by Various
The two men crouched there silent, realizing their desperate plight. They must escape, before the sun rose. But how?
* * * * *
Studying their bonds, they discovered that they were of rawhide of some sort, obviously from the hides of animals these strange people caught on the lower slopes somewhere. But though they strained and twisted, they could not stretch them, the leather evidently having been cured to a marvelous toughness in these high altitudes.
Precious minutes ticked by as they struggled there, but they were unable to extricate themselves.
But before the end of a half-hour, Stoddard managed to free one arm, and reaching into his jacket he drew forth a small, compact metal object--his cigarette lighter.
Twirling the wheel, while Professor Prescott held his breath, he succeeded in kindling a flame on its tiny wick.
If only he could reach the thongs with it! If only he could burn them through and free himself and the professor before any of the pigmies re-entered that lethal chamber!
Wrenching around now, he applied the flame to his left wrist, which was still bound. As the living fire touched his flesh, he winced with pain, but almost anything was better than the grisly fate that threatened.
Slowly, a little at a time, he endured the torture, straining at each application to see if the thongs would yield.
"Here, let me try it once!" called out Professor Prescott, as he cried aloud with the agony of the ordeal.
"No. I'll get it!" Stoddard gritted his teeth, continued. "There! I think my hand is free!" He struggled. "Yes. Now wait!"
Replacing his cigarette lighter in his pocket, he drew his blistered wrist from its smouldering bonds and struggled feverishly now to undo the lashes about his feet.
Five minutes of that and suddenly he flung them off and stood up.
"Now! Now then, Professor. I'll have you loose in a jiffy!"
Bending over his fettered companion, he worked with frantic haste to untie the rawhide bonds.
Another five minutes and they were both free.
* * * * *
Professor Prescott stood up and stretched.
"Thank God for small favors!" he exclaimed. "But you, Jack? You must be burned cruelly.
"Forget it!" Stoddard was already wrapping a handkerchief around his wrist. "Now let's see about getting out of here. These little rats all seem to be asleep, and Lord knows where that maniac Krassnov is. Perhaps we can make it. At any rate, we'll give them a run for their money!"
As he spoke, he drew his automatic.
Silently, stealthily, they left that glittering chamber and proceeded down the cavern toward what seemed to be the entrance, guided by their remembrance of the way they had come.
A hundred yards or more they made, seeing no sign of their captors, when suddenly a musical gong rang out.
"We've stepped on one of Krassnov's infernal signals!" cried Stoddard, above the din. "Now there'll be hell to pay!"
And "hell to pay" there was, almost instantly--for before they had taken ten more steps, the cavern ahead was full of small, ghostly figures, jabbering in their shrill voices.
Indifferent now of what he did, their lives at stake, Stoddard blazed away with his automatic, sweeping it from side to side of the stony walls as he fired.
As the shots crashed out, the jabbers turned to shrieks of terror. Several of the pigmies fell. The rest broke their ranks and shrank into the shadows.
"Run!" yelled Stoddard, slipping a new clip into his pistol.
The professor needed no invitation. Gathering his long legs he sped after the younger man, and together they burst from the mouth of the cavern.
* * * * *
Outside, in the dazzle of moonlight, they paused for an instant.
"This way!" called Stoddard, racing toward that splintered arena.
They gained it and lunged across it to the shelving slope that reached upward to the narrow, perilous ridge whence they had come.
As they proceeded, the pigmy horde following with incredible swiftness, Stoddard wheeled and fired time and again--and now his shots were answered by the reports of rifles.
"Krassnov and his Cossacks!" he muttered. "Well, we'll give them our heels, unless they hit us."
"And Russians are notoriously bad shots, I understand," panted the professor.
At any rate, they reached the slope and struggled upward toward the ridge, putting themselves presently out of range behind the jagged rocks that loomed on every side.
But just as they were congratulating themselves on their escape, came a dull, reverberating explosion--and as they clung to their insecure footholds, a volcano of snow and ice rose ahead. Thousands of tons of debris avalanched into the chasm below.
* * * * *
Stunned, deafened, they looked around.
Down in that pocket where the Thunderbolt had so recently gleamed was one vast chaos, and above, where that razor-back ridge had led across the intervening chasms to safety, was a dazzling void.
To both came the same thought, but Stoddard expressed it first.
"Krassnov--he's dynamited the ridge!" he gasped.
"Then we--we'll never get back now!" echoed Professor Prescott.
"No, but they'll never get us here!"
"Scant comfort, though, when we're pinioned here like a couple of birds with their wings clipped."
"Right; but let's see. Let's figure. We're better off than we were. And what was it Napoleon once said: 'When you can't retreat, advance.' So suppose we--"
"But listen!"
* * * * *
Stoddard heard. It was the sound of rifle shots. And looking down, he saw a feverish activity surrounding the rocket. Myriads of the pigmies were swarming upon it, while a handful of Cossacks were holding them off.
"Something doing down there, all right!" he muttered. "Looks to me like--why, sure I've got it! That madman has overshot himself, for once! He's buried their precious meteor, in blowing up our ridge, and they've turned on him!"
"I think you're right," agreed Professor Prescott. "Suppose we advance as you say. It looks like a chance."
"Right," said Stoddard.
Slowly, cautiously, they returned down the slope.
When within a hundred yards, they knew they had sized up the situation correctly. With frantic speed, Krassnov was supervising the shoveling out of his rocket from amid the debris; was directing its loading, while the free members of his crew held off the enraged natives who were obstructing them.
Descending even more cautiously now, they neared the scene of activity.
"My plan is this--to get aboard and find out where they're going!" said Stoddard, through shut teeth. "What do you say?"
"Lead on!" said the professor.
So they continued down, neared the resting-place of that strange craft, and, under shelter of the moonlight shadows, stole through the confused ranks surrounding it and crept aboard.
* * * * *
Stowing themselves into the first likely niche that offered--a narrow cubicle behind a flight of metal stairs--they waited, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of being discovered.
Fifteen minutes passed, a half-hour, when suddenly sounded a rasping of doors that told them the rocket was being sealed.
Then came a roar, as of some mighty blast beating down upon the frozen earth, followed by a lifting, rushing sensation--and they were flung violently to the flooring.
The pressure ceased in a moment, however, to be supplanted by a buoyant, exhilarating sense of flight. It increased, and they judged they must be traveling at great speed.
Glancing at the luminous dial of his watch, Professor Prescott saw that it was a quarter to ten.
"Well, we're off!" he whispered. "And where, would you guess, are we headed?"
"I wouldn't guess," Stoddard whispered back. "From the way we're riding, it might be Mars! We must be making hundreds of miles an hour."
"Or thousands! Who knows?"
They crouched there in their cramped niche,
scarcely even whispering now, as the tense minutes passed.
* * * * *
Suddenly the motion changed. They seemed to be dropping.
Another moment or two, and with a slight jar the rocket came to rest.
"Well, we're here, wherever it is," said Stoddard, stirring.
"Yes, undoubtedly," the professor agreed. "And the next move?"
"I think we'll let them make that."
They were not long in doing so. There came the sound of doors rasping open, of footsteps echoing on metal stairs and corridors. Once a giant Cossack passed within four feet of them. But at length, all was silent within the rocket.
"Now, then, suppose we have a look around," said Stoddard, stepping out.
"Right," agreed his companion, following. "I'll admit I am mildly curious to know what corner of the earth we've been transported to."
They proceeded down the dim-lit corridor the way they had come, descended a flight of stairs and headed along another corridor--to pause suddenly and gasp with astonishment. For through the door whence they had entered the rocket poured a flood of sunshine.
* * * * *
Stoddard stared at it a moment incredulously, and then glanced at his watch.
"Ten o'clock, I make it!" he muttered. "Am I crazy, or what?"
"No, I hardly think so," smiled Professor Prescott, recovering from his own surprise. "It is merely that we are in some part of the world quite a few thousand miles removed from India. Back on Kinchinjunga, it is still ten o'clock at night, but here, it is quite obviously daytime."
"That must be the explanation," Stoddard agreed. "But it certainly gave me a start at first!"
Approaching the door, followed by the professor, he peered cautiously out, to confront a desolate stretch of scrubby growth, hemmed in by a background of rugged mountains.
"Now where the devil would you say we are?" he demanded, gazing around perplexedly.
"Either in the United States or in Mexico," was the astonishing reply.
"But how can you say that?"
"Because it must be some place approximately twelve hours distant from India in time, to judge from the sun, which is not far past the meridian."
"But why not Australia, for instance?"
"Because Australia is too far. It would be three o'clock tomorrow morning there, since it is ten o'clock last night now in India."
* * * * *
Stoddard pondered this a minute, then admitted its correctness.
"All right, then. Assuming that we are somewhere on the North American continent, the next thing is to give Krassnov the slip; otherwise it won't be big enough for all of us!"
And that Professor Prescott conceded readily enough.
But before making any further move, they looked over their surroundings carefully, to satisfy themselves none of their late captors were in view.
"They're evidently somewhere on the other side of the rocket," Stoddard concluded at length. "So let's make a break for it while we've got the chance."
"Lead the way!" said the professor.
"O. K., here we go!"
And, stepping through the door, they dropped to the ground and raced off under the glare of the burning sun toward the rugged mountains that loomed ahead.
* * * * *
For a hundred yards or so they were able to keep the rocket between themselves and the Russians but soon the ground sloped up to such an extent that they realized they must be in full view.
Dropping behind the scant shelter of a scraggly tree, they turned and glanced down--and there, beyond the rocket, they could now see a group of men standing around outside a small wooden shack, shouting and gesticulating in their direction.
"Damn it, they've seen us!" muttered Stoddard.
"But why don't they come after us?" queried Professor Prescott.
The answer came even as he spoke, for out of the shack rushed the tall figure of the prince, in his hand a pair of binoculars which he raised to his eyes.
Whether or not be spotted them, an instant later he turned and uttered a command, and two huge Cossacks sprang to the pursuit.
"There's nothing to do now but run for it!" cried Stoddard, leaping to his feet.
The professor followed and they plunged on up the slope, bullets from their pursuers' pistols and the rifles of those below kicking up the dust around them. But either because the aim was bad or the targets difficult, they escaped unscathed.
As for Stoddard, he wasted no time in firing back.
"Once we get in those mountains, we're safe!" he gasped, as they struggled on. "How are you, Professor--all right?"
"No holes in my skin so far!" came the panting answer.
Five desperate, dodging minutes passed.
Glancing over their shoulders, they saw that the heavy, stolid Cossacks were losing ground. And ahead, tauntingly near now, loomed a thickly-wooded slope that meant the beginning of big timber--and safety.
Another five minutes--each second an hour--and they had gained it.
* * * * *
But there was no pausing yet, they could hear the Cossacks crashing on like determined blood-hounds behind.
"No need to climb any more!" exclaimed Stoddard, half breathless. "We'll edge along, keep in the trees, and try to throw them off."
The older man said nothing; merely gritted his teeth. This climb had told on him more than anything he had experienced on the cruel slopes of Kinchinjunga.
As they struggled along now, sometimes it seemed that they had thrown their pursuers off the trail, or completely outdistanced them, but always a moment later they would hear again the crunch of the Cossacks' boots on the dry undergrowth.
So the grim flight continued, mile after heart-tearing mile, and Stoddard was beginning to realize that the professor couldn't keep on much longer--had just about decided to stop and shoot it out with their pursuers--when suddenly there came a sound that brought new hope to him.
"Did you hear that?" he gasped, pausing.
"It--sounded like--a car!" panted his companion.
"Right. And that means there must be a road through here somewhere! But where?"
"Listen." Professor Prescott pointed to the left. "The sound seems to be coming from over there."
And sure enough, from the left came a wheezing grind of a car making a heavy grade.
"Near, too," decided Stoddard. "Come on--let's go! We've got to head it off. It's our only hope, except--"
With relief, he shoved his automatic back into its holster and led the way in the direction of the now rapidly nearing car.
* * * * *
A hundred yards they had made, up a slight rise, when there spread before them a rutted mountain road, and on it, in full view, was a laboring Ford of ancient vintage.
Over the wheel hovered a lanky, leathery native, and beside him sat a small, plump woman who looked as though she might be his wife.
They were almost to the top of the hill when Stoddard hailed them.
"Say!" he said. "Give us a ride, will you? We're lost."
"Keep on, Henry!" he heard the woman urge. "I don't like the looks of 'em."
Americans! Well, thought Stoddard, they were in the United States, anyway. That was something. And he didn't exactly blame the good woman for her suspicions. They must look pretty wild, at that, with their two-day beards and tattered clothes.
"Sorry," spoke up Henry. "Missus says no. She knows best. 'Sides, it ain't fur to Martin's Bluff. You kin make it in an hour."
"But say, wait a minute!" They were running along beside the wheezing car now. "We've got to get there in a hurry. We'll pay you."
Henry pricked up his ears at this, but his wife shook her head.
"Keep on!" she urged. "They may be bandits!"
* * * * *
Whereupon Stoddard drew his automatic, for there was no more time to argue.
"Stop!" he commanded. "You'll take us, understand? I'll pay you well!"
"See, I was right!" screamed the woman. "Bandits! Band
its! Oh, Henry--save me!"
Wildly she clung to him, as Stoddard mounted the running-board, but before he could make another move, Professor Prescott gasped out:
"The Cossacks! Quick!"
And jumping down, he wheeled to face the two leering Russians, not forty feet down the road. Pistols levelled, they were advancing stolidly.
Stoddard half-raised his own weapon, then turned to see if the car was within range of the return fire it would bring. It was--but not for long.
With a furious chattering of bands, as Henry gave it the gas, the decrepit vehicle gained the top of the hill and disappeared from view down the far slope, and the last thing he saw of it was a dusty plate flapping under its tail-light.
It was a Texas license!
Then, turning back, he lifted his automatic; but it was too late. The Cossacks were on them.
In answer to a guttural command, he dropped the weapon and raised his hands, as the professor had already done.
* * * * *
Two hours later, they were back at the rocket.
Led into the shack--which was furnished inside like an Oriental hunting-lodge--they were confronted at once by Prince Krassnov.
Though his aristocratic features were immobile, it was obvious that he was in no amiable frame of mind.
"So, my friends!" he exclaimed. "I leave you in India, and meet you again in America, all within a matter of hours. It is but an example of our modern progress, is it not?"
They made no reply.
"Ha! You are not sociable, after enjoying my hospitality, my transportation? Then suppose we--as you Americans so quaintly say--call a spade a spade! I gave you your chance. You declined it. And what is the result? My beautiful Diamond Thunderbolt, my immeasurable treasure, is buried forever."
"Through no fault of ours!" put in Stoddard.
"But buried nevertheless, and my adopted kingdom in revolt. Yet do not think I mourn too much, my friends. Though the game is what you call up, my plans shall go on. Here and elsewhere in the world, where we have sub-headquarters, are billions of dollars' worth of diamonds--supplies for years ahead. We shall not suffer. But you--Professor Prescott and Doctor Stoddard--I have a very interesting fate in store for you. How would you care to make a little scientific expedition to Mars, say?"