Chapter IV: Part 4

The professor asked for a baton, but this was denied him. The Baigols feared, I suppose, to trust such a terrible weapon in the hands of aliens.

The professor's pleasure over the prospect of being allowed to leave our prison ring and journey in search of our friends while seeking the Bolla was marred somewhat by Ocou's revelations.

He had hoped to find Njambai free of monopoly and greed, and yet here was King Gaddbai boosting the price of kaka whenever the whim struck him; and he had hoped to find a people where poverty was unknown, and yet he discovered how the educated were obliged to raid their libraries in order to cover their nakedness.

"Human nature, professor," I expounded, "is the same all over the universe. If a man finds himself in a position to gouge his neighbor, he is as apt to do it on Jupiter, or Mercury, as he is on Terra."

"I am grievously discouraged," he sighed.

"Furthermore," said I, "my practicing on the word-box could not have caused the havoc you imagined it might. Ocou tells us that, since the Bolla has been taken from Baigol, lawlessness has been widespread, and increasing."

"Your rehearsal of the false sentiments contained in your book may have helped on the lawlessness. I am more sorry than I know how to express in finding, among this gifted people, some of the worst elements of our own civilization. And my regret is the more pronounced on the score of Popham, Meigs, Gilhooly, and Markham."

"How do they figure in your disappointment?" I queried.

"Can't you understand?" he cried. "I had the same hopes of them that I had of you. Suppose we found on this planet not a trace of monopoly or greed; suppose we had found here a peace-loving, justice-serving people, with plenty to eat and wear, needing no laws to govern them, and all happy and contented. The moral effect upon you and the rest of our friends would have been uplifting. You would have seen, admired and coveted the same conditions for our own orb. A change would have been worked in you, and for the better.

"That," he went on passionately, "is the full measure of my disappointment. So far from finding such conditions, Mr. Munn, you are immediately catalogued as a thief, and given a task commensurate with your supposed abilities--a task or robbery!"

"But a righteous robbery," I averred. "Recovering stolen property and returning it to the rightful owner is a meritorious act."

"We must call it so," he answered bitterly, "since so much hangs upon our joint attempt. But what a lesson for these poor, benighted people!"

"The ability to get the stone is beyond them, and they call upon us," I pursued. "Their action is flattering, rather than otherwise. If we succeed, it means that we shall stand even higher in their estimation."

"We, who ought to know better, are making ourselves living examples of successful thievery."

"The end justifies the means, professor."

"We must strive to think so."

"I suppose Gilhooly has been catalogued, the same as you and I, and that he was found to stand so high in traction affairs that they----"

"Let us not dwell upon poor Gilhooly."

"He is just where he ought to be," I declared. "I only wish he had a glimmering of sense still left him in order that he might realize his position. The effect would be salutary."

This frank expression of my views rather startled Professor Quinn. He walked back and forth, his hands clasped behind him and his head bowed in deep thought.

"The indexograph is a most remarkable invention," he finally observed, "and would be of inestimable value on our native planet. The detection of crime would be an easy matter, and on the testimony of the indexograph alone justice could be meted out without the intermediate application of the courts. Furthermore, justice would never miscarry."

"I hope," I exclaimed in a panic, "that I shall never live to see the day when the police officials of Terra are equipped with indexographs! It would prove a knockout blow for my profession. Every citizen would be tested, and his proclivities jotted down in black and white."

"That would mean," expanded the professor, "that crime would be relegated to the limbo of lost arts! Before a lawless act could be committed, the artist in crime would be placed where the deed would be impossible."

"That's the way I figure it out, professor."

"But that is not the least of the indexograph's merits. Children could be duly catalogued, and, if they showed criminal tendencies, could be sent to institutions for proper moral training. The inclination of the young toward certain trades could be learned, and they could be given instruction along the line which would best serve their future careers. There would not be so many failures in life, Mr. Munn."

"Perhaps not," I answered stubbornly, "but I still maintain that the overturning of our customary standards would land us in chaos."

"Tut!" he exclaimed half angrily. "Some day, I trust, your angle of vision will change materially. Until that time, Mr. Munn, it would be well for you to repress your peculiar views, for, you are going to be sorry for them."

Just three weeks to a day from the time we reached Baigol we fared forth from the royal city, bent upon the performance of our mission. We were armed only with our word-boxes, the king's standard, and a firm determination to achieve our liberty by securing the Bolla, no matter what the cost.

Our journey led us through a pleasant country, level for the most part and covered with irrigated fields growing the white blossoms which the Baigols gathered and cooked for food. The king's will, as made known by the banner, secured us rest by the way.

I have not considered it necessary to refer to the fact that there was light and darkness throughout the kingdoms of Baigol and Baigadd during each period of twenty-four hours and three minutes. Light and heat were sent through the under-world by means of the two huge reflectors already mentioned, and when the sun passed from the heavens of course night fell.

But the climate was at all times delightful. We were armored against the temperature, and could not ourselves experience the equable air, yet our eyes and ears assured us of its presence, and this proved another surprise for the professor.

By day we traveled and by night we rested, often covering as many as five hundred _spatli_ in a single day. Four days, at that rate, were to carry us to the capital of the other kingdom.

I gathered much wisdom from the professor as we journeyed, and there were two of our conversations which made a deep impression on me. The first had to do with the reflectors that turned the sun's rays into the bowels of the planet.

"Without the sun, Mr. Munn," remarked Quinn, indicating the white fields beside us with a gesture of the hand, "there could be no vegetable life in Baigol. Those fields must be quickened to life by the solar rays or they would be as barren as the outer shell of the planet. Finite ingenuity may always be trusted to accommodate itself to its environment. I can set the astronomers of Terra right on one mystery, at least."

"What mystery do you refer to, professor?" I asked.

"Why," he answered, "a luminous point has been detected by earthly telescopes on the disk of Mercury. The phenomenon has been explained as a huge mountain, whose top reflects the sun; yet it is only one of the great reflectors fabricated by these ingenious people."

Then at another time:

"Professor," said I, "have you made any discoveries relative to that powerful little weapon which the Baigols know so well how to use?"

"A few," he answered. "The baton is called a zetbai, and its ammunition is drawn from a peculiar ingredient of the atmosphere. The white tip of the zetbai furnishes the destructive force, while the black tip combats and nullifies it. The inhabitants of this orb, Mr. Munn, have a weapon of such awful power in the zetbai that a dozen of their number, armed with the batons, could descend upon our own globe and devastate it.

"Well is it for Terra that means are lacking for interplanetary communication; otherwise the Baigols and their fellow-creatures might prove the Napoleons of the universe. Such a contingency is terrible to contemplate."

"Had the zetbai anything to do with that invisible power that stayed us from crossing the circular wall?"

"It had everything to do with that. An unseen barrier was placed around us--a barrier of zet, drawn from the atmosphere by these Baigols and made to serve their ends. Unlike powder and ball, which destroy themselves in creating destruction, zet is indestructible; it can be regathered into the zetbai and used over and over again. The resisting medium, controlled by the black tip of the baton, is alone powerful to annul the energy of the white tip."

These were the points that impressed me. Another which we discussed, but which did not appeal to me as logical or accurate, had to do with the object of our quest--the Bolla.

"With all due respect to Mr. Ocou," said I, "he was certainly talking moonshine when he described the Bolla."

"I would not go so far as to say he was talking moonshine, Mr. Munn," the professor answered. "There are stranger things in Heaven, Earth, and Mercury than are dreamed of in our philosophy. Take yourself, for instance. You are a sick man----"

"Never sick in my life," I declared.

"I mean morally," went on Quinn. "If crime is a disease, you will admit, I think, that you are sick."

"No," I averred, "I am healthy in mind and body. I take no stock in Mr. Ocou's assertions--which ought to prove that I am mentally sound, I take it. But we'll get this palladium, just the same, for our liberty depends on it."

Toward noon of the fourth day, as we drew near the boundaries of Baigadd, we entered a rocky and uneven country, the well-defined road we had been following cutting and circling through the low hills. When we were well in among the bowlders a frantic shout reached us from around a bend in the road a few _spatli_ ahead.

"That was a cry in our own tongue, Mr. Munn!" exclaimed the professor, coming to a halt. "Did you not hear it? It was certainly a call for help."

"You are right, sir," I answered. "That was a lusty English yell, if I ever heard one."

"It was given by one of our friends, of course."

"No doubt; it is not hard to distinguish a human voice from the bleat of one of these Baigol word-boxes. Possibly the new motive power of the B.&B. Interplanetary has rebelled and is fleeing this way."

"No," answered the professor excitedly, "I do not think that shout came from Gilhooly. It was---- Ah, Mr. Meigs!"

At that instant, J. Archibald Meigs came bounding into sight around the bend. But he was not the well-groomed, richly appareled Mr. Meigs of Earth and the steel car. His only garment was a kirtle.

He must have been surprised at seeing us, but so great was his fear that he did not show it. Panic left no room for any other emotion.

"Quinn! Munn! Save me--save me from the soldiers!"

A few dozen prodigious leaps brought him trembling to our vicinity, and he fell exhausted to his knees.

*CHAPTER XI.*

*THE DILEMMA OF MR. MEIGS.*

"My, my!" cried the professor. "What has happened, Mr. Meigs? How is it that we find you in this--er--forlorn condition?"

"I'm a wretched man!" wailed Meigs, grabbing the professor's knees in the stress of his emotion. "You have got to save me, Professor Quinn. It was you who brought me to this awful planet, and if I am slain my blood will be upon your head!"

That was Meigs for you. Even in his dire extremity he did not forget to heap censure upon the head of our great savant.

"You are not going to be slain," said the professor confidently.

"But these creatures are as venomous as centipedes!" murmured Meigs, suffering himself to be lifted erect by the professor. "Horrors! There they come now. Oh, this is too much, too much!"

Meigs got behind the professor. Turning our eyes toward the bend, we saw a detachment of the Baigadd army just hurling itself into sight.

We had made some acquaintance with military affairs in Baigol.

Soldiers, as may be surmised, were armed with zetbais, but word-boxes were kept out of the ranks. Only officers carried talking machines, matters being ordered on the principle that privates were to hear and obey. Each soldier wielded two zetbais--one with each pair of hands--thereby enormously increasing his capacity for destruction.

The fighting force of Baigol, we had been informed, although organized on a smaller scale, was equipped and maneuvred exactly as was the military arm of Baigadd.

The detachment approaching at a double-quick in pursuit of Meigs was, as we afterward found, a company of Gaddbaizets, or royal guards. They numbered fifty, wore yellow kirtles, had the torso gilded, and were commanded by a single officer carrying nothing but a word-box.

The sight of the professor and myself caused the Gaddbaizets to come to an abrupt halt. They had undoubtedly heard of us, but they were far from expecting to encounter us there at that time.

The officer was the first to recover his wits, and approached the place where we were standing, holding his talking machine over his head and punching its keys vigorously. His first words were a command to the soldiers: "Hold your zetbais and make no move against these fierce colossi until you get further orders from me!"

Then, to us:

"Behemoths! Whence come you and why are you protecting the monster in the red kirtle?"

Meigs, it could easily be seen, was not on familiar terms with the word-boxes. So far as he was concerned, the captain's words fell on deaf ears.

"We are from Baigol," said the professor, giving an amiable twist to his words by a deft use of Key 7, "and come on an errand from the king of that country. This gentleman is a friend of ours----"

"A friend!" screeched the captain's machine. "He is a thief and has stolen a hundred djins of kaka from our sovereign storehouse."

I thrilled an amused laugh on the seventh key of my own machine.

"How do you know he is a thief?" I asked. "Did you try the indexograph on him?"

"I'll do the talking, Mr. Munn," said the professor in our own tongue; then added to the officer: "There must be some mistake, captain. This gentleman has a very good reputation and would not commit a theft, such as you describe."

"He bears the proof of it upon his person," answered the captain. "It is the kirtle."

Now, a djin is a unit of measurement and corresponds to the inch of our system; from which it follows that Meigs stood convicted of stealing about eight feet of red kaka--enough to make kirtles for a score of the Baigadds.

"What are you harping about?" asked Meigs.

"They say you are a thief, Mr. Meigs," said I.

"Thief!" he blustered, glaring at the captain over the professor's shoulder. "I deny it, sir, I deny it!"

"He says you stole that kirtle you have on," I continued.

"A man has a right to clothe himself as well as he may," answered Meigs, aggrieved. "I do not count that theft. The country should see that a man is provided with a respectable covering."

This was too good an opportunity for the professor to let slip.

"Suffer your mind to drift back to your own planet, sir," said he. "It is your opinion that our government owes every poor man a suit of clothes?"

J. Archibald Meigs cringed under the blow. It was a thrust at his clothing trust, and it found the weak point in his armor.

"Circumstances are different here," he mumbled.

"In some ways, yes; in other ways, no. King Gaddbai is the monopolist of this planet. He controls the kaka output and charges for it accordingly."

The captain of the royal guard was growing impatient.

"If you are here on an errand from the king of Baigol," said he, "we shall be glad to escort you to the capital--but not until you have surrendered the giant who stole the king's property."

"Take us to his majesty," returned the professor, "and we will explain everything in a satisfactory manner."

But this the captain would not do, and he became so threatening that we retreated behind a barrier of bowlders.

"Display the banner, Mr. Munn," said the professor, and I held up the royal standard so that the captain could not help but see it. His one eye gleamed insolently, and he came as near swearing as the seventh key of his word-box would allow.

"Deliver up the thief," he ordered, "or I will command my men to annihilate you with their zetbais."

It was certainly a critical situation. I had already had a slight experience with the overpowering properties of zet and didn't care for further acquaintance with it. Meigs was nothing to me. He would have stripped the coat from a poor man's back, if he could have had his way on Earth, and it afforded me secret pleasure to see him hoisted by his own petard.

The trust magnate did not fail to take note of the war-like movements of the soldiers.

"Can't you do anything to save me, professor?" he pleaded.

"We shall not give you up," answered Quinn firmly. "Can you think of any way, Mr. Munn, whereby we can extricate ourselves from this difficulty?"

I have a quick mind, if I do say it, and a happy thought presented itself on the spur of the instant. Stooping, I picked up a stone; then, raising myself, I let the missile fly straight at the captain.

His shoulder-arms still held the word-box above his head, and the stone smashed against it and carried it away. It was rather neatly done, for the captain himself was left untouched.

"Bravo!" cried the professor. "You drew the fangs of the enemy by that trick, Mr. Munn. You have rendered the captain mute, and his men cannot act without orders."

I had already figured this out in my mind, and it was presently proved that I had not gone far from the mark. The captain recovered the word-box and attempted to use it, but its mechanism was so disarranged that the order to attack became a confused jumble that seemed to sound a retreat.

The whole company whirled and fled, their leader following and gesticulating wildly and helplessly with his arms. Meigs was saved for the present, and he should have thanked me for it--but he did not.

Seating himself on a bowlder, he gazed pensively down at the red kirtle.

"This is what I call the irony of fate," said he in a morose tone. "And then, on top of it all, to be called a thief!"

He leaned his bare elbows on his knees and dropped his face in his hands.

"How did this happen, Mr. Meigs?" asked the professor gently.

"Happen!" cried Meigs, lifting his head with a jerk and glaring at Quinn. "It would never have happened but for you!"

"Have you seen Gilhooly?" went on the professor, ignoring the reproach.

"Poor Gilhooly!" sighed Meigs. "He has become a power in the traction interests of the country. The last I saw of him he was hauling trains throughout the kingdom."

"We know that much already. How about Popham and Markham?"

"Alas!" groaned Meigs. "Popham is working like a galley-slave in a coal mine; and Markham--well, these little fiends are slowly starving him to death. All Markham does is to wander about the kingdom with a plate and a paddle begging food enough to keep body and soul together. Think of it! And the great Augustus Popham, owner of a controlling interest in all the great anthracite and bituminous fields of Earth, delving in the mines of this planet--no better than a two-dollar-a-day miner!"

"Coal fields!" I exclaimed. "What do they need of coal in these underground kingdoms?"

"They use the coal in the kingdoms of Baijinkz and Baigossh, which are situated at the poles," explained the professor. "During the long nights in those countries a certain degree of cold must prevail. But"--and here Quinn turned again to Meigs--"tell us what happened to you and the other two gentlemen during the storm which separated us."

"We managed to regain the car," replied Meigs. "We could not get in, of course, because you had the key, but we hung to the latticework at the windows. I am a little hazy as to what happened after that, but I think the car must have been picked up by a terrific gust and thrown to the bottom of that crater in the volcano."

"Ah!" murmured the professor, looking at me. "You remember, Mr. Munn, I told you I feared something of the kind would happen."

I nodded.

"Proceed, Mr. Meigs," added the professor. "This is all intensely interesting. Was the car seriously damaged?"

"I haven't seen the car," resumed Meigs. "A hiatus followed the blowing away of the castle, and when I opened my eyes again I was a prisoner in the hands of a legion of those one-eyed creatures. For two weeks I was kept confined--an object of curiosity for the whole kingdom, if I could judge from the way the little imps flocked to stare at me.

"After a time I was led off to a place where I joined Popham and Markham. Need I tell you how affecting that meeting was? Popham shed tears, and both Markham and myself were nearly unmanned.

"Our captors had some sort of a contrivance consisting of a small shaft and cord. One end of the cord was put to Markham's head and a slide flew up on the end of the shaft. Then Markham was led off, given a plate and paddle and cast adrift.

"Popham was the next one to have the queer machine tried on him. When he was removed my turn came."

Meigs wrung his hands despairingly.

"After the storm," he continued with an effort, "my costume was not as complete as I would have had it, but those impudent creatures denuded me still further. In self-defense I was forced to steal this red cloth and run for my life. Oh, it was terrible! Woe is me that I should ever have lived to see this day!"

"Some good may come out of this unfortunate experience, Mr. Meigs," said the professor.

"Good!" almost shouted Meigs. "Sir, you express yourself strangely. Is it good to have a man used to such luxury as I have been fleeing through these rocky underground hills merely because he committed theft in order to retain his self-respect? Have a care, sir! Do not think for a moment that I am under any misapprehension as to the real cause of my sorry situation."

"The king of this country is evidently a man of a humorous and practical turn," observed Professor Quinn after a little thought. "The indexograph made him familiar with the natural bent of you three gentlemen and he is seeking to show you the error of your ways. On Earth you were at one end of a trust; here you are placed at the other end. Really, I think the experience will prove most wholesome."

J. Archibald Meigs stared at the speaker with distended eyes.

"Is it possible," said he, "that your brain has been turned, like Gilhooly's?"

"Nonsense!" I struck in. "The professor's head is as clear as a bell. He's got the right of this thing, Meigs. The king of Baigadd is making you take a little of the medicine you measured out in such large doses on the other planet."

"You are both crazy," snarled Meigs. "I never stripped a man to his hide and threw him out in the cold world--as the king of this country has done to me, in a figurative sense."

"You don't know how much evil you have done," said Quinn, an expression on his face similar to the one I had seen when he jerked the lever and shot us into the unknown. "You have taken your pound of flesh, Mr. Meigs, but are now under the heel of a monopoly yourself."

"Stuff!" cried Meigs. "We will talk no longer about a matter in which you display such poor judgment. Although I have told you my story, I have heard little of yours. Am I to conclude that you and Munn purposely cut loose from myself and my friends? After bringing us to this miserable planet did you have the heart willfully to abandon us?"

"Not at all, Meigs," said the professor hastily.

I wondered if Meigs had forgotten all about the attempt he and his friends had made to abandon the professor and me? He was one of the most inconsistent men I have ever encountered.

"Like yourself and the others, Mr. Meigs," continued the professor, "Mr. Munn and I were taken prisoners----"

"But you were not treated with the same barbarity as the rest of us," burst out Meigs, his small mind finding even that a cause for temper. "You, who engineered the plot, and plunged us all into these terrific difficulties, escape the consequences. What is that banner?"

"We are under the protection of the ruler of the neighboring kingdom of Baigol. That is the royal standard."

"Ah," said Meigs bitterly, "you are even received at court--you and a professed thief--while Markham, Popham, Gilhooly, and I are no more than outcasts! Is there no such thing as justice, even on this disgusting planet? Look at me! _Look at me!_"

His final request for us to look at him was a frantic wail. He yanked savagely at his kirtle, and twisted his bare feet around in fearsome dejection.

"We are looking at you, Mr. Meigs," observed the professor quietly.

"Do you find any pleasure in the spectacle? Does not my situation arouse even a spark of pity? I do not ask Munn for his sympathy, but you, Professor Quinn, although criminally careless in evolving plans and carrying them out, are a scientist, and you must have a heart."

"My heart is wrung with your misfortunes," replied the professor gently, "but I realize that desperate diseases require desperate remedies."

"What disease are you referring to," snapped Meigs, suddenly changing his tack, "and what remedy?"

"The disease that afflicts our common country, and which you would deny and ridicule were I even to name it. The remedy, too, you would consider no remedy at all, but a useless infliction of discomfort and mental anguish. What you are undergoing, Mr. Meigs, is not accidental, but providential. The workings of fate are as marvelous as they are effective. Patience a little, and we shall see what we shall see."

"This is no time for oracular remarks!" scowled Meigs. "These four-handed, one-eyed demons are forcing Gilhooly, Markham, Popham, and me steadily toward destruction. Gilhooly, daft as he is, is pulling his heart out on their ugly little transportation system; Markham is galloping from place to place pounding his paddle against his dish and begging a few morsels of food; Popham is working like a galley-slave, and his wages, already insufficient to give him the necessary food he requires for his heart-breaking labor, are being systematically cut down; as for me, the army of Baigadd is at my heels. Baigadd!" and, in his extreme discouragement, Meigs gave vent to a wild, mirthless laugh. "Baigadd and Baigol! They sound like expletives from our own good planet, but altogether too mild to express the state of my feelings."

"Be calm," adjured the professor, with an apprehensive look at me.

"Calm!" echoed Meigs brokenly. "I shall be as mad as Gilhooly if this keeps up much longer." He started forward with a truculent air. "What are you going to do for me, Quinn?" he cried. "How are you going to get me out of this fix? Those infernal little soldiers went away, but they'll come back again. Then what?"

"We are here in the role of ambassadors," answered the professor, "and----"

"Munn an ambassador!" sneered Meigs, drawing away from me.

"And, as such, we are entitled to some courtesy at the hands of King Baigadd. I feel quite sure that, when the higher authorities understand you are my friend, they will be lenient in their treatment of you."

"That is rather a vague supposition on which to ground a man's hopes of life or death," muttered Meigs.

"It is all we can fall back on, Mr. Meigs. There are but six of us on this small planet, and we must make the inhabitants our friends. If we do not, annihilation will overtake the lot of us."

"We were fools ever to land on Mercury in the first place," pursued Meigs, still wild and unreasoning.

He stamped with his bare foot to emphasize his anger, and a sharp stone unexpectedly gave point to it. With a howl of pain he caught his foot in his hands.

I have never been called particularly hard-hearted, but somehow I took a measure of enjoyment out of all this. However, I had the grace to turn my head and conceal the smile.

"You must be careful, Mr. Meigs," warned the professor. "Sit down and rest yourself."

"Rest!" fumed Meigs, "just as though such a thing were possible! I am one of the miserable victims of your duplicity, and if I could have recourse to the law of our planet for about an hour, I would soon put you where you belong."

"Be sensible," I struck in, perhaps ill-advisedly. "You act like a whipped schoolboy, Meigs."

"I'll hear nothing from you," he cried, glaring at me.

"As I was saying, Mr. Meigs," proceeded the professor, "Mr. Munn and I, although we appear to be free, are, nevertheless, virtual prisoners of the king of Baigol. We are being sent to Baigadd upon an important mission, and on our success or failure depends, very largely----"

"That will do," interrupted the broker irritably; "I don't care to hear an account of your experiences, Quinn. It is evident, I think, that you and Munn have not been crossed by the same adversity which has overtaken myself and the others. I have a demand to make."

Meigs arose from the bowlder and struck an attitude which he intended to be both dignified and compelling. With his unshaven face and red kirtle he succeeded only in making himself ludicrous.

"What is the demand?" inquired Quinn.

"You and Munn are fairly well-clothed," replied Meigs, "and I demand that you share my distress to the extent of donating enough of your own clothing to make me presentable."

On the impulse of the moment the professor began removing his coat. When the garment was half off he changed his mind and slipped back into it again.

"No," he returned. "You have made your own bed, Mr. Meigs, and I think you should lie in it until you experience a change of heart. When you can truly say to Mr. Munn and me that you realize how sadly mistaken you were on the other planet, we will share your distress--but not till then."

"Out on you for a pair of heartless wretches!" exclaimed the broker angrily. "Your reasoning is false, and I will never yield assent to it. I wash my hands of both of you"--and he went through the motions--"and if our paths should cross in the future, it is my desire that we pass as strangers."

He glared at us, turned on his bare heel and made his way to the road. Then he strode off in the direction of the bend.

We watched him silently, the professor with apprehension and I with unrestrained enjoyment. As he was about to vanish from our sight we saw him come to a startled halt, gaze off along the road that lay beyond the bend, then throw up his arms, whirl and race back to us.

"They're coming!" he shouted frantically; "the whole army is coming! Is there no way you can save me, gentlemen? Think, for mercy's sake, _think_!"

Meigs was continually building barriers between himself and the professor and me, only to knock them down again whenever the slightest danger threatened him. Had I been the one to decide, he should then and there have been left to shift for himself.

*CHAPTER XII.*

*CONDEMNED TO DEATH.*

"Have courage, Mr. Meigs," said Professor Quinn. "It is my hope that some high personage may be with the approaching army, in which event the royal banner given us by the king of Baigol will be respected and prove the salvation of all three of us."

This great and good man was utterly incapable of harboring resentment against any one. He beguiled the plutocrats into his castle, I grant you, and shuffled them from the scene of their grievous labors, yet this was not because he loved the rich man less but the poor man more.

As I write these words, piecing my narrative together out of my commonplace book, a wave of affection and reverence rolls over me.

And often I steal forth o' nights when skies are propitious, gaze at Mercury through my telescope, and can almost fancy myself in communion with the gentle soul forever lost to its native planet. But I anticipate.

The retreating Gaddbaizets had reached headquarters and acquainted the high chief in command with the fact that two more colossi had appeared; so the major part of the king's forces had been ordered out. By tactful maneuvres, they were approaching from all sides.

A cordon was drawn around us--a cordon of soldiers with their flashing zetbais presented. One hostile move would have placed the seal on our death warrant.

The high chief, perhaps fearing his word-box might be wrecked as his captain's had been, had evidently laid plans and given all orders in advance of his attack on our position. The assault was noiseless, swift, and sure.

When completely surrounded by the troops, a number of the soldiers disengaged themselves from various points of the circle. These soldiers carried lances at least ten feet long.

The lances were held high, and to the point of each the upper edge of a net was made fast, the lower edge of the net trailing along the ground.

As the lancemen advanced the net took the form of a rapidly contracting circle, the professor, Meigs, and myself in the centre.

In less than five minutes we three colossi were stoutly encompassed by the net, hurled together and thrown in a helpless jumble. The web was finely woven and of a material that defied our efforts to break through it.

Professor Quinn made a fierce attempt to use his word-box, but he was held so rigidly that he could not do so. One by one we were disentangled, the upper parts of our bodies were wrapped about in sections of the net so that only our legs were free, and we were forced to proceed with our captors, the army marching on every side of us.

Meigs was loudly bewailing his evil fortune.

"Take heart, man!" cried Quinn. "If I can see the king or get word to him I am sure that all will yet be well."

"It's all day with us," returned Meigs with a groan, "and you cannot make me believe otherwise."

There was no twilight in the nether kingdoms. Day leaped into night as swiftly as a curtain falls on a stage play.

Long before we reached our destination we were in Stygian blackness. There were no artificial illuminants known to the creatures of the under-world, and they had no need of them. Their single eyes were gifted with power to see at night almost as keenly as in the daytime.

When we had traveled several hours we were made to halt and a circle of zet, similar to the one that had imprisoned Quinn and myself in Baigol, was reared around us. Thereupon we were freed of the nets and left to ourselves.

The instant he was able to make use of his hands the professor grabbed his word-box and began shooting questions into the opaque gloom that hemmed us in.

"Why have you taken us prisoners? What harm have we ever done you? We are under the protection of King Golbai. Did not the captain of the other detachment so inform you?"

Answer came back:

"You have been taken prisoners because you resisted the royal authority and tried to protect a man who stole goods from our regal master. Theft of goods from his majesty's storehouse is punishable with death. Even ambassadors from King Golbai are not above the laws of our realm."

"What is to be our fate?"

"Zet," was the laconic answer. "You will all three be slain by the executioner-general as soon as may be after the great reflector sends its first gleam of day through the kingdom."

That ended the professor's talk with our unseen enemy who, presumably, was the high chief of the forces. It was sufficiently discouraging, although I was reckless enough to ease my feelings with a few expletives on Key 7--the most insolent and defiant that I had learned in Baigol.

"Mr. Munn, Mr. Munn!" cried Quinn in rebuke. "This is no time to express yourself in that key."

"I am not endowed with your magnificent forbearance, professor," said I, "and I had to say something."

"What's it all about, anyway?" asked Meigs.

"We are to die at sunrise, Meigs," I answered roughly, "or as soon after sunrise as the executioner-general may find it convenient."

"I would have spared Mr. Meigs that information," said the professor.

"He ought to have time to prepare himself," I returned. "As the night is far spent I am going to turn in and snatch forty winks against the time the reflectors begin to work. Good night, professor," I added, as I stretched out on the ground. "I don't amount to much more than Meigs, and will never be missed, but I am sorry for you."

Quinn groped for my hand.

"Life, in itself, is a small thing," said he, "no matter whether it is long or short. It is what we do with life that counts, Mr. Munn."

"I have no regrets for what I have done with mine," I declared.

And I had not. Conscience did not accuse me in the least. Never had I taken a penny from those who could not afford to lose it.

"Think again, Mr. Munn!" implored the professor. "I would not have you face your doom in that mental attitude. Surely your senses are not blunted to the evil of your past life?"

"Sir," I answered, imbued to the core with the sophistry that had made me what I was, "I have been a financier in a small way. Not having the requisite capital for large operations, I was compelled to work in a small way. My business, however, while it may not have been as legitimate, was every whit as honest as that of Meigs and his associates."

"If you men would stop that useless palavering," called Meigs, from somewhere in the dark, "and try to think of some way for making our escape, you would be putting in your time to better advantage."

"Never mind him, professor," said I. "This is probably the last opportunity we shall ever have for an extended talk. At such a time a man speaks from the heart, and I want you to know just where I stand."

"Just a moment, Mr. Munn." The professor turned his head to answer Meigs. "It is impossible for us to escape," said he. "Even if we could get away from here, we should find the entire country in arms against us."

"Possibly we could get back to that other benighted kingdom from which you and the thief come accredited as ambassadors?" returned Meigs.

"It is a hard journey from here, Mr. Meigs, and we should be overtaken and recaptured before we could cross the border into a friendly country. Before we could take to flight, however, we should have to beat down the barrier of zet that hems its in. That, as I know from experience, is out of the question."

Meigs began to complain, and to find fault, and the professor turned from him and went on talking with me.

"I have brought these troubles upon you, Mr. Munn," he continued, a sad note in his voice, "and upon the others. It seems impossible to accomplish any great good without causing some small amount of misery."

"Don't let my situation worry you," I remarked. "While constantly exercising my wits to secure the best fortune for myself, I have always made it a point to be prepared for the worst. I shall face the zetbais in the morning without the quiver of an eyelid."

"Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Munn," said the professor earnestly. "While I grieve that matters should have fallen out in this fashion, yet I would not undo the one thing which brought us into these troubled waters. In other words, I would rather be here, in Njambai, with death staring us in the face, than back there on Terra, with Meigs, Markham, Popham, and Gilhooly free to work out their nefarious plans."

"That's the spirit!" I cried warmly.

"It's the spirit that has put many a man in the penitentiary," called Meigs, who appeared to be following our conversation even if he was not taking any part in it.

I turned with a stinging reply on my lips, but the professor dropped a hand on my arm, and I held my peace.

"We are sharing together our last few hours," said he, "and let us have no quarrelsome talk. Personally, I have a good deal of charity for Meigs. He is a man who, until very recently, has been accustomed to having scores of people wait upon his slightest nod. Here he has been subjected to much indignity, and at the hands of a people whom he believes to be his inferiors. Naturally that renders him disagreeable."

"He might, at least, have the grace to leave you alone," I answered.

"Not so, Mr. Munn. He is perfectly right in badgering me. I am at fault, so far as he and his associates are concerned, and he knows it. I do not expect approbation at their hands, but at the hands of those, in far-away Terra, whom my drastic actions have helped. Your calm acceptance of your fate is so different from the attitude of Meigs that it touches me deeply. You have the same cause to blame and abuse me, and yet you let the opportunity pass."

"It has been worth something, professor," I responded, "to stand at your side and to pass through these remarkable adventures shoulder to shoulder with you."

"Thank you for that, my friend."

"I have no doubt," I continued, "that if you and I were to be spared, you might in time lead me to see what you are disposed to call the error of my way, for you are a master hand at arguing; but, as I am at present, I feel that my chances in the next world are as good as any one's. The rich have taken from the poor in a way that the law sanctions; and I have taken from the rich in a way the law does not sanction, and, in a few rare instances, have given to the poor. There's nothing in that to oppress my conscience. The only thing I am sorry for is that I entered your castle with my felonious intention centred upon your property. Now that I know you so well, my plan to steal from you looks more like a crime than anything else I have done."

"Munn," he replied, "it grieves me to think that your career is to be cut short before you have had an opportunity to reform. However"--and he sighed softly--"there is no escaping fate on our own planet or on this. Good night to you."

I was dog-tired and went off into slumber the moment I closed my eyes. About the last thing I heard was the peevish voice of Meigs resisting what little comfort the professor tried to offer him.

I was aroused by the professor.

"The first gleam of day, Mr. Munn," said he, bending over me with a quiet smile.

I rubbed my eyes and got the cobwebs out of my brain. Yes, it was the first gleam of day--our last day.

We were in an open square in the heart of a diminutive city. From every side radiated trim little streets bordered thickly with white dwellings.

In front of us was a palace, rising dome upon dome until it stood full thirty feet high. Inhabitants of the royal city were already abroad, walking rapidly or gathering in groups and using their word-boxes excitedly.

"Toot! toot! Ting-a-ling-a-ling!"

The familiar sounds came from a distance, and I sprang erect and with the professor gazed in the direction from which they reached us. Presently Gilhooly came along with a loaded train.

He halted in front of the palace, the passengers disembarked and Gilhooly bent over the cars, picked them up carefully and turned them the other way along the V-shaped groove.

"All aboard!" he cried, and a minute later he was off and away.

"Poor Gilhooly!" murmured Quinn. "He is bringing excursionists to witness our execution. I am glad that he does not know what he is doing and that Meigs is asleep."

Quinn laid his hand on my shoulder.

"I deeply regret, Mr. Munn," he went on, "that I am the indirect cause of Gilhooly's lunacy. It was a great surprise to me to find that his intellect was not strong enough to withstand the ordeal to which I subjected it."

"It couldn't be helped, professor," I returned. "It was a grand idea of yours--that of abducting these trust magnates and placing them where they could do no harm to the poor of our planet. What though one mind has been wrecked? Better that than the misery and enslavement of hundreds of thousands."

"Mr. Munn," said the professor with feeling, "I thank you. Such words from a companion who is about to suffer jointly with me the extreme penalty prove that you are a man of parts and fitted for a nobler walk in life than the one you have heretofore taken. I am very, very sorry that you are to be cut off so soon."

Quinn was fortitude itself, his courage born of a knowledge of duty well done. I am prone to believe, also, that I myself was not less firm, although a less laudable cause lay back of it.

The square, I should judge, measured about two hundred feet on each side. While the professor and I were engaged in talk, sight-seers had been gathering in the streets, keeping carefully to the sidewalk boundaries of the open space.

Every eye was turned upon the professor and myself and the sleeping Meigs. The broker was snoring dismally, the sound rumbling above the babble of the word-boxes and echoing through the adjacent thoroughfares.

"What has happened to the executioner-general?" I said to the professor. "He isn't very punctual in keeping his engagement with us, it seems to me. We have had daylight for an hour."

"Something has gone wrong, Mr. Munn," Quinn answered, taking note of a ripple of excitement that ran through the crowds around us. "Ah! Here comes the high chief of the military forces. He has his word-box ready, so I suppose he is going to explain."

The high chief was pushing through the throng into the square, two of his hands holding a word-box and the other two a zetbai. Advancing upon us, he halted just without the ring.

"Be patient, gentlemen," he said through his talk machine. "You will not be kept waiting much longer."

"We are not so wildly impatient as you seem to think," I sent back at him; whereupon he tittered a little with Key 7.

Seeing that I was getting ready to use the same key for a few expletives, the professor made haste to break in.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"It has just been discovered that there is no white paint in the king's storehouse," replied the high chief.

"What is the white paint to be used for?" came curiously from the professor.

"The executioner-general is obliged by law to give himself a fresh coat of white paint at every execution. It would be impossible for him to perform his function without first complying with the statute."

"Could not some one else, who has been freshly decorated, do the work in his stead?" I inquired, somewhat flippantly.

"No," answered the high chief. "He is the only one in the kingdom who is duly empowered to execute criminals. Our executioner is a proud person, and jealous of the prerogatives of his office. He receives no less than two kanos for every happy dispatch that he performs. In this case he will be the richer by six kanos, so you will understand how anxious he is to have everything done as it should be."

A kano was the equivalent of a half cent of our own money; so that our one-time millionaire, Mr. J. Archibald Meigs, was to yield up his valuable life and help swell the executioner-general's income to the extent of a single copper. Had he been awake, I should have explained the matter to him so that he might have still further expatiated upon the irony of fate.

This kingdom of Baigadd differed from the other kingdom with which we had already made acquaintance in one material respect: The surface of the country had shrunk much farther from the outer crust of the planet.

In Baigol, for instance, we were always able to see the vault that covered us; but in Baigadd the sight reached into nothing but empty space.

Shortly after the high chief had finished speaking there came a flourish of word-boxes from the direction of the palace. Turning our eyes toward that point we beheld two resplendent soldiers in turrets to right and left of the richly hung balcony.

"Hail to our munificent sovereign, Gaddbai, ruler of the realm and mightiest monarch of Njambai!"

Thus the paeans of the soldiers.

The words were echoed by the crowd, and a surging roar went up from the talking machines: "Hail to his majesty, King Gaddbai!"

On the heels of the tumult the kaka draperies parted at the rear of the royal balcony and the king appeared, bowed and seated himself. He had a reserved seat for the performance and could see everything that took place.

"Let the executioner-general stand forth, prepare himself for his work and then proceed--all in the royal presence!"

Instantly the master of ceremonies put in an appearance. He wore a white kirtle, carried himself with a lordly air, and was followed by a retinue of attendants.

Two of the attendants bore the official zetbais; another carried the official word-box; four more were dragging a cart on spherical wheels--an open cart laden with an object that startled us.

"Great heavens, Mr. Munn!" gasped the professor. "Unless my eyes deceive me, the executioner-general is having my tub of anti-gravity compound hauled after him!"

"Your eyes do not deceive you, sir," I made answer.

"But what in the world are they going to do with it?"

"We shall be able to tell in a few moments. Look! The executioner takes his word-box and kneels; he is about to address the king."

"Your majesty," said the executioner-general through his talking machine, "your slave craves your indulgence in the matter of preparing for this happy dispatch. The supply of the official pigment is quite exhausted, and it has been found necessary to fall back upon the white paint that was found in the dwelling recently fallen from the top of the crater."

"Will it answer the purpose?" demanded the king.

"It is white, your majesty, and of proper consistency. So far as I can see, it will answer the purpose well."

"Then proceed with your preparations. I would have this matter over with as quick as possible."

Of course Quinn and I understood all this. I knew that the professor was meditating a final appeal to the king, and he shot a strange look at me as his trembling hands lifted his word-box.

"Before the executioner-general proceeds, your majesty," remarked the professor, his fingers none too steady, "will you allow me a word?"

His majesty gave an exclamation of surprise.

"Where have you learned our language?" he inquired.

"In Baigol, your majesty. We come from that country on a visit to you, under the protection of the royal banner of Golbai."

The professor nodded to me and I shook out the banner and held it aloft.

"My royal friend," said Gaddbai, "should have been more particular in choosing the subjects he sends to visit my realm. The sleeping colossus, in the ring with you raided my storehouse, and you sought to save him from capture. For that lawless act death has been decreed to all three of you, and the sentence must be carried out."

"But we were ignorant of the law," pleaded the professor.

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse."