_The Theft of the Rock_
It was the night of May 14 when Alt had come from the rock with his
white flag of truce, and had taken me back into the atom with him.
Togaro had been lurking outside; he had got into our guarded room. He
had ridden me into smallness. Alt and I had not been aware of him.
Father and Foley, watching us dwindle upon our journey, had not seen
him.
But he was there; and he had leaped off me--small as an insect--and
escaped. I have recounted the incident. It was in the caldron valley,
not far below the upper surface of the rock fragment. I have described
how we met a Togaro giant, who apparently was on his way out.
It seems obvious to me now that Togaro, when he was hidden upon me
during that hour or so while Alt and I made the first stage of our
inward journey, had been able to overhear our conversation. I recall
that I told Alt then how I had arranged with father that, coming back,
we would use a black and white flag as a signal. As a matter of fact,
Togaro also was probably within our guarded room when father, Foley and
I had discussed it.
He knew, then, about the flag. He escaped from Alt and me, in the
caldron. He had seen and recognized his follower--had been clinging to
me when we encountered and fought the giant. That fellow was on his
way out, looking for Togaro, very probably, to see why the master was
delayed all those months. There must have been near by other Togarites
with him upon the journey, and Togaro escaped from us in order to join
them.
I do not know any of this to be a fact; I construct it only in the
light of what actually transpired afterward; and I think that doubtless
it is what happened. Togaro met his men, told them the rock was in
hostile hands, and told them of our flag signal. Then he ordered them
out to capture the rock from father.
I can even fancy that Togaro lingered to aid in that capture, for it
was very swiftly done; then, finding it successful, he had hastened
back into smallness. Alt and I were inept at the size-change traveling.
We made many blundering miscalculations; it would not have been
difficult for the skillful Togaro to overtake us and to hide upon our
ship as he did.
Thus Togaro, with the knowledge that the rock was in his possession,
was enabled to bring his expedition up with utter confidence. Dianne
and I had marveled at his assurance.
I think this is the true explanation. In any case, the fact remains
that the rock was swiftly captured from father. Alt and I departed
at about midnight of May 14. Father watched us go. He was depressed,
harassed, over my going. He watched until Alt and I were no longer
visible. Then he went to bed, leaving Foley on guard.
What happened to Foley, no one will ever know. Father lay in his room,
with the alarm bell beside him. He could not go to sleep for a long
time. Then he must have dozed.
He was awakened by the violent ringing of the bell. Foley calling him
that there was danger! It was near dawn; father noticed the daylight
through his bedroom windows. He had not undressed; he seized his
automatic and rushed down the hall.
He was too precipitate, confused by being awakened too suddenly.
The bell was clanging through the silent house with the urgency of a
fire-alarm. Father burst incautiously into the room where Foley had
been guarding the rock. He remembers seeing the body of Foley upon
the floor. Three or four strange men were in the room--one large, the
others very much smaller. The one of father's stature had a crudely
fashioned black and white flag in his hand--with which, undoubtedly, he
had deceived Foley.
Father fired point-blank as he blundered into the room. He evidently
missed. The man with the flag flung it. The flagstaff was a bar of
metal; it struck father's head and knocked him senseless.
Ransome was due to arrive to relieve Foley at seven in the morning. He
came and found Foley dead, with a sharpened bar like a sword impaled in
him. Father was lying there unconscious.
The room was in no disorder. Father's automatic was beside him. The
granite slab was in its place.
But the fragment of rock was gone!
This was during the week of May 15. The local authorities were
skeptical of father's story. Even with the public facts of the previous
year--the coming of the giants, the battle on Bird's Nest Island--what
father now said was incredible. This atom, within the rock, as the
source of the inexplicable "giants," was to these local officials too
much for belief. Heaven knows, one cannot blame them--especially since
the rock had vanished and no one remained who had ever seen it, or even
heard of it, save father and Ransome.
Father was taken to Portland for treatment. When he had recovered, the
authorities at Washington sent for him. Officialdom there placed more
credence in what he had to say; but not enough to do anything about it!
As a matter of fact, what could they have done?
On the night of May 20, with father still ill, and in Washington
with Ransome to give their testimony, our place at King's Cove was
unoccupied. The Togarites poured from the tiny rock, a thousand of them
in this first party. They grew into the boathouse, then left it, and
roamed over King's Cove in the moonlight, still growing.
It must have been near dawn, when the first of them came out. Togaro
was presently with them, I have no doubt. What they did was far
different from the sporadic appearance of those giants of the year
before. Organized, intelligent action now!
Shortly after that dawn of May 21, the world rang with the news that
giants had come again. In Washington, the officials with whom father
had been in consultation knew now that everything he said was the truth.
The menace was at hand! The world was fronted by the strangest, gravest
crisis of its civilized history!