Chapter V: Part 5

"The gentleman in the red kirtle is a friend of ours----"

"If we know a person by the company he keeps, that speaks ill for you," interrupted the sovereign.

"You are determined to have us slain, your majesty?"

"It is my royal will."

"Then I shall have to set forces at work to combat the royal will," said the professor calmly.

Cries of consternation and anger went up on every hand. The king rose wrathfully from his seat.

"You dare to dispute my authority?" he demanded.

"I dare to dispute your ability to slay us," returned Quinn. "Your executioner will disappear from before your eyes if he attempts it."

The king laughed ironically.

"We shall see," he said, sinking placidly back on his seat. "Let the executioner-general proceed with his preparations."

I was greatly pleased with the drift of affairs. Circumstances had conspired to favor us, and the professor was making the most of his opportunity.

The executioner-general motioned to one of his attendants and then raised his four hands above his head. A moment later the attendant had seized the whitewash brush, dabbed it into the anti-gravity compound, and with two quick strokes had covered the executioner's chest and back.

Had a third stroke been needed it could not have been given. In a flash the official had been snatched away, vanishing like a streak of white in the void above.

The king rose gasping, clutching at the balcony rail. The throng around us was paralyzed for a space, and not a word-box was heard.

As for Quinn, he had struck an attitude, his left hand raised aloft and his glittering, bead-like eyes transfixing the king.

*CHAPTER XIII.*

*A THREATENING CALAMITY.*

And through all this J. Archibald Meigs slept placidly on. Presently a perfect roar of awe and dismay broke from thousands of word-boxes. In the midst of the hubbub the king could be seen waving his hands to command silence and attention. The glittering soldiers in the turrets sounded a clarion warning and silence fell once more.

"Marvelous are the powers of these colossi!" cried the king with trembling voice. "The sleeping thief receives my royal pardon; the offense of his two friends, in attempting to succor him, is condoned. From now henceforth these three are my honored guests! Let all take heed!"

I caught the professor's hand and gave it a fervent clasp.

"You saved our lives, professor," said I.

"Hardly," he returned, smiling. "It was the anti-gravity compound that did that. Now that we can inflate our lungs without catching our breath, suppose we waken Mr. Meigs."

On being aroused Meigs sat up and stared around at him. He was not long in picking up the trend of events where he had left off during the night.

"Are they ready to--to kill us?" he asked, clasping his hands.

"They are not going to kill us, Mr. Meigs," answered the professor. "The king has changed his mind, and we are now his honored guests."

"You don't mean it!" exclaimed the broker.

The professor replied that he did mean it, and went on to tell how the unexpected result had been accomplished. Before he had fairly finished, the king, clad in his robes of state and accompanied by a dozen members of his household, could be seen approaching across the square.

Attendants followed the royal party, bearing basins of food, a chair on which his majesty could repose himself and a canopy to shield his august person from the reflected rays of the sun.

"The first thing you do, Quinn," said Meigs, while the royal party was making itself comfortable, "tell the king I've got to have my clothes."

"Have patience, Mr. Meigs," answered the professor.

"Patience?" spluttered Meigs. "Merciful powers, man! How can I be patient and cut such a figure as this?"

"Attend his majesty!" came from a word-box among the king's suite. "Our gracious sovereign is about to speak."

Our close attention being secured, the king remarked:

"Now that these colossi have been spared they will need food. See that it is given them."

This command was very satisfactory to me, for I was little short of famished. Presently our paddles were flying over the basins, and we were breaking our fast in a way that made the king open his eyes.

The lord of the exchequer--a most important officer of state--drew near his majesty and said that if the kingdom was going to board us for any length of time it would behoove them to till all the crown lands and get every available acre into produce.

The king made answer that the little man with the beady eyes was a wonder-worker; he had taken care of the executioner-general with a mere wave of the hand, and no doubt he could, with a stamp of the foot, materialize as much food as he wanted and whenever he wanted.

The lord of the exchequer thereupon retired in much confusion.

In the midst of our repast we were startled by a voice behind us.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen! Out of your abundant store will you not have the goodness to give me a few mouthfuls of food? I'm starving, literally starving!"

"Markham!" cried Meigs, whirling around.

"Mr. Markham!" exclaimed the professor.

The food-trust magnate was fully clad, although his clothing showed signs of much hard usage. His cheeks were sunken and pale, while his eyes were round and abnormally bright. In his left hand was a metal plate, and in his right a small paddle.

Both Meigs and Quinn started toward Markham with the food that still remained in their basins. The zet-ring, however, reared its intangible barrier between so that Markham could not so much as touch the receptacles extended toward him.

It was pathetic to watch this one-time master of millions struggling to get the coveted food. He would throw himself at it and recoil trembling from the mysterious force that had shocked and baffled him; he would sink to his knees or leap in the air, trying to reach above or below the invisible barrier; and then he would dissemble, slink toward the basins and make a sudden dash, as though the strong chemical was an enemy whom he thought he could take off its guard.

At last he gave over and turned away with a despairing moan. Meigs faced the king and began an angry outburst which the professor made haste to interrupt.

"Your majesty," said Quinn, "this needy gentleman is also a friend of ours. Will you not supply his wants, or enable us to do so?"

"The indexograph informed me as to his character," answered the king, "and it is a law of the realm that punishment must fit the crime. When your friend will truly acknowledge himself in the wrong his needs will be plentifully supplied. Until that time he must beg his food from house to house, morsel by morsel."

"And this other gentleman in the kirtle," proceeded the professor, "will you not exercise a little clemency in his case?"

"I have already exercised a good deal of clemency," the king answered; "nor can I go any further until he also announces a change of heart."

Markham was as deaf to the word-boxes as was Meigs, and his majesty's will was interpreted to them.

"I am not in the wrong!" declared Markham. "The principle involved is of vital importance, and I will die for it, if need be."

"So will I," averred Meigs.

"We will eliminate your friends from our calculations for the present," said the king. "Just now I would like to know what has become of my executioner-general."

"He is pinned to the roof of the under-world," said the professor.

"Can you bring him back?" asked the king, turning his eye aloft. "Really, I don't see how we are to get along without him."

"Possibly I can return him to you," answered the professor. "I will try, at least, providing you will grant a request I have to make."

This dallying with the royal prerogative was not well received by his majesty, nor by those around him.

"What request would you make, in case I was inclined to receive it?" asked the king.

"I would have you bring out the Bolla and allow these two gentlemen to take it in their hands."

The king gave a start, and a look of consternation overspread the faces of those in his retinue.

"Where did you hear of the Bolla?" the king asked sharply.

"In the other kingdom, your majesty," the professor replied.

The king was silent a few moments.

"We will take that matter up later," said he finally. "From whence come you and your friends? That point has been bothering me for some little time."

"We come from another planet which is called the Earth," said Quinn.

"Does the planet you speak of circle around our sun?"

"Yes, your majesty."

"Is it as large as Njambai?"

"Much larger, your majesty."

"And are all the creatures on Earth two-handed, as large as you, and able to communicate thoughts without a word-box?"

"The inhabitants of Earth are just as you see us. But they do not live beneath the crust of the planet. The sun's rays are so tempered by the time they reach the Earth that beings are able to live in comfort on the outer shell."

The king clapped two of his hands at this, and gave other evidence of his pleasure on the word-box.

"Most wonderful!" he exclaimed, and launched into a series of questions concerning the physical attributes of our mother planet and the character and institutions of its people.

Quinn answered him fully, expatiating on the progress in arts and sciences already made by the Earth dwellers. The king's wonder grew into awe and admiration. Rising from his chair he paced back and forth in front of us, thinking deeply.

"What sort of weapons have your people?" he inquired at last.

The professor described our powder-and-shot machines to the best of his ability. The king was puzzled.

"Don't they know anything about zet on your native orb?" he inquired.

"No," answered the professor. "There is no zet in our atmosphere."

"Suppose a company of my soldiers were to land on Earth, fully equipped with zetbais. Could they be resisted?"

Quinn shuddered.

"No, your majesty, they could not be resisted. With your wonderful zetbais you could conquer and lay waste the entire planet. Candor compels me to tell you this, knowing full well that such a result would not be possible to you."

"Why impossible?" cried the king, with wild enthusiasm. "You and your friends must have come hither in that strange house which fell into the crater. Why could I not load a company of my soldiers into the house and go back with you?"

Then, and only then, did we see what this crack-brained monarch was driving at. Quinn was in trepidation over the outcome.

"Such a thing is not to be thought of!" he cried. "Your majesty, let me beg you not to give your attention to such a quixotic project!"

"I am fully resolved!" exclaimed the king, striding up and down with clinched hands. "It is a very alluring picture you give me of this planet called Earth. I'll conquer it, annex it and own it."

He halted and raised his word-box.

"Ho, there, Olox!" he cried.

The high chief stepped forward and made the royal salaam of four hands.

"We are going forth to conquer the solar system, Olox," paid the king in a brisk, matter-of-fact way.

"Yes, your majesty," answered Olox, as readily as though the capturing of a planet or two was an every-day occurrence.

"You have overheard what this strange two-handed creature has been telling me?" went on the king.

"Yes, your majesty."

"Trains that burn the black blocks and need not be hauled by hand! Green vegetation, laughing rivers and babbling brooks all on the outer shell! Rich cities, stores of art and heaps of yellow gold! These, and myriad other marvelous things are on the Earth, Olox, and guarded only by two-handed, five-fingered colossi, who have to load a tube of iron with black powder and round missiles before they can attack their foes!"

The king threw back his head and laughed on the word-box. Taking a cue from the king, Olox also laughed, and so did the others.

"And these Earth dwellers can't even see in the dark!" rippled the king with contemptuous fingers.

"But they are large, your majesty," ventured the high chief.

"Large and therefore awkward; not quick like our people, Olox. The zetbai is the key to the situation. We could girdle the green star of these colossi, devastate it and destroy all who sought to oppose us. That is what we shall do."

"It will be a noble campaign, your majesty."

"Noble? That is not the word, Olox. It will be stupendous! We'll monopolize everything when we get there, my dear sir--everything we can get our hands on. And I guess we can get our hands on whatever there is--zet will clear every obstacle out of our way."

The king looked at the theoretical side. Olox, naturally, had an eye to the practical.

"What are your orders for the campaign, your majesty?" he asked.

"I shall leave a regent to look after Baigadd," said the king, "and myself accompany the expedition. You will be the military head, Olox."

"Yes, your majesty. We are to go in the metal house?"

"It is the only thing we have to go in. The metal house was unhurt by its fall into the crater?"

"That appears to be the case, your majesty, strange as it may seem. It fell into the kingdom right side up and----"

"The interior is in good condition?"

"Very good, your majesty."

"My orders to the effect that nothing should be removed from it have been carried out?"

"The executioner-general would have that tub of white pigment. Nothing else has been taken from the house."

"Very good. How many of our people will the house contain comfortably?"

"I should say that fifty or more could dwell in it without much inconvenience."

"Then select fifty soldiers, the flower of the Gaddbaizets. Among your stores be sure you have a good supply of black kaka. I want some one who is away up in ideographs to accompany the expedition as historian."

"It will be attended to, your highness."

The king turned and aimed his word-box at the professor.

"Is that tub of white pigment essential to the proper equipment of the metal house?" he asked.

"Very essential," replied Quinn.

Three weeks and more in the nether kingdoms had whitened us considerably, but the professor's face was now a sickly grayish color.

"Then I will have it taken back to the house," said the king.

He gave orders to that end at once, and the cart was laid hold of and drawn out of the square and down the street, Olox accompanying it.

"I had no idea," the king drummed on his word-box, "that there were any people in the solar system with so much wealth and so little power with which to guard it. I've got the other three kingdoms of Njambai pretty well under my thumb, and the regent I leave behind to boss things will have an easy time of it. Quite possibly I may conclude not to come back to Njambai. This other star has natural advantages which we do not seem to have here, and may prove a more comfortable place in which to live."

Professor Quinn was shivering, like a man with an ague. He proceeded to use his talk-machine, and the words shook under his unsteady fingers.

"What you are thinking of, your majesty," ran the professor's words, "is only the wildest of dreams."

"I have had dreams before, and wild ones," the king's word-box rattled off complacently, "and I have made them come true. It shall be the same with this. I am a conqueror, and I come of a line of conquerors."

"There are millions upon millions of people on our planet," persisted the professor, despairingly. "They could hurl these countless numbers against you faster than you could slay them with your zetbais."

Key 7 of the royal word-box gave a screech of contempt.

"Suppose we draw a line of zet," the box added, when the derision had died out, "imprison groups of those countless numbers and then wipe them out by detachments? How would that work?"

"The atmosphere of Earth is different from that of Mercury," continued the professor. "You cannot draw zet from the air of our planet."

"Thanks for the hint," replied the king. "We will take an ample supply with us and charge the atmosphere with it. Then we shall have a store at hand whenever the need develops."

While the king was using his word-box with two of his hands, he was rubbing the other two together with ill-concealed delight.

"Conditions there are absolutely unknown to you, your majesty," persisted the professor in a frantic endeavor to turn the king from his designs. "You will be brought face to face, at every turn, with situations that will puzzle you and be fraught with danger. All the nations of the Earth will combine against you."

"Let them combine!" was the monarch's answer. "I hope they will display sufficient strength to make the campaign exciting. I will capture this Earth of yours and rule over it! From one end of it to the other I will make it mine! I have long felt that Njambai was too small for the proper exercise of my wide abilities."

"This is your world," the professor thumped angrily on his word-box, "and you have no right to meddle with any other planet."

That caused the king to turn his keen eye on the professor, and to keep it there for a full minute.

"I have the right to do whatever I see fit," snapped his talk machine. "There is no will in this kingdom but mine, and no other will in the four kingdoms, if I choose to have it so. But why are you saying such things on your word-box? After firing me with a kingly ambition to capture and annex a distant planet, why do you proceed to throw discouragement in my way? Ha! I wonder if you have been telling me the truth?"

"Your majesty," hummed the professor's talk machine, with dignity, "I am not in the habit of making misstatements."

"We'll find out whether you are or not," came from the king. "This is an important matter, and I shall take no man's word for anything. Ho, there!" and the word-box was leveled at some of the retainers; "bring an indexograph, varlets! We will settle this question of veracity here and now."

Some of the retainers scurried away and vanished inside the palace. Presently they reappeared with the indexograph.

The professor was backward in facing the test--strangely backward, as I thought, for a man so clear-minded and conscientious.

"The test is not necessary," he demurred.

"Your actions are far from being open and aboveboard," remarked the king. "You must submit."

The royal eye was on the machine as the professor was tried out. The ideograph told of a truthful mind, sadly perturbed. The royal word-box chattered mirthfully.

"You are afraid I can accomplish my purpose!" laughed his majesty. "You are worried about your planet! Such a state of mind merely enhances my determination, for you, if I mistake not, are a clever man. You would not feel worried if you did not believe I could accomplish what I have in mind. But be at peace, my dear sir. You shall in nowise suffer. I will make you ruler of one of the captured kingdoms."

This was no lure for the professor. He maintained an attitude of dignified silence, watching the king with steady eyes.

"A wise general," went on his majesty, "always looks over his ground, as well as he may, before going out to battle. That will be advisable in the case of my present campaign."

"What do you mean by that, your majesty?" queried the professor.

"To-night," explained the king, again, "we shall mount to the upper crust and make a reconnoissance of this orb I am to subjugate."

"Have you any astronomical instruments?" asked Quinn.

"None whatever," replied the king. "Have you?"

"There is an instrument in the steel car which will bring the planet Terra much nearer to us than the naked eye could do."

"What is it? Describe the instrument to me and I will have it brought out for our night's work."

The professor described the telescope, and the king dispatched a messenger after Olox in hot haste, with supplementary orders. Thereupon the king bade us farewell and left the square, followed by his suite.

As I stood watching the royal party out of sight, I heard a gurgling groan behind me. Facing about I saw the professor reeling unsteadily; the next moment I had caught him in my arms and saved him a fall.

*CHAPTER XIV.*

*PLAN TO STEAL A BUILDING.*

Professor Quinn did not become unconscious. The frightful catastrophe that threatened Terra had preyed upon him at the expense of his strength. Easing him to the ground, I dropped beside him and held his head on my knee.

"Cheer up, professor," said I. "It surprises me to see you give way like this."

"Mr. Munn," he returned brokenly, "if this rattle-brained monarch goes out into the universe with a picked company of fifty men and a hundred zetbais, it will mean that the whole solar system will get a set-back to a period corresponding with our Middle Ages!

"These creatures of Njambai are far beneath those of Terra in civilization, and fate has placed in their hands the terrible zetbai, a weapon whose destructive powers are beyond compute.

"Oh, Mr. Munn, think of our government being overwhelmed by these four-handed, one-eyed creatures! Think of the word-box screeching through the lofty corridors of the Capitol at Washington, where the soul-stirring eloquence of Senators and Representatives has been thundered amain! Think of the----"

The professor could give no added touch to the harrowing picture. Throwing his hands to his face, he groaned aloud.

"This hasn't happened yet," said I.

"No, but it will happen unless we can do something to circumvent the mad scheme. Anarchy will reign in our beloved land--over the whole earth--and I will be held responsible. Ah, me! In removing the trust magnates I have but paved the way for a mightier monopolist! I have but followed the sad example of Frankenstein, for out of my plans has sprung a monstrous project that will check progress and hurl civilization back five hundred years."

"Don't give up hope," said I, but not very cheerfully, for I was greatly cast down. "Let us pretend to help them. We will lend our aid in making the car ready, and then, at the final moment, perhaps we can dart away and leave them behind; or, failing in that, we may be able to throw the zetbais from the car while in space. That will pull the fangs of the Baigadds, I think, and they will land on Earth as harmless as a lot of kittens."

The professor took heart at this. He would have rallied any way, for his resourceful nature could not struggle long in the slough of despond.

J. Archibald Meigs had been circling around the edge of our barrier seeking for another glimpse of Markham and even calling his name with all his lung power. But the food-trust magnate neither answered nor showed himself, being engaged in a house-to-house canvass for the pittance of provender that would keep him alive.

Meigs finally turned to us and demanded the cause of the professor's downcast air. Quinn revealed the king's plot and Meigs tore off into an outburst of recrimination, just as I expected he would do.

The professor bowed his head meekly to the tempest and even restrained me when I would have put a stop to the broker's intemperate language.

By and by we had our noon meal, and with the attendants who brought it came Olox, seating himself on the ground and watching us as we ate. The high chief was quite amiable, and I began asking him questions relative to our surroundings.

He indicated the king's private apartments in the palace, and pointed out his own residence, as well as the dwelling occupied by the late executioner-general, besides vouchsafing other information of interest.

"What is that small, square building under the wing of the palace?" I asked.

"That is the imperial exchequer," said he. "Within that building the king keeps the most priceless of all his treasures."

"And what is that?" inquired the professor.

"The Bolla," was the startling answer.

Quinn and I exchanged expressive glances. Here, through a chance remark by Olox, we were suddenly reminded of our duty to the king of Baigol. It was necessary that Olox should not see the startled looks which the professor and I were exchanging, and Mercurial eyes were preternaturally sharp.

"Bolla?" I allowed to come limpingly from the talk instrument. "What may that be?"

"A stone," answered Olox, and there was suspicion in his manner in spite of my attempt to avert it. "You already know of the Bolla. Your friend requested his majesty to have it brought out, and at that time you said that you had heard of it in the other kingdom."

"So we did," I replied, trimming my sails to another breeze, "but what is it? Our information is rather vague."

"A stone, as I just said," went on Olox. "It has a beneficial moral and physical effect on whoever touches it."

"Where did it come from?"

"It has been in Njambai for ages," was the indefinite answer.

"How did King Gaddbai get hold of it?"

"He borrowed it from the king of Baigol."

"And yet you call it one of his treasures! If it was borrowed, Olox, how could it possibly belong here?"

"King Gaddbai has taken it," was the calm response. "What he wants he makes his own. If King Golbai had not loaned the stone, there would have been a war."

"Was that the right thing for your king to do?" inquired the professor.

"Whatever our sovereign does is right."

There was no getting around a flat statement of that sort. Evidently the ruler of the country had drilled his subjects thoroughly.

"What did you do at the car, Olox?" said the professor.

"At the iron house?" The professor nodded.

Nods and gestures were well understood by the people of Njambai, for, with four hands, they were well equipped for finger and whole arm movements.

"The king's orders were carried out, at the iron house," finished Olox.

"The paint was returned to its proper place?"

"Even so."

"And the telescope----'

"That matter was attended to."

"I trust you handled the telescope with care? It is exceedingly fragile and could be easily injured."

"After the king spoke as he did, death by zet would be meted out to the one who injured the instrument."

There were several things I wanted to ask Olox, and the principal one had to do with Gilhooly, and the way he had been taken from the car and made to serve the traction interests of the kingdom. However, the professor was keeping Olox so busy with his word-box that my own questions were crowded out.

"The family of the executioner-general are anxious to have him returned," remarked Olox, while the professor was looking for the proper key on which to formulate his next question. "Could that be accomplished?"

"It might," replied the professor guardedly.

"What has become of him?"

"He disappeared as he was about to commit a deed of base injustice," said the professor grimly.

"We are aware of that," and Olox looked uneasily around as he punched the words, "but we are ignorant of the cause of his disappearance. He is a distant relative of mine, and I promised his next of kin to put these questions to you. Is he alive?"

"Undoubtedly."

Olox pressed closer and muffled his word-box so that the sounds could not carry to dangerous limits.

"If you would tell us how to proceed in the matter of getting the executioner-general back," he whispered, "I can promise you and your friends help in getting out of the country."

"Look out for the indexograph, Olox," said I. "If they should happen to give you a try out with it, the ideograph wouldn't look well to the king."

Olox was greatly shaken--so shaken, in fact, that he could not pursue the subject further.

"I will talk with you later about the executioner-general," he finished, noting the empty dishes before the professor and Meigs and me, and the curious manner of those who had come with him. "Until then, pray consider that nothing has been said on the subject." With that, he arose and beckoned to his companions.

After Olox had led the attendants away with the empty food receptacles, the professor and I got our heads together on the mission that had brought us to Baigadd.

We did not think it necessary or advisable to let Meigs know of our purpose in regaining control of the Bolla.

"We are pledged to secure the mysterious stone if we can, Mr. Munn," said Quinn. "Undoubtedly the work will put us in bad odor here, and may interfere with our attempt to balk the king in his comprehensive scheme of conquest, but that does not release us from the task in question."

A tingle of gratification shot along my nerves. The feeling of oppression that had burdened me was lifted, for I ever loved to crack a professional nut, and here was one that would certainly try me to the utmost.

I surveyed the small building with critical eyes.

"Here is where my inches get the better of me, professor," said I. "For one of my size to get into that house is out of the question. And I wouldn't know where to lay hands on the Bolla if it were physically possible for me to effect an entrance."

"I can make a suggestion, Mr. Munn," said Quinn, "which would get you safely around that difficulty."

"What is that?"

"Whisper." I inclined my ear to his lips. "Why not run away with the imperial exchequer?"

"Eh?" I gasped.

"Steal it bodily, I mean. When you get to Baigol with it, let the king effect entrance, secure his Bolla, and then you return the exchequer to its original location. Of course, it would be very wrong to steal the king's treasury, and I would not counsel that under any consideration. You merely borrow it to obtain the Bolla; the stone returned to its rightful owners, you return the exchequer."

"And get zetbaied for my pains!" I exclaimed.

"Let us hope," said the professor, "that before you can get zetbaied we shall be in a position to use the car and escape from the planet."

I gave much thought to the matter.

"It is a long chance," I returned frankly, "but I have been taking long chances ever since I became a cracksman. I will put the plan in operation, professor, at the very first opportunity that presents itself."

Thus we left the matter, the professor warmly congratulating me on my courage and expressing the hope that I would prove equally courageous in more worthy pursuits, if the chance ever offered.

*CHAPTER XV.*

*SURVEYING OUR OWN PLANET.*

Day slipped along to its close, and shortly after the reflectors winked out the king came, accompanied by Olox, a guard of Gaddbaizets, and six attendants bearing the telescope.

To our surprise and gratification, both Markham and Popham were in the midst of the royal guard.

"It struck me," said the king graciously, "that your friends might also wish to view the orb from which they came. It is a little thing and can be done without inconvenience, so I am pleased to favor them."

The high chief traced an opening in the zet ring with the black tip of his weapon, and Meigs was first to rush through and hurl himself into the arms of Popham. The unfortunate gentlemen were long in each other's embrace.

When they finally drew apart, Meigs groped through the black gloom by Markham, while the professor felt for the coal baron's hand and gave it a gentle and reassuring pressure.

"Professor Quinn," said Popham, "I am being badly treated. The king has put me on the night shift in one of the royal coal mines and the soldiers make me work like a galley slave. This is the first night I have had off since they set me to work."

Popham was loud in his complainings, but was cut short by the king.

"We must proceed, gentlemen. I have word from above that the night is fine and everything propitious for an excellent view of your planet, but storms come suddenly and we can never be sure of the weather on the outer crust. It is well to make haste."

We started stumblingly, each of us led by a soldier to whom the way was plain. We were jostled here and there through the gloom, and finally were made to mount some object which gave a metallic ring beneath our feet.

"This is the royal lift," explained the king. "When the heat of the day is suspended I often go above."

He then addressed himself to Olox. "Give the signal at once."

The signal was given and we shot aloft. The transformation from the fury of a storm to the light and tranquillity of the underworld had been great and astounding; but this second transformation was none the less impressive.

We emerged into a wonderful night set with stars that were perfectly familiar to me. The Dipper and Polaris were in the north and occupying relatively the same positions that they do when viewed from Earth--so little effect has the immensities of distance upon their posts in the vault.

But our own globe! It hung huge and tremulous in the blue of the evening sky, so plain that we could almost note the continents that gemmed its surface.

Meigs gave a whimpering cry and he and Markham and Popham rushed together, fell upon each other's neck, and wept aloud.

"Oh, I wish I was back, I wish I was back!" moaned the broker.

"I'm lonesome enough to die!" sobbed Markham.

"Exiled, exiled, exiled!" was all the coal baron could murmur in husky tones.

I will not say that I was proof against the sentiments that had unmanned the one-time magnates, but I will declare that both Quinn and myself had our feelings under better control. In silence I assisted the professor to plant the telescope and we each gazed longingly at the greenish star magnified to many times its diameter.

"There's the United States!" cried Popham.

"Can you see New York?" whispered Meigs hoarsely. "Look for New York, man!"

Of course, a view of New York was out of the question, but the frantic ex-plutocrats imagined they could see it, and even look down into Wall Street for aught I know. Again were their emotions too much for them, and they gave way as they had done before.

"Mr. Munn," said the professor, "this is harrowing."

"It is pretty hard on those gentlemen," I returned, "to be brought face to face with something they thought they owned and yet not be able to possess it."

"That remark is unlike you," answered the professor, and turned to the king. "A thought occurred to me while we were coming up on the lift," he went on, "and I should like you to explain."

"If it is in my power." answered the king, his eye to the telescope.

"When we dropped into the kingdom of Baigol there was a storm on the surface of this planet. That storm must have hidden the sun, and yet the reflectors below were sending day throughout the realm."

"The reflection came from other and smaller reflectors arranged to take care of just such an emergency," explained the king. "Storms are only local, you know, and when one gathers over the giant reflector the smaller ones at the other points are brought into use. But let's not talk of this planet, but of that other one up here."

And along that line the king's conversation ran for a full hour.

At last, when we were ready to descend, so far from being dismayed by the enormity of the task before him, the royal zealot was fortified in his resolution to carry it out.

His majesty was in great good humor, and when we had left the lift and marched back to the square he very graciously tendered us the freedom of the town.

He could not understand why the professor and I should have any desire to escape from his country, and inasmuch as he had made us his honored guests, to return us to the circle of zet would be to besmirch his hospitality.

The zet had been regathered into the high chief's zetbai and it was not again released. It was not necessary for Popham to return to the royal mines until the following night, so he remained with us, along with Markham, and we all bunked down in the centre of the plaza.

"Is there no way, Professor Quinn," quavered Popham, "whereby we can escape from the inhuman monsters who people this planet? The treatment I have suffered is monstrous! I feel as though I shall die if I have to go back to those royal coal mines again. Being a large man, they expect me to do the work of a dozen Mercurials. There are blisters on my hands and my feet are so sore I can hardly walk."

This wail from the brusque and tyrannical Popham was in itself a highly edifying comment on his sad experiences.

"Your position was grace itself compared with mine," mourned Markham. "These people seemed determined to starve me to death. I am expected to travel from house to house, begging food, and they hardly give me enough at one house to take me to the next."

"You are on the surface," returned Popham, "and you are not delving continually in the hot, unhealthy regions where I must do my work. I have to toil like a galley slave for a cent a day, and a cent's worth of this vegetable food, which seems to be all they have here, does not furnish me with enough strength for my labor."

"You have your clothes, at least," whimpered Meigs. "Quinn ought to help us; he _must_ help us."

"I shall do what I can, gentlemen," said the professor wearily. "I have not succeeded in showing you the error of your ways, but I must let that pass. A greater calamity menaces our planet than any you could possibly let loose upon our devoted country."

"Meigs was saying something about that," spoke up Popham. "What is it this mad king thinks of doing?"

"Why, with fifty warriors, armed with zetbais, he intends making an attack upon Terra. He hopes to conquer our mother orb."

Popham gave a faint cry of derision.

"Why; if that rascal ever landed on our planet," said he, "he and his warriors would be captured out of hand and turned over to some museum for exhibition purposes. If _I_ happened to be around at the time of their capture," he finished angrily, "I would send every last one of them into mines that are mines. I'd make them toil with their four hands until they wore them off at the wrists. Gad, but that would be a revenge worth having!"

"This is not a time to think of revenge, Mr. Popham," spoke up the professor, more in sorrow than rebuke. "We have our planet to consider, and, next to the planet, ourselves."

"Our planet is big enough to take care of itself," averred Markham. "Leave that out of the question, professor, and confine your attention to some way in which we can better our condition."

"The danger that threatens Earth is greater than you appear to imagine," went on Quinn. "For whatever happened to our home-star because of King Gaddbai and his astounding plans of conquest, I should be responsible. The thought weighs upon me and will give me no rest. The king must be foiled."

"How does he intend to reach the Earth?" asked Markham.

"By means of our car."

"Is that in usable condition?" came joyously from Popham.

"So far as I can discover, it lies intact at the bottom of the crater on whose rim we landed. There is no reason why the car cannot be employed for a return to Terra; but," and here the professor's words became emphatic, "it shall not be so employed by King Gaddbai and his army of conquest. I shall prevent that at all hazards."

"How?" came hoarsely from the three ex-millionaires.

"By destroying the car, as a last resort and when other means fail," was the calm rejoinder.

"You would not dare!" breathed Popham.

"You would not have the heart to take from us our sole means of escape!" added Markham.

"Madman!" ground out Meigs. "If I really thought that you would destroy our only means of salvation, I'd----"

"You wouldn't do a thing, Meigs," I chimed in. "Whatever the professor thinks best to do is going to be done, and no two ways about it."

"I don't want to destroy the car," continued the professor, unmoved by this storm he had aroused, "if other means can be made to serve. And I may say that we shall exhaust every effort to make other means serve. I feel that it is my duty to return you gentlemen to the place from whence you were taken. I have not accomplished what I had hoped to do, but it is better to be disappointed in that rather than to let King Gaddbai get away in the car with his fifty warriors."

"Certainly it is your duty to send us back," said Meigs, "and you should consider that duty before anything and everything else."

"Exactly!" seconded Popham, "and we must take Gilhooly with us. If one goes, all must go."

"Leave the matter to me, gentlemen," counseled the professor quietly. "I shall do everything possible."

The coal baron and the food-trust magnate continued to dwell upon their harrowing experiences with various degrees of intensity until a command for silence came from a word-box somewhere around us. Our raucous tones were keeping the people awake all over the city, the talking machine averred, and unless we became instantly quiet the authorities would take the matter in hand.

This threat had the desired result. We gave over our conversation and settled ourselves for the night.

I do not know how long I slept, but it must have been some hours. I was aroused to find it still dark and to behold the professor with a lighted match in one hand and his other hand over my lips.

The burning match threw a fitful glare around the open space and even reached to the roof tops beyond. Both the palace and the imperial exchequer were brought shadowily forth out of the gloom.

"Now is the time, Mr. Munn!" whispered the professor.

"The time?" I returned sotto voce. "Time for what?"

Without a word he pointed to the square building under the wing of the palace. I understood. It was now or never if I intended to make my raid and secure the Bolla.

I started erect.

"You have matches, Mr. Munn?" the professor asked in the very faintest of audible tones.

I nodded.

"You must be very careful to keep to the street until you reach the country," the professor went on. "If you should make a misstep and wreck a block of houses the disaster would be irretrievable."

"I will strike matches and light my way until I get well into the hills," said I.

"Just what I should have suggested," said he. "Good-by, Mr. Munn. Fail not to return with the exchequer as soon as the king of Baigol has secured the Bolla. Meantime I shall hope to get the car in readiness to speed our departure."

We struck hands as men will when confronted by an issue of life and death. Then I stepped into the street, bent over the imperial exchequer, and wrenched it from its foundations.

It was a well-constructed building, and, although its contents jingled like a rattle box when I took it under my arm, it did not give way in any part.

Striking a match on the roof of the exchequer, I lighted my way down the street, picking my steps with care and caution.

*CHAPTER XVI.*

*HOW ILL-LUCK OVERTOOK ME.*

Good fortune fared forth with me from the royal city and remained steadfastly at my right hand as long as the matches lasted; but when the last one had flickered out and left me in impenetrable gloom, my troubles began.

I was well into the rough country when the lights failed, threading a road bordered by hills that in some places were shoulder high. About the first thing I did was to blunder off the trail; in trying to regain it I stumbled over a five-foot mountain and went down all of a heap.

Had I fallen on the exchequer I should have smashed it into a cocked hat--a result only narrowly averted. Regaining my feet and smothering some good strong language that rose instinctively to my lips, I essayed once more to find the Baigol road.

I had my trouble for my pains, and, after an hour spent in fruitless blundering, I sat down on a cliff, propped up the exchequer on the side of a canon and nursed my barked shins until day began flashing from the reflectors.

As I sat there waiting for the light my brain was filled with evil thoughts which I recall with contrition and chronicle with regret. I knew the exchequer must contain the king's wealth--golden pieces of eight of a rare fineness unknown to the mints of Terra.

I was not of a mind to return the gold after allowing the king of Baigol to take his Bolla. Why not stow the treasure away about my clothes and rely upon my native tact and discretion to get me to the steel car in spite of the grasping monarch of Baigadd?

I was much wrought up over the way I had lost the loot taken from the plutocrats. In my mind's eye I could see those four bulging handkerchiefs waxing and waning about the castle, and I had hoped they would fall to the surface of Mercury along with the car, so that I might still be able to secure them.

In this I was disappointed. Once the Mercurial atmosphere was struck the loot and the revolver had fallen away from the castle like so many pieces of lead.

The wallets, undoubtedly, had been incinerated by the sun's rays, together with the banknotes that were in them. I imagined that the intense heat had exploded the cartridges in the six-shooter and had warped and twisted the firearm until it was no longer serviceable.

The other plunder also, even if found, could not by any possibility be utilized by me or any one else.

All this had made me savagely eager to recoup my finances. And as I sat brooding on the cliff I asked myself why I should not do this at the expense of the Baigadd exchequer.

I did not arouse myself at the first reflected flash of day. Although I had decided to appropriate the contents of Gaddbai's coffers, I was casting about for a suitable method that would gain my end with the least inconvenience.

A maudlin chuckle from near at hand brought me abruptly out of my reflections. I turned, and there, on a neighboring elevation, stood Gilhooly, balancing the exchequer on the broad of his hand.

I was brought up staring. What could the motive power of the B.&B. Interplanetary be doing there, at that time? His absence must have interfered sadly with the train schedule. Certainly the officers of the system, would not have countenanced this neglect of duty, had they known of it.

Then it flashed over me that Gilhooly had run away. He had tired of racing up and down the V-shaped groove with a string of toy cars and had taken French leave of the system.

The fire of insanity was still in his eyes, and he retreated step by step as I advanced upon him.

"Look here, Gilhooly," said I in my most persuasive tones, "that building you have in your hands is the imperial exchequer. Put it down, there's a good fellow. Don't juggle with it in that way. Suppose you were to drop it!"

Gilhooly had begun shaking it up and down as though it were one of those cast-iron banks in which children sometimes deposit their coppers The jingle of the exchequer's contents appeared to please him.

"If you want this road you have got to bid up for it," said he. "I'm not so young that I don't know a good thing when I've got it in my grip."

"That road has gone into the hands of a receiver," I returned, humoring his fancy, "and I'm the receiver. Give it here, Gilhooly."

"I was not consulted when the receiver was appointed," he answered. "I have rights in the matter and those rights must be protected. It's a deal framed up to beat the pool. My, how it rattles!" and he shook the exchequer again.

I was at my wits' end. I knew that tact was far and away more effective than violence when dealing with a crazed person.

"Put it down for a moment, Gilhooly," I wheedled, "and come over to the directors' meeting."

"Who are the directors?" he asked suspiciously.

"Well, there are only two. I'm one, you know, and you're the other."

He exploded a laugh, tossed the exchequer in the air like a strong man playing with a cannon ball, and then caught it deftly as it came down.

"I'm the boy to juggle with railroads!" he boasted. "Ask any one in the Street and they'll tell you."

"Look out!" I gasped, "or you'll drop it."

"Not I!" he mumbled. "I never yet wrecked a railroad."

"Where did you come from, Gilhooly?" I asked, seeking to get him into conversation while I edged closer to him by degrees.

"From distant parts," he replied. "I've been the whole thing for a big transcontinental line that I'm adding to the Gilhooly System." He chuckled craftily. "They thought they had me, but I got out from under with the rolling stock. I've hid the cars in a gully, and my next move will be to steal the right of way. I'm the big railroad man of the country. Just ask anybody who knows what's what in transportation circles and they'll tell you the same thing."

I had arrived within a few feet of him, and suddenly I leaped forward. But he was wary and sprang aside, the exchequer jingling sharply.

"No, you don't," said he. "You're trying to serve a subpoena on me and I'm too foxy for you. Get out of here or I'll have you thrown downstairs."

"Come over to the directors' meeting, Gilhooly," I urged, turning and walking away from him. "You've got to look after your interests, you know."

But the vagaries of a shattered mind are hard to deal with. Gilhooly laughed at me, sat down on a rock and took the exchequer on his knees. He was wary, and never for an instant permitted me to lose his eyes.

"You can't fool me," he cried, "so you'd better take the next train for home. I hold a majority of the stock, and after I've watered it a little I'll have enough to buy another line. It's easy being a railroad magnate when you know how. Clear out, you annoy me."

"Gilhooly," said I, with a gentleness I was far from feeling, "don't you want to know something about Popham?"

"Don't know him," snarled Gilhooly, "but if he's trying to break into this railroad game, just tell him that I control the whole bag of tricks and that it's not worth his while."

Hugging the exchequer in his arms, he rocked back and forth and began to sing.

"Well," said I, starting away again, "if you don't want to attend this directors' meeting I'll have to look after it myself."

He made no reply but kept on hugging the exchequer, rocking back and forth, and timing his monotonous croon to the rattle of treasure in the king's strong rooms.

Warily as I could, I circled about, creeping on all fours and screening myself by the little hills and ridges. My design was to come up on Gilhooly from behind and snatch the exchequer away from him.

But he heard me. Before I had come within a dozen feet of him, he stopped his singing, leaped to his feet, and whirled around. The next moment he had placed himself at a safe distance.

"I'm too many for you," he shouted. "Go away, or I'll call the police."

I was in a sweat for fear some of King Gaddbai's soldiers would locate us and develop their zetbais. One flash of that violet fire would do the business for both Gilhooly and me, and the professor's cherished plans would go by the board. Besides, I had plans of my own, and it seemed as though Gilhooly was destined to make a mess of everything.