Rogers stretched himself out on one of the leather seats, and lighted a cigar. George sat beside him.
"I figure we should be at least halfway to the northern coast of the island," the older man said. "We have flown some four hundred miles in four hours."
"But Loto will be waiting at the southeastern tip of the island," protested George. "That will be easily two or three hundred miles further, won't it? I wonder how far along we are in time."
"Look at the dials."
George bent over them. "About sixty-five hundred years. Some of the hands are going too fast to read."
"More than I had thought," commented Rogers.
"Do you figure we're still accelerating?"
"I think we have just about reached our greatest speed," Rogers answered slowly. "Let us see. We've done an average of thirteen hundred years an hour. We must be progressing at double that now."
George was figuring on the back of an old envelope. "Twenty-six hundred an hour. In five more hours at that rate we'll be close to twenty thousand. We can fly down to the north coast of the island easily by then."
"Exactly. We're a little ahead in our space flight. I'm glad of it. We shall have to slow our time-progress to almost nothing at the end. We must take no chances of missing Loto's light signal."
"Twenty-six hundred years an hour," mused George. "That's what we're making now. Forty-five years a minute. A century almost every two minutes!"
The clock had registered thirty minutes more when Rogers declared he was sufficiently rested. At George's suggestion they ate a light meal; then they started their flight southward again.
"How about looking at the dials now," George remarked. "They were at sixty-five hundred, thirty minutes ago."
"Eight thousand," Rogers read. "That's fifteen hundred more. It figures out to three thousand an hour. That's our peak, I think."
The flight now was passing through constantly changing conditions; every two minutes the plane was covering some three or four miles of space and a century of time. They crossed above North Carolina and came to the coast again. The cities of the civilization beneath them seemed to be breaking up. Here and there one stood in its glory; others were mere deserted piles of ruins over which the vegetation crawled, eager to devour. Still other cities and villages appeared over the southern horizon, sturdy and whole—and they melted as they slid beneath the plane, into crumbling piles that passed out of sight to the north.
Soon desolate areas appeared. The scene grew vaguely whiter; the snow was coming down from the north faster than the plane was flying. Changes in the coast line became apparent; unfamiliar arms of the sea swept into view, and were crossed and left behind. A small, unfamiliar island lay close to the South Carolina coast. But as a whole, the land and sea held their own, even against the ravages of so many centuries.
"The north wind is with us—the wind Loto described that blew southward almost all the year. What time is it?"
"By the clock or the dials?"
"The clock. I have the dials here. Eighteen thousand four hundred years is their reading."
"Quarter of six," announced George.
"We should sight the island shortly," Rogers said. "I'll fly a trifle slower. We must be nearly down to Georgia by now—to where Georgia used to be, I should say. I want to sight the island at twenty thousand years, or thereabouts."
The land was growing white; the vegetation sparser. Small towns and hamlets that endured for no more than fifty or a hundred years were springing up everywhere, and melting into nothing in a moment or two. The vegetation was shifting, changing, but always the scene was growing whiter. The villages were sparser, smaller and shorter lived—the people struggling southward against the threatening, unrelenting cold, which spared nothing but the island of the Anglese.
Rogers was first to notice a radical departure from the normal conformation of the landscape. They were, by their own calculation, over Georgia. George, watching the dials closely, had just noted twenty-two thousand years. Far ahead, over the rim of the southwestern horizon, a line of mountains was rising.
"Look!" exclaimed Rogers softly. "The mountain chain running east and west. The new mountains! The island must be just beyond them."
He maneuvered the plane into a climb; the gray land and sea tilted and began dropping away. The mountains seemed to be following them up, higher and closer, until at last the plane was over them, barely a thousand feet above their rocky spires.
It was a scene of wild grandeur that now spread out beneath their eyes: dark, craggy cliff faces, with snow capped summits, a pure white peak and a gray blue valley beside it. And the whole mass reared ten thousand feet above the sea.
The plane swept forward; the jagged, tumbled land slid northward, close beneath it. Then, abruptly, the crags and peaks dropped away; it was as though the plane had leaped ten thousand feet into the air. Far below lay a narrow channel of gray water, stretching east and west. And beyond that lay another land, its outer coast curving to the south.
"The island!" exclaimed Rogers softly. "What a cataclysm was here—a rift that let the sea in and buckled up the mountains!"
"The island!" echoed George. "And we're at twenty-three thousand five hundred years! We've some distance yet to fly," he warned. "Hadn't we better slacken our time progress?"
With their flight through space temporarily checked, the 'copters holding them motionless, Rogers cut down the proton current to the fifth intensity. Eagerly they looked below them.
Beyond the channel lay the island, curving up in an arc from the south and out to the west. They could not see across it, but only to a ridge of mountains at its center. Huge palms grew everywhere, and the shoreline formed a broad, curving beach of white sand. An island paradise—though their time progress still laid a gray cast over the green, blurred the water into a formless haze along the beach and shifted the vegetation into a confusion of changing forms.
"We must get started," Rogers said at last. "At twenty-eight thousand years we must be within sight of the southern tip."
It was a flight almost due south. Lakes occasionally were visible, and two or three small rivers, one of which changed its course suddenly under their eyes; and everywhere that tropical verdure, mounting and melting, always shifting with its rapid growth and decay.
In some three hours more—with another longer rest for Rogers, during which time the 'copters held them poised motionless—they sighted the southern tip of the island. It had narrowed here to a point no more than two miles wide, ending with a curving beach and the broad, empty ocean beyond; a beach with a palm-covered mountain slope close behind it.
Rogers had made several changes of time progress during the latter part of the trip, and they were poised over the sea near the tip of the island for no more than a few moments when the dials recorded twenty-eight thousand two hundred years.
Rogers consulted Loto's notes. "He landed in this time world at twenty-eight thousand two hundred and four years. We must stop at the beginning of that year and watch for his light."
Using the fourth intensity, the daylight and darkness was separated into two brief, but distinguishable periods. Thus the voyagers sped through the days and nights, the weeks and months and forward into another year. At the beginning of the fourth year, Rogers changed to the third intensity. It was daylight—a yellow-red, swiftly mounting sun; flying blurs of white clouds close overhead; a blue sea, and a bright green island.
The sun plunged across the sky and sank blood red, with an instant of glorious colors suffusing the western sky. Night came, with its deep, purple mystery. Then day again.
Thus the days of that fourth year went by; each hardly a minute long, but slow to the two men so anxiously watching. They were tired to the point of exhaustion, but the excitement and anxiety kept them going.
"He said from the tip of the island," Rogers murmured. "A blue-white, vertical beam of light shining for a day and a night...we couldn't miss it. A minute would show it to us plainly."
"I haven't taken my eyes off that island for a second," commented George from his seat on the floor. "Why doesn't he hurry up? He's down there, why doesn't he give us the signal?"
Rogers did not answer. The sun dropped below the horizon. The turning world, with its motion made so visible, was dizzying to one who watched the sky.
The purple night was momentarily colored with a red moon; it rose and swiftly plunged into a thick bank of clouds that swept down upon it.
Abruptly, from the tip of the island, a shaft of blue-white light shot into the sky. It wavered an instant, then stood motionless: clear, distinct, unmistakable!
CHAPTER SEVEN
The proton current had been entirely cut off. The interior of the cabin was solid in appearance once more. The Frazia motors were still droning and the plane hung motionless in a night that was without wind. Below it, now, lay a scene of complete normality: the sea was rolling up on the white sand and the moon, almost at its zenith, bathed the green island in a silvery, red-tinged light. And from the tip of the island, quite near its southern branch, Loto's narrow beam of blue-white light was flashing upward into the sky.
They descended, in a gentle glide. The beach was broad and firm; they landed upon it, swooping along. It was like racing an automobile along the sand in the moonlight, with the ocean on one side—far out at low tide now—and a jungle of green, tropical vegetation on the other.
Rogers, at the controls, saw a number of human figures standing on the beach ahead of him. They scattered hastily, and the plane, rapidly losing velocity, went past them and stopped a hundred yards farther.
"We're here!" George cried. "Let's get out. Was that Loto we passed? Where's the light? Are we near it?"
The light could be seen no more than a hundred feet away among the palms. They climbed hastily from the plane. A figure was coming forward along the beach at a run; a slight figure in wide trousers of white cloth, and a short, flapping jacket.
"Loto!" shouted George. "That you, Loto?"
From a distance came a faint, "Hello-o... George!" The runner increased his speed. It was Loto.
"Well," he exclaimed, as he shook their hands. "You got here right away, didn't you? I've only had that light up two or three hours."
"We're tired out," said Rogers, when the greetings were over. "Do we stay in the plane or can we leave it?"
A man was standing fearfully at the edge of the green jungle nearby, and Loto called him forward. He was dressed in wide trousers, like Loto's except that they were smeared with dirt and sand, and his feet and torso were bare. He came, timidly, and Loto spoke to him apart. The man nodded his head, indicating that he understood his orders. Then he trotted away, joining three or four others of his kind, gesticulating toward the plane. They all approached it reluctantly.
George plucked at the flaring sleeve of Loto's short jacket, his only garment above the waist. "How's Azeela, Loto? Is she...is everything all right?"
"Yes, she's all right. But I needed you and father here. Wait! Not now. I'll tell you later."
Rogers joined them. "We're about exhausted, Loto. We must have some sleep."
"Yes, of course. I knew you'd be. I've a house near here—only a hundred yards or so. They'll guard the plane." His gesture indicated the men who were now on the sand, moving about the plane, but evidently afraid to touch it.
"You can trust them?"
"Implicitly."
They followed Loto. George was tired, but so excited that he did not realize it. The night air was warm and heavy with moisture. It was oppressive; it reminded him somehow of the steam room of a Turkish bath. He found himself perspiring.
They left the moonlit beach and, following a tiny, white-sand path, plunged into the depths of the jungle. Palms of every variety stood about, their graceful fronds interlacing overhead. There were huge trees loaded with fruit, bananas, mangoes, grapefruit. Some of the other fruit trees George dimly remembered having heard of but could not name, and still others he was sure were entirely new.
It was dark in the jungle here, and very silent. The steamy air was redolent with perfume—orange blossoms, George thought. The light signal was nowhere to be seen. George wondered if it had burned out, or if Loto had ordered those men to extinguish it.
"Here we are," said Loto abruptly.
A house was standing at their right, in an open space with the moonlight gleaming on it—a large, tropical-looking bungalow. There was a broad veranda on three sides, with windows opening into the house. The house itself was raised some four feet off the ground on coconut posts, and a brown-thatched roof spread over everything like a mound.
It seemed to be a house that would have ten rooms, at least. George wondered what made it look so peculiar. Then he realized that its board walls were not vertical, but sloped inward toward the top, so that its rooms would be smaller at the ceiling than the floor. It looked like a house of cards.
Loto had turned into another path. A brown picket fence enclosed the house with perhaps an acre of ground. Inside was a flower garden, abloom with an extraordinary profusion of flowers.
A short flight of wooden steps led to the veranda. There Loto stopped.
"I think we should retire at once," Rogers said. "We have so much to talk of—but it will wait."
"Yes," Loto agreed. "Come with me, Father. George, you stay here. I'll be right out."
George sat down on the veranda, with his back against a round palm trunk that was supporting its roof. He realized now how tired he was, and this heavy air made him sleepy, he heard the others moving away, entering the house. He took off his coat, then his shirt and, using them for a pillow, stretched himself out at full length on the board flooring of the veranda.
In a moment, when Loto returned to take him to the room they were to occupy together, he found George sleeping peacefully.
George awakened with the morning sun streaming through a window. He was on a broad couch, and in a chair beside him, Loto was reclining comfortably, smoking his black brier pipe. He smiled.
"Oh, you're awake, are you? You ought to be—it's hours after sunrise."
A vague memory of being taken into the house by Loto the night before drifted back to George. He remembered being half-asleep and talking to his friend, but it was all like a dream.
The room was small, queer-looking, with its walls sloping together toward the ceiling. But it was bright and clean, with brown fibre matting on the floor.
The air was as moist and heavy as ever, and even warmer. George sat up, mopping his forehead with his shirt sleeve.
"I've got your clothes," Loto said, indicating a stool with garments lying on it. "You don't need much in this heat. Get up and try them on."
George was presently arrayed, like Loto, in low, tight slippers of soft hide—clipped dog-skin, Loto told him—with trousers of white material, bulging above the knees and tight at the ankles, and a brown and green cloth jacket, ornamented with little metal coins. The jacket was square-cut and short; it just covered the waist-band of the trousers in back. It was lined with something soft, thin and yet absorbent; it felt smooth and comfortable next to George's skin. But it would not meet in front; it left his chest and stomach bare. He stood regarding it ruefully until Loto showed him how to fasten it closed across his stomach.
"Nice and cool—when you get used to it," George commented, staring down at his exposed chest. "How do I look? Kind of queer, don't I?" He twisted himself around, trying to see down over the side bulge of his trousers.
Roger's voice, calling, interrupted them.
"I've got a million things to talk to you about," George was telling Loto. "Hurry it up—I'll be out in the garden."
They met, a few minutes later, on the side veranda where they were to have breakfast. George's self-consciousness vanished immediately; Rogers was dressed almost exactly as he was, and he flattered himself he looked at least as well as his companion.
It seemed to the new arrivals, at this first glance, a primitive world indeed into which they had fallen, the heat, the palms, the thatched bungalow, and their costumes all might have existed in some out-of-the-way tropical land of their own time-world.
During the meal George was insistent with questions, but Loto smilingly refused to talk. Instead, he led his father into a brief description of their flight forward through time and south through space. When the meal was over Loto took them out to the front veranda.
"I've a great deal to tell you," he said, "and I know you're as impatient to hear it as I am to tell you. I've been here on the island five months—"
"We realize it," George murmured. "Didn't I watch for that light through every day and night of 'em?"
Loto smiled. "I put the signal up last night because I felt that I needed you. Before we do anything, I must tell you of our affairs here. You notice I say 'our affairs.' They are a part of me now. I don't exactly know why, but the thing here grips me. I want to help these people... I feel already that I am one of them."
It was no mystery to George.
"Where's Azeela?" he demanded with apparent irrelevancy.
"In Anglese City, the capital and largest center of population on the island. It's north of here—on the channel. I've been living there; I came down here merely to meet you. The situation here is drastic, Father. War has been impending, and now it will not be postponed much longer. This Toroh—as I told you, he is an Anglese renegade—is organizing the barbarians of the north, the Noths, as they are called. They are a people of low intelligence—brutes of men with thick black hair on their bodies.
"God knows how many Noths there are—hordes of them are scattered about the northern wastes. Toroh has been organizing them. He has a base up north where he is manufacturing scientific weapons. There is class hatred here on the island, but, thank Heaven, in the face of an outside invasion, the Anglese will stick together."
"You're preparing for war," George interposed. "You—"
"Yes, of course. The Anglese have had no warfare for several generations; they were totally unprepared, but now they're getting things in shape."
Loto's tone was optimistic, but the anxiety of his expression belied it. "I wanted you here, Father—you and George. Without Toroh, we would not fear the Noths. But Toroh is a scientist, and what weapons he will have been able to manufacture we do not know. We can only—"
A man came dashing up the garden path; a man in the familiar wide trousers, torn and dirty. His red-brown, naked torso gleamed with sweat; a white cloth was tied about his forehead to keep the damp hair from his eyes.
Loto leaped to his feet, and the man, gazing at the strangers with one swift, surprised glance, flung himself prostrate on the steps.
"What—" began Rogers.
"Wait! A messenger from Azeela. Something has gone wrong."
Loto raised the man up, and listened to his flood of frightened words with obvious concern. A sharp question from Loto, a crisp order, and the messenger was dashing away. Loto's gaze, following him, came back to his companions on the porch.
"Bad news, Father. We must get up to Anglese City at once. Spies have appeared in Orleen—a city at the western end of the island—spies from Toroh, former Anglese, banished like himself. They're being put to death as fast as they can be caught. But meanwhile they're talking to the lower class—telling the people that Toroh is for them, and only against their government. There is class hatred here. The people are listening to the emissaries. We may be facing a revolution—an internal break—on the eve of fighting the Noths! We will lose if that happens—lose to Toroh inevitably!"
They were down on the beach in five minutes more. The plane stood there, undisturbed. Half a dozen figures rose from the sand beside it and stood respectfully waiting for Loto to approach.
Rogers took his seat beside the Frazia controls. They were presently in the air, flying northward over the palm-covered island that lay calm, serene in its false security and peacefulness.
Loto sat close to his father, with George beside them.
"I must tell you briefly the conditions here," Loto said. "Then you will be able to understand—be able to help with your advice and judgement as well as actions."
He spoke briskly but carefully, and his manner regained its poise. George was gazing down through one of the side windows.
"That's Azeela's messenger," Loto commented, "going back to Anglese City."
They were flying hardly five hundred feet above the palms. A white road lay beneath them; along it a huge, shaggy dog was running, with the figure of a man on its back. The dog's neck was stretched forward, its body low to the ground as it ran with almost incredible speed, the man lashing its flanks with a leather thong. The plane passed very slowly and drew away.
"We will not land in the heart of the city," Loto added. "He'll be with Azeela before we are."
"Go on and tell us about things," George urged. "We've got the time now; maybe we won't have it later."
Loto nodded. "I will. We have here on the island three social classes. How they developed throughout the centuries you will have to imagine for yourself. Ancient, almost prehistoric Egypt was no more than a quarter as far into the past of our time-world as we are now ahead of it. Considered in that light, the changes have been rather less radical than you would anticipate.
"The lowest class—you would call them peons in our old Latin America—are now termed the Bas. They include more than nine-tenths of all the inhabitants of the island. Most of them are ignorant, uneducated; yet they include, also, many intelligent, learned individuals.
"It is the lowest class which is now plunged into almost intolerable conditions. They are the workers. Through generations of working in the sun, their skin has become a reddish brown. The higher class—the nobility—are the Arans. As the governing class, the Arans live for the most part in idleness and luxury, while the Bas are held down to almost universal poverty.
"You haven't seen the Arans yet. We will be in their chief city shortly. You will find them white-skinned, their women especially, for they shield themselves carefully from the sun. They are cultured, yet without great learning. Can you appreciate that condition? They're the ones who really show the decadence of this time-world."
"Is there a third class?" Rogers prompted.
"Yes. The Scientists—to me the most interesting of all. You will appreciate that in long past ages, science was supreme. In war it was everything. The Anglese came to this island and grew apathetic, but the Scientists, in some measure, clung to their learning. Gradually, their attitude must have changed to secrecy. They became a sect, holding knowledge for its own sake, keeping it among themselves.
"The real power lay with them, and they knew it. But curiously enough, their science seemed all-sufficient. As a body, they never desired governing power; no individual rose among them with a yearning for conquest—except Toroh.
"Foreign wars came. The Scientists offered their help, and when the wars were over, retired with their knowledge to themselves. The sect, as you will find it today, is on the downgrade. It has dwindled to a thousand or two individuals who are scattered throughout the island. They call themselves the League—I should say, a word that means about that. They have their own officers; a council of a hundred in Anglese City, and a lifetime president, Fahn, Azeela's father.
"Thus, you understand, the League of Scientists really controls everything. But its members are content with the prestige their position gives them. The government itself has for centuries fostered this secrecy of all that pertains to science. In times of war, the Arans are helpless, and leave it all to the League. In times of peace they forget the possibility of war and go back to ruling the Bas in their own fashion."
Loto glanced out one of the windows. "Look down there."
The island was mountainous; a constant succession of green hills and valleys. A small lake came into view, with steam rising from it. Everywhere the scene was dotted with thatched huts and, occasionally, a more pretentious bungalow like the one in which the visitors had passed the previous night. As they flew low over the hills, they could see small brown and white patches of cultivated land scattered everywhere.
"That is the way the Bas live," Loto commented. "Sometimes they bring their produce to the cities and sell it for ridiculously small sums. If there's a food shortage, the Arans come out and take it—paying for it nominally."
"But their factories, their industries?"
"In the cities, Father. Reduced to a minimum, and for the use and welfare of the Arans and Scientists almost exclusively. Skilled labor is performed by the higher types of the Bas. They are allowed to live in the cities, but are paid so little that they must live unpretentiously. Everything is done for the welfare of the Arans and the League of Scientists."
"And the government?"
"A monarchy. A king, his council of fifty and his personal cabinet of five. A hereditary monarch, wholly inefficient, except in forcing his laws upon the Bas."
"I should think that would be somewhat difficult," Rogers commented.
"There is a large police force made up of swaggering young men of the Arans. They serve for the joy of it; they're mostly arrogant individuals who take pleasure in the enforcement of the personal power they hold. And they abuse it, of course. Their task is easy, for they have the Scientists behind them. If one of them were killed, or even attacked by a Bas, it would mean the death of that Bas and all his family.
"I said the Bas were under conditions almost intolerable. And that's exactly why these spies of Toroh's are dangerous to us just now. The whole social condition here is wretched, but, I suppose, logical enough under the circumstances of environment and racial development. Fundamentally, the difficulty has been a limited land area. The race cannot expand, hence numerically it must be restrained."
"How?" demanded Rogers. "By birth control?"
"Obligatory birth control—applicable only to the Bas. More Bas are not desired, hence births are limited. The desire just now—more than to hold the population even—is to cut it down. Hence, a Bas woman is allowed only two offspring."
"But suppose she has three?" George suggested.
"The mother and her child—illegitimate in a new sense—are banished from the island." Loto's voice rose to sudden vehemence. "Can you understand what that sometimes does? I have seen a mother with her newborn infant, two or three weeks old, pleading before the King's Council. She would not murder it at birth, as the Bas women sometimes do, and I saw her plead for its right to live on the island. And then, with her plea denied, she took it away into the frozen north. Her husband did not follow her. That is optional. This one stayed behind, keeping the other two children, and letting her take the infant alone. And she went, to save its life—her child, born without a birthright."
There was a silence. Rogers was staring down at a hilltop where, as the plane swept past, a woman with two naked children at her side stood in front of a small shack.
"And when you have seen the Arans, living their life of luxury and immorality," Loto went on, "you will wonder why the Bas have stood it so long. 'After us—the deluge,' has always been the Aran reasoning."
The plane was climbing to pass over a jagged, volcanic-looking peak. Behind, nestled in a hollow, with a curving stretch of white sand and the blue waters of the channel beyond, lay the capital city of the Arans: reckless, pleasure-loving, secure in its beauty and supremacy, yet trembling from so many causes upon the brink of disaster.
CHAPTER EIGHT
On the gently undulating floor of a valley, surrounded by three mountains and with the sea rolling up on its beach to the north, lay the Aran city. From an altitude of some three thousand feet, the travelers gazed down upon a scene of extraordinary color and beauty: low, pure, white buildings with many balconies and patios; gardens of vivid flowers; white pergolas trellised with scarlet blossoms; sunken pools of limpid water, with huge date palms curving over them. A grove of royal palms grew close to the beach, near a huge, rectangular bathing pool and a marble-white pavilion. A white palace stood on a rise of ground with a balconied tower, five hundred feet high, beside it. On the top of the tower was a beautiful flower garden. And everywhere was the romantic green foliage of the tropics, the blue-red sky, the soft, red-white clouds, and the azure waters of the channel.
"Where do we land?" George asked.
"To the west a little, Father," Loto directed. "See the cavern entrance?"
He pointed for George, explaining: "We will not land directly in the city. I want the plane permanently guarded now, so we will leave it in the Cavern of Thunderbolts."
"The what?" George demanded.
"That's what the Bas picturesquely call it. You see the cavern mouth?"
Across the city, a yawning black hole gaped in the mountainside near its base; an opening of irregularly circular shape, some two hundred feet in diameter. A gentle slope led up to it from the city.
"We can fly directly in," Loto added. "It's the entrance to the subterranean chambers where the scientists work—and where they store their apparatus under guard. It's also a museum, where relics of the past are gathered."
George relapsed into an awed silence, staring down at the city. In the streets and on the housetops, people were standing, gazing up at the plane curiously.
The mouth of the cavern grew steadily larger as the plane swooped down upon it. The yawning hole seemed to have a level floor extending horizontally back into the mountain. Far back into the darkness, little blue lights twinkled.
"You'd better take the controls, Loto," Rogers said anxiously. "I don't like the idea of flying into that."
Loto slipped quietly into the seat. The Frazia motors stopped abruptly. Silently, with only the sound of the air rushing past, the plane glided swiftly downward.
Around the cavern mouth was a small platform with a roof over it, built on an overhanging ledge of rock. The figures of three men seated there were visible. Abruptly one of the men rose, and from his upflung hand a tiny flash of blue-white light shot into the clouds overhead. Even in the daylight it was a plainly visible flash.
"Lightning!" George exclaimed and, as though to confirm him, a little miniature crack of thunder sounded an instant later.
"They know I'm coming," Loto said.
It was a queer sensation, darting into that blackness. The cave mouth seemed to open and swallow them. The plane struck the ground with a bump, lifted, bumped again and rolled forward. Points of light swept past on either side; a blue-white glare lay ahead.
The plane slackened its speed and came to a stop.
"We're here," said Loto. "Take only what you will need at once. We can come back here later today or tomorrow."
Quickly, they descended from the plane.
The hum of dynamos sounded from far away in the mountain's depths. The roof high overhead was dimly visible, and great shadows, flickering blue-white lights, were everywhere. Near at hand, where the cave broadened, was a space more brightly lighted. Further along it narrowed again, forming a dozen branching passages. An incline fifty feet wide sloped down into blackness, with a faint pencil-point of blue light shining from far down within its recesses.
"Why, the whole mountain is honeycombed!" Rogers exclaimed.
"Yes, sir. Just stand here a minute and I'll be with you. Don't move about!"
Figures were approaching, robed in black rubber garments, gloved and hooded. Loto turned to greet them, and they drew back their hoods, disclosing their heads and faces. There was a brief conversation, then Loto turned back to his companions.
"Fahn is at home in the city," he said swiftly, and his tone was concerned. "We'll go there."
The black-robed figures gazed at them curiously a moment; then went back to their work. Led by Loto, the three started off toward the mouth of the cave.
"Is your plane in here, Loto?" Rogers asked.
"No, sir. I left it at Orleen. There's a cavern there similar to this, but smaller. It's there—in the other cavern."
"You're sure it's safe?"
"Of course."
"Where are we going?" George demanded after a moment.
"To Fahn's home," Loto answered. "He'll be there with Azeela and Dianne."
"Dianne?" George's voice took on a new note of interest. "Who is she?"
"Azeela's younger sister," Loto explained briefly. He smiled. "I meant to tell you about her, George. She's a little daredevil—you'll like her."
George just smiled, and for some time they walked on in silence. The ground was wet, like muddy clay. There were no lights ahead, but the daylight from the cave's mouth lighted their way.
They emerged from the cave and came out onto a road of white sand and clay that led down the mountain slope. Palms lined it thickly. Further down, at the bottom of the quarter-mile descent, houses began; the outskirts of the city. The road soon took on the aspect of a street. It was broad, with narrow pedestrian paths on both sides. Flower gardens, often with hedges of thick, bayonet-like plants, lined the walks. The houses were for the most part almost obscured by palms and trellised vines that were laden with scarlet blossoms. Private, outdoor bathing pools occasionally showed through the garden foliage.
It was obviously a residential section. As the party advanced, passers-by grew more numerous. The Bas men were distinguishable by their clipped, bullet-like heads, covered with broad, circular-brimmed hats of straw; their sun-tanned bodies naked above the waist, bare feet, and the wide trousers. The Bas women, also red-brown of skin, were usually clothed merely with a loin cloth and a white sash bound over the breasts, their hair twisted in plaits hanging down the back.
The Bas walked always in the road itself. On the pedestrian paths, a few Arans passed by; men with long hair to the base of the neck, and dressed somewhat as Loto had garbed his father and friend. Most of them saluted Loto—a queer, flowing gesture of the left hand—and all of them stared with frank curiosity at the strangers. Occasionally an Aran woman came along—white-swathed, mysterious figures; a twinkle of tiny, black-slippered feet, a flash from alluring eyes veiled by lashes heavily darkened.
An Aran man riding a dog went slowly down a side street. A dog pulling a small, three-wheeled cart piled high with merchandise passed in the opposite direction.
George edged toward Loto. "Those dogs," he whispered. "They're friendly? Not vicious?"
"Of course not," Loto laughed. "Just like regular dogs. Except...well, I'll tell you later."
George sighed with relief. "All right. But they're not like any dogs I ever saw at home—they're nearly as big as a horse. And there's something else wrong about them—they're too intelligent. You can see that just by looking at them walk."
Presently they turned into the gateway of a hedge solid with white and scarlet blossoms.
"Fahn's home," Loto said. "We'll go right in."
They passed through a garden, colorful with its mass of vivid flowers, and heavy with the languorous scent of magnolia and orange blossoms. The house stood well back from the road. It was a low, broad building, white in color, with, a low-hanging room—not thatched, but seemingly of blue tiling.
Then they were on the veranda. The walls of the house sloped inward at the top. There was a window nearby—no glass—with a blue-white, silky curtain shrouding it. The door stood open; inside was a hall, with another door open to the sunlight of a patio banked with flowers.
A girl came to the doorway. It was Azeela. George recognized her at once: a slight little creature of blue eyes, golden hair and milk-white skin; a pale blue sash wound wide about her hips and thighs, breastplates of metal, with the broad, circular collar above them, and her hair parted forward over her shoulders in plaits that ended with little tassels. George decided she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen; Loto's description did not half do her justice.
She stood hesitantly in the doorway then, smiling, advanced to Loto and gave him both hands in a pretty gesture of welcome.
George's decision that Azeela was the prettiest girl he had ever seen was short lived, for behind Azeela now came another girl, her younger sister, Dianne. Azeela might have been eighteen or nineteen; Dianne obviously was no more than sixteen—a black-haired, dark-eyed girl, dressed like Azeela, except that her sash was a deep red.
"And this is Dianne," Loto was saying. "We call her Dee."
"So will I," George answered promptly. He met the girl's eyes—snapping, laughing eyes with the spirit of deviltry in them.
"Loto told me about you," she said demurely. Her intonation was that of a foreigner, but she spoke the ancient English with perfect ease and fluency. "Loto said he thought I would like you a lot."
"He didn't tell me about you," George responded. "Not till ten minutes ago. But, anyway, he was right. No, what I mean is—"
The rest of George's speech was lost, for they were inside the house and Fahn was advancing to meet them. The leader of the Scientists was a man of nearly seventy; a quiet, grave, dominating figure, tall and spare, but perfectly erect. His face was smooth-shaven, his iron-gray hair long to the base of the neck. He was dressed in a paneled robe of black, with a pleated white collar and cuffs.
"I am glad, indeed, to have you with us," he said cordially to Rogers. He spoke precisely, slowly and carefully, as one speaks a language newly mastered. "I feel very close to you, now that my daughter Azeela is to marry Loto. It makes me—"
Rogers stared blankly. "Loto engaged? Why, Loto, you—"
"There was so much else to tell you, Father." Loto was covered with confusion. "Besides, I wanted to have you meet Azeela first."
Azeela was trying to escape from the room, but Dee captured her and pushed her back.
George was vigorously congratulating Loto, and Rogers, rising to the occasion, kissed Azeela heartily.
It was an ominous crisis into which the visitors from a time world twenty-eight thousand years previous had fallen. They discussed it with Fahn and his daughters during the remainder of that morning, and at the light noon meal, served in a shaded corner of the patio formed by the enclosing wings of the house. Banks of vivid flowers surrounded them; the quiet, warm air was redolent with perfume. A small fountain splashed musically. The world was calm, languorous.
Fahn had little to add to what they already knew. Toroh and the Noths had not been expected to attack for a month or two at least, and the Anglese scientists were going forward with their own preparations for the war with utmost haste.
But now these emissaries Toroh had smuggled to the island injected a new and alarming factor into the situation. They had appeared only in Orleen, but the Bas there were listening to them, and all over the island the news was spreading among the Bas that Toroh was a friend, not an enemy. The Bas might be incited to open revolt.
"Morgruud is alarmed," Fahn said to Loto. He explained to the others that Mogruud was one of the most intelligent of the Bas in Anglese City, a leader of his people. Mogruud was not fooled by Toroh's emissaries, but he feared now that he could not prevent an uprising.
"And the most terrible part is the Bas are right," Fahn added. "I do not mean in regard to Toroh—he is a scoundrel, of course. But the Bas must have some relief. Their children—ten mothers and infants were ordered exiled yesterday."
"Why don't you fix it?" George asked.
The Scientist leader shrugged slightly. "I do not make the laws; I obey them. I have remonstrated with the king and the council many times." He paused, then added thoughtfully:
"The time may come when we of the League may be forced to act against the laws of our king. He is wrong, and we scientists all know it. But to take the law into our own hands—it is a very drastic thing...."
During the meal, George was far more interested in the two sisters than in the men's talk. He had opportunity now to study the girls, compare them. In feature they were much alike; in expression and demeanor, totally different. Azeela was calm, thoughtful—femininely wise and patient. Dee was impulsive, vivacious—alternately demure and devilish. Yet, in spite of the differences in temperament, there seemed a strange bond between the sisters. Their regard for each other, the love between them, was obvious. But it was more than that—a bond of mind and spirit. George puzzled over it. Often when Azeela was about to speak, Dee would impulsively speak for her, as though interpreting her sister's thoughts.
The afternoon was one of inactivity. A Toroh emissary appeared in Anglese City, but he was arrested before he had time to harangue the people.
"I had thought he was one of Toroh's brothers," Fahn remarked, "but it is not so. I think now they would not dare come back to the island."
He went on to explain that Toroh had two younger brothers, banished like himself.
"They might come—Toroh himself might come," Loto declared. "He will dare anything that seems worth the risk."
"If we take any one of them he will die," Fahn commented.
It was at this juncture, in the late afternoon when the whole world was bathed in the glorious colors of a sunset sky, that Azeela returned from a short trip across the city.
"The Aran Festival of the Flowers is tonight," she exclaimed excitedly. "It has not been postponed. The Arans say it is clever to hold it now, in spite of the news from Orleen. It will show the Bas how little they care—how secure is the Aran power!"
It seemed to presage evil events—the holding of this festival wherein all the wanton luxury of the Arans could be flaunted in the faces of those whom they ruled. And it was with foreboding in their hearts that Fahn, his daughters and their friends, prepared that evening to go and witness it. It was midnight when they started. Dee and Azeela were swathed to the eyes in soft white robes, and the men carried tiny black masks.
The city streets, even at midnight, bore a holiday aspect. The moon had risen but, in addition to its light, there were braziers strung above every street crossing and they cast a soft blue light downward.
Arans were hurrying along, alone and in groups—the women all shrouded in white; the men, in clothes of gaudy colors, wearing masks, or dangling them in their hands. Little phaetons drawn by dogs rolled by, filled with gay figures in fancy dress; women leaned from them, waving at the pedestrians and tossing out flowers as they swept past.
Loto and Azeela, with George and Dee close behind them, led the way swiftly in the direction that every one else was moving. Fahn and Rogers followed behind.
It was a fairy tale city of unreality: gaudy men and white robed women hastening forward under the blue street lights; silent white houses flushed with the reddish tinge of the moon; warm, moist air, almost without a breath, heavy with sensuous perfume.
And in the shadows of the streets, the brown skinned, half naked figure of a Bas, skulking here and there!
Azeela had, for some time, been walking in silence. She looked up at the moon and, with a touch upon Loto's arm, indicated it.
"You said the moon was blushing, my Loto—the blush of maiden modesty to look down upon such a city. But I do not see it so...to me it is stained with blood."
The sweeping gesture of her white arm flashing from under the robe indicated a garden beside them.
"Blood—staining everything!"
The street topped a rise of ground, ahead, down another short slope, lay the sea. And even there the silver path upon the water was tinged with red.
CHAPTER NINE
A cordon of police stopped Fahn and his party at the edge of a grove of palms near the beach. A moment more and they were inside. It was dim under the palms; the white sand a lace pattern of shadow and moonlight. Gay figures were moving about, all the men masked now.
The grove covered perhaps a quarter of a mile. To the right lay the gleaming white beach with the surf rolling up upon it. A tremendous pile of scarlet and white blossoms stood near by under the palm trees. Figures rushed to it, gathered up armfuls and darted away, shouting and laughing.
"We must keep together," Fahn warned. "Come this way."
Half a dozen men had whirled up, pelting Azeela and Dee with flower blossoms, and, under cover of the laughing attack, tried to separate the girls from their escorts and carry them off.
They moved slowly forward, George gripping Dee's arm tightly. They passed a huge, rectangular swimming pool, deserted as yet—glassy, moonlit water a foot or two below the surface of the ground, reflecting the dark outlines of the date palms that curved above it.
The whirling crowd constantly became thicker. There must have been several thousand people within the grove: the white shrouded figure of a woman flinging flowers against the attack of a man; a woman retreating, her ammunition exhausted, to the flower pile to replenish, and being caught in a smothering embrace before she could reach it; a group of laughing girls, their robes torn from them in the fray, pelting a defenseless man, flinging him finally into a huge pile of flower petals, burying him until some other quarry distracted their attention, or a stronger force of men separated them, sometimes carrying them off bodily.
And in nooks behind the hedges of flowers, couples stole silent embraces, alone until marauding bands of men or girls found them out and drove them from their seclusion.
The white sand was thick with trampled flowers. Music came drifting through the warm night air; music near at hand, but blurred by the shouts of the whirling throng. The rich contralto voice of a woman singing—a snatch cut off by laughter.
A large white pavilion lay ahead, brilliant with flashing colored lights—a kaleidoscope of shifting color. It seemed crowded with people, and Fahn now led his little party toward it.
They did not enter the pavilion, but stood in a group on its steps. The music came from within, music that welled and throbbed, unfamiliar in character, but with the age-old appeal to the senses—music sensuous, barbaric. And yet was it barbaric?
Rogers voiced the question in a whisper to Loto, who stood beside him. Was it not rather supermodern, with the centuries of decadence that had put into it that fire of the soul abandoned to the body?
The throng on the floor was battling with flowers, drinking wine from carved bowls of coconut shell, and dancing indiscriminately. The masked men were robed in black and women shrouded in white, but the swinging lights of vivid color stained everything, made the scene shift and blur into fantasy.
At one end of the room a huge circular table was loaded with food and drink, fruits and confections. The table was slowly revolving; half of its circumference was behind a partition—a kitchen where it was constantly being replenished with other dainties.
The visitors found it difficult to keep their place on the pavilion steps. Masked men attacked the two girls with flowers; a black robed figure in mock politeness and humility begged one or the other of them to dance. A trio of girls tore George away, and then, at his resistance, left him abruptly.
"The king," whispered Loto, with a gesture.
At one end of the pavilion, on a small raised platform, the king sat smiling down upon the scene. He was robed in paneled cloth of rich, gaudy colors—a man of middle age whose long, dark hair was shot through with gray.
The scene, with its confusion of shifting incidents, held too much for the visitors to see or to understand. Half an hour went by, with the merrymaking steadily increasing. Abruptly, the music stopped. The throng stopped in its tracks, waiting expectantly. The swinging colored lights died out; others took their place—pure blue-white, and motionless. A solemn bell tolled out over the silence; with almost one motion the masks and the robes were discarded. A woman's laugh rang out, carrying in it the very essence of abandonment. Then the music began again and the throng sprang back into motion.
The riotous color had been supplied by the lights; now with the lights a blue-white, steady glare, it was the riotous color of the costumes themselves. Was it the Baghdad of the Ancients—manikins, with turbaned headdresses, and flowing, vivid draperies with the gleaming white of limbs beneath them? Or were these slave girls, with their wares displayed for the bidders in the market? Or these others, were they desert women, dancing with a pagan lust?
Watching with the others, George's impressions were confused. Yet the thought came to him that this was modern beyond his time—decadence, not barbarism.
Again Rogers murmured something, but his words were lost. A score of figures came leaping from the pavilion, scattering the small group of onlookers on its steps.
Rogers recovered himself, turning to follow them with his gaze; white nymphs with flowing hair, and draperies of gauze that bellowed behind them as they ran for the moonlit beach and the surf.
Loto, pulling at his father's arm, brought his attention back to the pavilion. Through it, the palm grove on the other side was visible.
The bathing pool was now a turmoil of splashing figures—slim white shapes dove into it from the palm-lined banks.
But Loto was indicating the pavilion's interior. The crowd was standing motionless, gazing upward. A small dais was poised in mid-air above the floor in the center of the room. It floated there, seemingly with nothing to sustain it. Standing on tiptoe on the dais was a woman, wrapped to the eyes in scarlet draperies. She was facing the king over a distance of some twenty feet. The music, which had been stilled for a moment, murmured softly from its unseen niche.
Fahn whispered to Rogers, "Our workmen of the League equipped that dais for the king. He begged us—and I feel now that it was a mistake."
Loto added: "It is made from our newly invented war equipment. The dais is covered with a fabric—electrically charged, and repulsive to the earth. It's radio controlled, Father. A workman from the cavern is over there in the corner, behind that drape. We've kept the fabric a secret, but the king wanted to use it for the dais."
The woman was singing in a throbbing contralto, very soft at first, then gradually louder. As she sang, slowly she unwound the draperies, letting them drop from her like quivering flame to a smoldering pile at her feet. Beneath it were other draperies, flame-colored like the rest, but her arms and face were bare—full, rounded, milk-white arms—a heavy face with scarlet lips.
"Helene," Loto whispered. "The Bas call her what means 'Mme. Voluptua.' It is she who rules the king and the nation. Look at her!"
The king was standing up. The music grew louder, fiercer, with a thrilling minor cadence. The woman's arms were extended; she stood poised, smiling as she sang to the king. From her outflung arms the gauze drapery hung like quivering wings, with the white of her body gleaming beneath it. The black hair piled high on her head held two spangles of gold trembling at the end of delicate golden wires. She stood, a great scarlet moth, hovering before flight.
Staring in fascination, the king had left his seat and descended to the floor. The crowd parted to make way for him as he slowly moved toward the dais which floated down to meet him. Every eye was on him and on the woman, who now was extending her arms down in invitation.
The music and the song were at their height. The dais reached the floor; the king stepped upon it and, as the woman's hand touched his shoulder, he dropped on one knee before her, his lips at the hem of her scarlet gauze.
A leer of triumph on the woman's face; a murmur of applause from the watching throng. Then a black cloak fell from a figure close beside the dais; a man leaped upon it—the naked figure of a man in loin-cloth. A knife flashed—blue-white steel in the light from above. The song rose to a shuddering scream. The scarlet figure wilted and sank among its draperies at the feet of the kneeling king.
For an instant the colorful throng seemed frozen; then chaos and the struggling, airless confusion of panic. The murderer had flung the king and the body of the woman from the dais. The little platform was rising into the air, carrying him with it. The movement was sidewise; in a moment it would have been outside the pavilion.
Rogers, standing beside Fahn, heard the Scientist leader mutter an oath. Fahn's hand came up from his robe; a pencil-point of flame—a tiny shaft, yellow-red—shot from his weapon. The platform crashed to the floor of the pavilion; the murderer lay still, his body blackened and charred.
In the center of the room, the king had climbed to his feet, trembling. He stood, staring down at the scarlet pile of gauze before him, the crumbled white body stained red as the draperies in which it lay.
The pavilion was emptying. The music was stilled; shouts of men, terrified, hysterical cries of women filled the air. The visitors on the steps were swept back by the crowds from within. Loto, clinging to his father, struggled to hold them together.
White figures were running from the beach; slim shapes were climbing from the bathing pool. A woman hastened by, long black hair plastered wet against her sleek white body. Her face, the allure gone from it, was a white mask of horror; a scarlet mouth with lips parted to yield babbling, terrified cries. She swept past, then disappeared into the confusion of the night.
Loto was still clutching his father; all the rest of their party had disappeared. The pavilion now was empty of Arans, save for that huddled scarlet form, deserted by all its kind.
Fahn came hastening up. "That is one of Toroh's brothers." He pointed to the motionless figure of the man his jet of flame had killed. "The other brother murdered my operator. They planned to steal the fabric, to duplicate it and use it against us in the war. I had no idea they would dare come to the island."
Fahn had found his radio operator lying dead in his place behind the drape. Toroh's other brother had been there, trying to work the radio and get the dais out of the pavilion so that in the confusion they might escape with it. Fahn had caught a glimpse of the man running away as he approached. They had not known of Fahn's presence at the festival; had he not been there, the attempt probably would have succeeded.
There was space around the three men now. The fleeing Aran figures were vanishing through the palms; the confused cries were growing fainter. But George and the two girls could not be found.
"We must go back," Fahn said. "They must have tried to find us and could not. They would go home at once."
With a last search around them, the three men started off through the now almost deserted grove. The cordon of police had disappeared. A few hastening figures were scattered along the streets.
"Come on," Loto cried anxiously. "We have to hurry."
Keeping close together they hastened along. Aran figures scurried here and there; lights twinkled in the houses, then were extinguished as though the concealing darkness might offer protection.
"Curious," murmured Rogers. "The entire city is in terror."
"The guilt that has been within them for generations," Fahn answered. "Toroh planned this well. The Bas will not know it was an attempt to steal the fabric. Instead they will think that one of their own people dared to murder Mme. Voluptua. The Arans think that now. They think the Bas have risen to rebellion at last. It is not this one murder, but the meaning of it that they fear—the confidence it will give the Bas."
And as though to confirm his words, the figure of a Bas man stood motionless on the next street corner. He was partly in shadow, but he did not move as the three men came along; and as they passed, his body seemed to straighten, with the consciousness of his own power sweeping over it.
They hurried across the city. As they went, they passed other Bas—Bas who no longer skulked in the shadows.
At last they came to the shimmering, moonlit garden of Fahn's home. The house was dark. They called, but no one answered. A brief search revealed the truth; Azeela, George and Dee were not to be found. The place was undisturbed; there seemed no evidence of marauders.
"We must wait," Fahn said. But his tone was anxious. "They have not yet arrived from the grove. I cannot believe it is anything but that."
For a time they waited, but none of the missing three appeared. A hum had been growing in the city—a murmur of distant cries that now forced itself on their attention. The murmur grew, resolving itself into shouts and the scuffle of running feet. A mob of Bas rounded a nearby street corner and swept past the house. The crowd might have held a thousand persons. A giant, half-naked man with a curved sword-blade in his hand was leading the way; behind him came hordes of brown-skinned men and women. Most of the men carried curved swords; the women wielded sticks—the heavy butts of palm-fronds with the green stripped off—and a variety of agricultural implements.
"The cane-cutters!" Loto exclaimed softly. "The knives with which they cut the sugar cane. They—"
He broke off, watching the grim mob as it swept by. At every corner it was strengthened by others who joined it; Bas were springing up miraculously from the shadows everywhere.
Fahn's hand had gone to his belt; then it dropped to his side. Rogers met the Scientist's glance with a nod of understanding.
"It is what we of the League have feared for years," Fahn said anxiously. "I cannot kill my own people. I am armed and they are not, yet I cannot kill them—cannot look upon them as enemies. And I think, even in their frenzy, they realize that and play upon it."
The last stragglers had passed; the shouts of the mob were growing fainter as it dashed across the city. The Aran houses were still dark and silent, with only an occasional inmate slinking out to gaze fearfully around. Directly across the street, the white figure of a woman just returned from the grove showed for an instant in a doorway. Then it fled inward, into the darkness.
"The palace!" Loto explained abruptly. "They're going to the palace!"
The words seemed to bring to Fahn the realization that action by him was needed. For the moment his anxiety over his daughters became secondary.
"Come!" he cried. "We must protect the king."
He hurried them through the garden and along the street. Almost running, the three men headed toward where the mob could still be heard, shouting in the distance.