I went toward the next one, swinging the flaring hose in a slow arc as I advanced. The creature lunged at me and threshed at the burning jet with all four of its feelers. But it had been exposed to the air for a long time now. The ghastly tentacles were dry; withered and soft. A touch of the fire seared them unmercifully.
Nevertheless with a swift move it slapped a tentacle squarely down over the hose nozzle. The flame was extinguished as the flame of a candle is pinched out between thumb and forefinger. I retreated.
"Catch!" came a voice behind me.
The Professor swung his four-foot jet my way. I held my hose to it, and the flame burst out again. A touch at my grisly antagonist"s helmet--a sharp crack--the welcome rush of water over the cream-colored gra.s.s--and another monster was writhing in the death throes!
Keeping close together, the three of us faced the ma.s.sed Quabos in the palace grounds. Again and again the fiery weapon of one or the other of us was dashed out--to be re-lighted from the nearest hose. Again and again loud detonations heralded the collapse of more of the invaders.
But it seemed as though their flailing tentacles were as myriad as the stars they had never seen. It seemed as though their numbers would never appreciably diminish. We thrust and parried till our arms grew numb. And still there appeared to be hundreds of the Quabos left.
By order of the Queen three stout Zyobites stepped up to us and relieved us of our exhausting labor. Gladly we handed the hoses to them and went to the palace for a much needed rest.
Two more shifts of fighters took the flaming jets before the monsters began the retreat slowly back toward their tunnel. And here the Professor took command again.
"We mustn"t let them get away to try some new scheme!" he snapped.
"Martin, take fifty men and beat them back to the break in the wall. Go around a side street. They move so slowly that you can easily cut off their retreat."
"There isn"t any more hose--" began Stanley.
"There"s plenty of it. The Quabos brought it with them." The Professor turned to me again. "Take metal-saws with you. Cut sections of the Quabos water-hose and connect them to the nearest wall jets. Run!"
I ran, with fifty of the men of Zyobor close behind me. We dodged out the side of the palace grounds least guarded by the Quabos, ducking between their ranks like infantry men threading through an opposition of powerful but slow-moving tanks. Four of our number were caught, but the rest got through unscathed.
Down a side street we raced, and along a parallel avenue toward the tunnel. As we went I prayed that all the Quabos had centered their attention on the palace and left their vulnerable water-hoses unguarded.
They had! When we stole up the last block toward the break we found the nearest Quabo was a hundred yards down the street--and working further away with every move.
At once we set to work on the scores of hoses that quivered over the floor with each move of the distant monsters.
A Zyobite with the muscles of a Hercules swung his ax mightily down on a hose. The metal was soft enough to be sheered through by the stroke. The cut ends were smashed so that they could not be crammed down over the tapering jets; but we could use our metal-saws for cleaner severances at the other ends.
The giant with the ax stepped from hose to hose. Lengths were completed with the saws. A man was placed at each jet to hold the connections in position. Before the Quabos had reached us we had rigged six fire-hoses and had cut through forty or fifty more water-lines.
The end was certain and not long in coming.
We sprayed the monsters with fire as workmen spray fruit trees with insect poison. Stanley, the Professor and a Zyobite came up in the rear with their three hoses.
Caught between the two forces, the beaten fish milled in hopeless confusion and indecision.
In half an hour they were all reduced to huddles of slimy wet flesh that dotted the pavement from the break back to the palace grounds. The invaders were completely annihilated--and the city of Zyobor was saved!
"Now," said the Professor triumphantly, "we have only to knock out the bottom half of the tunnel wall, empty the tunnel and make sure there are no more Quabos lurking there. After that we can fill it in with solid cement. The Queen can order her fish-servants to guard the outer cave and see that no food gets in to the starving monsters there. The war is over, gentlemen. The Quabos are as good as exterminated at this moment.
And I can get back to my zoological work...."
Stanley and I looked at each other. We knew each others thoughts well enough.
He could resume his companionship with the beautiful Mayis. And I--I had Aga....
With the menace of the Quabos banished forever, the city of Zyobor resumed its normal way.
The citizens lowered their dead into the great well we had cut, with appropriate rites performed by the Queen. The daily tasks and pleasures were picked up where they had been dropped. The haunting fear died from the eyes of the people.
Shortly afterward, with great ceremony and celebration, I was made King of Zyobor, to rule by Aga"s side. Stanley took Mayis for his wife. He is second to me in power. The Professor is the official wise man of the city.
Life flows smoothly for us in this pink lighted community. We are more than content with our lot here. Our only concern has been the grief that must have been occasioned our relatives and friends when the _Rosa_ sailed home without us.
Now we have thought of a way in which, with luck, we may communicate with the upper world. By relays of my Queen"s fish-servants we believe we can send up the Professor"s invaluable notes[A] and this informal account of what has happened since we left San Francisco that....
(Editor"s note: There was no trace of any "notes." The yacht, _Rosa_, was reported lost with all hands in a hurricane off New Zealand. Aboard her were a Professor George Berry and the owner, Stanley Browne. There is no record, however, of any pa.s.senger by the name of Martin Grey. To date no one has taken this doc.u.ment seriously enough to consider financing an expedition of investigation to Penguin Deep.)
[Ill.u.s.tration: _"When I am finished, Dale, I shall probably kill you."_]
The Murder Machine
_By Hugh B. Cave_
[Sidenote: Four lives lay helpless before the murder machine, the uncanny device by which hypnotic thought-waves are filtered through men"s minds to mold them into murdering tools!]
It was dusk, on the evening of December 7, 1906, when I first encountered Sir John Harmon. At the moment of his entrance I was standing over the table in my study, a lighted match in my cupped hands and a pipe between my teeth. The pipe was never lit.
I heard the lower door slam shut with a violent clatter. The stairs resounded to a series of unsteady footbeats, and the door of my study was flung back. In the opening, staring at me with quiet dignity, stood a young, careless fellow, about five feet ten in height and decidedly dark of complexion. The swagger of his entrance branded him as an adventurer. The ghastly pallor of his face, which was almost colorless, branded him as a man who has found something more than mere adventure.
"Doctor Dale?" he demanded.
"I am Doctor Dale."
He closed the door of the room deliberately, advancing toward me with slow steps.
"My name is John Harmon--Sir John Harmon. It is unusual, I suppose," he said quietly, with a slight shrug, "coming at this late hour. I won"t keep you long."
He faced me silently. A single glance at those strained features convinced me of the reason for his coming. Only one thing can bring such a furtive, restless stare to a man"s eyes. Only one thing--fear.
"I"ve come to you. Dale, because--" Sir John"s fingers closed heavily over the edge of the table--"because I am on the verge of going mad."
"From fear?"