ADRIFT IN THE UNKNOWN (continued 3)

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

"What is the demand?" inquired Quinn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XII.

CONDEMNED TO DEATH.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meigs was loudly bewailing his evil fortune.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Answer came back:

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

"What is to be our fate?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quinn groped for my hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Thank you for that, my friend."

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

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

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

I was aroused by the professor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quinn laid his hand on my shoulder.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What has happened?" he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus the pæans of the soldiers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His majesty gave an exclamation of surprise.

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

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

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

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

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

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse."

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

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

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

"It is my royal will."

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

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

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

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

The king laughed ironically.

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XIII.

A THREATENING CALAMITY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our close attention being secured, the king remarked:

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

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

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

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

The lord of the exchequer thereupon retired in much confusion.

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

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

"Markham!" cried Meigs, whirling around.

"Mr. Markham!" exclaimed the professor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So will I," averred Meigs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The king was silent a few moments.

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

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

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

"Yes, your majesty."

"Is it as large as Njambai?"

"Much larger, your majesty."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quinn shuddered.

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

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

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

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

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

He halted and raised his word-box.

"Ho, there, Olox!" he cried.

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

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

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

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

"Yes, your majesty."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The interior is in good condition?"

"Very good, your majesty."

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

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

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

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

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

"It will be attended to, your highness."

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

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

"Very essential," replied Quinn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The test is not necessary," he demurred.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Have you any astronomical instruments?" asked Quinn.

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XIV.

PLAN TO STEAL A BUILDING.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And what is that?" inquired the professor.

"The Bolla," was the startling answer.

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

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

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

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

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

"Where did it come from?"

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

"How did King Gaddbai get hold of it?"

"He borrowed it from the king of Baigol."

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

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

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

"Whatever our sovereign does is right."

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

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

"At the iron house?" The professor nodded.

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

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

"The paint was returned to its proper place?"

"Even so."

"And the telescope——'

"That matter was attended to."

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

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

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

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

"It might," replied the professor guardedly.

"What has become of him?"

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

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

"Undoubtedly."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I surveyed the small building with critical eyes.

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

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

"What is that?"

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

"Eh?" I gasped.

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

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

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

I gave much thought to the matter.

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

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

CHAPTER XV.

SURVEYING OUR OWN PLANET.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Popham gave a faint cry of derision.

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

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

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

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

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

"By means of our car."

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

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

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

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

"You would not dare!" breathed Popham.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I started erect.

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

I nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XVI.

HOW ILL-LUCK OVERTOOK ME.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Who are the directors?" he asked suspiciously.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh, come, now," I cried, in a bit of a temper. "That won't do you any good, Gilhooly. It doesn't belong to you, and you haven't any right to keep it."

"Don't we ever keep anything that don't belong to us?" he asked sarcastically. "I'm not that sort of a fellow, for I keep everything in the railroad line that I can get my hands on."

Logic and reason were utterly dead in his mind. Whims he had, but they were but fancies of the moment. As I stood there looking at him, I wondered how the people of Baigadd had ever managed to keep him hauling their trains as long as they had.

"Good-by," he called suddenly, taking the exchequer under his arm. "I think I'll go to the office and——"

Just then I made a dash at him. With a mocking laugh he whirled about and raced off across the hills, myself in hot pursuit.

Gilhooly's course intersected the Baigol highway and he turned into it, roaring defiantly as he sped along. Suddenly he stumbled and fell, and a cry of dismay escaped me.

He had fallen squarely on the exchequer and wrecked it completely!

Kyzicks—yellow coins the size of a gold dollar and worth five times as much—rolled, everywhere about the road, diverging from a heap that lay revealed by the collapsed walls of the building. Flinging forward, I went to my knees and began plunging my hands into the pile.

I believe that just then I was as daft as Gilhooly himself. In those days the glimmer of gold always had a demoralizing effect on me.

As I raked my outspread fingers through the yellow pile I brought up a round, jet-black stone the size of my fist. I regarded it as a bit of chaff in the bin of wealth and hurled it from me down the road. With a loud yell, Gilhooly leaped after it.

Then I became aware of a weird and inexplicable feeling that laid itself like an axe at the root of my professional instinct. What right had I to all this treasure? It belonged to the king of Baigall; he was an unworthy creature, perhaps, but still it belonged to him. What had I been about to do? My heart sickened and I sprang up, spurned the kyzicks with my heel and turned my back.

That was my awakening. In one instant the iron of repentance had pierced my soul. The past rolled its turgid waters in front of me. I shivered and drew back from that wave of evil, covering my eyes to blot it from my sight.

How should I atone for the days that had been? Could I do it by an unflinching rectitude in the days there were to be? Conscience was belaboring me with telling blows. I had not been on intimate terms with my conscience for many years, and to have it thus suddenly overmaster me and drive me into reformation was a mystery beyond my power to explain.

While I stood there consumed with regret and hoping against hope for the future, a voice hailed me from down the road.

"Did you say your name was Munn?"

Could that calm, contained voice have come from Emmet Gilhooly? I looked in his direction and found him leaning against a jutting spur of rocks, his right hand clutching convulsively the black stone I had flung from me.

The crazed light had vanished from his eyes. An expression of wonder was on his face, but it was a rational wonder developed by an awakening as abrupt and complete as mine had been.

"You have it right, Mr. Gilhooly," I answered, the extreme mildness of my voice surprising me. "My full name is James Peter Munn and——"

"You are the thief who just came into the castle and relieved myself and my friends of their valuables?"

Gilhooly's normal condition had come back to him at the point where it had been dropped. I was not slow in reasoning how this might be.

"I was a thief in the letter and spirit less than ten minutes back," I humbly answered, "but now, sir, I have turned a leaf. I promise you that the rest of the book shall read better than what has gone before."

Gilhooly passed his left hand across his forehead.

"Where—where am I?" he faltered.

"In the kingdom of Baigadd," I returned, "some distance out of the royal city."

"Baigadd? Royal city? You talk strangely, Mr. Munn. Where is the castle? Where are Meigs, Markham, and Popham? And Professor Quinn? Are we";—he started forward and looked wildly around—"still in the castle? But no, that can't be. You just said we were somewhere else. I beg your pardon, Mr. Munn. I am confused and hardly know what I am saying."

I began an explanation, going patiently into every detail, and when I finally finished Gilhooly knew as much about our situation as I did.

For some time Gilhooly walked up and down the road, passing and repassing the heap of gold. At last he paused beside it.

"We should return this treasure to its owner, Mr. Munn," said he, and he dropped the black stone on the yellow pile. "From what you tell me, this is a strange planet and strangely peopled. Yet there is superstition here as well as in our native orb—as these wonder tales about the Bolla will bear evidence."

"I think with you, sir," said I. "The Bolla is simply a fetish and its miraculous powers are purely imaginary."

"That is the sensible way to look at it. Suppose we load our pockets with the gold and start back with it to the city from whence it was taken?"

I assented and suggested using our coats as improvised bags for the easier transportation of the king's wealth, and we stripped to our shirt sleeves and set about our work. In half an hour we had collected all the scattered treasure, had bound it up in our coats and had started back.

Gilhooly preserved a pensive silence. His thoughts were far away and he seemed entirely oblivious of the fact that I was trudging along at his side. It was only when we turned an angle in the road and came face to face with Quinn, Meigs, Markham, and Popham that Gilhooly showed any interest in our present situation.

CHAPTER XVII.

A CHANGE OF HEART.

The meeting between Gilhooly and his brother exiles was most affecting. In the general joy at finding the ex-railway magnate restored to reason the matter of the imperial exchequer was temporarily lost sight of.

And I think the man who rejoiced most over Gilhooly's returned sanity was Quinn. The professor's beady little eyes were fairly glowing as he caught and clung to Gilhooly's hand after the others had expressed their pleasure and tendered congratulations.

"This is a glad day for me, Mr. Gilhooly!" exclaimed the professor. "I had taken myself very much to task on account of your clouded mind."

"Your reproach of yourself was well merited," spoke up Meigs, who always had a venomous shaft in his quiver for Quinn. "Small thanks to you that our friend is himself again."

"Gently, Mr. Meigs, gently," came from Gilhooly. "I do not find Professor Quinn in the wrong in any particular."

Popham, Meigs, and Markham regarded Gilhooly with open-mouthed amaze. I think the professor also was startled; I know at least that I was.

"Do you mean to say, Mr. Gilhooly," cried Meigs, "that you can overlook Quinn's criminal folly in casting us adrift in the unknown?"

"I cannot only overlook it," was the quiet response, "but I can forgive it. Almost I am of the opinion that it was justifiable."

"Faugh!" rasped Meigs. "You have not recovered your reason after all or you would not talk that way."

"Let us not engage in useless disputes, gentlemen," put in the professor. "There is another affair to engage us. It was thought," Quinn went on, with an expressive look at me, "that Mr. Gilhooly had fled the realm and taken the imperial exchequer with him."

"It was I who took the exchequer," said I, "and it is I who hope to return it to the king."

"What about the Bolla?" queried Quinn, giving me a sharp look.

"It is here," said I, touching the makeshift bundle I was carrying under my arm. "At least," I added, "there is a strange looking black stone among the gold coins and I suppose it must be King Golbai's palladium."

"We were sent forth to look for Mr. Gilhooly and the stolen treasure," remarked the professor. "Olox and his Gaddbaizets are likewise on the road, but we have been able to leave them pretty well in the rear."

"What was thought of my absence?" I asked.

"Very little, Mr. Munn. Every officer of the state seemed united in fixing the blame upon Mr. Gilhooly. Since he was known to be mentally unsound, no crime could be attached to his act."

"I shall tell the truth of it," I declared.

"And be condemned to death by zet," said the professor, gazing at me fixedly.

"Let the king believe what he will," said Gilhooly. "I should rather have it so since it means so much to Mr. Munn."

"Why did you not keep on to the other kingdom with the Bolla?" inquired Quinn of me.

"Because I didn't think I should be doing the right thing," I replied.

"Ah! And why this sudden change in your sentiments, Mr. Munn?"

"I can't explain it, professor."

"I believe it is a theory of yours that one thief has the right to take from another what does not belong to either of them."

"Two wrongs do not make a right."

"Indeed! The change in your sentiments is most sudden—and remarkable. Will you please untie the sleeves of your coat and allow me to have a look at that black stone?"

I lowered my bundle and opened it.

"There," said I, but poorly concealing the contempt I felt for the black stone as I pointed to it. "You may take stock in the superstition if you will, professor, but I will have none of it."

The professor gave me a queer smile, then picked up the Bolla and surveyed it curiously.

"Would you like to look at it, Mr. Meigs?" he asked.

"A fetish like this is a sure sign of barbarism," observed Meigs, taking the stone. "The creatures who inhabit this planet are not of a very high order mentally."

He passed the Bolla to Popham and Popham handed it to Markham. It was presently returned to me and I packed it away as before.

The professor then asked me for an account of what had happened during my flight toward Baigol with the exchequer. Gilhooly was not able to help me much in the recital, as the most important part of our adventures was a perfect blank to him.

I did not try to conceal anything from Quinn. I painted my designs on the king's money as black as they really were and he smiled as he listened.

"When did Mr. Gilhooly lay hands on the Bolla?" Quinn asked.

"How do you know that he did?" I returned.

"I am very sure that he did," was the quiet reply.

Thereupon I told the professor how I had thrown the stone from the heap of gold and Gilhooly had picked it up, his reason returning shortly afterward. Quinn wagged his head sagely and mumbled something I could not understand, but which had to do with the ridiculous pretensions of the Bolla.

I feared then for the mind of this great and good man. Was he breaking under the tremendous responsibility incurred by removing the plutocrats from Earth?

A chill of apprehension shot to my heart. I was about to say something of a soothing nature to my patron—for I certainly looked upon him as such—when Olox and his Gaddbaizets appeared.

Key seven of the high chief's word-box titillated with relief the instant the officer got his eye on Gilhooly. The exuberance faded into a note of foreboding and the foreboding into the words:

"Where is the king's treasure house? If that has not been recovered, calamity threatens our expedition to the planet Terra!"

"The treasure house has been broken and wrecked," replied the professor, "but my friends, Mr. Gilhooly and Mr. Munn, are returning the gold to his majesty in their coats."

"Why should Mr. Gilhooly steal the gold and then help to return it?" came incredulously from Olox. "Is it simply a vagary of his unbalanced mind?"

"I am pleased to say, Chief Olox, that his mind is no longer unbalanced," returned the professor, warning me to silence with a look as I was about to operate my talking machine. "Mr. Gilhooly is now as sane as you or I."

Olox looked worried.

"I declare," said he, "I don't know how the president and board of directors of the Interplanetary will regard this unexpected occurrence."

"They should feel overjoyed at the unclouding of so bright a mind as Mr. Gilhooly's."

"But what if it interferes with the traffic of the road? They have been running limited trains on a schedule heretofore beyond their wildest dreams. His majesty farmed out the concession to the management of the road for ninety-nine years, on a cash basis. If the traction power proves unavailable, a demand will be made on the king for a return of the money—and just now any depletion of the imperial coffers might prove fatal to the projected expedition."

It was just as well that the ex-magnates could not comprehend what was going on between the word-boxes. The utilitarian views of the king, as exemplified in Gilhooly's case, would have jarred somewhat on their conceit and self-esteem.

I noticed that a gleam of hope crossed Quinn's face when Olox spoke of a possible failure of the king's plan of conquest through lack of the sinews of war. But the hope died away almost instantly when Quinn reflected, as I did, that the monarch was as unscrupulous as he was resourceful.

No further conversation was indulged in. The royal troops executed an about face and returned to the capital, convoying our reunited party of aliens.

As we drew up in the square the two glittering soldiers appeared in the turrets and sounded a call that drew the king to the balcony.

His majesty listened to the report of Olox with a beaming face, but his smiles fled when he learned how the traction interests of the realm were threatened by Gilhooly's returning sanity.

While this momentous question was still up for debate, Meigs plucked at the professor's sleeve.

"Tell the king, professor," said he, his eyes downcast, "that I see the error of my way and frankly acknowledge it. If I am ever so fortunate as to get back to Earth I shall be a reformer. Please ask the king when I can have my clothes."

And this was Meigs! Had the heavens fallen I could not have been more astounded.

"Tell him the same for me," spoke Hannibal Markham. "Make it even stronger, if you will. I have not been starved into submission—I should have withstood such a siege to the death—but the change has been wrought here."

He struck a hand against his heart.

"And ask him, professor," added Markham plaintively, "to have my wants supplied immediately from the palace kitchens."

"Allow me to join my honorable friends in this free announcement of a change of heart," chimed in Augustus Popham. "Look at my hands!"

He held his hands out to us and we found them calloused and scarred.

"I can't go back to those mole burrows!" he supplemented.

Professor Quinn showed no signs of amazement. After grasping the palm of each ex-magnate, he fairly electrified his word-box with the supplications of the exiles.

"Are these acknowledgments freely made and do they come from contrite hearts," said the king, "or do they merely cloak a desire to escape further privation at the expense of truth?"

The professor indignantly repelled the insinuation. When he had finished his vigorous remarks, I stepped to the front and made a complete confession of my designs on the Bolla and the imperial exchequer. Quinn tried to stop me, but I would suffer no interference.

"Are you aware," said the king gravely, "that lèse majesté, felony, and half a dozen other capital crimes are mixed up in your confession?"

"Am I less courageous than an ex-trust magnate?" cried I warmly.

"Their confessions free them from servitude and the inconveniences of hunger and lack of raiment," responded the king; "yours condemns you to a blast of zet that will consume and dissipate your body as though it had never been."

Professor Quinn groaned and turned away with one hand over his eyes. My affection reached out for the good man then as it had never done before.

"Bring on the indexograph, Olox," commanded the king. "We will see how much of truth or falsehood it registers in the cases of these gentlemen."

The indexograph was brought and test was made of all of us except the professor. The ideographs must have registered mightily in our favor, for the king seemed more than convinced of our sincerity.

"Restore to the clothing trust man the apparel that is rightfully his," ordered his majesty; "allow the gentleman who would monopolize food to partake of a sufficient supply to satisfy his hunger; free the person who has been delving for my black blocks from further duty—and incidentally confiscate the funds paid into the royal treasury for his services, as well as for the services of the B.&B. traction power—for Mr. Gilhooly's sanity precludes his further use on the Interplanetary. Be happy, gentlemen! I feel that I must do some worthy deeds to commemorate this the day that witnesses our departure for the subjugation of Terra."

Quinn was rent with conflicting emotions, as was plainly apparent. He was glad the ex-plutocrats had fallen into royal favor, he was sorry to have me yet under that ban, and he was greatly wrought up to learn that the king meditated such an early start on his inter-stellar campaign.

"What of Mr. Munn, your highness?" he inquired.

"Oh, yes," returned the king, "I was forgetting him. Olox, let him be decorated with the Order of the Open Hand and see that he is inducted on the morrow into the office of executioner-general. We need an executioner to fill the place of the late incumbent and I should have to look far before I found so conscientious a person as Mr. Munn. Leave orders with a subordinate, Olox. Neither you nor I will be here to attend the ceremony. My royal will shall be conveyed to the regent.

"And now," added the king as he rose from his seat, "while the treasurer counts the kyicks and takes care of the Bolla, Olox, you and I will proceed to the metal house, guarded by the Gaddbaizets and accompanied by our alien friends."