“Leaping from his horse Jose looked about. On the ground ten feet away he found the long cape of the stranger, and to it was adhering several black feathers, glossily ashine, and several inches in length. Farther on he found Miss Hally’s stiff little riding hat. But though he searched in all directions and repeatedly called her name there was no answer. Once he glanced up at the sky and saw what appeared to be a large bird of black flying high and very swiftly though he appeared to be carrying a burden. It was only after much questioning that he bethought himself of the bird, but, of course, the police did not consider that a clue. Nevertheless the disappearance of Marian Hally is still one of the unsolved mysteries.
“In the following week there were several tales that paralleled that of Miss Hally. And it was found that there was always a man with a black cape near the scene of the abduction. Someone was sure to liken him to a bird and usually a few feathers of different colors were found! The hue and cry went out for a black caped man.
“It was in Quito, Ecuador, on March 17th that the real clue came to light. It was in the new Salvadora Hotel where Miss Hilda Berkenhart was visiting with her father. The Berkenharts are of old Swedish-German stock and Miss Berkenhart, blonde and handsome, was often spoken of as the Viking Maid. Junoesque, tall, wide-shouldered, overflowing with the vitality of her healthy body, she was a true daughter of that once great race, a prize-winner if ever there was one.
“It appears that she, with several other guests of the hotel, had entered the lift. One by one the others got off at their floors. She had a room several floors higher. She, and a tall slender man with fine aquiline features, and wearing a dark blue cape that hung to his feet, were now the only occupants beside the elevator-boy. The latter was a small slender Irishman who had found his way into the tiny country on the Equator, and he was suddenly aroused from his memories of the Emerald Isle as he realized his male passenger had addressed him. ‘Drive to the roof!’ had been the command.
“Miss Berkenhart started to protest, but turning the boy saw that the be-caped man held a revolver trained on them both. Up they went to the roof. ‘Get out!’ The girl and boy under the persuasion of the gun hurried to obey. From under his cape the man next brought forth a length of cord. ‘Tie her hands together,’ he had directed the elevator operator; and under the menace of the revolver the girl allowed him to do it. ‘Now tie her feet’. That was done. ‘Go back to the lift now and descend to the lobby!’
“Quaking, the youth retreated to the elevator shaft and started the motor, but he did not descend far. He lowered the machine just enough to allow his eyes to be on a level with the roof-floor. So noiseless was the well-oiled machinery that the man in the cape did not hear. Later the operator reported what he had seen. The man had already crossed to the girl’s side and said something to her that the closed door of the lift muffled, but the boy saw her smile bravely. Then the strange man tossed off his cape!
“The boy had to rub his eyes to make sure of what he had seen. The man was standing in a close-fitting costume of white that seemed skintight, decorated with a snow of colored feathers—bright and glistening. However, that was not the strangest part of him. He was winged! On his back pressed against his shoulder blades were a pair of wings, wings such as a condor might have. The boy swore they were easily five feet in length from the shoulder blades to within a few inches of the man’s heel, wings with long glossy feathers of golden brown intermingled with yellow and darker shades of brown. For joy of being free from the binding cape the wings seemed to stretch themselves and there was easily a spread of twelve feet from tip to tip!
“Smiling kindly the winged man had turned to the girl who tried to draw away from him in fear. The Irish boy admitted that the man was handsome, with his bird-like features and his dark wavy hair and sea-blue eyes that had the distance of the sky in their depths. He walked toward Miss Berkenhart and as gently as a mother picked her up, settled her comfortably in his arms and with a great surge of those gigantic wings arose straight up into the heavens with his burden.
“For several moments the boy watched the flight, and on the streets below were people who were staring in wonder, for they too had seen the takeoff. When the youth reached the hotel lobby his eyes were rolling. He reported what he had seen. A great roar took hold of the city. The boy’s word was not doubted. Others had seen. Rather the fellow was looked upon as a saviour. At last there was something tangible to work on. A winged man had carried off Miss Berkenhart. A winged man had carried off Miss Hally! Winged men had carried off women in South America for two hundred years. It was all explained. Latin America is satisfied. The mystery is solved!”
“Is the mystery solved?” asked Brent in concluding. “Surely it has just begun. What are these men with wings? Who are they? From whence have they come? What sort of beings are they? Has Science overlooked something? Is Darwin right? What have evolutionists to say? Does this prove or disprove? And what has become of our women, our girls that have been carried away? For what?”
Brent then went on to question the possibilities. Had South America given birth to a new race of men? Was there some Lost World in that half-explored continent? Were these new creatures birds or men?
A Strange Tale
THE next day the papers came out with editorials concerning this new man, this new menace. Had a new race actually been evolved? Was this to change the entire theory of evolution? Where would Darwin and his monkeys be now? Could it be true that the Pterodactyl, the flying reptile, was our ancestor instead of the ape? Was South America a new breeding-place of man?
New tales of abductions appeared. It looked as if this alated race had come out of their two centuries of seclusion and were deliberately making war upon humanity, on white women! A pilot flying over a section of the Brazilian jungles came back with the tale of his sighting a winged man and giving chase. He tells of having caught up with the fellow, and he estimated that the flying creature was traveling at the speed of about eighty miles per hour!
Seeing the plane draw alongside of him the bird-man waved and before the pilot realized his intention he had risen above the machine and then as lightly as a bird alighted on a wing, as close to the pilot as he could.
Pedro Mureno, the pilot, described the fellow as a young chap of perhaps twenty-two with fair hair and blue eyes. His wings were snowy white. He smiled brightly and appeared very curious about the plane, his eyes darting about and taking it all in. The speed of the machine evidently intrigued him for it was doing a hundred and fifty miles an hour. He crawled through the struts to the pilot’s side and attempted to converse with him, but the noise of the engine prevented that.
Mureno turned a loop for the edification of the youth and performed several other maneuvers and stunts, and the boy laughed with pleasure. Mureno thought of taking him back to the base a prisoner, but, as if divining his purpose, the other laughed again, crawled to the edge of the wing and dropped from the plane. Mureno circled him for several minutes chagrined that he was unable to make his capture.
Taking the opportunity to show off, the winged youth now did stunts. Rising rapidly above the plane he suddenly closed his wings so that he fell like a stone for almost five hundred feet and as suddenly opened his wings halting his fall as abruptly as he began it. He gave a pretty demonstration of a bird chasing insects, darting, banking, soaring, whirling and plunging with the sun ashine upon the beauty of his snow-white plumage.
He turned somersaults, lay on his back with his wings spread under him, circled, turned sharply at right angles, climbed straight upwards and sailed, then came tobogganing down again. At last tired of play and wanting to be rid of his spectator with a wave of his hand he commenced rising straight upward again and before Mureno realized his intention, headed into the bright glare of the sun that was soon to set. To Mureno, it was as if he had actually flown directly into the heart of the flaming star.
Later that same trick of the flying men was going to prove rather trying to aviators giving the
m chase, for once in the full glare of the sun it was impossible for the pilots to make them out, blinded as they were by the sun. The trick also gave rise to the supposition that the winged men came from the sun, were not of Earthly origin after all. However, only the ignorant would believe such a tale.
CHAPTER TWO
The Three Start
AND still the kidnappings continued with the police baffled, always just too late. Planes were called into service, but they invariably arrived too late or else were eluded. A soldier did manage to shoot an abductor as he bore off with a girl and they both plunged to their death. Thereafter orders were issued that there was to be no more shooting, but to capture alive. A second flying man with his prey was chased into the Andes mountain fastnesses and there lost.
It appeared as if the winged men knew no caution; the purloining of women became more daring, more spectacular. North Europeans with their wives and daughters were fleeing homeward, and most of the American residents in Latin countries were sending their families back to the States. Married women appeared to be no safer than the single girls. All South American governments were calling for aid from their northern neighbors with their superior air-craft and air-men.
Nor was America quiet. Its people were up in arms demanding that the government do all they could to fight this menace to American womanhood. The winged men must be exterminated! Their lair must be discovered and wiped out. Planes left daily for Latin America. The air was to be made unsafe for flying men!
Still disgruntled over the scoop made by Brent, a plan came to me and I confronted the city editor with my scheme. Three years earlier I had gone with one of the Smithsonian expeditions into the heart of the Amazon country. I knew the country. I knew several Indian dialects. And now all reports were pointing to the fact that the winged men had their home in Brazilian jungles. Why could I not go down there and alone find my way to their settlement? I would get the complete story, the history of this new race, and their intentions! I was the man to do it.
Sims, the city editor, had to think it over. It sounded good. It was. The next morning I was summoned to his desk. Of course I had not slept all that night and now was feverishly awaiting that call. Plans had already been laid. I was to go with two more trusted men, Jack D’Arcy and Dick Norton, also reporters on the News. We were of course to keep our plans secret and must hurry before another paper beat us to it.
We took off in our plane one dim morning, and by the afternoon had passed the Mexican border. We were apprehensive that our mission be discovered. Howard Wormley the famous aviator was our pilot. We thought at first to use Lima as our headquarters, but after scouting around the city for a day we flew to Cuzco somewhat southward but nearer the Brazilian jungles.
We learned that two planes, one leaving from Quito and one from Rio de Janeiro, had headed for the Amazon jungles, but had been heard of no more, forced into a bad landing no doubt. The papers were of course filled with the latest abductions. A most daring one had occurred aboard a great trans-pacific air liner going from Honolulu to San Francisco. The account read:
“Aboard Quitonia, April 5; Another victim has been added to the long list of white women who have been stolen by winged men.
“At ten o’clock this morning the liner’s passengers were startled to see a flying man appear coming toward the craft. At first he had been taken for a giant bird but as he drew closer it could be seen that he was one of that strange new race of winged men. He alighted on the super-structure holding by one hand to some rigging while he surveyed the people on the observation deck. Then letting go his hold he soared over their heads for several minutes giving a pretty exhibition of fancy flying, then swept low as he scanned each face. He dropped to the edge of the deck at last smiling brightly.
“People crowded to the rail and spoke to him. He was said to be a handsome youth, an interesting freak. He did not look harmful. He answered a few questions put to him, joked and laughed and then motioned for one of the young women passengers to come close. She was a Miss Elizabeth Moray, known to be a teacher on a holiday jaunt, a very pretty young person.
“Miss Moray would have hung back, but her fellow passengers laughingly pusher her forward. She came near and the two began talking together. Someone heard her liken him to Icarus and he laughed. It sounded to the by-standers that they were discussing mythology. Then the flying creature dropped his voice and spoke too low for any but Miss Moray to hear him.
“The voyagers commenced talking amongst themselves with their eyes lingering on the strange youth. They did not appear to realize the seriousness of the situation until suddenly Captain Edwin Moorhead was seen approaching with a revolver in his hand trained on the visitor. The crowd were awakened by the sight of the weapon to the fact that this youth was a menace, a creature to be captured. They began milling about, drawing back, pushing forward. Then it happened!
“The astonished passengers of the Quitonia saw the school-ma’am suddenly fling her arms around the winged man’s shoulders and seemingly without effort he lifted her and himself above the deck with a great surge. With a wave of their hands the two headed for South America. Captain Moorhead did not shoot. They were at an altitude of three thousand feet. And like the other he headed straight toward the sun. Hours of pursuit by the Quitonia ended in the realization that the bird-man had escaped.”
After the Bird Men
THE article went on to discuss the horror of such a situation when women were kidnapped in the sight of their fellow-man, and the fact that the abductors were such handsome fellows, that the kidnapped did not appear to object at all. Several other aircraft reported having sighted the twain as they passed overhead. A small coast-wise air-freighter fired some random shots at them and a village on the sea-coast saw them go by. Many aircraft gave them chase, but the bird man always eluded them.
The news heartened our little party. We would most surely find them in Amazon country if it were possible to find them at all. Our plane was ready for the take off. We were to fly over the jungle lands in hope of discovering the settlement of the flying men. Then we would land our plane in some clearing and proceed on foot. In the meantime we scouted in the city which was one of the oldest in Peru and filled with Indians. Many of the Indians told tales of flying men they had seen from time to time. However, they were very closemouthed and did not seem anxious to speak of them, possibly believing them to be some new sort of gods. We heard a rumour that there lived an old Indian who claimed that he had once lived among the winged men! We sought him out!
He dwelt below the city of Arequipa some two hundred miles south of Cuzco. We flew that day to that city that has for its background the majesty of El Misti. Early the next morning with a couple of hired arrieros (muleteers) we made our way to the tiny village where the old fellow was said to live.
Peru at best is a wild country made up of pampas, deserts and mountain heights. It is a rugged place of irregular rivers that cut deep terrible canyons and tremendous water-falls. It is a country of mystery, of ancient grandeur, of ghosts of the Inca, of poor ill-clad peons who are the descendants of that once great race. What cultivation there is, is done on a very intensive scale.
Since large areas of the country is desert there is not a grain of fertile soil wasted. The fertile belts are usually on the river banks and the farms are set on series of terraces that had been built originally under Inca direction and are farmed in much the same way as they were hundreds of years ago. Nor is the climate of the country equable. In the valleys is the hot fetid breath of the tropics and an over abundance of tropical vegetation and snakes, while the higher one climbs the cooler becomes the air. Mount Coropuna which is a matter of nineteen thousand feet above the sea is always covered with snow; and the Indians dwelling on the high altitudes of from twelve to fourteen thousand feet wear heavy clothing and find it difficult to keep the home fires burning up there above the tree line.
In our trip to old Pedro Majes we experienced a variety of weather. Sometimes we climbe
d rather high and then dropped down into valleys. Most of our trip, however, was along the edge of a raging torrent and the path was rough. At places where the river’s gorge narrowed, stone steps had been cut out of living rock by the Incas, we were told. Sometimes a causeway constructed by the same builders took us across the wild waters or else our mules picked their way delicately along the crumbling road-bed where every foot fall precipitated a rain of gravel to the river below.
After almost a two day’s journey we came to the hovel of Senor Majes, a decrepit old chap whose lack of hair, teeth and cataracted eye-balls attested to his great age. Luckily I could understand a few words of his dialect so I did not need to depend entirely on our guides for interpretation. Old Pedro’s wrinkled face lighted up when we questioned him about the men with wings.
The Story of Majes
“AH . . . ay . . .” he cried, “I knew them well. Ay . . . they were men! Children of the Sun were they indeed. They will come . . . truly . . . they will come . . . and they will lead my poor people back again to the lands that rightfully are theirs, for know you . . . they are most surely the children of the Inca who came to us once . . . from the Sun. Ay . . . ay . . . they will come. Never fear!”
“Where did you know them?” I broke into his ravings.
He waved his hand to the north-east, and then sat with his eyes turned to the distant horizon. When he spoke his voice was low. “Many, many years ago I was young, I was strong. A mighty man was I! Now there are none as strong as I was once. My people lose their strength even as they lose their hearts. Yet that will be different when They come again . . . ay . . . ay . . .”
Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks) Page 2