CHAPTER I_The Crystal Sceptre: A Story of Adventure

_The_ CRYSTAL SCEPTRE

_A Story of Adventure_

By PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS

_Author of “Nella, the Heart of the Army,” etc._

[Illustration: Decorative glyph]

R. F. FENNO & COMPANY

9 and 11 East Sixteenth Street, New York

1901

Philip Verrill Mighels

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The end of the voyage 9

II. A strange alliance 14

III. The home of the Links 25

IV. A reconnoitre 36

V. Hostile neighbours 44

VI. Language and weapons 50

VII. Important discoveries 60

VIII. Attacked and besieged 67

IX. The cauldron of gold 76

X. Daylight at last 86

XI. A camp on the hill 91

XII. A deadly foe 97

XIII. The night in the jungle 108

XIV. An old roué 115

XV. A gleam of hope 120

XVI. Treachery and a battle 127

XVII. Saurians as foes 141

XVIII. The enemy near 151

XIX. Adoration scorned 155

XX. The chief is pleased 159

XXI. War with the Blacks 165

XXII. Home joys and troubles 172

XXIII. Needed munitions gathered 183

XXIV. Experimental gunpowder 188

XXV. The tribe frightened 197

XXVI. Sport at the lake 203

XXVII. An exploration 211

XXVIII. Amazing discoveries 218

XXIX. A sacred disguise 229

XXX. Again besieged 240

XXXI. Lost in the jungle 247

XXXII. The bamboo bombs 261

XXXIII. King at last 271

XXXIV. A moment of rest 276

XXXV. A fellow human 282

XXXVI. Surprise and suspense 293

XXXVII. The goddess 306

XXXVIII. A prospect of wealth 313

XXXIX. Stealing the enemy’s fire 324

XL. Coveted gold 334

XLI. Farewell to the camp 344

XLII. Golden gleams 358

XLIII. Surrounded by the Blacks 365

XLIV. Vale faithful Fatty 380

XLV. No longer a king 387

The Crystal Sceptre

CHAPTER I

THE END OF THE VOYAGE

We had lost all control of the wild balloon. It was driven ahead of the

wind like a shred of rags, the car trailing behind at a fearful angle,

for many of the ropes were broken and all the others were twisted in a

hopeless tangle. Nearly all our ballast had fallen into the angry sea

beneath us an hour after the storm first caught us in its whirl.

I could hear the ocean roaring and swashing, where its gigantic waves

toppled over each other below. The sound must have been tremendous, for

the wind blew such a howling gale that neither Ford nor I could make

each other hear what we shouted two feet away.

Our hats were gone; Ford’s face was haggard, whenever the lightning

revealed him in the gloom. So intense was the darkness that I could not

even see the vast bag above us. When a great flash illuminated the

heavens, directly ahead, I noted the monster globe full of gas,

silhouetted blackly against the glare, and knew it was slightly leaking.

A small three-cornered dent was in its side already. I also observed

that the sea was hardly more than fifty feet below, churning milk-white

foam in its fury out of liquid ebon waves of mountainous size. The sky

seemed like a solid bank of black. The darkness that followed the flash

absorbed even Ford. Yet I knew that while he clung to the basket with

his right hand, as I had done for above an hour, he was nevertheless

attempting with his left to heave out the bag of provisions and the

blankets. I helped him at this and we rose perceptibly.

Where we were it was absolutely impossible even to guess. That the

balloon was driving ahead at more than sixty miles an hour we had long

been convinced. This had been the state of affairs throughout the night.

I had lost all confidence in Ford’s calculations at the end of the

seventeenth hour out from Burma, for the twist which the storm had given

us then threw out or broke every reliable instrument we had, leaving not

so much as a compass. I was not an aeronaut like Ford, yet I knew we

were doomed, unless some change should occur, and that quickly.

Ford, by the light of a flash, had seen a rope which was sawing open a

seam in the silk, as it slashed and writhed in the tornado. When another

blinding illumination came, I saw him climbing up in the ring to cut

this rope away. The car tilted more than before; I fully expected to go

hurtling out at every jerk. Suddenly two ropes, worn to a thread, on the

ring, parted without the slightest warning. The car gave a lurch and all

but turned bottom-side up. I heard a cry, as I swung out full length,

suspended by my arms, and was even slightly struck on the foot, as Ford

went plunging down. The balloon shot upward, relieved of his weight, and

I was alone.

How long I clung there, swinging far out behind the wounded machine, is

more than I would dare to say. My arms finally ached so intensely I

could scarcely endure the pain. Dangling ropes beat me like knouts, for

a time, and then wrapped and twisted about me like coils of a snake.

Obviously these must have supported my weight at the last, for in a

spell of dizziness and weakness I lost my grip and then was conscious

only a second, when I thought, with the utmost unconcern, my end had

come. Like a dummy on the tail of a kite, I dragged below the wreck of

the car and was whirled thus unconsciously on, above the hungry sea.

It might have been hours, it might have been days after this last moment

of despair, when my brain began again to work. I can only describe the

sensations which followed as a species of dream. I thought I was dead;

it seemed as if my soul, or something, was at perfect rest in a region

of loveliness. Whereas I had been chilled through and through by the

storm, I was warm now and filled with comfort. Music, which might have

been the rustling of leaves or the songs of birds, made itself heard. I

could not see for my eyes remained closed; but a sense of delicious

odours pervaded my being; I seemed also to float, as if on the air.

At length I opened my eyes. The dream continuing on me still, I lay

perfectly quiet, gazing aloft into a sky of matchless beauty. Doubtless

I remained in this position for more than half an hour. Then a bright

bird flitted across my range of vision, and brought me back to things of

earth. I was still bound about by a piece of rope. Everything came back

to me sharply,—Ford, my friend, the scientist and daring balloonist, our

start, the storm, his hurtling down to death, my own desperation, and

then oblivion.

I was whole and sound, apparently. Removing the rope and attempting to

sit erect, I found myself floundering for a second, in the top of a

tree. The branch I was on let me drop. I fell toward the earth, made a

grab for a limb, which somewhat broke my fall, and landed plump on the

ground, in the midst of a circle of extraordinary beings.