"Down!" shouted Jim.
He was too late. A score of birdmen shot out of the dark and hovered over them. Next moment they had descended to the ground. Lucille and Parrish were seized, and Jim, struggling furiously, quickly found himself equally helpless in their grasp.
The accents of the Atlanteans as they spoke to one another were soft and liquid, their faces were refined and gentle, but their strength was that of athletes. Jim saw Lucille and Parrish lifted into the air; next moment he himself was raised in the arms of one of the birdmen, who shot upward like an arrow and headed a course back toward the city, carrying Jim as if he had been as light as a child.
CHAPTER VI
_Human Sacrifice_
In a great open s.p.a.ce, flanked by temples and colonnades, the flight had come to rest. There, under the soft artificial light that made the whole city as bright as day, Jim, Lucille, and her father were set down before a sort of rostrum, on which were gathered the dignitaries of the city.
Jim"s hopes were rising fast, for between the Atlanteans and the savage Drilgoes there was as much difference as between a modern American and a blackfellow from the Australian bush. These men were civilized to a degree that even modern America has not attained.
Nowhere was there a speck of dirt to be seen. Vehicles moved soundlessly along the wide streets on either side of this central meeting-place, and the whole city was roofed with gla.s.s, through which could be seen the brilliant moon and stars--invisible from the mist-filled valley without.
Soft garments of white wool clothed men and women alike, fashioned something like togas, but cut short at the knee, leaving the lower part of the leg bare and disclosing the sandaled feet. The hair was long and flowed about the shoulders. But what struck Jim most forcibly was the look of utter gentleness and benignity upon these faces.
"I guess we"ve fallen into pretty good hands after all," he whispered to Parrish.
But one of the dignitaries upon the platform, an elderly man with a face reminiscent of William Jennings Bryan in his inspired moments, was leaning forward out of his curved chair and addressing the old man, and, to Jim"s astonishment, Parrish was answering.
But these were not the liquid accents of the Atlanteans. The words resembled the barking of a dog, and across Jim"s brain there suddenly flashed the explanation. The dignitary was speaking in the tongue of the Drilgoes, which Parrish, of course, would have learned in his five years of captivity.
Suddenly Parrish turned to Jim. "He wants to know where we come from,"
he said. "I"ve told him from a far country. He thinks we"re amba.s.sadors from some of the parts of Europe that the Atlanteans who sailed away some years ago landed at. It"s no use trying to explain--they don"t seem to have succeeded in inventing an Atom Smasher for themselves."
Jim nodded, and the colloquy went on and on, while the Atlanteans listened with languid interest, their kind and smiling faces seeming to exude benignity. At length the session seemed to have ended.
Parrish wore a wide grin. "Everything"s coming right, dear," he told Lucille. "The old chap says we are to be the guests of the city either for a night or for a week. It"s something to do with the moon, and there seems to be a full moon to-night. Some quaint superst.i.tion or other. And then I guess we"ll have a chance to get away in the Atom Smasher. I"ve learned something of the mechanism, and it won"t be hard to operate it. We"ve fallen into good hands."
A squad of four soldiers or policemen, with shorter robes and what looked like truncheons in their hands, made signs to the three to accompany them. Amid mutual bows, the city"s guests filled into a small court-way, closed at the further end, on which a number of Atlanteans were standing.
While Jim was wondering what the next move was to be, to his astonishment the whole courtyard began to rise slowly up the walls of the tall buildings on either side.
"An elevator!" gasped Lucille. "Now I do feel that everything is coming out all right, Jim, dear."
Jim did not question the psychology of this. He pressed her hand tenderly. Already Tode and the past were becoming a bad dream.
"Did you say anything about the Atom Smasher, Parrish?" he asked.
"No, I thought it better not to," replied the old scientist. "You see, they know it only as a force that neutralizes the blue-white ray. Best not to let them know we"re sailing for home in it."
"I think that was wise," answered Jim, and just then the rising court-way came to a stop level with the top story of the great building at one side.
Smiling courteously, the guards invited the three to precede them inside an enormous hall, supported on pillars of gleaming stone resembling alabaster. In the center was a small, low table, triangular in shape, with three of the low, curved chairs. The guards invited the three to be seated.
Almost immediately smiling servitors brought in fruits on platters of porcelain, dishes of cooked vegetables, somewhat like the modern ones, but seasoned and flavored with delicious herbs. The staple dish was something like an oval banana, but infinitely more succulent. The three fell to and made a hearty meal, which was washed down with fine wines.
"We"ve certainly fallen into good hands," said Jim. "All we"ve got to do is to lie low, and look pleasant, and it won"t be long before we get an opportunity to get hold of the Atom Smasher."
The guards, seeing that they had finished their meal, smilingly invited them to accompany them through a huge bronze door at one end of the hall. It swung back, disclosing complete darkness.
Jim felt Lucille"s hand upon his arm. The girl was hesitating, and for a moment Jim hesitated too, half afraid of a fall into emptiness. Then he heard the footsteps of the guards ahead, and went on.
It was eery, moving there with the sound of feet in front of them, and, apart from that, utter silence. Then Lucille uttered a little cry.
"Jim, do you feel something pushing you?" she asked.
"There is something--" Jim swung around, but some invisible force continued to propel him forward. He moved sidewise, and the force gently corrected him. The sound of footsteps had ceased.
"What is it, Jim?" cried the girl. "Help me! Something"s got hold of me!"
Old Parrish was struggling close beside them. Jim panted as he wrestled with the force, but his efforts were absolutely futile.
Slowly, as if slid on wires, he was propelled forward, until a cushion of air seemed to block his further progress.
Dark as it was, and silent, Jim had the consciousness of other human beings about him, of a vast, unseen mult.i.tude that was watching him.
Suddenly the droning of a chant began to fill the place, as if a priest were intoning hymns. As that chant rose and fell, voices all about took up the echoing refrain. Jim tried to reach Lucille, but he could move his arm only a few inches against that resilient force pressing in on all sides of him.
Then, in an instant, a blinding, stabbing light shot through his eyeb.a.l.l.s. He heard Lucille scream, old Parrish yelp, and, with eyelids screwed tight against the intolerable glare, fought once more desperately and ineffectively to reach Lucille"s side.
Slowly Jim managed to unscrew his eyes. He began to realize that he was standing in what appeared to be an enormous amphitheatre. But high up, upon a narrow tongue of flooring that ran like a bridge from one end to the other, with Lucille on his right and Parrish on his left.
Nothing visible seemed to be restraining them, and yet they were as securely held as if fastened with tight chains.
Jim"s brain reeled as he looked down. Imagine a bridge about half-way up an amphitheatre of a hundred stories, the ground beneath packed with human beings no larger than ants, the whole of the vast interior lined with them, tier above tier, faces and forms increasing from pismire size below to the dimensions of the human form upon a level, and, again, fading almost to pin-points at the summit of the vast building, where the soft glow of the artificial light filtered through the gla.s.s of the roof.
He clutched at the air, felt the soft pressure of the force that was restraining him, looked at Lucille, and saw her half-unconscious with fear, leaning against it, leaning against that soft, resilient, cushionlike, invisible substance; looked at Parrish, whom the shock had thrown into a sort of semi-catalepsy--Parrish, mouthing and staring!
He looked forward to where the tongue of flooring ended. Here, upon a stage, flanked with huge carven figures, a group was gathered. At first he was unable to discern what was being enacted there, so brilliant was the light that glared overhead.
It was the Eye, a round disc perhaps ten feet in diameter, that all-seeing Eye of Atlantis that guarded the great city, but how it worked Jim was totally unable to discover. He saw, however, that it was blinking rapidly, the alternations being so swift that it was only just possible to be conscious of them. Perhaps the Eye was opening and closing ten times a second.
Jim strained his eyes to see what was taking place on the stage at the end of the tongue on which he stood. What was it? What were they doing there? And was that the captured Atom Smasher standing between what looked like grinning idols? A group of captured Drilgoes near it?
A shrill scream from Lucille echoed through the vast amphitheatre. Her eye had seen what Jim"s had not yet seen--something that had shocked her into complete unconsciousness.
A marble figure, she stood leaning against the invisible force that kept her on her feet, and in those open, staring eyes was a look of ineffable horror.