CHAPTER XVIII

_The People of Radiance_

The exaltation of Sarka knew no bounds, and looking into the eyes of

Jaska, he knew she felt it, too. For her face was shining, and all of

her, the wondrous shining brilliance of her, was bathed in the white

radiance that mantled Luar. And now, since Jaska too knew that

radiance, her beauty was greater even than that of Luar. Sarka

thrilled anew at the glory of her.

But even as he stepped into the base of the Cone, he stepped out of

the blue column at the lip of the Moon-crater. Swift as light, and

swifter, had been the flight upward from the Cavern of the Cone; yet,

so keen were his perceptions, he knew when he had passed through the

chamber of the bluish glow, into which he and Jaska had first dropped

upon arrival.

Now they were on the lip of the crater, and the people of the Gens who

had followed him, were slipping out of the blue column, like insects

out of a flame, and converging on the aircars whose tentacles still

waved as they had when Sarka had last seen them.

Sarka looked at these people in amazement. To him there was a divinity

now about their nudeness which nudity never before had suggested to

him. For the people shone, and there was something glorious in those

divinely white bodies. They reminded Sarka of his people's books of

antiquity, and his childhood's pictures of angels....

But the effect of those white flames!...

* * * * *

There was no explaining it. But Sarka felt that whatever he willed to

do he could do; that whatever he wished for was his, whether it was

his by right or no. He felt that he could move mountains, with only

the aid of his hands. Looking at Jaska he conceived all sorts of new

beauty in her, for she was the brightest, to him, of all the people

who had passed through the lake of white flames, and been cleansed in

their heat.

"No wonder Luar has mastered the Moon!" he cried to Jaska. "For when

she was bathed in the white flames, her will is paramount!"

"But how, if she passes the people of the Gens of Dalis through the

flames, will she retain her sovereignty?"

"Because Dalis, too, has passed through, and his will is the will of

the Gens! They will obey him, and he has sworn allegiance to Luar, or

given some sort of oath of fealty!"

"How strange that but one person on the Moon has been bathed in the

white flames!"

"How do we know," Sarka almost whispered it, "that she is, originally,

of the Moon? Does she not look too much like our people, to be from

another world entirely?"

"I do not know, but ... you mean ... you mean...?"

"I scarcely know; but Dalis would swear allegiance to no man, much

less to a woman, unless he knew that man, or woman, far better than he

has had opportunity, in a matter of hours only, to know Luar!"

He left it there then, as he strode boldly, with Jaska by his side, to

the nearest of the aircars.

* * * * *

As he approached the car, the gleam cube beneath it seemed to gleam

brighter and brighter, as though it echoed the radiance of Sarka.

Sarka knew, studying this phenomenon, that he possessed at least a

hint of the secret of Luar's omnipotence. There had been a hint

before, but by now its meaning was clearer. The white flames, out of

the heart of the dying Moon, gave new life, exaltation, not only to

the bodies but to the brains of those who passed through it, and with

their brains quickened, they possessed such knowledge as men of Earth,

for ages, had wished to possess.

Transmutation of metals ... the ability, at will, to endow the higher,

more selective metals with intelligence ... and the ability to retain

command of the intelligences thus endowed. This explained the power of

Luar over the Gnomes, and the power of the Gnomes over the cubes--if

they possessed that power.

But the Gnomes, what of them? What were they?

But for a space Sarka must await the answer to that question, for

there was little time. Already he knew that the tale of his escape,

and his taking over of a portion of the Gens of Dalis, must have gone

like wildfire through all the crater, and from this crater, perhaps,

had been transmitted to all the craters of the Moon. All the

craters....

* * * * *

That explained to him the absence from the lake of white flames, where

he had seen so few, comparatively, of the people of Dalis' Gens. The

Moon was honeycombed by such craters, and perhaps the white flame

connected them all, made them all one. And Luar commanded all from her

dais in this crater Sarka and his people were escaping. The millions

of the Gens had been swallowed by the craters of the Moon, at command

of Luar, acceded to by Dalis--and all over the Moon the very things

which Sarka and Jaska had witnessed were taking place.

Even now, as Sarka raced for the aircar, and Jaska with him, he could

feel a backward pulling that was well-nigh invincible. Someone was

willing him to return, willing the Gnomes to pursue him, willing the

cubes to refuse obedience to him; but he laughed and stepped to the

aircar, passing by the nearest writhing tentacle as though he knew it

possessed no power to harm him. The tentacle swept aside, and did not

try to bar him, while he sent his will crashing against that brightly

gleaming cube. "Into the aircar! We enter with you!"

The cube vanished instantly, and it seemed to Sarka that invisible

hands caught at his feet, lifting him up through the trap-door in the

belly of the aircar, up and inside. The door swung shut, and in the

forward end of the vast aircar gleamed the cube which had obeyed his

command!

* * * * *

Sarka sent one thought careening outward from the aircar, a command to

the cubes which stood watch beneath the other aircars.

"Obey the Radiant People, and through them, _me_!"

The light of the cube made the interior of the aircar as light as day,

and Sarka was struck at once with another phenomenon. He could see

through the sides of the car in any direction.

And what he saw filled him with a sudden fear!

Out of the crater poured myriads of the Gnomes, and up the sides of it

came myriads of the gleaming cubes, all racing toward the cars.

"Get back! Get back!" he commanded the Gnomes and the cubes.

At the same time he issued his commands to the cube within his own

car, and to the cubes which by now were inside the other aircars,

realizing that the cubes themselves were the motive power of the

aircars--and that his will was the will of these individual cubes.

"Fly at once! Fly outward at top speed toward the Earth!"

Instantly, as though a single signal had started all the cars, a dozen

aircars rose majestically from the crater, while Sarka studied the

Gnomes and the cubes in turmoil on the rim. He noted then, a strange

circumstance: that when he commanded the Gnomes and the pursuing cubes

to keep back, they hesitated, dazedly, as though they did not know

whether to advance or to retreat; that when he merely watched them,

they came on.

He laughed aloud at this measuring of mental swords with Luar, and

with Dalis. For he could sense the conflict very plainly. She

commanded the Gnomes and the cubes to attack, he commanded them to

retreat, and they remained undecided, like people drawn between two

extremities, and uncertain which direction to take.

Upward, side by side now, floated the aircars of the Moon, and in the

forepeak of each, one of the gleaming cubes, like--like

anti-gravitational ovoids of the Moon! At the fast falling rim of the

crater boiled the Gnomes and the cubes, stirring and tumbling,

hampered by their very numbers, as they tried to attack at will of

Luar and retreated in confusion at the will of Sarka.

Then there was Jaska beside Sarka, her face fearful, as he pointed off

across the gloomy expanse of the Moon.

From all sides, from all directions, from other craters which these

two had not even seen, came scores and hundreds of the monster cars!

They had beaten Luar and Dalis but for a moment, then! Now, at her

command, the countless other aircars were coming in to head them off,

to fight them back to the surface of the Moon. It would be a race

against time, and against death. But of at least a dozen of the

aircars, Sarka was master, and he did not fear the issue. That strange

exaltation which the white flames had given him filled him with a

confidence that nothing could shake.

He shot a thought at the gleaming cube in the forepeak.

"Faster! Faster! There is no limit to your speed! Faster! Faster! Even

faster!"

Instantly the Moon seemed literally to drop away beneath the dozen

aircars which carried the Radiant People, while the aircars of Luar

and of Dalis fell hopelessly behind.

Sure that they would win in this race now, since he was just beginning

to realize the vastness of his power--the all-encompassing,

all-mastering power of the human mind and will, which the white flames

of the Moon had made almost god-like--Sarka turned his eyes toward a

coldly gleaming sphere in the star-spangled heavens ahead.

* * * * *

It was the Earth, and it seemed ringed in flames! From its edges there

seemed to shoot long streamers of yellow or golden flames, which broke

into sunlike pinwheels of radiance at their tips. Something, there on

the precious Earth, was decidedly wrong!

Instantly, telepathically, he sought to gain mental contact with his

father.

"Father, we are coming!" he said, across those countless miles. "What

is happening?"

For a full minute there was no answer. Then it came, feeble, broken,

weighted with fear; but it was a thought-message, unmistakably, of

Sarka the Second.

"Hurry, son! Hurry! For Dalis has indeed betrayed us! I could not

maintain control of the Earth with the Beryls, for some strange

catastrophe has destroyed all the Beryls in the area Dalis ruled! The

shifting of positions of the Earth and the Moon has so altered the

relative effects of the pull of gravity exerted by the planets that

Mars has been brought into dangerous proximity to us and is already so

close that her ether-lights are playing over us! Surely you must be

able to see them! We have received messages, but as yet I have only

been partially able to decode them! What I have decoded, however,

presages catastrophe--for I am sure that Mars and the Moon are in

confederation, and that the Moon-people have deliberately forced us

into contact with her ally!"

Cold fear clutched at the throat of Sarka as he caught the message. He

decided not to tell Jaska for the moment. He looked to right and left,

at the aircars on either side of him, then issued his commands.

"Faster! Faster! Be prepared to land in the area of the Gens of

Cleric, as close as possible to my laboratory!"

A strange, awesome sight, that flight of the rebels of Dalis' Gens

from the Moon to the Earth--like gleaming stars across the void. Far

out in Space they fled at terrific speed through almost utter

darkness, but their light was still blinding, lighting the way.

(_Concluded in the next issue_)

Murder Madness

CONCLUSION OF A FOUR-PART NOVEL

_By Murray Leinster_

[Illustration: _The deck was covered with panic-stricken folk who had

come in awful terror to watch. And all were slaves to The Master._]

[Sidenote: Bell has fought through tremendous obstacles to find and

kill The Master, whose diabolical poison makes murder-mad snakes of

the hands; and, as he faces the monster at last--his own hands start

to writhe!]

CHAPTER XV

The door of the car swung wide, and Ortiz's pale grim face peered in

behind the blue steel barrel of his automatic. He smiled queerly as

Jamison, with a grunt of relief, tapped Bell's wrist in sign to put

away his weapon.

"Ah, very well," said Ortiz, with the same queer smile upon his face.

"One moment."

He disappeared. On the instant there was the thunderous crashing of a

weapon. Bell started up, but Jamison thrust him back. Then Ortiz

appeared again with smoke still trickling from the barrel of his

pistol.

"I have just done something that I have long wished to do," he

observed coolly. "I have killed the chauffeur and his companion. You

may alight, now. I believe we will have half an hour or more. It will

do excellently."

He offered his hand to Paula as she stepped out. She seemed to shudder

a little as she took it.

"I do not blame you for shuddering, Senorita," he said politely, "but

men who are about to die may indulge in petty spites. And the

chauffeur was a favorite with the deputy for whom I am substituting.

Like all favorites of despots, he had power to abuse, and abused it. I

could tell you tales, but refrain."

* * * * *

The car had come to a stop in what seemed to be a huge warehouse, and

by the sound of water round about, it was either near or entirely

built out over the harbor. A large section near the outer end was

walled off. Boxes, bales, parcels and packages of every sort were

heaped all about. Bell saw crated air engines lying in a row against

one wall. There were a dozen or more of them. Machinery, huge cases of

foodstuffs....

"The Buenos Aires depot," said Ortiz almost gaily. "This was the point

of receipt for all the manufactured goods which went to the _fazenda_

of Cuyaba, Senor Bell. Since you destroyed that place, it has not been

so much used. However, it will serve excellently as a tomb. There are

cases of hand grenades yonder. I advise you to carry a certain number

with you. The machine guns for the air-craft, with their ammunition,

are here...."

He was hurrying them toward the great walled-off space as he talked,

his automatic serving as a pointer when he indicated the various

objects.

"Now, here," he added as he unlocked the door, "is your vessel. The

Master bought only amphibian planes of late. Those for Cuyaba were

assembled in this little dock and took off from the water. Your

destruction up there, Senor Bell, left one quite complete but

undelivered. I think another, crated, is still in the warehouse. I

have been very busy, but if you can fuel and load it before we are

attacked...."

They were in a roofed and walled but floorless shed, built into the

warehouse itself. Water surged about below them, and on it floated a

five passenger plane, fully assembled and apparently ready to fly,

but brand new and so far unused.

* * * * *

"I'll look it over," said Bell, briefly. He swung down the catwalk

painted on the wings. He began a swift and hasty survey. Soot on the

exhaust stacks proved that the motors had been tried, at least.

Everything seemed trim and new and glistening in the cabin. The fuel

tanks showed the barest trace of fuel. The oil tanks were full to

their filling-plugs.

He swung back up.

"Taking a chance, of course," he said curtly. "If the motors were all

right when they were tried, they probably are all right now. They may

have been tuned up, and may not. I tried the controls, and they seem

to work. For a new ship, of course, a man would like to go over it

carefully, but if we've got to hurry...."

"I think," said Ortiz, and laughed, "that haste would be desirable.

Herr Wiedkind--No! _Amigo mio_, it was that damned Antonio Calles who

listened to us last night. I found pencil marks beside the listening

instrument. He must have sat there and eavesdropped upon me many weary

hours, and scribbled as men do to pass the time. He had a pretty taste

in monograms.... I gave all the orders that were needful for you to

take off from the flying field. I even went there myself and gave

additional orders. And Calles was there. Also others of The Master's

subjects. My treason would provoke a terrible revenge from The Master,

so they thought to prove their loyalty by permitting me to disclose my

plan and foil it at its beginning.

"I would have made the journey with you to The Master, but as a

prisoner with the tale of my treason written out. So I returned and

changed the orders to the chauffeur, when all the Master's loyal

subjects were waiting at the flying field. But soon it will occur to

them what I have done. They will come here. Therefore, hasten!"

"We want food," said Bell evenly, "and arms, but mostly we want fuel.

We'll get busy."

* * * * *

He shed his coat and picked up a hand-truck. He rammed it under a drum

of gasoline and ran it to the walkway nearest to the floating plane.

Coiled against the wall there was a long hose with a funnel at its

upper end. In seconds he had the hose end in one of the wing

fuel-tanks. In seconds more he had propped the funnel into place and

was watching the gasoline gurgling down the hose.

"Paula," he said curtly, "watch this. When it's empty roll the drum

away so I can put another in its place."

She moved quickly beside it, throwing him a little smile. She set

absorbedly about her task.

Jamison arrived with another drum of gas before the first was emptied,

and Bell was there with a third while the second still gurgled. They

heaped the full drums in place, and Jamison suddenly abandoned his

truck to swear wrathfully and tear off his spectacles and fling them

against the wall. The bushy eyebrows and beard peeled off. His coat

went down. He began to rush loads of foodstuffs, arms, and other

objects to a point from which they could be loaded on the plane. Ortiz

pointed out the things he pantingly demanded.

In minutes, it seemed, he was demanding: "How much can we take? Any

more than that?"

"No more," said Bell. "All the weight we can spare goes for fuel. See

if you can find another hose and funnel and get to work on the other

tank. I'm going to rustle oil."

He came staggering back with heavy drums of it. A thought struck him.

"How do we get out? What works the harbor door?"

* * * * *

Ortiz pointed, smiling.

"A button, Senor, and a motor does the rest." He looked at his watch.

"I had better see if my fellow subjects have come."

He vanished, smiling his same queer smile. Bell worked frantically. He

saw Ortiz coming back, pausing to light a cigarette, and taking up a

hatchet, with which he attacked a packing case.

"They are outside, Senor," he called. "They have found the signs of

the car entering, and now are discussing."

He plucked something carefully from the packing box and went leisurely

back toward the door. Bell began to load the food and stores into the

cabin, with sweat streaming down his face.

There was the sound of a terrific explosion, and Bell jumped savagely

to solid ground.

"Keep loading! I'll hold them back!" he snapped to Jamison.

But when he went pounding to the back of the warehouse he found Ortiz

laughing.

"A hand grenade, Senor," he said in wholly unnatural levity. "Among

the subjects of The Master. I believe that I am going mad, to take

such pleasure in destruction. But since I am to die so shortly, why

not go mad, if it gives me pleasure?"

* * * * *

He peered out a tiny hole and aimed his automatic carefully. It

spurted out all the seven shots that were left.

"The man who poisoned me," he said pleasantly. "I think he is dead. Go

back and make ready to leave, Senor Bell, because they will probably

try to storm this place soon, and then the police will come, and

then.... It is amusing that I am the one man to whom those enslaved

among the city authorities would look for The Master's orders."

Bell stared out. He saw a small horde of people, frantically agitated,

milling in the cramped and unattractive little street of Buenos Aires'

waterfront. Sheer desperation seemed to impel them, desperation and a

frantic fear. They surged forward--and Ortiz flung a hand grenade. Its

explosion was terrific, but he had perhaps purposely flung it short.

Bell suddenly saw police uniforms, fighting a way through to the front

of the crowd and the source of all this disturbance.

"Go back," said Ortiz seriously. "I shall die, Senor Bell. There is

nothing else for me to do. But I wish to die with Latin melodrama." He

managed a smile. "I will give you ten minutes more. I can hold off the

police themselves for so long. But you must hasten, because there are

police launches."

* * * * *

He held out his hand. Bell took it.

"Good luck," said Ortiz.

"You can come--" began Bell, wrenched by the gaiety on Ortiz's face.

"Absurd," said Ortiz, smiling. "I should be murder mad within three

days. This is a preferable death, I assure you. Ten minutes, no more!"

And Bell went racing back and found Jamison rolling away the last of

the fuel drums and Paula looking anxiously for him.

"Tanks full," said Jamison curtly. "Everything set. What next?"

"Engines," said Bell.

He swung down and jerked a prop over. Again, and again.... The motor

caught. He went plunging to the other. Minutes.... They caught. He

throttled them down to the proper warming up roaring, while the air in

the enclosed space grew foul.

* * * * *

Once more to the warehouse. Ortiz shouted and waved his hand. He was

filling his pockets with hand grenades. Bell made a gesture of

farewell and Ortiz seemed to smile as he went back to hold the

entrance for a little longer.

"We're going," said Bell grimly. "Get your guns ready, Jamison, for

when the door goes up."

He pressed on the button Ortiz had pointed out. There were more

explosions and the rattle of firearms from the front of the warehouse.

There was a sudden rumble of machinery and the blank front of the

little covered dock rose suddenly. The sunlit waters of Buenos Aires

harbor spread out before them. To Bell, who had not looked on sunlight

that day, the effect was dazzling. He blinked, and then saw a fast

little launch approaching. There were uniformed figures crowded about

its bows.

"All set!" he snapped. "I'm going to give her the gun."

"Go to it," said Jamison. "We're--"

The motors bellowed and drowned out the rest. The plane shuddered and

began to move. The sound of explosions from the back of the warehouse

was loud and continuous, now. Out into the bright sunlight the plane

moved, at first heavily, then swiftly....

Bell saw arms waving wildly in the launch with the uniformed men.

Sunlight glittered suddenly on rifle barrels. Puffs of vapor shot out.

Something spat through the wall beside Bell. But the roaring of the

motors kept up, and the pounding of the waves against the curved bow

of the boat-body grew more and more violent.... Sweat came out on

Bell's face. The ship was not lifting....

* * * * *

But it did lift. Slowly, very slowly, carrying every pound with which

it could have risen from the water. It swept past the police launch at

ninety miles an hour, but no more than five feet above the waves. A

big, clumsy tramp flying the Norwegian flag splashed up river with its

propeller half out of water. Bell dared to rise a little so he could

bank and dodge it. He could not rise above it.

He had one glimpse of blonde, astonished beards staring over the stern

of the tramp as he swept by it, his wing tips level with its rail and

barely twenty feet away. And then he went on and on, out to sea.

He began to spiral for height fully four miles offshore, and looked

back at the sprawling city. Down by the waterfront a thick, curling

mass of smoke was rising from one spot abutting on the water. It

swayed aside and Bell saw the rectangular opening out of which the

plane had come.

"Ortiz's in there," he said, sick at heart. "Dying as he planned."

But there was a sudden upheaval of timbers and roof. A colossal burst

of smoke. A long time later the concussion of a vast explosion. There

was nothing left where the warehouse had been.

Bell looked, and swore softly to himself, and felt a fresh surge of

the hatred he bore to The Master and all his works. And then filmy

clouds loomed up but a little above the rising plane, and Bell shot

into them and straightened out for the south.

* * * * *

For many long hours the plane floated on to southward, high above a

gray ocean which seemed deceptively placid beneath a canopy of thin

clouds. The motors roared steadily in the main, though once Bell

instructed Jamison briefly in the maintenance of a proper course and

height, and swung out into the terrific blast of air that swept past

the wings. He clung to struts and handholds and made his way out on

the catwalk to make some fine adjustment in one motor, with six

thousand feet of empty space below the swaying wing.

"Carburetter wrong," he explained when he had closed the cabin window

behind him again and the motors' roar was once more dulled. "It was

likely to make a lot of carbon in the cylinders. O.K., now."

Paula's hand touched his shyly. He smiled abstractedly at her and went

back to the controls.

And then the plane kept on steadily. Time and space have become purely

relative in these days, in startling verification of Mr. Einstein, and

the distance between Buenos Aires and Magellan Strait is great or

small, a perilous journey or a mere day's travel, according to the

mind and the transportation facilities of the voyager. Before four

o'clock in the afternoon the coast was low and sandy to the westward,

and it continued sterile and bare for long hours while the plane hung

high against the sky with a following wind driving it on vastly more

swiftly than its own engines could have contrived.

* * * * *

It was little before sunset when the character of the shore changed

yet again, and the sun was low behind a bank of angry clouds when the

stubby forefinger of rock that Magellan optimistically named the Cape

of the Eleven Thousand Virgins reached upward from the seemingly

placid water. Bell swept lower, then, much lower, looking for a

landing place. He found it eight or nine miles farther on, on a wide

sandy beach some three miles from a lighthouse. The little plane

splashed down into tumbling sea and, half supported by the waves and

half by the lift remaining to its wings, ran for yards up upon the

hard packed sand.

The landing had been made at late twilight, and Bell moved stiffly

when he rose from the pilot's seat.

"I'm going over to that lighthouse," he said curtly. "There won't be

enough men there to be dangerous and they probably haven't frequent

communication with the town. I'll learn something, anyway. You two

stay with the plane."

Jamison lifted his eyebrows and was about to speak, but looked at

Bell's expression and stopped. Leadership is everywhere a matter of

emotion and brains together, and though Jamison had his share of

brains, he had not Bell's corroding, withering passion of hatred

against The Master and all who served him gladly. All the way down the

coast Bell had been remembering things he had seen of The Master's

doing. His power was solely that of fear, and the deputies of his

selection had necessarily been men who would spread that terror with

an unholy zest. The nature of his hold upon his subjects was such that

no honorable man would ever serve him willingly, and for deputies he

had need of men even of enthusiasm. His deputies, then, were men who

found in the assigned authority of The Master full scope for the

satisfaction of their own passions. And Bell had seen what those

passions brought about, and there was a dull flame of hatred burning

in his eyes that would never quite leave them until those men were

powerless and The Master dead.

* * * * *

"You'll look after the ship and Paula," said Bell impatiently. "All

right?"

Jamison nodded. Paula looked appealingly at Bell, but he had become a

man with an obsession. Perhaps the death of Ortiz had cemented it, but

certainly he was unable to think of anything, now, but the necessity

of smashing the ghastly hold of The Master upon all the folk he had

entrapped. Subconsciously, perhaps, Bell saw in the triumph of The

Master a blow to all civilization. Less vaguely, he foresaw an attempt

at the extension of The Master's rule to his own nation. But when Bell

thought of The Master, mainly he remembered certain disconnected

incidents. The girl at Ribiera's luxurious _fazenda_ outside of Rio,

who had been ordered to persuade him to be her lover, on penalty of a

horrible madness for her infant son if she failed. Of a pale and

stricken _fazendiero_ on the Rio Laurenço who thought him a deputy and

humbly implored the grace of The Master for a moody twelve year old

girl. Of a young man who kept his father, murder mad, in a barred room

in his house and waited despairingly for that madness to be meted out

upon himself and on his wife and children. Of a white man who had been

kept in a cage in Cuyaba, with other men....

* * * * *

Bell trudged on through the deepening night with his soul a burning

flame of hatred. He clambered amid boulders, guided by the tall

lighthouse of Cape Possession with the little white dwelling he had

seen at its base before nightfall. He fell, and rose, and forced his

way on and upward, and at last was knocking heavily at a trim and

neatly painted door.

He was so absorbed in his rage that his talk with the lighthouse

keeper seemed vague in his memory, afterward. The keeper was a wizened

little Welshman from the Chibut who spoke English with an

extraordinary mixture of a Spanish intonation and a Cimbrian accent.

Bell listened heavily and spoke more heavily still. At the end he went

back to the plane with a spindle-shanked boy with a lantern

accompanying him.

"All settled," he said grimly, when Jamison came out into the darkness

with a ready revolver to investigate the approaching light. "We get a

boat from the lighthouse keeper to go to Punta Arenas in. He's a

devout member of some peculiar sect, and he's seen enough of the hell

Punta Arenas amounts to, to believe what I told him of its cause. His

wife will look after Paula, and this boy will hitch a team to the

plane and haul it out of sight early in the morning. With the help of

God, we'll kill Ribiera and The Master before sunset to-morrow."

CHAPTER XVI

But they did not kill The Master before nightfall. It was not quite

practicable. Bell and Jamison started out well before dawn with a

favorable wind and tide, in the small launch the wizened Welshman

placed at their disposal. His air was one of dour piety, but he

accepted Bell's offer of money with an obvious relief, and criticized

his Paraguayan currency with an acid frankness until Jamison produced

Argentine pesos sufficient to pay for the boat three times over.

"I think," said Jamison dryly, "that Pau--that Miss Canalejas is safe

enough until we come back. The keeper is a godly man and knows we

have money. She'll be in no danger, except of her soul. They may try

to save that."

Bell did not answer. He could think of nothing but the mission he had

set himself. He tinkered with the engine to make it speed up, and set

the sails with infinite care to take every possible advantage of the

stiff breeze that blew. During the day, those sails proved almost as

much of a nuisance as a help. The fiendish, sullen williwaws that blow

furiously and without warning about the Strait required watching, and

more than once it was necessary to reef everything and depend on the

motor alone.

Bell watched the horizon ahead with smouldering eyes. Jamison watched

him almost worriedly.

"Look here, Bell," he said at last, "you'll get nowhere feeling like

you do. I know you've done The Master more damage than I have, but

you'll just run your head into a trap unless you use your brains. For

instance, you didn't ask about communications. There's a direct

telegraph wire from Cape Virgins to Buenos Aires, and there's

telephonic communication between the Cape and Punta Arenas. Do you

imagine that the plane wasn't seen when it came in the Cape? And do

you imagine The Master doesn't know we're here?"

* * * * *

Bell turned, then, and frowned blackly.

"I hadn't thought of it," he said grimly, "but I put some hand

grenades in the locker, there."

"You damned fool!" said Jamison angrily. "Stop being bloodthirsty and

use your head! You haven't even asked what I've done! I've done

something, anyhow. That bundle I chucked in the bow has a couple of

sheepmen's outfits in it. Lots of sheep raised around here. We'll put

'em on before we land. And like a good general, I arranged a method of

retreat before we left B. A. There'll be a naval vessel here in two or

three days. She's carrying a party of Government scientists. She'll

anchor in Punta Arenas harbor and announce a case of some infectious

disease on board. No shore leave, you see, and nobody from shore

permitted on board her. And she has one or two damned good analytical

chemists with a damned good laboratory on board her, too. It's a long

gamble, but if we can get hold of some of The Master's poison.... Do

you see?"

"Yes," said Bell heavily. "I see. But you haven't been through what

I've been through. What I've done, fighting that devil, has caused men

to be deserted after being enslaved. There's one place, Cuyaba...."

His face twitched. That place was in his dreams, now. That place and

others where human beings had watched their bodies go mad, and had

been carried about screaming with horror at the crimes those bodies

committed....

"I'm going to kill The Master," he rasped. "That's all."

He settled down to his grim watch for the city. All during the cloudy,

overcast day he strained his eyes ahead. Jamison could make nothing of

him. In the end he had to leave Bell to his moody waiting.

* * * * *

The morning passed, and midday, and a long afternoon. Three times Bell

came restlessly back to the engine and tried to coax more speed out of

it. But when darkness fell the town was still not in sight. They kept

on, then, steering by the stars with the motor putt-putt-putting

sturdily away in the stern. The water splashed and washed all about

them. The little boat rose, and fell, and rose and fell again.

"That's the town," said Bell grimly.

It was eleven at night, or later. Lights began to appear, very far

away, dancing miragelike on the edge of the water. They grew nearer

with almost infinite slowness. Two wide bands of many lights, with a

darker space in which a few much brighter lights showed clearly.

Presently a single red light appeared, the Punta Arenas harbor light,

twenty-five feet up on an iron pole. They passed it.

"Bell," said Jamison curtly, "it's time you showed some sense, now.

We're going to find out some things before we get reckless. This town

isn't a big one, but it always was a hell on earth. No extradition

from here. It's full of wanted men. It's dying, now, from the old days

when all ships passed the Straits before the Panama Canal opened up,

but it ought to be still a hell on earth. And we're going to put on

these sheepmen outfits, and put up at some low caste sailors' and

sheepmen's hotel on shore, and find out what is what. In the morning,

if you like--"

"In the morning," said Bell coldly, "I'm going to settle with The

Master."

* * * * *

They found a small and filthy hotel, in a still filthier street where

the houses were alternately black and silent and empty, and filled

with the squalid hilarity most seaport towns can somehow manage to

support. The street lamps were white and cold. The dirt and squalor

showed the more plainly by their light. There were sailors from the

few ships in harbor, and women so haggard and bedraggled that shrill

laughter and lavish endearments remained their only allure. And Bell

and Jamison plodded to the reeking place in which a half-drunk

sheepman pointed, and there Bell sat grimly in the vermin infested

room while Jamison, swearing wryly, went out.

He came back later, much later. His breath was strong of bad whiskey

and he looked like a man who feels that a bath would be very

desirable. He looked like a man who feels unclean.

"Give me a cigarette," he said shortly. "I found out most of what we

want to know."

* * * * *

Bell gave him a cigarette and waited.

"Good thing you stayed behind," said Jamison. "I want to vomit. Why

people go in hell holes for fun.... But I was very drunk and very

amorous. Picked up a woman and fed her liquor. Young, too. Damnation!

She got crying drunk and told me everything she knew. I gave her money

and left. Punta Arenas is The Master's, body and soul."

"One could have guessed it," said Bell grimly.

"Nothing like it is," said Jamison. "Every living creature, man,

woman, and child, has been fed that devilish poison of his. The

keepers of the dives go fawning to the local officials for the

antidote. The _jefe politico_ is driven in his carriage to be cured

when red spots form before his eyes. The damned place is full of

suicides, and women, and--oh, my God! It's horrible!"

A humming, buzzing noise set up off in the night somewhere. It kept up

for a long time, throttled down. Suddenly it seemed to grow louder,

changed in pitch, and dwindled as if into the far, far distance.

"That's one of The Master's planes now, no doubt," said Jamison

savagely, "going off on some errand for him. He uses this place

practically as an experiment station. The human beings here are his

guinea pigs. The deputies get a standardized form of the stuff, but

he's got it worked out in different doses so he can make a man go mad

in hours, if he chooses, instead of after a delay. I don't know how.

And The Master--"

* * * * *

He checked himself sharply. There were shuffling footsteps in the hall

outside. A timid tap on the door. Jamison opened it, while Bell

dropped one hand inconspicuously to a weapon inside his shapeless

clothing.

The toothless and filthy old man who kept the hotel beamed in at them.

"_Senores_," he cackled. "_Vdes son de Porvenir, no es verdad?_"

Jamison hiccoughed, as one who has been out and been drunken ought to

do.

"_No, viejo_," he rumbled tipsily, "_somos de la estancia del Señor

Rubio. Vaya._"

The old man seemed to mourn that they did not come from the sheep

ranches about Porvenir Bay. But he produced a bottle with a shaking

hand, still beaming.

"_Tengo muchos amigos en Porvenir_," he chirped amiably. "_Y questa

botella--_"

"_Démela_," rumbled Jamison. He reached out his hand.

"_No mas que poquito!_" said the old man, beaming but anxious as

Jamison tilted it to his lips. "_Es visky de gentes...._"

He beamed upon Bell, and Bell swallowed a spoonful and seemed to

swallow vastly more. He lay back lazily while Jamison in the part of a

tipsy sheepherder bullied the old man amiably and eventually chased

him out.

"You're amused?" asked Jamison sardonically, when there were no more

sounds outside. "Because I said you didn't want to meet the young

senorita who loved you when she saw you downstairs? Well, Bell, if you

used your brain you didn't swallow any of that stuff."

Bell started up. Jamison caught him by the shoulder.

"I'm not sure," he said sharply. "Of course not. But it's damned funny

for a Spanish hotel keeper to give something for nothing, even when he

seemed just to want to gossip about his friends. Here. Drink this

water. It looks vile enough to take the place of mustard...."

* * * * *

Next morning the hotel keeper beamed upon them both as they went out

of the place. A slatternly, dark haired girl who leaned on his

shoulder smiled invitingly at Bell. And Bell, in his character of a

loutish sheepman from one of the ranches that dot the shores of the

Strait, grinned awkwardly back. But he went on with Jamison.

"We separate," said Jamison under his breath. "We want to find where

The Master lives, mostly, and then we want to find the laboratory

where his stuff is mixed. We don't want to do any killing until that's

settled. After all, the Trade has something to say!"

Bell codded indifferently and began to wander idly about the streets,

turning here and there as if moved by nothing more than the vaguest

curiosity. But gradually he was working through the sections in which

the larger buildings stood. Concrete structures, astonishingly modern,

dotted the business section. But none of them had the air that would

surround a place where a man with power of life or death would be. In

a town the size of Punta Arenas there would be unmistakable evidences

about The Master's residence, even if it were only that those who

passed it did so hurriedly and with a twinge of fear.

* * * * *

There were prosperous men in plenty on the streets, mingled with

deserting sailors, stockmen and farmers from the villages along the

Strait, and even a few grimy men who looked like miners. But there is

a lignite mine not far from the city, and a narrow gauge railroad

running to it. Of the prosperous-seeming men, however, Bell picked out

one here and there toward whom all passersby adopted a manner of

cringing respect. Bell lounged against a pole and studied them

thoughtfully. Men with an air of amused and careless scorn which only

men with unlimited power may adopt. He saw one grossly fat man with

hard and cruel eyes. The uniformed policemen drove all traffic

abjectly out of the way of his carriage, and stood with lifted hat

until he had passed. The fat man gave no faintest sign of

acknowledgment.

"I wonder," said Bell slowly, and very grimly, "if that's The Master?"

And then a passerby dodged quickly past his shoulder, brushing against

him, and waited humbly in the street. Bell turned. A party of men were

taking up nearly all the sidewalk. There were half a dozen of them in

all. And nearly in the middle was the bulky, immaculate, pigmented

Ribiera.

Bell stiffened. But to move, beyond clearing the way, would be to

attract attention. He backed clumsily off the curbing as if making

way....

And Ribiera looked at his face.

* * * * *

Bell's hand drifted near his hidden weapon. But Ribiera looked neither

surprised nor alarmed. He halted and chuckled.

"Ah, the Senhor Bell!"

Bell said nothing, looking as stupid as possible, merely because there

was nothing else to do.

"Ah, do not deny my acquaintance!" said Ribiera. He laughed. "I advise

you to go and look at the view, over the harbor. Good day, Senhor

Bell."

Laughing, he went off along the street. And Bell felt a cold horror

creeping over him as he realized what Ribiera might mean. Ribiera had

entirely too much against him to greet him only, in a town where even

the dogs dared not bark without The Master's express command. He had

guards with him, men who would have shot Bell down at a nod from

Ribiera.

Bell burst into a mad run for the waterfront. When the bay spread out

before his eyes he saw what Ribiera meant, and something seemed to

snap in his brain.

The plane in which he and Jamison and Paula had escaped in was

floating out in the harbor. It was unmistakable. A larger, bulkier

seaplane floated beside it. The buzzing in the air the night

before.... The arrival of the plane had been telephoned from Cape

Virgins. Through a glass, perhaps, even its alighting had been

watched. And a big seaplane had gone out to bring it back. Footprints

in the sand would lead toward the lighthouse. There would be plenty of

men to storm that, if necessary, to take the three fugitives. But they

would have found only Paula. It was quite possible that the plane had

only been sent for after Bell and Jamison had been seen to land in

Punta Arenas. And Paula in The Master's hands would explain Ribiera's

amusement perfectly.

* * * * *

Bell found Jamison looking unhurriedly for him. And Jamison glanced at

his utterly white face and said softly:

"We want to get where we can't be seen, to talk. There's the devil to

pay."

"No use hiding," said Bell. His lips seemed stiff. "Paula--"

"Hide anyway," snapped Jamison. He fairly thrust Bell into an alleyway

between two houses and thrust two rounded objects beneath his loose

fitting coat. "Two grenades. I have two more. The boat we came in is

taken--"

"So is the plane," said Bell emotionlessly.

"And there is a sign, in English, posted where we tied it up. The sign

says, '_The Senores Bell and Jamison may recover their boat on

application to The Master, and may also receive news of a late

traveling companion from him._"

"We're known," Bell told him--and amazingly found it possible to smile

faintly--"Ribiera met me on the street and spoke to me and laughed and

went on."

Jamison stared. Bell's manner was almost entirely normal again. Then

Jamison shrugged.

"The sense of what you're saying," he observed wryly, "is that we're

licked. Let us, then, go to see The Master. I confess I feel some

curiosity to know just what he's like."

* * * * *

Bell was smiling. Being in an entirely abnormal state, he had a

curious certitude of the proper course to adopt. He went up to a

policeman and said politely, in Spanish:

"I am desired to report to The Master, himself. Will you direct me?"

The policeman abased himself instantly and trotted with them as a

guide. And Bell walked naturally, now, with his head up and his

shoulders back, and smoked leisurely as he went, and the policeman's

abasement became abject. All who walked with that air of amused

superiority in Punta Arenas were high in the service of The Master.

Obviously, the two men in these dejected clothes must also be high in

the service of The Master, and had adopted their disguise for purposes

into which a mere policeman and a slave of The Master should not dare

enquire.

Jamison was rather grim and still. Jamison thought he was walking to

his death. But Bell smiled peculiarly and talked almost gaily and--as

Jamison thought--almost irrationally.

* * * * *

They came to a house set in a fairly spacious lawn behind a rather

high wall. There were greenhouses behind it, and there were flowers

growing as well as any flowers can be expected to grow in such high

altitudes. It was an extraordinarily cheerful dwelling to be found in

Punta Arenas, but the shuddering fear with which the little policeman

removed his hat as he entered the gateway was instructive.

They were confronted by four other policemen, on guard inside the

gate.

"_Estos Señores_--" began the abject one.

"Take us to The Master," commanded Bell in a species of amused and

superior scorn.

"It is required, Senor," said the leader of the four on guard, very

respectfully, "it is required that none enter without being searched

for weapons."

Bell laughed.

"Does The Master manage things so?" he asked scornfully. "Now, where I

am deputy no man would dare to think of a weapon to be used against

me! If it is The Master's rule, though...."

The policeman cringed. Bell scornfully thrust an automatic out.

"Take it," he snapped. "And go and tell The Master that the Senores

Bell and Jamison await his pleasure, and that they have given up

their weapons."

The policeman scuttled toward the house. Bell smiled at his cigarette.

"Do you know, Bell," said Jamison dryly, in English, "I'd hate to play

poker with you."

"I'm not bluffing," said Bell. "Not altogether. I've a four card

flush, with the draw to come."

* * * * *

Almost instantly the policeman returned, more abject still. He had

stammered out Bell's message, just as it was given him. And the slaves

of The Master did not usually disobey orders, especially orders

designed to prevent any danger of a doomed man or woman trying to

assassinate The Master before madness was complete. Bell and Jamison

were received by liveried servants in utter silence and conducted

through a long passageway, too long to have been contained entirely in

the house as seen from the front. Indeed, they came out into a great

open greenhouse, in which the smell of flowers was heavy. There were

flowers everywhere, and a benign, small old man with a snowy beard and

hair, sat at a desk as if chatting of amiable trivialities with the

frock-coated men who stood about him. The white haired old man lifted

a blossom delicately to his nostrils and inhaled its perfume with a

sensitive delight. He looked up and smiled benignly upon the two.

It was then that Jamison got a shock surpassing all the rest. Bell's

hands were writhing at the ends of his wrists, writhing as if they

were utterly beyond his control and as if they were longing to rend

and tear....

And Bell suddenly looked down at them, and his expression was that of

a man who sees cobras at the ends of his arms.

CHAPTER XVII

There was a long pause. Bell was very calm. He seemed to tear his eyes

from the writhing hands that were peculiarly sensate, as if under the

control of in intelligence alien to his own.

"I believe," said Bell steadily, "that The Master wishes to speak to

me."

With an apparent tremendous effort of will, he thrust his hands into

his pockets. Jamison cursed softly. Bell had taken the direction of

things entirely out of his hands. It only remained to play up.

"To be sure," said a mild, benevolent voice. The man with the snowy

beard regarded Bell exactly in the fashion of an elderly

philanthropist. "I am The Master, Senor Bell. You have interested me

greatly. I have grown to have a great admiration for you. Will you be

seated? Your companion also pleases me. I would like"--and the mild

brown eyes beamed at him--"I would like to have your friendship, Senor

Bell."

"Pull out a chair for me, Jamison," said Bell in a strained voice.

"And--I'd like to have a cigarette."

Jamison, cursing under his breath, put a chair behind Bell and stuck a

cigarette between his lips. He held a match, though his hands shook.

"You might sit down, too," said Bell steadily. "From the manner of The

Master, I imagine that the conversation will take some time."

* * * * *

He inhaled deeply of his cigarette, and faced the little man again.

And The Master looked so benevolent that he seemed absolutely

cherubic, and there was absolutely no sign of anything but the utmost

saintliness about him. His eyes were clear and mild. His complexion

was fresh and translucent. The wrinkles that showed upon his face were

those of an amiable and a serene soul filled with benevolence and

charity. He looked like one of those irritatingly optimistic old

gentlemen who habitually carry small coins and stray bits of candy in

their pockets for such small children as they may converse with under

the smiling eyes of nurses.

"Ah, Senor Bell," he said gently. "You do cause me to admire you. May

I see your hands again?"

Bell held them out. He seemed to have conquered their writhing to some

extent. But he could not hold them quite still. Sweat stood out on his

forehead. He thrust them abruptly out of sight again.

"Sad," said The Master gently. "Very sad." He sighed faintly and laid

down the rose he had been toying with. His fingers caressed the soft

petals delicately. "Fortunately," he said benevolently, "it is not yet

too late for me to relieve the strain under which you labor, Senor.

May I send for a certain medicine which will dispose of those symptoms

in a very short time?"

"We'll talk first," said Bell harshly. "I want to hear what you have

to say."

* * * * *

The Master nodded, his fingers touching the rose petals as if in a

sensitive pleasure in their texture.

"Always courageous," he said benignly. "I admire it while I combat it.

But the Senor Jamison...."

Jamison had been looking fascinatedly at his own hands, opening and

closing the fingers with a savage abruptness. They obeyed him, though

they trembled.

"I didn't drink the damned stuff that hotel keeper brought us last

night," he growled. "Bell did. And I--"

"Wait a minute, Jamison," said Bell evenly. "Let's talk to The Master

for a while. I swore, sir," he said grimly, "that I'd kill you. I've

seen what your devilish poison does, in the hands of the men you've

chosen to distribute it. I've seen"--he swallowed and said

harshly--"I've seen enough to make me desire nothing so much as to see

you roast in hell! But you wanted to talk to me. Go ahead!"

* * * * *

The Master beamed at him, and then glanced about at the frock-coated

men who had been attending him. Bell glanced at them. Ribiera was

there, chuckling.

"I told you, _tio mio_," he said familiarly, "that he would not be

polite. You can do nothing with him. Better have him shot."

Francia, of Paraguay, nodded amusedly to Bell as their eyes met. But

The Master shook his really rather beautiful head. An old man can be

good to look at, and with a saintly aureole of snow-white hair and the

patriarchal white beard, The Master was the picture of benign and

beautiful old age.

"Ah, you do not understand," he protested mildly. "The more the Senor

Bell shows his courage, _hijo mio_, the more we must persuade him." He

turned to Bell. "I realise," he said gently, "that there are hardships

connected with the administration of my power, Senor. It is

inevitable. But the Latin races of the continent which is now nearly

mine require strong handling. They require a strong man to lead them.

They are comfortable only under despotism. The task I have chosen for

you is different, entirely. _Los Americanos del Norte_ will not

respond to the treatment which is necessary for those _del Sud_. Their

governments, their traditions, are entirely unlike. If you become my

deputy and viceroy for all your nation, you shall rule as you will. A

benevolent, yet strong, rule is needed for your people. It may even

be--I will permit it--that the democratic institutions of your nation

may continue if you so desire. I am offering you, Senor, the position

of the absolute ruler of your nation. You may interfere with the

present government not at all, if you choose, provided only that my

own commands are obeyed when relayed through you. I choose you because

you have courage, and resource, and because you have the _Yanqui_

cleverness which will understand your nation and cope with it."

* * * * *

Bell inhaled deeply.

"In other words," he said bitterly, "you're saying indirectly that you

offer me a chance to be the sort of ruler Americans will submit to

without too much fuss, because you think one of Ribiera's stamp would

drive them to rebellion."

The fine dark eyes twinkled.

"You have much virtue, Senor. My nephew--though he is to be my

successor--has a weakness for a pretty face. Would you prefer that I

give him the task of subduing your nation?"

"You might try it," said Bell. His eyes gleamed. "He'd be dead within

a week."

The Master laughed softly.

"I like you, Senor. I do like you indeed. I have not been so defied

since another _Americano del Norte_ defied me in this same room. But

he had not your resource. He had been enslaved with much less

difficulty than yourself. I do not remember what happened to him...."

"He was taken, Master," said a fat man with hard eyes, obsequiously,

"he was taken in Bolivia." It was the man whom Bell had seen earlier

that morning in a carriage. "You gave him to me. He had insulted me

when I ordered him sent to you. I had him killed, but he was very

obstinate."

"Ah, yes," said The Master meditatively. "You told me the details." He

seemed to recall small facts in benevolent retrospection. "But you,

Senor Bell, I have need of you. In fact, I shall insist upon your

friendship. And therefore--"

He beamed upon Bell.

"I give you back the Senorita Canalejas."

* * * * *

He shook his head reproachfully at the utterly grim look in Bell's

eyes.

"I shall give you one single portion of the antidote to the medicine

which makes your hands behave so badly. You may take it when you

please. The Senor Jamison I shall keep and enslave. I do not think he

will be as obstinate as you are, but he has excellent qualities. If

you prove obdurate, I may yet persuade him to undertake certain tasks

for me. But you and the Senorita Canalejas are free. Your boat has

been reprovisioned and provided with fuel. You may go from here where

you will."

Ribiera snarled.

"_Tio mio_," he protested angrily, "you promised me--"

"Your will in many things," said The Master gently, "but not in all.

Remember that you have much to learn, _hijo mio_. I have taught you to

prepare my little medicine, it is true. That is so you can take my

place if age infirmity shall carry me away." The Master folded his

hands with an air of pious resignation. "But you must learn policy.

The Senorita Canalejas belongs to the Senor Bell."

Jamison was staring, now, but Bell's eyes had narrowed to mere slits.

"You see," said The Master gently, to him, "I desire your friendship.

You may go where you will. You may take the Senorita Canalejas with

you. You will have enough of the antidote to my little medicine to

keep you sane for perhaps a week. In one week you may go far, with

her. You may do many things. But you cannot find a place of safety for

her. I still have a little power, Senor. If you take her with you,

your hands will writhe again. Your body will become uncontrollable.

Your eyes, staring and horror-struck, will observe your own hands

rending her. While your brain is yet sane you will see this body of

yours which now desires her so ardently, tearing at and crushing that

delicate figure, gouging out her eyes, battering her tender flesh,

destroying her.... Have you ever seen what a man who has taken my

little medicine does to a human being at his mercy?"

* * * * *

The figures about The Master were peculiarly tense. The fat man with

the hard eyes laughed suddenly. It was a horrible laugh. Francia of

Paraguay took out his handkerchief and delicately wiped his lips. He

was smiling. Ribiera looked at Bell's face and chuckled. His whole

gross figure shook with his amusement.

"And of course," said The Master benignly, "if you prefer to commit

suicide, if you prefer to leave her here--well, my nephew knows little

expedients to reduce her will to compliance. You recall _Yagué_, among

others."

Bell's face was a white mask of horror and fury. He tried to speak,

and failed. He raised his hand to his throat--and it tore at the

flesh, insanely.

"Let--let me see her," croaked Bell, as if strangling.

Jamison stiffened. Bell seemed to be trying to get his hands into his

pockets. They were apparently uncontrollable. He thrust them under his

coat as there was a stirring at the door.

* * * * *

And Paula was brought in, as if she had been waiting. She was entirely

colorless, but she smiled at Bell. She came quickly to his side.

"I heard," she said in a clear and even little voice. "We will go

together, Charles. If there is a week in which we can be together, it

will be so much of happiness. And when you are--The Master's victim,

we will let the little boat sink, and sink with it. I do not wish to

live without you, Charles, and you do not wish to live as his slave."

Bell gave utterance to a sudden laugh that was like a bark. His hands

came out from under his coat. Dangling from each one was a small,

pear-shaped globule of metal. A staff projected upward from each one,

and he held those staffs in his writhing hands. About each wrist was a

tiny loop of cord that went down to a pin at the base of the staffs.

"Close to me, Paula," he said coldly. She clung to his arm. He moved

forward, with half-a-dozen revolver muzzles pointed at his breast.

"If one of you damned fools fires," he said harshly, "I'll let go.

When I let go--these are Mills grenades, and they go off in three

seconds after they leave the hand. Stand still!"

* * * * *

There was a terrible, frozen silence. Then a movement from behind

Bell. Jamison was rising with a grunt.

"Some day, Bell," he observed coolly, "I'll be on to all of your

curves. This is the best one yet. But you're likely to let go at any

second, aren't you?"

"Like hell!" raged Bell. "I drank some of your poison," he snarled at

The Master. "Yes! I was fool enough to do it! But I took what measures

any man will take who finds he's swallowed poison. I got it out of my

stomach at once. And if you or one of these deputies tries to

move...."

Ribiera had blanched to a pasty gray. The Master was frozen. But Bell

saw Ribiera's eyes move in swift calculation. There was a solid wall

behind The Master. It seemed as if the greenhouse were a sort of

passageway between two larger structures. And there was a door almost

immediately behind Ribiera. Ribiera glanced right--left--

He flung himself through that door. He knew the secret of The Master's

power. He was The Master's appointed successor. If The Master and all

his deputies died, Ribiera....

But Bell snapped into action like a bent spring released. His arm shot

forward. A grenade went hurtling through the door through which

Ribiera had fled. There was an instantaneous, terrific explosion. The

solid wall shook and shivered and, with a vast deliberation,

collapsed. The greenhouse was full of crushed plaster dust. Panes of

glass shivered....

But Bell was upon The Master. He had struck the little man down and

stood over him, his remaining automatic replacing the grenade he had

thrown.

"Ribiera's dead," he snapped, "and if I'm shot The Master dies too and

you all go mad! Stand back!"

The deputies stood frozen.

"I think," said Jamison composedly, "I take a hand now. I'll pick him

up, Bell.... Right. I've got him. With a grenade hanging down his

back. If he jerks away from me, or I from him, it will blow his spine

to bits."

"Hold him so," said Bell coldly.

* * * * *

He went coolly to where he could look over the heap of the collapsed

wall. He saw a bundle of torn clothing that had been a man. It was

flung against a cracked and tottering chimney.

"Right," he said evenly. "Ribiera's dead, all right."

He turned to the deputies, whose revolvers were still in their hands.

"The Master's carriage, please," he said politely. "To the door. You

may accompany us if you please, but in other carriages. I am working

for the release of all the Master's slaves, and you among them if you

choose. But you can see very easily that there is no hope of the

release of The Master without the meeting of my terms."

The Master spoke, softly and mildly and without fear.

"It is my order that the Senor Bell is to be obeyed. I shall return.

You need have no fear of my death. My carriage."

A man went stiffly, half-paralyzed with terror, to where chattering

scared servants were grouped in the awful fear that came upon the

slaves of The Master at any threat to his rule.

But Bell and Paula and Jamison went slowly and cautiously--though they

held the whip hand--to the entrance door of the house, and out to the

entrance gate. A carriage was already before the door when they

reached it, and others were drawing up in a line behind it.

"Get in," said Bell briefly. "Down to the waterfront."

He turned to the group of frock-coated, stricken men who had followed.

"Some of you men," he said coldly, "had better go on ahead and warn

the police and the public generally about the certainty of The

Master's death if any attempt is made to rescue him."

Francia, of Paraguay, summoned a swagger and raised his hand to the

second carriage. It drew in to the curb.

"I will attend to it, Senor Bell," he said politely. "Ah, when I think

that I once raised my revolver to shoot you and refrained!"

He drove off swiftly.

* * * * *

Bell's eyes were glowing. He got into the carriage, and such a

procession drove through the streets of Punta Arenas as has rarely

moved through the streets of any city in the world. The long line of

carriages moved at a funereal pace amid a surging, terrified mob. The

Master beamed placidly as he looked out over white, starkly agonized

faces. Some of the people groaned audibly. A few cursed The Master in

their despair. More cursed Bell, not daring to strike or fire on him.

But he would have been torn to bits if he had stepped from the

carriage for an instant.

"Bell," said Jamison dryly, "considering that I'm prepared to be blown

apart on three seconds notice, it is peculiar that this mob frightens

me."

The Master's eyes twinkled benignly. He seemed totally insensible to

fear.

"You need not be afraid," he said gently. "They will not touch you

unless I order them."

Jamison stared down at the little man whose collar he held firmly,

with a Mills grenade dangling down at the base of his neck.

"I wouldn't order them to attack, if I were you," he said coldly. "I

haven't Bell's brains, but I have just as much dislike for you as he

has."

* * * * *

They came to the harbor. Bell spoke again.

"The carriage is to drive out to the end of one of the docks, and no

one else is to go out on that dock."

The Master relayed the order in his mild voice, but as the coachman

obeyed him he clucked his tongue commiseratingly.

"Senor Bell," he protested gently. "You do not expect to escape! Not

after killing me! Why that is absurd!"

Bell said nothing. He alighted from the carriage, his face set grimly,

and stared ashore at the long, long row of terrified faces staring out

at him. The whole waterfront seemed to be lined with staring faces.

Wails came from that mass of enslaved human beings.

"Hold him here, Jamison," he said drearily. "I'm going out to look at

that big plane. There's a rowboat tied to the dock, here."

He swung down the side into the dock and rowed off into the harbor,

while the horses attached to The Master's carriage pawed impatiently

at the wooden flooring of the dock. Bell reached the two planes

anchored on the still harbor water. The smaller one had brought them

down from Buenos Aires. The larger one had gone after the beached

amphibian and brought it and Paula on to the city. Bell, from the

shore, was seen to be investigating the larger one. He came rowing

back.

His head appeared above the dock edge.

"All right," he said tiredly. "The Master has a rule requiring all his

ships ready for instant flight. Very useful. The big plane is fueled

and full of oil. We'll go out to it and take off."

* * * * *

Jamison lifted The Master to his feet and with a surge of muscles

swept him down to the flooring of the dock.

"Paula first," said Bell, "and then The Master, and then you,

Jamison."

"One moment," said The Master reproachfully. "It would be cruel not to

let me reassure my subjects. I will give an order."

Bell and Jamison listened suspiciously. But he spoke gently to the

coachman.

"You will tell the deputies," said The Master in Spanish, "that a

month's supply of medicine for all my subjects will be found in my

laboratory. And you may tell them that I shall return before the end

of that time."

The coachman's eyes filled with a passionate relief.

"Now," said The Master placidly, "I am ready for our little jaunt."

Paula descended the ladder and seated herself in the bow of the boat.

Bell covered The Master grimly with his automatic as he descended,

with surprising agility. Jamison came down last, and resumed his

former grip on The Master's collar. Bell rowed out to the big plane.

* * * * *

Jamison kept close watch while Bell started the four huge motors and

throttled them down to warming up speed, and while he hauled up the

anchor with which the huge seaplane was anchored.

The dock was covered with a swarm of panic stricken folk. Everywhere,

all the inhabitants of the city who were slaves to The Master had come

in awful terror to watch. And all the inhabitants of the city were

slaves to The Master. Some of them fell to their knees and held out

imploring arms to Bell, begging him for mercy and the return of The

Master. Some cursed wildly.

But, with his jaws set grimly, Bell gave the motors the gun.

The big plane moved heavily, then more swiftly through the water. It

lifted slowly, and rose, and rose, and dwindled to a speck high in the

air.

And all through the streets and ways of Punta Arenas, fear stalked

almost as a tangible thing. Panic hovered over the housetops, always

ready to descend. Terror was in the air that every man breathed, and

every human being looked at every other human being with staring,

haunted eyes. Punta Arenas was waiting for its murder madness to

begin.

CHAPTER XVIII

There were four motors to pull the big plane through the air, and

their roaring was a vast thundering noise which the earth re-echoed.

But inside the cabin that tumult was reduced to a not intolerable

humming sound.

"What'll I do with this devil, Bell?" asked Jamison. "Now that we're

aloft, I confess this grenade makes me nervous. I'm holding it so

tightly my fingers are getting cramped."

"Tie him up," said Bell, without looking. "He'll talk presently."

Movements. The plane flew on, swaying slightly in the way of big

sea-planes everywhere. A williwaw began in the hills ahead and swept

out and set the ship to reeling crazily in its erratic currents. The

Strait vanished and there were tumbled hills below them. Minutes

passed.

"Got him fixed up," said Jamison coolly, "I'll guarantee he won't

break loose. Got any plans, Bell?"

"No time," said Bell. "I haven't had time to make any. The first thing

is to get where his folk will never find us. Then we'll see what we

can do with him."

Paula looked at the now bound figure of The Master. And the little old

man beamed at her.

"He--he's smiling!" said Paula, in a voice that was full of a peculiar

horrified shock.

* * * * *

Bell shrugged. Punta Arenas was all of twenty-five miles behind, and

the earth over which they flew began to take on the shape of an

island. Water appeared beyond it, and innumerable small islands. Bell

began to rack his brain for the infinitesimal scraps of knowledge he

had about this section of the world. It was pitifully scanty. Punta

Arenas was the southernmost point of the continental mass. All about

it was an archipelago and a maze of waterways, thinly inhabited

everywhere and largely without any inhabitants at all. The only solid

ground between Cape Horn and the Antarctic ice pack was Diego Ramirez

and the South Shetlands....

Nothing to go on. But any sufficiently isolated and desolate spot

would do. Almost anywhere along the southern edge of the continental

islands should serve.

The plane roared on monotonously, while Bell began to wrestle with

another and more serious problem. In three days--two, now--an American

naval vessel would turn up, with scientists and chemists on board. It

was to be doubted whether anything like an overt act would be risked

by that vessel. If all the governments of South America were under The

Master's thumb, then cabled orders from his deputies would race three

navies to the spot. And the government of the United States does not

like to start war, anywhere. Certainly it would not willingly enter

into a conflict with the whole southern continent for the solution of

a problem that so far affected that continent alone. The Master's

kidnapping had solved nothing, so far.

* * * * *

Jamison tapped his shoulder.

"No pursuit, so far," he observed coolly. "I've looked." Bell nodded.

"They don't dare. Not yet, anyhow. They're depending on The Master.

How is he?"

"Smiling peacefully to himself, damn him!" snarled Jamison. "Do you

know what we're up against?"

"Ourselves," said Bell coldly. "But I'm nearly licked. He's got to

talk!"

Jamison moved away again. The earth below looked as if it had been

torn to shreds in some titanic convulsion of ages past. The sea was

everywhere, and so was land! There were little threads of silver

interlacing and crossing and wavering erratically in every conceivable

direction. And there were specks of islands--rocks only yards in

extent--and islands of every imaginable size and shape, with their

surfaces in every possible state of upheaval and distortion. A broader

mass of land appeared ahead and to the left.

"Tierra del Fuego again," muttered Bell. "If we cross it...."

For fifteen minutes the plane thundered across desolate, rocky hills.

Then the maze of islets again. Bell scanned them keenly, and saw a

tiny steamer traveling smokily, for no conceivable reason, among the

scattered bits of stone. The sea appeared, stretching out toward

infinity.

Bell rose, to survey a wider space. He swung to the left, so that he

was heading nearly southeast, and went on down toward that desolation

of desolations, the stormy cape which faces the eternal ice of the

antarctic. He was five thousand feet up, then, and scanning sea and

earth and sky....

And suddenly he swung sharply to the right and headed out toward the

open sea. He felt a small figure pressing against his shoulder.

Presently fingers closed tightly upon his sleeve. He glanced down at

Paula and managed to smile.

"There are some rocks out there," he told her quietly. "Islands, I

think, and Diego Ramirez, at a guess."

* * * * *

They were specks, no more, but they were vastly more distinct from the

plane than from Mount Beaufoy. That is on Henderson Island in New Year

Sound, and its seventeen-hundred-foot peak was almost below Bell when

he sighted the islands. But the islands have been seen full fifty

miles from there.

It took the plane nearly forty minutes to cover the space, but long

before that the islands had become distinct. Two tiny groups of

scattered rocks, the whole group hardly five miles in length and by

far the greater number no more than boulders surrounded by sheets of

foam from breakers. Two of them merited the name of islands. The

nearer was high and bare and precipitous. No trace of vegetation

showed upon it. The farther was smaller, and at its northern corner a

little cove showed, nearly land-locked.

Bell descended steeply. The big plane plunged wildly in the air eddies

about the taller island at five hundred feet, but steadied and went

winging on down lower, and lower.... The waves between the two

islands were not high, but the seaplane alighted with a mighty, a

tremendous splashing, and Bell navigated it grimly though clumsily

into the mouth of the cove. There a small beach showed. He went very

slowly toward it. Presently he swung abruptly about. A wing tip float

grounded close to the shore.

The motors cut off and left a thunderous silence. Bell climbed atop

the cabin and let go the anchor.

"We're here," he said shortly. "Bring The Master and we'll go ashore."

* * * * *

The catwalk painted on the lower wing guided them. Bell jumped to the

rocks first, and stumbled, and then rose to lift Paula down and take

The Master's small, frail body from Jamison's arms.

"You looked for a gun?" asked Bell

"He'd nothing to fight with," said Jamison heavily. He had been facing

the same problem Bell had worked on desperately, and had found no

answer. But he shuddered a little as he looked about the island.

There was nothing in sight but rock. No moss. No lichens. Not even

stringy grass or the tufty scrub bushes that seemed able to grow

anywhere.

Bell untied The Master, carefully but without solicitude. The little

man sat up, and brushed himself off carefully, and arranged himself in

a comfortable position.

"I am an old man," said The Master in mild reproach. "You might at

least have given me a cushion to sit upon."

Bell sat down and lighted a cigarette with fingers that did not

tremble in the least.

"Suppose," he said hardly, "you talk. First, of what your poison is

made. Second, of what the antidote is made. Third, how we may be sure

you tell the truth."

* * * * *

The Master looked at him with bright, shrewd, and apparently kindly

old eyes.

"_Hijo mio_," he said mildly, "I am an old man. But I am obstinate. I

will tell you nothing."

Bell's eyes glowed coldly.

"Does it occur to you," he asked grimly, "that it's too important a

matter for us to have any scruples about? That we can--and will--make

you talk?"

"You may kill me," said The Master benignly, "but that is all."

"And," said Bell, still more grimly, "we have only to get back in the

plane yonder, and go away...."

The Master beamed at him. Presently he began to laugh softly.

"_Hijo mio_," he said gently, "let us stop this little byplay. You

will take me back in my airplane, and you will land me at Punta

Arenas. And then you will fly away. I concede you freedom, but that is

all. You cannot leave me here."

"Paula," said Bell coldly, "get in the plane again. Jamison--"

Paula rose doubtfully. Jamison stood up. The Master continued to

chuckle amiably.

"You see," he said cherubically, "you happen to be a gentleman, Senor

Bell. Every man has some weakness. That is yours. And you will not

leave me here to die, because you have killed my nephew, who was the

only other man who knew how to prepare my little medicine. And you

know, Senor, that all my subjects will wish to die. Those who do, in

fact," he added mildly, "will be fortunate. The effect of my little

medicine does not make for happiness without its antidote."

* * * * *

Bell's hands clenched.

"You know," said The Master comfortably, "that there are many

thousands of people whose hands will writhe, very soon. The city of

Punta Arenas will be turned into a snarling place of maniacs within a

very little while--if I do not return. Would you like, Senor, to think

in after days of that pleasant city filled with men and women tearing

each other like beasts? Of little children, even, crouching, and

crushing and rending the tender flesh of other little children? Of

lisping little ones gone--"

"Stop!" snarled Bell, in a frenzy. "Damn your soul! You're right! I

can't! You win--so far!"

"Always," said The Master benevolently. "I win always. And you forget,

Senor. You have seen the worst side of my rule. The revolutions, the

rebellions that have made men free, were they pretty things to watch?

Always, _amigo_, the worst comes. But when my rule is secure, then you

shall see."

* * * * *

He waved a soft, beautifully formed hand. From every possible aspect

the situation was a contradiction of all reason. The bare, black, salt

encrusted rocks with no trace of vegetation showing. The gray water

rumbling and surging among the uneven rocks at the base of the shore,

while gulls screamed hoarsely overhead. The white haired little man

with his benevolent face, smiling confidently at the two grim men.

"The time will come," said The Master gently, and in the tone of utter

confidence with which one states an inescapable fact, "the time will

come when all the earth will know my rule. The taking of my little

medicine will be as commonplace a thing as the smoking of tobacco,

which I abhor, Senores. You are mistaken about there being an antidote

and a poison. It is one medicine only. One little compound. A

vegetable substance, Senor Bell, combined with a product of modern

chemistry. It is a synthetic drug. Modern chemistry is a magnificent

science, and my little medicine is its triumph. Even my deputies have

not heard me speak so, Senores."

Bell snarled wordlessly, but if one had noticed his eyes they would

have been seen to be curiously cool and alert and waiting. The Master

leaned forward, and for once spoke seriously, almost reverently.

"There shall be a forward step, Senores, in the race of men. Do you

know the difference between the brain of a man and that of an

anthropoid ape? It consists only of a filmy layer of cortex, a film of

gray nerve cells which the ape has not. And that little layer creates

the difference between ape and man. And I have discovered more. My

little medicine acts upon that film. Administered in the tiny

quantities I have given to my slaves, it has no perceptible effect. It

is merely a compound of a vegetable substance and a synthetic organic

base. It is not excreted from the body. Like lead, it remains always

in solution in the blood. But in or out of the blood it changes,

always, to the substance which causes murder madness. Fresh or

changed, my little medicine acts upon the brain."

* * * * *

He smiled brightly upon them.

"But though in tiny quantities it has but little effect, in larger

quantities--when fresh it makes the functioning of the gray cells of

the human brain as far superior to the unmedicated gray cells, as

those human gray cells are to the white cells of the ape! That is what

I have to offer to the human race! Intelligence for every man, which

shall be as the genius of the past!"

He laughed softly.

"Think, Senores! Compare the estate of men with the estate of apes!

Compare the civilization which will arise upon the earth when men's

brains are as far above their present level as the present level is

above the anthropoid! The upward steps of the human race under my rule

will parallel, will surpass the advance from the brutish caveman to

intellectual genius. But I have seen, Senores, the one danger in my

offering."

There was silence. Jamison shook his head despairingly. The Master

could not see him. He formed the word with his lips.

"Crazy!"

* * * * *

But Bell said coldly:

"Go on."

"I must rule," said The Master soberly. "It is essential. If my little

secret were known, intelligences would be magnified, but under many

flags and with many aims. Scientists, with genius beside which

Newton's pales, would seek out deadly weapons for war. The world would

destroy itself of its own genius. But under my rule--"

"Men go mad," said Bell coldly.

The Master smiled reproachfully.

"Ah, you are trying to make me angry, so that I will betray something!

You are clever, Senor Bell. With my little medicine, in such

quantities as I would administer it to you...."

"You describe it," said Bell harshly and dogmatically, "as a brain

stimulant. But it drives men mad."

"To be sure," said The Master mildly. "It does. It is not excreted

from the body save very, very slowly. But it changes in the blood

stream. As--let us say--sugar changes into alcohol in digestion. The

end-product of my little medicine is a poison which attacks the brain.

But the slightest bit of unchanged medicine is an antidote. It is"--he

smiled amiably--"it is as if sugar in the body changed to alcohol, and

alcohol was a poison, but sugar--unchanged--was an antidote. That is

it exactly. You see that I have taken my little medicine for years,

and it has not harmed me."

"Which," said Bell--and somehow his manner made utter silence fall so

that each word fell separately into a vast stillness--"which, thank

God, is the one thing that wins finally, for me!"

* * * * *

He stood up and laughed. Quite a genuine laugh.

"Paula," he said comfortably, "get on the plane. In the cabin. Jamison

and I are going to strip The Master."

Paula stared. The Master looked at him blankly. Jamison frowned

bewilderedly, but stood up grimly to obey.

"But Senor," said The Master in gentle dignity, "merely to humiliate

me--"

"Not for that," said Bell. He laughed again. "But all the time I've

been hearing about the stuff, I've noticed that nobody thought of it

as a drug. It was a poison. People were poisoned. They did not become

addicts. But you--you are the only addict to your drug."

He turned to Jamison, his eyes gleaming.

"Jamison," he said softly, "did you ever know of a drug addict who

could bear to think of ever being without a supply of his drug--_right

on his person_?"

Jamison literally jumped.

"By God! No!"

The Master was quick. He was swarming up the plane-wing tip before

Jamison reached him, and he kicked frenziedly when Jamison plucked him

off. But then it was wholly, entirely, utterly horrible that the

little white haired man, whose face and manner had seemed so cherubic

and so bland, should shriek in so complete a blind panic as they

forced his fingers open and took a fountain pen away from him.

"This is it," said Bell in a deep satisfaction. "This is his point of

weakness."

* * * * *

The Master was ghastly to look at, now. Jamison held him gently

enough, considering everything, but The Master looked at that fountain

pen as one might look at Paradise.

"I--I swear," he gasped. "I--swear I will give you the formula!"

"You might lie," said Jamison grimly.

"I swear it!" panted The Master in agony. "It--If the formula is known

it--can be duplicated! It--the excretion can be hastened! It can all

be forced from the body! Simply! So simply! If only you know! I will

tell you how it is done! The medicine is the cacodylate of--"

Bell was leaning forward, now, like a runner breasting the tape at the

end of a long and exhausting race.

"I'll trade," he said softly. "Half the contents of the pen for the

formula. The other half we'll need for analysis. Half the stuff in the

pen for the formula for freeing your slaves!"

The Master sobbed.

"A--a pencil!" he gasped. "I swear--"

Jamison gave him a pencil and a notebook. He wrote, his hands shaking.

Jamison read inscrutably.

"It doesn't mean anything to me," he said soberly, "but you can read

it. It's legible."

Bell smiled faintly. With steady finger he took his own fountain pen

from his pocket. He emptied it of ink, and put a scrupulous half of a

milky liquid from The Master's pen into it. He passed it over.

"Your medicine," said Bell quietly, "may taste somewhat of ink, but it

will not be poisonous. Now, what do we do with you? I give you your

choice. If we take you with us, you will be held very secretly as a

prisoner until the truth of the information you have given us can be

proven. And if your slaves have all been freed, then I suppose you

will be tried...."

* * * * *

The Master was drawn and haggard. He looked very, very old and beaten.

"I--I would prefer," he said dully, "that you did not tell where I am,

and that you go away and leave me here. I--I may have some subjects

who will search for me, and--they may discover me here.... But I am

beaten, Senor. You know that you have won."

Bell swung up on the wing of the plane. He explored about in the

cabin. He came back.

"There are emergency supplies," he said coldly. "We will leave them

with you, with such things as may be useful to allow you to hope as

long as possible. I do not think you will ever be found here."

"I--prefer it, Senor," said The Master dully. "I--I will catch

fish...."

Jamison helped put the packages ashore. The Master shivered. Bell

stripped off his coat and put it on top of the heap of packages. The

Master did not stir. Bell laid a revolver on top of his coat. He went

out to the plane and started the motors. The Master watched

apathetically as the big seaplane pulled clumsily out of the little

cove. The rumble of the engines became a mighty roar. It started

forward with a rush, skimmed the water for two hundred yards or so,

and suddenly lifted clear to go floating away through the air toward

the north.

* * * * *

Paula was the only one who looked back.

"He's crying," she said uncomfortably.

"It isn't fear," said Bell quietly. "It's grief at the loss of his

ambition. It may not seem so to you two, but I believe he meant all

that stuff he told me. He was probably really aiming, in his own way,

for an improved world for men to live in."

The plane roared on. Presently Bell said shortly:

"That stuff he has won't last indefinitely. I'm glad I left him that

revolver."

Jamison stirred suddenly. He dug down in his pocket and fished out a

cigar.

"Since I feel that I may live long enough to finish smoking this," he

observed dryly, "I think I'll light it. I haven't felt that I had

twenty minutes of life ahead of me for a long time, now. A sense of

economy made me smoke cigarettes. It wouldn't be so much waste if you

left half a cigarette behind you when you were killed."

* * * * *

The tight little cabin began to reek of the tobacco. Paula pressed

close to Bell.

"But--Charles," she asked hopefully, "is--is it really all right,

now?"

"I think so," said Bell, frowning. "Our job's over, anyhow. We go up

the Chilean coast and find that navy boat. We turn our stuff over to

them. They'll take over the task of seeing that every doctor,

everywhere in South America, knows how to get The Master's poison out

of the system of anybody who's affected. Some of them won't be

reached, but most of them will. I looked at his formula. Standard

drugs, all of them. There won't be any trouble getting the news

spread. The Master's slaves will nearly go crazy with joy. And," he

added grimly, "I'm going to see to it that the Rio police take back

what they said about us. I think we'll have enough pull to demand that

much!"

He was silent for a moment or so, thinking.

"I do think, Jamison," he said presently, "we did a pretty good job."

Jamison grunted.

"If--if it's really over," said Paula hopefully, "Charles--"

"What?"

"You--will be able to think about me sometimes," asked Paula

wistfully, "instead of about The Master always?"

Bell stared down at her.

"Good Lord!" he groaned. "I have been a brute, Paula! But I've been

loving you--" He stopped, and then said with the elaborate politeness

and something of the customary idiotic air of a man making such an

announcement. "I say, Jamison, did you know Paula and I were to be

married?"

Jamison snorted. Then he said placidly:

"No. Of course not. I never dreamed of such a thing. When did this

remarkably original idea occur to you?"

He puffed a huge cloud of smoke from his cigar. It was an unusually

vile cigar. Bell scowled at him helplessly for a moment and then said

wrathfully:

"Oh, go to hell!"

And he bent over and kissed Paula.

(_The End._)

[Advertisement: IN THE NEXT ISSUE

JETTA OF THE LOWLANDS

_Beginning an Exciting Three-Part Novel of the Nares Deep_

By Ray Cummings

AN ATTACK FROM SPACE

_A Sequel to "Beyond the Heaviside Layer"_

By Captain S. P. Meek