And Tode had known more about the Atom Smasher--as they affectionately called the mechanism for releasing atomic energy--than old Parrish and he together. Suppose Lucille"s story were true! Suppose old Parrish were actually alive, suppose Tode were responsible for some designed scheme which would, in the end place Lucille in his power!
Wild thoughts and fears--but Jim would soon know. And with throttle stretched to the limit he went roaring over the scrub oak toward Peconic Bay.
It was beginning to grow dark, almost too dark for landing. But now Jim could feel the tang of the salt wind upon his face. He slowed down. The fog was as thick as ever, but the scrub oak had given place to more open country. In a minute or two he ought to sight some landmark. Yes, he had overshot his mark, for suddenly, through a gap in the mists, he saw the line of breakers forming a white ridge upon the sand.
A mile southward! Jim knew where he was now, for he knew every curve of that sh.o.r.e. He banked and turned. And then he saw something that for an instant chilled his blood.
Not far away, and not far beneath him, a ghostly violet haze was spreading through the fog, and the fog itself was coiling back from it until it formed a dense white wall.
For a moment Jim"s hand was paralysed upon the stick. The next, his decision was made. He closed his throttle and went down in a slow descent right toward the heart of that column of lavender smoke that seemed to be springing straight up out of the ground. "A pillar of violet fire!" It could not have been described better.
The plane dived through the dense wall of fog, which for a moment shut out the violet fire completely. Then Jim was through, and almost immediately beneath him lay the black and gla.s.sy surface of the pool.
Out of the very heart of it rose the fire, burning like some infernal flame that consumed nothing, and between it and the fog was a s.p.a.ce of almost translucent air, extending to the borders of the pool.
Jim began to circle the pool to find a landing-place. But as he looked down, the surface of the pool began to change its aspect.
In place of the unruffled calm, it began to work with some devil"s yeast all around the central pillar of flame, until its depths seemed to be churned up in frothy ma.s.ses and the movement extended almost to the circ.u.mference. Then the whole surface of the water began to tilt and sway with a slow, shimmering, undulatory movement, as if it was a giant roulette wheel in rotation.
And something was materializing out of the heart of the violet flame itself.
It was a face--a human face, with b.e.s.t.i.a.l features, distorted and enormously magnified through the substance in which it was. Such a face as might look back upon an observer out of one of those distorting mirrors at Coney Island, or some other place of popular amus.e.m.e.nt, but twisted and enlarged beyond conception, so that it covered half the area of a city block.
Curiously blurred, too, as if each atom of that face was in isolated motion on its own account. And beneath the face appeared the vague outlines of a hand, apparently manipulating some sort of infernal mechanism.
And that face, enlarged as it was out of all proportion, filled Jim"s heart with greater horror than any face he had ever known.
For it was the visage of Lucius Tode, and on those huge and distorted features was something that looked like a diabolical smile.
Everything vanished. Jim was back in the surrounding wall of fog.
Instinctively he banked again. He strove to drive the horror from his brain. He must circle, circle incessantly, in the hope of finding Lucille. She must have already arrived. But if she had not fallen into Tode"s power, she would hear the roaring of the plane and manage to signal him.
He circled back into the clear s.p.a.ce between the white and the violet, and now he saw that the effect upon the pool was still more p.r.o.nounced. The waters were rising up in a rim all around, and yet not overflowing. They were standing up like a bowl of clay upon the potter"s wheel, and down in the depths Jim could see the head and shoulders of Tode, much less magnified, more natural in appearance, and less blurred. And Tode was looking up at him and pointing that infernal mechanism at him--something that looked like the tube of a telescope.
Suddenly the plane shivered and stood still. The motor died abruptly.
The stick went dead. And yet the plane did not fall. As if upheld by the same repulsive force that drove back the white fog, it simply hung suspended three hundred feet above the heart of the violet flame.
Then--there was no longer any plane. The stick had melted in Jim"s hand, the wings dissolved like wreaths of mist. The entire body had disintegrated into nothingness. Jim sat suspended in the void, and felt himself very slowly descending into the violet column.
Down into the vortex of that bubbling pool, which rimmed him on all sides ... down into the central aperture out of which emerged the leering face of Tode! And as he dropped Jim heard, thin, faint, and very far away, the despairing cry of Lucille....
CHAPTER II
_Old Friends--and Foes_
Jim must have lapsed into unconsciousness, for when he opened his eyes there was a gap in his consciousness of the pa.s.sage of time, though none in his memory. He opened his eyes, and instantly he remembered everything.
Only a brief interval could have elapsed, for it was not quite dark.
The fog and the violet flame had cleared away. Overhead a few stars twinkled. Jim was lying on his side, half-buried in the black, slimy mud of the dried up pool.
There was nothing but the smooth, shelving mud basin, with the scrub oak surrounding it. Tode and the machine had vanished.
Jim pulled himself with an effort out of the sucking mud, and, heavily clogged with it, began to make his way toward the margin.
Stumbling, struggling through the viscid ooze, he shouted Lucille"s name despairingly. But no answer came, and his cries only made the utter silence all about him seem more fearsome.
Exhausted by his efforts, he gained the edge of the pool at last, and stopped, trying to orientate himself. As he did so, he saw a human face peering at him out of a clump of scrub oak.
It was the face of an aged man, with a long white beard and rags of clothes that were festooned about him. Jim took a step toward it, shouting a challenge. Next moment it had hurled itself out of its shelter toward him, and two skeletonlike arms were twined about his shoulders, while the fingers worked upward toward his throat.
The face was that of a madman, crazed by fear. And Jim recognized it.
It was the face of Professor Parrish.
Parrish, the trim, immaculate, clean-shaven, urbane old man, whose lectures, imbued with wit and scholarship, had always been the delight of his cla.s.ses--Parrish reduced to this gibbering maniac! And yet Parrish himself, returned to the site of their experiments after five years!
So fierce was the old man"s onset, so desperate his clutch, that for a half-minute or more Jim was reduced to fighting for his life. The clawing fingers, armed with long nails, furrowed Jim"s throat, there was a terrific strength in the body, wasted though it was almost to a skeleton.
But it was only for a half-minute that old Parrish"s endurance lasted.
Suddenly the old man went limp and tottered forward, dropped upon the ground. Jim bent over him.
"Parrish, you know me! I"m Jim Dent!" he cried. "I came here to save you."
Parrish was muttering something. Jim caught the words "Tode," and "G.o.d help Lucille!"
"Parrish, I"m Jim Dent!" Jim cried again, and the old man, shuddering, opened his eyes and recognized him.
"Jim!" he muttered. "Jim Dent! Then where is she? I got away from that devil, found farmhouse empty, got telephone book, found her and "phoned her. Told her to come. Save--Lucille!"
He fell back, his eyes closed. Jim crouched over the unconscious old man. He was in a state of utter perplexity. He could not quite gather what Parrish had been trying to tell him, and it was with difficulty that he could focus his mind upon the situation, so great had been the shock of finding his former chief in that condition.
What had become of his plane, and where was Lucille? Jim was positive that he had heard her cry for help out of the vortex in the water.
But there was no water, only the circle of black mud extended in the starlight.
Again and again Jim shouted Lucille"s name, and his cries went echoing away through the scrub without result.
Jim looked down at the unconscious old man beside him. He must get Parrish away, get him to Andy Lumm"s. He bent over him again and raised him in his arms.