Page 7

Page 7

Author: Various

Category: Humorous

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  The Moon Master

  _By Charles W. Diffin_

  _He laughed loudly and contemptuously._]

  [Sidenote: Through infinite deeps of space Jerry Foster hurtles to theMoon--only to be trapped by a barbaric race and offered as a livingsacrifice to Oong, their loathsome, hypnotic god.]

  "Now that's a mighty queer noise." Jerry Foster told himself. Hedropped the pack from his shoulders and leaned closer to the canyonrim.

  Miles behind him was the last beaten trail: Jerry wanted peace andsolitude and quiet. And now the quiet of the silent mountains wasdisturbed.

  From far below came a steady, muffled roar. Faint it was, and distant,but peculiar in its unvarying, unceasing rush.

  "Not water," Jerry concluded; "not enough down there. Soundslike--like a wind--like a wind that can't quit.

  "Oh well--" He shrugged his shoulders and slipped into the straps ofhis pack. Then he went back again to the granite ledge. "I wonder ifthere's a way down," he said.

  There was, but it took all of Jerry's strength to see him safelythrough. On a fan-shaped talus of spreading boulders he stopped. Therewas a limestone wall beyond. And at its base, from a crevice that wasalmost a cave, came a furious rush of air and steam.

  It touched him lightly a hundred feet away, and he threw himself flatto escape the hot blast. Endlessly it came, with its soft, rushingroar, a ceaseless, scorching blast from the cold rocks.

  "That's almighty funny," mused Foster, and sniffed the air. There wasno odor.

  "And is it hot!" he said. "Nothing like that in my geology book. Andwhat is beyond? Looks like concrete work, as if someone had plasteredup the cave." He picked his way quickly across the rock slope.

  It was hard going. Below him the rocks and dirt went steep to thecanyon floor. At its foot the blast swept diagonally over the slope.He must see what lay beyond....

  "Curious," he thought; "curious if that is nature's work--and a lotmore so if it isn't."

  A rock rolled beneath his feet. Another! He scrambled and foughtdesperately for foothold in the slipping earth. Then, rolling andclawing, he rode helpless on the slide straight toward the mysteriousblast. He felt it envelop him, hot and strangling. His lungs were dryand burning ... the blazing sun faded from the rocks ... the world wasdark....

  * * * * *

  Darkness was still about him when he awoke. But it was cool; the airwas sweet on his lips. And it was not entirely dark.

  He turned his head. He was in a room. On a rough-hewn table a candlewas burning. Its light cast flickering shadows on walls of stone.Rumbling in his ears was the sound of the blast that had overwhelmedhim. It echoed, seemingly, from far back in the stone cliff.

  Jerry made a move to sit up. He found that his hands and feet weretied, his body bound to the rough board bed.

  At the sound of his stirring, a figure came out from the farthershadow. It was that of a man. Jerry looked at him in silence. He wastall, his thin erectness making him seem abnormal in the low room. Thelean face was unshaven, and from under a thatch of black hair a pairof deep-set eyes stared penetratingly at the figure on the rude bed.

  "Well," asked Jerry, at length, "what's the big idea?"

  There was no reply. Only the intent, staring eyes.

  "You got me out of that man-trap of yours," Jerry continued. "Yousaved my life."

  * * * * *

  The tall man finally spoke. "Yes, I saved your life. You missed thehottest part of the exhaust. I pumped you full of oxygen."

  "Then why tie me up like this?" Jerry Foster was frankly puzzled.

  "You are lucky to be alive. Spies are not always allowed--" Heinterrupted himself abruptly. "You are a reporter," he stated.

  "Wrong," said Jerry Foster.

  "Who sent you?"

  "Nobody sent me. I heard the noise of your infernal blast-furnace andcame down to have a look."

  "Who sent you?" repeated the man. "Goodwin? The Stillwater crowd? Whowas it?"

  "I don't know what you are talking about," protested Jerry. "I don'tknow who your Goodwin or Stillwater people are. I don't know who youare--I don't give a damn. Take these ropes off and cut out themelodrama. I'll go on my way, and I don't care if I never see youagain."

  "That's a lie." The tall figure leaned over to shake a bony fist."You'd report to Goodwin. He stole my last invention. He'll not getthis."

  Jerry considered the wild figure carefully. "He's a nut," he thought.When he spoke, his voice was controlled.

  "Now, see here," he said: "I don't know anything about this. I'm JerryFoster, live in San Francisco--"

  "So does Goodwin."

  "Confound you and your Goodwin! So do a million other people livethere! I'm getting away from there; I'm heading into the hills for ashort vacation. All I want is to get away from the world. I'm lookingfor a little peace and quiet."

  * * * * *

  The thin man interrupted with a harsh laugh.

  "Come here spying," he said, "and tell me you want to get away fromthe world." Again he laughed shrilly.

  "And I am going to be your little fairy godmother. I wish you wereGoodwin himself! I wish I had him here. But you'll get yourwish--you'll get your wish. You'll leave the world, you shall,indeed."

  He rocked back and forth with appreciation of his humor.

  "Didn't know I was all ready to leave, did you? All packed and readyto go. Supplies all stowed away; enough energy stored to carry memillions of miles. Or maybe you did know--maybe there are otherscoming...." He hurried across the room to open a heavy door of splitlogs in the rock wall.

  "I'll fool them all this time," he said; "and you'll never go back totell them." The door closed behind him.

  "Crazy as a bed-bug," Jerry told himself. He strained frantically atthe ropes that bound him. "Looks bad for me: the old bird said I'dnever go back. Well, what if I die now ... or six months from now?Though I know that doctor was wrong."

  He tried to accept his fate philosophically, but the will to live wasstrong. And one of his wrists felt looser in its bonds.

  * * * * *

  Across the room his pack lay on the floor, and in it was a heavyforty-five. If he could get the pistol.... A knot pulled loose underhis twisting fingers. One hand was free. He worked feverishly at theother wrist.

  The ropes were suddenly loose. He pulled himself to his feet, took amoment to regain control of cramped muscles, then flung himself at thepack. When the heavy door opened he was behind it, his pistol in hishand.

  There was no struggle: the lanky figure showed no maniacal fury.Instead, the man did a surprising thing. He sank weakly upon the roughbunk where Jerry had lain, his face buried in his thin hands.

  "I should have let you die," he said slowly, hopelessly. "I shouldhave let you die. But I couldn't do that.... And now you'll steal myinvention for Goodwin."

  Jerry was as exasperated as he was amazed.

  "I told you," he almost shouted. "I never knew anyone named Goodwin! Idon't care a hoot about your invention. And as for letting me die--whydidn't you? That's a puzzle: you were about to kill me, anyway."

  "No," said the other patiently. "I wasn't going to kill you."

  "You said I'd never go back."

  "I was going to take you with me."

  "Take me where?"

  "To the moon," said the drooping figure.

  Jerry Foster stared, open-mouthed. The pistol lagged in his limp hand."To the moon!" he gasped.

  Then: "See here," he said firmly. "I've got you where I want you."--heheld the pistol steady--"and now I'm going to learn what's back ofthis. I think you are crazy, absolutely crazy. But, tell me, who areyou? What do you think you're doing? What was the meaning of thatroaring blast?"

  * * * * *

  The man looked up. "You don't know?" he asked eagerly. "You reallydon't?"

  "No," said Jerry; "but I'm going to find out."
/>   "Yes," the other agreed. "Yes, you can, now that you've got theupper-hand. I guess I was half crazy when I thought I had been spiedout. But I'll tell you."

  He sat erect. "I am Thomas J. Winslow," he said, and made thestatement as if it were an explanation in itself.

  "Well," said Jerry, "that's no burst of illumination to my ignorance.Come again."

  The man called Winslow was ready--anxious--to talk.

  "I am an inventor. I have made millions of dollars"--Jerry looked atthe disheveled apparel of the speaker and smiled--"for other people.The Stillwater syndicate stole my valveless motor. Then I developed mytelevision set. Goodwin beat me out of that: he will have it on themarket inside of a year. I swore they should never profit by this, mygreatest invention."

  Jerry was impressed in spite of himself by the man's earnestsimplicity.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  "I've broken the atom," said Winslow. "First tore the atoms ofhydrogen and oxygen apart--dissociated them in the molecule ofwater--and have resolved them into their energy components. That'swhat you heard--the reaction. It it self-sustaining, exothermic. Thathot blast carried off the heat of my retort."

  * * * * *

  Winslow rose from the bunk. Gone was his listless despondency.

  "Put up that gun," he said: "you don't need it now. I think weunderstand each other better than we did." He crossed with quickstrides to the door leading into the cliff.

  "Come with me," he told Foster. "I am leaving to-day. You will notstop me. But before I go I will show you something no other man thanmyself has ever seen."

  He led the way through the doorway. There was another room beyond,Jerry saw. It was a cave. Plainly Winslow had taken these caves in therocks and had made of them a laboratory.

  A lantern gave scant illumination: Jerry made out a small electricgenerator, and that was all. He felt a keen disappointment. Somehowthis thin-faced man had communicated to him something of his ownbelief, his own earnestness.

  "What kind of a laboratory do you call this?" he demanded. But theother was busy.

  In the wall an opening had been closed with a small iron door, withcement around it. Winslow opened it and reached through. He wasevidently adjusting something.

  The little dynamo began to hum. There was a crackling hiss from beyondthe iron doorway. The opening was flooded with a clear blue light.

  Then the roar began. It was tremendous, deafening, in the echoingcave.

  "You may look now," said Winslow, and stood aside.

  * * * * *

  Jerry peered through. There was another cave beyond. In it was a smallmetal cylinder, a retort of some kind. The blue light came from acrooked bulb beyond. The retort itself was white-hot, despite astream of water flowing upon it. A cloud of steam drove continuouslyout and up through a crevice in the rocks.

  The water flowed steadily from some subterranean stream in thelimestone formation. It was diverted for its cooling purposes, but aportion also flowed continuously into the retort. Jerry's eyes foundthis, and he could see nothing else. For, before his eyes, theimpossible was occurring.

  The retort was small, a couple of feet in diameter. It had nodischarge pipes, could hold but a few gallons. Yet into it, in asteady stream, flowed the icy water. Gallons, hundreds of gallons,flowing and flowing, endlessly, into a reservoir which could neverhold it.

  The inventor watched Foster with complacent satisfaction.

  "Where does it go?" Jerry asked incredulously.

  "Into nothingness," was the reply. "Or nearly that!"

  "See?" He held up a flask of pale green liquid. "And this," he added,exhibiting another that was colorless.

  "I have worked here for many months. I have converted thousands ofthousands of gallons of water. It has flowed into that retort, neverto return. I have gathered this, the product, a few drops at a time.

  "The protons and the electrons," he explained, "are re-formed. Theyare static now, unmoving. Call this what you will--energy ormatter--they are one and the same."

  "Still," said Jerry, gropingly, "what has all that to do with themoon? You said you were going there."

  * * * * *

  "Yes," agreed the inventor. I am going, and this is the driving forceto carry me there. I pass a certain electric current through these twoliquids. I carry the wires to two heavy electrodes. Between themresolution of matter occurs. The current carries these two componentsto again combine them and form what we call matter, the gaseshydrogen and oxygen.

  "Do I need to tell you of the constant, ceaseless and tremendousexplosion that follows?

  "But enough of this! You said I was crazy. I gave you a few bad hours.I have shown you this much as a measure of recompense. You have seenwhat no other man has ever seen. It is enough."

  He motioned Foster through the door. The roaring ceased. The inventorreturned shortly, the two flasks of liquid in his hands. Hetransferred both to two metal containers that were ready for theprecious load. He carried them with the utmost care as he went out ofdoors.

  Once he returned, and Jerry knew by the crashes from the inner roomthat the laboratory work was indeed done. There would be nothing leftto tell the secret to whomever might come.

  He followed Winslow outside, trailing him toward a wooded knoll. Therewas a clearing among the trees. And in it, hidden from all sides, hiseyes found another curious sight.

  On the ground rested a dirigible in miniature. Still, it was small, hereasoned, only by comparison with its monster prototype: actually itwas a sizable cylinder of aluminum that shone brightly in the sun. Itwas bluntly rounded at the ends. There were heavy windows, openexhaust ports, a door in the side, pierced through thick walls.Winslow vanished within, while Jerry watched in pitying wonder.

  * * * * *

  Despite its size, it was a toy, an absurd and pitiful toy. Real geniusand lunacy had many an over-lapping line, Jerry reflected as heapproached to look inside. But he found Winslow in a room surroundedby a network of curving, latticed struts. The machine was no makeshiftof a demented builder: it was a beautiful bit of construction thatJerry Foster examined.

  "How did you ever get it here?" he marveled. "What you had in thecave you could pack in, but this--all these parts--castings--cases ofsupplies--"

  The inventor did not even turn. He was busy with some finaladjustments.

  "Flew it in," he said shortly. "Built it in an old shop I owned outnear Oakland."

  "And it flew?" Jerry was still incredulous.

  "Certainly it flew! On a drop or less of the liquids you saw." Hepointed to a heavy casting at the center of the machine. There werebraces tying it strongly to the entire structure, braces designed toreceive and transmit a tremendous thrust.

  "This is the generator. Blast expelled through the big exhaust at thestern. These smaller exhausts go above and below--right and left atthe bow. Perfect control!"

  "And you flew it here!" Jerry was still trying to grasp thatincontrovertible fact. "And you were going to take me to the moon, yousaid."

  He looked above him where a pale, silvery segment showed dimly in thesky. "But why the moon?" he questioned. "Even granting that this willfly through space...."

  "It will," the other interrupted. "I tried it. Went up to better thanfifty miles."

  Jerry Foster took a minute to grasp that statement, then continued:"Granting that, why go to the moon? There is nothing there, no air tospeak of, no water! It's all known."

  * * * * *

  The inventor turned to face the younger man in the doorway.

  "There is _nothing_ known," he stated. "The modern telescopes reachout a million light years into space. But the one place they havenever seen--can never see--is less than two hundred and fifty thousandmiles away. The moon, as of course you know, always keeps the sameside toward us. The other side of the moon has never been seen.

  "Listen," he said, an
d his deep-set eyes were afire with an intenseemotion. "The moon is no tiny satellite; it is a sister planet. It iswhirled on the end of a rope (we call it gravitation), swung aroundand around the earth. How could there be water or anything fluid onthis side? It is all thrown to the other side by the centrifugalforce. Who knows what life is there? No one--no one! I am going tofind out."

  Jerry Foster was silent. He was thinking hard. He looked about him atthe clean hills, the trees, the world he knew. And he was weighing thesecure life he knew against a great adventure.

  He took one long breath of the clear air as one who looks his last ata familiar scene. He exhaled slowly. But he stepped firmly into themachine.

  "Winslow," he said, "have you any rope handy?"

  The inventor was annoyed. "Why, yes, I guess so. Why? What do you wantof it?"

  "I want you to tie me up again," said Jerry Foster. "I want you tocarry me off as you planned. I want to go with you."

  The tall man stared at the quiet, determined face before him. Slowlyhis own strained features smoothed into kindly lines. He grasped tightat Jerry's hand.

  "I was dreading that part of it," he confessed slowly: "going alone.It would have been lonely--out there...."

  * * * * *

  The shining cylinder of aluminum alloy was hurtling through space. Nolonger was it a ship of the air; it had thrown itself far beyond thatthin gaseous envelope surrounding the earth; out into the black andempty depths that lay beyond. And in it were two men, each reacting inhis own way to an adventure incredible. One was deep in thecomputation of astronomical data; the other athrill with a quivering,nerve-shaking joy that was almost breath-taking.

  A metal grating that had formed the rear wall of their cabin was nowthe floor. Winslow had thrown the ship into a vertical climb that madeof their machine a projectile shooting straight out from the earth.Gravitation held them now to the grating floor. And, stronger eventhan the earth-pull, was the constant acceleration of motion that madetheir weight doubled again and again.

  The inventor moved ponderously, with leaden limbs, to take sights fromthe windows above, to consult his maps of the sky, check and re-checkhis figures. But Jerry had eyes only for the earth they had left.

  * * * * *

  Flat on the grating he lay, his eyes over a thick glass in aproturbance of the shell that allowed him to stare and stare at whatlay directly below. He watched the familiar things of earth vanish infleecy clouds; through them there formed the great ball, where oceansand continents drew slowly into focus.

  And now he was filled with a sense of great solitude. The world, inits old, familiar companionship, was gone--probably forever. Theearth--_his_ earth--_his_ world--that place of vast distances on landand on sea, of lofty mountain ranges and heaving oceans, of cities,countries, continents--was become but a toy. A plaything from thenursery of some baby god, hanging so quiet in space he could almostreach and take it in his hands.

  Beyond it the sun was blaring, a hard outlined disc in the black sky.Its rays made shining brilliance of a polar ice-cap.

  Jerry Foster closed his eyes and drew back from the glass. Again hewas aware of the generator, whose endless roar reverberated in theircompartment. A smaller but similar apparatus was operating on one ofthe liquids from the inventor's laboratory to generate oxygen andrelease it inside the room. An escape valve had been set to maintainone atmosphere of pressure about them. Water dripped from a condenserwhere both gases were formed to burn into water vapor and cool toliquid form.

  * * * * *

  One of the windows below admitted a shaft of direct sunlight; itillumined their room with a faint glow. It would never cease, Jerryknew. They were in a place of eternal sunshine, yet a realm of anendless night. Above him, as Jerry raised his head, the windows framednothing but utter blackness, save where some brilliant point markedthe presence of a star. He missed the soft diffusion of light thatmakes daylight on earth. Here was only the one straight beam thatentered one window to make a circle of light on the opposite wall.

  Jerry looked from a window of heavy glass at the side. This had beenthe bottom of their ship when they left. And he found in the heavensthe object of their quest. Clear-cut and golden was half the circle;the rest glowed faintly in the airless void. He tried to realize thebewildering fact--the moon, this great globe that he saw, was rushing,as were they, to their trysting-place in space.

  Jerry stared until his eyes were aching. His mind refused to take holdupon the truth he knew was true. He was suddenly tired, heavy withweariness that was an aftermath of his emotional turmoil. He let hisheavy body relax where some blankets had piled themselves upon thegrated floor. The roar of the generator faded into far silence as heslipped into that strange spaceless realm that men call sleep.

  * * * * *

  The human mind is marvelous in its power of adjustment, itsadaptability to the new and the strange. The unbelievable is so soonthe commonplace. Jerry Foster was to sleep more than once in this tinynew world of Winslow's creating, this diminutive meteor, inside whichthey lived and moved and thought and talked. The fact of their newexistence soon ceased as a topic of wonder.

  They alternated in their rest. And they counted the passage of time bythe hours their watches marked, then divided these hours into days outthere where there were no days. Seven of them had passed when the hourcame that Winslow chose for checking their speed.

  They were driving directly toward the moon, which was assumingproportions like those of earth. The pilot admitted a portion of theblast to a bow port, and the globe ahead of them gradually swung off.The pilot was reversing their position in space to bring the powerfulblast of their stern exhaust toward the moon, so as to resist somewhatits increasing pull.

  Now their stern windows showed the approaching globe. It was slowlyexpanding. They were falling toward it. The inventor moved a rheostat,and from behind them the stern blast rose to a tremendous roar. Thedeceleration held them with unbearable weight to the rear of thecabin.

  No thought now for the shining earth, yellow and brilliant in thevelvet sky above. Jerry Foster watched through the slow hours as theglobe beneath them enlarged and expanded in ever-increasing slowness.Slowly their falling motion slackened as they cushioned against theterrific thrust of the exhaust below.

  * * * * *

  The globe ceased to grow and held constant. Winslow cut the exhaust toa gentler blast. They were definitely within the moon's gravitationalfield; their last hold upon the earth was severed. The great globe wasrevolving beneath them.

  "How about it?" Foster asked breathlessly. "It doesn't revolve likethat--not the moon!"

  "We have approached from the earth side," said the other, "but we haveovershot it. Say that the moon is revolving, or say that we areswinging about it in an orbit of our own--it is all the same thing."

  "And soon," he added slowly, "we shall see...." He faltered and hislips trembled and refused to frame the words of a dream that wascoming true. "We shall see ... the lost side of the moon. What will itbe ... what--will--it--be...?"

  To Foster the whole experience had now the unreality of a dream. Hecould not bring himself into mental focus. His thoughts were blurred,his emotions dead.

  They were approaching the moon, he told himself. It was the moon thatwas there below them, slowly enlarging now, as their own earth hadhung below them, but dwindling, when they left.

  "The moon!" he told himself over and over. "The moon--it is real!" Butthe numbness in his brain would not be shaken off.

  His voice, when he spoke, was casual. He might have been speaking ofany commonplace--a ball-game, or a good show.

  "The sun is coming from my right," he said. "We are going aroundtoward the dark side of the moon. Shall you land there?"

  Winslow shook his head. "Wait," he said, "and watch."

  Jerry returned to his circle of glass.

 
* * * * *

  There was a shading of light on the surface below him. From the rightthe sun's brilliance threw black shadows and bright beams transverselyover a wilderness of volcanic waste. And beyond, where the rays couldnot reach, was a greater desolation of darkness, its blacknessrelieved only by a dim light. He realized with a start of amazementthat the dim light he saw was that of their own earth far above: itwas lighting their approach to this sister orb.

  Their side-motion was swift as they drew nearer. Another hour andmore, and they were drawing toward an expanse of utter darkness. Theearth-light was fading where they passed. They were approaching, invery fact, the other side of the moon.

  What was below? What mysteries awaited them? He shivered, despite thewarmth of the generator, cherry-red, that heated the snug cabin;shivered with unformed thoughts of unknown terrors. But he forced hisvoice to calm steadiness when he repeated his question to Winslow.

  "Must we land there?" he asked. "In the dark?"

  The inventor was piloting his ship with ceaseless concentration. Theirfalling speed was checked; they were close enough so that thewhistling of air was heard merging with the thunder of their exhaust.He moved the rheostat under his hand, and the thunder slackened.

  "No," he said. "You are forgetting your astronomy. This 'other side'is subject to the same conditions as the near side. The sun shines onthem alike, but alternately. We are rounding the limb away from thesun. We find, as you see, a darkness that is absolute except for thelight of the stars. Here the earth never shines, and the sun onlyduring the lunar day. But the sun is creeping down this other side.Their day, equal to fifteen of our days, is beginning. We shall comeinto the light again. I am checking our motion across the surface. Weshall land, when it seems best, later on. There will be light."

  * * * * *

  The thin strong hands of the pilot played over the current and valvecontrols. Their ship slowly swung and dipped to a horizontal position.A blast from below held them off from the moon. A bow port was roaringas their speed slowly decreased.

  Minutes merged endlessly into long hours as Jerry's eager eyesstrained to detect some definite form on the surface beneath. Dimly aglow appeared far ahead; slowly the darkness faded. They were movingahead, but their wild speed was checked. And slowly the new earthbelow took on outline and form as the sun's glow crept over it.

  What would the light disclose? His mind held irrationally to thoughtshis reason would have condemned. He found himself watching for people,for houses, lights gleaming from windows. This, in a region of coldthat approached the absolute zero. The reality came as a shock.

  The first rays that crept into vision were silvery fingers of light.They reflected up to the heights in glittering brilliance. Theygathered and merged as the ship drove on toward the sunrise, and theyshowed to the watching eyes a wondrous, a marvelous world. A worldthat was snowbound, weighted and blanketed with a mantle of white.

  * * * * *

  To Jerry the truth came as a crushing, a horrible blow. He turnedslowly to look at his companion; to look and be startled anew by thehappiness depicted on the lean face.

  "I knew it," the pilot was saying. "I always knew it. Butnow--now...." He was speechless with joy.

  "It's terrible!" said Foster. He almost resented the other's elation."It's a hell! Just a frozen hell of desolation."

  "Man--man!" was the response, "can't you see? Look! The whiteness wesee is snow, a snow of carbon dioxide. The cold is beyond guessing.But the clear places--the vast fields--it's ice, man, it's ice!"

  "Horrible!" Jerry shuddered.

  "Beautiful," said the other. "Marvellous! Think, think what thatmeans. It means water in the hot lunar day. It means vapor and cloudsin the sky. It means that where that is there is air--life, perhaps.God alone knows all that it means. And we, too, shall know...."

  The ship settled slowly to the surface of the new world. Black blobsof shadow become distinct craters; volcanoes rose slowly to meet them,to drift aside and rise above as they sank to the floor of a valley.They came to rest upon a rocky floor.

  On all sides their windows showed a waste of torn and twisted rock.Volcanic mountains towered to the heights, their sides streaked withmasses of lava, frozen to stillness these countless years from itsmolten state. The rising sun, its movement imperceptible, cast longslanting rays between the peaks. It lighted a ghostly world, whitewith thick hoar-frost of solid carbon dioxide. A silent world, lockedin the stillness of cold near the absolute zero. Not a breath of airstirred; no flurry of snow gave semblance of life to the scene. Theirgenerator was stillen, and the silence, after the endless roaring ofendless days, was overpowering.

  * * * * *

  But Winslow pointed exultantly from one window, where an icy expansecould be seen. "That will be water," he said; "water, when the sun hasrisen."

  He turned on the generator for warmth. The cold was striking throughthe thick insulated walls. They sat silent, peering out upon thatboundless desolation, upon a world's breathless nakedness, exposed forthe first time in all eternity to human eyes.

  Jerry's mind was searching for some means of expression, but the wordswould not come. There were neither words nor coherent thoughts to givevent to the emotions that surged within him.

  Their watches showed the passage of nearly two earth days before theydared venture forth. They watched the white mantle of frost vanishinto gas. From the darkness that they called "west," winds rushedshriekingly into the sunrise.

  "Convection currents," Winslow explained; "off under the sun. In thedirect rays the heat grows intense; the air rises. This is rushing into fill the void. It will serve our ends, too. It will churn the airinto a mixture we can breathe, dispel the thick layer of CO_2 thatmust have formed close to the ground."

  More hours, and the icy sheet was melting. A film of water rippled inthe gusts of wind. Winslow opened the release valve that would permitthe escape of air from their chamber, equalizing the pressures withinand without. The air hissed through the valve, and he closed it so theescape was gradual.

  "We must exercise," he told Jerry. "We will decompress slowly, likedivers coming up from deep-sea work. But watch yourself," he warned."Remember you are six times as strong as you were on the earth. Don'tjump through the roof."

  * * * * *

  THE valve had ceased to hiss when Winslow opened it wide. The air intheir cabin was thin; their lungs labored heavily at first. Jerry feltas he had felt more than once at some great elevation on earth. Butthey lived, and they could breathe, and they were about to do whatnever man had done--to set foot on this place men called the unknownside of the moon.

  Earth habits were strong: Jerry brought his pistol and a hunting knifeout of his pack and hung them at his belt, as the inventor opened thedoor and sniffed cautiously of the air.

  Jerry Foster's blood was racing; the air was cold on his face as herushed out. But it brought to his nostrils odors strange and yetstrangely familiar. He was oddly light-headed, irresponsible as achild as he shouted and danced and threw himself high in the air, tolaugh childishly at the pure pleasure of his light landing.

  The sun made long shadows of two ludicrous figures that went leapingand racing across the rocks. Their strength was prodigious, and theywere filled with an upwelling joy of living and the combined urge ofan eternity of spring-times. The very air tingled with life; there wasoverpowering intoxication in this potent, exhilarating breath from aworld new-born.

  The ground that they crossed so recklessly was a vast honeycomb ofcaves. Between the rocks the soil was soft with the waters frommelting ice, and the men laughed as they floundered at times in theoozing mud. Beyond was a lake, and it was blue with a depth of colorthat was almost black, a reflection of the deep, velvet blackness ofthe sky overhead. And beyond that was the sloping side of an extinctvolcano.

  "Up--up!" Jerry shouted. "From up there we will se
e the wholeworld--the whole moon!" He laughed as he repeated the exultant phrase:"The moon--the whole moon!"

  * * * * *

  Despite their strength which carried them in wild bounds acrossimpassable chasms, their laboring lungs checked them in the ascent.The joyous inebriation was wearing off. Winslow met his companion'seyes sheepishly as they stopped where a sheer cliff of basalt abovecaught and held the warmth of the sun's rays. Behind them it rose astraight hundred feet, and before stretched a vast panorama. The sunwas mounting now in the sky. It brought into strong relief the welterof volcanic waste that extended in bold detail through the clear airfar out to the horizon, where, misty and dim, the first vaporousclouds were forming from the steaming earth.

  And as they watched, the depressing bareness and emptiness of thatgray-black expanse was changing. Far to the east a pink flush wasspreading on the hills. It wavered and flowed, and it changed, as theywatched, to deep areas of orange and red. The delicate pink swept inwaves over valleys and hills, a vast kaleidoscopic coloration thatrioted over a strange world.

  In silence it spilled into the valley below. The slope they hadtraversed was radiant with color.

  At their feet the ground was in motion: it heaved and rolled incountless places. Rounded shapes in myriads were emerging.Plants--mushroom growths--poured up from the earth to drink in thesunshine of their brief summer. They burst the earth to showunfolding leaves or blunted, rounding heads, that grew before themen's incredulous eyes.

  Winslow was the first to recover from the stupefying beauty of thespectacle.

  "The machine!" he gasped. "Back to the ship! We'll be swamped,overwhelmed...." He rushed madly back down the slope.

  * * * * *

  Jerry was beside him, a revulsion of feeling driving him to franticefforts. The piercing beauty that had enthralled him has become athing of terror. The soft, pulpy, growing things that crushed beneathhis feet were a menace in their lust for life.

  They were a mile and more from the machine. Could they ever find it,Jerry wondered. The whole landscape was changed; bare rocks werehalf-hidden now under clinging, creeping vines. Only the sun remainedas a guide. They must go toward the sun and a little north.

  He followed Winslow, who was circling a huge area of weird growthsthat already were waist high. They leaped across a gaping chasm andfought their way over a low hill, rank with vegetation, only to beconfronted by a maze of great stalks--stalks that sprouted as theywatched, dismayed, and threw out grotesque and awkward branches.

  They made one futile effort to force their way, but the trunks, thoughpliant, were unyielding. To attempt to find their way through thelabyrinth was folly.

  "We've got to keep on trying," said Jerry Foster. "We've got to getback, or...."

  Winslow, as the look in his eyes showed, needed no ending to thatsentence. There was the summer of a lunar day ahead; the inventor didnot need to be told of the scorching, broiling heat that would witherthe land when the sun struck from straight overhead. And in their shipwas food and water and a means of transport to the cooler heightsabove.

  * * * * *

  It was Jerry who took charge of the situation. Here was a prodigiouslaboratory in which Winslow's science was useless, but in fightingwith nature--even nature in as weird and terrifying a mood asthis--Jerry felt himself not entirely incompetent.

  He looked about him. It had been but an hour since they watched thefirst onslaught of this life that engulfed them. And now they were cutoff. Through an opening, where bare rocks made a rift in thevegetation, he saw again the high ground where they had stood. Therewas more rock there on the volcanic slope: the growing things were inclumps--islands, rather than continents of rank growth.

  "We must go back," he told Winslow, "and climb while we can. Get tothe high ground, take bearings on the place where we left the ship.We'll look over the ground and figure some way to get there."

  Winslow nodded. He was plainly bewildered, lost in the new jungle. Hefollowed Jerry, who bounded across a crevice in the earth. The groundwas rotten with the honeycomb of caves and cracks.

  Jerry forced his way through and over a rock heap, where the thicktrunks of nightmare trees were spaced farther apart. There was anopening ahead; he started forward, then stopped abruptly and motionedthe other to silence.

  * * * * *

  From beyond there came sounds. There was rending of soft, plianttissue. The sound came through the thin air from a grove up ahead,where big plants were waving, though the wind had long since ceased.To their ears came a snoring, blubbering snuffle. A stone wasdislodged, to come bounding toward them from the hillside; the softplants were flattened before it. The men cowered in the shelter of agiant fungus.

  Beyond the rocks, above the mottled reds and yellows of the grotesquetrees, a head appeared. It waved at the end of a long, leathery neck.All mouth, it seemed to the watchers, as they saw a pair of shortforelegs pull the succulent tops of the giant growth into a capaciousmaw. Below, there was visible a part of a gigantic, grayish body. Itwas crashing down toward them, eating greedily as it came.

  "Back," said Jerry softly. "Go back to that cave. We will hide therein some crack in the ground."

  They picked their way noiselessly over the rocks. The cave they hadcrossed offered a refuge from the beast. It went slantingly down intothe ground, a great tunnel, deep in the rock. They dropped into theopening and started forward, only to recoil at the fetid stench thatassailed their nostrils.

  "A bear pit," gasped Jerry. "Great Heavens! What a smell!"

  They stopped, dismayed. Far below them in the bowels of somesubterranean passage was the crashing of loose stone; a scrambling andscratching of great claws came echoing to them. They leaped madly forthe outer air.

  "Over here," Jerry directed, and led the way, crouching, to theconcealment of great stalks and vine-covered rocks. He pointed towardthe open ground where they had been a few moments before. Thetree-eater was out in full view. Its flabby, barrel-like body wassquatted like that of some unearthly, giant toad, on massive hindlegs. It sat erect, its forelegs hung in air, as a hoarse, snarlingcry came from the cave. The great head, perched on the long leatheryneck, waved from side to side.

  * * * * *

  The noise from the cave ceased. The rift in the earth was in plainsight from where they cowered, and the eyes of the men were upon it.One instant it was empty; the next, in uncanny silence, it was filledwith huge hideousness--an enormous, crouching beast.

  It was black, a dull leathery black. Its thick, hairless hide hung increases and folds on a gaunt frame. Shorter than the tree-eater, itwas still a thing of mammoth ugliness. Its hind legs were powerful andarmed with claws that curved deep into the earth; its front legsdisplayed the same fearful weapons. A thick, heavy tail slashedforward and back over the ground. And from this to the grinning,heavy-toothed jaws and beady eyes where the long neck ended in a wartyhead, it was an incarnation of pitiless ferocity.

  Was the scent of the hidden, shuddering men in its red nostrils? Itforgot them at the sight of the beast in the clearing. The snarlingcry echoed hideously in the thin air as the frightful body came erectwith neck extended, jaws open and dripping. It hurled itself throughthe air in one terrific leap.

  Had there been any lingering hope in the minds of the men that theyhad no carnivores to deal with, the ensuing struggle ended it. Theattacker tore great masses of living flesh from the struggling,screaming body. The first cumbersome brute was helpless before itsdestroyer.

  * * * * *

  Jerry was trembling and sick at the sight, but he grasped hiscompanion's arm and drew him after as he slipped quietly away.

  "To the high ground," he whispered. "It's our only hope. Perhaps wecan fight them off there--find some steep rock we can climb." Theyworked their way desperately through the rubbery, obstructing growth.

  At the
foot of the hill there was better going; the bare rock gavewinding and twisting passage to the heights. They could have leapedover the stunted growths here, could have raced frantically for thehigh ground, but they dared not. To leap up into view of those fierce,searching eyes! It was unthinkable. They crouched low as they dartedfrom their concealment to new shelter, and crawled behind rocks whenopen ground must be crossed.

  They had dared regain hope when again the paralyzing scream rippedthrough the silence. It was answered by another and another fromdistant points. The valley of the caves was spewing out its loathsomedwellers from their winter's sleep.

  The men raced openly now for the heights. As he leaped, Jerry turnedto see over one shoulder a pursuer appear. It was one of theflesh-eaters, head to the ground on their trail. At sight of them itscry rang out again. It bounded forward in pursuit. And again therewere answering screams from the jungle growth.

  The men threw themselves frantically up the mountainside. Once Winslowlanded in a sprawling heap and groaned as he drew himself to his feet.The beast was below them. Jerry seized a great boulder, whoseearth-weight would have made it immovable. He raised it above his headand sent it crashing down the slope.

  * * * * *

  Another and another he threw. One struck the great beast in mid-air;it was pure luck that drove the stone crashing against the creature'shead. It fell back with a blood-chilling snarl that was half shriek.Another monster appeared, to throw itself upon the first and tear atthe crushed, waving head.

  Jerry took his companion by the arm. His voice came strangled from hisstraining lungs. "Are you hurt?" he gasped. "Can you run?"

  Winslow nodded breathlessly. Again they gathered themselves for theirwild, leaping retreat toward the top. An uproar of furious fightingbehind them marked where a score of the monsters had gathered for thefeast.

  Jerry watched vainly for some refuge, some pinnacle of rock orprecipice they could climb, and from which they could beat down theirattackers. There was nothing but the welter of volcanic waste: rockheaps and boulders and smooth streams of solid lava. Perhaps in thecrater, he thought, over the ragged crest of the cone, might be someplace of safety.

  The pack was in full cry again as they climbed gaspingly to the top.Beyond lay the funnel-shaped crater. Its vast inner slopes were lesssteep than the hill they had climbed. They were covered with a jungle,like those they had seen--a maze of red toadstools and distortedtrees.

  Jerry turned savagely to face the oncoming brutes. This, he knew, wasthe end. For this they had hurled themselves through space--to make amorning morsel for these incredible beasts.

  * * * * *

  About the men was a confusion of granite rocks, thrown from the craterto provide weapons, crude and futile, for two puny earth-dwellers. Themen raised great rocks in the air and threw them with all theirstrength. Jerry struggled with a mammoth boulder,--Winslow leaping tohis aid. They toppled it over to start an avalanche of devastationthat swept into the oncoming monsters.

  And again there was respite for their aching arms, while thehunger-crazed brutes tore at the bruised bodies of their fellows.

  Jerry Foster looked longingly again toward the crater. Should theychance the shelter of the jungle growth? Hopeless, he knew when thesemonsters could crash their way through while the men were impeded atevery step. The mottled, orange-green stalks, as he watched them,seemed to move. He dashed the sweat from his face--his hair hungmatted on his forehead--and passed a grimy hand across his eyes.Plainly, one of those stalks crossed a rocky-floored clearing.

  Was he dreaming? Was this all a dream--a mad nightmare from which hecould force himself to wake? Another moved. He saw definitely amushroom growth pass swiftly to lose itself in a neighboring clump.Dreaming? No! The screams from behind him and Winslow's hoarse yellproved the stark reality of his surroundings.

  The vile creatures were close: Jerry could see their fierce headsdripping with blood. He reached for his pistol, knew instantly it wasuseless against these mammoth brutes, and joined Winslow, who wasstraining desperately at another great rock. It toppled and fell.Jerry hurled himself at a heap of smaller boulders and sent themcrashing as fast as he could seize them and throw.

  * * * * *

  One quick look behind him showed still the impossible vision he hadseen. And now there were figures--a mob of them--figures that threwoff their wrappings of vegetation as they ran, cast to the ground thetoadstool disguises that they held. They were caricatures of men thatwere swarming up the hill....

  He swung again in one last hopeless stand against the first horribleenemy. The two men poured a torrent of stones down the slope; theywere useless, except for their delaying the advance. The beasts leapedand dodged. They were close when the rock-rain increased to a deluge.

  Jerry was fighting in a red haze through which he saw dimly. He wasaware of the hailstorm of boulders that were thick in the air. He sawvaguely the white faces and copper-clad bodies of strange men leapingabout him, and he heard the wild bedlam of their shrieks as theyjoined in the mad battle against the common enemy.

  The beasts were swept off in a landslide of loose rock--all but one.Above them, on a high point of stone, it was crouching to spring. Awild human figure, its flesh white as chalk, leaped forward with atangle of fibers. The tangle was thrown as the brute was in air. A netspread and wrapped around the monster. It fell, clawing and tearing,to roll helplessly down the slope.

  The battle was won. Jerry swayed drunkenly on his feet. About him themountains seemed whirling, where unreal figures of men with deadwhite skin and shining copper armor danced dizzily.

  He met for an instant the look from Winslow's dazed eyes. Out of thepast a picture flashed clearly: Winslow--this same Winslow--arguingthat the moon might hold mysteries still. He laughed thickly.

  "And I said it was all known," he muttered through slack lips."Nothing on the moon that wasn't known...."

  He was still laughing in a wild inebriation as a net settled close toentangle his swaying figure and bear him helpless to the ground. Hesaw Winslow similarly bound, saw him lifted to the shoulders ofshouting, yelling men, whose stupid, pasty faces were wide-eyed withexcitement.

  He, too, was raised into the air.... They were being carried towardthe crater's mouth....

  * * * * *

  A fight for life in thin air does not make for clear thinking. JerryFoster knew only that a nightmare world was whirling about him; thatbeneath him powerful shoulders supported, while the one who carriedhim leaped at racing speed down the slope.

  They went more slowly down pathways cleared through the rankvegetation. Soft, pulpy vines from the grotesque trees brushed hisface. He tried vaguely to shield himself, but his hands were boundfast. He was helpless in the entangling folds of the net.

  The touch of cold stone brought him to his senses. He was lying onsmooth rock. They were in a clearing. He turned his head to findWinslow, but could not find him.

  Across the open ground were naked men, their bodies, like theseothers, dead white in the sun's glare. They were dragging giant stalksto earth by means of ropes. Trunks and branches, bright in theircolors of yellow and orange and flaming red, were hacked to shortlengths and piled on all sides. The workers, as Jerry watched,dropped their implements to race toward him. There was a press offlat, white faces above. His captors, in their copper armor, beat thenewcomers back. The babel of chattering voices was deafening.

  * * * * *

  Again he was lifted into the air--plainly these were no weaklings hehad to deal with--and again the warrior band surrounded him as themarch was resumed. The milling, shrieking crowd of workers followed inan ear-splitting mob.

  The forest ended, and the men went slowly now down smooth, rockyslopes to stop upon a wide, level expanse. Before he was placed on theground Jerry had a glimpse of a funnel-shaped pit--the mouth of theextinct volcano. And toward it, b
ound and helpless, was being carrieda struggling form which he thought he recognized.

  "Winslow!" he shouted. But the bodies in their gleaming copper armorclosed about him in a solid throng and cut off his view.

  In the sky the sun had moved slowly upward since first they landed. Itslanted brightly now into the eyes of the prostrate man and made aspectacle of his twisting contortions as he tried to get his hands onhis knife in its sheath at his belt. This and his pistol were underhis coat. But he could not reach them. He lay panting with hisexertions.

  One of the warriors seemed to have authority, for his arms alone ofall the group were sheathed with copper circlets, and the othersobeyed his orders. Jerry addressed himself to this one. He knew thewords were unintelligible, but he pleaded desperately for a chance.

  "Take this off," he said. "We are friendly--friends--friends!" Hestruggled to keep himself from shouting, to keep his voice undercontrol. "The other man," he said, "bring him back." And again herepeated: "We are friends."

  He scanned his captors' faces.

  * * * * *

  The pasty face above him was impassive; the eyes stareduncomprehendingly into his. Then the figure barked an order. One ofthe warriors swung Jerry lightly to his shoulder, and started towardthe pit.

  At its edge was a basket, a huge affair of knotted fiber ropes. Dimly,Jerry saw other baskets standing about: they were filled with thefragments of fungus. Still bound, he was placed in the emptycontainer. Hands grasped the meshes, and he was swung out over theedge. A rope was above him: he was lowered steadily into the darkshaft.

  Jerry breathed a sigh of relief. This was not death--not yet. AndWinslow? Safe, perhaps, for he had traveled this same road.

  There was figures outlined above against the circle of light, figuresthat clambered like apes down swaying ropes. The light glinted andsparkled from their shining armor. His escort was still with him.

  The circle of light changed to a glowing ring, where only the rim waslighted. Above was the deep black of the lunar sky. Then the circlefaded to a mere point as he went down into the pit.

  The rope basket came to rest upon a rock floor, and Jerry was liftedout. He saw plainly the figures about him, and he wondered vaguely atthe light that came from the walls of the cavern. There were longlines of soft light, leading off into the dark, lines that markedplainly a labyrinth of passageways, leading in all directions.

  * * * * *

  Beyond a narrow entrance was one brighter than the rest, a broadavenue that led downward still further into the depths. Here he wascarried. He tried vainly to keep some mental map of their course. Hewould return some day--he _must_ return--he and Winslow. They wouldescape.... But the passage turned and twisted; there were manybranching corridors, each with its lines of light. Jerry gave up theattempt. It was a maze of serpentine streets beyond his power toremember and recall.

  Before him the passage was still wider. It was opening into a greatroom.... Jerry found himself upon the floor. He strained cruelly atthe cords about his head as he twisted and turned to get a view of hissurroundings.

  The room was a cave, its vast vaulted ceiling sprung high above alevel floor, where the figures of men--odd, plaster-white figures likeanimated statues--were small in the distance. His eyes were drawnquickly to the brilliant glow of the farther wall. There was thebright black of basaltic formation, and in it--though he knew theimpossibility--was shining the sun.

  Jerry blinked his eyes to look again and again; the golden circle wasdazzling. It was set at a point well above the smooth floor, and up toit there led a sloping pathway of gold. It was as if they had indeedcaptured their god, these worshipers of the sun, had captured and heldit for the adoration of the grovelling people.

  Jerry saw them upon the floor. The copper of the armored men gleamedbright in the glow from beyond, as they abased themselves and creptslowly toward the light. At each side of the dazzling orb was aplatform. There were figures upon it, seated figures, Jerry saw, evenat a distance, that were robed in vestments of the sun. Their formsgleamed gold in the light.

  * * * * *

  The leader that Jerry had noted among his captors crept on in advanceof his men. From among the bright figures on the platform above onerose to extend a glowing arm. He spoke, and the tones rolledmajestically back from the high vault above. The crawling man belowhim stopped rigidly where he was. Another word from above, and he roseslowly to his feet. He stood full in the glow of the captive sun, tobe outlined in black against the brilliance beyond.

  Haltingly he spoke. Then, seeming to gain confidence, he launched intoa torrent of words. He gestured and waved, and, to Foster, the signlanguage was plain. He saw reenacted the surprise of the warriors uponbeholding these intruders; saw how they had spied out upon them, usingtrunks and branches of the fungus as a screen; saw in pantomime theirown battle with the beasts, then the rush of the armed men to therescue. Again the net was thrown, and the gesturing figure turned topoint dramatically where Jerry lay bound, then pounded his armoredchest with unconcealed pride.

  He ceased to speak, and there was utter silence in the room as thefigure above crossed to stand before the golden sun. He too abasedhimself before the sign of their god, then rose, to stand motionless,listening....

  For a breathless interval he waited before the oracle, then prostratedhimself again and returned to his place.

  * * * * *

  He repeated, it seemed, a command, congratulation, to judge by theecstasy of the figure below. The warrior turned once to throw himselfbefore the image of the sun; he repeated this again and yet againbefore he crept back to his fellows. The group arose and rushedswiftly toward the bound man.

  They brought him quickly into the presence. With scant ceremony Jerrywas unrolled from the net; he lay free and gasping upon the floor. Themen scurried like mad from out the pathway of light that shone downfrom the false sun. Jerry rose to his feet; the brilliance before himalmost blinded, but he saw now whence it came.

  There was a hollow in the wall, a great parabola, deep and wide, andit was lined throughout with beaten gold. In a straight path the lightwas reflected from every point--every point but one for at the farend, where the curved sides joined, was a circle of darkness. Itstared like an eye, evil, portentous. Jerry nerved himself for anordeal, unknown but imminent. The black eye glared at him unwinkingly.

  Before him was the pathway of light: it shone brilliantly down thesloping ramp where a floor of bright gold led up to the sun goditself.

  The figure on the dais raised its hand. Jerry heard the words comefrom its lips and roll sonorously back from above. The figure waitedfor an answer.

  Jerry's hands slipped beneath his coat to rest reassuringly upon hisweapons. He withdrew his hands empty and raised one toward the figureabove.

  "I do not understand your words," he said. "Your language is strange.No doubt mine is as strange to you. I come as a visitor--I amfriendly." He held out both his hands, palms upward.

  "We have come, my friend and myself, on a friendly errand." He pausedto look vainly about for Winslow. "And you have received us as if wewere wild animals."

  * * * * *

  Jerry Foster, of San Francisco, U. S. A., was suddenly resentful oftheir treatment. His words were meaningless, but his tones were not."You have tied us," he said, "bound us--dragged us before you. Is thatthe way you receive your guests from another world?"

  The golden-clad figure stood in majestic silence while Jerry wasspeaking. It waited a moment after his outburst, then crossed again tobow low in the floodlight of gold. As before, it seemed listening towords from the black heart of the strange sun, words quiteinaudible--soundless. He returned quickly and waved Jerry's attentionto the place of light.

  The sense of a presence there in the central blackness was strong uponthe waiting man. In that other life that now seemed so remote--hislife on earth--Jerry h
ad once felt the threat of a concealed intruderin the dark. He recalled it vividly now. The sensation was the same.

  But it was magnified. There was no denying the reality of a malignsomething at the heart of that golden glow. The black center of itvibrated with cold and venomous hate. It struck upon the waiting manlike a physical force. His head was swimming, his thoughts refused toform. He was as if suspended in a great void, where all that was laydeep in the center of that radiant orb. And it drew him irresistiblyon.

  * * * * *

  Like a dazed bird, held and stricken in the hypnotic gaze of a snake,Jerry took one stiff, unconscious forward step. Another, and another.He strove dumbly, helplessly, for realization--there was nothing inthe universe but the certain thing ahead.

  His foot was upon the golden incline leading to his doom, when thatburied something which marks a man--the spark of divinity which setshim apart as one alone--reasserted itself.

  "I am," he heard his own voice shouting in strangled tones, "I amJerry Foster! I am I ... I am myself!"

  He awoke from his stupor with a shock that set every nerve-fiberquivering. For long minutes he stood silent. Then, realizing hisvictory and proving it to his own soul, he looked straight into theblack center of the threatening sun god, and he laughed, loudly andcontemptuously. Then, turning, and with steady stride, he walkedcalmly from the light.

  The great hall was silent with a silence that was breathless. Thenpandemonium broke lose. The priests and the god had been defied, andscreaming and shouts rang throughout the vast chamber to re-echobatteringly from ceiling and walls. There was tumult and confusionwhere the populace thronged. Even the figures above on the dais weremilling about in disorder; the rippling gold of their robes made aspectacle that forced Jerry's involuntary admiration.

  Then one from among them sprang forward. His voice roared above theshattering din. The room was still. Another order, and the guard ofarmed fighting men formed in a circle about the defier of their god.

  Jerry waited. Trouble was about due, he told himself. One hand was onhis pistol, tense and ready. As the ranks stood silent and made nomove to attack, Jerry Foster did a curious thing.

  * * * * *

  It was not done intentionally, but Jerry Foster had nerves, and theyhad been under a strain. His hand went unconsciously to his pocket andextracted a cigarette. There were matches there, too, and he struckone and lighted the white cylinder. The match made a tiny flame wherehe flipped it.

  The whole room whispered and hissed with one loud gasp of amazement,but the moan that followed, that echoed and resounded from the roof,was of nothing but horror. Even the warriors drew back in tremblingdismay. And before them the stranger they had brought to the veryportal of their sanctum of holies blew clouds of white smoke thateddied and whirled as they rose round his head.

  The effect was not lost upon Jerry. And his mind was working. Was fireunknown to these strange beings? Here in the deep caverns, far fromthe surface, was fire a thing of terror to them? He looked back towardthe wall.

  "If they rush me," he thought, "there's a good place to be. That willfeel mighty comfortable at my back."

  He walked slowly, the smoke rising thick about his head. Thecopper-clad figures before him withdrew, the ranks parting to let himthrough. Unharmed he reached the safety of the wall. The enemy nowformed a semi-circle before him.

  The inertia of the stricken beings on the platform was broken by hismove. Again their head priest gave an order; from another side asecond detachment of armed men came on. They were carrying something.Jerry leaned forward in quivering preparedness as he saw, in thefloodlight of radiance, the body of Winslow lying on the floor.

  * * * * *

  Was he injured? Dead? The devastating loneliness that swept him at thesight of the still body was unnerving. He breathed a long sigh ofrelief as the lanky figure rose slowly to its feet. Winslow was alive!They would show these beastly, unearthly humans something yet.

  There was no preparation--no preliminaries. Whether Winslow could havereacted as Jerry had would never be known. He seemed stunned andhelpless, and it was with no resisting hesitation that he began theclimb to the unknown.

  Jerry's crouching tenseness snapped. No thought of the gun as hesprang toward the enemy between him and his friend. "No, Winslow--no!"he shouted as he leaped at the figures in front of him.

  Their strength had seemed startling to Jerry when they had carried himlike a child. He had forgotten his lightness here on this unheavyworld. And he had forgotten his own great strength.

  No panting, exhausted, beaten fighter of beasts was this that hurledhimself against the ranks before him. One coppery sword flashed upwardabove his head. Its bearer was seized in two hands that picked himbodily from the floor and crashed him, a living projectile, among theothers. Jerry waited for no more. There was an opening ahead, andbeyond was Winslow, walking stiffly, certainly, up that damnableslope. He threw himself in giant leaps across the floor.

  His companion was half-way up the glittering ramp when Jerry seizedhim. Holding him in his arms, he leaped outward, to land rolling onthe floor. He was on his feet in an instant. He dragged Winslow to astanding posture.

  "Wake up, man," he was shouting. "Winslow--wake up!"

  * * * * *

  The onrushing horde was upon them while the tall man was stillbrushing his hand over weary eyes, and Jerry, for the moment, had thefighting to himself.

  No time for anything but parry and strike. He caught one white face onthe jaw; the man went bodily through the air. Jerry landed again andagain. His weapons were his fists, and they did fearful execution. Andhe knew, at length, that he was not alone.

  The long arms of the inventor tore a sword from an upraised hand. Itsowner was thrown, as Jerry had thrown one previously, to catapultamong its fellows.

  They were clear for an instant. "Back to the wall!" shouted Jerry. Hehad time and room to reach for his pistol, and drew it quickly fromits holster. They backed hastily to the protection of the stone wall.There were scores upon scores of copper-clad figures that followedthem held out of reach. With a flashing of gold, the head priesthimself sprang to urge on his men.

  "Ready!" said Jerry. "I wish you had a gun! Here! Take this!" Hehanded his companion a long-bladed knife, then turned to aim hispistol with steady hand at the oncoming figure in golden robes.

  The priest stopped for a brief scrutiny of this new menace, thenscreamed out an order and hurled himself into the sheltering press ofmen.

  Jerry fired into the whirl of bodies. The roar of the forty-five torelike a battery of siege guns throughout the great room. But thecreatures before them were fighting now in an insane frenzy. Theirbodies pressed the two men to the wall. Jerry fired again, and thefall of a limp, gold-robed body gave him a thrill of delight.

  * * * * *

  The inventor was holding a white body as a shield, while he thrustpast it incessantly with a red blade. There were huddled figuresbefore them that lay quiet or crept painfully away. The body of thehead priest was being carried off.

  The dark mouth of a passage had impressed itself upon Jerry; heremembered it now. It offered a means of escape.

  "Off to your right," he said. "Work off to your right. There's a holein the wall--"

  They fought off the struggling eruption of bodies that drove at them.Jerry was saving his ammunition, but once more he fired as a sword wasfalling over Winslow's head. He drove strongly with his left and beatat the white skulls with the butt of the gun gripped in his otherhand.

  The passage was suddenly behind them. One last stand against thescreaming, frothing faces, and they backed, panting, into thesheltering dark. Jerry stopped and took Winslow by the arm.

  "Are you hurt?" he demanded. The inventor was too breathless forreply.

  "Nothing much," he panted, after a moment. "One got me along thecheek--you shot him just in time.
How about you?"

  "O.K.," was the assurance. "But, man, I've been hammered!"

  "What a peach of a fight," he added. "But now what?"

  Winslow laughed mirthlessly in the dark. "This looks like a one-waystreet," he said. "We can't go back.

  "Say," he demanded, with sudden, dim recollection. "I remembersomething of a dream--a ghastly sort of thing. I was ... I was ...where was I when you collared me? Where was I headed?"

  "For something too damnable for us to imagine," Jerry statedemphatically.

  They were walking as rapidly as they dared through the dark passage.There were high-pitched voices from the rear. From somewhere aheadcame the sound of running water.

  "Too damnable to imagine!" he repeated. "But we'll hunt the vile thingout if we get a chance, and we'll slaughter--"

  The words ended in a startled exclamation as the ground fell beneaththeir feet. They pitched headlong into nothingness--

  * * * * *

  There was water in Jerry's face as he fell. A torrent engulfed him ashe struck into it, pouring in from a lower passageway to plungestraight down the shaft. The roaring crash of water tore madly at hisbody; his arm was shot through with stabbing pain as Winslow's fallingbody was torn from his grasp.

  He was conscious only of his bursting lungs when he came to thesurface from the depths into which he plunged. With one arm he swamweakly, the other trailing at his side, while he gulped greedily atthe air.

  A voice came hoarsely from a distance. "Foster," it called."Jerry--where are you, Jerry?"

  Ah, the good air in his lungs--he could swim more strongly now. Hemanaged to gasp an answer: "Here, Winslow, over here!" There was asplashing in response to his voice. He heard it over the noise of thewaters he had been swept away from the cataract.

  A hand was upon him in the dark. "Hurt?" asked the welcome voice. "Canyou swim, Jerry?"

  "A little. One arm's working."

  * * * * *

  The hands fumbled over him quickly, and his good arm was drawn overthe other's back. "Hang on," Winslow told him. "I can swim. I'm halffish."

  Jerry clung to the folds of the coat. He was light in the water, hefelt--riding high--and the man beside him was swimming with strongstrokes. He released his hold on the other as he felt strength ebbingback into his body.

  "I can paddle," he said: "but stick around. Where are we going?"

  "In a circle, probably," was the reply, "though I'm trying to hold astraight course. How big is this lake, I wonder?"

  They swam slowly, saving their strength, but it was a time that seemedlike endless hours before the answer to Winslow's question was found.Jerry was fighting weakly, exhausted, and the hand supporting him wasfailing when they felt sharp rocks against their dragging feet. Thehand that had held him still clung tightly to his shoulder as theystruggled upward and fell together where great rocks gave safety inthe darkness. In his arm the sharp pain had dwindled to numbness;Jerry Foster asked only for sleep.

  There was light about him when he awoke. In his stupor he had foundagain the surroundings he knew so well--the clash and clatter of adistant city--the roaring traffic--signals, and glowing lights. Hecame slowly back to unwelcome reality. The light was there, but itshone in luminous lines along the wall to illumine the hatefulfamiliarity of the honeycombed rock that composed the moon.

  * * * * *

  It showed, too, a familiar figure, breathing heavily where it lay onthe far side of the small room. Winslow's face was pale in the dulllight, and his eyes were closed. He was on a thick pallet of softfibers and across his body a cloth was spread, shot through with goldin strange designs.

  Jerry Foster threw aside a robe of the same material that covered him.He stifled an involuntary word as a twinge of pain shot through hisarm, then crossed noiselessly to shake softly at the shoulder of thesleeping man. Winslow, too, came slowly from his sleep of completeexhaustion, but his eyes were clear when they opened.

  "Where are--" he began a question, but Jerry's hand was pressedquickly against his lips.

  They stared slowly about. The room that held them was in the naturalrock, but whether hewn out by hands or a natural formation they couldnot tell. The rock was rotten with perforations, through which airflowed in a cool stream.

  Jerry came softly to his feet to feel cautiously of the glowing,luminous mounds along the wall. They were spread upon a ledge. Thelight was cold to his touch, the material like fine soil in his hands.

  "Fluorescent," whispered Winslow. "Calcium sulphide, possibly; I sawthem spreading it above ground in the sun. It absorbs light and givesit off slowly." Jerry nodded; the source of the endless glowing lineshad been puzzling to him.

  * * * * *

  Their whispers ceased at a sound beyond a doorway. In the opening afigure appeared, tall and erect, the figure of a girl. Her face waswhite like the others of these whose lives were lived below thesurface, but there was a kindly softness in the eyes, a refinement andintelligence of no low order, that contrasted with the cold eyes ofthe warriors and the priests. Not beautiful, perhaps, by earthstandards, yet it required no straining of chivalry on Jerry's part tofind her human and lovely.

  In silence the men stood staring. Then Foster, with unconsciousgentleness, made a revealing gesture. This woman--this girl--had savedthem. He knew it without words, and he was wordless to reply. Hedropped swiftly to his knees and pressed a bit of the golden robeagainst his lips.

  A flush of scarlet swept across the white face and receded. The handdropped from its startled poise and rested, gently, questioningly, onthe brown head bent before her.

  She murmured unintelligible words in a guarded voice as Jerry arose."Marahna," she said, and touched her breast lightly. "Marahna." Herhead was erect, the whole attitude imperious, commanding. Shequestioned them with swift, liquid words. The men shook their heads inutter incomprehension.

  Again she spoke, and again they shook their heads. Jerry felt foolishand dumb. He took his turn at questioning, and this time, with atrace of a smile, it was the girl's turn to shake her head. She hadmastered one sign at least.

  Pointing toward the great hall they knew was somewhere above, shereenacted the scene there; she evidently knew what had transpired. Andnow Jerry nodded in confirmation. That she approved of the part theyhad played was evident.

  * * * * *

  Now she questioned whence they had come. She pointed down, and herfluttering hands and graceful posture spoke eloquently. She showedthem more than a trace of fear, too, as she marked them coming fromthe depths. Jerry shook his head in vehement denial.

  He pointed above, spread his hands wide, tried as best he could toindicate vast distance beyond. She stared, wide-eyed, then in her turnknelt as if before a god.

  "She thinks we have come down from the sun," Winslow surmised. "Well,let it go at that." But Jerry Foster was embarrassed in the strangerole of a god; he raised the humbled, kneeling young woman to herfeet.

  He pointed to her gold-clad figure and repeated the name she hadgiven. "Marahna," he said. "Marahna!" Then, placing his hand on hiscompanion, he repeated: "Winslow--Winslow!" And, pointing to himself,he completed the introduction with: "Foster, Jerry--Jerry Foster!"

  The pale lips formed themselves slowly to the strange and unaccustomedsounds.

  "Cherrie," she repeated, and smiled in comprehension. "Cherrie."

  This was the first of many lessons, and it was amazing to both men howrapidly they learned to get their thoughts across. In turn, theylearned to read the messages that the slim hands and graceful,undulating body conveyed. Even words were linked one by one with theirindicated objects and meanings.

  * * * * *

  One syllable the girl used only in a hushed and awe-stricken tone. Itwas "Oong" that she whispered, while her eyes filled with terror anddread. And they knew this for the name of the horror that wai
ted inthe black center of that unholy place where the pathway of lightascended. It was later that they learned to read hatred as well assheer terror in the emotions that the word _Oong_ aroused.

  The first lesson ended in a soft exclamation from the girl. Shewithdrew, to return in a moment with a beaker of hammered gold, filledwith cold water. In her hands, too, were strange fruits and branchesof fungus. She ate bits of them to show they were food. And Jerry, ashe watched her, was aware that he was famished. But the two men atesparingly at first of the strange food.

  It was tasteless, they found, except for an elusive flavor, but thereception of the food in their gnawing stomachs was satisfactory.Their strength was returning, and with it came hope of release. Themoon-people, evidently, were not altogether villainous.

  "Thank you," said Jerry in a normal tone, "that was--" White fingerstrembled against his lips to enforce silence.

  * * * * *

  The girl listened intently, then stole softly out into the corridorfrom which she had come. She motioned the men to follow, and pointedthere in the dim light to a far room.

  There were others, they saw; a group of young women lying at ease ontheir pallets, or moving slowly about. The need for quiet wasapparent, more so when the figure of a man appeared as they watched.Quickly the girl, Marahna, stepped before them and motioned them backto their room.

  She followed and glanced quickly about. In the farther wall was anopening, close to the floor, and low, but they managed to work theirway through at her silent command. A passage, much like the others,lay beyond. It widened and grew higher, until they could stand erect.Back in the circle of light they saw, for a moment, the man, bowinglow in respect before Marahna. He carried a basket of light that shonebrightly in the room.

  "Replenishing the supply of sulphide," whispered Winslow.

  A current of air came cool and refreshing from a branching tunnel inthe rock. There was no lack of ventilation, as they well knew,throughout all the tortuous passages, but this came with a scent ofoutdoors that set both men a-tingle with hope. Jerry forgot even thedull ache in his arm as he breathed deep of this messenger from theoutside.

  But exploration must wait. They needed to rest, to learn and to plan.They returned when Marahna called softly from the room.

  * * * * *

  Time had lost all its meaning. They could only guess at the hours thathad passed since the hour they left their ship, could only makeunanswered surmises as to where was the sun or how much was left ofthe long lunar day. They must escape--they would escape--but their onestroke for freedom must not be made when darkness and paralyzing coldshould force them back into the hands of the enemy tribes.

  Marahna was with them much of the time, and always they struggled andstrove with desperate concentration to grasp at the meanings of thethoughts she tried to convey. And they learned much.

  Of the passage they believed they had found out to the surface, sheknew little. But she showed them, with doubt in her face, that therewas almost hopeless struggle along that path to the freedom above.Sadly she touched Jerry's injured arm, and she shook her head indejection.

  The arm had had a bad wrench, Jerry found. No fracture, but themuscles and ligaments had been painfully torn. But Jerry set his teethfirm at the thought of a possible escape.

  * * * * *

  Once, peering along the dark passage that led to the room where theothers had been seen, the men noticed the deep bows that unfailinglymarked the entrance of Marahna. They questioned her and learned thathere was royalty among the people of the moon. This, as theyconsidered the proud poise of her head and her whole attitude ofunassuming superiority was not entirely surprising. But they marveledthe more at the truth that she finally made plain to them.

  Marahna, she told them, as plainly as if she were speaking in theirown tongue, Marahna was chosen for death. And her white face waspitiful and her eyes full of horror as she enacted for them the slowmarch she must take up the long golden slope and into the horror thatwaited.

  "A sacrifice to that god!" Jerry spoke with dismay. "No, no!" But theface of the Princess Marahna of the moon people was unutterably sadwith unspoken thoughts as she touched her breast with one slenderfinger, then indicated the outer room and showed there were two therebeside herself who were to go.

  "Help us to get out," Jerry begged, and with fierce eagerness heshowed them going through the passage to the outside. "We will comeback, and we will find some way to end all this damnable thing."

  She gave them to understand the time that was left. The sun, sheshowed, was long past the meridian and was on its return. The day wasnow reaching a close. And then, as the sun set, the great sacrificewould be made--had always been made--to insure the return of theirgod.

  * * * * *

  Their watches were useless, for the water had entered their cases. Thetwo men waited what they judged was the length of a day, while Jerrytried to believe that his arm was improving. Then, putting a smallsupply of food in their pockets, they were ready for the attempt.

  Jerry saw that his gun and knife were ready at his belt, and patted apocket where his matches were safe in their watertight container. Theprospect of escape almost unnerved him. To breathe the clear air; tostand in the radiant light of the sun--he could understand now howthese people made a god of the sun. He turned to Marahna.

  "Good-by," he said, "but not for long. We'll be back. And we'll saveyou, Marahna, we'll save you. Winslow will figure some way to doit.... We'll be back...."

  The girl was silent. She touched Jerry's arm, and shook her headslowly, doubtfully.

  He reached for the hand. It trembled, he felt, in his. The impulse totake the slim form within his arms, to hold her close, was strong uponhim. Would he ever see her again ... would he?

  "Won't you say good-by, Marahna?" he asked.

  But she smiled, instead--a friendly smile, and encouraging. Thendropped in silence to her knees to press with both her trembling handshis hand upon her forehead. And, still in silence, she rose to vanishfrom the room.

  The men entered the narrow opening to start forward into the dark. ButJerry Foster was puzzled, puzzled and more than a trifle hurt. Marahnacould at least have said good-by. She knew the word, for he had taughtit to her. And she had let him--them--go....

  "Oh, well," he thought, "how can I know how a princess feels--aprincess of the moon? And why should I care--why should she? But...."He refused to complete the thought. He hurried instead, as best hecould, to follow Winslow, fumbling ahead of him in the dark.

  * * * * *

  Jerry had used plenty of muttered invective with the massage he hadgiven his arm, but he cursed his handicap wholeheartedly at the end ofsome several hours.

  They were standing, he and Winslow, in a dark tunnel. They had climbedand clawed their way through the absolute dark, over broken fragments,through narrow apertures, down and up, and up again through atortuous, winding course. And now they had reached the end. They hadfound the source of the fresh air, had come within reaching distance,it seemed, of sunlight and all that their freedom might mean. And theyhad come, too, to a precipitous rock wall.

  They stared long and hopelessly at the shaft that reached, verticaland sheer, high, high over their heads. And a curse like that ofTantalus was theirs. For, far at the top, slanting in through someoff-shooting passage, there was sunlight. It was unmistakable in itsclear glare, beautiful, glorious--and unattainable.

  There were roughnesses in the wall, footholds, handholds here andthere. "It might be ... it might be...." Jerry tried to believe, butthe ache in his arm made the thought hopeless and incomplete. Heturned to his companion.

  "I believe you can do it," he said steadily.

  * * * * *

  Winslow's dark eyes were gleaming in the dimness that surrounded."Possibly," he replied, and eyed the ascent with an appraising star
e."Even probably. But you know damn well, Foster, that I'm not going totry."

  "Don't be an ass." Jerry's tone was harsh, but the tall man must haveknown what emotions lay underneath.

  "We'll play it out together," he said.

  Jerry was silent as he reached in the darkness for Winslow's hand.

  "Of course I knew you were that sort," he said. He waited a moment,then added: "But you're going, old man, you're going. Don't you seeit's our only hope?"

  Winslow shook his head emphatically. Jerry could see him in the dimreflection from that radiance above. "Nothing doing," the calm voiceassured him. "Don't bother to think up more reasons why I shoulddesert."

  "Listen!" Jerry gripped roughly at the other's shoulder. "Listen toreason.

  "If you go and I go back there, what will happen? With Marahna gone weare helpless, and we will be helpless to save her. The long night isahead. How can we live? Where can we live? We will be wiped out assure as we're alive this minute.

  "If you go--and if you make it to the ship--there's a chance. Alone, Imay manage to stick it out." He knew he was lying, knew that the otherknew it too, but he went on determinedly. "You can wait for me upabove. My arm will be well--" Winslow stopped him with a gesture.

  "There's a chance," the older man was muttering, "there's achance...." He swung quickly toward Foster, to grab hard at the goodright hand.

  "I'm going," he stated. "I'm on my way. I won't say good-by; what'sthe use--I'll be back soon!"

  He released his hold on Jerry to leap high in the air for a ledge ofprojecting rock. He caught it and hung. His foot found a toehold andhe drew himself up to where another rough outcrop gave grip for hishand.

  Jerry Foster stood frozen to throbbing stillness. Words werestrangling in his throat, an impulse, almost irresistible, to call. Ifthere were only a rope....

  He was still silent when the tiny figure of his companion and friendwas lost in the heights, where it vanished into that tunnel from whichcame the light. He turned blindly, to stumble back into the dark.

  * * * * *

  Marahna was waiting when he regained the safety of her room. "Safety!"The thought was bitter when linked with the certain fate that layahead.

  Silently she stroked the bent head of the man who dropped dejectedlyupon the hard stone floor. Her fingers were gentle, comforting,despite the utter hopelessness and discouragement that lay heavilyupon him.

  They sat thus, nor counted the flying minutes, while the fog ofdespair in the mind of the beaten man was clearing. He raised his headfinally to meet the look in the dark eyes. And he managed a smile, asone can who has thought his way through to the bitter end and hasfaced it. He patted the hand that had stroked his bowed head.

  "It's all right," he said gently. "What is to be, will be--and wecan't change it. And it's all right somehow."

  His sleeping, during their long stay, had been a cause for amusementto Marahna, whose habits were tuned to the long days and nights on themoon. And he was sleepy now, sleepy and tired. She spread the robeover him as he rested on the soft fiber bed.

  He awoke from a deep sleep with a light heart. For Jerry Foster, as hefaced his own certain death, had seen certain things. It was theend--that was one fact he couldn't evade. But he grinned cheerfully,all by himself in that strange cheerless room, as he thought of whatelse he had visioned.

  "And it will be just one hell of a fight," he said softly aloud."There will be some of those priests that will know they have been ina war."

  * * * * *

  He examined again the knife and the automatic, and counted thecartridges left in the magazine. There were more he had found in apocket of his coat, enough to replace those he had fired. He slippedthe pistol into its holster at the sound of soft footstepsapproaching.

  It was Marahna who entered, a strange and barbaric Marahna. She wasclad in a garment of spun gold that enveloped her tall figure. Ittrailed in rippling beauty on the floor--draped in resplendence herslim body, to end in soft folds about a head-dress that left Jerrybreathless.

  Her face was entirely concealed. The gold helmet covered her head. Itwas tall, made entirely of hammered gold in which spirals of jewelsreflected their colors of glittering light. She was quiteunrecognizable in the weird magnificence.

  Only her voice identified the figure. She murmured chokingly some softwords, then raised her head with its barbaric helmet proudly high asshe concluded. There were words become familiar now to Jerry. Togetherwith the spectacle she presented, her meaning was more than plain.

  "The time has come," she was telling him. "The sun ... the hour ofsacrifice."

  Jerry leaped to his feet. His plans for battle were being revised. Anidea--a plan, half-formed--was beating in his brain.

  A sound was beating upon him, too. There were drums that throbbed insteady unison, that echoed hollowly along resounding walls, thatapproached in loudly increasing cadence.

  * * * * *

  The plan was complete. "No!" said Jerry Foster, with a wild laugh. Hereached to remove the golden helmet.

  He placed it upon his own head, under the startled gaze of thewondering girl. He reached out for the robe.

  "You shall not go," he told her. "I will go in your place. And when Ireach that room...." His eyes were savage behind the slits in thegolden head-dress.

  "No--no!" the girl protested. Her face showed plainly the completehopelessness of what Jerry proposed. To pit himself against thatantagonist--she knew how futile was the brave gesture.

  Jerry was undaunted. "I've got to die anyway," he tried to explain,"and if I can get in one good crack at whatever is there--well, I maybe of help."

  His hand was taking off the cloak. Marahna's eyes were steady uponhim. She ceased to resist. She whipped one of the covers from thecouch about her and helped him with the golden robe.

  The throbbing of drums was hammering at Jerry's temples. They wereclose at hand! Marahna, without a word, rushed frantically back towardthe room where the others waited.

  And again Jerry Foster felt that odd tightening of disappointmentabout his heart. But what was the difference, he told himself, in ahundred years--or a hundred minutes. He set his lips tight and walkedslowly out and down the passage.

  The room he entered was deathly quiet. There were figures standingabout, figures robed in their gold-threaded drapes, that staredstrangely, wonderingly, at him, and drew themselves into a huddledgroup against the wall. And two there were, who stood apart: the othervictims--their sacrificial garments wrapped them round where theywaited for the third who was to accompany them. Jerry joined them as aguard came in from the outer hall.

  * * * * *

  The drums were rolling softly in their rhythmic beat. The priests whoentered showed annoyance at the delay; they gave a curt order, andmotioned the three to follow.

  Outside, the corridor was broad, and the double rows of lights oneither side glowed brightly to illumine a pageant grotesque andterrible in its barbaric splendor. The drums throbbed louder. Jerrysaw them in their fire of burnished metal, beaten by the bands ofnaked men. Beyond, a group of warriors waited. Stalwart and stronglymuscled, they stood erect in copper armor beside a platform of metalbars, whose floor was of latticed gold. The victims were placed uponit to stand erect. Jerry balanced himself upon the golden floor as thewarriors raised it slowly to their shoulders.

  Priests, in robes of heavy golden rope, were ranged about; they formeda guard and escort ten deep about the living sacrifice. At that thedrums increased their volume, and to this was added a nerve-racking,discordant and rasping jangle, when sheets of copper, paper-thin, werestruck with a heavy hand. The pulsing, throbbing pandemonium wasterrific as the march began.

  Slowly they made their way through a winding gallery. Slowly they cameto where a portal, high-arched, gave entrance upon the great hall.Solemnly, proudly, the priests lead the way as they circled the vastroom. Their wrappings o
f gold were a scintillant quiver of light;above each hard face a circle of gold--symbol of the sun--was borneimperiously high.

  * * * * *

  The priestly guard surrounded the platform where the three standingfigures were huddled. And behind, and on either side, the men with thedrums and the discordant, ringing sheets gave full force to theirblows. The high vault above thundered and roared to the thunder androar of the drums. And, high over all, a wailing began.

  The thin shrillness beat with the tempo of the drums in a pitch thatsteadily descended. The glittering procession had come to rest at itsappointed place in the pathway, of light as the wailing came down to amoan. "_Oong! Oong!_" the voices groaned, while the walls re-echoedthe despairing tones. Only from the band of warriors did the ear ofJerry Foster detect anything but misery and despair. The priests weresilent, but the warriors, in their shining armor, stood erect androared out the syllables in exultant joy.

  The priests were now upon the dais--the rocky platform, divided by thegreat, glowing parabola of light. They stood erect as a new highpriest, replacing the one Jerry had killed, crossed to bow and grovelin the radiance from their god.

  The room was silent with the silence of a great tomb as the march ofdeath began. Softly, from the silence, the drums resumed the merestwhisper of their former thunderous booming. Beside him. Jerry heardthe soft sobs of a girl. One of the figures swayed and threatened tofall as the platform was lowered to rest upon the floor. The otherpressed close to support the drooping figure.

  * * * * *

  Now the entire directed ray of light from the round, glowing holestruck full upon them. It blinded and dazzled, yet, plain anddistinct, Jerry saw at its heart the circle of blackness, the eye ofthe mysterious, hypnotic parabola--the entrance to what lay beyond.

  The beat of the drums was hypnotic. As if in a trance he saw, at theside of the way they must go, the form of the head priest beckon themon. The two victims at his side took one step on the path to theirdeath. And the same stiff rigidity held Jerry as he, too, moved onwardand up the golden ramp.

  The drums were bearing them on. Louder they throbbed in a steadycrescendo, to carry the three rigid figures a step at a time up thepathway of light.

  The priest, Jerry felt more than saw, was beside them. Close ahead wasthe blackness that held the set stare of his eyes. One of the goldenfigures was before him. He saw the priest reach out to take the helmetfrom her head.

  The movement aroused him from his numb horror. An impulse to escapesurged through him; every nerve was tense and ready for a spring. Helooked quickly about. The warriors were behind, the priests ready ontheir platform to direct them. And in the doorway, from where he firsthad seen this chamber, on the only way he knew that led to freedom,another figure, tall in its priestly robes, blocked the passage.

  * * * * *

  Hopeless, he knew. And then there swept through him a wave of hate. Gonewas his horror, and gone the dull deadness of brain and body. There, facinghim, was the mouth of the pit, where waited a something--horrible,rapacious--demanding the lives of these people ... of Marahna ... ofothers--more and yet more.

  No thought now of life or escape. For the moment, Jerry Foster's wholebeing held nothing but hot hate, and the wish for revenge.

  Before him the priest was stripping the robe from the girl at hisfeet. She stood like a statue, a carving of purest alabaster, slim anderect in her white, slender nakedness. And the face that he sawthrough incredulous eyes was that of Marahna.

  Marahna! The realization and quick understanding held him spellbound.She had come, had taken the robes from another poor victim ... to bewith him in this, the last hour....

  Marahna--a princess among these strange folk--was giving her life whenanother could have been in her place. And she smiled tremulously,bravely, as her eyes locked with his, as, speechless and spellbound,he stared through the eyelets of gold.

  The priest was reaching for his head-dress, Jerry tensed. The momenthad come.

  * * * * *

  He was ready. As the weight left his shoulders, he dropped, with oneswift movement, his golden disguise. The robe fell in folds at hisfeet. He stared in silence, through narrowing eyes, at the face of thehead priest above him. Then, leaping straight up, he fastened onehand, sinewy, sun-browned and strong, on the white neck below thewhite face. They crashed back, to land on the ramp and roll,struggling, toward the edge.

  Jerry's hold never slackened. He felt his fingers sink deep in theflesh. He came to his knees, then up, to hold the writhing figure atarm's length. Then, heaving with all his strength, he whipped the maninto the air, to drag him in one leaping bound for the shelteringdarkness beyond.

  A figure was entering with him--a slim, naked figure, with glowing andworshipping eyes.

  Behind them the silence was shattered. Jerry saw, as he stepped fromthe light, the riot of figures that surged in hysterical frenzythrough the great hall. The priests were leaping among them ... thetall priest who had guarded the door was fighting his way through themob.

  Jerry loosed his quivering hand from the throat it held. He cast thefigure from him. And he blinked his eyes to make them serve him in theblackness all about.

  Beside him, a form, invisible in the dark, was stroking at his face,and a voice was whispering tremulously: "Cherrie ... Cherrie!"

  * * * * *

  The tumult in the great hall reached them but faintly. Jerry Fosterstrove desperately to focus his eyes in that darkness of utter night.A dim glow from the portal crept softly in to bring faint illuminationto the farther wall. Slowly his eyes found that which they feared yetsought.

  Off in the dark, directly opposite the entrance, was a white andghostly thing. Formless and vague, it wavered and blurred to hisstraining eyes. He fumbled clumsily for a match, one of his treasuredstore. He must see--he must know what was waiting--

  The match flared to a point of brilliance in the murky gloom. Itshowed, on the floor where they stood, a litter of driedvegetation--food, doubtless placed there as an offering. It was drynow, and dusty, and through it there shone the bleak whiteness ofbones. Beyond was the floor, and beyond that.... The whiteness thathad been but a blur grew sharply distinct.

  Jerry could not have told what he expected the light to disclose.Certainly it was not the heaping of coils, milk-white and ghastly,that took shape before his staring eyes. Above them a head hung inair. It was motionless--lifeless, almost--like the coiled body thatheld it. But the eyes, black and staring, in the bloated, bulginghead, made its poised stillness the more deadly.

  Even in the dark Jerry had sensed the hypnotic spell of unseen eyes.Visible, they held him in a rigid, unreasoning terror. Unreal,unthinkable, this serpentlike horror, tremendous and ghastly in itsloathsome whiteness. A dweller in the dark, used by the priests as asymbol and a threat for the ignorant folk who trusted and believedthem. And it held him, stilled and stricken, in its evil spell.

  * * * * *

  The flame was scorching Jerry's hand that nervelessly opened torelease the match. The man was like a statue, frozen to mentaldeadness. About his feet a light was playing, unseen. A bit of the drystuff sprang brightly to yellow flame. Neither seeing nor feeling, thefigure of Jerry Foster stood, held in the deadly magic of themalignant eyes.

  Dimly he sensed that the prostrate body on the floor was that ofMarahna. Vaguely he knew when the form of the priest took a haltingstep forward. The fire his match had kindled was rising about hisfeet. The flames seared and stabbed with a pain that reached hisdulled brain. Quivering and shaken, the body of Jerry Foster reactedagain to a conscious thought. He leaped quickly as the deadly witcheryleft him, and he tore at the smoldering cloth about his legs.

  And now he knew the thing before him for what it was. Shocking in itsgigantic size, more so in the concentrated venom of its gaze, it wasthe flabby, scaly and crusted
whiteness of the thing that filled hisbeing with a deadly nausea. He stared with a sickened fascination atthe flabby, drooping pouches beside the mouth, the distorted, bulginghead and the short legs, armed with long, curving talons--legs thatsprang from out the neck to clutch and tear at what the jaws mighthold.

  Deadly and hateful--loathsome beyond all imagining--still Jerry Fosterfound it was something a man could meet. Its devilish power toparalyze and still the soul of him was gone.

  He snatched quickly for the gun at his belt and knelt to aim--thenchecked his finger on the trigger. The figure of the priest had comebetween him and the monster.

  * * * * *

  The golden robe was dragging. It fell to the floor, to gleam dully inthe flickering light of the fire. Against the heaping coils of whitethe priest was outlined, drawn, as Jerry sensed, against the protestof every fiber of his being. Yet, one stiff step at a time, he wentfaltering on. The hair above his white face was torn in disarray. Andthe face itself, so exultantly fierce in its hour of triumph, now amask of quivering, hopeless terror.

  The head of the monster came slowly to life. It raised and raised intothe air. The mouth gaped open with a hoarse, sucking sound, thenstruck, like a whip of light, at the doomed priest.

  His screams, as the thing descended upon him, rang through the roar ofthe forty-five. Jerry fired again where the black eyes showed abovethe writhing body of their prey. The head jerked backward, to tower inthe darkness overhead. The mouth disgorged its contents to the floor.

  Only for a shuddering instant did the monster pause. Then it launchedits great bulk in a counter-attack, while the automatic poured out therest of its futile lead.

  The gun was knocked from his grasp as the great head smashed past,swerved from its aim by the blinding bullets. Jerry knew only that hisknife was in his hand as the great scabrous coils closedinevitably about him.

  Vaguely he heard the shouting from behind as the writhing foldsengulfed him. He stabbed blindly at the scaly mass; again and againhis knife ripped slashingly at the abhorrence that drew him close.Then his arm, too, was caught in the crushing loathsome embrace....

  * * * * *

  He felt no pain--the pressure alone was insufferable. His head wasdrawn back. Above him the horrible eyes glared into his--there wasblood dripping from the jaws....

  He saw it in the brilliance of a light that flashed in blue heatoverhead. There came in his ears a vast roaring of sound, a greatheat-blast that scorched and burned at his face. The crushing pressurewas relaxed. He went reeling to the floor, as the great coils whirledhigh into the air.

  He was stunned by the fall, his body inert and relaxed. But he knewthrough it all that from somewhere above there was shrieking ofgas--blue, roaring fires--a flame that tore blastingly into a writhingcontortion beyond.

  The tall figure of a priest was bending over him, but it was the voiceof Winslow that was in his ears--a blessed, human voice--when heawoke.

  "Thank God, I made it," the voice was saying, over and over. "ThankGod, I found the ship and got back here in time!"

  There was light within the cavern. The burning fungus was extinguishedby the smothering coils that had crashed upon it, but beyond was awaving plume of yellow where a blue flame shot against a wall of rock.

  And Jerry, through the stress and riot of emotion that overwhelmedhim, laughed chokingly, wildly, at the words of his companion.

  "It is sodium," Winslow was saying in explanation, as he saw Jerry'seyes resting on the light. "A hydrogen flame, but there's sodium inthe rocks that turns the flame yellow. I rigged up a flame-thrower ofhydrogen."

  "You would," Jerry gasped through hysterical laughter. "You would dojust that, and make your way back to this hell just to save me--youdamn fool inventor!"

  * * * * *

  He clung to Winslow, who was raising him to his feet. Marahna wasbeside him, robed in the golden garment of the priest. She placed herhands beside his face to turn him toward the further wall. The lightwas fickle, but it showed him, as it rose and fell, the blackened,swollen body of the monster, still writhing in its death struggle. Andbeside it, blasted and charred, the head of the obscene sun god,severed by the cutting, obliterating blast, lay flabby and black in asilent heap.

  "Rather effective," said Winslow complacently, "though I didn't havemuch to work with. Two small vials of my liquid and a hand generatorto furnish the current. A tubular strut from the frame of the shipmade the blow-pipe."

  "And these?" Jerry questioned, and pointed to the priest's vestmentsthat Winslow still wore.

  "Oh, it was all quiet up above," said the inventor, "and I came downthe rope. But there was one of them waiting at the bottom. He didn'tneed these any more when I left, so I took them to help get about--"

  He stopped, to cross quickly and pick up the flame-thrower as theflame died away. It roared as he worked at the mechanism, thendwindled again. Its light, for an instant, was reflected in a liquidon the floor.

  "Broken!" said Winslow in an anguished voice. "The vials aregone--smashed! And I counted on this to hold off the mob, to get ussafely out...."

  He regarded the instrument with silent dismay. The blue flame, as heheld it, flickered and died.

  "Not so good!" said Jerry slowly. He stopped to retrieve the knife.This, he reflected, was their sole weapon of defense. In the dim lighthis eyes met with Winslow's in mutual comprehension of their plight.

  * * * * *

  There were caverns beyond, dark and forbidding. Did they lead to theouter world? Or, instead, was it not probable that they went to somedeep, subterranean dens, from which this monster had learned to comeat the priests' summons? Jerry put from his mind all thought of escapein that direction.

  "And Marahna, too," he told Winslow. "What will become of her?"

  The girl got the essence of the question. Fumbling for phrases thatthey knew, she made them believe that she was safe. Her people, shetold them, would protect her.

  "Yes," Jerry agreed. "I guess that's right. She's a princess, youknow," he reminded Winslow, "and the great mass of the people look upto her. Only the priests and warrior gangs will be opposed. But howcan we get through them?"

  The question was unanswered.

  "We've got to knock them cold some way," said the inventor. "Got togive them a fright that will last till they let us get through. Onceat the big shaft where we came down, we can make our getaway. But howto do it...." His voice died away in dismal thought.

  Jerry's eyes were casting about. The priest's robe? No, not goodenough. It had brought Winslow through, but it couldn't take themback. Marahna? No help there: she had enough to do to protect herselffrom the fury of the priests.

  * * * * *

  His eyes rested again on the steaming, blackened mass that stillshowed the horrible features that had marked the head of the monster.The sun god! There was an idea there.

  "Come!" he said to Winslow, and walked swiftly across to the severedhead.

  He had to steel his nerves before he could lay hands upon the vilething. The paws were still attached behind the head. He took a grip onone and pulled. The great mass moved.

  "I don't get the idea," said Winslow.

  "Nor I," Jerry admitted, "but there's an idea here." His thoughts wereracing in the moment's silence.

  "I've got it," he shouted. "I've got it! If only I can make Marahnaunderstand!" He led the girl nearer to the door, where his signscould be seen more plainly.

  "You," he told her, "go out there." He pointed to the place where thepriests had stood. "Tell your people"--he took the attitude of theorator declaiming to his audience--"we have come here from the sun."Again his signs were plain. Marahna nodded. This plainly was literaltruth to her.

  "Tell them," he continued earnestly, "we have saved them from thisthing. Tell them it was no sun god, but a monster that the priests hadkept. Monster!" he exclaimed, and point
ed to the head and to the bodythat still writhed and jerked spasmodically. "No god--no!" And againthe girl showed her understanding. Her eyes were glowing.

  "Then," said Jerry, indicating Winslow and himself, "we will take thehead that they have worshipped, and we'll drag it out and throw it tothe priests." His gestures were graphic. The girl nodded her head inan ecstasy of comprehension.

  "And then," Jerry added softly for Winslow's hearing, "we'll beat it.And, with luck, we'll make it safe."

  "There's a chance," said Winslow softly, "there's a chance--and that'sall we ask."

  * * * * *

  "It's up to you, Marahna," Jerry told her. His words were meaningless,but the tone sufficed. She drew herself proudly erect, wrapped herselfclosely in the robe of braided gold, and stepped firmly and fearlesslythrough the portal and down toward the platform of the priests.

  The two men watched from the shadows. Beyond the outline of theplatform they saw the warrior clans, a phalanx of protecting bodies.And beyond, drawn back in huddled consternation, were masses ofwhite-faced people--Marahna's people--who listened, now, in wonderingsilence to their princess.

  Marahna made her way slowly to the platform's edge. Of all thecountless ones to have gone that road, she was the first ever toreturn. She stood silent, while her eyes found their way scornfullyover the enemy below. Then looking beyond them, she began to speak.

  Her soft voice echoed liquidly throughout the room. She gestured, andJerry knew that she was giving them the message.

  From the priests there came once a hoarse, inarticulate growl of hateand unbelief. She silenced them with her hand. She pointed to theheavens, and she told them of the sun and of the two who were truechildren of the sun, who had come to save them from their false god.

  * * * * *

  Her voice rose as she told her people in impassioned tones that whichshe had seen. And she was shouting above the tumult of the priests andpointing directly at them as she made the roof echo with the message:"_Oong devah! Oong devah!_"

  "The god is dead," translated Jerry. "_Devah_ means death; she saidthat of herself before we left. Come on!" he shouted, and laid-hold ofone great claw. "It's our turn now."

  Winslow was tugging at the other foot. Between them they dragged intothe light the obscene burden. Down the long ramp they took it and offupon the platform of the priests, where Marahna waited.

  The priests, as Jerry's quick glance showed, were milling wildlyabout. It seemed that a charge was soon to follow, but the commotionceased as the two men come upon the platform, hauling between them thegreat scorched head of "Oong." The vast hall was without movement orsound as they made their way out to the front. Jerry stood erect andfaced the crowd.

  He pointed, as had Marahna, toward the sun somewhere above those thickmasses of rock; he traced it in its course across the sky; he pointedto Winslow and himself. And in loudest tones he roared throughout theroom his message. "Oong," he shouted, "_Oong devah!_"

  "I'll count three," he whispered in the utter silence. "Then let 'ergo!"

  Again he took a firm hold on the flabby paw.

  "One," he whispered, and swung his body with the word. "Two ... and_three_!"

  * * * * *

  The men heaved mightily upon the gruesome horror. The head swungghastly in scorched whiteness into the air. The dead jaws fell open asit crashed downward among the huddled, stricken priests.

  "This way!" commanded Winslow. He had been carefully appraising theopenings in the crowd. "And don't hurry! Remember, you're a god tothem--or something a darn sight worse."

  Heads proudly erect, the two strode firmly down the pathway of goldenlight. The room was silent as the few they met fell back in cringingfear. Slowly, interminably, the long triumphal march was made acrossthe rocky cavern of the moon.

  Not till they reached the portal did the silence break. The shrieks ofthe priests and the clashing of copper were behind them, as theyvanished with steady steps from out the room.

  "Now run!" ordered Winslow. "Run as if the devils from hell were afteryou--and I think they are!" The two tore madly down the corridor whosedouble rows of brightness made possible their utmost speed.

  There was the narrowing of the passage--Jerry remembered it--wherethey came out at the foot of the great shaft, the dead throat of thevolcano. Behind them the shrieks and clamor echoed close. A rope wasdangling from far up at the top.

  Jerry leaped for it before he recalled the condition of his arm. Inthe excitement of the encounter he had forgotten that the arm wasstill in no shape for a long hand-over-hand climb.

  "I can't make it," he said, and looked about quickly. There werebaskets of fungus growth, already dried from the heat of the mid-daysun that had shone where it grew. He dragged one to the narrow part ofthe tunnel. Winslow tugged at another and threw it up as a barricade.A chalk-white figure in copper sheathing was clambering upon it as heworked at another of the nets.

  * * * * *

  Jerry let go the fiber basket he was dragging and drew his knife as hesprang to meet the assault. A sharp cutting edge was unknown to theseworkers in copper. Jerry slipped under the raised bludgeoning copperweapon to plunge the knife into a white throat. Then, without a lookat the body he helped Winslow, struggling with another load.

  They completed the barricade. A heap of fungus made a raised placewhere Jerry leaped. Commanding the top of the pile that blocked thechoked throat of the passage, he was ready for the next figure thatleaped wildly up.

  It would take them a while, Jerry saw, to learn of this scintillantdeath that struck at them from close quarters. His knife flashed againand again as he took the men one at a time and let their limp bodiesroll back to the passage beyond.

  * * * * *

  The assault was checked when Jerry shouted to his companion. "Tie therope around me," he ordered, "up under my arms ... then you go on up.When you get there pull up--and for the Lord's sake pull fast!"

  "Go on," he shouted. "I can hold them for a while--" He turned swiftlyto take a leaping body upon the red point of his knife.

  He felt the rope about him as he fought, knew by its twitching whenWinslow started the long climb, and prayed dumbly for strength to holdhis weak fortress till the other could hoist himself up to the top.

  He was fighting blindly as they came on in endless succession, thefigures of frenzied priests leaping grotesquely beyond. Only thestrategic position he had taken allowed him to turn the wild assaultagain and again. They could only reach him by ones and twos, but theend must come soon. There were priests tearing at the foot of thebarricade.... The cold winds that came down from above revived him,but it helped the figures ripping at the fiber cords. The dry fungusfragments whirled gaily away and down the passage in the wind.

  The wind! The draft was blowing from him, directly upon his attackers.Jerry struggled and clinched with another that bounded beside him, andknew as he fought that a weapon was at hand. His knife found the loweredge of copper, and the figure screamed as he rolled it down theslope. He slipped the knife into his left hand as he fumbled with hisright.

  * * * * *

  His precious matches! He struck one on the rock; it broke in histrembling fingers. Another--there were so few left. He drew it withinfinite care on the surface of rock. The figures below tore in frenzyat the weakening barricade, while yet others stood waiting at thissign of some new form of magic.

  They shouted again, as they had when, those long days ago, he hadlighted a cigarette before their horrified gaze. Jerry shielded thetiny blaze in his hand to bring it beneath a papery leaf beside him.

  The flame flashed and dwindled. He dared not drop back to set fire tothe base of the heap. But even in the exhaustion and strain of themoment Jerry Foster still knew the value of the showman's tricks inreaching the fears of these white-faced fighters.

  With grandiloquent gestu
re he raised another of the tindery fragmentsand ignited it from the first. Another, and he had the beginning of afire. He lit another piece, and, when he had it blazing, dropped itbehind him and kept on with the show.

  A large piece became a flaming torch, and he waved it before him andlaughed to see the warriors cringe. A cloud of smoke was billowingabout him--he leaped to safety through a rising wall of flame.

  The rear slope of the barricade became a furnace; the wind behind himswept the smoke clouds down the passage. He heard, and sank backweakly on the ground as it came to him, the screaming riot where a mobof terrified warriors fought and struck to turn the horde thatclamored behind them and pushed them on. The blast roared over theheaped fuel and poured downward from the crest. The noise of theretreat went silent in the distance.

  * * * * *

  Spent and exhausted, Jerry Foster lay panting upon the stone floor.The breath of cold and life came down the long shaft from the crater.Had Winslow gained the top? Was he equal to the climb? Jerry hardlyfelt the jerking of the rope about his shoulders, but he knew as, infrantic haste, it drew him scraping up the long side of the shaft.

  The biting cold above revived him, and again a scene of desolation wasspread before his eyes. Winslow fumbled with the knots and releasedhim from the rope.

  "Come on!" he shouted, and extended a helping hand as they leaped andraced across the rocky floor.

  Jerry again was vividly, strongly alive as the cold winds swept him.He leaped hugely through the whirling wisps of dried outvegetation--the sun had stripped the surface of every living thing.Again the rocky slopes rose naked in the rosy light of evening. Thesun was hidden below a distant range of jagged hills. The long nightwas begun.

  "You're going the wrong way," Jerry shouted. "We left it over there."He stopped to point where the sun had set. "See, that's where wefought the beasts--"

  "Come on!" repeated Winslow. "Hurry! We mustn't lose out now. I flewthe ship over this way while I was up here before."

  A ridge of rock cut off the view where Winslow pointed. "Bully foryou!" Jerry shouted and turned to follow. They stopped as the slopeahead, from its multitude of honeycomb caverns, erupted men.

  * * * * *

  The priests were ahead, and behind them swarmed their men. Vindictiveand revengeful, the wily enemy was fighting to the end. The twostopped in consternation.

  "What's the use!" demanded Jerry. His voice was tired, utterlyhopeless. "And the ship's right over there...."

  "A million miles away," said Winslow slowly, "as far as we'reconcerned." The army was sweeping down the long slope: they had foundtheir quarry. There were other figures, too, pouring from the throatof the volcano--white, naked figures that swarmed in growing numbersand rushed across upon them from the rear.

  "Trapped," said Jerry Foster savagely, "and we almost made it." Herose wearily to his feet. "We'll take it standing."

  The armored warriors were approaching; in leaping triumph they racedto be the first ones at the death. The shouts of the priests wereringing encouragement in their ears.

  * * * * *

  But the leaders from the rear were nearer. One deep breath Jerry drewas he turned to meet them. Then stared, astonished, as the figuresswept past. They streamed by in confusion. They were armed with rocks,with clubs or copper metal--some even carried bars of gold above theirheads. They came in a great swarm that swept past and beyond them. Andthey met, like an engulfing wave, the bounding figures of the men incopper. Smothered and lost were the warriors in the horde that pouredincreasingly on.

  The wave, before Jerry's eyes, swept on over the crest, while he stillstood in amazed unbelief at the battle that raged.

  It was Marahna who brought understanding. He turned to see her kneelin sobbing, thankful abasement at his feet.

  Marahna! Her people! She had saved them! There was time needed for thefull force of the truth to banish the hopeless despair from his heart.Then he stooped to raise the crouching figure with arms that weresuddenly strong.

  * * * * *

  The pale rose light of the departed sun above shone softly within arocky valley of the moon. It tipped the tall crags with lavender hues,and it touched with soft gleaming reflections a blunted cylinder ofaluminum alloy.

  The valley was silent, save for the hushed whispers of wonderingthousands who peopled the enclosing hills, and the rushing roar fromthe cylinder itself where the inventor was testing his machine.

  There were figures in priestly robes--scores of them--and they weresurrounded by a white throng that, silent and watchful, held themcaptive.

  Beyond, in the open, where bare rock made a black rolling floor, therewere two who stood alone. The golden figure of a girl, and beside her,Jerry Foster, in wordless indecision.

  Behind him was the ship. Its muffled thunder came softly to hisunheeding ears. He looked at the girl steadily, thoughtfully.

  Gone was all trace of her imperious dignity. The Princess Marahna wasnow all woman. And Jerry, looking into her dark eyes, read plainly theyearning and adoration in their depths. The Princess Marahna hadforgotten her deference to the god in her love for the man. The talewas told in her flushed face, openly, unashamed.

  And his gray eyes were thoughtful and tender as he gazed into hers. Hewas thinking, was Jerry Foster, of many things. And he was weighingthem carefully. His hand clasped and unclasped at something safelyhidden in his pocket. He had taken it from his pack; he had wantedsomething for Marahna, something she would treasure.

  * * * * *

  And now she was offering him herself. He could take her with him, takeher to that far-off world that she never dreamed existed. He couldshow her the things of that world, its wonders and beauties. He couldtrain her in its ways. He would watch over her, love her.... And shewould be miserable and heartsick for the sight of this awfuldesolation. He knew it--he told himself it was the truth--and he hatedhimself for the telling.

  The voice of Winslow aroused him. The inventor had come from his ship."We had better be starting," he said.

  The slim figure of the girl in her robe of pure gold trembled visibly.She knew, it was plain, the import of the words. She spoke rapidly,beseechingly, in her own tongue. The words were liquid music in theair. Then, realizing their impotence, she resorted to her poorvocabulary of their own strange sounds.

  "No!" she said, and shook her head vehemently. "No--no!"

  She motioned to wait, and she called loud and clear across the silenceto her own people. There was a stir about the priests. One in therobes and head-dress of the high priest was brought forward, led bytwo others of her men. They stopped a few steps from her and bowedlow.

  Again she called, and the leaders among the vast throng came, too, andmade their obeisance before her.

  * * * * *

  She turned then to Jerry. And now it was Marahna, Princess of theMoon, who stood quiet and poised before him. The light, he saw, madesoft wavelets of radiance in her hair, and her eyes were still glowingand tender. She stepped forward toward the priest.

  The helmet of the sun god was upon his head. It marked him, Jerryknew, as the master of their world. True, they had bowed insubmission to that other master, whose vile head lay horrible andharmless on the floor of the great hall--they had believed in thecommands the priests had pretended to receive from him--but thisemblem on the helmet marked the leader of the race, the master of thisworld, for these simple folk.

  Marahna reached her slim hands and lifted the thing of gold. Sheturned, and held it above the startled eyes of Jerry Foster, and sheplaced it upon his head with all the dignity that became a queen. Aword from her, and the men before him dropped in humbleness to theground. The Princess Marahna was among them in honoring salutation totheir king.

  Jerry was beyond speech. Not so Winslow. "It looks to me," he saiddryly, "as if you were being offered the kingdom
of the earth--I meanthe moon. Think it over, Jerry--think it over."

  * * * * *

  And Jerry Foster thought it over, deeply and soberly. He could rulethis people, he and Marahna, rule in peace and quiet and comfort. Hecould bring them knowledge and wisdom of infinite help; he could maketheir new civilization a measure of advancement for a whole race. Hecould teach them, train them, instruct them. And he and Marahna--therewould be children who would be princes born--could be happy--for atime. And then ... and then he would be old. Old and lonely for hiskind, hungering and longing for his own people. As Marahna would be onearth, so would he be here....

  His decision was formed. And with it he knew he must not hurt theheart of Marahna. She loved him, Jerry Foster, the man. He must leaveher as Jerry Foster, the god, child of the sun. He stood suddenly tohis full height, and who shall say that for a moment the man did notapproach the stature of divinity--for he was wholly kind.

  He placed a hand upon the head of the kneeling girl before him. Heheld her in her submissive pose, then, turning to the waiting men, hespoke in measured tones.

  "I thank you," he said, and the words came from a full heart, "but myplace is not here. I leave with you one more worthy."

  Before their wondering gaze he removed the glowing circlet from hishead; he leaned to place it on the head of Marahna, humbled beforehim. With strong hands he raised her to her feet. His look, so tenderyet reserved, was full of meaning. She followed his every sign.

  * * * * *

  He waved once toward the sun, hidden behind the distant hills: hepointed again to Winslow and himself and to their shining ship: andagain he marked the going of the sun. His meaning was plain--thesechildren of the sun must return to their far-off home.

  He turned now to Marahna. In his hand was the object he had taken fromhis pack. It was a treasured thing, this locket of platinum on itsthin and lacy chain; it had been his mother's, and he thought of hernow as he opened the clasp to show his own face framed within theoval. His mother--she had worn this. And she would have approved, heknew, of its disposal.

  Gravely he faced Marahna. He showed her the picture within the case,then held it aloft where all might see. He closed it and taught herthe pressure that released the spring. Then, with gentle dignity thatmade of the gesture a rite, he placed the chain about the neck ofPrincess Marahna--Queen, now, of the People of the Moon. And he knewthat he gave into her keeping their only relic of a being from thesun. It marked her beyond all future question with a symbol ofmastery. And it made of him a god.

  And even a queen may not aspire to such an one.

  It was well that Winslow's hand was there to guide him as he walkedwith unseeing eyes toward the ship.

  * * * * *

  Time may lose at times all meaning and measure--moments becometimeless. It seemed ages to Jerry Foster when Winslow spoke in casualtones. "I'm going straight up," he said, above the generator's roar."Then we'll swing around above the other side. We'll follow thesun--make the full circle of the moon before we start."

  But Jerry neither thought nor heard. His eyes were close to a windowof thick glass. Below him was a shrinking, dwindling landscape,wind-swept and desolate.

  There was a multitude of faces, turned worshipping toward the sky. Onone, who stood apart in tiny loneliness, his vision centered. Hewatched and strained his aching eyes until the figure was no more.Only the pale rose of a dying sun, and a torn, volcanic waste thattugged strangely at his heart.

  "Yes," he answered mechanically, "yes, we'll go round with the sun ...a couple of sun gods."

  He laughed strangely as he regarded his companion.

  If Winslow wondered at the weariness in the voice he made no sign. Hewas busy with a rheostat that made thunderous roaring of the blastbehind their ship: that swung them in a sweeping arc through velvetskies, away from the far side of the moon, to follow the path of thesetting sun--homeward bound.

 

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