Chapter I: “monarch of Fate.”

“Monarch of Fate is man, above all destiny. Man yet shall chain the stars; shall drive the harnessed worlds,” said Regan Farmington.

It was winter midnight in the Adirondack Mountains. Regan had brought us to the desolate hut of a hermit; we had not realized that the circumstance might be the result of design; it seemed like an accident.

We had been lost in the snow storm; the horses had failed us; even Father Renaudin, who for twenty years had not missed his smallest appointment for any hindrance, was bewildered and could not say which way to go to save us all from death.

Like a spirit of the storm itself, Regan had led us through drifted ravines and across cloudy plains until we reached safety.

The warm light of the fire fell upon a company which had never before been united under one roof.

There was Father Renaudin, the fanatical, puritanic priest of a small new sect, one which he had gathered in this wilderness. His silver hair, pale, stern face, tall, powerful form and crimson robe were vividly illuminated. Beside him sat the beautiful Isabella, with bronze hair, starry eyes, perfect face; her purple velvet robes were heavy with rich furs; her arms and hands were sparkling with jewels. A very queen of beauty was Isabella.

On the other side of the hearth was Rondah, a dull, frightened child. Her face was tear-stained and her lips were yet quivering from her recent fright. Her brown eyes were too large; her red hair was tumbling loose from its braids. Still, I must pity her—shabby, frail, in terror, but all alone among us.

Regan was there. I remember him yet as he looked then. I think I shall remember him so beyond the grave. His dark, patrician face was lighted with iniquitous triumph, which glowed beneath a mask of assumed quiet as fiery coals glow under ashes. His jet black hair clustered in rings about his brow; his wonderful, beautiful eyes scintillated scorn. It seemed to me that the life of his soul was demon-bred, but chained to certain customs of humanity, because weighted with the accident of a human body.

Regan’s name was the town’s disgrace; though so young he had no friends, accepted no truths, discarded all faiths. He talked of a Destiny, which, he claimed, blundered in ruling the universe—a creature blind and non-reasoning, of immensity itself a part; a monstrous something driven like the sun, but by some causeless motor, forever.

The storm raged on unabated. As I looked at Regan, some subtle influence seemed to stand beside me. Plain as a human friend’s, I heard its whisper:

“Duped, duped again, Roy Lee! Do you recall that this is the thirteenth of November?”

The thought chilled me—the thirteenth!

I hated Regan. He had just saved my life, but still I hated him!

Why did he listen, listen? One need not listen to hear the storm!

“Did the old hermit die here alone?” asked Isabella.

The silent form lay in another room.

“I was here. I came at the last, almost too late,” answered Regan.

As in a dream I saw that death-bed—the monomaniac lying in darkness, watched by the angel Fear, menaced by the monarch Death, waiting, waiting for such a friend of all the earth!

“When he had forgotten all else but his dream and my name, he gave me this. It is the secret of his life. Perhaps you would like to know it.”

And Regan unrolled a large scroll. It was yellow with age, mapped and covered with long lines and singular hieroglyphics.

“What does it mean?” asked Rondah.

We spread the chart upon the table to view it better.

“It contains the discovery which is the result of the observation of three generations. A circle of meteoric worlds and fragments is whirling on an elongated orbit about our sun.

“Once in thirty-three and a third years it strikes the path of the Earth. Small planets mingled with masses of chaos are brought almost to the tops of our mountains.

“Years ago the hermit devised a spiral car, which, by means of subterranean cavities, walled with cement and filled with certain explosives of his own combination, should be shot into the coming meteor. All the machinery of the contrivance is hidden and connected with a secret clock. At the precise second when the worlds strike right the clock will explode the torpedoes and the car will be launched into space!

“Twice has Gregg Dempster seen the small star, or world, come close. But he mistook his measurements, as he did not calculate for the swerving of the ball from its true orbit as it passed the giant planets out in space.

“This time he would have been successful, but he shared the great hope, which had become the nerve of his life, with another man and from the lessened tension died.”

“Right,” said Father Renaudin. “If Gregg Dempster had kept his secret, he had seen his star once more. But only then to die of disappointment. For man to migrate from star to star is an impossibility!”

Then Regan replied:

“Monarch of Fate is man, above all destiny. Man yet shall chain the stars; shall drive the harnessed worlds!”

“It is simply impossible!” repeated the priest.

From the darkness where lay the dead man came a voice:

“And I will give him the morning star!”

Then all was voiceless save the storm.

“The dead speak!” cried the pale Rondah, clasping her hands.

Isabella had been brave in all the danger. Now she rose and, with the girl as her companion, stood close to the door.

That mockery of mystery, a voice from the dead, was more terrible than anything which we were accustomed to account for by natural laws.

The rocks on which the hut stood seemed to shake and to reverberate.

“The people say the hermit spent his life in tunnelling the rocks and in watching the stars,” said Father Renaudin. “It seems as if the tunnels, if such there be, had made musical pipes of themselves to-night.”

Suddenly Regan crossed the room to where the two girls stood. Something was in his face which was terrible.

I hastily drew Isabella away from him. The other one, Rondah, looking at him, fell back from the door and cried:

“This is the day! Let us go, Regan, let us go!”

Before I could comprehend, I saw Father Renaudin move toward Regan, who, like a flash, opened the door and cast into the terrible, lurid night the girl Rondah, after which he bolted the door and steadied himself as if for a death-struggle with Father Renaudin.

Then I heard the jar of the steps of two powerful combatants, but everything was dark. There were no words until Regan cried:

“Too late! You must all go!”

A window crashed open above us. It gave us a view of a world, black with storm, ringed in by a halo of electric fire, dashing down at us—falling, falling!

The struggle ceased. We held our weak human hands above our heads to ward off the stroke of a world!

There was a smothering jar!