Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Hrihor's thin features grew unreadable in the coldness that settled upon them. He was now in the role of High Priest: apart, separate from the common mob before him; interpreter of Aten's divine mysteries: playing his part of one who listened to a god's awful whisperings. Impassively he superintended the binding of Taia by a priestess, who tightened the cords around the girl's slim body with claw-like hands, a gleam of unholy anticipation on her fleshless, soured face. Then the High Priest turned from the altar and faced the crowd of people.

"Silence!" he commanded. "Silence, before thy God Aten!"

A hush fell instantly. Their eyes centered on the bound figure of the girl, standing just beside the lowermost hand of the idol that would presently claim her. Her face was very pale, but none could detect fear in it. There was an uneasy stir, a shifting of feet, a mumbling, as her fresh young beauty struck the watchers. Somewhere a man muttered that she was very young to die. Aten had returned her once: perhaps the God did not wish her to perish.... His neighbor demurred. And the ceremony went on.

Ornate but crude censers were in the hands of two priests; the incense was lit by long tapers, and its acrid odor wound up in wavering purple spirals of smoke. On each side of Hrihor were five under-priests, eyes stiffly on their superior's impassive face. The soldiers had retreated from the altar and now were massed in the rear of the Temple, their spear blades glittering dully above their heads.

The High Priest raised his hands slowly, and stared with glazed eyes into the gloom of the ceiling, high above. "Praise!" he shrilled. "Praise to Aten!"

* * * * *

The assembled worshippers joined him in the chant of sacrifice. It was low and soft, and, at first, almost drowsy, like the slow stir of a tropical wind through palm leaves. But soon it quickened with rising tones from perfectly concerted voices; it soared up; its tenor changed; it became fierce, lustful, eager for blood, eager for the sacrifice, a heathen chant shrilling for sight of a girl's body in the god's, awful hands.

And it died in a sad, discordant moan on an expectant note....

Hrihor's body, stiff and rigid in its ceremonial robes, did not seem human as he stretched his arms straight forward and wheeled silently to the huge idol of stone. A full two minutes he stood without so much as flicking an eyelash; then, not shifting his glazed stare, he harshly intoned:

"Ages ago our ancestors set out from the homeland of Egypt in a great galley, bound for the barbarian countries of the north in quest of metal. But storms seized upon them, drove them far from their course, till at last, weak from hunger, they came to this land of ice, where their galley was wrecked and they were cast ashore. At first all was dark; then came the Sun God Aten's life giving rays, leading them to this mountain, which they inhabited and in which they carved this Temple wherein to worship the God who had saved them. The lord of the galley was the first Pharaoh; the priest of the galley was called High Priest; the Pharaoh took a concubine to wife--and thus was our civilization begun.

"There were virgins of the Temple, holy, set apart from man, sacred to Aten. Never did one betray her sacred trust--never, until Taia fled to the land of ice with the sacrilegious Inaros. Our mighty Pharaoh pursued them, and after twenty years, by Aten's special grace, slew the man and brought the maid back to pay for her transgression. Never before has this happened."

He paused, waiting. An under-priest spoke; evidently following some ritual.

"Here is the priestess, O High Priest of Aten! What penalty must she pay?"

"Death in Aten's hands!" the cold voice shrilled instantly. "The God wills it!"

* * * * *

But now came an interruption, unexpected and disconcerting to the well-laid plans of Hrihor. The voice of Pharaoh Shabako cried out:

"Another came with this priestess--a blasphemous stranger! He lies concealed; the maid will not tell where! High Priest, let her be tortured in Aten's hands until she reveals where he is!"

For a moment Hrihor lost his mask-like rigidity, of expression. His eyes shifted nervously. But Shabako was not to be denied. Again be repeated his demand.

"We must pray to Aten to make his hand descend on her, prick and gash her, till she divulges!"

A murmur arose from the people in the Temple: they approved the torture. Hrihor, obviously reluctant, was forced to comply.

"O mighty Aten," he cried, turning to the idol, "thou hast heard our Pharaoh. We pray to thee to lay thy hand on the priestess Taia, till she tells where the stranger lies concealed!"

Shabako nodded in approval. While a mumbled prayer rose, four priests strode to the girl, lifted her slight form and flung it on the upturned lower band of the idol. They strapped her there securely, her breast but ten feet below the waiting knife. Even then she did not struggle or cry out.

She did not know who had won the fight inside the secret room, but her heart told her it was the mysterious stranger, for was he not a god?--She would not be afraid, for he would surely reveal his divinity, and save her, even as he had from her twenty-year death, and from her bonds in the cell where they had been imprisoned....

The softly chanted prayer surged through the Temple. Hrihor's slitted eyes were on the knife in the upper palm of the idol. Suddenly he flung up his arms, and cried:

"Now, O Aten!"

The prayer stopped. With fearful interest the people stared at the dagger, at the inert figure of the girl--the more elderly seeing in her a hint of what was to come to them when their days of service were ended.

The knife started downward.

* * * * *

Taia's eyes were closed. Her breathing was even and regular. She did not seem at all aware of the shaft of steel that slowly, in the hushed gasp from the audience, stirred with the stone hand that held it and moved deliberately downward.

To the silent crowd of worshippers it was a religious phenomenon, and well calculated to strike fear and awe into their hearts. The moving idol seemed to be a living thing, motivated by the unseen spirit of the god it represented, who caused the massive upper hand to execute his will. Its movement was slow and clumsy, and close listeners would have heard a slight creaking noise from somewhere behind it--but the ears of the worshippers were deaf from the fear and the horror in which they were vicariously participating.

Slowly the hands came together, until the long, wicked shear was but a foot above the bound girl.... It dropped to within inches of her flesh....

And there it stopped.

Then, before the amazed crowd could realize what was happening, before even Hrihor could control the surprise that raised his brows incredulously, the palm in which the blade was implanted slowly retraced its course and returned to its original position.

A breathless silence reigned in the Temple. The hand was motionless. It did not stir again.

"The God will not touch his priestess!"

It was a faint, awed whisper that came from someone amongst the worshippers. But Hrihor heard it, and so did the other priests. While they stared at each other, utterly at a loss, the whisper was taken up and repeated on all sides.

"The God will not touch his priestess!"

* * * * *

The High Priest sensed the crowd's conviction, and sensed them turning against him. His beady eyes glanced around nervously. His lips a thin line, he called to his second ranking priest in a tense whisper, and, when the other came to him, muttered in his ear:

"'Tis the stranger, hiding in the secret chamber, who does this! He has overcome our brother there, and now controls the levers! And Taia knows it; and if she reveals it to the people our hold will be broken! She must be killed!"

"Yes! But how? We must be quick!"

Hrihor's crafty face set cruelly. "I know a way. Watch thou...."

He strode to the fore of the altar and flung his hands high. A shrill shout from his thin lips cut the uneasy murmuring short.

"Hearken! Aten will not torture His own priestess! He will not maim those who have sworn their lives to Him!"

The silent crowd waited for his next words. He screamed savagely.

"His High Priest must perform the rite! Aten has appointed me to be His instrument of vengeance!"

A gleam of unholy exultation was in his narrowed eyes. His face worked: he thrust a hand inside his ornate ceremonial vestment.

"By Divine Will," he cried, "this knife in my hand is the knife in the God's hand!"

And he whipped a long blade from the robe.

Never before had such a ceremony been held in the Temple of Aten, the Sun God. Never before had the hand of the god paused above the living sacrifice and deliberately risen again without tasting blood. It was miracle upon miracle; half-bewildered, Pharaoh Shabako and the herd of common people alike waited for what would come next, their High Priest's savage words somewhat reassuring them that all was correct.

They saw him clench his dagger tightly and with slow steps advance to the side of the helpless girl. Glaring down at her, he swung the blade high. It poised directly over her heart. It would not torture her, Taia knew: it was death that she read in the High Priest's eyes. She closed her own, and thought of the stranger; she breathed a silent prayer to him. She waited.

"In Aten's name!" screamed Hrihor, and brought the dagger down.

* * * * *

At that second the sharp roar of a sudden explosion thundered through the Temple, and the startled worshippers saw, slowly trickling from the right eye of Aten, a curling streamer of gray smoke. They did not know what had happened. And not until, after a moment of fearful silence, they saw the expression on Hrihor's face change to great surprise, and saw his right hand relax and drop the dagger to the floor, did they comprehend that he had been struck down.

He clutched at his side, staggered, twisted round, and fell full length before the feet of the god whose representative he was.

A frightened woman close to the altar saw a dark red stain on his robe, and a scream from her lips pierced out:

"He is dead! Killed by Aten--whose eyes have looked death! Oh!"

She flung herself flat on the floor, and the others, back to the soldiers in the rear, did likewise. The priests clustered together in a scared group, staring fearfully at the right eye of the idol, from which a wisp of smoke was still trailing. None dared approach the outstretched figure of the High Priest. Only Shabako dared look at him.

The Pharaoh clutched his sword tightly, muttering uneasily to himself. Not a sound came from the prostrate multitude. The slow echoes of the explosion died away; again the heavy silence fell. Then Shabako suddenly stared around, and peered up at the stone image of the god.

* * * * *

His ears had caught a sound. It was a panting and scuffling noise, as if men were fighting. It grew, even though muffled by apparently intervening rock. The beginning of a scream, cut short into a choke, added to its volume. The worshippers far back in the Temple heard it, and looked up. There was a muffled crash--then another crash of thundering noise, similar to the one that had come from the god's eye.

But this time no smoke eddied from the eye. The explosion echoed through the Temple and died away, while all the time Pharaoh Shabako stared at the idol. Slow comprehension broke through the bewilderment on his face. Suddenly he swung around and gripped the cowering form of the second ranking priest, who stood near him.

"From whence came those sounds, Priest?" he hissed. "Tell me!"

The frightened priest gibbered unintelligibly, but there was a guilty look on his face which spurred Shabako on. He shook the man and roared the question again. Then the priest spoke.

"They came--from--the secret chamber," he stammered.

A gasp rose from the crowd behind. But before they could master their astonishment, Shabako had whipped his sword from its sheath and sprung up the altar.

"Show me this chamber!" he cried.

* * * * *

Up on the platform in the secret room, his eye glued to the hole that was the eye of Aten, Wes Craig had seen and heard everything that had transpired. He had been shocked to see the brave thing Taia had submitted to, rather than divulge where he was hidden. Sacrificing herself, so that he, a stranger, might have a few more minutes of life! It hurt.

He had climbed down from the platform and glared around the lower floor of the secret room again, scanning shelves that were crowded with scores of curious objects, sacred relics, properties to aid in the manipulation of the idol and other unidentifiable things--looking for a potential weapon. If the girl had to die--and he--it would be better to go out and meet his enemies, taking some of them with him in full fight.

And then his heart leaped madly at the sight of something lying on one of the shelves.

A stumpy black shape, it was, with a short barrel of cold blue steel, and it looked as much out of place in that chamber as did the fur-clad man who stared half-unbelievingly at it. It was a foreigner, as he was, in the gloomy corridors and chambers of the race that worshipped Aten. It too was American. It was a friend--his automatic!

To Wes Craig, bewildered and tired and sadly without hope, it almost seemed to be alive, smiling at him with its wicked round mouth. He picked it up, and it bolstered his courage, his hope and his energy enormously. At once he leaped to the closed entrance-door and felt for the lever that opened it. But there he paused a moment to think.

There was only the faintest chance of fighting free with Taia now. There were at least thirty men outside, and he had only seven bullets. And then he remembered where he was, and what the purpose of the secret room was. He remembered, also, a certain nervous expression on the High Priest's face that he had just seen....

He swung around and inspected the levers and crude wheels of wood that led to a handle up in the niche, shoulder-high to whoever might stand on the platform there. He had had experience with certain idols in Egypt. He remembered particularly one that had been worshipped in a degenerate age--its hands, its eyes. And then he stepped over the sprawling body of the still unconscious priest and climbed to the platform and his peep-hole again.

As he pressed himself forward in the niche, and applied his eye to the slit, he gently fingered the handle of the large lever right beside him. And he also measured the size of the slit in the right eye of the god....

* * * * *

Craig had not minded shooting the murderous High Priest Hrihor, but he did not want to kill the under-priest in the secret room. He had had no choice in the matter. At the tensest moment in the dramatic scene in the Temple, just when he had been hoping that the mysterious death he had sent to Hrihor would frighten the worshippers away, he had heard a slight rustling sound behind him, and had turned just in time to see a hate-distorted face within feet of him, and a short curved-knife upraised to strike him in the back. It was the priest, whom he had left unconscious below, now revived and coming to kill him.

Wes could have shot the man then and there, but he knew the thunder of his gun would betray his presence; so, using the weapon as a club he had struck out at his attacker and tried to block the thrust of the knife. For a moment he was successful; but the knife proved the better weapon in the close rough and tumble scuffle that ensued and, with its point at his very throat, Wes had been forced to shoot.

He had killed the man instantly, but he felt no slightest relief. Like a tiger--even before the crashing echoes had died away in the little room--he sprang back to his peep-hole to see what the effect was outside. And just what he feared most was happening. The frightened priest in the Temple was telling the suspicious Shabako about the hidden chamber--and even then was leading him to the secret entrance!

* * * * *

The two passed the American's line of vision, and after a moment he heard them fumbling at the catch of the panel. He could shoot them both down, easily, but there would still be a whole Temple full of warriors and priests to be faced with only three bullets!

Then, in a flash, came an inspiration.

Wes swung around, leveled the automatic's muzzle at the hole in the idol's eye, sighted carefully, and squeezed the trigger. And as the explosion boomed through the vast chamber outside, he veered the gun in a different aim and fired again and again.

The two huge oil lamps, imbedded one in each side wall, splintered and crashed.

"Now for it!" Wes Craig muttered. He sprang for the ladder, snatching the dagger of the dead priest as he passed, and half-slid, half-tumbled to the floor below. At once he was at the secret door and grasping the lever that worked it; and, pausing only to take a deep breath, he plunged out.

He came into a scene of wildest confusion. Panic-stricken screams rang in his ears; the oil from the cracked lamps, transformed into splatters of flame, had splashed down from the walls and scattered fire over much of the floor. A tumult of shadows moiled through the flames as the crowd fought to get free. Shrieks and gasps and curses cut through the air: the worshippers were caught up in a mob panic caused more by their superstitious frenzy than by the understandable fire. The flames pierced fantastically into the blackness, throwing a vivid glow on the frantic faces of the people who struggled to get out of their reach. The altar was deserted, save for the girl who still lay on the hand of the idol....

* * * * *

Wes Craig, a blur in the wavering shadows, darted to her side. His dagger sped through the cords that bound her, and he lifted her slight form down. For a moment she clung to him.

"I knew thou wouldst come, Divine One!" she whispered. "I knew!"

He smiled for answer, gripped her hand, and then swiftly led her along the least crowded wall of the Temple towards the door, packed with a frantic, struggling crowd of soldiers, people and priests.

The deceptive shadows thrown by the flames were kind to them; for some time no one in the whole crowd recognized the two. Everyone was reacting in a blind panic of fear from the mysterious thunders that had killed their High Priest, splintered the lamps, and caused the resultant inferno of leaping fire. But discovery was inevitable, and at last one did see the fleeing pair--one who had kept his head and was looking for them. It was Shabako. He roared:

"The stranger escapes--and the girl! There, there! Hold them!"

His imperative shout brought a measure of control to the soldiers, who were fighting to get through the doorway. They grouped uncertainly together, gripping their swords and staring wildly around. They saw, in the ruddy light of the flames, a grim-faced man pressing into them, holding in one hand a stubby black object, and in the other the arm of the sacrifice, Taia.

* * * * *

Wes cursed, and, forgetting that the warriors understood no English, ordered them in that tongue to make way for him. For answer, one of them leaped out at him, his sword swinging up. Craig's face set; he levelled the automatic and fired. The bullet caught the man in the midst of his leap; he spun round, his sword clanked to the floor, and he fell.

Wes fired again at the staring mob; then again; but the last time only a sharp click answered his trigger finger. He flung the gun into the thick of the hesitating warriors, swept the dead soldier's sword off the floor and pressed forward, intending to hack his way through.

But he did not have to. The other warriors were only human. They had just seen uncanny, instant death. They shrank back from the door; some even ran back from the stranger, preferring the flames to the thunder-death that he meted out. The doorway was cleared, and Craig pulled the girl through.

"Back to the left!" she gasped. "Across the bridge! Quick--Shabako comes!"

Even as they ran, they heard the Pharaoh's furious bawling as he struggled up to the door of the Temple, which he had not been able to reach for the rolling tide of fear-stricken people around him. He was shouting:

"After them--after them! They cross the bridge! Follow them, everyone! I will take the other way up and trap them! Hurry!"

He turned to the right, panting up the corridor in the direction from which he had first approached the Temple. And slowly, as they collected their dazed wits, the swarm of warriors and priests and common people followed the fleeing pair toward the bridge.

* * * * *

Wes Craig was tired, but the shouting pursuit lent strength to his near-exhausted limbs. Spears snaked after Taia and him from the warriors close behind; but, once across the dangerous bridge, he disregarded them long enough to hack its supports through and see it fade into the blackness beneath. "Get across now, damn you!" he yelled, and ran again after the girl's leading figure.

All now depended on their speed in reaching the top of the extinct volcano, and of that speed he was none too confident. He had gone through two strength-sapping fights in the last hour; his nerves were ragged from the constant strain, and his breath came in racking sobs. He wished passionately he had a loaded gun--even his smashed vial of Kundrenaline. The fluid would have put marvelous new life in his weary limbs.

"Hurry, Taia!" he gasped: "we must beat them! Shabako goes some other way to head us off! If only we can get to my bird-that-flies-in-the-air!"

Once again they stumbled up the difficult passage, fighting for speed with tired bodies, bodies which every twist and obstacle tried sorely. Without the girl, Wes could never have made it: she led him unerringly through the branching, gloomily-lit corridors, up flights of rickety steps, her knowledge of several short-cuts aiding measurably the speed of their progress. Tired as he was, admiration for the mighty fire of courage that burned in Taia's frail figure, and drove it forward when all physical strength was gone, never left him. For she had been through as much as he--and even more!...

* * * * *

They did not know it then, but the Pharaoh had made good time on the other side. As they at last neared the cup of the crater, and passed the place where the two diverging main corridors, each slanting downwards, met, they heard Shabako's shouts and the rapid clatter of his feet on the rock floor.

In a desperate sprint, they gained the flight of steps, stumbled up them, and came again into the glorious fresh cold air, and the slanting rays of the setting sun....

New life surged through Craig's body; but, whereas he ran across the uneven cup of the crater with fresh speed, the girl seamed suddenly to tire. He had taken the lead; now he went back, took her hand and pulled her forward, puzzled by her sudden exhaustion. He did not have time to question her, however, for the rapid beat of footsteps grew quickly very loud, and with a shout Shabako burst up into the open and caught sight of them.

The two went across the lip and slid down the slope of the volcano with all the haste they could. Shabako only twenty yards behind, his sword waving aloft and his dark face lit with a savage hate. And he was gaining--gaining steadily; and Taia was tiring more and more, and was becoming almost a dead weight on Wes Craig's supporting arm....

This was the last stretch, over almost the same ground the girl and her dead lover, Inaros, had covered twenty years before--and with the same pursuer behind. Again, by grace of the potent Kundrenaline, Shabako and the girl were enacting the desperate chase of years before, the chase that had ended in death for Inaros....

But there was a stricken look in Taia's eyes now.

"I am suddenly so tired, Divine One!" she gasped. She seemed hardly able to walk. Craig could not understand. Snatching a glance backwards, he saw that the Pharaoh, too, seemed to be strangely tiring--but gaining nevertheless....

* * * * *

He was practically carrying the suddenly exhausted girl when they came to the cleft in the ice from which he had dug her the day before. There was no time to get across, for before they could climb the other side Shabako would be on them. Wes gripped the handle of his blade. Here the last fight would have to be made.

"Go down the cleft, out of the way!" he told the girl rapidly. He did not have time to help her; he swung round just in time to parry a slash of Shabako's sword with his own.

Then Wes Craig stepped back and stared at his opponent, a peculiar look in his eyes.

It might have been merely from the force of his first swipe, or he might have slipped--but Shabako staggered drunkenly and barely avoided falling. With an oath, he came erect and once more charged at the American. It was easy for Wes to avoid his thrust; it would have been childishly easy to drive his blade through the Pharaoh's unguarded chest. But somehow Craig withheld his attack, and only peered more closely at the other. He rubbed his hand across his eyes. What he was seeing was incredible.

For Shabako's face was going a ghastly white; and, as Wes watched, he groaned, tried to raise his sword arm for another blow--and could not. He staggered, legs askew, lurched crazily forward, stumbled, and at last pitched down on the ice near the cleft.

Then his great body rolled over, arms flung wide, and lay still. And the face of Pharaoh Shabako stared unseeingly up at the darkening sky....

Then, in a flash, understanding came to Wes Craig.

"Oh, God!" he cried. "The Kundrenaline!"

He had forgotten completely about the liquid he had infused into Shabako's veins. Its potency, adequate to the tremendous task of revitalizing a long-dead heart, had given out--hastened, no doubt, by the great physical exertions of the man, and made sudden by the return to the biting air of the ice fields. The liquid was only for emergency use, anyway, and supposed to serve for a period of but hours, after which the heart was intended to carry on alone.

Shabako's heart had not been able to carry on any longer....

* * * * *

Wes Craig was afraid to think, afraid almost to look, to see how Taia had stood the shock. Her sudden weariness became at once all too clear to him....

Slowly he turned and looked down into the cleft. He saw her--a slender, quiet little figure, flat on the ice by the body of her slain lover.

He leaped down the slippery bank and ran to her side; knelt there, and grasped her cold white hand.

The girl's eyelids were closed, but when he touched her, they flickered, and a little sigh came from her pallid lips. Then her large black eyes, opened and looked up straight into his--and when she saw him there, she smiled.

It wrenched the man's heart. "Taia!" he cried. "Taia!"

She nodded feebly, still smiling, and her lips moved. He bent close. She was whispering something. The words came to him through a great fear.

"Take me--take me, O Divine One. Take me with thee to--to thy--heaven.... Canst thou not--take--Taia?"

With her last bit of quickly ebbing strength, she pressed his hand. Then the fingers went limp in his, and her arm dropped. And her eyelids gently closed....

Wes's jaws were clenched tightly as he folded her hands across her slim body. "If thy Pharaoh had not made me drop the vial," he murmured softly, "I would again bring thee to life, Taia, and take thee to my heaven.... Though"--with a sad smile, and relapsing into English--"Times Square would not be quite the heaven you had pictured...."

* * * * *

He stood up. The irony of the thing gripped him, and brought a wry smile to his tight lips. The body of Inaros, her dead lover, lay at her side; and Shabako's still figure was but feet away. Once again they were all together in death. The Kundrenaline had pierced the black veil of their silent tryst and brought them back for a few fleeting hours; but even modern science could not stand long against the weight of twenty years.

And science would not have another chance with their still bodies. They would quickly be found there by the pursuing Egyptians, and would be gone, already decaying, when he could get back with another vial....

A growing murmur of nearby voices brought the silent man back to the present. Over the cleft in the ice he saw a string of priests and warriors speeding towards him. He sighed. It was time to go. There was much he wanted to learn about these people and their strange civilization, but there was no chance for it now. Perhaps on another trip, later.

He looked a last time on Taia, lying by her lover.

Then he scrambled up the other bank and ran towards the hillock behind which a sleek black monoplane with an eight hundred horse-power motor awaited him....

* * * * *

The thing that followed next was never forgotten by the people who worshipped Aten, the Sun God. It went down in legends; it was repeated and repeated, and it grew in the telling. It was awful; it was magical; it was godlike.

A great thunder sounded from behind the hillock of ice, a thunder that pulsed louder and louder, until the people fell down in awe, hardly daring to look. When they did, they saw a gleaming black form that stood on queer shafts of wood come gliding with the speed of the wind from behind the hillock. It straightened out on a stretch of snow, bellowing with a loudness that hammered their eardrums into numbness, and sped lightly along till the queer shafts of wood left the surface and the sleek black object soared up into the air.

Into the air! With frightened eyes they watched it wheel around, and then come roaring towards them. They fell flat again, and did not dare to look. The thunderous blast passed close over them, then dwindled and dwindled, until they ventured timidly to look up again.

They saw the shape ringed with sunset fire hurtling through the air, soaring up and up and up ... till it died to a speck ... till it disappeared into the face of the sun they worshipped as Aten....

A warrior spoke. His tones were low and awed but they all heard him.

"Truly," he whispered, "he was a god!..."

A ONE-BILLIONTH-OF-A-SECOND CAMERA

Through use of a spectroscopic camera with a shutter which operates in about one-billionth of a second, physicists at the University of California have been able to take pictures of the action of light at various periods during the course of an electrical spark which lasts only one one-hundred-thousandth of a second.

They have been able to show by photographic evidence that the magnetic field developed by the passage of an electric current across the spark gap gives the first light emitted a different appearance from that emitted a few millionths of a second later.

At the moment that the spark jumps, electricity is released in enormous quantities much as water is released by the breaking of a dam. It is this sudden release of the dammed-up current across the spark gap that causes the temporary magnetic field and the difference in the appearance of the light from the spark.

In answer to those who scoff at the possibility of a camera shutter operating in a billionth of a second, it was explained that the shutter is not a mechanical device, but operates automatically through the application of a physical law of light. In a general way, it might be said that the spark takes its own picture.

The spectroscope camera is set up at one end of a long corridor. When the electrical current jumps across the spark gap it sets up a momentary current in a set of wires running the length of the corridor and connected with the camera. This current travels toward the camera at the rate of about 186,000 miles a second.

At about the same instant that the current jumps, or an infinitesimal fraction of a second later, the light of the resulting spark starts toward the camera at a trifle more than 186,000 miles a second. It is a race between the spark current and the spark light as to which arrives first. The current jumps just before the spark appears; so it is possible for the current to reach the camera and close the shutter even before the light which is to be pictured arrives.

By lengthening the wires between the spark gap and the camera the light is allowed to arrive first. By suitable adjustment of the wiring, the shutter can be made to close during any one-billionth of a second interval during the first four ten-millionths of a second of the spark's short life.

The camera shutter consists of two Nicol prisms of Iceland spar and balsam, arranged in such a way that under ordinary conditions the light coming from the spark is stopped by polarization and prevented from reaching the camera. Between these two prisms, however, is a solution of chemicals which will depolarize the light and allow it to continue.

The wires leading from the spark gap connect with this solution. When the current jumps across the gap it races down the corridor and electrifies the solution for about one-billionth of a second. This electrification removes the depolarizing effects of the solution and light passage stops; in other words, the shutter is closed.

The Diamond Thunderbolt

_By H. Thompson Rich_

[Sidenote: Locked in a rocket and fired into space!--such was the fate which awaited young Stoddard at the end of the diamond trail!]

Prof. Norman Prescott, leader of the American Kinchinjunga expedition, crept from his dog-tent perched eerily at the 26,000-foot level of this unscaled Himalayan peak, the third highest in the world. With anxious eyes he searched the appalling slopes that lifted another 2,000 feet to its majestic summit, now glistening in the radiance of sunset.

Where was young Jack Stoddard, official geologist and crack mountaineer of the party?

That morning Professor Prescott and Stoddard had set off together, from Camp No. 4, at the 22,000-foot level. Mounting laboriously but swiftly, they had reached the present eyrie by noon. There Stoddard had left the leader of the expedition and pushed on alone, to reconnoiter a razor-back ridge that looked as though it might prove the key to the summit.

But the afternoon had passed; the daring young geologist had promised to return in an hour; and now it was sunset, with still no sign of him.

Professor Prescott sighed, and a bitter expression crossed his bronzed, lined face. Just one more evidence of the cursed luck that had marked the expedition from the start!

Well he knew that he must head down at once for Camp No. 4 or risk death on this barren, wind-swept slope, and equally well he knew that to go would be to leave his brave companion to his fate, providing he had not already met it on those desolate ridges above.

Yes, and another thing he knew. The report of this latest disaster would mean the doom of the expedition. The terrified, superstitious natives would bolt, claiming the "snow people" had struck again.

"Gods of the Mountain" they called them, those mysterious beings they alone seemed to see--evil spirits who kept guard over this towering realm, determined none should gain its ultimate heights.

* * * * *

Tensely Professor Prescott stood there on that narrow shelf of glacial ice, peering off into the sunset.

A hundred miles to the west, bathed in the refulgence of a thousand rainbows, rose the incredible peak of Everest, mightiest of all mountains, yet less than 1,000 feet higher than Kinchinjunga. And down, straight down those almost vertical slopes up which the expedition had toiled all summer, lay gorges choked with tropical growth. Off to the south, a scant fifty miles away, the British health station of Darjeeling flashed its white villas in the coppery glow.

An awesome spectacle!--one that human eyes had seldom if ever seen. Yet from the summit, so invitingly near!...

Perhaps, even now, Stoddard was witnessing this incomparable sight. To push on, to join him, meant triumph. To head down, defeat. While to stay, to wait....

Grimly, Professor Prescott left his insecure perch and headed up over that razor-back ridge whence the young geologist had vanished.

As he proceeded cautiously along, drawing sharp, quick breaths in the rarefied upper atmosphere, he told himself it was ambition that was leading him on, but in his heart he knew it was not so. In his heart, he knew he was going to the rescue of his gallant companion, though the way meant death.

* * * * *

A hundred yards had been gained, perhaps two--each desperate foothold fraught with peril of a plunge into the yawning abysms to left and right--when suddenly he spied a figure on a twilit spur ahead.

Panting, he paused. It must be Stoddard! Yet it seemed too small, too ghostly.

Professor Prescott waved, but even as he looked for an answering signal, the figure vanished.

"My eyes!" he muttered to himself. "I'm getting snow-blind."

Then he called aloud:

"Jack! Oh, Jack! Hello!"

Only an echo greeted the call, and he did not repeat it but pushed on silently, conserving his energy.

Was there truth after all in those persistent rumors of the natives about the snow people who inhabited the upper slopes of the Himalayas? His tired brain toyed with the idea, to be cut off sharply by the cheery call:

"Hi there, Professor! Hi-ho!"

And gazing upwards toward a jutting crag not ten rods beyond, he saw young Stoddard etched against the darkening sky.

* * * * *

In a few joyous steps, Professor Prescott had reached his audacious companion.

"Thank God!" he gasped. "I'd given you up for lost."

"Why give me up for anything so unpleasant?" was the genial reply. "I've just been enjoying the view."

"Then--then you reached the top?" with a quick intake of breath.

"Well, not exactly, but I feel on top of the world, just the same."

The professor's spirits fell.

"Then I can't see--"

"Of course you can't see!" interrupted Stoddard. "But look at this!"

As he spoke, he drew from a pocket of his leather jacket something that caught the last light of the dying day and refracted it with weird brilliance.

Professor Prescott blinked.

"Well?"

"A diamond. As big as your fist! And here's another!"

His left hand reached into his jacket and produced a second sparkling gem.

"But--but I don't understand--"

"Granted. But you will, when I tell you I've found the Diamond Thunderbolt!"

The professor gave a shrug of scorn.

"And no doubt you've seen the snow people and have had a perfect afternoon, while--"

"No, I haven't seen any snow people, but I've had a perfect afternoon, all right! As I said, I've found the Diamond Thunderbolt; and here are a couple of chips, picked up from around the edge."

* * * * *

So saying, Stoddard extended his two specimens toward Professor Prescott, who disdained at first to touch them.

"Nothing but quartz!" was the deprecating comment. "The snow has affected your eyesight, as it has my own."

"I'll say it's affected _yours_, if you don't recognize diamonds when you see them. But wait till I show you the old Thunderbolt itself! It's--"

"More quartz!" brusquely. "Be sensible, Jack. This Diamond Thunderbolt thing is a pure myth, like the snow people business. Just because this section of India is known as The Land of the Diamond Thunderbolt you think you're going to find some precious meteor or other, whereas the term applies merely to the Lama's scepter."

"Granted it does,"--a little impatiently--"but did it ever occur to you that where there's smoke, there's fire? Meteor is the word! One struck here once--a diamond meteor!--and I've found it. Take a look at these two specimens and see what you think."

Whereupon Professor Prescott accepted the glinting gems from his young friend--to gasp a moment later, as he held them tremblingly:

"Good Lord--they're diamonds, to be sure! Where did you find them?"

* * * * *

Stoddard hesitated before replying.

"Not far from here," he said at length, moving off. "Come, I'll show you."

But the professor stood firm on their narrow ledge.

"You must be crazy!" he exclaimed. "We'll have trouble enough now, getting back. It's practically dark already."

"Then what's the odds?" retorted the young geologist. "We've got all night."

"But our friends at Camp No. 4. Even now, they must think we are lost."

"Then further thought won't kill them. Besides, we'll be back before morning--and they can't send out a relief party sooner."

"But any moment a storm may come up. You know what that would mean."

"Does it look likely?" scoffed Stoddard, waving his hand aloft. "See--there's the moon! She'll be our guide."

Professor Prescott looked, saw a slender shallop charting her course among the stars, and for a moment was tempted. But speedily his responsibilities reasserted themselves.

"No, I can't do it," he said with finality. "I owe it to the expedition to return as soon as possible. Furthermore, there's the matter of the authorities. We assured the British we would adhere strictly to our one purpose--to scale Kinchinjunga."

"A mere formality."

"No--a definite order from the Lamas. They closed Mt. Everest, after the last expedition, you will recall. The Lama's scepter is veritably a diamond thunderbolt of power in this region."

Whereupon Stoddard's patience snapped.

"Listen!" he said. "I hurried away because I knew you'd be anxious, but I'm going back, if I have to--"

"And I say you're not!" The professor's patience, too, had snapped. "I'm not going with you, and you're not going back alone! As the leader of this expedition, I forbid it!"

The younger man laughed raspingly, as he shook off the hand that clasped his arm, and for a moment it looked as though the two would fight, there on that dizzy ledge above the world.

Then Stoddard got control of himself.

"Sorry!" he said. "I see I've got to tell you something, Professor. You think I'm merely the geologist of this expedition, but in fact I'm a secret service man from Washington, on the trail of the biggest diamond-smuggling plot in history--and here is where the trail ends!"

* * * * *

Professor Prescott's astonishment at these words was profound. He stood there blinking up at Stoddard, scarcely believing he had heard aright.

"You--you say you are--?"

"A detective, if you want. Anyway, if you've read the papers, you must know that for the past year or more the diamond markets of the world have been flooded with singularly perfect stones."

"Yes, I recall reading about that. They were thought to be synthetic, were they not?"

"By certain imaginative newspaper reporters, not by the experts, for under the microscope they revealed the invariable characteristics of diamonds formed by nature--the tiny flaws and imperfections no artificial means could duplicate."

"But didn't I read something, too, about some anonymous Indian rajah who was thought to be raising money by disposing of his jewels?"

"More newspaper rubbish! For one thing, British secret service men traced the rumor down and satisfied themselves there wasn't a rajah in India unloading any diamonds. For another; no rajah could possibly have the wealth involved. Why, do you know that since this plot unfolded, over five million carats' worth have made their appearance--and that means something like a billion dollars."

"Whew!" whistled the professor.

"Whew is right!" his companion agreed. "And not only have the diamond markets of the world been disorganized by this mysterious influx, but the countries involved have lost millions of dollars in revenue, due to the fact that the gems have been smuggled in without payment of duty."

"But surely, my dear fellow, you don't connect this gigantic plot with your discovery of--whatever it is you have discovered?"

"A diamond as big as a house! That's what I've discovered! And I most surely _do_ connect the plot with it. Did you ever have a hunch, Professor? Well, I had one--and it's worked out!"

"You leave me more in the dark momentarily!" declared the older man, glancing around as though to give his words a double meaning. "What was your hunch, and how did it come to lead you here?"

Whereupon Stoddard told him, swiftly, for there was no time to lose.

* * * * *

When first assigned to the case, he said, he had been as baffled as anyone. But as he had studied the problem, one outstanding fact had given him the clue. All the gem experts agreed that the mysterious flood of smuggled stones was of Indian origin, being of the first water and of remarkable fire--in other words, of the finest transparency and brilliance.

Therefore, since they were genuine and were seemingly coming from India, Stoddard had concentrated his attention on this country, seeking their exact source. Investigation showed that there were no mines within its borders capable of producing anything like the quantity that was inundating the market.

But--and here was where the hunch came in--there was a district in the Sikkim Himalayas of Bengal whose capital was Darjeeling--Land of the Diamond Thunderbolt. Why had it been called that? Was there some legend back of it?

There was, he had learned. For though in modern times the phrase had come to apply merely to the Lama's scepter, as Professor Prescott had pointed out, originally it had carried another meaning--for legend said that once a diamond meteor had fallen on the mighty slopes of Kinchinjunga.

That had been enough for Stoddard. He had followed his hunch, had got himself attached to the American Kinchinjunga expedition--

"And that's why I'm here, and all about it," he finished. "Now, then, are you coming back with me and have a look at my Diamond Thunderbolt, or am I going back alone?"

A long moment the professor debated, before replying.

"Yes, I'll come with you," he said at length, extending his hand. "Forgive me, Jack. I didn't know, or--"

"Forget it," said Stoddard shaking. "How the devil could you, till I told you? But just one thing. Mum's the word--right?"

"Right!"

"And one thing more. It may be--well, a one-way trip."

"Forget it."

"O. K., Professor."

With a last warm handclasp, leaving them joined in a new bond of friendship, the two men moved on over that narrow, moonlit ridge across the top of the world.

* * * * *

It was a desperate trail, Professor Prescott realized after scarcely a dozen steps. The ridge grew narrower, sheerer, and in places they had to straddle it, legs dangling precariously to left and right.

Admiration for his gallant companion mounted in the professor's pounding heart, as they struggled on. Only to picture anyone eager to return such a perilous way, after once getting safely back!

Other thoughts occupied his mind, too, during the next half-hour. More than once he could have sworn he saw small, ghostly figures on the ridge ahead. But he made no mention of it, for Stoddard didn't seem to see them.

Now they gained the far end of that hazardous ridge, where a sloping shelf of jagged rock offered a somewhat more secure footing. Along this they proceeded laterally for some distance.

Suddenly Stoddard paused and called out:

"Ah--there we are!" He indicated a steep pocket to the left. "Have a look down there, Professor, and tell me what you see."

* * * * *

Prescott lowered his eyes to the depths below, to draw back with a gasp--for what he saw was a vast phosphorescent glow, like a fallen star.

"What--what is it?" he cried, in an awed voice.

And back came the ringing reply:

"The Diamond Thunderbolt!"

"But the radiance of the thing! It couldn't reflect that much light from the moon!"

"No, and it doesn't. But there's nothing uncanny about it. Just what I expected the thing would look like at night. But come on, Professor. You haven't seen the half of it!"

The way led down the jagged, shelving slope, now, and the descent was too precarious for further comment.

Ten minutes passed--fifteen, possibly--when they reached a sheltered, snowless arena where titanic forces had clashed at some remote age. Fragments of splintered rock lay strewn in wild confusion--and among them, glinting in the moonlight, were bright crystals.

Picking up one, Stoddard said laughingly:

"One of Mother Nature's trinkets worth half a million or so!"

Professor Prescott blinked at it a moment, almost in disbelief, then stooped and picked up one for himself--a diamond that would have made the Kohinoor look like a pebble.

There was no doubting its genuineness. Even in the moonlight, it flashed and burned like a thing afire.

But as the professor turned his eyes at last from its dazzling facets, they failed him again--or so he thought--for half hidden behind a jutting crag loomed a huge cylindrical object, seemingly of metal.

* * * * *

For the space of two breaths, he stared speechless, then gasped:

"Good Lord! What's that?"

Following his gaze, Stoddard saw it too.

"God knows!" he muttered, in a tense voice. "It wasn't there this afternoon. Let's have a look at it."

Cautiously, not knowing what to expect, they advanced toward the singular phenomenon.

Nearing, they saw that it was a mechanism some twenty feet at the base and sixty or more feet high, pointed at the top.

"A rocket!" declared Professor Prescott. "Though I've never seen anything larger than a laboratory model, I'll gamble that's what it is."

"And I'll gamble you're right!" exclaimed Stoddard. "And one capable of carrying passengers, would you say?"

"Fully."

"Then I think we have solved the mystery of how these diamonds reach the market. The question now is, who's back of this thing? And since our position here probably isn't any too healthy--"

He broke off and drew his automatic, as a small, ghostly figure appeared--seemingly from nowhere.

The professor saw it, too--saw it followed by another, and another--and now he knew his eyesight had not failed him back on that wind-swept slope above, either, for these were actual creatures, incredible as they seemed.

The snow people?

He did not know--had no time to find out--for with a rush, the strange beings were all around them.

* * * * *

Stoddard levelled his pistol and called on them to halt, but they came on--scores, hundreds now, seeming to pour out of some unseen aperture of the earth.

Once or twice he fired, over their heads, but it failed to halt them. They closed in, jabbering shrilly.

But though their words were a babel, their actions were plain enough. Swarming up, they overpowered the explorers by sheer numbers, and herded them with jabs of sharp, tiny knives toward a cavern mouth that opened presently amid those eery crags.

Led underground, they found themselves proceeding along a frosty passage lit every few yards by a great chunk of diamond. Their dim glow seemed to be refracted from some central point beyond.

This point they soon reached--a great, vaulted chamber whose brilliance was at first dazzling.

Its source, after the first moment or so, was obvious. It was coming from the roof, which was one vast diamond.

"You see where we are?" whispered Stoddard. "Under the Diamond Thunderbolt! These people have tunneled beneath the meteor. Or else--"

"Their tunnel was already there, when the meteor fell," finished Professor Prescott. "But can it be possible such creatures could have produced that rocket?"

"I'm inclined to think anything is possible, now! But I'm sorry I dragged you into this, Professor. I--"

"Forget it! We're here and we'll face it together, whatever it is."