by Unknown
Flying low, Dick could see the fields strewn with the bodies of deadcattle. Here and there, at the doors of farmhouses, the inmates couldbe seen, lying together in gruesome heaps, caught and killedinstantaneously as they attempted flight. Here, too, were figures onthe roads. But they were figures of dead men and women.
* * * * *
They strewed the roads for miles, lying as they had been trapped--men,women, children, horses, mules, and dogs. The spectacle was anappalling one. Dick set his jaws grimly. He was thinking that theCouncil had let Von Kettler escape. He was thinking of Fredegonde. Buthe would not let himself think of her. She deserved no more pity thanthe rest of the murderous crew.
Over the Carolinas the conditions were still more appalling. Heredeadly gas had struck with all its concentrated power. A citymaterialized out of the blue distance, a factory town with allchimneys spiring upward into the blue, a section of tall buildingsintersected by canyonlike streets, around it a rim of trim houses,bungalows, indicative of prosperity and comfort. And it was a city ofthe dead.
For everywhere around it, on all the roads, the dead lay piled on topof one another. For miles--all the inhabitants, rich and poor,business men, factory hands, negroes. There had been a mad rush as thefatal gas drove onward upon its lethal way, and all the fugitives hadbeen overwhelmed simultaneously.
Here were golf links, with little groups strewn on the grass andfairways; here, at one of the holes, four men, their putters still intheir hands, crouched in death. Here was the wreckage of a train thathad collided with a string of freight cars at an untended switch, andfrom the shattered windows the heads and bodies of the dead protrudedin serried ranks.
Dick looked back. His flight was driving on behind him. He guessedtheir feelings. They had sworn, as he had sworn, that none of themwould return without stamping out that abomination from the earthforever.
* * * * *
He signaled to the flight to rise, and zoomed upward to twelvethousand feet. He did not want to look upon any more of those horrors.At that height, the peaceful landscape lay extended underneath, in achecker-board of farms and woodlands. One could pretend that it wasall a vile dream.
He avoided Charleston, and winged out above the Atlantic, striking astraight course along the coast toward the Bahamas. The shores ofGeorgia vanished in the west. Dick began to breathe more freely. Hismind shook off its weight of horror. Only the blue sea and the bluesky were visible The aftermath of the gale remained in the shape of astrong head breeze and white crests below.
Dick glanced at the guinea-pigs. They were busily gnawing theircabbage and carrots. The gas had evidently been entirely dissipated bythe wind.
Toward sunset the low jutting fore-land of Canaveral on the east coastof Florida, came into view. Dick shifted course a little. Three hoursmore should see them over Abaco.
His flight had explicit instructions. As soon as the black gas hadrendered visible the headquarters of the Invisible Emperor, they wereto circle above, dropping their bombs. When these were exhausted, themachine guns would come into play. There was to be no attention paidto signals of surrender. They were to wipe out the headquarters, tokill every living thing that showed itself--and the navy and themarines would mop up anything left over.
The sun went down in a blaze of gold and crimson. Night fell. The moonbegan to climb the east. The black sea, stretching beneath, was asempty as on the day when it was created. Nothing in the shape ofnavigation appeared.
Two hours, three hours, and old Evans turned round in his cockpit andpointed. On the horizon a black thread was beginning to stretchagainst the sky. It was Abaco Island, in the Bahama group. They werenearly at their destination. An hour more--perhaps two hours, and thedeadly menace that threatened America might be removed forever. Dickbreathed a silent prayer for success.
* * * * *
They were over Abaco. A long, flat island, seventy miles or so inextreme length, and fairly wide, covered with a dense growth oftropical brush and forest, with here and there open spaces, near theseacoast an occasional farm-house. Dick dropped to five thousand, tothree, to one. The moon made the whole land underneath as bright asday.
There were no evidence of destruction by the hurricane. The farmhousesstood substantial and well roofed. If death had struck Abaco Island,it had been the work of man, not Nature.
Dick zoomed almost to his ceiling, until, in the brilliant moonlight,he could see Abaco Island from side to side. For the most part it washeavily wooded with mahogany and lignum vitae: toward the centralportion there was open land, but there was not the least sign of anyconstruction work.
Again he swooped, indicating to his flight to follow him. At athousand feet he examined the open district intently. Here, ifanywhere upon the island, the Invisible Emperor had his headquarters.Was it conceivable that a gas factory, hangars, ammunition depotscould exist here invisibly, when he could look straight down upon theground?
Dick's heart sank. The hideous fear came to him that Graves had beenmistaken, that he had come on a wild-goose chase. This could not bethe place. It was quite incredible.
Again and again he circled, studying the ground beneath. Now he couldsee that the tough grass and undergrowth marked curious geometricalpatterns. Here, for example, was an oblong of bare earth around whichthe vegetation grew, and it was obviously the work of man.
Here were four squares of bare ground set side by side, with thinstrips of vegetation growing between them.
Then of a sudden Dick knew! Those squares and parallelograms of bareground indicated the foundations of buildings. He was looking down onthe very site of the Invisible Emperor's stronghold!
He shouted, and pointed downward. Luke Evans looked round and nodded.He understood. He patted the camera-box with a grim smile on his oldface.
CHAPTER VIII - The Magnetic Trap
Upon those squares and oblongs of bare earth, incredible as it seemed,rose the structures of the Invisible Empire, themselves both invisibleand transparent, so that one looked straight down through them and sawonly the ground beneath them.
Every interior floor and girder must have been treated with the gas.They had been cunning. They must have discovered some permanent meansof charging paint with the shadow-breaking gas, so that the buildingswould remain invisible for months and years instead of hours.
But they had not been cunning enough. It had not occurred to them thatthe foundations would still be visible underneath, for the simplereason that grass does not grow without sunlight.
Dick saw old Luke Evans nodding and pointing downward. The old manpicked up his end of the speaking-tube, but Dick ignored the gesture.He signaled to his flight to rise, and zoomed up, circling, andstudying the land beneath.
That oblong was evidently the central building. Those four squaresprobably housed airplanes, and each would hold half a dozen. Thatelliptical building might contain a dirigible. That round patch wasprobably the gas factory.
Now Dick could see more patches of bare ground, extending in thedirection of the sea. He gunned his ship and followed the gap amongthe trees to the ocean, a few miles distant. Yes, there were moreevidence of activity here. Beside the water, in what looked like adeep natural harbor, was what seemed to be the foundations of a dock.Perhaps even vessels of war floated on the phosphorescent Bahama sea.
* * * * *
He circled back, his flock wheeling like a flight of birds andfollowing him. He signaled to them to scatter. They had certainly beenobserved; at any moment a hail of lead might assail them invisibly outof the air. They must get to work quickly. But had they understood thesignificance of those bare patches?
Dick saw Luke Evans still fidgeting impatiently with his end of thespeaking-tube, and picked it up.
"I'm thinking, Captain Rennell, we've got no time to lose if we wantto keep the upper hand of those devils," called the old man.
"Yes, you're right," Dick answered. "Lay a trail of gas bombs allaround those hangars and buildings, enough to hold them dark for sometime. And keep a b
omb or two in reserve."
Luke Evans shouted back. The plane was again above the structures. Theold man dropped a bomb over the side, and Dick zoomed again, hisflight wheeling up behind him.
Higher and higher, banking and going round in a succession of tightspirals, Dick flew. Every moment he expected the blow to fall. As herose, Luke Evans dropped bomb after bomb. A thousand feet beneath theflight was taking up positions, hovering with the helicopters, lookingup to Dick for the signal, and waiting.
Then from beneath the cloud of black gas began to rise, as Luke Evansdropped his bombs. It filled the lower spaces of the sky, blotting outthe land in impenetrable darkness. That darkness, above which Dick andhis flight were soaring, rose like a solid wall, built by someprehistoric race that aimed to fling a tower into the heavens.
* * * * *
And then--the miracle! Dick gasped in sheer delight as he realizedthat he had made no mistake.
At first all he could see was a number of criss-crossingphosphorescent lines that appeared shimmering through the blacknessunderneath. They ran luminously here and there, forming no particularpattern, much like the figures on the radium dial of a watch whenfirst they come into wavering visibility at night.
Then the lines began to intersect one another, to assume geometricpatterns and curves. And bit by bit they took meaning andsignificance.
And suddenly the whole invisible stronghold lay revealed upon theground beneath, a shining, dazzling play of weaving light.
Buildings and hangars stood out, clearly revealed; the rounded vaultof a dirigible hangar, and the shining ribbon of a road that ranthrough a pitch-dark tarmac, and was evidently constructed from somegas-impregnated materials. On this tarmac was a flight of shiningairplanes, ready to take off. There were the odd, ovoid figures of theaviators in their silken overalls. More figures appeared, running outfrom the buildings. It was clear that the sudden raid had taken themall by surprise.
Luke Evans yelled and pointed. "We've got them now, sir!" Dick heardabove the whine of the helicopter engine. "We've--"
But of a sudden the old man's voice died away, though his mouth wasstill moving.
Dick leaned out of his cockpit and fired a single red Very light, thesignal for the attack. And from each plane of his flight, beneath him,a bomb slid from its rack and went hurtling down upon the gang below,while the airplanes circled and hovered, each taking up its station.
* * * * *
Dick was too late. By a whole minute he had missed his chance. Herealized that immediately, for before the red light had flared fromhis pistol, the hostile planes were in the air. He had flown too low,and given the alarm.
It meant a fight now, instead of a mad dog destruction, and Dick didnot underestimate the power of the enemy. But he felt a thrill offurious satisfaction at the prospect of battle. From every plane thebombs were falling. Underneath, ruin and destruction, and leapingflames--and yet darkness, save for the phosphorescent outlines of thebuildings.
And the lines of these were broken, converging into strangecriss-crosses of luminosity, as the beams fell in shapeless heaps.Dark fire, sweeping through the headquarters of the Invisible Emperor,a veritable hell for those below! A taste of the hell that they hadmade for others!
Then a strange phenomenon obtruded itself upon Dick's notice. Nothingwas audible! The bombs were falling, but they were falling silently.No sound came up from beneath. And, except for the throbbing of hisengine, Dick would have thought it had stopped. He could no longerhear it.
That terrific holocaust of death and destruction was inaudible.Skimming the upper reach of the air, high above that wall of darkness,Dick saw old Luke Evans pick up his end of the speaking-tube, andmechanically followed suit. He could see the old man's lips moving.But he heard nothing!
And now another phenomenon was borne in on his notice. His flight wereperhaps five hundred feet beneath him, hovering a little above thebarrage of black gas. But they were converging oddly. And there was nosight of the airplanes that Dick had just seen taking off from theinvisible tarmac.
* * * * *
Dick fired two Very lights as a signal to his flight to scatter. Whatwere they doing, bunching together like a flock of sheep, when at anymoment the enemy planes might come swooping in, riddling them withbullets? He thrust the stick forward--and then realized that hiscontrols had gone dead!
He thought for a moment that a wire had snapped. But the stickresponded perfectly to his hand, only it had no longer control overhis plane. He kicked right rudder, and the plane remained motionless.He pushed home the soaring lever, to neutralize the helicopter and theplane still soared.
Then he noticed that the needle of his earth-inductorcompass-indicator was oscillating madly, and realized that it was nothis plane that was at fault.
Underneath him, his flight seemed to be milling wildly as the shipsturned in every direction of the compass. But not for long. They werenosing in, until the whole flight resembled an enormous airplaneengine, with twelve radial points, corresponding to their propellers,and the noses pointing symmetrically inward, like a herd of game,yarding in winter time.
And now the true significance came home to Dick. A vertical line ofmagnetic force, an invisible mast, had been shot upward from theground. The airplanes were moored to it by their noses, as effectivelyas if they had been fastened with steel wires.
And he, too, was struggling against that magnetic force that wasslowly drawing him, despite his utmost efforts, to a fixed positionfive hundred feet above his flight.
* * * * *
For a few moments, by feeding his engine gas to the limit, Dickthought he might have a chance of escaping. Her nose a fixed point,Dick whirled round and round in a dizzy maze, attempting to break thatinvisible mooring-chain. Then suddenly the engine went dead. He wastrapped helplessly.
He saw old Evans gesticulating wildly in the front cockpit. The oldman hoisted himself, leaned over the cowling gibbered in Dick's ear.The silent engine had ceased to throb, and the old man's shouts weresimply not translated into sound.
Suddenly the flight beneath jerked downward, just as a flag jerks whenit is hauled down a pole. They vanished into the dark cloud beneath.At the same time there came a jerk that dropped Dick's plane a hundredfeet, and flung him violently against the rim of the cockpit.
Another followed. By drops of a hundred feet at a time, Dick was beinghauled down into the darkness underneath him.
It rushed up at him. One moment he was suspended upon the rim of it,seeing the moon and stars above him; the next he had been plunged intoutter blackness. Blackness more intense than anything that could beconceived--soundless blackness, that was the added horror of it.Blackness of Luke Evans's contriving, but none the less fearful onthat account!
And yet, as Dick was jerked slowly downward, slowly a pale visibilitybegan to diffuse itself underneath. The black cloud was beginning toroll away. The luminous lines began to fade, and in place of themappeared little leaping tongues of fire. In front of him Dick saw LukeEvans's form begin to pattern itself upon the darkness. He saw theform move sidewise, and caught at Luke's arm as he was about to hurlanother gas bomb. "No!" he shouted--and heard no sound come from hislips.
* * * * *
Luke understood. He seemed to be replacing the bomb in the rack.Beneath them now, as they were jerked downward, were fantastic swirlsof black mist, and, at the bottom, a pit of fire that was slowlycoming into visibility.
Dick uttered a cry of horror! Five hundred feet below his plane he sawthe dim forms of his flight, still bunched together, noses almosttouching. And they were dropping straight into that flaming furnaceof ruin underneath, which was growing clearer every instant.
Down, jerk by jerk. Down! The black cloud was fast dispersing from theground. The flight were hardly a thousand feet above the fire. Down--along jerk that one! Once more! The flames leaped up hungrily about thedoomed airships. Cries of mad horror broke from Dick's lips as hewitnessed the destruction of ships and men.
He could se
e almost clearly now. The twelve ships, still retainingtheir nose-to-nose formation, were in the very heart of the fire.Spurts of exploding gasoline thrust their white tongues upward. Therewas only one consolation: for the doomed men, death must have comepractically instantaneously.
From where he hung, Dick could feel the fierce heat of the flamesbelow. In front of him, old Luke Evans sat in his cockpit like onepetrified. He was feebly fumbling at his camera-box, as if he had someidea of using it, and had forgotten that it was fixed to the plane,but the old man seemed temporarily to have lost his wits.
Rushing flames surrounded the burning airships, reducing them to asolid, welded mass of incandescent metal. Dick looked down, waitingfor the next jerk that would summon him to join his men. At the momenthe was not conscious of either fear or horror, only intense rageagainst the murderers and regret that he could never bring back thenews of victory.
* * * * *
The cloud had almost dissipated. In place of the phosphorescence,electric lights had appeared, making the ground beneath perfectlyvisible. Dick could see a number of men grouped together at theentrance to a large building, part of which had been wrecked by abomb, though there were no evidences of fire. Other structures hadbeen dismantled and knocked about, but what remained of them had notbeen charred by fire. Evidently they had been fireproofed. Perhaps thegas itself was incombustible. Only in the middle of the tarmac, wherethe remnants of the airplanes blazed, was there any sign of fire.
There were three machines resembling dynamos, placed one at eachcorner of the tarmac, equidistant from the central holocaust. Ahalf-dozen men were grouped about each of them, and by the light fromthe huge reflector over each Dick saw that they were whirring busily.At the time it did not occur to him that these were the machines thatwere sending out the electrical force that had held the airplanespowerless.
