Chapter III: Part 3

He was as much surprised at his agility as we were, and began to essay various feats. He leaped straight upward, gaining a maximum height of a dozen yards and returning lightly and easily to his original position.

Next he coupled his leap with an aerial somersault, and carried on with an abandon much beneath the dignity of a Wall Street broker, as it struck me. In fact, he acted like a schoolboy out for a holiday, and so full of animal spirits he hardly knew what to do with himself.

"You'd think he belonged to a circus," observed the disgusted Popham. "I'll go down there and put a stop to the performance."

"And I'll go along and help," added Markham, visibly distracted because of the broker's folly.

They started down the steep with rod-long steps; and presently one would have thought they wore seven-league boots from the amount of speed they developed.

Instead of putting a stop to the broker's performance they joined in. By and by they were playing leapfrog, every bound taking them forward half a hundred feet.

"Gravity here is far from having the force it has on Terra," remarked the professor. "Exertion comes easy and gives most astonishing results. Those men, Mr. Munn, are not used to such activity, yet their marvelous gymnastics do not seem to tire them in the least. Suppose that we ourselves make a test of the Mercurial gravity?"

I needed no second bidding, and Quinn and I took the descent as buoyantly as thistle-down before the wind. Somehow the lightness of our heels got into our heads, and the staid professor and myself began cavorting like a pair of ten-year-olds.

The delightful freedom of movement, was as novel as it was exhilarating. Liberty of muscle bred license of mind; had we been smoking opium we could not have acted more outrageously.

Nor was there any fatigue apparent. I felt that I could have run a hundred miles in as many minutes and never paused for breath.

Carried away by the wonderful effects of diminished gravity, we forgot all about our projected investigation of the little hills. In the midst of a game of tag we were suddenly brought to our senses with a round turn.

A pall had fallen over the landscape. The sun was blotted out by inky clouds, and a tremendous wind began to blow.

"We must get back to the car!" cried Quinn.

His voice, great in volume though it was, was all but drowned in the shriek and roar of the blast. The lightness that had afforded us so much enjoyment in still air now became a source of grave danger, for we could not keep our feet in the fury of the tempest.

"Merciful powers!" roared Popham, as he and Meigs were driven against each other with a terrific impact.

Although sorely put to it to keep myself from being blown away, I managed to cling to a rock and watch the weird gyrations of the two millionaires. Their collision had caused them to lose their footing, and, clinging desperately to each other, they were hurled back and forth, touching the ground now and then, only to rebound from it like rubber balls. And all the time this ground-and-lofty tumbling was going on both men were whooping frantically for some one to come to their aid.

I was too hard beset to think of leaving my place of temporary refuge, and it was only when I saw the professor and Markham, their right hands clasped, staggering toward the two men, that I made up my mind to join them. Three of us, in a chain, might be able to do something toward rescuing Popham and Meigs.

Breathing deep, like a swimmer about to plunge through a whirlpool, I cast myself adrift and allowed the wind to drive me in the direction of the professor and Markham. No matter how strongly I braced backward against the blast, every time I lifted a foot I was hurled onward and almost overturned. Finally, more by good luck than anything else, I came close enough to catch the professor's hand.

"Popham and Meigs will be killed if we can't get to them!" shouted Markham.

There were eddies in the wind, like those in the swift current of a stream, and Popham and Meigs had become entangled in them. Had they been blown off on a straightaway course, they would long since have been too far away for us to do anything toward laying hands on them and getting them upright.

The professor had taken note of the gyratory movements of our hapless companions, and he called upon Markham and me to plant ourselves as firmly as possible and remain in our present positions. This was easier said than done; yet, by calling upon every ounce of our reserve strength, we contrived, after a fashion, to keep our places.

Popham and Meigs were bounding and leaping through the arc of a great circle. All we had to do was to remain where we were and wait for them.

They came to us in mid-air, and we had literally to reach up and pull them down. For a space the five of us were tangled in an indiscriminate heap, our united weight offering greater resistance to the wind and giving us an opportunity to rest and collect our scattered wits.

"Join hands," cried the professor, "and we'll get under the lee of that rock. Careful, now! We must not get separated again."

By desperate work we succeeded in getting to our feet and clasping hands; then, hurled and buffeted, we gained the rock and fell breathless under the leeward side of it.

"What a place, what a place!" groaned Popham.

"I wish Venus hadn't been out of our course," wailed Meigs. "Certainly we couldn't have been any worse off there than here."

"No wonder nothing can grow on this sun-scorched world," growled Markham. "Even if plants could stand the heat such a wind would pull them up by the roots."

"What are we to do now?" demanded Popham. "You got us into this, Quinn, and you've got to get us out of it."

"Now's a good time for you three to go off to the other side of the planet," I remarked. "Whenever there's danger, you suddenly realize that you can't get along without the professor. Oh, you're a fine lot of nabobs, you are."

"Peace, Mr. Munn," called the professor. "We have enough to occupy our minds without wasting time in useless bickering. I was at fault, for I knew what terrible gales visit this planet, and that they come suddenly. It was a mistake to venture so far from the car."

"A mistake," breathed Meigs, with some heat, "that came near having tragic consequences. Popham and I were knocked about like a couple of footballs."

"What's to be done, what's to be done?" cried Popham impatiently. "The gale is increasing, and who knows but this rock may be plucked up bodily and rolled over us? We can't stay here."

"That is true," said the professor. "We must get back to the car."

"There's no telling what will become of us if we try that," called Markham.

"And there's no telling what will become of us if we remain here," answered the professor. "If we form a chain, it is quite possible that we may succeed in getting back to our refuge."

"Even the car may not be able to stand up against this wind," clamored Meigs.

"We shall have to take our chances with it, nevertheless," went on Quinn. "If we should get separated, each of us must make the best preparations he can to weather the gale, and then, when it has blown itself out, hunt for the car. That must be our rendezvous during the time we are here."

The professor got up slowly, bracing himself against the fierce swirl that came around the side of the rock.

"Come," he called; "it is now or never."

I could see that the gale had increased alarmingly. Its force seemed irresistible, and yet I knew that we could not remain where we were.

We clasped hands again, but were unable to cling together, being lifted high and thrown helter-skelter in all directions. Lightning flashed--such lightning as I have never seen before or since.

It snapped and crackled overhead and ran like trailing serpents over the rocks. We were in a sea of flame.

And the thunder! It seemed to split the heavens and crack open the lava-like hills. Rain came; yet not rain, for it turned to damp vapor in the red-hot atmosphere. The Mercurial elements were at war--wind, steam, thunder, and lightning all marshaling their hosts and charging to conflict.

To regain the steel car was impossible. We were lost in the fearsome fury of darkness and storm, driven helplessly and with smashing force across the vast plain.

I was hurled against something which I gripped with convulsive energy. The something gripped me in return.

"Help!" I cried, bereft of my wits and eager only for rescue.

"Munn!" shouted a voice. "Is this you?"

"Quinn!" I exclaimed.

"We must hang together." said Quinn.

And then, tightly locked in each other's arms, we were lifted high on a billow of fog and driven relentlessly I know not how far.

When the blast released us, we fell to the rocks and rolled over and over; then the surface beneath us gave way and we dropped.

The distance we fell could be only a matter of guesswork, and even guesswork was out of the question in the disordered state of our minds at that moment. Suffice to say the fall did not render us unconscious, and we struck on something that vibrated under the impact of our bodies. We were still in blank darkness, and the turmoil of the tempest no longer beat about us, but could be heard crashing somewhere overhead.

"Thank Heaven!" murmured the professor, withdrawing himself from me. "Are you alive, Mr. Munn?"

"I believe so," I answered. "What has happened to us, professor?"

"We have been flung into some sort of a shelter, it seems to me," he replied.

"But we are not on stable ground," he added. "We are sitting on an object that is descending with us, descending rapidly and--ah, wonder of wonders!"

Abruptly we fell into broad day, surrounded by such sights and sounds that I thought myself dealing with the mysteries of a disordered dream.

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*THE MERCURIALS.*

Professor Quinn and I were sitting on a large box constructed of metal that was polished to dazzling brilliancy. So far as our purposes were concerned, this box was nothing less than an elevator; we had fallen upon it and it had carried us down into the wonderful interior of the planet.

Now, truly, we were in another world--a world that teemed with life--a smiling and pleasant region underlying a most barren and inhospitable shell. The scoriated exterior of the planet was the husk; here was the kernel.

It was a white world, extending league on league in every direction and roofed with a lofty vault that sparkled as with stars. From every hand came a bee-like hum, proving that we were in a hive of industry and life.

Houses spread out before us in rows, queerly shaped structures that looked as though they might have been built of alabaster, and so diminutive that the tallest scarcely came more than head high. Back of the houses were fields thickly covered with nodding blossoms that looked like snow; through the fields ran waterways dividing each into small squares.

So intent were we on the background of this strange picture that we failed to take account of what was going on in our immediate vicinity.

Suddenly a weird creature hopped to the top of the box and stood between my companion and myself, regarding us fixedly. This, I supposed, was one of the Mercurials. If he considered the professor and myself objects of curiosity and surmise, we were no less keen in so regarding him.

He stood twenty-three or twenty-four inches high; his head was an ivory billiard ball, and his trunk a larger spheroid; from his middle downward hung a red kirtle. He had one eye at the front of the head and an ear at the back; the olfactory organ was missing, but there was a mouth opening perpendicularly under the eye.

The upper spheroid rested directly on the lower; and at each side of the lower one, corresponding to the shoulders, were two tentacle-like arms, sinuous as whips and ending in hands that were made up of a palm and seven digits. Queerest of all, there were two more arms set in the breast and back.

From the creature's shoulder was suspended a round object like a canteen. For all of five minutes Quinn and I eyed this surprising figure and were eyed in return.

"Can you talk English?" asked the professor at last.

It was a foolish question, such as I was far from expecting from the professor, but something had to be said, and I suppose that was as good as anything else. As the professor began speaking the head whirled squarely around, presenting the ear.

After my companion was done, the head spun back again, and the breast arm caught the canteen while the fingers of a shoulder arm began manipulating a set of keys. The result was language, with all the variations of tone and accent. But it was an unknown tongue, if an expression of that kind may be allowed in such a case.

Since the word-box was as ineffective as our own speech, we fell back with more success on the language of signs. At this the Mercurial had the better of us, for he could make signs with four hands.

The professor signified that we were hungry, and the Mercurial signified that we were to descend from the box. This we did, and found ourselves in the centre of a group of Mercurials whose word-boxes were chattering like so many magpies.

The Mercurial with whom we were already on gesticulating terms played off some orders on his own canteen, and two of the others advanced upon the box from which we had just descended. Pulling out a slide in the side of the receptacle, they exposed two ewers of steaming food, and we were motioned to fall to.

We stood not upon the order, but obeyed instantly, using a pair of small paddles which were thrust into our hands. I had no idea what the food might be, but it was tender and of good flavor.

"A bright little people," observed the professor as he ate.

"Seemingly," I responded.

"Nature has denied them the power of speech, yet see how they have surmounted the difficulty. I must give that talking machine of theirs a close inspection. We are in a most wonderful country, Mr. Munn."

"The little I have seen of it already quite dazes me," said I. "What a pickpocket a man could make of himself with all those hands!"

Quinn gave me a reproachful look, and I hastily apologized for even mentioning a branch of my profession.

"Do you understand now," said he, turning the subject very pleasantly, "what those bright objects were which we saw on the tops of the low hills?"

"No," said I.

"They were ovens," he answered. "Food is put in them and sent up to the hot surface of the planet. When properly cooked it is lowered again."

Association with this learned man was a liberal education in itself. I can never be sufficiently thankful to fate for causing our paths to cross.

"You think, then," said I, "that we were blown to the top of one of the hills and fell into a shaft used by the traveling ovens?"

"Nothing else could have happened."

The professor gave a start and looked worried.

"Dear, dear!" he exclaimed. "I was quite forgetting our friends. While we are here feasting and taking our ease, they are battling with the storm, and are no doubt in peril of their lives. How very, very thoughtless we are, Mr. Munn."

I was not greatly exercised over the matter. The trust magnates believed that there was a figurative gulf between myself and them, and I was more than willing that this gulf should grow from the symbol to the reality.

"I doubt if we can return to the outside of the planet at present, professor," said I, "and even if we were able to do so, what could we accomplish in the face of that tremendous storm?"

"True, very true," said he.

"That oven," said I, by way of taking his mind from the plutocrats, "must have been very warm when we landed on it and descended to these regions."

"We should have been grilled, sir," returned the professor, "but for the fact that we are coated, and our clothing impregnated, with my anti-temperature fluid."

"These Mercurials appear to stand the heat pretty well," I remarked.

"Covered, as we are, with the anti-temperature compound," he returned, "it is impossible for us to judge, even approximately, of the degree of heat that obtains in these sub-Mercurial regions. Naturally it must be very much less than prevails on the surface of the planet, and yet, even at that, if left unprotected we should probably be shriveled to cinders."

"Hardly, professor," I ventured to protest. "Those fields"--and I waved my paddle toward the open country--"are growing rank with a white herb, which is evidently cooked in these ovens and served for food. Quite likely we are eating of it now, and very good eating I find it. However, the point I wish to make is this: If the heat was so intense as you surmise, those fields would be wilted and dried up."

"Nature, Mr. Munn," answered the professor, "adapts itself to every condition. On our own planet we see how life and comfort are rendered possible in every zone from the farthest north to the tropics; and this same adaptability of intelligent creatures to their environment, we may be sure, proceeds throughout the universe. These one-eared, one-eyed, diminutive creatures are formed in the manner best calculated to afford them comfort and happiness amid these surroundings. And, as with them, so with the products of their husbandry."

"You could argue a squirrel out of a tree, professor," said I, with whole-souled admiration. "I am sorry I did not take a course of scientific training, for it would have helped me immensely in my business. A burglar should be an all-around man. If I ever return to Terra----"

"So long as you feel as you do regarding your odious profession, Mr. Munn," broke in the professor, compressing his lips, "you will never return to Terra."

"A return is possible?" I asked, hiding the wonder his words aroused.

"Anything is possible."

"How about the millionaires? Are they to return provided the means are at hand?"

"Provided they experience a change of heart. In their present state of delusion, they are mere firebrands of destruction. Before they ever again take part in mundane affairs, they must be taught to see things differently. I wonder what has become of them?"

The professor's brow clouded with anxiety.

"Don't fret about them, professor," said I. "They are not overeager for our society. Let them have a taste of shifting for themselves without your knowledge and resourcefulness to shield them from everything that goes wrong. It will do them a world of good."

"Perhaps you are right, Mr. Munn," my companion answered musingly. "If I could know they had survived the storm, I should feel tolerably easy in my mind. These little Mercurials appear to be a friendly people, and if our comrades escaped that frightful tempest they must sooner or later fall into the hands of these dwellers of the under-world."

"I suppose," I ventured, seeking to draw my companion's mind from the plutocrats, "that this Mercurial under-world is another illustration of the way Nature takes care of her proteges. After baking the outside shell of the planet to a degree that makes all life impossible, she thoughtfully scoops out the interior so that these small creatures will have a place to go."

"You have stated the case correctly, Mr. Munn," and the professor's face lighted up as he swept his gaze over the country immediately adjacent. "These ovens," he proceeded, "are a remarkable example of adapting means to an end. The fierce heat of the surface does the cooking."

"Popham will find little pleasure in that," I laughed.

"Like the rest of us," answered the professor grimly, "he will have to accustom himself to new conditions."

"Everything must be different here from the surroundings with which we have been familiar all our lives. I wonder what form of property is considered most valuable to these Mercurials?"

The professor frowned. My mind was running in its old groove despite its novel environment.

"That query was inspired by an unworthy motive, Mr. Munn," said Quinn severely.

I bowed humbly. "Every man his own way," said I. "I cannot help trying to adjust myself along the line of the principles I know best. Nevertheless I am of an intensely curious disposition, and those talk-boxes fill me with wonder."

"The Mercurials are dumb, it seems," answered the professor, "and they have to resort to purely mechanical means for an exchange of ideas. Language appears to flow readily enough from the little boxes."

"If any one of them ever lost his four hands," I observed, "he would not only find it impossible to help himself but would be unable to tell others what to do to help him. Nature has been prodigal with them in the matter of hands, and in this, no doubt, showed her usual wisdom."

"I am glad to see your thoughts taking a philosophical trend, Mr. Munn," said the professor. "It argues well for your future."

By that time we had emptied the receptacle of food, and as we dropped our paddles and drew back, the word-boxes of a hundred Mercurials shrieked despairingly. The pygmies clustered about the empty basins, glared into them, and then turned their menacing eyes on the professor and myself.

"Goodness me, Mr. Munn," exclaimed the professor. "We have probably eaten the food supply of the entire district. If we do not have a care, our voracious appetites are like to prove our undoing. Look, there come more of the Mercurials. They're after their supper, I'll warrant, and they are going to be disappointed."

I looked in the direction indicated by the professor, and saw a long line of billiard balls rolling our way.

It was a procession, headed by a pompous little Mercurial whose trunk and arms were gorgeously gilded. With two of his hands he carried a metal plate and spoon, and with the other two he wielded a silver baton about the size of a match.

Plates and paddles were also carried by the rest of the advancing Mercurials, their word-boxes chanting a sort of quickstep. The sight of the professor and myself, towering mountain-like over the throng about us, brought the procession to an abrupt halt with a squeak of dismay.

The gentleman in the red kirtle went forward and held converse with the gentleman of the gilt torso. Before they got through, their word-boxes were fairly roaring, and stricken groans went up from every talk-machine in the line.

The advent of two leviathans like my companion and myself must have had a demoralizing effect, but that seemed as nothing in comparison with the harrowing results of our voracity.

The leader raised his baton. Silence fell. The leader then advanced to where we were standing and circled around us, examining us critically with his solitary eye.

The survey finished, he tried his word-box on us, the professor answering in all the languages of our home planet, living and dead, of which he was master. But in vain; we could not come to an understanding.

The begilded gentleman finally gave over and whirled on the underling in the red kirtle. His fingers flew over the keys of his canteen, and speech of a swift and commanding kind was poured out.

A skurrying about of the oven tenders resulted. From somewhere a fresh supply of uncooked food was brought and placed in the huge metal box.

While this was going forward, Quinn suddenly seized my arm, a troubled look crossing his face.

"What is the matter, professor?" I asked.

"Matter enough, Mr. Munn!" he answered. "The lever was left on Number Five!"

His thoughts were up with the steel car. I was surprised at this, for it appeared to me that there was more than enough to claim our full attention right in our immediate vicinity.

"And what of that, sir?" I asked.

"The anti-gravity cubes lighten the car by five degrees," he answered excitedly. "Thus buoyed, and in its elevated position, I doubt if the car should hold its own against the fury of the storm!"

"You think it has been blown----"

"Aye! Blown to the uttermost parts of Mercury and perhaps wrecked and lost--lost with all our scientific apparatus and other paraphernalia!"

"But----"

"And that is not all," went on the professor. "The lever should have been thrown to zero and then removed to prevent Gilhooly from tampering with it. Who knows what that mad railway magnate may take it into his head to do? Suppose he were to grasp the lever and give the cubes their full power. He would be launched into the void, sir, and we should be marooned on this sun-baked planet, compelled to live out our lives with these one-eyed quadrumana, devastating the country of its food supply--our presence a curse instead of a blessing!"

I had already imagined a possible return to Terra, and from this it, seemed that the professor had not lost sight of that contingency.

"What is to be done?" I asked, catching some of his excitement.

"We must return to the outer shell--we must find the car--we must go back on the oven when they send it up!"

As he finished speaking, Quinn ran frantically to the metal box and leaped to its top. I followed, clumsily upsetting a half dozen Mercurials who chanced to gel in my way.

The oven was loaded by that time and ready for its return to the intense heat; nay, more, the chef in the red kirtle already had his hand on a wheel which presumably released the lifting power.

Our movements, however, had acted as a check on proceedings.

"We've got to go back!" cried the professor, forgetting in his stress of feeling that his words were lost on the throng around us. "Don't attempt to stop us, don't! We'll return----"

The Mercurials began leaping to the box from all sides in a veritable swarm. Carried away by the excitement of the moment, I sank to my knees and swept my arms about me, throwing them back pell-mell.

The professor also resorted to violence. In the midst of it all, I caught a glimpse of the gilded gentleman aiming his baton.

A moment more and there was a lurid flash, which enveloped my companion and myself in a billow of violet fire. Every atom of strength was drawn from my limbs, and I fell limply to the ground with the professor on top of me.

*CHAPTER IX.*

*LEARNING THE WORD-BOX.*

It was not the violet fire that did the work for the professor and me. Rather it was some chemical, known to the Mercurials, and which manifested its presence by an overpowering odor.

Long after we had regained consciousness, the drug-like smell clung to our clothes and sapped our strength. Shackles of iron could not have been more effective in making us prisoners.

Cords were made fast to our feet, and we were dragged by a small army of Mercurials down the principal street of their city and out into one of the white, irrigated fields.

Had a dwelling been found large enough, I presume we should have been comfortably housed, but we were of such stupendous proportions that there were no walls capable of containing us.

When we reached the field, a ring a foot high was reared about us. As the odor lessened and my strength increased I tried to roll over this low barrier, but received such a shock that I was only too glad to roll back to the professor's side again.

"It is of no use, Mr. Munn," said the professor, who had been watching my attempt. "These Mercurials are possessed of ways and means beyond our earthly powers to combat. We must accept the situation with all the philosophy we can muster."

This great man, who could remain unshaken under any fate that befell him, was a constant source of strength and inspiration to me. While we lay forsaken by our captors and couched on the strange white herbage of that underground field, our discourse drifted along many channels.

I remember that I asked him a question concerning a matter that had long been weighing upon my mind.

"How is it, professor," said I, "that your anti-gravity compound remains in a liquid state in an open cask? I should think its inherent energy would cause it to fly upward _en masse_."

"I can demonstrate that by means of an algebraic formula," said he. "Are you acquainted with algebra?"

"No," I answered humbly.

"Then," he went on disappointedly, "I fear you will have to remain in ignorance. You must rest content with the evidence of your senses, since an explanation in terms you can understand is impossible."

And thus the matter rested. When we were so far recovered as to be able to rise, we made an attempt to step over the ring that hemmed us in, but were shocked by the same unseen power I had already encountered, and driven back.

"See with what weapons nature has provided these people!" murmured the professor. "Throughout the universe everywhere you will find, Mr. Munn, that Nature takes care of her own. Ah, here comes Captain Goldman! Retainers follow, and they are bringing--now, what are they bringing? Why, as I live, they have manufactured a couple of large word-boxes. Evidently we are to be taught the use of them."

The professor was right. Ever since our disastrous attempt to regain the surface we had been tabooed by the inhabitants of the country.

"Captain Goldman," as my companion referred to the little man who had used his mysterious baton with such telling effect, was crossing the fields toward us, followed by six of his countrymen bearing the talking machines. As a precautionary measure, the captain carried his weapon.

Arriving at the ring, Captain Goldman reversed the baton and with the black tip of it cut an imaginary doorway for himself in the air. He then stepped through and joined us, without shock or resistance.

Thus, by means to us inexplicable, he broke the power of the circle at a given point. The others followed him through the entrance he had cleared.

Wielding the baton with two of his hands, Captain Goldman began manipulating his word-box with the other two. He was not addressing us, however, but those who had come with him.

Three of his followers advanced to me with one of the machines, while the remaining three conveyed a machine to the professor. At once our instruction in the art of mechanical speech began.

It is not my intention to burden the readers with the details of our lessons, although a few remarks under this head may not be out of place. As to the word-box itself, it had seven keys. This made it somewhat difficult for a five-fingered creature to operate with any great degree of fluency, although the professor did get so he could peg out his ideas at a remarkable rate.

There are but six syllables in the Mercurial language, each syllable being represented by a corresponding key. The way these syllables were fingered gave the words. As they could be combined and repeated and combined again, the vocabulary of the boxes was practically unlimited. The syllable notes were of resonant quality and of such divergent timber as to be quickly and easily recognized. The syllable for Key 1 was synonymous with our personal pronoun "I," and was the most assertive and determined note in the whole gamut of the box.

The seventh key emitted a sound so utterly unlike the other sounds as to be in a class by itself. It was used for spacing between words, for exclamatory purposes and for the audible expression of laughter and grief.

It was likewise the expletive or swear-key; for these small egotists had all the passions of other mortals, and Key 7 acted as a sort of safety valve. The manner in which the key was used gave it its versatility.

Day by day our lessons proceeded, the professor learning with a rapidity that was marvelous. He was well along in the polysyllables while I was struggling with the basic tones and acquiring some facility in spacing and in the expression of the feelings.

Our ears kept pace with our fingers, and in a fortnight the professor was so eloquent with his word-box that he could now and then play off a metaphor, or some other frill, to the great delight of himself and his auditors.

Next to a wonderful jimmy invented by a cracksman named "Cricket" Doniphan, whom I knew well, and who, at that period, was doing time in Stillwater, I take off my hat to that Mercurial word-box as the most marvelous contrivance ever evolved by a thinking mind. I have a very good memory, and when sufficiently proficient with the keys I practiced by repeating passages from "Forty Ways of Cracking Safes," which, as distinguished from "The Sandbagger's Manual," I considered my _chef d'oeuvre_. I could not discover that my terse English, faulty enough though it was, lost anything in force from translation into the Mercurial tongue. (The word "tongue" is used with reservations, for, of course, tongue that language was not.)

Difficulty was experienced in getting a suitable Mercurial equivalent for the good English word "cracksman." Finally, however, I hit upon three quick touches of the swear-key, which made the word intelligible in my own ears if not to any one's else.

Soon I began to observe a little throng gathering across my side of the prison ring, listening intently as I practiced. From day to day the throng increased.

Over on the other side of the ring Professor Quinn was absorbed in cutting all manner of scientific capers with his word-box. "The Mutability of Newtonian Law" formed his staple theme, and he was able to put it through the keys with amazing variations.

But no crowd gathered to listen to the professor. The Mercurials were all on my side of the compound. Thus it was clear to me that my brand of science was more attractive to the little people than the professor's. While "The Mutability of Newtonian Law" languished for an audience, "The Sandbagger's Manual" was fast acquiring one that taxed the capacity of the word-box.

The professor, for a long time, had been so wrapped up in his attempt to master the Mercurial language that he had paid little heed to me and my efforts. The attention my work was securing, however, finally caused him to sit up and take notice. Halting his weighty remarks, he laid aside his talk machine, came over to my side of the circle, and stood behind me, listening. The first I knew of his presence was the reaching of two angry hands over my head and the snatching away of the instrument on which I was, at that moment, reciting the ten rules for a cracksman's success.

My audience was as greatly put out as I was myself. While I was leaping to my feet and whirling around, my listeners were clamoring on their word-boxes for me to proceed.

Professor Quinn, white-faced and in a greater temper than I had ever before seen him, held my talking apparatus over his head and seemed of a mind to clash it down on the earth at his feet.

"I say, professor," I called restrainingly, "don't do anything rash."

"Mr. Munn," he gasped, his voice thick with suppressed emotion, "is my confidence in you to be destroyed utterly? I singled you out as one of the worthiest of all those brought from Terra, and yet I find you busily inculcating false ideas of personal property into the keen minds of these Mercurials! For shame, sir! Would you demoralize this planet? Would you turn these law-abiding people into thieves?"

"Professor," I answered, "your ideas and mine do not harmonize on this matter of property rights."

"While I admit, Mr. Munn," he answered, "that conditions on our own planet in a measure condoned your actions, yet I maintain that you have no right to air your ideas in Njambai. Here the conditions are of an altogether different sort. So far as I have been able to learn, this orb has not fallen under the noxious spell of the monopolists. You have no excuse for instructing the Mercurials in the alpha and omega of your contemptible profession."

"Contemptible?" I repeated. "That is a hard term, professor. Besides, they seem to be fond of the instruction. Everybody listens to me, while you haven't had so much as a corporal's guard to enjoy that astronomical stuff you have been playing off on your concertina."

"Your line, perhaps, is more attractive than mine," and the shadow of a smile curled about his thin lips, "for the notion of getting something for nothing has a direct appeal to every thinking being. On the other hand, my thesis on 'The Mutability of Newtonian Law' requires profound thought before it can be assimilated. Yet, be that as it may, I shall not allow you to degrade these people with the unworthy ideas that have been coming from your word-box. I can destroy this machine, sir, and I shall do so unless you promise never again to let an ignoble thought come out of it. What do you say?"

"Your mere command is enough, professor," I replied. "It is not necessary to couple it with a threat."

His face softened, and he at once returned to me my talk-producer.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Munn," said he. "I have confidence in your word, and know that I can trust you."

Thereupon he went back to his own side of the ring, and I applied myself assiduously to undoing any evil my ill-considered practicing may have wrought. I told the Mercurials that my utterances had been in the nature of a fairy story, and I gave the lie to my convictions by declaring that the reasoning, as in all fairy tales, was unsound.

From that hour my audiences vanished. The professor, although his talk was profound and somewhat wearying, seemed to the Mercurials as more worth while, and they flocked to hear him. We began acquiring a knowledge of the country, and of its people and institutions, with our very first lesson. In two weeks we had gathered most of the information that follows:

Their planet they called Njambai; their country was Baigol. Baigol was one of four kingdoms comprising the under-world of Njambai. The other three kingdoms were Baijinkz, Baigossh, and Baigadd--all derived from the root word "bai," signifying planet.

There were only two places on Njambai where water was able to collect and defy the absorbing power of the sun. These places were at the two ends of the planet's axis, corresponding to the polar regions of Earth. Here there were seas feeding rivers that ran through the under-world and irrigated the fields.

The kingdoms of Baijinkz and Baigossh lay on the shores of these seas, the former at the north and the latter at the south. They were the only kingdoms on the outer shell of Njambai, and levied tribute from the interior kingdoms of Baigol and Baigadd for water rights.

The distribution of light and heat throughout the nether kingdoms was by a system of gigantic reflectors, located at either end of a radius drawn through the equator. There was one stupendous reflector on either side of the planet, measuring no less than twenty _spatli_ across--a _spatl_ being the equivalent of a geographical mile.

These reflectors, we were told, followed the sun as it moved through the heavens, and reflected heat and light to countless other reflectors ingeniously placed to acquire and radiate the solar energy.

The heat thus secured was further intensified by the planet's shell, which, forming the vault of the nether kingdoms, constantly diffused warmth.

The king was Golbai, the nine hundred and twenty-fifth of his line. The name of the pompous gentleman whom the professor had christened "Captain Goldman" was Ocou.

Names of people, places, and things, as here given, are simply a rude equivalent as nearly as can be rendered into English.

From my wording the astute reader will probably discover more than the six basic syllables of the Baigol language. The flexibility of the word-box will account for this, and the inconsistency is only seeming and not real.

Baigol had one half the inner sphere, and Baigadd the other half. These two kingdoms were not on the best of terms, owing to a wretched piece of business carried out by Gaddbai, king of the other country, which will be adverted to later.

The four kingdoms were connected by a railway, if such the mode of transportation could be called. The roadbed was a "V"-shaped groove, and the wheels of the cars were solid spheres with axles pierced through their diameter. On these axles the carriages were supported.

For a people so wonderfully progressive the Baigols were strangely backward in their motive power, their trains being dragged by hand--relays of the small creatures taking them in charge.

Owing to the diminished force of gravity, large weights were easily handled, and a fair rate of speed was developed by the train haulers. But it was a very primitive method of transportation.

The trunk line connecting the nether kingdoms was known as the Baigadd and Baigol Interplanetary System. When two weeks of our enforced stay in Baigol had passed, a startling rumor was wafted from the word-boxes of the other kingdom to the effect that the management of the line had secured a wonderful new traction power of tremendous speed and unlimited endurance.

The kingdom of Baigol was agog with excitement, for the president, vice-president, and board of directors of the Interplanetary were to take a trial spin over the road in a special equipped with their new motive power.

We had not yet been allowed to leave the mysterious circle which imprisoned us, but we could stand erect, and so overtop the fields and houses that we were able to see the railway station.

Billiard balls came rolling in from every direction, clustering about the right of way and clambering to roof tops and other elevations that would afford an unobstructed view of the centre of excitement.

At last, far off, the professor and I heard a thunderous shout:

"Toot, t-o-o-t! Ting-a-ling-a-ling!"

No word-box could have been the source of that echoing cry. The professor gave a gasp and clutched my arm convulsively.

"Do you recognize that voice?" he asked hoarsely. "Merciful powers, Mr. Munn, how could such a thing happen? Look! Look!"

Over the fields beyond the city, leaping along at fifty-foot bounds and dragging behind him a train of queer-looking cars crowded with officials of the system, came no less a person than Emmet Gilhooly!

The professor threw himself at the barrier that hedged us round. He could not pass, although he struggled frantically.

"Take it coolly, professor," I urged, grasping and holding him upright.

"But this is outrageous, Mr. Munn!" he cried. "Poor Gilhooly! Is _he_ the new traction power the other kingdom has been talking about? How does he happen to be here? And why are they treating him like that? This must be stopped! Where's my word-box?"

His eyes swept the ground. Glimpsing his talking machine he dived for it and began working the keys like mad.

No one paid any attention to the furious language that went up under his frenzied fingers, however. Leviathan in harness absorbed the entire attention of all the Baigols, and with another "Toot, toot! Ting-a-ling-a-ling!" the railway magnate galloped out of sight.

It was a sad spectacle indeed. I was almost as completely unmanned by it as was Professor Quinn.

*CHAPTER X.*

*HOW WE WERE CATALOGUED.*

Let it not be supposed that we had given no thought to our companions in exile during our two weeks' probation in Baigol. The professor and I had talked of them frequently, wondering whether they were alive or dead, and, if alive, where they were and what they were doing.

Our story had been punched out of our word-boxes for the benefit of the Baigols, but had not seemed to make much of an impression on Ocou, or on others who came to see us.

Now the sight of Gilhooly would add corroborative detail, and we harped on that key until Ocou promised to communicate directly with King Golbai, and find out what his wishes were in the matter.

As for the professor, he wanted to go roaming the four kingdoms looking for the other exiles, first visiting Baigadd and appropriating the motive power of the B.&B.I. system.

The most we could get from Ocou was a promise to learn his majesty's pleasure in our affairs; and while we were abiding the king's decision, other events took place which were of prime importance to us.

Ocou had a queer-looking machine borne to our "home circle," which was the humorous fashion in which the professor referred to our prison ring.

The machine was an upright shaft measuring some three feet in height. To its base was attached a golden cord several yards long and terminating in a small silver disk.

Professor Quinn and I were consumed with curiosity while this contrivance was being set up and made ready. We put a question through our word-boxes, but were only smiled at mysteriously.

Presently I was made to sit down, Turk fashion, while one of Ocou's attendants came to me and passed the silver disk over my head. One end of Ocou's baton had a black tip, the other a white.

As the disk passed over my head, Ocou rested the white tip of the baton on the pedestal. Instantly a slide flew out of the shaft's top bearing a painted ideograph.

The professor and I were not "up" in the Baigol ideographs, and were very much surprised at the actions of Ocou and his companions when they looked at the slide. They recoiled, stared at me suspiciously, and moved about me with caution.

I grabbed my word-box.

"What's the matter, anyhow?" I asked.

"We have just discovered that you are a robber," said Ocou.

"I am no robber here," I answered, "no matter what I was in the place I came from."

"Once a robber always a robber," retorted Ocou, "unless you touch the Bolla."

"Well, well!" murmured the professor, rubbing his hands delightedly over the pedestal and giving little heed to Ocou's remark. "What do you call this machine, Mr. Ocou?"

"That, sir," Ocou replied, "is a character indexograph. We find it very useful in cataloguing the natural tendencies of subjects of the realm."

He sighed.

"The number of indexographs in the kingdom is limited, and they have all been working overtime of late. This is the first opportunity we have had to use one on you and your friend. Now, professor, if you will oblige me."

The professor dropped down, the disk gliding over his bald head, and another ideograph shot into sight.

"Ah," murmured Ocou, reading the sign: 'philanthropist, scientist, a man to counsel with!' You'll do, sir; but your friend!"--and he shook his head sadly as he dropped his talking machine.

"I suppose," said I, watching Ocou and his attendants make off with the indexograph, "that I shall be kept within this circle indefinitely?"

"Let us hope not, Mr. Munn," rejoined the professor, laying a kindly hand on my arm. "Rather let us hope that you will experience a moral rejuvenation, so that when the indexograph is tried on you at another time it will show a different result."

"I wish they would try that thing on J. Archibald Meigs!" I exclaimed. "The Baigols would find, I think, that I have no monopoly on that particular ideograph."

The professor laughed quietly.

"Let us see what comes to us now after we have been catalogued," said he. "I think they have simply been waiting to make trial of our tendencies before allowing us to pass out of this enchanted circle."

Ocou came back in a couple of hours, carrying a roll of parchment in addition to his baton. He came alone.

"Gentlemen," said he in his mechanical way, "your names have been entered and tagged. In accordance with the information secured through the indexograph, a task has been set for you. Perform that task faithfully and you are to have the freedom of the realm."

"What is the task, Mr. Ocou?" inquired the professor.

"You are to restore the sacred Bolla to his majesty, the king of Baigol."

"And what is the Bolla?"

"It is the stone of happiness and peace. Merely to touch it restores a mortal to health, physical and moral. Crime is a contagious disease, and since the Bolla has been lost to us and untouched of any in the kingdom, lawlessness has become widespread."

"Where is the Bolla?"

"It was loaned some seasons ago to the king of Baigadd, who now refuses to return it. As Baigadd is a more powerful country than ours, it would be an act of destruction for us to make war for the stone. So our king has graciously decreed that Mr. Munn shall proceed to the neighboring kingdom and steal the Bolla, taking you along with him, professor, as adviser and general aide."

Nothing could have pleased us more.

As I have stated elsewhere in this narrative, stealing property from some one to whom that property does not rightfully belong can hardly be accounted a crime; and when property thus purloined is restored to its rightful owner, the theft is transformed into a high and noble act.

Such a task filled me with enthusiasm, and I was ready to go forth among the four-handed enemies of Baigol and demonstrate my abilities. The professor, thinking of Gilhooly, would have welcomed any undertaking which carried him into the neighboring realm.

Ocou told us that the king of Baigadd was a very grasping individual, although he was very careful to abstain from touching the Bolla. Had he touched the wonderful stone, so great was its power that he would have experienced a change of heart immediately, and could not have shirked returning the property to its rightful owner.

King Gaddbai was very wealthy, according to Ocou, drawing his revenues principally from the kaka industry, of which he had a monopoly. Ka was a fibrous plant from which kaka, the only cloth known in the four kingdoms, was made.

This plant would grow nowhere else than in Baigadd, so that the people of the other three kingdoms had to go to Baigadd for their kirtles. Every time the king of Baigadd suffered a pecuniary backset, or donated a large sum to charity, he recouped his exchequer by boosting the price of kirtles.

There was a time, Ocou declared, when all the inhabitants of Njambai went clothed from neck to heels, but wardrobes dwindled as the price of cloth rose. Very few people could now afford the luxury of a full suit; and since the upper half of the body could not be covered with a garment, it was covered with paint--the paint being usually of a color to match or harmonize with the kirtle.

A variety of black kaka was the only serviceable material to be had for writing purposes, ideographs being traced on its surface with white ink. We were told how gentlemen once wealthy, but who had fallen upon evil days, had drawn upon their libraries for wearing apparel.

Books of poetry, essays, travel, fiction, all yielded their leaves to the making of various garments, thereby clothing the body as comfortably as they had already clothed the mind.

What could be more apropos than a morning gown inscribed with choice ideographic sonnets? Or a student's robe begemmed with the brilliant wit of an essayist? Or a traveling costume bearing an account of some voyage of discovery?

The only fault to be found with this arrangement was that such clothing advertised the wearer's poverty; and in Njambai, as in Terra, the pride of wealth was most pronounced.

King Gaddbai, it appeared, had so enhanced the cost of black kaka that literature lay languishing. Writers had not the requisite material on which to inscribe their thoughts, and the four kingdoms were threatened with a blight of ignorance.

From what we heard of King Gaddbai, the professor and I were not disposed to regard him very favorably. He seemed a greedy and unscrupulous person, more than ready to swell his coffers by trampling on the rights and the welfare of others.

The parchment roll brought by Ocou was a map, showing us how to direct our steps in order to reach Baigadd. Ocou also delivered to us a royal banner, direct from the hands of King Golbai, which was to procure us favor en route and entitle us to be received and cared for as ambassadors when we reached the other kingdom.