Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930

Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 Page 11

by Various

  Murder Madness

  PART THREE OF A FOUR-PART NOVEL

  _By Murray Leinster_

  Seven United States Secret Service men have disappeared in SouthAmerica. Another is found--a screaming homicidal maniac. It is rumoredthat they are victims of a diabolical poison which produces "murdermadness."

  [Sidenote: More and more South Americans are stricken with the horrible"murder madness" that lies in The Master's fearful poison. And Bell istheir one last hope as he fights to stem the swiftly rising tide of acontinent's utter enslavement.]

  Charley Bell of the "Trade"--a secret service organization which doesnot officially exist--discovers that a sinister system of slavery isflourishing in South America, headed by a mysterious man known only asThe Master. This slavery is accomplished by means of a poison whichcauses its victims to experience a horrible writhing of the hands,followed by a madness to do murder, two weeks after it is taken.

  The victims get relief only with an antidote supplied through Ribiera,The Master's Chief Deputy; but in the antidote there is more of thepoison, which again in two weeks will take effect. And so it is that aperson who once receives the poison is forever enslaved.

  Ribiera kidnaps Paula Canalejas, daughter of a Brazilian cabinetminister who, on becoming a victim, has killed himself, preferringdeath to "murder madness." Bell rescues Paula, and they flee fromRibiera in a plane. They find The Master's hidden jungle stronghold, andBell destroys it with a bomb attack from the air. As he is getting awayhis motor quits. Paula jumps for her life, and shortly afterwards Bellfollows, drifting straight down towards his enemies below.

  CHAPTER XI

  Bell was falling head-first when the 'chute opened, and the jerk wasterrific, the more so as he had counted not the customary ten, butfifteen before pulling out the ring. But very suddenly he seemed to befloating down with an amazing gentleness, with the ruddy blossom of aparachute swaying against a background of lustrous stars very far indeedover his head. Below him were masses of smoke and at least one hugedancing mass of flame, where the storage tank for airplane gas hadexploded. It was unlikely in the extreme, he saw now, that anyone underthat canopy of smoke could look up to see plane or parachute against thesky.

  Clumsily enough, dangling as he was, Bell twisted about to look forPaula. Sheer panic came to him before he saw her a little above him buta long distance off. She looked horribly alone with the glare of thefires upon her parachute, and smoke that trailed away into darknessbelow her. She was farther from the flames than Bell, too. The lightupon her was dimmer. And Bell cursed that he had stayed in the plane tomake sure it would dive clear of her before he stepped off himself.

  * * * * *

  The glow on the blossom of silk above her faded out. The sky stillglared behind, but a thick and acrid fog enveloped Bell as he descended.Still straining his eyes hopelessly, he crossed his feet and waited.

  Branches reached up and lashed at him. Vines scraped against his sides.He was hurled against a tree trunk with stunning force, and rebounded,and swung clear, and then dangled halfway between earth and the jungleroof. It was minutes before his head cleared, and then he felt at oncedespairing and a fool. Dangling in his parachute harness when Paulaneeded him.

  The light in the sky behind him penetrated even the jungle growth as afaint luminosity. Presently he writhed to a position in which he couldstrike a match. A thick, matted mass of climbing vines swung from theupper branches not a yard from his fingertips. Bell cursed again,frantically, and clutched at it wildly. Presently his absurd kickingsset him to swaying. He redoubled his efforts and increased the arc inwhich he swung. But it was a long time before his fingers closed uponleaves which came away in his grasp, and longer still before he caughthold of a wrist-thick liana which oozed sticky sap upon his hands.

  But he clung desperately, and presently got his whole weight on it. Heunsnapped the parachute and partly let himself down, partly slid, andpartly tumbled to the solid earth below.

  He had barely reached it when, muffled and many times reechoed among thetree trunks, he heard two shots. He cursed, and sprang toward the sound,plunging headlong into underbrush that strove to tear the flesh from hisbones. He fought madly, savagely, fiercely.

  * * * * *

  He heard two more shots. He fought the jungle in the darkness like amadman, ploughing insanely through masses of creepers that should havebeen parted by a machete, and which would have been much more easilyslipped through by separating them, but which he strove to penetrate bysheer strength.

  And then he heard two shots again.

  Bell stopped short and swore disgustedly.

  "What a fool I am!" he growled. "She's telling me where she is, andI--"

  He drew one of the weapons that seemed to bulge in every pocket of hisflying suit and fired two shots in the air in reply. A single oneanswered him.

  From that time Bell moved more sanely. The jungle is not designed,apparently, for men to travel in. It is assuredly not intended for themto travel in by night, and especially it is not planned, by whoeverplanned it, for a man to penetrate without either machete or lights.

  As nearly as he could estimate it afterward, it took Bell over an hourto cover one mile in the blackness under the jungle roof. Once heblundered into fire-ants. They were somnolent in the darkness, but onehand stung as if in white-hot metal as he went on. And thorns tore athim. The heavy flying suit protected him somewhat, but after the firsthundred yards he blundered on almost blindly, with his arms across hisface, stopping now and then to try to orient himself. Three times hefired in the air, and three times an answering shot came instantly, toguide him.

  * * * * *

  And then a voice called in the blackness, and he ploughed toward it, andit called again, and again, and at last he struck a match with tremblingfingers and saw her, dangling as he had dangled, some fifteen feet fromthe ground. She smiled waveringly, with a little gasp of relief, and heheard something go slithering away, very furtively.

  She clung to him desperately when he had gotten her down to solid earth.But he was savage.

  "Those shots--though I'm glad you fired them--may have been a tip-off tothe town. We've got to keep moving, Paula."

  Her breath was coming quickly.

  "They could trail us, Charles. By daylight we might not leave signs, butforcing our way through the night...."

  "Right, as usual," admitted Bell. "How about shells? Did you use allyou had?"

  "Nearly. But I was afraid, Charles."

  Bell felt in his pockets. Half a box. Perhaps twenty-five shells. Withthe town nearby and almost certainly having heard their signals to eachother. Black rage invaded Bell. They would be hunted for, of course.Dogs, perhaps, would trail them. And the thing would end when they wereat bay, ringed about by The Master's slaves, with twenty-five shellsonly to expend.

  The dim little glow in the sky between the jungle leaves kept up. It wasbright, and slowly growing brighter. There was a sudden flickering andeven the jungle grew light for an instant. A few seconds later there wasa heavy concussion.

  "Something else went up then," growled Bell. "It's some satisfaction,anyway, to know I did a lot of damage."

  * * * * *

  And then, quite abruptly, there was an obscure murmuring sound. It grewstronger, and stronger still. If Bell had been aloft, he would have seenthe planes from The Master's hangars being rushed out of their shelters.One of the long row of buildings had caught. And the plateau of Cuyabais very, very far from civilization. Tools, and even dynamos andengines, could be brought toilsomely to it, but the task would beterrific. Buildings would be made from materials on the spot, even theshelters for the planes. It would be much more practical to carry theparts for a saw mill and saw out the lumber on the spot than to attemptto freight roofing materials and the like to Cuyaba. So that thestructures Bell had seen in the wing lights' glow were of wood, andinflammable. The powerh
ouse that lighted the landing field was alreadyablaze. The smaller shacks of the laborers perhaps would not be burntdown, but the elaborate depot for communication by plane and wirelesswas rapidly being destroyed. The reserve of gasoline had gone up insmoke almost at the beginning, and in spreading out had extended thedisaster to nearly all the compact nerve-center of the whole conspiracy.

  Presently the droning noise was tumultuous. Every plane in a conditionto fly was out on the landing field, now brightly lighted by the burningbuildings all about. There was frantic, hectic activity everywhere. Thesecretaries of The Master were rescuing what records they could, andgrowing cold with terror. In the confusion of spreading flames and thenoise of roaring conflagrations the stopping of the motor up aloft hadpassed unnoticed. In the headquarters of The Master there was panic. Anattack had been made upon The Master. A person who could not be one ofhis slaves had found his stronghold and attacked it terribly. And if oneman knew that location and dared attack it, then....

  * * * * *

  The hold of The Master upon all his slaves was based on one fact and itscorollary. The fact was, that those who had been given his poison wouldgo murder mad without its antidote. The corollary was that those whoobeyed him would be given that antidote and be safe. True, the antidotewas but a temporary one, and mixed with it for administration was afurther dosage of the poison itself. But the whole power of The Masterwas based on his slaves' belief that as long as they obeyed him abjectlythere would be no failure of the antidote's supply. And Bell had giventhat belief a sudden and horrible shock.

  Orders came from one frightened man, who cursed much more from terrorthan from rage. Ribiera had advised him. To do him justice, Ribiera feltless fear than most. Nephew to The Master, and destined successor to TheMaster's power, Ribiera dared not revolt, but at least he had littlefear of punishment for incompetence. It was his advice that set the manyaircraft motors warming up. It was his direction that assorted out thebrainwork staff. And Ribiera himself curtly took control, indifferentlyabandoned the enslaved workers to the madness that would come upon them,and took wing in the last of a stream of roaring things that sweptupward above the smoke and flame and vanished in the sky.

  * * * * *

  Bell and Paula were huddled in between the buttress roots of a junglegiant, protected on three sides by the monster uprearings of solid wood,and Bell was absorbedly feeding a tiny smudge fire. The smoke was thickand choking, but it did keep off the plague of insects which make jungletravel much less than the romantic adventure it is pictured. Bell heardthe heavy, thunderous buzzing from the town change timbre suddenly. Asingle note of it grew loud and soared overhead.

  He stared up instinctively, but saw nothing but leaves and branches andmany climbing things above him, dimly lighted by the smoky little blaze.The roaring overhead went on, and dimmed. A second roaring came from thetown and rose to a monstrous growling and diminished. A third didlikewise, and a fourth.

  At stated, even intervals the planes at headquarters of The Master tookoff from the landing field, ringed about with blazing buildings, andplunged through the darkness in a straight line. The steadier droningfrom the town grew lighter as the jungles echoed for many miles with thesounds of aircraft motors overhead.

  * * * * *

  At last a single plane rose upward and thundered over the jungle roof.It went away, and away.... The town was silent, then, and only a faintand dwindling murmur came from the line of aircraft headed south.

  "They've deserted the town, by God!" said Bell, his eyes gleaming."Scared off!"

  "And--and we--" said Paula, gazing at him.

  "You can bet that every man who could crowd into a plane did so," saidBell grimly. "Those that couldn't, if they have any brains, will betrying to make it some other way to where they can subject themselves toone of The Master's deputies and have a little longer time of sanity.The poor devils that are left--well--they'll be _camaradas_, _peons_,laborers, without the intelligence to know what they can do. They'llwait patiently for their masters to come back. And presently their handswill writhe.... And the town will be a hell."

  "Then they won't be looking for us?"

  Bell considered. And suddenly he laughed.

  "If the fire has burned out before dawn," he said coldly, "I'll golooking for them. It's going to be cold-blooded, and it's going to berather pitiful, I think, but there's nothing else to do. You try to getsome rest. You'll need it."

  And for all the rest of the dark hours he crouched in the little angleformed by the roots of the forest giant, and kept a thickly smokinglittle fire going, and listened to the noises of the jungle all abouthim.

  * * * * *

  It was more than a mile back to the town. It was nearer two. But it wasvastly less difficult to force a way through the thick growths bydaylight, even though then it was not easy. With machetes, of course,Bell and Paula would have had no trouble, but theirs had been left inthe plane. Bell made a huge club and battered openings by sheer strengthwhere it was necessary. Sweat streamed down his face before he hadcovered five hundred yards, but then something occurred to him and hewent more easily. If there were any of the intelligent class of TheMaster's subjects left in the little settlement, he wanted to allow timeenough for them to start their flight. He wanted to find the place emptyof all but laborers, who would be accustomed to obey any man who spokearrogantly and in the manner of a deputy of The Master. Yet he did notwant to wait too long. Panic spreads among the _camarada_ class asswiftly as among more intelligent folk, and it is even more blind andhysterical.

  It was nearly eleven o'clock before they emerged upon a cleared fieldwhere brightly blooming plants grew hugely. Bell regarded these grimly.

  "These," he observed, "will be The Master's stock."

  Paula touched his arm.

  "I have heard," she said, and shuddered, "that the men who gather theplants that go to make the poisons of the _Indios_ do not--do not dareto sleep near the fresh-picked plants. They say that the odor isdangerous, even the perfume of the blossoms."

  "Very probably," said Bell. "I wish I could destroy the damned things.But since we can't, why, we'll go around the edge of the field."

  * * * * *

  He went upwind, skirting the edge of the planted things. A path showed,winding over half-heartedly cleared ground. He followed it, with Paulaclose behind him. Smoke still curled heavily upward from the heaps ofashes which he reached first of all. He looked upon them with anunpleasant satisfaction. He had to pick his way between still smokingheaps of embers to reach the huts about which laborers stood listlessly,not working because not ordered to work, not yet frightened because notyet realizing fully the catastrophe that had come upon them.

  He was moving toward them, deliberately adopting an air of suppressedrage, when a voice called whiningly.

  "Senhor! Senhor!" And then pleadingly, in Portuguese, "I have news forThe Master! I have news for The Master!"

  Bell jerked his head about. Bars of thick wood, cemented into heavytimbers at top and bottom. A building that was solid wall on threesides, and the fourth was bars. A white man in it, unshaven, haggard,ragged, filthy. And on the floor of the cage....

  There had been another such cage on a _fazenda_ back toward Rio. Bellhad looked into it, and had shot the gibbering Thing that had been itsoccupant, as an act of pure mercy. But this man had been through horrorsand yet was sane.

  "Don't look," said Bell sharply to Paula. He went close.

  The figure pressed against the bars, whining. And suddenly it stoppedits fawning.

  "The devil!" said the white man in the cage. "What in hell are you doinghere, Bell? Has that fiend caught you too?"

  * * * * *

  "Oh, my God!" gasped Bell. He went white with a cold rage. He'd knownthis man before. A Secret Service man--one of the seven who hadvanished. "How's this place
opened? I'll let you out."

  "It may be dangerous," said the white man with a ghastly grin. "I'm oneof The Master's little victims. I've been trying to work a little gamein hopes of getting within arm's reach of him. How'd you get here? Hashe got you too?"

  "I burned the damned town last night," snarled Bell, "and crashed upafter it. Where's that door?"

  He found it, a solid mass of planks with a log bar fitted in such a waythat it could not possibly be opened from within. He dragged it wide.The white man came out, holding to his self-control with an obviouseffort.

  "I want to dance and sing because I'm out of there," he told Bellqueerly, "but I know you've done me no good. I've been fed The Master'slittle medicine. I've been in that cage for weeks."

  Bell, quivering with rage, handed him a revolver.

  "I'm going to get some supplies and stuff and try to make it tocivilization," he said shortly. "If you want to help...."

  "Hell, yes," said the white man drearily. "I might as well. NumberOne-Fourteen was here.... He's The Master's little pet, now. Turnedtraitor. Report it, if you ever get out."

  "No," said Bell briefly. "He didn't turn." He told in a very few wordsof the finding of the body of a man who had fallen or been thrown from aplane into the jungle.

  * * * * *

  They were moving toward the rows of still standing shacks, then, andfaces were beginning to turn toward them, and there was a little stir ofapathetic puzzlement at sight of the white man who had been set free.

  That white man looked suddenly at Paula, and then at Bell.

  "I've been turned into a beast," he said wryly. "Look here, Bell. Therewere as many as ten and fifteen of us in that cage at one time--men thedeputies sent up for the purpose. We were allowed to go mad, one and twoat a time, for the edification of the populace, to keep the _camaradas_scared. And those of us who weren't going mad just then used to have toband together and kill them. That cage has been the most awful hell onearth that any devil ever contrived. They put three women in there once,with their hands already writhing.... Ugh!..."

  Bell's face was cold and hard is if carved from marble.

  "I haven't lived through it," said the white man harshly, "by beingsoft. And I've got less than no time to live--sane, anyhow. I wasthinking of shooting you in the back, because the young lady--"

  He laughed as Bell's revolver muzzle stirred.

  "I'm telling you," said the white man in ghastly merriment, "because Ithought--I thought One-Fourteen had set me the example of ditching theService for his own life. But now it's different."

  * * * * *

  He pointed.

  "There's a launch in that house, with one of these outboard motors. Itwas used to keep up communication with the boat gangs that sweat theheavy supplies up the river. It'll float in three inches of water, andyou can pole it where the water's too shallow to let the propeller turn.This rabble will mob you if you try to take it, because it'll have takenthem just about this long to realize that they're deserted. They'llthink you are a deputy, at least, to have dared release me. I'm going toconvince them of it, and use this gun to give you a start. I give youtwo hours. It ought to be enough. And then...."

  Bell nodded.

  "I'm not Service," he said curtly, "but I'll see it's known."

  The white man laughed again.

  "'Some sigh for the glories of this world, and some for a prophet'sparadise to come,'" he quoted derisively. "I thought I was hard, Bell,but I find I prefer to have my record clean in the Service--where nobodywill ever see it--than to take what pleasure I might snatch before Idie. Queer, isn't it? Old Omar was wrong. Now watch me bluff, flingingaway the cash for credit of doubtful value, and all for the rumble of adistant drum--which will be muted!"

  * * * * *

  They were surrounded by swarming, fawning, frightened _camaradas_ whoimplored the Senhor to tell them if he were a deputy of The Master, andif he were here to make sure nothing evil befell them. They worked forThe Master, and they desired nothing save to labor all their lives forThe Master, only--only--The Master would allow no evil to befall them?

  The white man waved his arms grandiloquently.

  "The Senhor you behold," he proclaimed in the barbarous Portugese of thehinterland of Brazil, "has released me from the cage in which you sawme. He is the deputy of The Master himself, and is enraged because thelanding lights on the field were not burning, so that his airplane felldown into the jungle. He bears news of great value from me to TheMaster, which will make me finally a sub-deputy of The Master. And Ihave a revolver, as you see, with which I could kill him, but he daresnot permit me to die, since I have given him news for The Master. Ishall wait here and he will go and send back an airplane with the graceof The Master for me and for all of you."

  Bell snarled an assent, in the arrogant fashion of the deputies of TheMaster. He waited furiously while the Service man argued eloquently andfluently. He fingered his revolver suggestively when a wave of panicswept over the swarming mob for no especial reason. And then he watchedgrimly while the light little metal-bottomed boat was carried to thewater's edge and loaded with food, and fuel, and arms, and ammunition,and even mosquito bars.

  The white man grinned queerly at Bell as he extended his hand in a lasthandshake.

  "'I, who am about to die, salute you!'" he said mockingly. "Isn't this ahell of a world, Bell? I'm sure we could design a better one in someways."

  * * * * *

  Bell felt a horrible, a ghastly shock. The hand that gripped his waswrithing in his grasp.

  "Quite so," said the white man. "It started about five minutes ago. Intheory, I've about forty-eight hours. Actually, I don't dare wait thatlong, if I'm to die like a white man. And a lingering vanity insists onthat. I hope you get out, Bell.... And if you want to do me afavor,"--he grinned again, mirthlessly--"you might see that The Masterand as many of his deputies as you can manage join me in hell at theearliest possible moment. I shan't mind so much if I can watch them."

  He put his hands quickly in his pockets as the little outboard motorcaught and the launch went on down-river. He did not even look afterthem. The last Bell saw of him he was swaggering back up the littlehillside above the river edge, surrounded by scared inhabitants of theworkmen's shacks, and scoffing in a superior fashion at their fears.

  CHAPTER XII

  It took Bell just eight days to reach the Paraguay, and those eight dayswere like an age-long nightmare of toil and discomfort and more than alittle danger. The launch was headed downstream, of course, and with thecurrent behind it, it made good time. But the distances of Brazil areinfinite, and the jungles of Brazil are malevolent, and the route downthe Rio Laurenco was designed by the architect of hell. _Raudales_ layin wait to destroy the little boat. Insects swarmed about to destroy itsvoyagers. And the jungle loomed above them, passively malignant, andwaited for them to die.

  And as if physical sufferings were not enough, Bell saw Paula wilt andgrow pale. All the way down the river they passed little clearings atnearly equal distances. And men came trembling out of the little housesupon those _fazendas_ and fawned upon the Senhor who was in the launchthat had come from up-river and so must be in the service of The Masterhimself. The clearings and the tiny houses had been placed upon theriver for the service of the terribly laboring boat gangs who broughtthe heavier supplies up the river to The Master's central depot. Men atthese clearings had been enslaved and ordered to remain at their posts,serving all those upon the business of The Master. They fawned abjectlyupon Bell, because he was of _os gentes_ and so presumably wasempowered, as The Master had empowered his more intelligent subjects, toexact the most degraded of submission from all beneath him in thehorrible conspiracy. Once, indeed, Bell was humbly implored by a panicstricken man to administer "the grace of The Master" to a moody andirritable child of twelve or so.

  "She sees the red spots, Senhor. It is the first sig
n. And I have servedThe Master faithfully...."

  * * * * *

  And Bell could do nothing. He went on savagely. And once he passed agang of _camaradas_ laboring to get heavily loaded dugouts up a fiendish_raudal_. They had ropes out and were hauling at them from the bank,while some of their number were breast-deep in the rushing water,pushing the dugouts against the stream.

  "They're headed for the plantation," said Bell grimly, "and they'll needthe grace of The Master by the time they get there. And it's abandoned.But if I tell them...."

  Men with no hope at all are not to be trusted. Not when they aremixtures of three or more races--white and black and red--and steeped inignorance and superstition and, moreover, long subject to such mastersas these men had had. Bell had to think of Paula.

  He could have landed and haughtily ordered them to float or even carrythe light boat to the calmer waters below. They would have obeyed andcringed before him. But he shot the rapids from above, with the littlemotor roaring past rocks and walls of jungle beside the foaming water,at a speed that chilled his blood.

  * * * * *

  Paula said nothing. She was white and listless. Bell, himself, was beingpreyed upon by a bitter blend of horror and a deep-seated rage thatconsumed him like a fever. He had fever itself, of course. He wastaking, and forcing Paula to take, five grains of quinine a day. It hadbeen included among his stores as a matter of course by those who hadloaded his boat. And with the fever working in his brain he foundhimself holding long, imaginary conversations, in which one part of hisbrain reproached the other part for having destroyed the plantation ofThe Master. The laborers upon that plantation had been abandoned to themurder madness because of his deed. The caretakers of the tiny _fazenda_on the river bank were now ignored. Bell felt himself a murderer becausehe had caused The Master's deputies to cast them off in a callousindifference to their inevitable fate.

  He suffered the tortures of the damned, and grew morose and bitter, andcould only escape that self torture by coddling his hatred of Ribieraand The Master. He imagined torments to be inflicted upon them whichwould adequately repay them for their crimes, and racked his feverishbrain for memories of the appalling atrocities which can be committedupon the human body without destroying its capacity to suffer.

  It was not normal. It was not sane. But it filled Bell's mind andsomehow kept him from suicide during the horrible passage of the river.He hardly dared speak to Paula. There was a time when he counted thedays since he had been a guest at Ribiera's estate outside of Rio, andfrenziedly persuaded himself that he saw red spots before his eyes andsoon would have the murder madness come upon him. And then he thought ofthe supplies in Ribiera's plane, in which they had escaped from Rio.They had eaten that food.

  * * * * *

  It was almost unconsciously, then, that he saw the narrow water on whichthe launch floated valiantly grow wider day by day. When at last itdebouched suddenly into a vast stream whereon a clumsy steamer pliedbeneath a self made cloud of smoke, he stared dully at it for minutesbefore he realized.

  "Paula," he said suddenly, and listened in amazement to his voice. Itwas hoarse and harsh and croaking. "Paula, we've made it. This must bethe Paraguay."

  She roused herself and looked about like a person waking from alethargic sleep. And then her lips quivered, and she tried to speak andcould not, and tears fell silently from her eyes, and all at once shewas sobbing bitterly.

  That sign of the terrific strain she had been under served more thananything else to jolt Bell out of his abnormal state of mind. He movedover to her and clumsily put his arm about her, and comforted her asbest he could. And she sat sobbing with her head on his shoulder,gasping in a form of hysterical relief, until the engine behind themsputtered, and coughed, and died.

  When Bell looked, the last drop of gasoline was gone. But the motor hadserved its purpose. It had run manfully on an almost infinitesimalconsumption of gasoline for eight days. It had not missed an explosionsave when its wiring was wetted by spray. And now....

  * * * * *

  Bell hauled the engine inboard and got out the oars from under theseats. He got the little boat out to mid-stream, and they floated downuntil a village of squalid huts appeared on the eastern bank. He landed,there, and with much bargaining and a haughty demeanor disposed of theboat to the skipper of a _batelao_ in exchange for passage down-river asfar as Corumba. The rate was outrageously high. But he had littlecurrency with him and dared go no farther on a vessel which carried aboat of The Master's ownership conspicuously towed behind.

  At Corumba he purchased clothes less obviously of _os gentes_, both forhimself and for Paula, and that same afternoon was able to arrange fortheir passage to Asuncion as deck passengers on a river steamer goingdownstream.

  It was as two peasants, then, that they rode in sweltering heat amid aswarming and odorous mass of fellow humanity downstream. But it was acurious relief, in some ways. The people about them were gross andunwashed and stupid, but they were human. There was none of thatdiabolical feeling of terror all about. There were no strained, fearhaunted faces upon the deck reserved for deck passengers and othercattle. The talk was ungrammatical and literal and of the earth. Thewomen were stolid-faced and reserved. But when the long rows of hammockswere slung out in the open air, in the casual fashion of sleepingarrangements in the back-country of all South America, it was blessedlypeaceful to realize that the folk who snored so lustily were merelyhuman; human animals, it might be, with no thought above their _farinha_and _feijos_ on the morrow, but human.

  * * * * *

  And the second day they passed the old fort at Coimbra, and went on. Thepassage into Paraguayan territory was signalized by an elaborate customsinspection, and three days later Asuncion itself displayed its red-tiledroofs and adobe walls upon the shore.

  Bell had felt some confidence in his ability to pass muster with hisSpanish, though his Portuguese was limited, and it was a shock when thecaptain of the steamer summoned him to his cabin with a gesture, beforethe steamer docked. Bell left Paula among the other deck passengers andwent with the peasant's air of suspicious humility into the captain'squarters. But the captain's pose of grandeur vanished at once when thedoor closed.

  "Senor," said the steamer captain humbly, "I have not spoken to youbefore. I knew you would not wish it. But tell me, senor! Have you anynews of what The Master plans?"

  Bell's eyes flickered, at the same time that a cold apprehension filledhim.

  "Why do you speak to me of The Master?" he demanded sharply.

  The steamer captain stammered. The man was plainly frightened at Bell'stone. Bell relaxed, his flash of panic for Paula gone.

  "I know," said the captain imploringly, "that the great _fazenda_ hasbeen deserted. On my last trip, down, senor, I brought many of the highdeputies who had been there. They warned me not to speak, senor, but Isaw that you were not what you seemed, and I thought you might be goingabout to see who obeyed The Master's orders...."

  * * * * *

  Bell nodded.

  "That is my mission," he said curtly. "Do not speak of it further--noteven to the deputy in Asuncion."

  The captain stammered again.

  "But I must see the Senor Francia," he said humbly. "I report to himafter every trip, and if he thought that I did not report all that Ilearn...."

  "It is my order," snapped Bell angrily. "If he reproaches you, say thatone who has orders from The Master himself gave them to you. And do notspeak of the destruction of the _fazenda_. I am searching especially forthe man who caused it. And--wait! I will take your name, and you shallgive me--say--a thousand pesos. I had need of money to bribe a fool Icould not waste time on, up-country. It will be returned to you."

  And again the captain stammered, but Bell stared at him haughtily, andhe knelt abjectly before the ship's safe.

 
* * * * *

  Asuncion, as everybody knows, is a city of sixty thousand people, andthe capital of a republic which enjoyed the rule of a family ofhereditary dictators for sixty years; which rule ended in a war whereinfour-fifths of the population was wiped out. And since that beginning ithas averaged eight revolutions to Mexico's three, has had the joy ofknowing seven separate presidents in five years--none of themelected--and now boasts a population approximately two-thirdsillegitimate and full of pride in its intellectual and artistic tastes.

  Bell and Paula made their way along the cobbled streets away from theriver, surrounded by other similarly peasant-seeming folk. Bell told hercurtly what had happened with the steamer captain.

  "It's the devil," he said coldly, "because this whole republic is underThe Master's thumb. Except among the peasants we can count on nearlyeverybody being on the lookout for us, if they so much as suspect we'realive. And they may because I burned their damned _fazenda_. So...."

  Paula smiled at him, rather wanly.

  "What are you going to do, Charles?"

  "Get a boat," said Bell curtly. "One with three or four men, if I can.If I can buy it with the skipper's money, I will. But I can't take youto go bargaining. It would look suspicious."

  They had reached the central plaza of the town. The market swarmed withbrown skinned folk and seemed to overflow with fruits. A man wasunconcernedly shoveling oranges out of a cart with a shovel, as if theyhad been so much coal. A market woman as unconcernedly dropped some ofthe same golden fruit within a small pen where a piglet awaited apurchaser. To the left, there were rows of unshaded stalls where theinfinitely delicate handmade Paraguayan lace was exposed for sale.

  "I--think," said Paula, "I think I will go in the cathedral. I will bevery devout, Charles, and you will find me there when you return. I willbe safe there, certainly."

  * * * * *

  He walked with her across the crowded plaza. He should have known thatyour peasant does not stride with head up, but regarding the ground.That a man who works heavily droops his shoulders with weariness at theend of a day. And especially he should have realized that Paraguay isnot, strictly speaking, a Latin-American nation. It is Latin-Indian, inwhich the population graduates very definitely from a sub-stratum ofnearly or quite pure Indian race to an aristocracy of nearly or quitepure Spanish descent, and that the color of a man's skin fixes his placein society. Both Bell and Paula were too light of skin for the peasant'sclothes they wore. They aroused curiosity at once. If it was not anactive curiosity, it was nevertheless curiosity of a sort.

  But Bell left her in the shadowy, cool interior of the cathedral whichseems so pitifully small to be the center of religion for a nation. Hesaw her move toward one of the little candle-lit niches in the wall andfall quite simply on her knees there.

  And he moved off, to wander aimlessly down to the river shore and stareabout and presently begin a desultory conversation with sleepy boatmen.

  * * * * *

  It was three hours and more before he returned to the Cathedral, andPaula was talking to someone. More, talking to a woman in the mostdiscreet of mantilla'd church-going costumes. Paula saw him in thedoorway, and uttered a little cry of relief. She came hurrying to him.

  "Charles! I have found a friend! Isabella Ybarra. We were schoolmates inthe United States and she has just come back from Paris! So you see, shecannot--"

  "I see," said Bell very quietly.

  Paula was speaking swiftly and very softly.

  "We went to school together, Charles. I trust her. You must trust heralso. There is no danger, this time. Isabella has never even heard ofThe Master. So you see...."

  "I see that you need someone you can trust," said Bell grimly. "_I_found that the captain of the steamer had gone to The Master's deputyhere. While I was talking to some boatmen a warning was given to lookout for a man and woman, together, who may try to buy a boat. We'redescribed, and only the fact that I was alone kept me from beingsuspected. Police, soldiers--everybody is looking out for us. Paraguay'sunder The Master's thumb more completely than any other nation on thecontinent."

  The figure to which Paula had been talking was moving slowly towardthem. A smiling, brown-eyed face twinkled at them.

  "You must be Charles!" said a warm and cluckling voice. "Paula hasraved, Senor. Now I am going to take her off in my carriage. She is mymaid. And you will follow the carriage on foot and I will have themajor-domo let you in the servants' entrance, and the three of us willconspire."

  * * * * *

  It was incongruous to hear the English of a girl's finishing school fromthe mantilla'd young woman who beamed mischievously at him. She had thedelighted air of one aiding a romance. It was doubly incongruous becauseof the dark and shadowy Cathedral in which they were, and the raucousnoises of the market in the plaza without. Bell had a sense of utterunreality as Isabella's good humored voice went on:

  "Do you remember, Paula, the time the French teacher caught us in thepantry? I shall feel just like that time."

  "This is dangerous," said Bell, steadily, "and it is very seriousindeed."

  "Pooh!" said Isabella comfortably. "Paula, you didn't even know I wasmarried! A whole year and a half! And he's a darling, really. I'm theSenora Isabella Ybarra de Zuloaga, if you please! Bow gracefully!" Shechuckled. "Jaime came all the way to Rio to meet me last month. I'm wildabout him, Paula.... But come on! Follow me humbly, like a nice little_mestizo_ girl who wants to be my maid, and I'll let you ride with the_cochero_ and Charles shall follow behind us."

  She swept out of the Cathedral with the air of a grande dame suppressinga giggle, and Paula went humbly behind her.

  And Bell trudged through the dust and the blistering sun while thehighly polished carriage jolted over cobble stones and the youthfulSenora Isabella Ybarra de Zuloaga beamed blissfully at the universewhich did not realize that she was a conspirator, and Paula sat modestlybeside the brown skinned _cochero_.

  * * * * *

  It was not a long ride nor a long walk, though the sun was insufferable.The capital of Paraguay is not large. It is a sleepy, somnolent littletown in which the most pretentious building was begun as thePresidential Palace and wound up as the home of a bank. But there arebullet marks on the facade of the _Museo Nacional_, and there is stillan empty pedestal here and there throughout the city where the heroes oflast year's revolution, in bronze, have been pulled down and the heroesof this year's uprising of the people have not yet been set up. Redtiled roofs give the city color, and the varying shades of its populacegive it variety, and the fact that below the whiter class of inhabitants_Guarani_ is spoken instead of Spanish adds to the individuality of itseffect.

  But the house into which the carriage turned could have been built inRio or Buenos Aires without comment on its architecture. It had theouter bleakness of most private homes of South America, but if it washuge and its windows were barred, the patio into which Bell was usheredby a bewildered and suspicious major-domo made up in color and in charmfor all that the exterior lacked.

  A fountain played amid flowers, and macaws and parrots and myriad othercaged birds hung in their cages about the colonnade around the court,and Bell found Paula being introduced to a pale young man in the stiffcollar and unspeakably formal morning clothes of the South American whois of the upper class.

  "Jaime," said Isabella, beaming. "And this is Charles, whom Paula is tomarry! It is romantic! It is fascinating! And I depend on you to givehim clothes so that all our servants won't stare goggle-eyed at him, andI am going to take Paula off at once and dress her! They are our guests!And, Jaime, you must threaten all the servants terribly so they willkeep it very secret--that we have two such terrible people with us."

  * * * * *

  Paula smiled at Bell, and he saw that she felt utterly safe and whollyat peace. Something was hammering at Bell's
brain, warning him, and hecould not understand what it was. But he exchanged the decorous limphandshake which is conventional south of Panama, and followed hisunsmiling host to rooms where a servant laid out a bewilderingassortment of garments. They were all rather formal, the sort ofclothing that is held to be fitting for a man of position where Spanishis the official if not the common tongue.

  His host retired, without words, and Bell came out later to find himsipping moodily at a drink, waiting for him. He wiped his forehead.

  "Be seated, Senor," he said heavily, "until the ladies join us."

  He wiped his forehead again and watched somberly while Bell poured out adrink.

  "Isabella...." He seemed to find it difficult to speak. "She has told mea little, but there has been no time for more than a little: I do notwish to have her tell me too much. She does not understand. She waseducated in North America, where customs are different. She demands thatI assist you and the senorita--it is the senorita?"

  Bell stiffened. In all Spanish America the conventions are strict. For aman and woman to travel together, even perforce and for a shortdistance, automatically damns the woman.

  "Go on," said Bell grimly.

  His host was very pale indeed.

  "She demands that I assist you and the senorita to escape the police andthe government. Provided that you do not tell me who you are, I willattempt it. But--"

  "I wonder," said Bell quietly, "if you have ever seen red spots dancingbefore your eyes."

  His host went utterly livid.

  * * * * *

  Zuloaga looked down at his hands, as if expecting unguessable things ofthem. And then he shrugged, and said harshly:

  "I have, Senor. So you see that Isabella, who does not know, is askingme to risk, not only my life, but her honor."

  Bell said nothing for a moment. He was a little pale.

  "And your honor?" he asked quietly.

  The pallor on the face of the Senor Jaime Zuloaga was horrible. He triedto speak, and could not. He stood up, and managed to say:

  "So much I will risk, because you have been my guest. Until to-morrowmorning you are safe, unless the Senor Francia has his spies within myown house. I--I will attempt, even to procure a boat. But--"

  Something made Bell turn. The major-domo was moving quickly out ofsight. Like a flash Bell was upon him, and like a flash a knife cameout.

  Bell's host gasped. The fact that his servant had spied was more thanobvious, and he had spoke treason against The Master. He leaned againstthe table, sick and trembling and mumbling of despair, while there werecrashes in the room into which Bell had plunged, while bodies thrashedabout on the floor, and while stertorous breathing grew less, andstopped....

  Bell came back, breathing hard. The front of his coat was slashed open.

  "He's dead," he said harshly. "He'd have reported what you said, so Ikilled him.... And now we've got to do something with his body."

  He helped in the horrible task, while his host grew more and moreshaken. No other servants came near. And Bell could almost read thethoughts that went through Zuloaga's brain. One servant had spied, toreport his treason. And that meant assassination for himself, as theleast of punishments, and for his wife....

  But there would be no punishment if he went first to the deputy and saidthat Bell had killed the major-domo.

  Bell left the house before dusk, desperately determined to steal a craftof some sort, return for Paula, and get away from Asuncion before dawn.

  He returned after an hour. In the morning a man would be found bound andgagged, with five hundred pesos stuffed into his pockets. His boat wouldhave vanished.

  But there was a commotion before the house where Paula waited fearfully.A carriage stood there, with a company of mounted soldiers about it.Someone was being put into it. As Bell broke into a run toward the housethe carriage started up and the soldiers trotted after it.

  Paula was taken.

  CHAPTER XIII

  That night Bell turned burglar. To attempt a rescue of Paula was simplyout of the question. He was entirely aware that he would be expected todo just such a thing, and that it would be adequately guarded against.Therefore he prepared for a much more desperate enterprise byburglarizing a bookstore in the particularly neat method in whichmembers of The Trade are instructed. The method was invented by a memberof The Trade who was an ex-cabinet maker, and who perished disreputably.He killed a certain courier of a certain foreign government, therebypreventing a minor war and irritating two governments excessively, andwas hanged.

  The method, of course, is simplicity itself. One removes the small nailswhich hold the molding of a door panel in place. The molding comes out.So does the panel. One enters through the panel, commits one's burglary,and comes out, replacing the molding and the nails with reasonable care.Depending upon the care with which the replacing is done, the means ofentrance is more or less undiscoverable. But it is usually used when itis not intended that the burglary ever be discussed.

  Bell abstracted two books, wrapping paper and twine. He departed, usinggreat care. He walked three miles out of town and to the banks of theParaguay. There he carefully saturated the pages of both books inwater, carefully keeping the bindings from being wetted. Then he toreone book to pieces, saving the leaves and inserting them between theleaves of the other book. Then, with a brazil nut candle forillumination, he began to write.

  * * * * *

  You see, when two thoroughly wetted pieces of paper are placed one abovethe other with a hard surface such as the cover of another book underthem, you can write upon the top one with a stick. The writing will showdark against the gray of the saturated paper. You then remove the topsheet and end the writing reproduced on the bottom sheet. And then youcan dry the second sheet and find the marking vanished--until it iswetted again. It is, in fact, a method of water-marking paper. And it isthe simplest of all methods of invisible writing.

  Bell wrote grimly for hours. The book he had chosen was an old one, anancient copy of one of Lope de Vega's plays, and the pages were wrinkledand yellow from age alone. When, by dawn, the last page was dried out,there was no sign that anything other than antiquity had affected thepaper. And Bell wrapped it carefully, and addressed it to an elderlysenora of literary tastes in San Juan, Porto Rico, and enclosed anaffectionate letter to his very dear aunt, and signed it with anentirely improbable name.

  It was mailed before sunrise, the necessary stamps having been filchedfrom the burglarized bookstore and the price thereof being carefullyinserted in the till. Bell had made a complete and painstaking report ofevery fact he had himself come upon in the matter of The Master and hisslaves and appended to it a copy of the report of the dead SecretService operative Number One-Fourteen. He destroyed that after copyingit. And he concluded that since he had been given dismissal by Jamisonin Rio, he considered himself at liberty to take whatever steps he sawfit. And since the Senhorina Paula Canalejas had been kidnapped byagents of The Master, he intended to take steps which might possiblybring about her safety, but would almost certainly cause his death.

  The report should at least be of assistance if the Trade set to work tocombat The Master. Bell had no information whatever about that stillmysterious and still more horrible person himself. But what he knewabout The Master's agents he sent to a lady in Porto Rico who has anastonishingly large number of far ranging nephews. And then Bell gothimself adequately shaved, bought a hearty breakfast, and, after one ortwo heartening drinks, was driven grandly to the residence of the SenorFrancia, deputy of The Master for the republic of Paraguay.

  * * * * *

  The servants who admitted him gazed blankly when he gave his name. Adoor was hastily closed behind him. He was ushered into an elaboratereception room and, after an agitated pause, no less than six separatefrock-coated persons appeared and pointed large revolvers at him while aseventh searched him exhaustively. Bell submitted amusedly.

 
"And now," he said dryly, "I suppose the Senor Francia will receive me?"

  There was more agitation. The six men remained; with their weaponspointed at him. The seventh departed, and Bell re-dressed himself in aleisurely fashion.

  Ten minutes later a slender, dark skinned man with impeccably waxedmoustaches entered, regarded Bell with an entirely impersonal interest,took one of the revolvers from one of the six frock-coated gentlemen,and seated himself comfortably. He waved his hand and they fileduneasily from the room. So far, not one word had been spoken.

  * * * * *

  Bell retrieved his cigarette case and lighted up with every appearanceof ease.

  "I have come," he said casually, "to request that I be sent to TheMaster. I believe that he is anxious to meet me."

  The dark eyes scrutinized him coldly. Then Francia smiled.

  "_Pero si_," he said negligently, "he is very anxious to see you. Isuppose you know what fate awaits you?"

  His smile was amiable and apparently quite friendly, but Bell shrugged.

  "I suppose," he said dryly, "he wants to converse with me. I have beenhis most successful opponent to date, I think."

  Francia smiled again. It was curious how his smile, which at firstseemed so genuine and so friendly, became unspeakably unpleasant on itsrepetition.

  "Yes." Francia seemed to debate some matter of no great importance. "Youhave been very annoying, Senor Bell. The Senhor Ribiera asked that yoube sent to him. It was his intention to execute you, privately. Hedescribed a rather amusing method to me. And I must confess that youhave annoyed me, likewise. Since the Cuyaba plantation was destroyed mysubjects have been much upset. They have been frightened, and evenstubborn. Only last week"--he smiled pleasantly, and the effect washorrible--"only last week I desired the society of a lady who is mysubject. And her husband considered that, since the _fazenda_ wasdestroyed, The Master would be powerless to extend his grace beforelong, in any event. So he shot his wife and himself. It annoyed meenough to make me feel that it would be a pleasure to kill you."

  * * * * *

  He raised the revolver meditatively.

  "Well?" said Bell coldly.

  Francia lowered the weapon and laughed.

  "Oh, I shall not do it. I think The Master would be displeased. You seemto have the type of courage he most desires in his deputies. And it mayyet be that I shall greet you as my fellow deputy or perhaps my fellowviceroy. So I shall send you to him. I would say that you have about aneven chance of dying very unpleasantly or of being a deputy. Therefore Ioffer you such courtesies as I may."

  Bell puffed a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.

  "I'm about out of cigarettes," he said mildly.

  "They shall be supplied. And--er--if you would desire feminine society,I will have some of my pretty subjects...."

  "No," said Bell bluntly. "I would like to speak to the SenhorinaCanalejas, though."

  Francia chuckled.

  "She left for Buenos Aires last night. The Senhor Ribiera sent a mostimpatient message for her to be sent on at once. I regretted it, but hehad The Master's authority. I thought her charming, myself."

  The skin about Bell's knuckles was white. His hands had clenchedsavagely.

  "In that event," he said coldly, "the only other courtesy I would ask isthat of following her as soon as possible."

  Francia rose languidly. The revolver dangled by his side, but his gripupon it was firm. He smiled at Bell with the same effect of a horrible,ghastly geniality.

  "Within the hour, Senor," he said urbanely. "With the guard I shallplace over you it is no harm, I am sure, to observe that The Master isat his retreat in Punta Arenas. You will go there to-morrow, as I goto-night."

  He moved toward the door, and smiled again, and added pleasantly:

  "The Senhorina was delivered to the Senhor Ribiera this morning."

  * * * * *

  Matters moved swiftly after that. A servant brought cigarettes and atray of liquors--which Bell did not touch. There was the sound ofmovement, the scurrying, furtive haste which seems always to imply adesperate sort of fear. Bell waited in a terrible calmness, while ragehammered at his temples.

  Then the clattering of horses' hoofs outside. A carriage was beingbrought. Soldiers came in and a man beckoned curtly. Bell stuffed hispockets with smokes and followed languidly. He was realizing that therewas little pretense of secrecy about the power of The Master's deputyhere. Police and soldiers.... But Paraguay, of all the nations of thesouthern continent, has learned a certain calm realism aboutgovernmental matters.

  The man who has power is obeyed. The man who has not power is notobeyed. Titles are of little importance, though it is the custom for theman with the actual power eventually to assume the official rank ofauthority. Since the President in Asuncion was no more than a figureheadwho called anxiously upon the Senor Francia every morning forinstructions concerning the management of the nation, Franciaindifferently ignored him whenever he chose and gave orders directly.There would be very little surprise and no disorder whatever when TheMaster proclaimed Paraguay a viceroyalty of his intended empire.

  * * * * *

  The carriage went smartly through the cobbled streets with a cavalryescort all about it. An officer sat opposite Bell with his hand on hisrevolver.

  "I am receiving at least the honors of royalty," Bell commented coldlyto him, in Spanish.

  "Senor," said the officer harshly, "this is the state in which thedeputies of The Master were escorted."

  He watched Bell heavily, but with the desperate intentness of a man whoknows no excuses will be received if his prisoner escapes.

  Out of the town to a flying field, where a multi-engined plane waswarming up. It was one of the ships that had been at The Master's_fazenda_ of Cuyaba, one of the ships that had fled from the burningplantation. Bell was ushered into it with a ceremonious suspicion.Almost immediately he was handcuffed to his seat. Two men took theirplace behind him. The big ship rolled forward, lifted, steadied, andafter a single circling set out to the southeast for Buenos Aires.

  * * * * *

  The whole performance had been run off with the smoothly oiledprecision of an iron discipline exercised upon men in the grip of deadlyfear.

  "One man, at least," reflected Bell grimly, "has some qualities that fithim for his job."

  And then, for hour after hour, the big ship went steadily southeast. Itflew over Paraguayan territory for two hours, soaring high over the LagoYpoa and on over the swampy country that extends to the Argentineborder. It ignored that border and all customs formalities. It went on,through long hours of flight, while mountains rose before it. It roseover those mountains and passed over the first railroad line--the firstreal sign of civilization since leaving Asuncion--at Mercedes, andreached the Uruguay river where the Mirinjay joins it. It went roaringon down above the valley of the Rio Uruguay for long and tedious hoursmore. At about noon, lunch was produced. The two men who guarded Bellate. Then, with drawn revolvers, they unlocked his handcuffs and offeredhim food.

  * * * * *

  He ate, of exactly those foods he had seen them eat. He submittedindifferently to the re-application of his fetters. He had reached astate which was curiously emotionless. If Paula had been turned over toRibiera that morning, Paula was dead. And just as there is a state ofgrief which stuns the mind past the realization of its loss, so there isa condition of hatred which leads to an enormous calmness and anunnatural absence of any tremor. Bell had reached that state. Theinstinct of self-preservation had gone lax. Where a man normally thinksfirst, if unconsciously, of the protection of his body from injury orpain, Bell had come to think first, and with the same terrible clarity,of the accomplishment of revenge.

  He would accept The Master's terms, if The Master offered them. He wouldbecome The Master's subject, accepting the poison of madne
ss without aqualm. He would act and speak and think as a subject of The Master,until his opportunity came. And then....

  His absolute calmness would have deceived most men. It may have deceivedhis guards. Time passed. The Rio de la Plata spread out widely below theroaring multi-engined plane and the vast expanse of buildings which isBuenos Aires appeared far ahead in the gathering dusk. Little twinklinglights blinked into being upon the water and the earth far away. Thenone of the two guards touched Bell on the shoulder.

  "Senor," he said sharply above the motors' muffled roar, "we shall land.A car will draw up beside the plane. There will be no customsinspection. That has been arranged for. You can have no hope of escape.I ask you if you will go quietly into the car?"

  "Why not?" asked Bell evenly. "I went to Senor Francia of my ownaccord."

  * * * * *

  The guard leaned back. The city of Buenos Aires spread out below them.The tumbled, congested old business quarter glittered in all itsoffices, and the broad Avenida de Mayo cut its way as a straight slashof glittering light through the section of the city to eastward. Bycontrast, from above, the far-flung suburbs seemed dark and somber.

  The big plane roared above the city, settling slowly; banked steeply andcircled upon its farther side, and dipped down toward what seemed anabsurdly small area, which sprang into a pinkish glow on their descent.That area spread out as the descent continued, though, and was a wideand level field when the ship flattened out and checked and lumbered toa stop.

  A glistening black car came swiftly, humming into place alongside almostbefore the clumsy aircraft ceased to roll. Its door opened. Two men gotout and waited. The hangars were quite two hundred yards away, and Bellsaw the glitter of weapons held inconspicuously but quite ready.

  He stepped out of the cabin of the plane with a revolver muzzle pressinginto his spine. Other revolver muzzles pressed sharply into his sides ashe reached earth.

  Smiling faintly, he took four steps, clambered up into the glisteningblack car, and settled down comfortably into the seat. The two men whohad waited by the car followed him. The door closed, and Bell was in apadded silence that was acutely uncomfortable for a moment. A dome lightglowed brightly, however, and he lighted nearly the last of thecigarettes from Asuncion with every appearance of composure as the carstarted off with a lurch.

  * * * * *

  The windows were blank. Thick, upholstered padding covered the spaceswhere openings should have been, and there was only the muffledvibration of the motor and the occasional curiously distinct noise of aflexing spring.

  "Just as a matter of curiosity," said Bell mildly, "what is the excusegiven on the flying field for this performance? Or is the entire staffsubject to The Master?"

  Two revolvers were bearing steadily upon him and the two men watched himwith the unwavering attention of men whose lives depend upon theirvigilance.

  "You, Senor," said one of them without expression or a smile, "are thecorpse of a prominent politician who died yesterday at his countryhome."

  And then for half an hour or more the car drove swiftly, and stopped,and drove swiftly forward again as if in traffic. Then there were manyturns, and then a slow and cautious traverse of a relatively few feet.It stopped, and then the engine vibration ceased.

  "I advise you, Senor," said the same man who had spoken before, and inthe same emotionless voice, "not to have hope of escape in the moment ofalighting. We are in an enclosed court and there are two gates lockedbehind us."

  Bell shrugged as there was the clatter of a lock operating. The doorswung wide.

  * * * * *

  He stepped down into a courtyard surrounded by nearly bare walls. It hadonce been the _patio_ of a private home of some charm. Now, however, itwas bleak and empty. A few discouraged flowers grew weedily in onecorner. The glow of light in the sky overhead assured Bell that he wasin the very heart of Buenos Aires, but only the most subdued of rumblesspoke of the activity and the traffic of the city going on without.

  "This way," said the man with the expressionless voice.

  The other man followed. The chauffeur of the car stood aside as if someformality required him neither to start the motor or return to his seatuntil Bell was clear of the courtyard.

  Through a heavy timber door. Along a passageway with the odor ofneglect. Up stairs which once had been impressive and ornamental. Into aroom without windows.

  "You will have an interview with the Senorita Canalejas in fiveminutes," said the emotionless voice.

  The door closed, while Bell found every separate muscle in his body drawtaut. And while his brain at first was dazed with incredulous relief,then it went dark with a new and ghastly terror.

  "They know _yague_," he heard himself saying coldly, "which makes anyperson obey any command. They may know other and more hellish ones yet."

  * * * * *

  He fought for self control, which meant the ability to concealabsolutely any form of shock that might await him. That one was in storehe was certain. He paced grimly the length of the room and backagain....

  Something on the carpet caught his eye. A bit of string. He stared at itincredulously. The end was tied into a curious and an individual knot,which looked like it might be the pastime of a sailor, and which lookedlike it ought to be fairly easy to tie. But it was one of those knotswhich wandering men sometimes tie absent mindedly in the presence ofstirring events. It was the recognition-knot of the Trade, one of thosesigns by which men may know each other in strange and peculiarsituations. And there were many other knots tied along the trailinglength of the string. It seemed as if some nervous and distraughtprisoner in this room might have toyed abstractedly with a bit of cord.

  Only, Bell drew it through his fingers. Double knot, single knot, doubleknot.... They spelled out letters in the entirely simple Morse code ofthe telegrapher, if one noticed.

  "RBRA GN ON PLA HRE ST TGT J."

  Your old-time telegrapher uses many abbreviations. Your short-wave fanuses more. Mostly they are made by a simple omission of vowels in normalEnglish words. And when the recognition sign at the beginning wasconsidered, the apparently cryptic letters leaped into meaning.

  "RiBeRA GoNe ON PauLA HeRe SiT TiGhT Jamison."

  When the door opened again and a terribly pale Paula was ushered in,Bell gave no sign of surprise. He simply took her in his arms and kissedher, holding her very, very close.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Paula remained in the room with Bell for perhaps twenty minutes, andBell had the feeling of eyes upon them and of ears listening to theirevery word. In their first embrace, in fact, he murmured a warning inher ear and she gasped a little whispered word of comprehension. But itwas at least a relief to be sure that she was alive and yet unharmed.Francia had been in error when he told Bell of Paula's delivery to theBrazilian to be enslaved or killed as Ribiera found most amusing. Orperhaps, of course, Francia had merely wanted to cause Bell all possiblediscomfort.

  It was clear, however, blessedly clear and evident, that Paula's pallorwas due to nothing more than terror--a terror which was now redoubledbecause Bell was in The Master's toils with her. Forgetting his warning,she whispered to him desperately that he must try to escape, somehow,before The Master's poison was administered to him. Outside, he might dosomething to release her. Here, a prisoner, he was helpless.

  Bell soothed her, not daring either to confess the plan he had formed ofa feigned submission in order to wreak revenge, or to offerencouragement because of the message knotted in the piece of string byJamison. And because of that caution she came to look at him with aqueer doubt, and presently with a terrible quiet grief.

  "Charles--you--you have been poisoned like the rest?"

  * * * * *

  The feeling of watching eyes and listening ears was strong. Bell had apart to play, and the necessity for playing that part was the greaterbecause now he was
forced to hope. He hesitated, torn between the needto play his role for the invisible eavesdroppers and the desire to sparePaula.

  Her hand closed convulsively upon his.

  "V-very well, Charles," she said quietly, though her lips quivered."If--if you are going to serve The Master, I--I will serve him too, ifhe will let me stay always near you. But if he--will not, then I canalways--die...."

  Bell groaned. And the door opened silently, and there were men standingwithout. An emotionless voice said:

  "Senorita, the Senor Ortiz will interview the Senor Bell."

  "I'm coming," said Paula quietly.

  She went, walking steadily. Two men detached themselves from the groupabout the door and followed her. The others waited for Bell. And Bellclenched his hands and squared his shoulders and marched grimly withthem.

  * * * * *

  Again long passages, descending to what must have been a good deal belowthe surface of the earth. And then a massive door was opened, and lightshone through, and Bell found himself standing on a rug of the thickestpossible pile in a room of quite barbaric luxury, and facing a desk fromwhich a young man was rising to greet him. This young man was no olderthan Bell himself, and he greeted Bell in a manner in which mockery wasentirely absent, but in which defiance was peculiarly strong. A bulky,round shouldered figure wrote laboriously at a smaller desk to one side.

  "Senor Bell," said the young man bitterly, "I do not ask you to shakehands with me. I am Julio Ortiz, the son of the man you befriended uponthe steamer _Almirante Gomez_. I am also, by the command of The Master,your jailer. Will you be seated?"

  Bell's eyes flickered. The older Ortiz had died by his own hand in thefirst stages of the murder madness The Master's poison produced. He haddied gladly and, in Bell's view, very gallantly. And yet his son.... Butof course The Master's deputies made a point of enslaving whole familieswhen it was at all possible. It gave a stronger hold upon each member.

  "I beg of you," said young Ortiz bitterly, "to accept my invitation. Iwish to offer you a much qualified friendship, which I expect you torefuse."

  Bell sat down and crossed his knees. He lit a cigarette thoughtfully,thinking swiftly.

  "I remember, and admired, your father," he said slowly. "I think thatany man who died as bravely as he did is to be envied."

  * * * * *

  The younger Ortiz had reseated himself as Bell sat down, and now hefingered nervously, wretchedly, the objects on his desk. A penholderbroke between his fingers and he flung it irritably into thewastebasket.

  "You understand," he said harshly, "the obligations upon me. I am thesubject of The Master. You will realize that if you desire to escape, Icannot permit it. But you did my father a very great kindness. Much ofit I was able to discover from persons on the boat. More, from thewireless operator who is also the subject of The Master. You were notacting, Senor, as a secret service operative in your attempt to help myfather. You bore yourself as a very honorable gentleman. I wish to thankyou."

  "I imagine," said Bell dryly, "that anyone would have done what I did."

  He seemed to be quite at ease, but he was very tense indeed. The bulky,round shouldered figure at the other desk was writing busily with a veryscratchy pen. It was an abominable pen. Its sputtering was loud enoughto be noticeable under any circumstances, but Bell was unusually alert,just now, and suddenly he added still more drily:

  "Helping a man in trouble is quite natural. One always gets it back.It's a sort of dealing with the future in which there is a profit onevery trade."

  He put the slightest emphasis on the last word and waited, looking atyoung Ortiz, but listening with all his soul to the scratching of thepen. And that scratching sound ceased abruptly. The pen seemed to writesmoothly all of an instant. Bell drew a deep breath of satisfaction. Inthe Trade, when in doubt, one should use the word "Trade" in one's firstremark to the other man. Then the other man will ask your trade, and youreply impossibly. It is then up to the other man to speak frankly,first. But circumstances alter even recognition-signs.

  Ortiz had not noticed any by-play, of course. It would have been ratherextraordinary if he had. A pen that scratches so that the sound isMorse code for "Bell, play up. J." is just unlikely enough to avoid allnotice.

  * * * * *

  Ortiz drummed upon the desk. "Now, Senor, what can I do that will serveyou? I cannot release you. You know that. I am not the deputy here.There has been a set-back to The Master's plans and all the deputies arecalled to his retreat to receive instructions and to discuss. I havemerely been ordered to carry out the deputy's routine labors until hereturns. However, I will be obeyed in any matter. I can, and will, doanything that will make you more comfortable or will amuse you, from achange in your accommodations to providing you with companions. Youobserve," he added with exquisite bitterness, "that the limit of mycapacity to prove my friendship is to offer my services as a pander."

  Bell gazed at the tip of his cigarette, letting his eyes wander aboutthe room for an instant, and permitting them to rest for the fraction ofa second upon the round shouldered, writing form by the side wall.

  "I am sufficiently amused," he said mildly. "I asked to be sent to TheMaster. He intends to make me an offer, I understand. Or he did. He mayhave changed his mind. But I am curious. Your father told me a certainthing that seemed to indicate he did not enjoy the service of TheMaster. Your tone is quite loyal, but unhappy. Why do you serve him?Aside, of course, from the fact of having been poisoned by his deputy."

  * * * * *

  Internally, Bell was damning Jamison feverishly. If he was to play up toOrtiz, why didn't Jamison give him some sign of how he was to do it?Some tip....

  "Herr Wiedkind," said Ortiz wearily, "perhaps you can explain."

  The round shouldered figure swung about and bowed profoundly to Bell.

  "Der Senor Ortiz," he said gutturally, and in a sepulchral profundity,"he does not understand himself. I haff nefer said it before. But heserfs Der Master because he despairs, andt he will cease to serf DerMaster when he hopes. And I--I serf Der Master because I hope, andt Iwill cease to serf him when I despair."

  Ortiz looked curiously and almost suspiciously at the Germanic figurewhich regarded him soberly through thick spectacles.

  "It is not customary, Herr Wiedkind," he said slowly, "to speak ofceasing to serve The Master."

  "Idt is not customary to speak of many necessary things," said the roundshouldered figure dryly. "Of our religions, for example. Of der women welofe. Of our gonsciences. Of various necessary biological functions. Butin der presence of der young man who is der enemy of Der Master we canspeak freely, you and I who serf him. We know that maybe der deputiesserf because they enjoy it. But der subjects? Dey serf because dey fear.Andt fear is intolerable. A man who is afraid is in an unstablegondition. Sooner or later he is going to stop fearing because he getsused to it--when Der Master will haff no more hold on him--or else he isgoing to stop fearing because he will kill himself."

  * * * * *

  To an outsider the spectacle of the three men in their talk would havebeen very odd indeed. Two men who served The Master, and one who hadbeen his only annoying opponent, talking of the service of The Masterquite amicably and without marked disagreement.

  Ortiz stirred and drummed nervously on the desk. The round shoulderedfigure put the tips of its fingers together.

  "How did you know," demanded Ortiz suddenly, "that I serve because Idespair?"

  Bell watched keenly. He began to see where the talk was trending, andwaited alertly for the moment for him to speak. This was a battlefield,this too luxurious room in which young Ortiz seemed an alien. Rhetoricwas the weapon which now would serve the best.

  "Let us talk frankly," said the placid German voice. "You andt I, SenorOrtiz, haff worked together. You are not a defil like most of thedeputies, and I do not regret hafing been
sent here to help you. And Iam not a scoundtrel like most of those who help the deputies, so youhaff liked me a little. Let us talk frankly. I was trapped. I am acapable segretary. I speak seferal languages. I haff no particularambitions or any loyalties. I am useful. So I was trapped. But you,Senor Ortiz, you are different."

  Ortiz suddenly smiled bitterly.

  "It is a saying in Brazil, if I recall the words, '_A cauda do demonio ede rendas._' 'The devil's tail is made of lace.' That is the story."

  Bell said quietly:

  "No."

  Ortiz stared at him. He was very pale. And suddenly he laughed withoutany amusement whatever.

  "True," said Ortiz. He smiled in the same bitterness. "I had forgotten.I am a slave, and the Herr Wiedkind is a slave, and you, Senor Bell, arethe enemy of our master. But I had forgotten that we are gentlemen. Inthe service of The Master one does forget that there are gentlemen."

  * * * * *

  He laughed again and lighted a cigarette with hands that shook a little.

  "I loved a girl," he said in a cynical amusement. "It is peculiar thatone should love any woman, _senores_--or do you, Senor Bell, find itnatural? I loved this girl. It pleased my father. She was of a familyfully equal to my own: their wealth, their position, their traditionswere quite equal, and it was a most suitable match. Most remarkable ofall, I loved her as one commonly loves only when no such considerationsexist. It is amusing to me now, to think how deeply, and how truly, andhow terribly I loved her...."

  Young Ortiz's pallor deepened as he smiled at them. His eyes, so dark asto be almost black, looked at them from a smiling mask of whiteness.

  "There was no flaw anywhere. A romance of the most romantic, my fathervery happy, her family most satisfied and pleased, and I--I walked uponair. And then my father suddenly departed for the United States, quitewithout warning. He left a memorandum for me, saying that it was amatter of government, a secret matter. He would explain upon his return.I did not worry. I haunted the house of my fiancee. The habits of herfamily are of the most liberal. I saw her daily, almost hourly, and myinfatuation grew. And suddenly I grew irritable and saw red spots beforemy eyes....

  "Her father took me to task about my nervousness. He led me kindly to aman of high position, who poured out for me a little potion.... Andwithin an hour all my terrible unease had vanished. And then they toldme of The Master, of the poison I had been given in the house of myfiancee herself. They informed me that if I served The Master I would beprovided with the antidote which would keep me sane. I raged.... Andthen the father of my fiancee told me that he and all his family servedThe Master. That the girl I loved, herself, owed him allegiance. Andwhile I would possibly have defied them and death itself, the thought ofthat girl not daring to wed me because of the poison in her veins.... Isaw, then, that she was in terror. I imagined the two of us comfortingeach other beneath the shadow of the most horrible of fates...."

  * * * * *

  Ortiz was silent for what seemed to be a long time, smiling mirthlesslyat nothing. When his lips parted, it was to laugh, a horribly discordantlaughter.

  "I agreed," he said in ghastly amusement. "For the sake of my lovedone, I agreed to serve The Master that I might comfort her. And plansfor our wedding, which had been often and inexplicably delayed, were setin train at once. And the deputy of The Master entertained me often. Iplied him with drink, striving to learn all that I could, hoping againsthope that there would be some way of befooling him and securing theantidote without the poison.... And at last, when very drunken, helaughed at me for my intention of marriage. He advised me tipsily toserve The Master zealously and receive promotion in his service. Then,he told me amusedly, I would not care for marriage. My fiancee would beat my disposal without such formalities. In fact--while I stood rigidwith horror--he sent a command for her to attend him immediately. Hecommanded me to go to an apartment in his dwelling. And soon--withinminutes, it seemed--the girl I loved came there to me...."

  Bell did not move. This was no moment to interrupt. Ortiz's fixed andcynical smile wavered and vanished. His voice was harsh.

  "She was at my disposal, as an act of drunken friendship by the deputyof The Master. She confessed to me, weeping, that she had been at thedisposal of the deputy himself. Of any other person he cared to divertor amuse.... Oh! _Dios!_"

  Ortiz stopped short and said, in forced calmness:

  "That also was the night that my father died."

  * * * * *

  Silence fell. Bell sat very still. The Teutonic figure spoke quietlyafter the clock had ticked for what seemed an interminable period.

  "You didt know, then, that your father's death was arranged?"

  Ortiz turned stiffly to look at him.

  "Here," said the placid voice, quaintly sympathetic. "Look at these."

  A hand extended a thick envelope. Ortiz took it, staring with wide,distended eyes. The round shouldered figure stood up and seemed toshake itself. The stoop of its shoulders straightened out. One of theseemingly pudgy hands reached up and removed the thick spectacles. Abushy gray eyebrow peeled off. A straggly beard was removed. The othereyebrow.... Jamison nodded briefly to Bell, and turned to watch Ortiz.

  And Ortiz was reading the contents of the envelope. His hands began toshake violently. He rested them on the desk-top so that he couldcontinue to read. When he looked up his eyes were flaming.

  "The real Herr Wiedkind," said Jamison dryly, "came up from Punta Arenaswith special instructions from The Master. You have talents, SenorOrtiz, which The Master wished to use. Also you have considerable wealthand the prestige of an honorable family. But you were afflicted withideas of honor and decency, which are disadvantageous in deputies of TheMaster. The real Herr Wiedkind had remarkable gifts in eradicating thoseideas."

  * * * * *

  Jamison sat down and crossed his knees carefully.

  "I looked you up because I knew The Master had killed your father," headded mildly, "and I thought you'd either be hunting The Master or he'dbe hunting you. My name's Jamison. I killed the real Wiedkind and tookhis identification papers. He was a singularly unpleasant beast. Hisidea of pleasure made him seem a fatherly sort of person, very much likemy make-up. He was constantly petting children, and appeared verybenign. I am very, very glad that I killed him."

  Ortiz tore at his collar, suddenly. He seemed to be choking.

  "This--this says.... It is The Master's handwriting! I know it! And itsays--"

  "It says," Jamison observed calmly, "that since your father killed theprevious deputy in an attempt to save you from The Master's poison, thatyou are to be prepared for the work your father had been assigned. HerrWiedkind is given special orders about your--ah--moral education. Inpassing, I might say that your father was sent to the United Statesbecause it was known he'd killed the previous deputy. He told Bell he'ddone that killing. And he was allowed to grow horribly nervous on hisreturn. He was permitted to see the red spots, because he wasofficially--even as far as you were concerned--to commit suicide.

  "It was intended that his nervousness was to be noticed. And a planetried to deliver a message to him. Your father thought the parcelcontained the antidote to the poison that was driving him mad. Actually,it was very conventional prussic acid. Your father would have drunk itand dropped dead, a suicide, after a conspicuous period of nervousnessand worry."

  * * * * *

  Bell felt his cigarette burning his fingers. He had sat rigid until thething burned short. He crushed out the coal, looking at Ortiz.

  And Ortiz seemed to gasp for breath. But with an almost superhumaneffort he calmed himself outwardly.

  "I--think," he said with some difficulty, "that I should thank you. Ido. But I do not think that you told me all of this without some motive.I abandon the service of The Master. But what is it that you wish me todo? You know, of course, that I can order both of you k
illed...."

  Bell put down the stub of his cigarette very carefully.

  "The only thing you can do," he said quietly, "is to die."

  "True," said Ortiz with a ghastly smile. "But I would like my death toperform some service. The Master has no enemies save you two, and thoseof us who die on becoming his enemies. I would like, in dying, to do himsome harm."

  "I will promise," said Jamison grimly, "to see that The Master dieshimself if you will have Bell and myself put in a plane with fuel toPunta Arenas and a reasonable supply of weapons. I include the SenoritaCanalejas as a matter of course."

  * * * * *

  Ortiz looked from one to the other. And suddenly he smiled once more. Itwas queer, that smile. It was not quite mirthless.

  "You were right, just now," he observed calmly, "when as the HerrWiedkind you said that I would quit the service of The Master when Iceased to despair. I begin to have hopes. You two men have done theimpossible. You have fought The Master, you have learned many of hissecrets, and you have corrupted a man to treason when treason meanssuicide. Perhaps, Senores, you will continue to achieve the impossible,and assassinate The Master."

  He stood up, and though deathly pale continued to smile.

  "I suggest, Senor, that you resume your complexion. And you, Senor Bell,you will be returned to your confinement. I will make the necessarilyelaborate arrangements for my death."

  Bell rose. He liked this young man. He said quietly:

  "You said just now you wouldn't ask me to shake hands. May I askyou?..." He added almost apologetically as Ortiz's fingers closed uponhis: "You see, when your father died I thought that I would be very gladif I felt that I would die as well. But I think"--he smiled wryly--"Ithink I'll have two examples to think of when my time comes."

  * * * * *

  In the morning a bulky, round shouldered figure entered the room inwhich Bell was confined.

  "You will follow me," said a harsh voice.

  Bell shrugged. He was marched down long passageways and many steps. Hecame out into the courtyard, where the glistening black car with theblank windows waited. At an imperious gesture, he got in and sat downwith every appearance of composure, as of a man resignedly submittingto force he cannot resist. The thick spectacles of the Herr Wiedkindregarded him with a gogglelike effect. There was a long pause. Then thesound of footsteps. Paula appeared, deathly pale. She was ushered intothe vehicle--and only Bell's swift gesture of a finger to his lipschecked her cry of relief.

  Voices outside. The guttural Spanish of the Herr Wiedkind. Other,emotionless voices replying. The Herr Wiedkind climbed heavily into thecar and sat down, producing a huge revolver which bore steadily uponBell. The door closed, and he made a swift gesture of caution.

  "Idt may be," said the Germanic voice harshly, "that you and the youngladty haff much to say to each other. But idt can wait. And I warn you,_mein Herr_, that at the first movement I shall fire."

  Bell relaxed. There was the purring of the motor. The car moved off.Obviously there was some microphonic attachment inside the tonneau whichcarried every word within the locked vehicle to the ears of the two menupon the chauffeur's seat. An excellent idea for protection againsttreachery. Bell smiled, and moved so that his lips were a bare half-inchfrom Paula's ears.

  "Try to weep, loudly," he said in the faintest of whispers. "This man isa friend."

  * * * * *

  But Paula could only stare at the bulky figure sitting opposite until hesuddenly removed the spectacles, and smiled dryly, and then reached inhis pockets and handed Bell two automatic pistols, and extended a tinybut very wicked weapon to Paula. He motioned to her to conceal it.

  Jamison--moving to make the minimum of noise--handed Bell a sheet ofstiff cardboard. It passed into Bell's fingers without a rustle. Heshowed it silently to Paula.

  We were overheard last night by someone. We don't know who or how much he heard. Dictaphone in the room we talked in. Can't find out who it was or what action he's taken. We may be riding into a trap now. Ortiz has disappeared. He may be dead. We can only wait and see.

  The car was moving as if in city traffic, a swift dash forward and asudden stop, and then another swift dash. But the walls within werepadded so that no sound came from without save the faint vibration ofthe motor and now and then the distinct flexing of a spring. Then thecar turned a corner. It went more rapidly. It turned another corner. Andanother....

  In the light of the bright dome light, Bell saw beads of sweat comingout on Jamison's face. He did not dare to speak, but he formed wordswith his lips.

  "He's turning wrong! This isn't the way to the field!"

  Bell's jaws clenched. He took out his two automatics and looked at themcarefully. And then, much too short a time from the departure for theflying field to have been reached, the car checked. It went over roughcobblestones, and Bell himself knew well that there had been no cobbledroadway between the flying field and his prison. And then the car wentup a sort of ramp, a fairly steep incline which by the feel of the motorwas taken in low, and on for a short distance more. Then the car stoppedand the motor was cut off.

  Keys rattled in the lock outside. The door opened. The blunt barrel ofan automatic pistol peered in.

  (_To be concluded in the next issue._)

  * * * * *

  _The Readers' Corner_

  _A Meeting Place for Readers of_ Astounding Stories]

  _About Reprints_

  From time to time the Editors of Astounding Stories receive letters,like the two that follow, in which Readers beg us to run reprints, andnow we feel it is time to call attention to the very good reasons why wemust refuse.

  We admit, right off, that some splendid Science Fiction stories havebeen published in the past--but are those now being printed in any wayinferior to them? Aren't even _better_ ones being written to-day?--sincea whole civilization now stirs with active interest in science?--sincethree or five times as many writers are now supplying us with stories tochoose from?--since science and scientific theory have reached soimmeasurably much farther into the Realm of the Unknown Possible?

  The answer is an emphatic _Yes_. We all know it.

  "A Trip to the Moon"--for instance--was a good story, but shall we keepreprinting it to-day, when recent revolutionary theories of space-timescream to modern authors for Science-Fiction treatment? In the last tenyears the whole aspect, the whole future of science has broadened; wehave sensed an infinity beyond infinity; and who would be so un-modernas to cling to the oft-told stories of the older science and neglect thethrilling reaches of the new!

  _The Saturday Evening Post_--again, for instance--has been publishinggood stories for years, but who would have them reprint the old onesinstead of keep giving us good new ones?

  Would it be fair to 99% of our Readers to force on them reprint novelsthey have already read, or had a chance to read, to favor the 1% whohave missed them? Of course it wouldn't, and all of our Readers in that1% will gladly admit it.

  And how about our authors? Contrary to the old-fashioned opinion,authors must eat--and how will they eat, and lead respectable lives, andkeep out of jail, if we keep reprinting their _old_ stories and turningdown their _new_ ones? After all, eating is very important; those whowouldn't simply refrain from eating would have to get jobs asmessengers, and errand boys, etc.--with the result that much of ourfascinating modern Science Fiction would never be written!

  It would be much cheaper for us to buy once-used material. It wouldgreatly reduce our task of carefully reading every story that comes toour office, in hopes to finding a fine, new story, or a potentially goodauthor. But it would be very unwise, and very unfair, as you have seen.

  Many more reasons could be given, but these few are the more importantones back of our policy of avoiding reprints. Enough said!--_TheEditor._

  _Wants Reprints_

  Dear Editor: />
  In you April issue, in answer to a correspondent, you stated that you were avoiding reprints. Now, that's too bad. Some of the best Science-Fiction tales are reprints. Witness:

  "The Blind Spot," by Homer Eon Flint and Austin Hall; "The War In The Air," by H. G. Wells; "The Purple Sapphire," by John Taine; "The Conquest of Mars," by Garrett P. Serviss; "Darkness and Dawn," and "Into the Great Oblivion," and "The After-Glow," and "The Air-Trust"--all by George Allan England.

  You are proud--and rightfully so--of your great author, Ray Cummings. Why not give us several stories which helped to build his glory? Here are several:

  "Tarranto the Conqueror," "The Man on the Meteor," "The Girl in the Golden Atom," "The Man Who Mastered Time," "The Fire People."

  Guess I'll sign off now and give the other fellows a chance.--Isidore Manyon, 544 Myrtle Ave., Brooklyn, N. Y.

  _What Think You All?_

  Dear Editor:

  There is one question I would like to ask. Perhaps some of the other readers of Astounding Stories can answer it.

  Could a person remember his own death in a former incarnation? Some say "no," and some say "yes." If it is true that you can't, the whole fabric of the wonderful story, one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful I have ever read, "The Moon Maid," by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is built on a fallacy. You see, I am a believer in reincarnation and I would surely like to correspond with others who are also! Would not that also disprove the whole theory of reincarnation if it is true? I think it is not true, but I may be wrong. Is reincarnation a proven theory, or unproven?

  You say you are going to avoid reprints. Now that is a mistake. Of course, some you might avoid, such as those of Wells, Verne, etc., though I would like you to publish Wells' short stories. There are many that have not been published in any magazine for a long time, or at all.

  But please, oh please, do publish A. Merritt's "Through the Dragon Glass," and give it a cover illustration. It is the only one, I think, that I want particularly, but I do want it! If you publish any of H. G. Wells' works, give them cover illustrations, too.

  And publish a lot by Merritt, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and authors like that; you haven't as yet printed a story of the type that A. Merritt writes, and that is one thing this magazine needs, and lots of them, as they are the cream of Science Fiction, and the more of them you have, the better! They are my favorites, and next come those that Edgar Rice Burroughs writes; also John Taine.--Worth K. Bryant, 406 No. Third St., Yakima, Wash.

  _The S: Lynn Rhorer Society_

  Dear Editor:

  This is to inform you that we have organized a society known as the S. Lynn Rhorer Society of Greater Atlanta, a branch of the Science Correspondence Club.

  This Society's purpose is to first assist the Science Correspondence Club and its affiliated branches in the promotion of science and Scientific Fiction. Second, to create a greater interest in science and Science Fiction among the laymen who are already interested, and to create an interest among those who are not at the present interested, and to hold their interest.

  At the present time we have in our library over three hundred scientific books; a large collection of ores and rocks from different states and countries, classified; a large collection of fossilized bones; a three-inch refracting telescope, and a ten-inch one in the course of construction; and a large club-house.

  Any information regarding this society can be obtained by addressing R. A. Marks, Jr., 893 York Ave., S. W., Atlanta, Georgia, or the undersigned.--F. B. Eason, 400 Jefferson Avenue, E. Point, Ga.

  _Unused to the Smaller Size_

  Dear Editor:

  I have but one comment on your magazine and that is: Having complete sets of other Science Fiction magazines I would also like to save Astounding Stories, but in its present size and condition it looks like trash. Why not have a ballot to what size the magazine shall be? By having the price raised to 25 cents it can cover the extra expense. I would surely like to add another magazine to my collection. Am hereby hoping you will do this for the sake of Science Fiction lovers all over the country.--Sidney Mack, 1676 59th Street, Brooklyn, New York.

  _"The Scienceers" Broadcasts_

  Dear Editor:

  For the benefit of the readers of Astounding Stories who live in New York, a club known as The Scienceers has recently been formed. Its purpose is to promote informal fellowship among Science Fiction fans and to foster discussion of modern developments, theories and projects in the realm of science.

  The organization is open to all persons over sixteen years of age who are interested in Science Fiction and its relation to the various fields of present day science. Since regular weekly meetings are held, the membership is necessarily restricted to residents of New York City and vicinity.

  A cordial invitation to join the Scienceers is hereby extended to all interested. Further information may be obtained by writing to the undersigned.--Allen Glasser, 961 Forest Avenue, New York, N. Y.

  "_Congratulations for Both_"

  Dear Editor:

  Congratulations for us both. Your company for publishing this magazine, myself for being able to buy same.

  Have just finished reading the second issue. It is very good. I read every story in both issues. You bet I am going to be a steady reader from now on. I like this type of story very much--in fact, read two other magazines that publish stories of this type every month. I note with great pleasure that in the March issue you are starting to publish the first quarter of an interplanetary story by Ray Cummings. This is, indeed, good news. I have had the pleasure of reading five of his novels this past year and I greatly enjoyed all of them. Along with Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Cummings is an "ace high" author on these "unpredictable-future" stories.

  Some four or fives years ago I read in a magazine a portion of two interplanetary stories by Ray Cummings. Now to the point, I wonder if it is possible for you to obtain Mr. Cummings' permission to have your company publish these two stories? Their names I believe are "Tarranto the Conquerer" and "Into the Fourth Dimension." I, for one, would greatly appreciate this favor. Please do your best to try and publish these novels this coming year. Thanks.--Wm. L. Ebelan, 3906 Springdale Avenue, Baltimore, Md.

  _Likes the Small Size_

  Dear Editor:

  I received a pleasant surprise when I first bought your wonderful magazine. I started in with the second issue, but I wish I could get the first.

  All the stories are good. The best of them, I think, is Ray Cummings' story, "Brigands of the Moon." I have read the first three parts and am eagerly waiting for the last.

  And now for something about the make-up of the magazine. I like the small size, and holding the magazine together with two staples is good.

  The cover designs are very good, but the pictures inside could be improved on. H. Wesso is a good artist.

  How about publishing the magazine twice a month?--Charles Barrett, 135 Spring St., Woodbury, N. J.

  _Thanks, Anyhow!_

  Dear Editor:

  I hope that you are not going to have a blue cover every month. I would like to see a different colored background every month. The cover on the March issue should have been black because space is black.

  I wish that you would have a full-page picture for each story. Wesso is the best artist you have. The others haven't enough imagination.

  I gave "Brigands of the Moon" by Ray Cummings first place in the March issue of Astounding Stories. It promises to be his best story since "Tarrano th
e Conqueror."

  The places of other stories are as follows: 2. "Vandals of the Stars"; 3. "The Soul Master"; 4. "Cold Light"; 5. "From the Ocean's Depths."

  If you would enlarge Astounding Stories to 11-3/4 by 8-1/2 it would be seen more easily on the newsstands and its circulation would increase. Please publish it on the first of the month instead of the first Thursday.--Jack Darrow, 4225 N. Spaulding Avenue, Chicago, Ill.

  "_The Readers' Corner_"

  All Readers are extended a sincere and cordial invitation to "come overin 'The Readers' Corner'" and join in our monthly discussion of stories,authors, scientific principles and possibilities--everything that's ofcommon interest in connection with our Astounding Stories.

  Although from time to time the Editor may make a comment or so, this isa department primarily for _Readers_, and we want you to make full useof it. Likes, dislikes, criticisms, explanations, roses, brickbats,suggestions--everything's welcome here: so "come over in 'The Readers'Corner'" and discuss it with all of us!

  --_The Editor._

 

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