“Then you did not know of the passage of the raiding party?” asked Jack, surprised. “Does that mean they left Athensi over the other road of which you speak?”
“I don’t know,” confessed Jepthah, frankly. “We have been questioning ourselves as to whether the spies among our number betrayed our work on that trail to the authorities. The men who captured your friend may have gone into the Great Desert over that trail. Again, however, they may have passed down this road without our being aware of it. As you may see for yourselves some day, the valley in which Korakum lies is of great extent, and the ruined city where we dwell lies some distance from the subterranean river by which men are accustomed to come and go from Athensi. This party may have passed to the outside quite easily without being seen.”
“Have you been living long at Korakum?” asked Mr. Hampton. “Your friend, Amrath,” he explained, “told me that in retaliation for sheltering and speeding the departure of my friend, Professor Souchard, a number of years ago, the kindly exiles of Korakum were slain by the Athensian authorities.”
Jepthah threw up his hands in a gesture of anger.
“That happened before our arrival, before the arrival of any of us in this band,” he said. “Every year a new levy of youth of the priest clan is sent into the world to gain knowledge. Each man is bound by the most solemn of oaths not to betray knowledge of his country and to return on a certain day.
“I have heard the story of your friend, and of the exiles who were punished with death for permitting his escape. It was horrible. I and my friends were among those who returned home since that occurrence, and because of our criticism of the practises of our people, we were exiled to Korakum.”
“But I saw some middle-aged men in the troop of Captain Amanassar,” protested Frank, taking a voice in the discussion.
Jepthah turned toward him, as he answered:
“That is true. They were men living quietly in Athensi who rebelled at the slaughter of the exiles who aided Professor Souchard. That act of barbarism and ruthlessness completed their distaste for life under the Oligarchs, and they fled to join us younger men who were exiled as a disciplinary measure. Ah,” he said, bitterly, “we have been steeped in the traditions of our caste which reach back into ages more remote than any recorded history known to you. To break away from those caste instincts and traditions is very difficult. But we cannot stand the Oligarchs any longer.”
“Why do you not invite outside aid?” asked Jack, who had listened with intense interest.
Jepthah shrugged, and his face darkened.
“My dear sir,” he replied, “if you know the history of Africa of today, you will realize why we have not done so. Outside of our own country, the existence of which is not even suspected by the great mass of humanity, although a few savants like Professor Souchard and a few adventurers and slave traders have some knowledge of it, what portions of all this vast continent retain their freedom today? Egypt? Morocco? Algiers? Tunis? Tripoli? All ruled by interlopers. South Africa, Central Africa, the West Coast, the East Coast, all are subservient to one or other of the Powers. Only Abyssinia of the ancient states retains its independence. Liberia is a free country, too, but a republic created by Negro slaves and supported by your land.”
“But the tribes of the Great Desert,” suggested Ali, speaking for the first time.
“Yes, you Arab and Berber nomads know how to retain your freedom,” said Jepthah, tolerantly. “But if you dwelt in a rich and fertile land such as lies within this vast ring of mountain, the conquerors would not let you retain your independence. Your desert protects your oases from their grasp.
“No,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “we have no desire to bring outsiders in to our aid, we revolutionaries, knowing too well what that would mean. You see”—with a sad smile—“we have only recently returned from your own world, and our opinion of the disinterestedness of your governments is not the highest. No, we prefer to drive out the Oligarchs ourselves and then—with a stable government established, democratic and just, to invite civilization to bring us its benefits and leave its evils behind.”
Mr. Hampton nodded emphatic agreement.
“That is, indeed, the wise thing to do,” he said. “And now that we are on the scene, if we can be of any help whatsoever, you have only to command us. The cause in which you fight is, so far as I can see, one worth enlisting to support. What you have said interests me profoundly, and I would like to talk with you and your friends more at length about this mysterious land of yours. But, if I am not mistaken, here come your friends returning, and in haste, too.”
The clatter of rapid hoofbeats ascending the Great Road from the direction of the desert was dear to all.
“They’ll wonder what has become of us,” said Jepthah. “I’ll give them a call.”
Rising, he put one hand over his mouth and emitted a peculiar call, obviously an understood signal, for immediately the sound of hoofbeats ceased as the horses came abreast of the plateau. Then the screen of bushes parted and Shilluk and Shedrach pushed their way into the grassy enclosure toward the rear to which the party had retired.
A rapid conversation between Shilluk and Jepthah, carried on in Athensian, followed. Turning to Mr. Hampton, Jepthah betrayed an anxious face.
“I’ll not seek to hide your son’s danger from you,” he said. “Shilluk reports that before he could reach Captain Amanassar the latter had sighted a party of horsemen in the distance, apparently heading for the other entrance through the Great Mountain Wall. He set out in pursuit at once with a score of our number comprising the best mounted, leaving the others to follow more at leisure. This Shilluk learned from the main body, which already proceeded a short distance into the desert, but which he overtook.”
“But, Bob—” began Mr. Hampton, when Jepthah interrupted.
“I know, sir, how you must feel,” he said, sympathetically. “Yet Captain Amanassar will do his utmost to aid, just as if he knew the circumstances of your son’s captivity. You see, from the main body Shilluk gathered that Captain Amanassar believed our troop had been sighted, and that it was on that account the raiders headed for the other road. He recognized them as of the Janissaries, and will do his utmost to cut them off to prevent word of our approach reaching Athensi. Not but what the Oligarchs, whose spies riddle the country, will hear soon enough,” he concluded bitterly.
“Mr. Hampton, you’ve just got to let us go at once,” broke in Frank. “I’ll go crazy if I don’t have a hand in this. Poor old Bob.” He was unable to continue because of a lump that rose in his throat.
The elder man’s hand dropped on his shoulder.
“What do you say?” he asked Jepthah. “Won’t your friends be surprised if these young fellows come dashing along on camels?”
“If you are willing,” said Jepthah, “you shall all come. Shilluk and Shedrach already have prepared some of our comrades for sight of your party, and they will have spread the word. All will be eager to have your aid, and equally eager to aid your son if possible. We heartily detest the holding of the Sacrificial Games, which is a part of the detestable religious practices kept alive by the Oligarchs. Come, then, at once. Leave your equipment here.”
“Quick, Jack,” cried Frank.
His comrade nodded. They were first of the troop to mount, and soon were flying down the Great Road with the four Athensians, their camels moving at a pace that astonished the horsemen. Not far behind them came Mr. Hampton, Ali and the Arabs.
When they emerged from the Great Road, the Great Desert lay shimmering before them. Under the sun, standing directly overhead in a cloudless sky, the irregular floor of sand stretching illimitably in three directions like gently-rolling waves of the sea arrested in motion, seemed radiating heat waves like the top of a stove.
In the fourth direction, at their backs, stretched away on either hand the Great Mountain Wall. For the first time by daylight they had a good look at it, and involuntarily both Jack and Frank drew in their breaths at the sight.
Steep, precipitous, verdureless, the mountains rose in great masses of rock directly out of the sand, just as the Pillars of Hercules, guarding the Strait of Gibraltar, rise out of the sea at the northwestern extremity of the African continent. The sand was like a sea dashing vainly against these gigantic masses of rock.
One mountain overlapped another, so that only narrow, unscalable clefts broke the face of this tremendous bulwark. Truly, it was a Mountain Wall. Ahead this wall stretched to the horizon, and, looking over their shoulders, the boys saw no end in sight behind them. A full two thousand feet towered the serrated summits, jagged and sawtoothed, forming grotesque shapes that resembled crumbling turrets and, in some instances, crouching animals of gigantic proportions.
The previous evening, before the light failed, and while they still were hours away, they had been able to see that beyond this wall lay a tumbled mass of mountain tops rising higher and higher to a lofty summit far to the south, which Mr. Hampton had estimated at 14,000 or 15,000 feet in height. Apparently, then, the mountain country was of considerable extent, with many interior valleys and plateaus.
Somewhere behind that Mountain Wall and in the heart of that great upland country lay mysterious Athensi, while through the rich valley and plateaus were scattered the dwellings of the peasants comprising the last of a prehistoric white race whence had sprung, if Professor Souchard was correct, all mankind.
But to these reflections Jack and Frank, unable because they rode close to the foot of the Mountain Wall and could not see the peaks of the country behind it, gave only passing reflection. Almost immediately on debouching into the desert they had discerned far in the distance a number of tiny figures drawing away from them to the west. These undoubtedly were the horsemen of the rear guard of Captain Amanassar’s rebel troop.
“Come on, Jack,” yelled Frank, “I’ll race you for them.”
Jack yelled agreement, and away went the two boys, jouncing and bumping in the awkward camel saddles, their animals eating up the ground, while beside them galloped the four young Athensians. The boys had all they could do to hold on, but once or twice managed to steal a glance over their shoulders which assured them Mr. Hampton, Ali and the Arabs were close in the rear.
The Athensian revolutionaries ahead were riding at a brisk pace and the distance between decreased slowly. Yet steadily the boys overhauled them until, at the end of a half hour, they were up with the rear ranks. That term, however, is a misnomer, as the revolutionaries had broken ranks and were riding without formation.
Jepthah brought his horse alongside Frank’s camel as they drew near and, when the rearmost revolutionaries turned to glance back inquiringly, he called to them in their own tongue. They nodded, and several waved their hands to the boys in airy salute.
“Follow me. Let me take the lead,” Jepthah called in English to Frank and Jack. Then he and Amonasis, putting their horses together, passed through the loose ranks of the revolutionaries, with Jack and Frank on their swaying camels close behind. Shilluk and Shedrach, following a quick interchange of words in Athensian with Jepthah, fell back to await the approach of Mr. Hampton and the Arabs.
As the boys rode headlong among the revolutionaries, who parted to let them pass, many curious glances were thrown at them. Several times Jepthah or Amonasis called out in Athensian, evidently spreading the announcement of their identity, and frequent salutes were given. As for Jack and Frank, however, they were too busy clinging to their swaying camels to accord acknowledgment in kind.
Once through the ranks of the revolutionaries, the boys began glancing anxiously ahead to catch sight of Captain Amanassar’s troop and, perhaps, of the Janissaries with Bob. But neither group was in sight. Was it possible, they asked themselves, that already the pursuit had drawn so far ahead as to be lost to view? Or had the two parties already entered the break in the Mountain Wall of which they had heard so much?
Frank could not stand the anxiety without attempting to obtain an answer to these questions and called to Jepthah. After repeated attempts, he managed to obtain the latter’s attention. Jepthah who had drawn considerably ahead, pulled up his horse until Frank came alongside. The latter shouted his queries, and received a shake of the head in reply.
“Not out of sight down the desert,” cried Jepthah. “But into the old trail. Follow swiftly. We may be needed.”
Before he could spur his horse ahead, Frank called another question:
“Do you mean the Janissaries reached the pass ahead of your men?”
His voice was filled with horror.
“I’m afraid so,” replied Jepthah, with a look of sympathy. “Come on. All is not lost yet.”
Leaning forward until he lay on the neck of his splendid horse, he whispered into its ear. The animal already running swiftly seemed to leap ahead, gaining on Amonasis flying along in the lead.
Jack had drawn close during this brief conversation carried on in shouts, and had gathered the import of Jepthah’s remarks.
“Come on, Frank, come on,” he shouted. “Never say die.”
Faster and faster under shouts and blows ran the camels, and for a time the boys had all they could do to retain their precarious seats. For a time Jepthah set their course well out into the desert, in order to avoid the jumbled mass of rocks and boulders lying at the foot of the Mountain Wall. But presently he headed again toward the great bulwark and the boys, following him, saw ahead a break appear in the wall.
Narrower than the pass through which ran the Great Road, it seemed as their eyes pierced deeper with each forward lurch of the camels that it was choked with fallen boulders over which it would be difficult to make their way. But even as this thought entered their minds, and while yet they were a matter of a hundred yards distant, with Jepthah and Amonasis somewhat nearer, around the nearest bend of this pass came a fleeing mass of horsemen.
Down toward the desert leaped the horses, surefooted as goats, over the mass of boulders and debris. Involuntarily, Frank and Jack pulled up their camels, whose great padded hoofs slid in the sand as they braced their legs to come to a halt. Then they saw Jepthah turn in his saddle and wave wildly for them to approach, after which he and Amonasis flung themselves forward, unlimbering their rifles as they ran.
At the same time, from beyond the bend in the pass, came the rattle of rifles, and this time three horses with empty saddles and a fourth dragging the body of a fallen man whose foot was caught in the saddle and who bumped sickeningly over the rocks, came down the rock-choked pass.
In one illuminating flash the meaning of the situation appeared to Jack. Shouting across the gap separating him from Frank, racing beside him, he called:
“Rebels followed ’em into the pass and were ambushed, I’ll bet.”
Frank made no answer. His face was white. Undoubtedly, he thought, Jack had read the situation aright. Then what of Bob? Had he been killed in the fighting? Or had his captors escaped with him into the interior?
Another man and another tumbled down the pass, his horse taking the rocks at a sickening pace, until ten were gathered at the foot, where Jepthah and Amonasis could be seen rallying them. Just as Frank and Jack gained the group, one more revolutionary turned the bend, from beyond which the sound of firing had drawn closer, and came down the pass. The boys gasped in mingled admiration of his daring horsemanship and fear for him.
He sat loosely in his saddle, the reins lying on his horse’s neck, leaving the sagacious animal to pick his own way over the rock-strewn course. Half-turned about, he held rifle to shoulder. Not thirty feet behind him another horseman suddenly appeared rounding the sharp turn in the pass, and the rifle of the revolutionary cracked and almost simultaneously the other pitched from his saddle.
A cheer went up from those in the plain, and with a wave of the hand in acknowledgment, the lone revolutionary continued the descent.
“Who is he?” asked Jack of Jepthah, beside whom he had pulled up his camel.
“Captain Amanassar on his wonder horse, Sheelah,” replied the other in a tone of pride. “Here they come. Give them a volley,” he added, and raising his voice shouted a similar command in Athensian.
Only five of the Athensians carried rifles, and none was a modern arm. They were long barrelled Arab weapons. However, with these they shot over the head of Captain Amanassar, while their comrades loosed a flight of arrows, and Jack, Frank, Jepthah and Amonasis also joined in. The repeaters of the boys worked deadly execution, and the head of a tumultuous mass of Athensian Janissaries which, pushed forward apparently by the weight of numbers in the rear, swept around the bend in the pass on the heels of the fallen leader whom Captain Amanassar had shot down, melted away. Men and horses fell in a writhing heap on the narrow, rock-strewn causeway, and effectually blocked the advance of those behind.
Bewildering events succeeded almost too rapid, in fact, for Jack and Frank to follow. Captain Amanassar took charge of the situation, shouting his orders in Athensian which the boys could not understand. They saw him cast a surprised, frowning glance at them, and turn to Jepthah who pushed to his side and spoke rapidly. Then his eyes, which had not been taken from them, lighted up with a rare smile, and across the intervening horsemen, Jack and Frank saw him lift his hand to his forehead in a semi-formal salute.
After that, for a time, in the press of more urgent matters, he paid them no attention. Mr. Hampton with his Arabs arrived, and sharp on their heels the vanguard of the main body of revolutionaries, with the others continually spurring forward. Rapidly the dimensions of the force at the foot of the pass grew.
Mr. Hampton withdrew to one side with the boys and his Arabs, and Jack and Frank in broken sentences recounted what had occurred before his arrival. All watched the disposition Captain Amanassar was making of his forces, seeing groups of horsemen detach themselves from the main body and go whirling away to the westward along the Great Mountain Wall, while those remaining dismounted and handed over their horses to a small guard.
“I must see about this,” said Mr. Hampton. “It looks as if they planned to attempt to retake the pass, probably attacking afoot directly while others go to hunt paths up over the rocks which will permit them to take the enemy in the rear. Perhaps we can be of help. Let everybody await me here.”
So saying he went forward toward Captain Amanassar who, like the others, had dismounted, and by whose side stood Jepthah. The boys saw Mr. Hampton join the two Athensian revolutionaries in conversation and, after a vigorous interchange of words, turn and make his way back to them.
“It is as I suspected,” he reported. “So I have offered to take over the duty of looking after their horses, which will permit all their forces to engage. Also, we are going to lend our repeaters to the revolutionaries, as Jepthah says there are a number of men in the ranks familiar with their use. Here they come now to receive them,” he added, as Jepthah advanced with two others to receive the rifles of Mr. Hampton and the boys. “So hand them over, along with your ammunition.”
“But Mr. Hampton,” protested Frank, “I want to have a hand. Think of old Bob.” His voice broke.
“I know,” said the older man, kindly. “But the pass must be forced if the revolutionaries are to gain the interior. The raiders, they tell me, were met here by a force of two score Athensian Janissaries, who beat off Captain Amanassar’s first attack. If we are to be of any help to Bob, we must let these men clear the way. And in doing that, you might lose your life uselessly, if you were to take active part in the attack. Come, now, hand over your rifle.”
Reluctantly, Frank and Jack consented, after which with the Arabs they went to relieve the horse guard. Mr. Hampton, however, joined Captain Amanassar, who stayed in the plain directing operations.
Much of the fight for possession of the gateway to the pass was out of sight of the boys. For a time, they could see the figures of the dismounted revolutionaries creeping over the rocky road, hugging the walls, until they reached the barrier of fallen Janissaries and horses.
Across this barrier there flashed a continuous fire of weapons for some time, with no advantage to either side, so far as was apparent to those left in the plain.
Then a new element entered the situation with a distant sound of rifle fire, as the party of revolutionaries who had been sent to the west came into action at the rear of the Janissaries. These revolutionaries, the boys later learned, had clambered like goats up the face of the cliff and gained a position on the rocky western wall of the pass, from which they were enabled to assail the Janissaries in the rear.
A sudden burst of cheering in the distance was followed by the swarming of the revolutionaries in the pass across the wall of dead and wounded. Man after man disappeared without opposition, passing across the fallen and vanishing into the pass beyond the bend. Then for some time the sound of firing continued, growing ever more distant, until it no longer came back to those below.
Once more stillness descended in the hot desert and the narrow pass, now lying in shadow as the sun wheeled to the west and the steep western wall of rock cut off its rays. Only the horses, the Arabs on camel back circling slowly about them, Captain Amanassar, Jepthah and Mr. Hampton, three tiny figures afoot at the base of the pass, and the dead, remained.
Eaten up with anxiety as to the fate of Bob, a prisoner in the midst of the fighting so far as they knew, the boys no longer could contain their impatience. They saw a revolutionary return down the pass, making his way over the barrier of men and horses at the bend, picking a careful passage over the rocks below, and moving to report to Captain Amanassar.
“Come on, Jack, let’s hear what he has to say,” begged Frank. “I know your Dad told us to stay here, but the Arabs can look after the horses and I’ll go crazy if I don’t do something.”
Jack felt pretty nearly as cut up over the failure to rescue Bob, as did his comrade, and nodded in sympathy.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll go up and ask Dad what the messenger reports. Hardly likely, though, that he has any word of Bob.”
When they reached Mr. Hampton’s side, the messenger already had made his report. Jepthah, interpreting the reason for their approach, turned to them with a grave face.
“There is no sign of your comrade,” he said. “I asked the messenger particularly. He is not among either the prisoners or the fallen. Some of the Janissaries escaped, and evidently they have borne him with them. They will make their way to Athensi. We cannot stop them. They have broken down a bridge which we recently rebuilt across a deep chasm and for a time our advance is held up. Athensi lies many miles away, however, and we shall be able to gain the interior before fresh forces can be thrown against us. The Sacrificial Games still are more than a month away, and in the meantime something can be done toward effecting a rescue.”
With this, Jepthah returned to Captain Amanassar’s side, while Mr. Hampton joined the boys.
He reported that Captain Amanassar was going forward to join the revolutionaries, a portion of whom would be sent back to clear the pass so that the horses could be taken into the mountains. Aware now that betrayal of their plans by spies of the Oligarchy in their ranks had been more general than supposed, Captain Amanassar found it necessary to re-arrange his campaign.
Originally, he had intended entirely to abandon Korakum. Its peculiar position, in an outer valley, leading only by the Great Road to the desert and by the subterranean river to Athensi, made it a poor basis of operations from which to conduct a revolution among the countrymen of the many interior valleys and plateaus against the central authority of the Oligarchy. All this he and Jepthah had explained to Mr. Hampton. By placing a guard over the pass just captured, the revolutionaries would be able to prevent any forces sent out from Athensi via the river and Korakum from attacking them in the rear.
A chance suggestion made by Mr. Hampton had taken root. If the spies, as now was apparent, had betrayed the revolutionists’ plans, then the Oligarchs would not be looking for attack from Korakum along the subterranean river. Therefore, Mr. Hampton had suggested the possibility of making such an attack at a later date in conjunction with an attack in force from the field.
“They expect,” he told the boys, “to be able to raise a considerable army of ten thousand or more countrymen, for the country groans under the misrule of the Oligarchs and is ripe for revolution. It awaits only the coming of a leader supported by determined captains, and in Captain Amanassar and his hundred men I feel certain such leaders have been found.”
Accordingly, it had been decided not to abandon Korakum entirely, but to place a guard over the subterranean river for the purpose of capturing any Janissaries who might negotiate its passage from the interior, and of retaining control of that underground water thoroughfare to Athensi.
Mr. Hampton, the boys and the Arabs were to form a portion of this guard, as Jack’s father had assured Captain Amanassar he would co-operate with the revolutionaries, at least as long as there was a possibility of effecting Bob’s rescue.
“It is pretty certain,” he explained, “that Bob was captured to participate in the Sacrificial Games. Such being the case, his life will be jealously guarded until the time of the Games arrives. That gives us a full month more. Certainly, some way of saving him will develop in that time. Perhaps, the revolutionists will be successful and then, of course, the men destined to participate in the Games will be set free.”
Jack and Frank could do nothing except acquiesce gloomingly.
“But think of Bob’s feelings all that time, as he sees the end draw nearer with no word of hope from us,” said Frank.
“Maybe,” added Jack “when he is in prison he will be able to rig up his radio set and we can send him a message of comfort, something to tell him we are working to rescue him.”
“Maybe,” said Frank, sadly. “But we wouldn’t know whether he got our message or not. Well, come on. If it’s back to Korakum, we’ll finish putting the radio apparatus in shape.”
Side by side, silent, each immersed in sad thoughts, Jack and Frank led the way on the return, followed by their companions.
Now began a period of waiting, during which the boys saw little of Jepthah. A guard of ten revolutionists was sent back to Korakum to supplement their own force under command of a cheery young man named Horeb who, like Jepthah, had served in the British Sudanese army, and had a good command of English. Thus the two parties had a common medium of expression. From Horeb, who each day sent a messenger to the main body, they received fragmentary accounts of the progress of events in the field.
Things were going well with the revolutionists, they learned. The Janissaries, numbering 5,000, so far had failed to take the field against them, for what reason was not known. In the meantime, Captain Amanassar was rallying the sturdy peasants of the valleys and plateaus and the herders of the mountains to his standard. He had advanced twenty miles into the mountains in three days and already a force of fifteen hundred men had assembled. He lay at the village of Sharpath, on a high plateau, well guarded against surprise, and intended to maintain this position for a week or more while the countrymen continued to come in.
Sharpath, the boys were told, stood in the center of a broad plateau comprising one of the richest agricultural districts of the mountain country and the road approaching it from Athensi, along which the Janissaries would have to move to attack, passed through a deep gorge which already was in possession of the revolutionists.
“All right for them,” muttered Frank. “But the longer they stay there, the nearer draws the day of the Sacrificial Games. I’m worried about Bob, Jack, and I want to do something. Can’t you put your mind on it. I’ve been thinking of ways and means until I feel as if I were growing insane.”
Frank was seated at the table on which the radio sending apparatus had been set up in the little grove off the Great Road where originally they had taken shelter. When surprised by the revolutionists he and Jack had left their work of putting the radio into shape uncompleted. Since their return they had been wandering over the ruins of Korakum for two days without again thinking of the radio, lost in admiration of this ancient city—the oldest, undoubtedly, in the world.
Only a few of the buildings had survived the ravages of thousands of years, here a temple, there a palace. They jutted up among the vegetable gardens of the exiles, and, when the boys expressed to Horeb their surprise at not finding even a trace of other ruins, he shrugged and smiled.
“The houses of the common people were not builded of enduring materials,” he said. “It is so in Athensi today. The common people live in mud huts with wattled walls and thatched roofs, little better than those of African savages. But the temples and palaces of Athensi, ah!” He made a gesture indicative of his despair at attempting to characterize them.
“Some day soon, I hope, you shall see for yourselves,” he added. “And it was so in Korakum. These temples and palaces, as you can see, were built of granite hewn from the mountains, and are of immense solidity. Even they have fallen into ruins now, as you see, for this city was founded a full thousand years before the first of our people entered Egypt.
“We came from the great island continent of Atlantis, lying west of the Pillars of Hercules, west of the Strait of Gibraltar, and our city was the first Atlantean colony. Our people pushed south along the African coast, into the Gulf of Guinea, up the Niger river, and thence eastward. Here was their first permanent settlement, and Korakum was a flourishing capital before we dreamed of entering Egypt. History?” said he. “Wait until the world receives the translations of the stories in the Library of Athensi. It is the history of the world before the Flood submerged Atlantis, giving rise to all the legendary stories of the Flood which persist in the literature of all people. It is the history of a mightier civilization, extending farther back into the years, than your wildest dreamers ever conjured out of their imaginations.”
Through echoing stone halls of vast breadth and height, up stone stairways, under gaping roofs, for two days, the boys had wandered at will, staring at the shell of that ancient civilization of which Horeb spoke, marvelling at the tremendous labor involved in these buildings, involuntarily dropping their voices to a whisper in the presence of the ghosts of uncounted centuries.
But now, on the third day, having seen all there was to see and not being scientists who could pore forever over the meaning of faded and worn inscriptions found here and there upon a fallen block of stone, they were back in the grove, and Frank was seated at the radio and voicing his desire for action, immediate action, looking to the rescue of his chum.
This apparatus, devised by the boys working in conjunction in their home laboratories at the Temple and Hampton country homes, adjoining each other, on Long Island, was a duplex sending and receiving station. In it they had departed from the accepted methods of duplex operation, of which the best known is that of Marconi, regulated by a receiver coupled to the coils of a transmitting antenna and a balancing antenna, by means of which one signal may be cut out completely while another is retained undiminished, thus insuring reception and transmission simultaneously.
Instead, they had worked out a system whereby the voice exercised full control. When speech was not being used, the set was receptive to messages from other points. But the moment one began to speak, a sluggish contact device consisting of mercury in capillary tube was closed by the vocal vibrations and the set at once thrown into transmission. This controlling device was located in the microphone transmitter, and that it had escaped destruction in the vandalism practised on the set by Professor Souchard’s murderers was little short of a miracle.
After voicing his request that Jack put his mind to work to evolve some plan for rescuing Bob, Frank picked up the headphones and idly clasped them to his ears, and sat silent, gloomily regarding the instruments on the table, although in reality not seeing them. By some chain of thought, he was once more back on Long Island, standing on the lawn of the Temple home, and watching for Della to emerge from the doorway. It seemed to him, so powerful was the impression, that he had arrived to tell her Bob had been slain in the Sacrificial Games in Athensi, and——
“Jack,” he cried suddenly, in so startled and excited a voice that his chum, sprawled on the grass, leaped to his feet. “My—my—”
Words failed him, his face grew white as a sheet, and his eyes seemed actually to bulge out of their sockets.
“What is it?” demanded Jack, anxiously. “Are you sick? Speak. Tell me what’s the matter.”
Frank could only wave his hands feebly and shake his head.
Then he seemed to change into new life under Jack’s gaze. Color returned to his cheeks, his eyes grew bright and joyful, and, leaning forward, he drew the telephone transmitter toward him and began to speak. In Jack’s mind, stupefaction succeeded bewilderment as he listened.
“Mr. Hampton isn’t here, but this is one of his men speaking,” Jack heard Frank say.
As in a daze, Jack stood open-mouthed while Frank continued:
“What’s that? Roy Stone?”
Frank’s voice was joyful, unbelieving.
“I can’t believe it’s you, Stone. I just can’t,” Frank continued. “This is Frank Merrick speaking. But how in the world? Where did you come from? Wait a minute, wait a minute.”
He turned to Jack.
“It’s Roy Stone,” he cried. “Remember?”
Did Jack remember? A flood of memory engulfed him. All the details of that fight in the cave a good four years before came sweeping back. Mr. Hampton had been held prisoner by Mexican rebels in a stronghold in Old Sonora, across the border from New Mexico. The rebels also had stolen the airplane which was the pride of Bob and Frank, who were its joint owners. Setting out with Tom Bodine, an ex-cowboy, to rescue Jack’s father, the three boys had put up one night in a mountain cave to which Tom led them.
They found it outfitted as a radio station by the Mexican rebels. Shortly after their arrival, one of the Mexicans named Morales, a German named Von Arnheim, who was stirring up trouble on the border in the hope of embroiling the United States in war, and a young American aviator named Roy Stone, a stormy petrel, a soldier of fortune, who had cast in his lot with the rebels, arrived. More to the point, they arrived in the airplane stolen from the boys.
In the fight which followed in the dark cave, the boys and Tom Bodine had won. The three others had been made prisoners. Learning their story and realizing the Mexican rebels were being employed as pawns by Von Arnheim, to the detriment of his own country, the American Stone had swung his allegiance to the boys and had been of material aid in effecting the subsequent rescue of Mr. Hampton.
All this came back to Jack in a flash, and he wondered if he had heard Frank aright. How in the world could Frank be speaking with Roy Stone? Frank was listening in wrapt attention to whatever message was coming over the radio, and Jack could not bear the suspense. He grasped Frank by an arm.
“Are you dreaming?” he asked. “Tell me what all this is about?”
“Wait a minute, Roy, wait a minute,” Frank again said, speaking into the telephone transmitter. “Jack Hampton is here and he thinks I’m going crazy.” Then he turned to Jack with shining eyes.
“It’s Roy Stone all right enough,” he said. “He’s flying for the Spanish government, which is having one of its numerous wars with the Riff tribesmen of Morocco. At least, he’d been flying for the Spaniards but decided to quit fighting the Moors who had a better right to their own country than the Spaniards. Now he is crossing the desert to Abyssinia, where somebody told him there’s a war he could have a hand in. Anyway that’s what I gather. He was forced to descend at the Oasis Aiz-Or, and there found Amrath who told him of us. He recognized the names and wants to know if he can be of help.”
“Can be of help?” shrieked Jack. Seizing the transmitter he called into it:
“Hello, old scout. This is Jack Hampton. Come a-flying. You’ll be an angel from heaven.”
Releasing the transmitter, Jack darted away, calling to Frank:
“Keep him till I get back. I’m going to round up Dad.”
Mr. Hampton was not in sight in the grove, and Jack dashed out into the hot sunshine and up the Great Road toward Korakum. Despite the oppressive heat in the pass, he ran as if he had wings on his heels. So great was his sense of elation at finding an airplane and a friendly pilot near enough to be of aid, though just how that aid could be employed he had not yet decided, that he would have been able to run all the way to Korakum without feeling fatigue.
As matters turned out, however, that was unnecessary. Before he had gone far, Jack saw Mr. Hampton appear in sight on camel-back. He waved an arm frantically for his father to hurry, and the latter, alarmed, put his animal to a trot.
“What’s happened now?” he called, as he drew nearer.
“Hurry along to the grove, Dad,” panted Jack. “I’ll follow as fast as I can. The radio’s working and we’ve got an angel on the wireless.”
“Jack,” demanded his father, “have you gone crazy? Out here in this sun without your helmet, too.”
“Crazy, yes, Dad,” Jack laughed merrily, “crazy with joy. Now do hurry along. Frank’s got word for you, and someone for you to talk with over the radio who’ll give you your best hour for many a day. No, I’m all right, really. Just go on to the grove.”
Seeing that Jack was really serious, despite his exuberance, Mr. Hampton wonderingly continued. When Jack arrived later he found his father seated at the phone.
“He’s talking to Amrath now,” said Frank. “Hear him, speaking French.”
Drawing Jack to a sufficient distance so that their conversation would not disturb Mr. Hampton, Frank explained. Only a short time before, Roy Stone had arrived at the oasis where, as Frank had earlier told Jack, he was hospitably received by Amrath who had recovered his strength in a considerable measure. Learning he was an American, Amrath had spoken of the other Americans who recently stayed at the oasis. Then, as Stone recognized Mr. Hampton’s name, the whole story, even to the kidnapping of Bob, and the setting out of the rescue party, had been related to him.
At once he had gone to his airplane, which had been forced to descend because of a leak in the radiator, and had tuned up his radio and started calling for Mr. Hampton on the slim chance that he would be able to reach his old-time friends.
“If he hadn’t heard from us,” added Frank, “he intended to get directions from Amrath for finding Korakum and fly south in search of us.”
“Luckily, he did get us,” said Jack. “Think Frank. With an airplane we may be able to work out some plan of getting into Athensi and rescuing Bob.”
“That’s just what I am thinking of,” said Frank. “And what I was thinking of all the time.”
“Dad has finished talking to Amrath, I reckon,” Jack pointed out. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”