That low, flat background was the sea, the sound of whose breakers was faintly audible. Between sea and land ran a narrow, slender causeway, perhaps a mile in length. And beyond that, set on a small island, was the most splendid city that Jim could have imagined.
Like New York--very like New York, with its mighty towers, but more symmetrical, sloping upward from the sea toward a towering rampart at the heart of it, crowned with huge domes and minarets and serpentine ramps and mighty blocks of stone that must have sheltered as many occupants as New York"s highest skysc.r.a.pers.
The whole was snow-white, and gleamed softly in an artificial light dispensed from an enormous artificial planet that seemed to hover above the ramparts.
"G.o.d!" whispered Jim in awe as he gazed at the great city.
"You cannot cross that causeway," whimpered old Parrish. "It"s death to try. One sweep of the Ray will blot out every living thing."
"Hush! Listen!" came from Lucille"s lips. "Something"s moving down there!"
The distant murmur of voices, the indescribable "feel" of the proximity of other human beings told Jim that they were in imminent danger. He glanced about him. A little overhead was an outcrop of enormous boulders, standing up like a little fortress above the smooth lava.
"Get behind there!" Jim whispered.
They turned and ran, slipping and stumbling up the smooth slope.
Reaching the boulders, they ensconced themselves hastily behind them.
Jim peered out through a crevice between two of the largest stones.
The sound of moving things became more audible.
Then, as a flash of flame shot from the crater overhead, Jim saw a black human horde creeping like an array of ants around the base of the mountain not far beneath.
Just like an army of warrior ants it seemed to flow onward, in perfect order. And in the midst of it a faint violet light began to be visible.
Parrish seized Jim"s arm, shaking with terror. "You know what that is, Dent?" he whimpered.
"It"s Tode"s Drilgoes, moving for a night attack upon Atlantis,"
answered Jim. "And that thing in the middle is the Atom Smasher."
It seemed hours before the last of the serried ranks of Drilgoes had pa.s.sed. By the light of a lurid flash from the volcano Jim could see the column winding toward the causeway. Then all was shrouded in impenetrable darkness, save for the snow-soft city upon the island.
"What are we going to do?" chattered old Parrish. "I wish I was back in Tode"s cave. He gave me food and let me help with his work sometimes. I"ll die here. We"ll never get away. We"ll never get anywhere."
"We"re safer here than anywhere else," answered Jim. "We"ll have to stay till morning, or--G.o.d, look at that!"
Out of the ramparts of the city the round, blue-white disc of the Eye had suddenly disclosed itself. And simultaneously a violet flare shot up above the moving hosts of the Drilgoes in the middle of the causeway.
Out of the center of the Eye that blinding searchlight streamed. And the pillar of violet fire rose up to counter it, clove it in two, as a man cuts off the tentacle of a cuttlefish, and left it groping helplessly above the heads of the Drilgoes.
To and fro wavered the blue-white beam, and like a protective wall the violet column spread and extended, till the air was interlaced with the play of the two colors. Streaks of white shot through streaks of purple and black neutral clouds twirled, swirling in ghostlike forms.
It was a scene inconceivably beautiful, and it was impossible to realize what must be happening out there.
Men must be dying, withering like stubble in the blue-white flames, whenever they caught them. And yet, under that play of colors, Jim could see the vast host crawling forward to the a.s.sault.
He held his breath. It was sublime and terrible, and on the result of that conflict depended--what? What difference, when all this was forgotten history, antedating the written records of the human race?
Then of a sudden the blue-white rays were seen to win. They were beating down the violet light. Like living fingers they pierced that protective wall, flinging it back, until only the tall central pillar remained. And then for the first time the sound of combat became audible.
A groan of despair, of defeat, of hopelessness. The black stream was recoiling, turning upon itself. In the vivid glare of the white light it could be seen dissolving, breaking into a thousand pieces, streaming back toward the land. And, as it broke, the blue-white light pursued, eating its way and blasting all it met. Atlantis had triumphed.
Another sound was audible. From the city it came, a whirring as of innumerable gra.s.shoppers, increasing till it sounded once more like the tapping of innumerable woodp.e.c.k.e.rs. Suddenly the night broke into whirling b.a.l.l.s of fire.
Lucille cried out. Jim leaped to his feet to see more clearly.
"It"s men with wings," he cried. "Scores of them. They"re hurling something at the Drilgoes!"
The clacking of the wing mechanism filled the air. Now the fugitives from the Drilgo host were streaming along the base of the mountain underneath, seeking the safety of the jungles, and over them, riding them, harrying them, flew the Atlantean birdmen, hurling their fiery b.a.l.l.s. And where the b.a.l.l.s fell, conflagrations of cold fire seemed to start and run like mercury, and shrivel up everything they touched.
But the birdmen were not without casualties of their own. Here and there one could be seen to drop, and then the ma.s.sed Drilgoes would turn savagely upon him with their stone-pointed spears. The fight was coming very close now. The savage cries of the Drilgoes filled the night.
A ball of fire broke hardly fifty yards away from where the three were crouching. A birdman fluttered down like a wounded hawk and lay a-sprawl just underneath the rampart of boulders. Jim surmounted them, ran down the slope of the mountainside, and bent over the dying man.
He was hideously wounded by the thrust of a Drilgo spear--whether because the mechanism had failed, or because he had swooped too low, Jim could not determine. As Jim bent over him he looked up at him.
A youth in his teens, with the face and build of a Greek warrior, a worthy ancestor of European man. Jim looked at him and shuddered. "My grandfather four hundred generations removed," he thought.
Seeing that this was no Drilgo, with eyes widened by the antic.i.p.ation of death, the Atlantean smiled, and died.
Jim detached the straps that held the wings to his shoulders and examined them. They were multi-hinged, built of innumerable layers of laminated wood, which seemed to have been subjected to some special treatment. In the base of each, just where it fitted to the curve of the shoulder-blade, a tiny light was burning.
Jim looped the straps about his arms and walked back to the rampart.
Old Parrish saw him and screamed. Lucille cried out.
"I"m going to try to get the Atom Smasher," said Jim, pointing to the thin spire of violet flame that was still visible in the center of the causeway. "It"s our only chance. You must stay here. If I live, I"ll return. If I don"t return--"
But he knew that he must return. Nothing could kill him, because Lucille would be waiting for him behind that rampart of stones upon the bare, vitreous mountainside.
"I"m going to get the Atom Smasher," Jim repeated. "In these wings I"ll be taken for Atlantean. I"ll--bring it back." He spoke with faltering conviction. And yet there was nothing else to do. Everything depended upon his being able to bring back the Atom Smasher and take Lucille and her father away.
"I think you"re right, Jim," answered Lucille. "We"ll--wait here till you--come--back."
Her voice died away in a sob. Jim bent and kissed her. Then he began examining the mechanism of the wings. It did not appear difficult. A leather strap fastened around the body. Through this strap ran cords operated by levers upon the breast, and there was a k.n.o.b in a groove that looked as if it controlled the starting of the mechanism.
"I"ll be back," said Jim.
And suddenly the Eye appeared again, and with it there sounded once more the whir of wings.