"You saved our lives, professor," said I.
"Hardly," he returned, smiling. "It was the anti-gravity compound that
did that. Now that we can inflate our lungs without catching our
breath, suppose we waken Mr. Meigs."
On being aroused Meigs sat up and stared around at him. He was not long
in picking up the trend of events where he had left off during the
night.
"Are they ready to--to kill us?" he asked, clasping his hands.
"They are not going to kill us, Mr. Meigs," answered the professor.
"The king has changed his mind, and we are now his honored guests."
"You don't mean it!" exclaimed the broker.
The professor replied that he did mean it, and went on to tell how the
unexpected result had been accomplished. Before he had fairly finished,
the king, clad in his robes of state and accompanied by a dozen members
of his household, could be seen approaching across the square.
Attendants followed the royal party, bearing basins of food, a chair on
which his majesty could repose himself and a canopy to shield his august
person from the reflected rays of the sun.
"The first thing you do, Quinn," said Meigs, while the royal party was
making itself comfortable, "tell the king I've got to have my clothes."
"Have patience, Mr. Meigs," answered the professor.
"Patience?" spluttered Meigs. "Merciful powers, man! How can I be
patient and cut such a figure as this?"
"Attend his majesty!" came from a word-box among the king's suite. "Our
gracious sovereign is about to speak."
Our close attention being secured, the king remarked:
"Now that these colossi have been spared they will need food. See that
it is given them."
This command was very satisfactory to me, for I was little short of
famished. Presently our paddles were flying over the basins, and we
were breaking our fast in a way that made the king open his eyes.
The lord of the exchequer--a most important officer of state--drew near
his majesty and said that if the kingdom was going to board us for any
length of time it would behoove them to till all the crown lands and get
every available acre into produce.
The king made answer that the little man with the beady eyes was a
wonder-worker; he had taken care of the executioner-general with a mere
wave of the hand, and no doubt he could, with a stamp of the foot,
materialize as much food as he wanted and whenever he wanted.
The lord of the exchequer thereupon retired in much confusion.
In the midst of our repast we were startled by a voice behind us.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen! Out of your abundant store will you not have the
goodness to give me a few mouthfuls of food? I'm starving, literally
starving!"
"Markham!" cried Meigs, whirling around.
"Mr. Markham!" exclaimed the professor.
The food-trust magnate was fully clad, although his clothing showed
signs of much hard usage. His cheeks were sunken and pale, while his
eyes were round and abnormally bright. In his left hand was a metal
plate, and in his right a small paddle.
Both Meigs and Quinn started toward Markham with the food that still
remained in their basins. The zet-ring, however, reared its intangible
barrier between so that Markham could not so much as touch the
receptacles extended toward him.
It was pathetic to watch this one-time master of millions struggling to
get the coveted food. He would throw himself at it and recoil trembling
from the mysterious force that had shocked and baffled him; he would
sink to his knees or leap in the air, trying to reach above or below the
invisible barrier; and then he would dissemble, slink toward the basins
and make a sudden dash, as though the strong chemical was an enemy whom
he thought he could take off its guard.
At last he gave over and turned away with a despairing moan. Meigs
faced the king and began an angry outburst which the professor made
haste to interrupt.
"Your majesty," said Quinn, "this needy gentleman is also a friend of
ours. Will you not supply his wants, or enable us to do so?"
"The indexograph informed me as to his character," answered the king,
"and it is a law of the realm that punishment must fit the crime. When
your friend will truly acknowledge himself in the wrong his needs will
be plentifully supplied. Until that time he must beg his food from
house to house, morsel by morsel."
"And this other gentleman in the kirtle," proceeded the professor, "will
you not exercise a little clemency in his case?"
"I have already exercised a good deal of clemency," the king answered;
"nor can I go any further until he also announces a change of heart."
Markham was as deaf to the word-boxes as was Meigs, and his majesty's
will was interpreted to them.
"I am not in the wrong!" declared Markham. "The principle involved is of
vital importance, and I will die for it, if need be."
"So will I," averred Meigs.
"We will eliminate your friends from our calculations for the present,"
said the king. "Just now I would like to know what has become of my
executioner-general."
"He is pinned to the roof of the under-world," said the professor.
"Can you bring him back?" asked the king, turning his eye aloft.
"Really, I don't see how we are to get along without him."
"Possibly I can return him to you," answered the professor. "I will
try, at least, providing you will grant a request I have to make."
This dallying with the royal prerogative was not well received by his
majesty, nor by those around him.
"What request would you make, in case I was inclined to receive it?"
asked the king.
"I would have you bring out the Bolla and allow these two gentlemen to
take it in their hands."
The king gave a start, and a look of consternation overspread the faces
of those in his retinue.
"Where did you hear of the Bolla?" the king asked sharply.
"In the other kingdom, your majesty," the professor replied.
The king was silent a few moments.
"We will take that matter up later," said he finally. "From whence come
you and your friends? That point has been bothering me for some little
time."
"We come from another planet which is called the Earth," said Quinn.
"Does the planet you speak of circle around our sun?"
"Yes, your majesty."
"Is it as large as Njambai?"
"Much larger, your majesty."
"And are all the creatures on Earth two-handed, as large as you, and
able to communicate thoughts without a word-box?"
"The inhabitants of Earth are just as you see us. But they do not live
beneath the crust of the planet. The sun's rays are so tempered by the
time they reach the Earth that beings are able to live in comfort on the
outer shell."
The king clapped two of his hands at this, and gave other evidence of
his pleasure on the word-box.
"Most wonderful!" he exclaimed, and launched into a series of questions
concerning the physical attributes of our mother planet and the
character and institutions of its people.
Quinn answered him fully, expatiating on the progress in arts and
sciences already made by the Earth dwellers. The king's wonder grew
into awe and admiration. Rising from his chair he paced back and forth
in front of us, thinking deeply.
"What sort of weapons have your people?" he inquired at last.
The professor described our powder-and-shot machines to the best of his
ability. The king was puzzled.
"Don't they know anything about zet on your native orb?" he inquired.
"No," answered the professor. "There is no zet in our atmosphere."
"Suppose a company of my soldiers were to land on Earth, fully equipped
with zetbais. Could they be resisted?"
Quinn shuddered.
"No, your majesty, they could not be resisted. With your wonderful
zetbais you could conquer and lay waste the entire planet. Candor
compels me to tell you this, knowing full well that such a result would
not be possible to you."
"Why impossible?" cried the king, with wild enthusiasm. "You and your
friends must have come hither in that strange house which fell into the
crater. Why could I not load a company of my soldiers into the house
and go back with you?"
Then, and only then, did we see what this crack-brained monarch was
driving at. Quinn was in trepidation over the outcome.
"Such a thing is not to be thought of!" he cried. "Your majesty, let me
beg you not to give your attention to such a quixotic project!"
"I am fully resolved!" exclaimed the king, striding up and down with
clinched hands. "It is a very alluring picture you give me of this
planet called Earth. I'll conquer it, annex it and own it."
He halted and raised his word-box.
"Ho, there, Olox!" he cried.
The high chief stepped forward and made the royal salaam of four hands.
"We are going forth to conquer the solar system, Olox," paid the king in
a brisk, matter-of-fact way.
"Yes, your majesty," answered Olox, as readily as though the capturing
of a planet or two was an every-day occurrence.
"You have overheard what this strange two-handed creature has been
telling me?" went on the king.
"Yes, your majesty."
"Trains that burn the black blocks and need not be hauled by hand!
Green vegetation, laughing rivers and babbling brooks all on the outer
shell! Rich cities, stores of art and heaps of yellow gold! These, and
myriad other marvelous things are on the Earth, Olox, and guarded only
by two-handed, five-fingered colossi, who have to load a tube of iron
with black powder and round missiles before they can attack their foes!"
The king threw back his head and laughed on the word-box. Taking a cue
from the king, Olox also laughed, and so did the others.
"And these Earth dwellers can't even see in the dark!" rippled the king
with contemptuous fingers.
"But they are large, your majesty," ventured the high chief.
"Large and therefore awkward; not quick like our people, Olox. The
zetbai is the key to the situation. We could girdle the green star of
these colossi, devastate it and destroy all who sought to oppose us.
That is what we shall do."
"It will be a noble campaign, your majesty."
"Noble? That is not the word, Olox. It will be stupendous! We'll
monopolize everything when we get there, my dear sir--everything we can
get our hands on. And I guess we can get our hands on whatever there
is--zet will clear every obstacle out of our way."
The king looked at the theoretical side. Olox, naturally, had an eye to
the practical.
"What are your orders for the campaign, your majesty?" he asked.
"I shall leave a regent to look after Baigadd," said the king, "and
myself accompany the expedition. You will be the military head, Olox."
"Yes, your majesty. We are to go in the metal house?"
"It is the only thing we have to go in. The metal house was unhurt by
its fall into the crater?"
"That appears to be the case, your majesty, strange as it may seem. It
fell into the kingdom right side up and----"
"The interior is in good condition?"
"Very good, your majesty."
"My orders to the effect that nothing should be removed from it have
been carried out?"
"The executioner-general would have that tub of white pigment. Nothing
else has been taken from the house."
"Very good. How many of our people will the house contain comfortably?"
"I should say that fifty or more could dwell in it without much
inconvenience."
"Then select fifty soldiers, the flower of the Gaddbaizets. Among your
stores be sure you have a good supply of black kaka. I want some one
who is away up in ideographs to accompany the expedition as historian."
"It will be attended to, your highness."
The king turned and aimed his word-box at the professor.
"Is that tub of white pigment essential to the proper equipment of the
metal house?" he asked.
"Very essential," replied Quinn.
Three weeks and more in the nether kingdoms had whitened us
considerably, but the professor's face was now a sickly grayish color.
"Then I will have it taken back to the house," said the king.
He gave orders to that end at once, and the cart was laid hold of and
drawn out of the square and down the street, Olox accompanying it.
"I had no idea," the king drummed on his word-box, "that there were any
people in the solar system with so much wealth and so little power with
which to guard it. I've got the other three kingdoms of Njambai pretty
well under my thumb, and the regent I leave behind to boss things will
have an easy time of it. Quite possibly I may conclude not to come back
to Njambai. This other star has natural advantages which we do not seem
to have here, and may prove a more comfortable place in which to live."
Professor Quinn was shivering, like a man with an ague. He proceeded to
use his talk-machine, and the words shook under his unsteady fingers.
"What you are thinking of, your majesty," ran the professor's words, "is
only the wildest of dreams."
"I have had dreams before, and wild ones," the king's word-box rattled
off complacently, "and I have made them come true. It shall be the same
with this. I am a conqueror, and I come of a line of conquerors."
"There are millions upon millions of people on our planet," persisted
the professor, despairingly. "They could hurl these countless numbers
against you faster than you could slay them with your zetbais."
Key 7 of the royal word-box gave a screech of contempt.
"Suppose we draw a line of zet," the box added, when the derision had
died out, "imprison groups of those countless numbers and then wipe them
out by detachments? How would that work?"
"The atmosphere of Earth is different from that of Mercury," continued
the professor. "You cannot draw zet from the air of our planet."
"Thanks for the hint," replied the king. "We will take an ample supply
with us and charge the atmosphere with it. Then we shall have a store
at hand whenever the need develops."
While the king was using his word-box with two of his hands, he was
rubbing the other two together with ill-concealed delight.
"Conditions there are absolutely unknown to you, your majesty,"
persisted the professor in a frantic endeavor to turn the king from his
designs. "You will be brought face to face, at every turn, with
situations that will puzzle you and be fraught with danger. All the
nations of the Earth will combine against you."
"Let them combine!" was the monarch's answer. "I hope they will display
sufficient strength to make the campaign exciting. I will capture this
Earth of yours and rule over it! From one end of it to the other I will
make it mine! I have long felt that Njambai was too small for the
proper exercise of my wide abilities."
"This is your world," the professor thumped angrily on his word-box,
"and you have no right to meddle with any other planet."
That caused the king to turn his keen eye on the professor, and to keep
it there for a full minute.
"I have the right to do whatever I see fit," snapped his talk machine.
"There is no will in this kingdom but mine, and no other will in the
four kingdoms, if I choose to have it so. But why are you saying such
things on your word-box? After firing me with a kingly ambition to
capture and annex a distant planet, why do you proceed to throw
discouragement in my way? Ha! I wonder if you have been telling me the
truth?"
"Your majesty," hummed the professor's talk machine, with dignity, "I am
not in the habit of making misstatements."
"We'll find out whether you are or not," came from the king. "This is
an important matter, and I shall take no man's word for anything. Ho,
there!" and the word-box was leveled at some of the retainers; "bring an
indexograph, varlets! We will settle this question of veracity here and
now."
Some of the retainers scurried away and vanished inside the palace.
Presently they reappeared with the indexograph.
The professor was backward in facing the test--strangely backward, as I
thought, for a man so clear-minded and conscientious.
"The test is not necessary," he demurred.
"Your actions are far from being open and aboveboard," remarked the
king. "You must submit."
The royal eye was on the machine as the professor was tried out. The
ideograph told of a truthful mind, sadly perturbed. The royal word-box
chattered mirthfully.
"You are afraid I can accomplish my purpose!" laughed his majesty. "You
are worried about your planet! Such a state of mind merely enhances my
determination, for you, if I mistake not, are a clever man. You would
not feel worried if you did not believe I could accomplish what I have
in mind. But be at peace, my dear sir. You shall in nowise suffer. I
will make you ruler of one of the captured kingdoms."
This was no lure for the professor. He maintained an attitude of
dignified silence, watching the king with steady eyes.
"A wise general," went on his majesty, "always looks over his ground, as
well as he may, before going out to battle. That will be advisable in
the case of my present campaign."
"What do you mean by that, your majesty?" queried the professor.
"To-night," explained the king, again, "we shall mount to the upper
crust and make a reconnoissance of this orb I am to subjugate."
"Have you any astronomical instruments?" asked Quinn.
"None whatever," replied the king. "Have you?"
"There is an instrument in the steel car which will bring the planet
Terra much nearer to us than the naked eye could do."
"What is it? Describe the instrument to me and I will have it brought
out for our night's work."
The professor described the telescope, and the king dispatched a
messenger after Olox in hot haste, with supplementary orders. Thereupon
the king bade us farewell and left the square, followed by his suite.
As I stood watching the royal party out of sight, I heard a gurgling
groan behind me. Facing about I saw the professor reeling unsteadily;
the next moment I had caught him in my arms and saved him a fall.
*CHAPTER XIV.*
*PLAN TO STEAL A BUILDING.*
Professor Quinn did not become unconscious. The frightful catastrophe
that threatened Terra had preyed upon him at the expense of his
strength. Easing him to the ground, I dropped beside him and held his
head on my knee.
"Cheer up, professor," said I. "It surprises me to see you give way
like this."
"Mr. Munn," he returned brokenly, "if this rattle-brained monarch goes
out into the universe with a picked company of fifty men and a hundred
zetbais, it will mean that the whole solar system will get a set-back to
a period corresponding with our Middle Ages!
"These creatures of Njambai are far beneath those of Terra in
civilization, and fate has placed in their hands the terrible zetbai, a
weapon whose destructive powers are beyond compute.
"Oh, Mr. Munn, think of our government being overwhelmed by these
four-handed, one-eyed creatures! Think of the word-box screeching
through the lofty corridors of the Capitol at Washington, where the
soul-stirring eloquence of Senators and Representatives has been
thundered amain! Think of the----"
The professor could give no added touch to the harrowing picture.
Throwing his hands to his face, he groaned aloud.
"This hasn't happened yet," said I.
"No, but it will happen unless we can do something to circumvent the mad
scheme. Anarchy will reign in our beloved land--over the whole
earth--and I will be held responsible. Ah, me! In removing the trust
magnates I have but paved the way for a mightier monopolist! I have but
followed the sad example of Frankenstein, for out of my plans has sprung
a monstrous project that will check progress and hurl civilization back
five hundred years."
"Don't give up hope," said I, but not very cheerfully, for I was greatly
cast down. "Let us pretend to help them. We will lend our aid in
making the car ready, and then, at the final moment, perhaps we can dart
away and leave them behind; or, failing in that, we may be able to throw
the zetbais from the car while in space. That will pull the fangs of the
Baigadds, I think, and they will land on Earth as harmless as a lot of
kittens."
The professor took heart at this. He would have rallied any way, for
his resourceful nature could not struggle long in the slough of despond.
J. Archibald Meigs had been circling around the edge of our barrier
seeking for another glimpse of Markham and even calling his name with
all his lung power. But the food-trust magnate neither answered nor
showed himself, being engaged in a house-to-house canvass for the
pittance of provender that would keep him alive.
Meigs finally turned to us and demanded the cause of the professor's
downcast air. Quinn revealed the king's plot and Meigs tore off into an
outburst of recrimination, just as I expected he would do.
The professor bowed his head meekly to the tempest and even restrained
me when I would have put a stop to the broker's intemperate language.
By and by we had our noon meal, and with the attendants who brought it
came Olox, seating himself on the ground and watching us as we ate. The
high chief was quite amiable, and I began asking him questions relative
to our surroundings.
He indicated the king's private apartments in the palace, and pointed
out his own residence, as well as the dwelling occupied by the late
executioner-general, besides vouchsafing other information of interest.
"What is that small, square building under the wing of the palace?" I
asked.
"That is the imperial exchequer," said he. "Within that building the
king keeps the most priceless of all his treasures."
"And what is that?" inquired the professor.
"The Bolla," was the startling answer.
Quinn and I exchanged expressive glances. Here, through a chance remark
by Olox, we were suddenly reminded of our duty to the king of Baigol.
It was necessary that Olox should not see the startled looks which the
professor and I were exchanging, and Mercurial eyes were preternaturally
sharp.
"Bolla?" I allowed to come limpingly from the talk instrument. "What
may that be?"
"A stone," answered Olox, and there was suspicion in his manner in spite
of my attempt to avert it. "You already know of the Bolla. Your friend
requested his majesty to have it brought out, and at that time you said
that you had heard of it in the other kingdom."
"So we did," I replied, trimming my sails to another breeze, "but what
is it? Our information is rather vague."
"A stone, as I just said," went on Olox. "It has a beneficial moral and
physical effect on whoever touches it."
"Where did it come from?"
"It has been in Njambai for ages," was the indefinite answer.
"How did King Gaddbai get hold of it?"
"He borrowed it from the king of Baigol."
"And yet you call it one of his treasures! If it was borrowed, Olox,
how could it possibly belong here?"
"King Gaddbai has taken it," was the calm response. "What he wants he
makes his own. If King Golbai had not loaned the stone, there would
have been a war."
"Was that the right thing for your king to do?" inquired the professor.
"Whatever our sovereign does is right."
There was no getting around a flat statement of that sort. Evidently
the ruler of the country had drilled his subjects thoroughly.
"What did you do at the car, Olox?" said the professor.
"At the iron house?" The professor nodded.
Nods and gestures were well understood by the people of Njambai, for,
with four hands, they were well equipped for finger and whole arm
movements.
"The king's orders were carried out, at the iron house," finished Olox.
"The paint was returned to its proper place?"
"Even so."
"And the telescope----'
"That matter was attended to."
"I trust you handled the telescope with care? It is exceedingly fragile
and could be easily injured."
"After the king spoke as he did, death by zet would be meted out to the
one who injured the instrument."
There were several things I wanted to ask Olox, and the principal one
had to do with Gilhooly, and the way he had been taken from the car and
made to serve the traction interests of the kingdom. However, the
professor was keeping Olox so busy with his word-box that my own
questions were crowded out.
"The family of the executioner-general are anxious to have him
returned," remarked Olox, while the professor was looking for the proper
key on which to formulate his next question. "Could that be
accomplished?"
"It might," replied the professor guardedly.
"What has become of him?"
"He disappeared as he was about to commit a deed of base injustice,"
said the professor grimly.
"We are aware of that," and Olox looked uneasily around as he punched
the words, "but we are ignorant of the cause of his disappearance. He is
a distant relative of mine, and I promised his next of kin to put these
questions to you. Is he alive?"
"Undoubtedly."
Olox pressed closer and muffled his word-box so that the sounds could
not carry to dangerous limits.
"If you would tell us how to proceed in the matter of getting the
executioner-general back," he whispered, "I can promise you and your
friends help in getting out of the country."
"Look out for the indexograph, Olox," said I. "If they should happen to
give you a try out with it, the ideograph wouldn't look well to the
king."
Olox was greatly shaken--so shaken, in fact, that he could not pursue
the subject further.
"I will talk with you later about the executioner-general," he finished,
noting the empty dishes before the professor and Meigs and me, and the
curious manner of those who had come with him. "Until then, pray
consider that nothing has been said on the subject." With that, he
arose and beckoned to his companions.
After Olox had led the attendants away with the empty food receptacles,
the professor and I got our heads together on the mission that had
brought us to Baigadd.
We did not think it necessary or advisable to let Meigs know of our
purpose in regaining control of the Bolla.
"We are pledged to secure the mysterious stone if we can, Mr. Munn,"
said Quinn. "Undoubtedly the work will put us in bad odor here, and may
interfere with our attempt to balk the king in his comprehensive scheme
of conquest, but that does not release us from the task in question."
A tingle of gratification shot along my nerves. The feeling of
oppression that had burdened me was lifted, for I ever loved to crack a
professional nut, and here was one that would certainly try me to the
utmost.