Davis pounded mightily upon the great gate of the half-deserted
shipyard. Behind him, Nita was sobbing in spite of her efforts to hold
back her tears. Evelyn tried her best to calm Nita, but without real
effect. Gerrod had shot the party out at the gate of the shipyard
and darted off in the little motor car on some mysterious errand.
Davis pounded again wrathfully, using a huge stone to make his blows
reverberate through the yard. A workman came slowly toward them.
"Hurry! Hurry!" Nita called tearfully. "Please hurry!"
The workman recognized her through the palings. All of Morrison's
employees knew his daughter. The workman broke into a run. The gate
swung open.
"Where's Mr. Keeling, the manager?" demanded Nita urgently. "We must
see him at once."
The workman pointed, and the three of them hurried as fast as they
could walk toward the man he had indicated.
"Mr. Keeling," said Nita desperately. "Father is marooned in our house
up the Hudson. He may be dead by now. We've got to get to him!"
"I don't know how----" began the manager helplessly.
"I want a submarine siren," said Davis crisply. "One that can be tuned
to different notes. Also the fastest motor boat you have. Give the
necessary orders at once."
"But the Silver Menace----" began the manager again.
"Don't stand there talking," barked Davis in a tone that secured
instant obedience. "Get the siren and the boat. And hurry! This is life
and death!"
Galvanized into action, but still confused, the manager gave the
orders. A fast motor boat that had been hauled ashore and pot into a
shed when the Silver Menace blocked the river was hauled out. A heavy
submarine siren was hastily unearthed from one of the workshops, and
Davis drove the workmen to the task of fitting a sling on the boat by
which the siren could be lowered over the bow. A heavy crane was run
up and the motor boat made fast, in readiness to be lifted overboard.
Every one worked with the utmost speed of which they were capable.
Davis was not his usual good-natured self now. He drove his workmen
mercilessly. Hardly had the last of their preparations been completed
when a heavy truck rumbled into the yard. Gerrod had commandeered the
truck and worked wonders. A grand piano had been lifted bodily into
the big automobile. As the truck stopped he was lifting the lid that
protected the keys. An electrician stood by the siren, with the tuning
apparatus exposed. Hardly had the engine of the truck been shut off
when they were busy tuning the blast of the siren to match the tinkling
sound of the piano. It took a heart-breakingly long time to get the
pitches precisely alike, but then the launch swung high in the air and
alighted on the surface of the jelly below. The electrician in the
launch pressed the button that would set the siren at work sending out
its blast of sound waves through the water.
Those on the bank watched in agonized apprehension. The siren sank
into the jelly like mass. No audible sound issued from it, once it was
submerged, but when the curious sound waves issued into the water from
the giant metal plate that in normal times carried warnings to ships
at sea a change was visible in the jelly. Where ever the curious water
sound traveled the silvery jelly clouded and abruptly turned to liquid!
Almost instantly the space between the two wharves, in which the
launch lay, was free of the horrible stuff. Gerrod shouted excitedly.
Davis swore happily. Nita pushed anxiously forward.
"We've got to get to daddy!" she cried desperately. "We mustn't waste a
second! Not an instant!"
The four of them piled into the launch. An engineer leaped down and
twisted the motor. The fast launch shot forward, the submarine siren
at the bow sending out its strange water sound that was inaudible to
those on board, but which had such an amazing effect on the microscopic
animals that composed the silver sea. As the launch gathered speed and
headed up the Hudson a high bow wave spread out on either side. The
water on which they rode was yellowed and malodorous, but it was water,
and not the silvery, slime that had threatened the world. The Silver
Menace vanished before the launch as if by magic. When the motor boat
approached, with its siren still sounding fiercely, though inaudibly,
the jellied surface of the river shivered into yellowed liquid, and the
creeping horror on the banks trembled and became a torrent of water
that flowed eagerly back into the bed of the stream.
The island on which Morrison had been marooned loomed up ahead,
looking like a small mountain of silver. The house at its top was as a
monument of shining metal. But as the boat sped toward it the silvery
appearance of the coating clouded and melted away. Instead a torrent
of evil-smelling water poured down the sloping sides of the island and
into the river again!
They found the servants weeping for joy. Morrison, when the windows of
the library had broken in under the weight of the mass of the horror
outside, had leaped through the door of the library and slammed the
door behind him. They had calked the cracks with cloth, and for a
moment isolated the Silver Menace in that one room. As window after
window broke in, however, they had been forced to withdraw from room to
room, until at last they were huddled together in a tiny linen closet,
windowless and without ventilation. They were waiting there for death
when they heard the rushing of water all about them and found the
Silver Menace, silver and a menace no longer, flowing down to rejoin
the waters from which it had come.
As is the way of women, Nita, having sobbed heartbrokenly for sorrow
when she believed her father dead, now sobbed even more heartbrokenly
for joy at finding him alive, but she did not neglect, after a
reasonable interval, to bring Davis forward.
"You know him, daddy," she said, smiling. "Well, he is the person who
found the way to destroy the Silver Menace, and so he's the person you
are going to pay that big reward to."
Morrison shook hands with Davis. He knew what was coming next.
"And though it hasn't anything to do with the other things," Nita said
proudly, "he's the person I'm going to marry."
"It would be ungracious," observed Morrison, "to disagree with you. Mr.
Davis, you are a lucky man."
"I know it," said Davis, laughing in some embarrassment. He looked at
Nita, who dimpled at him, and was promptly and frankly kissed for her
daring. She did not seem to mind, however. In fact, she dimpled again.
* * * * *
The last vestige of the Silver Menace was turned to yellowed water
within a month. Submarine sirens, carefully tuned to precisely the
pitch that would cause the tiny shells to shatter themselves, were
hastily set aboard huge numbers of fast steamers, that swept the ocean
in patrols, clearing the sea as they went. Whenever the clear note was
poured out by one of the under-water sirens the silvery animalcules
died in their myriads. Slowly, as the evil smell of their bodies
dissipated, the inhabitants of the Atlantic Ocean came back to their
normal haunts. By shoals and schools, by swarms and in tribes, the
fishes came down again from the North. A week after the destroying
steamers began their patrol rain fell on the Atlantic coast. The
abnormally dry air above the ocean took up water avidly and poured it
down on the parched earth with a free hand. The ocean, too, took up
again its former function of furnishing cool breezes during the day
and warm breezes at night. The seashore became once more a place of
charm and delight. At least Davis and Nita found it so. Davis was being
waited upon with decorations and honorary degrees, with the freedom of
cities and medals of honor from learned societies. At each presentation
solemn speeches were made in which he was told how superlatively clever
he was. Remembering the purely accidental nature of his discovery, he
found it difficult to keep from laughing. These things were tiresome,
but were not active nuisances until after his marriage. When he
found that he and Nita would not be left alone, that no matter how
scrupulously they concealed their identity it was sooner or later
discovered and they were interviewed and written up in special articles
for the newspapers he grew annoyed.
The climax came on a beautifully moonlit night at a seashore resort
where they were quite confident they would not be discovered. The beach
was like silver, and the waves were dark and mysterious, except where
the reflection of the moon glittered on their shining sides. Davis and
Nita, forgetting the world and devoutly hoping that they were by the
world forgot, sat and looked at the moon and played idly in the sand
and told each other the eternal foolishnesses that are probably the
truest wisdom. They were utterly happy just being alone with each other.
A dark figure looked up over and coughed. They started.
"You are Flight Commander and Mrs. Davis?" said a voice deprecatingly.
Davis groaned and admitted it.
"Our little villagers learned that you are visiting here, and a banquet
has been prepared in the pavilion in your honor. Won't you do us the
honor to attend?"
Davis muttered several words under his breath, for which Nita later
reprimanded him, and rose heavily.
The banquet was a great success. The freedom of the village was
given them both. Speeches were made, in which Davis was told how
superlatively clever he was. The band played "See the Conquering Hero
Comes." Davis sat miserably through it all, with Nita, scarcely less
miserable, by his side.
The next morning he sent a wire to Teddy Gerrod:
Can we come and spend our honeymoon with you? People won't let us
alone.
DAVIS.
Within an hour the answer came:
Come along. We'll let you alone. We're having a second honeymoon
ourselves.
GERROD.
Davis showed the wire to Nita.
"Splendid!" she said with a sigh of relief. Then she dimpled and looked
up at Davis. "But, Dicky, dear, we'll never have a second honeymoon
like they are having."
"We won't?" demanded Davis. "Why not?"
"Because," said Nita, putting her face very close to his. "Because our
first one is never going to stop."
THE END.