ADRIFT IN THE UNKNOWN (continued 2)

The professor laughed softly and seated himself.

"Sit down, Mr. Munn," said he. "We have been ostracized by our fellow-exiles. Let us see how well they get along without us."

"We bid you farewell," finished Meigs loftily.

Thereupon he turned the key, threw open the door—and dropped on the threshold as though he had been shot! Markham and Popham cried aloud, threw their arms across their faces and reeled back.

A blast as from a furnace drove in at the opening, filling the chamber like a draft from Hades. I could scarcely breathe in the stifling atmosphere.

"Hurry, Munn!" cried Quinn. "Drag Meigs away from the door or he'll be burned to a crisp!"

The broker was already smoking when I caught his ankles and jerked him inside. The professor slammed the door.

Presently the air within the car readjusted itself to normal conditions. Meigs, red as a beet and breathing heavily, was little the worse for his warm experience.

"I fancy, Mr. Meigs," cooed the professor, "that you will wish to avail yourself of one of my anti-temperature baths before cutting loose from myself and Mr. Munn. There is plenty of water left for all of us, and I will go aloft, set up the collapsible tub, and make the bath ready. We have alighted in the tropics, evidently, and at the period of mid-summer. The temperature is about five hundred degrees, fahrenheit."

With that the professor took the key from the door to keep Gilhooly from making a dash outside, and started for the storeroom. I followed him, the three disgruntled gentlemen gazing after us mutely.

The professor and I were the first to fortify ourselves with the anti-temperature bath. After dipping our bodies, we rinsed our clothing in the liquid.

Aside from a pleasant, cooling sensation the bath gave no evidence of its potent qualities. There was no hardening of the skin, as I fancied there might be, no change in its ruddy color, no inconvenience.

When we went down again we sent the other three gentlemen aloft, the professor instructing them as to the necessity of making their clothing as well as their bodies proof against the climate. In due course, Popham, Meigs, and Markham once more showed themselves.

Gilhooly, of course, had also to be made immune; and he struggled against it so fiercely that we were obliged to hold him in the tub while the professor poured three buckets of the mixture over him.

He was not disrobed, and when sufficiently drenched he leaped from the tub and fled, raving, to the lower chamber.

"Now," said the professor, "we are prepared to fare forth. You gentlemen"—he addressed himself to Markham, Meigs, and Popham—"may go with Mr. Munn and me, or keep by yourselves, as you may elect. But it will be well to make this car our headquarters. Here we have food and drink, also a stronghold in case of attack by the Mercurials—if there happen to be any."

"How can there be any life in such an over-heated atmosphere?" inquired Markham.

"Nature is a great leveler of barriers," replied Quinn. "She is able to adjust life to its environment, you may be sure, just as easily as she can bridge the social chasm that separates a thief from a trust magnate."

His eyes twinkled.

"Such a bridge," he added, "would not prove much of a tax on her resources. For my own part, I do not think the chasm either so wide or so deep as you gentlemen appear to imagine."

I chuckled at that, and Meigs and his two companions grew duly resentful.

"As for Mr. Gilhooly," continued Quinn, "we cannot take him with us on our tour of observation. It will be best to leave him locked in the car. I will close the trap leading into the store-room and I do not think it will be possible for him to work much damage in the room below."

"I don't know what good it will do me to go out with your exploring expedition," said Popham dejectedly; "in a country as hot as this there can be no earthly use for coal."

"Or wearing apparel," added Meigs listlessly. "Cotton couldn't grow in such a temperature. And as for wheat!" He shook his head wearily.

Cotton and wheat were the abc of his Wall Street experience. Beyond those commodities he groped in the dark.

"What sort of food can be grown on such a sun-baked planet?" grumbled Markham.

The railway man was shouting something about watered stock, and his babbling was wafted up to us.

"Gilhooly," added Markham, "is the only fortunate man in the party. Realization will blast the hopes and mayhap prove the death of the rest of us, while he—he cannot realize!"

"You gentlemen lose courage too quickly," said the professor. "In my lectures on Venus I told you how that planet was inclined to the plane of its orbit. The axis of Mercury has a still greater inclination; in fact, the orb leans on itself as though about to fall. Its days are of about the same length as the days of Terra—only three minutes longer—but its years, owing to its contracted orbit, are much shorter. In eighty-eight days Mercury makes its round, so that each season is only twenty-two days in length.

"At the poles of Mercury, in what answers to the polar regions of our own earth, there must be a more tempered climate——"

"Then let us get there, by all means," cut in Popham.

"In whatever we do," answered Quinn, "we must make haste slowly."

"Let's get out and look around, anyhow," cried Meigs. "It may happen, after all, that we have a world to conquer here, and I have not the patience to remain longer in this steel cell of yours."

"Very good," returned the professor. "We will make our preparations and go forth."

He shut off the flow of oxygen from the tank and then followed the rest of us to the under apartment, closing a steel door over the trap at the head of the stairs and locking it. Gilhooly, imagining himself a conductor, was walking around the edge of the circular divan collecting tickets from imaginary passengers.

"Sing Sing!" he called out as the professor unlocked the door at the entrance and pulled it open.

"Here's where you get off, Munn," said Meigs maliciously.

"Here's where we all get off," returned the professor, smiling.

Thereupon we passed hastily into the blinding glare of the Mercurial day. For several minutes our eyes rebelled at the brightness; when finally they became inured to it, we looked around us upon a desolation that struck dismay to our hearts.

We saw then that our car had alighted upon an elevation which was nothing less than the rim of an extinct volcano of vast proportions. From ridge to ridge across the abysmal crater at least half a mile could be measured.

It was beyond the power of our eyes to penetrate to the black depths of the great pit.

"Listen!" cried the professor, his voice resounding so thunderously as almost to deafen us—some trick of the atmosphere.

We stood silently, our ears alert, and heard a confused babel of sound proceeding apparently out of the very core of the volcano.

"Sub-Mercurial fires may be at work down there," whispered the professor, nodding toward the crater.

Even the whisper sounded unpleasantly loud to us.

"What a world!" came from Augustus Popham in bellowing tones. "With fire within and without, what chance is there for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"

Some of Meigs' peevishness had got into the coal man, and he rent the air with it. We remained mule after this outburst, I with my gaze hopefully on the professor and the professor blinking at the sun.

In a little time I allowed my own eyes to falter zenithward, and the glory of the sun in Mercury's mid-heaven has ever since been one of the treasured memories of my life. Its disk was six times its diameter as viewed from Earth, and the grandeur of its flaming surface is beyond the powers of my feeble pen to make known.

I was oppressed and held captive by a feeling of awe and wonder. There was a red tinge to the atmosphere, caused by a reflection from the red of the planet's brick-like crust; through this warm color pulsed the golden streamers—yellow and scarlet overhead, fading to faintest orange on the horizon.

"Think you, Mr. Popham," murmured the professor, his voice awakening us as from a trance, "that all yon splendor, which has been in these skies for ages upon ages, was created for the enjoyment of no living thing? If so, you are wrong. There are now, as there have always been, beings with an intelligence capable of appreciating all this magnificent profusion of light and color. But enough. We have looked down into the crater and up into the heavens; suppose we turn our eyes another way and see what there is to offer."

He faced about as he spoke, and gazed down the bare rocky slope of the volcano and off across an equally bare and forbidding plain.

"No trees, no water, no life of any kind," muttered Meigs querulously.

"There is a bright spot over there," said Quinn, shading his eyes and pointing.

Our eyes followed his finger and encountered a glittering object on a slight elevation. As we gazed, the object, whatever it was, slowly vanished.

"We might investigate that," suggested Popham excitedly. "Perhaps it was a Mercurial wearing a sort of armor to protect him from the heat. It may be that there are people here, and that they live underground."

He would have started forthwith, but the professor stretched out a hand and detained him.

"Just a moment," said Quinn. "Before we get too far from the car, let me make sure that all of you are sufficiently immune from the heat. Do you feel that you are fully protected in that respect, gentlemen?"

So far as I was personally concerned, I had not felt the slightest inconvenience from the sun's rays. I declared as much, and the others likewise so expressed themselves.

"There's another one of the things!" spoke up Meigs, pointing in another direction.

We were just able to detect a glow on another low elevation when it also flashed into thin air. Then we began looking for the little hills, and counted no less than a dozen within our range of vision.

Some of the hills were capped with the mysterious gleam, which dazzled for a time and then twinkled out.

The professor was perplexed, as I could see plainly.

"We'll examine one of those hills," said Meigs, "and find out what this means."

The top of the volcano, where we were standing, was perhaps five hundred feet from the plain. As Meigs spoke, he leaped for a rock a yard or so below him.

To the astonishment of all of us, he rose in the air like a human balloon, soared over the rock by a score of feet, and alighted several rods down the slope.

It was a titanic jump, but Meigs had regained a foothold with the lightness of a piece of down. He was a large man, was Meigs, his ponderosity exceeding two hundred pounds, Fairbanks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Quinn!" I exclaimed.

"We must hang together." said Quinn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MERCURIALS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Seemingly," I responded.

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

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

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

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

"No," said I.

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

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

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

"Nothing else could have happened."

The professor gave a start and looked worried.

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

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

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

"True, very true," said he.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Anything is possible."

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

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

The professor's brow clouded with anxiety.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You think it has been blown——"

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

"But——"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IX.

LEARNING THE WORD-BOX.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No," I answered humbly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER X.

HOW WE WERE CATALOGUED.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I grabbed my word-box.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He sighed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The professor laughed quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

"And what is the Bolla?"

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

"Where is the Bolla?"

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

Nothing could have pleased us more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I am grievously discouraged," he sighed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The end justifies the means, professor."

"We must strive to think so."

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

"Let us not dwell upon poor Gilhooly."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then at another time:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Never sick in my life," I declared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XI.

THE DILEMMA OF MR. MEIGS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We had made some acquaintance with military affairs in Baigol.

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

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

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

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

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

Then, to us:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What are you harping about?" asked Meigs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Circumstances are different here," he mumbled.

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

The captain of the royal guard was growing impatient.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

Meigs wrung his hands despairingly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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