by Unknown
Now the ground seemed to drop away before them. Maget could hear the running of water, the underground river, and every now and then there came an immense splash, as if some great whale had thrown itself about in the water.
A terrifically loud hissing filled their ears, and suddenly, before them, showed an utterly white snake with a head as big as a barrel. Its white eyes glared sightlessly, but its tongue stuck forth for several feet.
Kenneth Gurlone coolly tossed a lighted bomb at the creature: the explosion shattered their ear-drums, but it also smashed the serpent.
* * * * *
The writhing, wriggling coils, bigger than the body of a horse, slashed about, dangerously near. They picked themselves up, and pushed on, keeping close to the right wall.
A great bat smashed against Maget, and knocked the light out of his hand, but the blow was a glancing one, and he was able to retrieve his light and hurry on.
They were far from the entrance now. The hole which had been broken through by the peons showed before them, and they could see milky water dashing over black rocks.
Pallid eyes looked at them, and they knew they gazed upon another of the giant frogs. They tossed a bomb at the creature, and blew a jagged hole in his back. No sooner had he begun to die than there came a sudden rush of other monsters and a feast began.
"Throw, all together," yelled Kenneth Gurlone.
Into the vast mass of creatures, who crowded one another in the river for their share of the spoils, they threw bomb after bomb. The dynamite deafened them, and acrid fumes choked them, but they fired their rifles at the prodigious animals and there, in the big river cavern, was a seething mass of horrible life, dying in agony.
The bellowings and hissings sounded louder, so loud that the earth shook as if actuated by a mighty earthquake.
Maget gripped Kenneth Gurlone's arm. "My bombs are gone," he shouted.
He had but a few rounds of ammunition left, and still more of the giant reptiles appeared. A centipede with its creeping, horrible legs topped the mass of squirming matter; they could see the terrific sting of the creature, so deadly when but a fraction of an inch long, and which was now at least a foot, armed with poison.
There came the rush of more bats and moths, a rush that threw the three men off their feet.
"We must have opened the hole more with our bombs," shrieked old Gurlone. "The dead bodies attract the other creatures, more and more of them are coming. It is impossible; we cannot deal with them all."
* * * * *
The vast gobbling of the great animals in the river below them was so prodigious they could not grasp it. It seemed it must be optical illusion. In a few moments, the dead had been eaten, swallowed whole, and fights were progressing between the victors.
They tossed the rest of their bombs, fired the remaining ammunition, and as they prepared to retreat, several of the big creatures slopped over and started up the river bank into the mine shaft.
They ran for their lives, the three. Madly, with the earth shaking behind them as they were pursued by a hopping monster of a beetle with immense mandibles reaching out at them, they dashed for the open air.
Giant moths and bats struck at them, and Maget fell down several times before he reached the outside, and he was bruised and out of breath.
"Come on, there are too many to fight," gasped old Gurlone, throwing off the lead suit.
But there was no need to talk. The creatures, disturbed by the bombs, had collected in one spot and, shown the way out by one of their number, were coming.
Espinosa, with Kenneth Gurlone holding his hand, ran swiftly for the hills surrounding the valley. Maget helped old Professor Gurlone, who was so out of breath that he could scarcely move.
The great beetle which had been pursuing them was the first to break forth into the valley. Turning back for a look over his shoulder, Maget saw the thing pause, but the cavern belched forth a vast array of monsters, the beasts roaring, hissing, bellowing, in an increasing mass of sound.
They swarmed over the ground, and giant bats and moths winged their way about the heads of the monsters.
At the rim of the valley, the four men paused.
"God help the peons," said Kenneth Gurlone.
* * * * *
Now the horde of monsters swelled more and more; the bats and moths winged in mad frenzy about the open door of the radium shack. There were great beetles, centipedes, ants, crickets, hopping, crawling things, and grotesquely immense in size. Fights progressed here and there, but the majority of them were carried along in the sweep of the multitude.
"See, the radium kills those who get too close," said Professor Gurlone, in a hushed voice.
The giant moths and bats were unable to withstand the lure of the green light. They flew with mad beatings of wings straight for the open door of the death house, and many of the great creatures, attracted by the light and urged on by an unexplainable force which sent them to death like gnats and moths in a flame, crowded near to the death-dealing radium.
Not until the whole shack was covered with quivering forms of the dead, did the other creatures veer off and with hops, creepings and myriad giant legs, begin to cover the whole valley.
The stone walls of the death shack had crumpled in with the weight; the other buildings, more lightly built, gave at once, with crackings and crashings.
The four men were powerless to assist the unfortunate peons, who were trapped in their barracks. The charged wires stopped many of the big beasts, but soon the electric light was short-circuited, and the valley, in the moonlight, was a seething mass of fighting, dying, feasting monsters.
* * * * *
Other sounds, besides those made by the big creatures, came to the ears of the stricken men on the hillside. The breaking of glass, the cries of the jungle animals trapped in their cages, the shrieks of dying peons who were eaten at a gulp by the big frogs or stung to death, impaled on the mandibles of some great stinging centipede.
In the spot where the radium death shack had been, was a pulpy mass of livid, smoky light.
Now the bowl of the valley was filled as by some vast jelly. The creatures were slopping over the walls, and battling together.
The shambles was not yet over, but the four could remain no longer. They made their way down the hillside and struck out across the arid lands.
Maget, the tramp, became the leader. He was a trained jungle man, and it was he who finally brought them safely to the Madeira.
He was their strong man, the one who found the trail and located roots and fruit for the party to subsist on. They nearly perished in the trip for lack of water, but again, Maget was able to supply them with roots which kept them from dying in agony.
* * * * *
They lay upon the river bank now, exhausted but alive. Maget had assisted old Gurlone, acted as his staff, half carried him the last miles of the trip.
Their clothes were almost gone, they were burned to crisps by the tropic sun. Flies and other insects had taken their toll. But Maget had brought them through.
The tall, thin fellow's hair had turned utterly white. But so had his soul.
"You're a good man, Maget," said Professor Gurlone. "You have saved us, and you have been brave as a lion."
Maget shook his head. "Professor," he said. "I came into the jungle to rob you. Durkin and I bribed Juan to steal that radium, and I feel responsible for his death. We thought you had diamonds or gold in the Matto Grosso, and we were after it. That's why I am here."
"You have repaid your debt to us, more than fully," said Kenneth, holding out his hand.
"Yes," said Espinosa.
"Will you keep me with you, then?" asked Maget anxiously. "Are--will you go back there?"
* * * * *
Professor Gurlone stared at him, and then said, in a surprised tone, "Why, of course!"
"But the monsters?" asked Maget.
"Many of them will die in the outer air," said Gurlone. "The survivors of the battles will start eatin
g the dead. They will finally clear away the debris of dead creatures about the radium shack. As each is exposed to the rays of the concentrated metal, it will die. The others will eat it, and be killed in turn. Thus, they will be destroyed. If there are any survivors after this evident turn of events, then we will cope with them when we return, reinforced. Dynamite, enough of it, will finish them off. And, Maget, in your next pursuit after knowledge of strange things, you may get a few earthly riches. The radium is still there, and you will share in it."
"Thank you," said Maget humbly. "I'm with you to the end."
"You must keep quiet about this," cautioned Kenneth Gurlone. "We do not want the world to know too much of our vast store of radium. It would attract adventurers and we would be annoyed by ignorant men. But we're thankful you lay drunk in that saloon when my father spoke of the millions, Maget."
In Manzos, Maget found himself a changed man. To his surprise, in spite of his white hair, brought on by the horror of what he had seen, he found that he had gained two inches in height, and that he was larger of girth. This, Professor Gurlone told him, was the effect of the radium rays.
Never again did Maget lie drunk on the floor of a saloon. The events through which he had gone had seared the tramp's soul, and he kept close to his new master, Professor Gurlone.
The Moon Master
By Charles W. Diffin
[Sidenote: Through infinite deeps of space Jerry Foster hurtles to the Moon--only to be trapped by a barbaric race and offered as a living sacrifice to Oong, their loathsome, hypnotic god.]
"Now that's a mighty queer noise." Jerry Foster told himself. He dropped the pack from his shoulders and leaned closer to the canyon rim.
Miles behind him was the last beaten trail: Jerry wanted peace and solitude and quiet. And now the quiet of the silent mountains was disturbed.
From far below came a steady, muffled roar. Faint it was, and distant, but peculiar in its unvarying, unceasing rush.
"Not water," Jerry concluded; "not enough down there. Sounds like--like a wind--like a wind that can't quit.
"Oh well--" He shrugged his shoulders and slipped into the straps of his pack. Then he went back again to the granite ledge. "I wonder if there's a way down," he said.
There was, but it took all of Jerry's strength to see him safely through. On a fan-shaped talus of spreading boulders he stopped. There was a limestone wall beyond. And at its base, from a crevice that was almost a cave, came a furious rush of air and steam.
It touched him lightly a hundred feet away, and he threw himself flat to escape the hot blast. Endlessly it came, with its soft, rushing roar, a ceaseless, scorching blast from the cold rocks.
"That's almighty funny," mused Foster, and sniffed the air. There was no odor.
"And is it hot!" he said. "Nothing like that in my geology book. And what is beyond? Looks like concrete work, as if someone had plastered up the cave." He picked his way quickly across the rock slope.
It was hard going. Below him the rocks and dirt went steep to the canyon floor. At its foot the blast swept diagonally over the slope. He must see what lay beyond....
"Curious," he thought; "curious if that is nature's work--and a lot more so if it isn't."
A rock rolled beneath his feet. Another! He scrambled and fought desperately for foothold in the slipping earth. Then, rolling and clawing, he rode helpless on the slide straight toward the mysterious blast. He felt it envelop him, hot and strangling. His lungs were dry and burning ... the blazing sun faded from the rocks ... the world was dark....
* * * * *
Darkness was still about him when he awoke. But it was cool; the air was sweet on his lips. And it was not entirely dark.
He turned his head. He was in a room. On a rough-hewn table a candle was burning. Its light cast flickering shadows on walls of stone. Rumbling in his ears was the sound of the blast that had overwhelmed him. It echoed, seemingly, from far back in the stone cliff.
Jerry made a move to sit up. He found that his hands and feet were tied, his body bound to the rough board bed.
At the sound of his stirring, a figure came out from the farther shadow. It was that of a man. Jerry looked at him in silence. He was tall, his thin erectness making him seem abnormal in the low room. The lean face was unshaven, and from under a thatch of black hair a pair of deep-set eyes stared penetratingly at the figure on the rude bed.
"Well," asked Jerry, at length, "what's the big idea?"
There was no reply. Only the intent, staring eyes.
"You got me out of that man-trap of yours," Jerry continued. "You saved my life."
* * * * *
The tall man finally spoke. "Yes, I saved your life. You missed the hottest part of the exhaust. I pumped you full of oxygen."
"Then why tie me up like this?" Jerry Foster was frankly puzzled.
"You are lucky to be alive. Spies are not always allowed--" He interrupted himself abruptly. "You are a reporter," he stated.
"Wrong," said Jerry Foster.
"Who sent you?"
"Nobody sent me. I heard the noise of your infernal blast-furnace and came down to have a look."
"Who sent you?" repeated the man. "Goodwin? The Stillwater crowd? Who was it?"
"I don't know what you are talking about," protested Jerry. "I don't know who your Goodwin or Stillwater people are. I don't know who you are--I don't give a damn. Take these ropes off and cut out the melodrama. I'll go on my way, and I don't care if I never see you again."
"That's a lie." The tall figure leaned over to shake a bony fist. "You'd report to Goodwin. He stole my last invention. He'll not get this."
Jerry considered the wild figure carefully. "He's a nut," he thought. When he spoke, his voice was controlled.
"Now, see here," he said: "I don't know anything about this. I'm Jerry Foster, live in San Francisco--"
"So does Goodwin."
"Confound you and your Goodwin! So do a million other people live there! I'm getting away from there; I'm heading into the hills for a short vacation. All I want is to get away from the world. I'm looking for a little peace and quiet."
* * * * *
The thin man interrupted with a harsh laugh.
"Come here spying," he said, "and tell me you want to get away from the world." Again he laughed shrilly.
"And I am going to be your little fairy godmother. I wish you were Goodwin himself! I wish I had him here. But you'll get your wish--you'll get your wish. You'll leave the world, you shall, indeed."
He rocked back and forth with appreciation of his humor.
"Didn't know I was all ready to leave, did you? All packed and ready to go. Supplies all stowed away; enough energy stored to carry me millions of miles. Or maybe you did know--maybe there are others coming...." He hurried across the room to open a heavy door of split logs in the rock wall.
"I'll fool them all this time," he said; "and you'll never go back to tell them." The door closed behind him.
"Crazy as a bed-bug," Jerry told himself. He strained frantically at the ropes that bound him. "Looks bad for me: the old bird said I'd never go back. Well, what if I die now ... or six months from now? Though I know that doctor was wrong."
He tried to accept his fate philosophically, but the will to live was strong. And one of his wrists felt looser in its bonds.
* * * * *
Across the room his pack lay on the floor, and in it was a heavy forty-five. If he could get the pistol.... A knot pulled loose under his twisting fingers. One hand was free. He worked feverishly at the other wrist.
The ropes were suddenly loose. He pulled himself to his feet, took a moment to regain control of cramped muscles, then flung himself at the pack. When the heavy door opened he was behind it, his pistol in his hand.
There was no struggle: the lanky figure showed no maniacal fury. Instead, the man did a surprising thing. He sank weakly upon the rough bunk where Jerry had lain, his face buried in his thin hands.
"I should have let you
die," he said slowly, hopelessly. "I should have let you die. But I couldn't do that.... And now you'll steal my invention for Goodwin."
Jerry was as exasperated as he was amazed.
"I told you," he almost shouted. "I never knew anyone named Goodwin! I don't care a hoot about your invention. And as for letting me die--why didn't you? That's a puzzle: you were about to kill me, anyway."
"No," said the other patiently. "I wasn't going to kill you."
"You said I'd never go back."
"I was going to take you with me."
"Take me where?"
"To the moon," said the drooping figure.
Jerry Foster stared, open-mouthed. The pistol lagged in his limp hand. "To the moon!" he gasped.
Then: "See here," he said firmly. "I've got you where I want you."--he held the pistol steady--"and now I'm going to learn what's back of this. I think you are crazy, absolutely crazy. But, tell me, who are you? What do you think you're doing? What was the meaning of that roaring blast?"
* * * * *
The man looked up. "You don't know?" he asked eagerly. "You really don't?"
"No," said Jerry; "but I'm going to find out."
"Yes," the other agreed. "Yes, you can, now that you've got the upper-hand. I guess I was half crazy when I thought I had been spied out. But I'll tell you."
He sat erect. "I am Thomas J. Winslow," he said, and made the statement as if it were an explanation in itself.
"Well," said Jerry, "that's no burst of illumination to my ignorance. Come again."
The man called Winslow was ready--anxious--to talk.
"I am an inventor. I have made millions of dollars"--Jerry looked at the disheveled apparel of the speaker and smiled--"for other people. The Stillwater syndicate stole my valveless motor. Then I developed my television set. Goodwin beat me out of that: he will have it on the market inside of a year. I swore they should never profit by this, my greatest invention."
Jerry was impressed in spite of himself by the man's earnest simplicity.