distance shouting: "They're running
away. It's over; thank God it's over!"
Then the Very Young Man knew, and life opened up before him again.
"Life," he whispered to himself. "Life and love and happiness."
CHAPTER XXXVII
A COMBAT OF TITANS
In a few minutes the amphitheater was entirely clear, save for the dead
and maimed little figures lying scattered about; but it was nearly an
hour more before the fugitives were ready to resume their journey.
The attack had come so suddenly, and had demanded such immediate and
continuous action that none of the men, with the exception of the Very
Young Man, had had time to realize how desperate was the situation in
which they had fallen. With the almost equally abrupt cessation of the
struggle there came the inevitable reaction; the men bleeding from a
score of wounds, weak from loss of blood, and sick from the memory of
the things they had been compelled to do, threw themselves upon the
ground utterly exhausted.
"We must get out of here," said the Doctor, after they had been lying
quiet for a time, with the strident shrieks of hundreds of the dying
little creatures sounding in their ears. "That was pretty near the end."
"It isn't far," the Chemist answered, "when we get started."
"We must get water," the Doctor went on. "These cuts----" They had used
nearly all their drinking-water washing out their wounds, which Aura and
Lylda had bound up with strips of cloth torn from their garments.
The Chemist got upon his feet. "There's no water nearer than the Forest
River," he said. "That tunnel over there comes out very near it."
"What makes you think we won't have another scrap getting out?" the Very
Young Man wanted to know. He had entirely recovered from the effects of
the stone that had struck him on the temple, and was in better condition
than any of the other men.
"I'm sure," the Chemist said confidently, "they were through; they will
not attack us again; for some time at least. The tunnels will be
deserted."
The Big Business Man stood up also.
"We'd better get going while we have the chance," he said. "This getting
smaller--I don't like it."
They started soon after, and, true to the Chemist's prediction, met no
further obstacle to their safe passage through the tunnels. When they
had reached the forest above, none of the little people were in sight.
The Big Business Man heaved a long sigh of relief. "Thank goodness we're
here at last," he said. "I didn't realize how good these woods would
look."
In a few minutes more they were at the edge of the river, bathing their
wounds in its cooling water, and replenishing their drinking-bottles.
"How do we get across?" the Very Young Man asked.
"We won't have to cross it," the Chemist answered with a smile. "The
tunnel took us under."
"Let's eat here," the Very Young Man suggested, "and take a sleep; we're
about all in."
"We ought to get larger first," protested the Big Business Man. They
were at this time about four times Oroid size; the forest trees, so huge
when last they had seen them, now seemed only rather large saplings.
"Some one of us must stay awake," the Doctor said. "But there do not
seem to be any Oroids up here."
"What do they come up here for, anyway?" asked the Very Young Man.
"There's some hunting," the Chemist answered. "But principally it's the
mines beyond, in the deserts."
They agreed finally to stop beside the river and eat another meal, and
then, with one of them on guard, to sleep for a time before continuing
their journey.
The meal, at the Doctor's insistence, was frugal to the extreme, and was
soon over. They selected Oteo to stand guard first. The youth, when he
understood what was intended, pleaded so with his master that the
Chemist agreed. Utterly worn out, the travelers lay down on a mossy bank
at the river's edge, and in a few moments were all fast asleep.
Oteo sat nearby with his back against a tree-trunk. Occasionally he got
up and walked to and fro to fight off the drowsiness that came over him.
* * * * *
How long the Very Young Man slept he never knew. He slept dreamlessly
for a considerable time. When he struggled back to consciousness it was
with a curious feeling of detachment, as though his mind no longer was
connected with his body. He thought first of Aura, with a calm peaceful
sense of happiness. For a long time he lay, drifting along with his
thoughts and wondering whether he were asleep or awake. Then all at once
he knew he was not asleep. His eyes were open; before him stood the
forest trees at the river's edge. And at the foot of one of the trees he
could see the figure of Oteo, sitting hunched up with his head upon his
hands, fast asleep.
Remembrance came to the Very Young Man, and he sat up with a start.
Beside him his friends lay motionless. He looked around, still a little
confused. And then his heart leaped into his throat, for at the edge of
the woods he saw a small, lean, gray figure--the little figure of a man
who stood against a tree-trunk. The man's face was turned towards him;
he met the glistening eyes looking down and saw the lips parted in a
leering smile.
A thrill of fear ran over the Very Young Man as he recognized the face
of Targo. And then his heart seemed to stop beating. For as he stared,
fascinated, into the man's mocking eyes, he saw that slowly, steadily he
was growing larger. Mechanically the Very Young Man's hand went to his
armpit, his fingers fumbling at the pouch strapped underneath. The vial
of chemicals was not there!
For an instant more the Very Young Man continued staring. Then, with an
effort, he turned his eyes away from the gaze that seemed to hypnotize
him. Beside him the Chemist lay sleeping. He looked back at Targo, and
saw him larger--almost as large now as he was himself.
Like a cloak discarded, the Very Young Man's bewilderment dropped from
him. He recognized the danger, realized that in another moment this
enemy would be irresistibly powerful--invincible. His mind was clear
now, his nerves steady, his muscles tense. He knew the only thing he
could do; he calculated the chances in a flash of thought.
Still staring at the triumphant face of Targo, the Very Young Man jumped
to his feet and swiftly bent over the sleeping form of the Chemist.
Reaching through the neck of his robe he took out the vial of chemicals,
and before his friend was fairly awake had swallowed one of the pills.
As the Very Young Man sprang into action Targo turned and ran swiftly
away, perhaps a hundred feet; then again he stopped and stood watching
his intended victim with his sardonic smile.
The Very Young Man met the Chemist's startled eyes.
"Targo!" said the Very Young Man swiftly. "He's here; he stole the drug
just now, while I was sleeping."
The Chemist opened his mouth to reply, but the Very Young Man bounded
away. He could feel the drug beginning to work; the ground under his
feet swayed unsteadily.
Swiftly he ran straight towards the figure of Targo, where he stood
leaning against a tree. His enemy did not move to run away, but stood
quietly awaiting him. The Very Young Man saw he was now nearly the same
size that Targo was; if anything, the larger.
A fallen tree separated them; the Very Young Man cleared it with a
bound. Still Targo stood motionless, awaiting his onslaught. Then
abruptly he stooped to the ground, and a rock whistled through the air,
narrowly missing the Very Young Man's head. Before Targo could recover
from the throw the Very Young Man was upon him, and they went down
together.
Back and forth over the soft ground they rolled, first one on top, then
the other. The Very Young Man's hand found a stone on the ground beside
them. His fingers clutched it; he raised it above him. But a blow upon
his forearm knocked it away before he could strike; and a sudden twist
of his antagonist's body rolled him over and pinned him upon his back.
The Very Young Man thought of his encounter with Targo before, and again
with sinking heart he realized he was the weaker of the two. He jerked
one of his wrists free and, striking upwards with all his force, landed
full on his enemy's jaw. The man's head snapped back, but he laughed--a
grim, sardonic laugh that ended in a half growl, like a wild beast
enraged. The Very Young Man's blood ran cold. A sudden frenzy seized
him; he put all his strength into one desperate lunge and, wrenching
himself free, sprang to his feet.
Targo was up almost as quickly as he, and for an instant the two stood
eyeing each other, breathing hard. At the Very Young Man's feet a little
stream was flowing past. Vaguely he found himself thinking how peaceful
it looked; how cool and soothing the water would be to his bruised and
aching body. Beside the stream his eye caught a number of tiny human
figures, standing close together, looking up at him--little forms that a
single sweep of his foot would have scattered and killed. A shiver of
fear ran across him as in a flash he realized this other danger. With a
cry, he leaped sidewise, away from the water. Beside him stood a little
tree whose bushy top hardly reached his waist. He clutched its trunk
with both hands and jerking it from the ground swung it at his enemy's
head, meeting him just as he sprang forward. The tree struck Targo a
glancing blow upon the shoulder. With another laugh he grasped its roots
and twisted it from the Very Young Man's hand. A second more and they
came together again, and the Very Young Man felt his antagonist's
powerful arms around his body, bending him backwards.
* * * * *
The Big Business Man stood beside the others at the river's edge,
watching the gigantic struggle, the outcome of which meant life or death
to them all. The grappling figures were ten times his own height before
he fairly realized the situation. At first he thought he should take
some of the drug also, and grow larger with them. Then he knew that he
could not overtake their growth in time to aid his friend. The Chemist
and the Doctor must evidently have reached the same conclusion, for
they, too, did nothing, only stood motionless, speechless, staring up at
the battling giants.
Loto, with his head buried upon his mother's shoulder, and her arms
holding him close, whimpered a little in terror. Only Aura, of all the
party, did not get upon her feet. She lay full length upon the ground, a
hand under her chin, staring steadily upwards. Her face was
expressionless, her eyes unblinking. But her lips moved a little, as
though she were breathing a silent prayer, and the fingers of her hand
against her face dug their nails into the flesh of her cheek.
Taller far than the tree-tops, the two giants stood facing each other.
Then the Very Young Man seized one of the trees, and with a mighty pull
tore it up by the roots and swung it through the air. Aura drew a quick
breath as in another instant they grappled and came crashing to the
ground, falling head and shoulders in the river with a splash that
drenched her with its spray. The Very Young Man was underneath, and she
seemed to meet the glance of his great eyes when he fell. The trees
growing on the river-bank snapped like rushes beneath the huge bodies of
the giants, as, still growing larger, they struggled back and forth. The
river, stirred into turmoil by the sweep of their great arms, rolled its
waves up over the mossy banks, driving the watchers back into the edge
of the woods, and even there covering them with its spray.
A moment more and the giants were on their feet again, standing ankle
deep, far out in the river. Up against the unbroken blackness of the
starless sky their huge forms towered. For a second they stood
motionless; then they came together again and Aura could see the Very
Young Man sink on his knees, his hand trailing in the water. Then in an
instant more he struggled up to his feet; and as his hand left the water
Aura saw that it clutched an enormous dripping rock. She held her
breath, watching the tremendous figures as they swayed, locked in each
other's arms. A single step sidewise and they were back nearly at the
river's bank; the water seethed white under their tread.
The Very Young Man's right arm hung limp behind him; the boulder in his
hand dangled a hundred feet or more in the air above the water. Slowly
the greater strength of his antagonist bent him backwards. Aura's heart
stood still as she saw Targo's fingers at the Very Young Man's throat.
Then, in a great arc, the Very Young Man swept the hand holding the rock
over his head, and brought it down full upon his enemy's skull. The
boulder fell into the river with a thundering splash. For a brief
instant the giant figures hung swaying; then the titanic hulk of Targo's
body came crashing down. It fell full across the river, quivered
convulsively and lay still.
And the river, backing up before it a moment, turned aside in its
course, and flung the muddy torrent of its water roaring down through
the forest.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
LOST IN SIZE
The Very Young Man stood ankle deep in the turgid little rivulet, a
tightness clutching at his chest, and with his head whirling. At his
feet his antagonist lay motionless. He stepped out of the water, putting
his foot into a tiny grove of trees that bent and crackled like twigs
under his tread. He wondered if he would faint; he knew he must not.
Away to the left he saw a line of tiny hills; beyond that a luminous
obscurity into which his sight could not penetrate; behind him there was
only darkness. He seemed to be standing in the midst of a great barren
waste, with just a little toy river and forest at his feet--a child's
plaything, set down in a man's great desert.
The Very Young Man suddenly thought of his friends. He stepped into the
middle of the river and out again on the other side. Then he bent down
with his face close to the ground, just above the tops of the tiny
little trees. He made the human figures out finally. Hardly larger than
ants they seemed, and he shuddered as he saw them. The end of his thumb
could have smashed them all, they were so small.
One of the figures seemed to be waving something, and the Very Young Man
thought he heard the squeak of its voice. He straightened upright,
standing rigid, afraid to move his feet. He wondered what he should do,
and in sudden fear felt for the vial of the diminishing drug. It was
still in place, in the pouch under his armpit. The Very Young Man
breathed a sigh of relief. He decided to take the drug and rejoin his
friends. Then as a sudden thought struck him he bent down to the ground
again, slowly, with infinite caution. The little figures were still
there; and now he thought they were not quite as tiny as before. He
watched them; slowly but unmistakably they were growing larger.
The Very Young Man carefully took a step backwards, and then sat down
heavily. The forest trees crackled under him. He pulled up his knees,
and rested his head upon them. The little rivulet diverted from its
course by the body of Targo, swept past through the woods almost at his
side. The noise it made mingled with the ringing in his head. His body
ached all over; he closed his eyes.
* * * * *
"He's all right now," the Doctor's voice said. "He'll be all right in a
moment."
The Very Young Man opened his eyes. He was lying upon the ground, with
Aura sitting beside him, and his friends--all his own size
again--standing over him.
He met Aura's tender, serious eyes, and smiled. "I'm all right," he
said. "What a foolish thing to faint."
Lylda stooped beside him, "You saved us all," she said. "There is
nothing we can say--to mean what it should. But you will always know how
we feel; how splendid you were."
To the praise they gave him the Very Young Man had no answer save a
smile of embarrassment. Aura said nothing, only met his smile with one
of her own, and with a tender glance that made his heart beat faster.
"I'm all right," he repeated after a moment of silence. "Let's get
started."
They sat down now beside the Very Young Man, and earnestly discussed the
best plan for getting out of the ring.
"You said you had calculated the best way," suggested the Doctor to the
Chemist.
"First of all," interrupted the Big Business Man. "Are we sure none of
these Oroids is going to follow us? For Heaven's sake let's have done
with these terrible struggles."
The Very Young Man remembered. "He stole one of the vials," he said,
pointing to Targo's body.
"He was probably alone," the Chemist reasoned. "If any others had been
with him they would have taken some of the drug also. Probably Targo
took one of the pills and then dropped the vial to the ground."
"My idea," pursued the Big Business Man, "is for us to get large just as
quickly and continuously as possible. Probably you're right about Targo,
but don't let's take any chances.
"I've been thinking," he continued, seeing that they agreed with him.
"You know this is a curious problem we have facing us. I've been
thinking about it a lot. It seemed a frightful long trip down here, but
in spite of that, I can't get it out of my mind that we're only a very
little distance under the surface of the ring."
"It's absolutely all in the viewpoint," the Chemist said with a smile.
"That's what I meant about having an easier method of getting out. The
distance depends absolutely on how you view it."
"How far would it be out if we didn't get any larger?" the Very Young
Man wanted to know.
"Based on the size of a normal Oroid adult, and using the terrestrial
standard of feet and inches as they would seem to us when Oroid size, I
should say the distance from Arite to the surface of the ring would be
about one hundred and fifty to a hundred and sixty thousand miles."
"Holy mackerel!" exclaimed the Very Young Man.
"Don't let's do much walking while we're small."
"You have the idea exactly," smiled the Chemist.
"Taking the other viewpoint," said the Doctor. "Just where do you figure
this Oroid universe is located in the ring?"
"It is contained within one of the atoms of gold," the Chemist answered.
"And that golden atom, I estimate, is located probably within one
one-hundredth of an inch, possibly even one one-thousandth of an inch
away from the circular indentation I made in the bottom of the scratch.
In actual distance I suppose Arite is possibly one-sixteenth of an inch
below the surface of the ring."
"Certainly makes a difference how you look at it," murmured the Very
Young Man in awe.
The Chemist went on. "It is obvious then, that although when coming down
the distance must be covered to some extent by physical movement--by
traveling geographically, so to speak--going back, that is not
altogether the case. Most of the distance may be covered by bodily
growth, rather than by a movement of the body from place to place."
"We might get lost," objected the Very Young Man. "Suppose we got
started in the wrong direction?"
"Coming in, that is a grave danger," answered the Chemist, "because then
distances are opening up and a single false step means many miles of
error later on. But going out, just the reverse is true; distances are
shortening. A mile in the wrong direction is corrected in an instant
later on. Not coming to a realization of that when I made the trip
before, led me to undertake many unnecessary hours of most arduous
climbing. There is only one condition imperative; the body growing must
have free space for its growth, or it will be crushed to death."
"Have you planned exactly how we are to get out?" asked the Big Business
Man.
"Yes, I have," the Chemist answered. "In the size we are now, which you
must remember is several thousand times Oroid height, it will be only a
short distance to a point where as we grow we can move gradually to the
centre of the circular pit. That huge inclined plane slides down out of
it, you remember. Once in the pit, with its walls closing in upon us, we
can at the proper moment get out of it about as I did before."
"Then we'll be in the valley of the scratch," exclaimed the Very Young
Man eagerly. "I'll certainly be glad to get back there again."
"Getting out of the valley we'll use the same methods," the Chemist
continued. "There we shall have to do some climbing, but not nearly so
much as I did."
The Very Young Man was thrilled at the prospect of so speedy a return to
his own world. "Let's get going," he suggested quickly. "It sounds a
cinch."
They started away in a few minutes more, leaving the body of Targo lying
where it had fallen across the river. In half an hour of walking they
located without difficulty the huge incline down which the Chemist had
fallen when first he came into the ring. Following along the bottom of
the incline they reached his landing place--a mass of small rocks and
pebbles of a different metallic-looking stone than the ground around
marking it plainly. These were the rocks and boulders that had been
brought down with him in his fall.
"From here," said the Chemist, as they came to a halt, "we can go up
into the valley by growth alone. It is several hours, but we need move
very little from this position."
"How about eating?" suggested the Very Young Man.
They sat down at the base of the incline and ate another meal--rather a
more lavish one this time, for the rest they had taken, and the prospect
of a shorter journey ahead of them than they had anticipated made the
Doctor less strict. Then, the meal over, they took the amount of the
drug the Chemist specified. He measured it carefully--more than ten of
the pills.
"We have a long wait," the Chemist said, when the first sickness from
this tremendous dose had left them.
The time passed quickly. They spoke seldom, for the extraordinary
rapidity with which the aspect of the landscape was changing, and the
remarkable sensations they experienced, absorbed all their attention.
In about two hours after taking the drug the curving, luminous line that
was the upper edge of the incline came into view, faint and blurred, but
still distinct against the blackness of the sky. The incline now was
noticeably steeper; each moment they saw its top coming down towards
them out of the heights above, and its surface smoothing out and
becoming more nearly perpendicular.
They were all standing up now. The ground beneath them seemed in rapid
motion, coming towards them from all directions, and dwindling away
beneath their feet. The incline too--now in form a vertical concave
wall--kept shoving itself forward, and they had to step backwards
continually to avoid its thrust.
Within another hour a similar concave wall appeared behind them which
they could follow with their eyes entirely around the circumference of
the great pit in which they now found themselves. The sides of this pit
soon became completely perpendicular--smooth and shining.
Another hour and the action of the drug was beginning to slacken--the
walls encircling them, although steadily closing in, no longer seemed to
move with such rapidity. The pit as they saw it now was perhaps a
thousand feet in diameter and twice as deep. Far overhead the blackness
of the sky was beginning to be tinged with a faint gray-blue.
At the Chemist's suggestion they walked over near the center of the
circular enclosure. Slowly its walls closed in about them. An hour more
and its diameter was scarcely fifty feet.
The Chemist called his companions around him.
"There is an obstacle here," he began, "that we can easily overcome; but
we must all understand just what we are to do. In perhaps half an hour
at the rate we are growing this enclosure will resemble a well twice as
deep, approximately, as it is broad. We cannot climb up its sides,
therefore we must wait until it is not more than six feet in depth in
order to be able to get out. At that time its diameter will be scarcely
three feet. There are nine of us here; you can realize there would not
be room for us all.
"What we must do is very simple. Since there is not room for us all at
once, we must get large from now on only one at a time."
"Quite so," said the Big Business Man in a perfectly matter-of-fact
tone.
"All of us but one will stop growing now; one will go on and get out of
the pit. He will immediately stop his growth so that he can wait for the
others and help them out. Each of us will follow the same method of
procedure."
The Chemist then went on to arrange the exact quantities of the drugs
they were each to take at specified times, so that at the end they would
all be nearly the same size again. When he had explained all this to
Oteo and Eena in their native language, they were ready to proceed with
the plan.
"Who's first?" asked the Very Young Man. "Let me go with Loto."
They selected the Chemist to go first, and all but him took a little of
the other drug and checked their growth. The pit at this time was hardly
more than fifteen feet across and about thirty feet deep.
The Chemist stood in the centre of the enclosure, while his friends
crowded over against its walls to make room for his growing body. It was
nearly half an hour before his head was above its top. He waited only a
moment more, then he sprang upwards, clambered out of the pit and
disappeared beyond the rim. In a few moments they saw his huge head and
shoulders hanging out over the side wall; his hand and arm reached down
towards them and they heard his great voice roaring.
"Come on--somebody else."
The Very Young Man went next, with Loto. Nothing unusual marked their
growth, and without difficulty, helped by the Chemist's hands reaching
down to them, they climbed out of the pit.
In an hour more the entire party was in the valley, standing beside the
little circular opening out of which they had come.
The Very Young Man found himself beside Aura, a little apart from the
others, who gathered to discuss their plan for growing out of the
valley.
"It isn't much of a trip, is it, Aura?" the Very Young Man said. "Do you
realize, we're nearly there?"
The girl looked around her curiously. The valley of the scratch appeared
to them now hardly more than a quarter of a mile in width. Aura stared
upwards between its narrow walls to where, several thousand feet above,
a narrow strip of gray-blue sky was visible.
"That sky--is that the sky of your world?" she exclaimed. "How pretty it
is!"
The Very Young Man laughed.
"No, Aura, that's not our sky. It's only the space in the room above the
ring. When we get the size we are going to be finally, our heads will be
right up in there. The real sky with its stars will be even then as far
above us as your sky at Arite was above you."
Aura breathed a long sigh. "It's too wonderful--really to understand,
isn't it?" she said.
The Very Young Man pulled her down on the ground beside him.
"The most wonderful part, Aura, is going to be having you up there." He
spoke gently; somehow whenever he thought of this fragile little
girl-woman up in his strange bustling world, he felt himself very big
and strong. He wanted to be her protector, and her teacher of all the
new and curious things she must learn.
The girl did not reply at once; she simply met his earnest gaze with her
frank answering smile of understanding.
The Chemist was calling to them.
"Oh, you Jack. We're about ready to start."
The Very Young Man got to his feet, holding down his hands to help Aura
up.
"You're going to make a fine woman, Aura, in this new world. You just
wait and see if you don't," he said as they rejoined the others.
The Chemist explained his plans to them. "This valley is several times
deeper than its breadth; you can see that. We cannot grow large enough
to jump out as we did out of the pit; we would be crushed by the walls
before we were sufficiently tall to leap out.
"But we're not going to do as I did, and climb all the way up. Instead
we will stay here at the bottom until we are as large as we can
conveniently get between the valley walls. Then we will stop growing and
climb up the side; it will only be a short distance then."
The Very Young Man nodded his comprehension. "Unless by that time the
walls are too smooth to climb up," he remarked.
"If we see them getting too smooth, we'll stop and begin climbing," the
Chemist agreed. "We're all ready, aren't we?" He began measuring out the
estimated quantities of the drug, handing it to each of them.
"Say, I'm terrible sorry," began the Very Young Man, apologetically
interrupting this procedure. "But you know if it wasn't for me, we'd all
starve to death."
It was several hours since they had eaten last, and all of them were
hungry, although the excitement of their strange journey had kept them
from realizing it. They ate--"the last meal in the ring" as the Big
Business Man put it--and in half an hour more they were ready to start.
When they had reached a size where it seemed desirable again to stop
growing the valley resembled a narrow cañon--hardly more than a deep
rift in the ground. They were still standing on its floor; above them,
the parallel edges of the rift marked the surface of the ring. The side
walls of the cañon were smooth, but there were still many places where
they could climb out without much difficulty.
They started up a narrow declivity along the cañon face. The Chemist led
the way; the Very Young Man, with Aura just in front of him, was last.
They had been walking only a moment when the Chemist called back over
his shoulder.
"It's getting very narrow. We'd better stop here and take the drug."
The Chemist had reached a rocky shelf--a ledge some twenty feet square
that jutted out from the cañon wall. They gathered upon it, and took
enough of the diminishing drug to stop their growth. Then the Chemist
again started forward; but, very soon after, a cry of alarm from Aura
stopped him.
The party turned in confusion and crowded back. Aura, pale and
trembling, was standing on the very brink of the ledge looking down. The
Very Young Man had disappeared.
The Big Business Man ran to the brink. "Did he fall? Where is he? I
don't see him."
They gathered in confusion about the girl. "No," she said. "He--just a
moment ago he was here."
"He couldn't have fallen," the Doctor exclaimed. "It isn't far down
there--we'd see him."
The truth suddenly dawned on the Doctor. "Don't move!" he commanded
sharply. "Don't any of you move! Don't take a step!"
Uncomprehending, they stood motionless. The Doctor's gaze was at the
rocky floor under his feet.
"It's size," he added vehemently. "Don't you understand? He's taken too
much of the diminishing drug."
An exclamation from Oteo made them all move towards him, in spite of the
Doctor's command. There, close by Oteo's feet, they saw the tiny figure
of the Very Young Man, already no more than an inch in height, and
rapidly growing smaller.
The Doctor bent down, and the little figure waved its arms in terror.
"Don't get smaller," called the Doctor. But even as he said it, he
realized it was a futile command.
The Very Young Man answered, in a voice so minute it seemed coming from
an infinite distance.
"I can't stop! I haven't any of the other drug!"
They all remembered then. Targo had stolen the Very Young Man's vial of
the enlarging drug. It had never been replaced. Instead the Very Young
Man had been borrowing from the others as he went along.
The Big Business Man was seized with sudden panic.
"He'll get lost. We must get smaller with him." He turned sidewise, and
stumbling over a rock almost crushed the Very Young Man with the step he
took to recover his balance.
Aura, with a cry, pushed several of the others back; Oteo and Eena,
frightened, started down the declivity.
"We must get smaller!" the Big Business Man reiterated.
The panic was growing among them all. Above their excited cries the
Doctor's voice rose.
"Stand still--all of you. If we move--even a few steps--we can never get
small and hope to find him."
The Doctor--himself too confused to know whether he should take the
diminishing drug at once or not--was bending over the ground. And as he
watched, fascinated, the Very Young Man's figure dwindled beyond the
vanishing point and was gone!
CHAPTER XXXIX
A MODERN DINOSAUR
The Very Young Man never knew quite how it happened. The Doctor had told
them to check their growth: and he took the drug abstractedly, for his
mind was on Aura and how she would feel, coming for the first time into
this great outer world.
What quantity he took, the Very Young Man afterward could never decide.
But the next thing he knew, the figures of his companions had grown to
gigantic size. The rocks about him were expanding enormously. Already he
had lost the contour of the ledge. The cañon wall had drawn back almost
out of sight in the haze of the distance. He turned around, bewildered.
There was no precipice behind him. Instead, a great, rocky plain,
tumbling with a mass of boulders, and broken by seams and rifts, spread
out to his gaze. And even in that instant, as he regarded it in
confusion, it opened up to greater distances.
Near at hand--a hundred yards away, perhaps--a gigantic human figure
towered five hundred feet into the air. Around it, further away, others
equally large, were blurred into the haze of distance.
The nearer figure stooped, and the Very Young Man, fearful that he might
be crushed by its movement, waved his arms in terror. He started to run,
leaping over the jagged ground beneath his feet. A great roaring voice
from above came down to him--the Doctor's voice.
"Don't get smaller!"
The Very Young Man stopped running, more frightened than ever before
with the realization that came to him. He shouted upward:
"I can't stop! I haven't any of the other drug!"
An enormous blurred object came swooping towards him, and went past with
a rush of wind--the foot of the Big Business Man, though the Very Young
Man did not know it. Above him now the air was filled with roaring--the
excited voices of his friends.
A few moments passed while the Very Young Man stood stock still, too
frightened to move. The roaring above gradually ceased. The towering
figures expanded--faded back into the distance--disappeared.
The Very Young Man was alone in the silence and desolation of a jagged,
broken landscape that was still expanding beneath him. For some time he
stood there, bewildered. He came to himself suddenly with the thought
that although he was too small to be seen by his friends, yet they must
be there still within a few steps of him. They might take a step--might
crush him to death without seeing him, or knowing that they had done it!
There were rocky buttes and hills all about him now. Without stopping to
reason what he was doing he began to run. He did not know or care
where--anywhere away from those colossal figures who with a single step
would crush the very hills and rocks about him and bury him beneath an
avalanche of golden quartz.
He ran, in panic, for an hour perhaps, scrambling over little ravines,
falling into a crevice--climbing out and running again. At last, with
his feet torn and bleeding, he threw himself to the ground, utterly
exhausted.
After a time, with returning strength, the Very Young Man began to think
more calmly. He was lost--lost in size--the one thing that the Doctor,
when they started down into the ring, had warned them against so
earnestly. What a fool he had been to run! He was miles away from them
now. He could not make himself large; and were they to get
smaller--small enough to see him, they might wander in this barren
wilderness for days and never chance to come upon him.
The Very Young Man cursed himself for a fool. Why hadn't he kept some of
the enlarging drug with him? And then abruptly, he realized something
additionally terrifying. The dose of the diminishing drug which he had
just taken so thoughtlessly, was the last that remained in that vial. He
was utterly helpless. Thousands of miles of rocky country surrounded
him--a wilderness devoid of vegetation, of water, and of life.
Lying prone upon the ground, which at last had stopped expanding, the
Very Young Man gave himself up to terrified reflection. So this was the
end--all the dangers they had passed through--their conquests--and the
journey out of the ring so near to a safe ending.... And then this!
For a time the Very Young Man abandoned hope. There was nothing to do,
of course. They could never find him--probably, with women and a child
among them they would not dare even to try. They would go safely back to
their own world--but he--Jack Bruce--would remain in the ring. He
laughed with bitter cynicism at the thought. Even the habitable world of
the ring itself, was denied him. Like a lost soul, poised between two
worlds, he was abandoned, waiting helpless, until hunger and thirst
would put an end to his sufferings.
Then the Very Young Man thought of Aura; and with the thought came a new
determination not to give up hope. He stood up and looked about him,
steeling himself against the flood of despair that again was almost
overwhelming. He must return as nearly as possible to the point where he
had parted from his friends. It was the only chance he had remaining--to
be close enough so if one, or all of them, had become small, they would
be able to see him.
There was little to choose of direction in the desolate waste around,
but dimly the Very Young Man recalled having a low line of hills behind
him when he was running. He faced that way now. He had come perhaps six
or seven miles; he would return now as nearly as possible over the same
route. He selected a gully that seemed to wind in that general
direction, and climbing down into it, started off along its floor.
The gully was some forty feet deep and seemed to average considerably
wider. Its sides were smooth and precipitous in some places; in others
they were broken. The Very Young Man had been walking some thirty
minutes when, as he came abruptly around a sharp bend, he saw before him
the most terrifying object he had ever beheld. He stood stock still,
fascinated with horror. On the floor of the gully, directly in front of
him, lay a gigantic lizard--a reptile hideous, grotesque in its
enormity. It was lying motionless, with its jaw, longer than his own
body, flat on the ground as though it were sunning itself. Its tail,
motionless also, wound out behind it. It was a reptile that by its
size--it seemed to the Very Young Man at least thirty feet long--might
have been a dinosaur reincarnated out of the dark, mysterious ages of
the earth's formation. And yet, even in that moment of horror, the Very
Young Man recognized it for what it was--the tiny lizard the Chemist had
sent into the valley of the scratch to test his drug!
At sight of the Very Young Man the reptile raised its great head. Its
tongue licked out hideously; its huge eyes stared unblinking. And then,
slowly, hastelessly, it began coming forward, its great feet scratching
on the rocks, its tail sliding around a boulder behind it.
The Very Young Man waited no longer, but turning, ran back headlong the
way he had come. Curiously enough, this new danger, though it terrified,
did not confuse him. It was a situation demanding physical action, and
with it he found his mind working clearly. He leaped over a rock, half
stumbled, recovered himself and dashed onward.
A glance over his shoulder showed him the reptile coming around the bend
in the gully. It slid forward, crawling over the rocks without effort,
still hastelessly, as though leisurely to pick up this prey which it
knew could not escape it.
The gully here chanced to have smooth, almost perpendicular sides. The
Very Young Man saw that he could not climb out; and even if he could, he
knew that the reptile would go up the sides as easily as along the
floor. It had been over a hundred feet from him when he first saw it.
Now it was less than half that distance and gaining rapidly.
For an instant the Very Young Man slackened his flight. To run on would
be futile. The reptile would overtake him any moment; even now he knew
that with a sudden spring it could land upon him.
A cross rift at right angles in the wall came into sight--a break in the
rock as though it had been riven apart by some gigantic wedge. It was as
deep as the gully itself and just wide enough to admit the passage of
the Very Young Man's body. He darted into it; and heard behind him the
spring of the reptile as it landed at the entrance to the rift into
which its huge size barred it from advancing.
The Very Young Man stopped--panting for breath. He could just turn about
between the enclosing walls. Behind him, outside in the gully, the
lizard lay baffled. And then, seemingly without further interest, it
moved away.
The Very Young Man rested. The danger was past. He could get out of the
rift, doubtless, further ahead, without reentering the gully. And, if he
kept well away from the reptile, probably it would not bother him.
Exultation filled the Very Young Man. And then again he remembered his
situation--lost in size, helpless, without the power to rejoin his
friends. He had escaped death in one form only to confront it again in
another--worse perhaps, since it was the more lingering.
Ahead of him, the rift seemed ascending and opening up. He followed it,
and in a few hundred yards was again on the broken plateau above, level
now with the top of the gully.
The winding gully itself, the Very Young Man could see plainly. Its
nearest point to him was some six hundred feet away; and in its bottom
he knew that hideous reptile lurked. He shuddered and turned away,
instinctively walking quietly, fearing to make some noise that might
again attract its attention to him.
And then came a sound that drove the blood from his face and turned him
cold all over. From the depths of the gully, in another of its bends
nearby, the sound of an anxious girl's voice floated upward.
"Jack! Oh Jack!" And again:
"Jack--my friend Jack!"
It was Aura, his own size perhaps, in the gully searching for him!
With frantic, horrified haste, the Very Young Man ran towards the top of
the gully. He shouted warningly, as he ran.
Aura must have heard him, for her voice changed from anxiety to a glad
cry of relief. He reached the top of the gully; at its bottom--forty
feet below down its precipitous side--stood Aura, looking up, radiant,
to greet him.
"I took the drug," she cried. "I took it before they could forbid me.
They are waiting--up there for us. There is no danger now, Jack."
The Very Young Man tried to silence her. A noise down the gully made him
turn. The gigantic reptile appeared round the nearby bend. It saw the
girl and scuttled forward, rattling the loose bowlders beneath its feet
as it came.
Aura saw it the same instant. She looked up helplessly to the Very Young
Man above her; then she turned and ran down the gully.
The Very Young Man stood transfixed. It was a sheer drop of forty feet
or more to the gully floor beneath him. There was seemingly nothing that
he could do in those few terrible seconds, and yet with subconscious,
instinctive reasoning, he did the one and only thing possible. A loose
mass of the jagged, gold quartz hung over the gully wall. Frantically he
tore at it--pried loose with feet and hands a bowlder that hung poised.
As the lizard approached, the loosened rock slid forward, and dropped
squarely upon the reptile's broad back.
It was a bowlder nearly as large as the Very Young Man himself, but the
gigantic reptile shook it off, writhing and twisting for an instant, and
hurling the smaller loose rocks about the floor of the gully with its
struggles.
The Very Young Man cast about for another missile, but there were none
at hand. Aura, at the confusion, had stopped about two hundred feet
away.
"Run!" shouted the Very Young Man. "Hide somewhere! Run!"
The lizard, momentarily stunned, recovered swiftly. Again it started
forward, seemingly now as alert as before. And then, without warning, in
the air above his head the Very Young Man heard the rush of gigantic
wings. A tremendous grey body swooped past him and into the gully--a
bird larger in proportion than the lizard itself.... It was the little
sparrow the Chemist had sent in from the outside world--maddened now by
thirst and hunger, which to the reptile had been much more endurable.
The Very Young Man, shouting again to Aura to run, stood awestruck,
watching the titanic struggle that was raging below him. The great
lizard rose high on its forelegs to meet this enemy. Its tremendous jaws
opened--and snapped closed; but the bird avoided them. Its huge claws
gripped the reptile's back; its flapping wings spread the sixty foot
width of the gully as it strove to raise its prey into the air. The
roaring of these enormous wings was deafening; the wind from them as
they came up tore past the Very Young Man in violent gusts; and as they
went down, the suction of air almost swept him over the brink of the
precipice. He flung himself prone, clinging desperately to hold his
position.
The lizard threshed and squirmed. A swish of its enormous tail struck
the gully wall and brought down an avalanche of loose, golden rock. But
the giant bird held its grip; its bill--so large that the Very Young
Man's body could easily have lain within it--pecked ferociously at the
lizard's head.
It was a struggle to the death--an unequal struggle, though it raged for
many minutes with an uncanny fury. At last, dragging its adversary to
where the gully was wider, the bird flapped its wings with freedom of
movement and laboriously rose into the air.
And a moment later the Very Young Man, looking upward, saw through the
magic diminishing glass of distance, a little sparrow of his own world,
with a tiny, helpless lizard struggling in its grasp.
* * * * *
"Aura! Don't cry, Aura! Gosh, I don't want you to cry--everything's all
right now."
The Very Young Man sat awkwardly beside the frightened girl, who,
overcome by the strain of what she had been through, was crying
silently. It was strange to see Aura crying; she had always been such a
Spartan, so different from any other girl he had ever known. It confused
him.
"Don't cry, Aura," he repeated. He tried clumsily to soothe her. He
wanted to thank her for what she had done in risking her life to find
him. He wanted to tell her a thousand tender things that sprang into his
heart as he sat there beside her. But when she raised her tear-stained
face and smiled at him bravely, all he said was:
"Gosh, that was some fight, wasn't it? It was great of you to come down
after me, Aura. Are they waiting for us up there?" And then when she
nodded:
"We'd better hurry, Aura. How can we ever find them? We must have come
miles from where they are."
She smiled at him quizzically through her tears.
"You forget, Jack, how small we are. They are waiting on the little
ledge for us--and all this country--" She spread her arms toward the
vast wilderness that surrounded them--"this is all only a very small
part of that same ledge on which they are standing."
It was true; and the Very Young Man realized it at once.
Aura had both drugs with her. They took the one to increase their size,
and without mishap or moving from where they were, rejoined those on the
little ledge who were so anxiously awaiting them.
For half an hour the Very Young Man recounted his adventure, with
praises of Aura that made the girl run to her sister to hide her
confusion. Then once more the party started its short climb out of the
valley of the scratch. In ten minutes they were all safely on the
top--on the surface of the ring at last.
CHAPTER XL
THE ADVENTURERS' RETURN
The Banker, lying huddled in his chair in the clubroom, awoke with a
start. The ring lay at his feet--a shining, golden band gleaming
brightly in the light as it lay upon the black silk handkerchief. The
Banker shivered a little for the room was cold. Then he realized he had
been asleep and looked at his watch. Three o'clock! They had been gone
seven hours, and he had not taken the ring back to the Museum as they
had told him to. He rose hastily to his feet; then as another thought
struck him, he sat down again, staring at the ring.
The honk of an automobile horn in the street outside aroused him from
his reverie. He got to his feet and mechanically began straightening up
the room, packing up the several suit-cases. Then with obvious awe, and
a caution that was almost ludicrous, he fixed the ring in its frame
within the valise prepared for it. He lighted the little light in the
valise, and, every moment or two, went back to look searchingly down at
the ring inside.
When everything was packed the Banker left the room, returning in a
moment with two of the club attendants. They carried the suit-cases
outside, the Banker himself gingerly holding the bag containing the
ring.
"A taxi," he ordered when they were at the door. Then he went to the
desk, explaining that his friends had left earlier in the evening and
that they had finished with the room.
To the taxi-driver he gave a number that was not the Museum address, but
that of his own bachelor apartment on Park Avenue. It was still raining
as he got into the taxi; he held the valise tightly on his lap, looking
into it occasionally and gruffly ordering the chauffeur to drive slowly.
In the sumptuous living-room of his apartment he spread the handkerchief
on the floor under the center electrolier and laid the ring upon it.
Dismissing the astonished and only half-awake butler with a growl, he
sat down in an easy-chair facing the ring, and in a few minutes more was
again fast asleep.
In the morning when the maid entered he was still sleeping. Two hours
later he rang for her, and gave tersely a variety of orders. These she
and the butler obeyed with an air that plainly showed they thought their
master had taken leave of his senses.
They brought him his breakfast and a bath-robe and slippers. And the
butler carried in a mattress and a pair of blankets, laying them with a
sigh on the hardwood floor in a corner of the room.
Then the Banker waved them away. He undressed, put on his bath-robe and
slippers and sat down calmly to eat his breakfast. When he had finished
he lighted a cigar and sat again in his easy-chair, staring at the ring,
engrossed with his thoughts. Three days he would give them. Three days,
to be sure they had made the trip successfully. Then he would take the
ring to the Museum. And every Sunday he would visit it; until they came
back--if they ever did.
* * * * *
The Banker's living-room with its usually perfect appointments was in
thorough disorder. His meals were still being served him there by his
dismayed servants. The mattress still lay in the corner; on it the
rumpled blankets showed where he had been sleeping. For the hundredth
time during his long vigil the Banker, still wearing his dressing-gown
and slippers and needing a shave badly, put his face down close to the
ring. His heart leaped into his throat; his breath came fast; for along
the edge of the ring a tiny little line of figures was slowly moving.
He looked closer, careful lest his laboured breathing blow them away. He
saw they were human forms--little upright figures, an eighth of an inch
or less in height--moving slowly along one behind the other. He counted
nine of them. Nine! he thought, with a shock of surprise. Why, only
three had gone in! Then they had found Rogers, and were bringing him and
others back with him!
Relief from the strain of many hours surged over the Banker. His eyes
filled with tears; he dashed them away--and thought how ridiculous a
feeling it was that possessed him. Then suddenly his head felt queer; he
was afraid he was going to faint. He rose unsteadily to his feet, and
threw himself full-length upon the mattress in the corner of the room.
Then his senses faded. He seemed hardly to faint, but rather to drift
off into an involuntary but pleasant slumber.
* * * * *
With returning consciousness the Banker heard in the room a confusion of
many voices. He opened his eyes; the Doctor was sitting on the mattress
beside him. The Banker smiled and parted his lips to speak, but the
Doctor interrupted him.
"Well, old friend!" he cried heartily. "What happened to you? Here we
are back all safely."
The Banker shook his friend's hand with emotion; then after a moment he
sat up and looked about him. The room seemed full of people--strange
looking figures, in extraordinary costumes, dirty and torn. The Very
Young Man crowded forward.
"We got back, sir, didn't we?" he said.
The Banker saw he was holding a young girl by the hand--the most
remarkable-looking girl, the Banker thought, that he had ever beheld.
Her single garment, hanging short of her bare knees, was ragged and
dirty; her jet black hair fell in tangled masses over her shoulders.
"This is Aura," said the Very Young Man. His voice was full of pride;
his manner ingenuous as a child's.
Without a trace of embarrassment the girl smiled and with a pretty
little bending of her head, held down her hand to the astonished Banker,
who sat speechless upon his mattress.
Loto pushed forward. "That's _mamita_ over there," he said, pointing.
"Her name is Lylda; she's Aura's sister."
The Banker recovered his wits. "Well, and who are you, little man?" he
asked with a smile.
"My name is Loto," the little boy answered earnestly. "That's my
father." And he pointed across the room to where the Chemist was coming
forward to join them.
CHAPTER XLI
THE FIRST CHRISTMAS
Christmas Eve in a little village of Northern New York--a white
Christmas, clear and cold. In the dark, blue-black of the sky the
glittering stars were spread thick; the brilliant moon poured down its
silver light over the whiteness of the sloping roof-tops, and upon the
ghostly white, silently drooping trees. A heaviness hung in the frosty
air--a stillness broken only by the tinkling of sleigh-bells or
sometimes by the merry laughter of the passers-by.
At the outskirts of the village, a little back from the road, a
farmhouse lay snuggled up between two huge apple-trees--an
old-fashioned, rambling farmhouse with a steeply pitched roof, piled
high now, with snow. It was brilliantly lighted this Christmas Eve, its
lower windows sending forth broad yellow beams of light over the
whiteness of the ground outside.
In one of the lower rooms of the house, before a huge, blazing log-fire,
a woman and four men sat talking. Across the room, at a table, a little
boy was looking at a picture-book by the light of an oil-lamp.
The woman made a striking picture as she sat back at ease before the
fire. She was dressed in a simple black evening-dress such as a lady of
the city would wear. It covered her shoulders, but left her throat bare.
Her features, particularly her eyes, had a slight Oriental cast, which
the mass of very black hair coiled on her head accentuated. Yet she did
not look like an Oriental, nor indeed like a woman of any race of this
earth. Her cheeks were red--the delicate diffused red of perfect health.
But underneath the red there lay a curious mixture of other colours, not
only on her cheeks but particularly noticeable on her neck and arms. Her
skin was smooth as a pearl; in the mellow firelight it glowed, with the
iridescence of a shell.
The four men were dressed in the careless negligee of city men in the
country. They were talking gaily now among themselves. The woman spoke
seldom, staring dreamily into the fire.
A clock in another room struck eight; the woman glanced over to where
the child sat, absorbed with the pictures in his book. The page at which
he was looking showed a sleigh loaded with toys, with a team of
reindeers and a jolly, fat, white-bearded, red-jacketed old man driving
the sleigh over the chimney tops.
"Come Loto, little son," the woman said. "You hear--it is the time of
sleep for you."
The boy put down his book reluctantly and went over to the fireplace,
standing beside his mother with an arm about her neck.
"Oh, _mamita_ dear, will he surely come, this Santa Claus? He never knew
about me before; will he surely come?"
Lylda kissed him tenderly. "He will come, Loto, every Christmas Eve; to
you and to all the other children of this great world, will he always
come."
"But you must be asleep when he comes, Loto," one of the men admonished.
"Yes, my father, that I know," the boy answered gravely. "I will go
now."
"Come back Loto, when you have undressed," the Chemist called after him,
as he left the room. "Remember you must hang your stocking."
When they were left alone Lylda looked at her companions and smiled.
"His first Christmas," she said. "How wonderful we are going to make it
for him."
"I can remember so well," the Big Business Man remarked thoughtfully,
"when they first told me there was no Santa Claus. I cried, for I knew
Christmas would never be the same to me."
"Loto is nearly twelve years old," the Doctor said. "Just
imagine--having his first Christmas."
"We're going to make it a corker," said the Banker. "Where's the tree?
We got one."
"In the wood-shed," Lylda answered. "He has not seen it; I was so very
careful."
They were silent a moment. Then: "My room is chock full of toys," the
Banker said reflectively. "But this is a rotten town for candy
canes--they only had little ones." And they all laughed.
"I have a present for you, Lylda," the Chemist said after a moment.
"Oh, but you must not give it until to-morrow; you yourself have told me
that."
The Chemist rose. "I want to give it now," he said, and left the room.
In a moment he returned, carrying a mahogany pedestal under one arm and
a square parcel in the other. He set the pedestal upright on the floor
in a corner of the room and began opening the package. It was a mahogany
case, cubical in shape. He lifted its cover, disclosing a glass-bell set
upon a flat, mahogany slab. Fastened to the center of this was a
handsome black plush case, in which lay a gold wedding-ring.
Lylda drew in her breath sharply and held it; the three other men stared
at the ring in amazement. The Chemist was saying: "And I decided not to
destroy it, Lylda, for your sake. There is no air under this glass
cover; the ring is lying in a vacuum, so that nothing can come out of it
and live. It is quite safe for us to keep it--this way. I thought of
this plan, afterwards, and decided to keep the ring--for you." He set
the glass bell on the pedestal.
Lylda stood before it, bending down close over the glass.
"You give me back--my world," she breathed; then she straightened up,
holding out her arms toward the ring. "My birthplace--my people--they
are safe." And then abruptly she sank to her knees and began softly
sobbing.
Loto called from upstairs and they heard him coming down. Lylda went
back hastily to the fire; the Chemist pushed a large chair in front of
the pedestal, hiding it from sight.
The boy, in his night clothes, stood on the hearth beside his mother.
"There is the stocking, _mamita_. Where shall I hang it?"
"First the prayer, Loto. Can you remember?"
The child knelt on the hearth, with his head in his mother's lap.
"Now I lay me----" he began softly, halting over the unfamiliar words.
Lylda's fingers stroked his brown curly head as it nestled against her
knees; the firelight shone golden in his tousled curls.
The Chemist was watching them with moist eyes. "His first Christmas," he
murmured, and smiled a little tender smile. "His first Christmas."
The child was finishing.
"And God bless Aura, and Jack, and----"
"And Grandfather Reoh," his mother prompted softly.
"And Grandfather Reoh--and _mamita_, and----" The boy ended with a
rush--"and me too. Amen. Now where do I hang the stocking, mother?"
In a moment the little stocking dangled from a mantel over the
fireplace.
"You are sure he will come?" the child asked anxiously again.
"It is certain, Loto--if you are asleep."
Loto kissed his mother and shook hands solemnly with the men--a grave,
dignified little figure.
"Good night, Loto," said the Big Business Man.
"Good night, sir. Good night, my father--good night, _mamita_; I shall
be asleep very soon." And with a last look at the stocking he ran out of
the room.
"What a Christmas he will have," said the Banker, a little huskily.
A girl stood in the doorway that led into the dining-room adjoining--a
curious-looking girl in a gingham apron and cap. Lylda looked up.
"Oh, Eena, please will you say to Oteo we want the tree from the
wood-shed--in the dining-room."
The little maid hesitated. Her mistress smiled and added a few words in
foreign tongue. The girl disappeared.
"Every window gets a holly wreath," the Doctor said. "They're in a box
outside in the wood-shed."
"Look what I've got," said the Big Business Man, and produced from his
pocket a little folded object which he opened triumphantly into a long
serpent of filigree red paper on a string with little red and green
paper bells hanging from it. "Across the doorway," he added, waving his
hand.
A moment after there came a stamping of feet on the porch outside, and
then the banging of an outer door. A young man and girl burst into the
room, kicking the snow from their feet and laughing. The youth carried
two pairs of ice-skates slung over his shoulder; as he entered the room
he flung them clattering to the floor.
The girl, even at first glance, was extraordinarily pretty. She was
small and very slender of build. She wore stout high-laced tan shoes, a
heavy woollen skirt that fell to her shoe-tops and a short, belted coat,
with a high collar buttoned tight about her throat. She was covered now
with snow. Her face and the locks of hair that strayed from under her
knitted cap were soaking wet.
"He threw me down," she appealed to the others.
"I didn't--she fell."
"You did; into the snow you threw me--off the road." She laughed. "But I
am learning to skate."
"She fell three times," said her companion accusingly.
"Twice only, it was," the girl corrected. She pulled off her cap, and a
great mass of black hair came tumbling down about her shoulders.
Lylda, from her chair before the fire, smiled mischievously.
"Aura, my sister," she said in a tone of gentle reproof. "So immodest it
is to show all that hair."
The girl in confusion began gathering it up.
"Don't you let her tease you, Aura," said the Big Business Man. "It's
very beautiful hair."
"Where's Loto?" asked the Very Young Man, pulling off his hat and coat.
"In bed--see his stocking there."
A childish treble voice was calling from upstairs. "Good night,
Aura--good night, my friend Jack."
"Good night, old man--see you to-morrow," the Very Young Man called back
in answer.
"You mustn't make so much noise," the Doctor said reprovingly. "He'll
never get to sleep."
"No, you mustn't," the Big Business Man agreed. "To-morrow's a very very
big day for him."
"Some Christmas," commented the Very Young Man looking around. "Where's
the holly and stuff?"
"Oh, we've got it all right, don't you worry," said the Banker.
"And mistletoe," said Lylda, twinkling. "For you, Jack."
Eena again stood in the doorway and said something to her mistress. "The
tree is ready," said Lylda.
The Chemist rose to his feet. "Come on, everybody; let's go trim it."
They crowded gaily into the dining-room, leaving the Very Young Man and
Aura sitting alone by the fire. For some time they sat silent, listening
to the laughter of the others trimming the tree.
The Very Young Man looked at the girl beside him as she sat staring into
the fire. She had taken off her heavy coat, and her figure seemed long
and very slim in the clothes she was wearing now. She sat bending
forward, with her hands clasped over her knees. The long line of her
slender arm and shoulder, and the delicacy of her profile turned towards
him, made the Very Young Man realize anew how fragile she was, and how
beautiful.
Her mass of hair was coiled in a great black pile on her head, with a
big, loose knot low at the neck. The iridescence of her skin gleamed
under the flaming red of her cheeks. Her lips, too, were red, with the
smooth, rich red of coral. The Very Young Man thought with a shock of
surprise that he had never noticed before that they were red; in the
ring there had been no such color.
In the room adjoining, his friends were proposing a toast over the
Christmas punch bowl. The Chemist's voice floated in through the
doorway.
"To the Oroids--happiness to them." Then for an instant there was
silence as they drank the toast.
Aura met the Very Young Man's eyes and smiled a little wanly.
"Happiness--to them! I wonder. We who are so happy to-night--I wonder,
are they?"
The Very Young Man leaned towards her. "You are happy, Aura?"
The girl nodded, still staring wistfully into the fire.
"I want you to be," the Very Young Man added simply, and fell silent.
A blazing log in the fire twisted and rolled to one side; the crackling
flames leaped higher, bathing the girl's drooping little figure in their
golden light.
The Very Young Man after a time found himself murmuring familiar lines
of poetry. His memory leaped back. A boat sailing over a silent summer
lake--underneath the stars--the warmth of a girl's soft little body
touching his--her hair, twisted about his fingers--the thrill in his
heart; he felt it now as his lips formed the words:
"The stars would be your pearls upon a string,
The world a ruby for your finger-ring,
And you could have the sun and moon to wear,
If I were king."
"You remember, Aura, that night in the boat?"
Again the girl nodded. "I shall learn to read it--some day," she said
eagerly. "And all the others that you told me. I want to. They sing--so
beautifully."
A sleigh passed along the road outside; the jingle of its bells drifted
in to them. The Very Young Man reached over and gently touched the
girl's hand; her fingers closed over his with an answering pressure. His
heart was beating fast.
"Aura," he said earnestly. "I want to be King--for you--this first
Christmas and always. I want to give you--all there is in this life, of
happiness, that I can give--just for you."
The girl met his gaze with eyes that were melting with tenderness.
"I love you, Aura," he said softly.
"I love you, too, Jack," she whispered, and held her lips up to his.
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