Mercer stared searchingly into the girl's eyes as she stood there quietly at his side. She met his gaze steadily.

"You're a wonderful little girl," he whispered to her, and then abruptly added: "Come on. Don't make any splash if you can help it. And remember, if anything goes wrong, never mind me. Fly away—if you can."

They waded slowly into the water. The current carried them rapidly along. Side by side, with slow, careful strokes, they swam, keeping close to shore. The river was shallow—hardly over their heads. The water was cold and, Mercer thought, curiously buoyant.

It seemed hardly more than a moment before the shadowy black figure of outlines of the boat loomed ahead. They could make out the figure of its single occupant, sitting with his arm on the gunwale. They swam hardly at all now, letting the current carry them forward. As silent as two drifting logs they dropped down upon the boat and in another moment were clinging to a bit of rope that chanced to be hanging over its stern.

The bow of the boat was nosed against the bank; it lay diagonally downstream, with its stern some twenty feet from shore. Its occupant was sitting amidships, facing the bow. Mercer drew himself up until his eyes were above the stern of the boat and saw him plainly. He was slouching down as though dozing. His elbow was crooked, carelessly over the gunwale.

Mercer's heart gave an exultant leap as he saw a little cylinder in the man's hand. There was a little projection on the boat at the water line, and, working along this with his hands, Mercer edged slowly toward the man. He knew he could not be heard, for the murmur of the water slipping past the sides of the boat drowned the slight noise he made.

He edged his way along, with not much more than his face out of water, until he was directly beneath the motionless form in the boat.

Mercer's heart was beating so it seemed to smother him. Slowly he pulled himself up until the fingers of his left hand gripped the gunwale hardly more than a foot or two behind the man's back. His other hand reached forward. He must have made a slight noise, for the man sat suddenly upright, listening.

Mercer's right hand shot out. His fingers closed over the little cylinder and the hand holding it. He bent it inward, twisting the man's wrist. His thumb fumbled for the little button Anina had described. There was a tiny puff of light; the man's body wavered, then fell forward inert. Mercer climbed into the boat. He looked back. Anina was pulling herself up over the stern. A long pole lay across the seats. He picked it up and started with it toward the bow. And then he tripped over something and fell headlong, dropping the pole with a clatter.

As he picked himself up there came a shout from the men in the woods. Mercer hurried forward and cast off the rope that held the boat to the bank. It had been tied more or less permanently at this end. As he fumbled at the knots he heard Anina's soft, anxious voice calling: "Hurry, Ollie, hurry!"

The shouts from the woods continued. The knots loosened finally. The boat slid back away from the bank; with the pole Mercer shoved the bow around. An instant later Anina had started the mechanism, and in a broad curve they swung silently out into the river.

Up from the woods shot a beam of the greenish-red light. It darted to and fro for an instant, almost vertically in the air, and Mercer heard the crackle of the tree-tops as they burst into flame under its heat. Then it swung downward, but before it could reach the water level the rise of ground at the bank cut it off.

Without realizing it, Mercer had been holding his breath as he watched. Now he let it out with a long sigh of relief.

"We did it, Anina—we did it," he said exultantly. "And we've got a light-ray, too."

A moment later they swept around a bend in the river, out of sight and out of hearing of their enemies.



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE STORM.

On the little stern seat of the boat Mercer and Anina sat side by side, the girl steering by a small tiller that lay between them. They were well out in the middle of the river now, speeding silently along with its swift current. They made extraordinary speed. Both banks of the river were visible in the twilight—dim, wooded hills stretching back into darkness.

The stream widened steadily as they advanced, until near, its mouth it had become a broad estuary. They followed its right shore now and soon were out in the Narrow Sea.

"We'd better go right on across," said Mercer. "It's too early for Alan to be at the end of the trail. He won't be there till to-night. We can reach the Great City before he starts."

They decided to do that, and headed straight out into the sea. They had been cold, sitting there in the wind, and wet to the skin. But the boat contained several furry jackets, which the men had left in it, and in the bottom, near the stern, a cubical metal box which lighted up like an electric radiator. By this they had dried and warmed themselves, and now, each with a fur jacket on, they felt thoroughly comfortable.

Mercer was elated at what they had accomplished. He could see now how fortunate a circumstance it was that we had set the men free. He would not have stumbled upon this other party, and the invasion of the Light Country would have begun, had we not released them.

He talked enthusiastically about what we were to do next, and Anina listened, saying very little, but following his words with eager attention. Once he thought she was more interested in the words themselves than in what he was saying, and said so.

"Your language—so very easy it is. I want to learn it soon if I can."

"Why, you know it already," he protested. "And how the deuce you ever got it so quickly beats me."

She smiled.

"When you say words—very easy then for me to remember. Not many words in spoken language."

He shook his head.

"Well, however you do it, the result's all right. I'm mighty glad, too. Why, when I get you back home on earth—" He stopped in sudden confusion.

She put her hand on his arm.

"Miela says your earth is very wonderful. Tell me about it."

She listened to his glowing words. "And opera—what is that?" she asked once when he paused.

He described the Metropolitan Opera House, and the newer, finer one in Boston. She listened to his description of the music with flushed face and shining eyes.

"How beautiful—that music! Can you sing, Ollie?"

"No," he admitted, "but I can play a little on a guitar. I wish I had one here."

"I can sing," said the girl: "Miela says I can sing very well."

He leaned toward her, brushing the blue feathers of her wing lightly with his hand.

"Sing for me," he said softly. "I'll bet you sing beautifully."

It may have been their situation, or what they had been through together, or the girl's nearness to him now with her long braids of golden hair, the graceful sweep of her blue-feathered wings that matched the blue of her eyes, her red lips parted in song—but whatever it was, Mercer thought he had never heard so sweet a voice. She sang a weird little song. It was in a minor key, with curious cadences that died away and ended nowhere—the folk song of a different race, a different planet, yet vibrant with the ever unsatisfied longing of the human soul.

She sang softly, staring straight before her, without thought of her singing, thinking only of her song. She ended with a tender phrase that might have been a sigh—a quivering little half sob that died away in her throat and left the song unfinished. Her hands were folded quiet in her lap; her eyes gazed out on the gray waste of water about the boat.

Mercer breathed again.

"That is beautiful, Anina. What is it?"

She turned to him and smiled.

"Just love song. You like it, my friend Ollie?"

"It's wonderful. But it's—it's so sad—and—and sort of weird isn't it?"

"That is love, my mother says. Love is sad."

Mercer's heart was beating fast.

"Is it always sad, Anina? I don't think so—do you?"

There was no trace of coquetry in her eyes; she sighed tremulously.

"I do not know about love. But what I feel here"—she put her hand on her breast—"I do not understand, Ollie. And when I sing—they are very sad and sweet, the thoughts of music, and they say things to the heart that the brain does not understand. Is it that way with you?"

Unnoticed by the two, a storm cloud had swept up over the horizon behind them, and the sky overhead was blotted now with its black. They had not seen it nor heeded the distant flashing of lightning. A sudden thunderclap startled them now into consciousness of the scene about them. The wind rushed on them from behind. The sea was rising rapidly; the boat scudded before it.

"A storm! Look at it, Anina, behind us!"

There was nothing in sight now but the gray sea, broken into waves that were beginning to curl, white and angry. Behind them the darkness was split with jagged forks of lightning. The thunder rolled heavily and ominously in the distance, with occasional sharp cracks near at hand.

"Look, Anina—there comes the rain! See it there behind us! I hope it won't be a bad storm. I wouldn't want to be out in this little tub."

The wind veered to the left, increasing steadily. The sea was lashed into foam; its spray swept over the boat, drenching them thoroughly.

The waves, turning now with the wind, struck the boat on its stern quarter. One curled aboard, sloshing an inch or two of water about the bottom of the boat. Mercer feared it would interfere with the mechanism, but Anina reassured him.

As the waves increased in size, Mercer swung the boat around so as to run directly before them. The stern frequently was lifted clear of the water now, the boat losing headway as a great cloud of hissing steam arose from behind.

After a time the Light Country shore came into sight. They were close upon it before they saw it through the rain and murk. They seemed to be heading diagonally toward it.

"Where are we, Anina?" Mercer asked anxiously.

The girl shook her head.

Steadily they were swept inward. The shore line, as they drew closer, was to Mercer quite unfamiliar. There were no bayous here, no inundated land. Instead, a bleak line of cliffs fronted them—a perpendicular wall against which the waves beat furiously. They could see only a short distance. The line of cliffs extended ahead of them out of sight in the gray of the sheets of rain.

They were slanting toward the cliffs, and Mercer knew if he did not do something they would be driven against them in a few moments more.

"We'll have to turn out, Anina. We can't land along here. We must keep away if we can."

With the waves striking its stern quarter again, the boat made much heavier weather. It seemed to Mercer incredible that it should stay afloat. He found himself thoroughly frightened now, but when he remembered that Anina was in no danger he felt relieved. He had made her lie down in the boat, where she would be more sheltered from the wind and rain. Now he hastily bade her get up and sit beside him.

"We might be swamped any minute, Anina. You sit there where you won't get caught if we go over."

They swept onward, Mercer keeping the boat offshore as best he could.

"Haven't you any idea where we are, Anina? How far along do these cliffs extend?"

A huge, jagged pinnacle of rock, like a great cathedral spire set in the cliff, loomed into view ahead. Anina's face brightened, when she saw it.

"The way to the Water City," she cried. "A river there is—ahead. Not so very far now."

In spite of all Mercer could do, they were blowing steadily closer to the wave-lashed cliffs.

He began to despair. "If anything happens, Anina—you fly up at once. You hear? Don't you wait. You can't help me any. I'll make out some way. You say good-by to Alan and your mother and sister for me—if—" He fell silent a moment, then said softly: "And, Anina, if that should happen, I want you to know that I think you're the sweetest, most wonderful little girl I ever met. And, Anina dear—"

The girl gripped his arm with a cry of joy.

"See, Ollie! There, ahead, the cliffs end. That is the Water City river! See it there?"

The mouth of a broad estuary, with the waves rolling up into it, came swiftly into view. They rounded the rocky headland and entered it, running now almost directly before the wind. The river narrowed after a short distance to a stream very much like the one they had left in the Twilight Country.

Mercer turned to the quiet little girl beside him.

"Well, Anina, we've certainly had some trip. I wouldn't want to go through it again."

Mercer thought the situation over. They could stay where they were in the river for an hour or two until the storm was entirely over, and then go back to the Great City. On the other hand, now that they were here, Mercer felt a great curiosity to see this other city where Tao's men had created trouble. Why should they not use these few hours of waiting to see it?

"We might get a line on how things stand up there to tell Alan when we get back," Mercer said when he explained his ideas to Anina. "It won't take long." Very probably it was the light-ray cylinder in his hand which influenced his decision, for he added: "We can't get into any trouble, you know; there's no light-ray here yet."

And so they went on.

There was a perceptible current coming down the river. The water was cold and clear, and in the brighter light now he could see down into it in many places to the bottom, six or eight feet below. The region seemed utterly uninhabited; no sign of a house or even a boat on the river met them as they advanced.

"Mightn't there be boats along here?" Mercer asked once. "How far up is this place?"

"Not far now—beyond there."

The river appeared to terminate abruptly up ahead against the side of a frowning brown cliff, but Mercer saw a moment later that it opened out around a bend to the left.

"Around that next bend?"

She nodded.

It seemed incredible to Mercer that the second largest city in Mercury lay hidden in the midst of this desolation.

"We'll meet boats," he said. "What will the people think of me? Don't let's start anything if we can help it."

"You lie there." Anina indicated the bottom of the boat at her feet. "No one see you then. I steer. They do not notice me. Nobody care who I am."

Mercer had still the very vaguest of ideas as to what they would do when they got to the Water City. As a matter of fact, he really was more curious just to see it than anything else. But there was another reason that urged him on. Both he and Anina were hungry.

They had eaten very little since leaving the Great City the night before; and now that it was again evening, they were famished. They had rummaged the boat thoroughly, but evidently the men had taken all their supplies ashore with them, for nothing was in the boat.

"We'll have to dope out some way to get something to eat," said Mercer.

They came upon the sharp bend in the river Anina had indicated. Following close against one rocky shore, they swept around the bend, and the Water City lay spread out before Mercer's astonished eyes.



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE WATER CITY.

It had stopped raining; the sky overhead was luminous with diffused sunlight; the scene that lay before Mercer was plainly visible. The river had opened abruptly into a broad, shallow, nearly circular lake, some five or six miles across. The country here showed an extraordinary change from that they had passed through. The lake appeared to occupy a depression in the surrounding hills, like the bottom of a huge, shallow bowl. From the water's edge on all sides the ground sloped upward. It was no longer a barren, rocky land, but seemingly covered with a rich heavy soil, dotted with tropical trees. That it was under a high state of cultivation was evident. Mercer saw tier upon tier of rice terraces on the hillsides.

But what astonished him most was the city itself. It covered almost the entire surface of the lake—a huge collection of little palm-thatched shacks built upon platforms raised above the water on stilts. Some of the houses were larger and built of stone, with their foundations in the water.

Off to one side were two or three little islands, an acre or less in extent, fringed with palms and coconut trees. In nearly the center of the lake stood a stone castle, two stories in height, with minarets ornamenting its corners. An open stretch of water surrounded it.

There was little of regularity about this extraordinary city, and no evidence of streets, for the houses were set down quite haphazard wherever open space afforded. In some places they were more crowded together than others, although seldom closer than twenty or thirty feet.

Around the larger ones there was a little more open water, as though the owners controlled it and forbade building there. Some of the smaller houses were connected by little wooden bridges. Anina said this was where two or more families of relatives had located together.

There were a few boats moving about—little punts hollowed out of logs and propelled by long poles—and Mercer saw many others, some of them larger like the one he and Anina were in, tied up by the houses. It was now the time of the evening meal. The workers had returned from the terraces; there were few moving about the city. Occasionally a girl would dart up from one of the houses and wing her way to another, but beyond that there were no signs of activity.

Anina took command of the boat now, slowing it down and heading for the nearest of the houses, which were hardly more than quarter of a mile away. Mercer stretched himself out in the bottom of the boat, covering himself with a large piece of fabric that lay there. He felt that he would be unnoticed, even should a girl chance to pass directly overhead. But he could see nothing of the city from where he was, and soon grew restless and anxious to do something else.

"I'm coming up, Anina," he said once. "Shucks! Nobody can do anything to us. Haven't I got this light-ray?"

But Anina was obdurate, and made him stay where he was.

They went slowly forward and were soon among the houses. On the front platform of one a man sat fishing. A little naked boy slid down into the water from another, swimming as though born to the water. Both stared at Anina curiously as she passed slowly by, but they said nothing. A girl looked out of the window of another house and waved her hand in friendly greeting, which Anina answered.

Mercer, lying with all but his face covered by the cloth, could see only the sides of the boat, the bottom of the cross-seat over his head, and Anina as she sat above him in the stern.

"Where do you suppose the Tao people hang out around here?" he suddenly asked. "If we could—"

The girl silenced him with a gesture.

He lowered his voice. "Try and find out where they are, Anina," he whispered.

Anina steered the boat directly under several of the houses, which must have been quite a usual proceeding, for it attracted no attention. A girl flew close to them once, and Anina called to her. The girl alighted on the stern of the boat for a moment; Mercer slid the cloth over his face and held himself motionless. Then he heard Anina's voice calling to him softly. He slid the cloth back; the girl had gone.

"She says Tao's men live, there—large house, of wood," said Anina, pointing off to one side.

Mercer nearly rapped his head against the seat above him in his excitement.

"You know which house? Let's go there. Maybe we can hear what they're saying. Can we get under it?"

She nodded.

"Let's try, Anina," he said eagerly. "You steer us slow right under it, just as if you were going past. If there's nobody in sight you can stop underneath, can't you? Maybe we can hear what they're saying."

"I try," the girl said simply.

"I'll lay still," encouraged Mercer. "Nobody will bother about you. Just sneak in and see what happens. If anybody sees you, keep going."

He was all excitement, and in spite of Anina's protests wriggled about continually, trying to see where they were.

The house that the girl had pointed out lay only a few hundred yards ahead. It was one of the largest of the wooden buildings—sixty or seventy feet long at least—single story, with a high sloping thatched roof.

It was raised on a platform some six feet above the water, which, in front, had a little flight of wooden steps leading down to the surface. There was a hundred feet of open water on all sides of the building. The boat, moving slowly, slipped through the water almost without a sound.

"Where are we now?" Mercer whispered impatiently. "Aren't we there yet?"

The girl put a finger to her lips. "Almost there. Quiet now."

She steered straight for the house. There was no one in sight, either about the house itself or about those in its immediate vicinity. A moment more and the boat slid beneath the building into semidarkness.

Anina shut the power off and stood up. The floor of the house was just above her head. In front of her, near the center of the building, she saw the side walls of an inner inclosure some twenty feet square. These walls came down to the surface, making a room like a basement to the dwelling. A broad doorway, with a sliding door that now stood open, gave ingress.

The boat had now almost lost headway. Anina nosed its bow into this doorway, and grasping one of the pilings near at hand, brought it to rest.

Mercer, at a signal from her, climbed cautiously to his feet, still holding the little light-ray cylinder in his hand.

"What's that in there?" he whispered.

Beyond the doorway, through which the bow of the boat projected, there was complete darkness.

"Lower room," Anina whispered back. "Store things in there. And boat landing, too."

"Let's go in and see."

Mercer started toward the bow of the boat. Six feet or more of it was inside the doorway. He made his way carefully into the bow, and found himself inside the basement of the house.

In the dimness of this interior he could just make out the outlines of things around. The doorway was located at a corner of the inclosure. In front lay a small open space of water. At one side a platform about two feet above the surface formed the floor of the room. A tiny punt lay moored to it. Farther back a small, steep flight of steps led up through a rectangular opening to the building above.

Most of the light in this lower room came down through this opening; and now, as Mercer stood quiet looking about him, he could hear plainly the voices of men in the room above.

Anina was beside him.

"They're up there," he whispered, pointing. "Let's land and see if we can get up those stairs a ways and hear what they're saying."

They stood a moment, undecided, and then from the silence and darkness about them they distinctly heard a low muffled sound.

"What's that?" whispered Mercer, startled. "Didn't you hear that, Anina? There's something over there by the bottom of the steps."

They listened, but only the murmur of the voices from above, and an occasional footstep, broke the stillness.

"I tell you I heard something," Mercer persisted. "There's something over there." He rattled a bit of rope incautiously, as if to startle a rat from its hiding place. "Let's tie up, Anina."

They made the boat fast, but in such a way that they could cast it loose quickly.

"We might want to get out of here in a hurry," Mercer whispered with a grin. "You never can tell, Anina."

He stood stock still. The sound near at hand was repeated. It was unmistakable this time—a low, stifled moan.

Mercer stepped lightly out of the boat onto the platform. A few boxes, a coil of rope, and other odds and ends stood about. He felt his way forward among them toward the bottom of the steps. He heard the moan again, and now he saw the outlines of a human figure lying against the farther wall.

Anina was close behind him.

"There's somebody over there," he whispered. "Hurt or sick, maybe."

They crept forward.

It was a woman, bound hand and foot and gagged. Mercer bent over and tore the cloth from her face. In another instant Anina was upon her knees, sobbing softly, with her mother's head in her lap.

They loosed the cords that held her, and chaffed her stiffened limbs. She soon recovered, for she was not injured. She told Anina her story then—how Baar had captured her in her home while she was waiting for Miela and me, and how two of his men had brought her here to the Water City by boat at once.

That was all she knew, except that this house was the headquarters of Tao's emissaries, who, it appeared, were now allied with Baar and his party.

Anina whispered all this to Mercer when her mother had finished.

"Let's get out of here," said Mercer.

The responsibility of two women, especially the elder Lua, who could not fly, weighed suddenly upon him, and his first thought was to get back to the Great City at once.

Anina helped her mother into the boat.

"Wait," she whispered to Mercer. "I hear what they say. You wait here."

She went to the foot of the steps and began climbing them cautiously.

"Not on your life, I won't wait here," Mercer muttered to himself, and, gripping the light-ray cylinder firmly as though he feared it might get away from him, he joined Anina on the stairway.

Slowly, cautiously they made their way upward. The steps were fairly wide, and they went up almost side by side. From near the top they could see a portion of the room above.

The corner of a table showed, around which a number of men were gathered, eating. A woman was moving about the room serving them.

Their words, from here, were plainly audible. Mercer would have gone a step or two higher, without thought of discovery, but Anina held him back. "Wait, Ollie. I hear now what they say."

They stood silent. The men were talking earnestly. Mercer could hear their words, but of course understood nothing he heard.

"What do they say, Anina?" he whispered impatiently after a moment.

"Baar is here with two or three of his men. He talks with Tao's men. They talk about men from Twilight Country. Waiting for them now. Speak of storm. Worried—because men do not come. Waiting for light-ray."

"They'll have a long wait," Mercer chuckled. "Let's get out of here, Anina."

He must have made a slight noise, or perhaps he and Anina, crouching there on the stairs, were seen by some one above. He never knew quite how it occurred, but, without warning, a man stood at the opening, looking down at them.

There was a shout, and the room above was in instant turmoil. Mercer lost his head. Anina pulled at him and said something, but he did not hear her. He only knew that they had been discovered, and that most of their enemies in the Water City were crowded together in this one room at hand. And he had the light-ray—the only one in the city.

A sudden madness possessed him. He tore away from Anina and, climbing up the steps of the stairway, leaped into the room above.

Twenty or thirty men faced him, most of them about the table. Several had started hastily to their feet; two or three chairs were overturned.

The man who had been looking down into the opening darted back as Mercer came up, and shouted again.

Mercer saw it was Baar.

THE WATER CITY.

The men around the table were now all on their feet. One of them picked up a huge metal goblet and flung it at Mercer's head. The last remaining bit of reason Mercer had left fled from him. Without thought of what he was about, he raised the metal cylinder; his thumb found the little button and pressed it hard; he waved the cylinder back and forth before him.

It was over in an instant. Mercer relaxed his pressure on the button and staggered back. He was sick and faint from what he had seen—with the realization of what he had done. Flames were rising all about him. The room was full of smoke. He held his breath, finding his way back somehow to the stairway, with the agonized screams of the men ringing in his ears. He caught a glimpse of Anina's white face as she stood there where he had left her.

"Good God. Anina! Go back! Go back! I'm coming!"

He tripped near the top of the stairs and fell in a heap onto the platform below, but he still held the cylinder clutched tightly in his hand.

Anina groped her way down to him. He gripped her by the arm. He was trembling like a leaf. The crackling of the burning house above came down to him; the cries of the men were stilled.

"Come, Anina," he half whispered. "Hurry—let's get away, anywhere. Home—out of this cursed city."

Lua was still in the boat. Her calm, steady glance brought Mercer back to his senses. They shoved the boat out from under the house, and in a moment more were heading back through the city. The building they had left was now a mass of flames, with a great cloud of smoke, rolling up from it. A woman stood on the front platform an instant, and then, screaming, flung herself into the water.

The city was in commotion. Faces appeared at windows; girls flew up and gathered in a frightened flock, circling about the burning building; boats miraculously appeared from everywhere. Lua was steering their boat on its tortuous way between the houses. She put the boat nearly to full speed, and as they swept past a house nearly collided with a punt that was crossing behind it.

Mercer's nerves were still shaken. He handed Anina the light-ray cylinder.

"Here—take it, Anina. I don't want the cursed thing. Shoot it up into the air. Somebody might try and stop us. That'll scare them. Careful you don't hit anything!"

Anina played the light about in the air for a time, but soon there were so many girls flying about she had to shut it off. A few minutes more and they had passed the last of the houses, swept around the bend in the river, and left the frightened city out of sight behind them.

They had left the river and, following close along shore, headed for the bayous that led up to the Great City. The storm had now entirely passed, leaving the daylight unusually bright and a fresh coolness in the air. The sea was still rough, although not alarmingly so, and the boat made comparatively slow progress. It was two hours or more—to Mercer it seemed a whole day—before they were nearing the bayous. Anina was sitting by his side in the center of the boat. Lua was steering.

"You hungry, Ollie?" the girl asked, smiling.

Mercer shook his head. He had forgotten they had intended to eat in the Water City.

"I very hungry. Soon we—"

She stopped abruptly, staring up into the sky ahead of them.

Mercer followed her glance. A little black blob showed against the gray; off to one side two other smaller black dots appeared.

"What's that?" cried Mercer, alarmed.

They watched a few moments in silence. Then Mercer took the cylinder, and flashed its light into the air.

"If it's anybody connected with Tao, that'll show they'd better keep away," he explained grimly.

Anina smiled. "Tao people cannot fly, Ollie."

A few moments more and they saw what it was. And within ten minutes they had landed at the mouth of one of the bayous, and Miela and I were with them.



CHAPTER XXV.

PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.

The months that followed were the busiest, I think, of my life. I began by a complete reorganization of this government of which I found myself the head. For the doddering old councilors of the late king I substituted men whom I selected from among those of the city's prominent business men who cared to serve.

The personnel of the police force I allowed to remain, for I soon saw they were inclined to act very differently under me than under my predecessor. The various other officials of this somewhat vague organization I subjected to a thorough weeding out.

The net result was chaos for a time, but, far more quickly than I had anticipated, I had things running again. I made no radical changes except in personnel. I attempted to do nothing that was outside the then existing laws, and no new laws were passed. But from the very first I made it clear that I was not one to be trifled with.

Within a few days after I was put into power I interviewed Fuero and his scientific confreres. I found them a body of grave men who represented the highest type of the nation. They made it plain to me at once that they would not concern themselves in any way with government affairs. Two years before they had recognized Tao's menace, and had been preparing for it by the manufacture of large quantities of war material which, in case of extreme necessity, they would turn over to the government. This armament, as Miela had told me, they guarded themselves, not trusting it even to their workmen.

The scientific men, I understood now, were among the richest in the nation, owing to the widespread use of their industrial appliances. It was only a portion of this wealth that they were expending in the manufacture of armament.

I demanded the release to me of this war material. I explained them my plans, and told them in detail of Tao's visit to earth. They held several conferences over a period of two or three days, but in the end I got what I asked for.

So much for affairs in the Great City. I recognized during these days the possibility of an armed invasion from the Twilight Country. I was better prepared to meet it now, should it come, and I at once took steps to be warned as far in advance as possible. To this end I had girls patrolling the Narrow Sea, not only on our shore, but over in the Twilight Country as well; and I was satisfied that if Tao made any move we would be notified at once. Simultaneously with all this, we devoted ourselves to the unification of the nation, for in very truth it seemed about to disintegrate. Here it was that the girls were of the greatest assistance.

We organized them into an army which consisted of fifty squads of ten girls each, with a leader for each squad. All of these girls were armed with the light-ray cylinders. With this "flying army" Mercer and I made a tour of the Light Country cities. We wasted no time with formalities, but rounded up Tao's men wherever we could find them, and transported them unceremoniously back to the Twilight Country shore.

In two or three of the cities—the Water City particularly—there was a show of rebellion among the people; but our light-rays cowed them instantly, and in no instance did we have to kill or injure any one. Through Miela I made speeches everywhere. It was not my wish to hold the country in sullen subjection, and to that end I appealed to their patriotism in this coming war against Tao and the Twilight People. This aspect of the matter met with ready response, and everywhere our meetings ended in enthusiastic acclaim.

We started now to raise an army of young men, which we proposed to transport across the Narrow Sea for land operations in the Twilight Country. Before a week had passed I saw, by the response that came from my various proclamations, that conscription would be unnecessary. With this tangible evidence of the coming war the patriotism of the people grew by leaps and bounds. The fact that the girls of the Great City were not only in favor of it, but were actually already in service—a thing unprecedented in the history of the nation—brought the sympathies of all the women with us strongly.

Through the governors of each city I raised a separate army of young men, officered by the older men, most of whom had taken part in past fighting. Each of these little armies, as yet without arms, was drilled and held in readiness for orders from the Great City.

I had, during all this time, selected as many able men as possible from among the Great City's population, and given them over to Fuero and his associates for training in the use of the light-ray rockets, the larger projectors, protective measures against the ray, and many other appliances which I understood only vaguely myself.

It was after our return from the tour of the different cities, and before the recruiting of the young men was fairly under way, when like a bombshell came the news from our flying patrol that a fleet of armed boats was coming down the river from the Lone City. The attack from Tao was at hand, and our preparations were still far from complete. We had our army of girls in active operation, and that was all. Tao's boats would reach the Light Country shore in a few hours. There was no time for anything but the hastiest of preparations. We decided then to call the army of girls and meet the boats in the Narrow Sea, turning them back if possible.

I have now to explain the method of defense against the light-ray. In theory I only vaguely understood it. In practice it was simple and, like most defenses, only partially effective.

Bob Trevor, has already mentioned it—the suits of black cloth he saw in the Mercutian camp in Wyoming. It was not, as he had afterward supposed, a dye for fabrics. Instead, it was the thread of a worm—like our silk worm—which in its natural state was black and was impervious to the ray. By that I mean a substance whose molecules increased their vibration rate only slightly from a brief contact with the ray.

It was only partly efficacious, for after an exposure of a minute or more the intense heat of the ray was communicated. It then became partly penetrable, and anything close behind it would be destroyed.

We had under manufacture at this time a number of protective devices by which this substance might be used. Boats had, in the past, been equipped with a sort of shield or hood in front, making them more or less impervious to a direct horizontal beam of the light.

Tao's boats which now threatened us were so protected, I was informed by the girls who reported them. Recognizing the probability of an attack by us from the air, they also had a covering of the cloth, like a canopy above them. But as may be readily understood, such protection could be made only partly effective.

I had already manufactured, at Miela's suggestion, a number of shields for our girls to carry while in flight. These consisted of the fabric in very light, almost diaphanous, form, hung upon a flexible frame of very thin strips of bamboo. It was some twelve feet broad across the top, narrowing rapidly into a long fluttering tail like a kite.

There was nothing rigid about this shield. Its two or three bamboo ribs were as flexible as a whip, with the veiling—it was hardly more than that—fluttering below them almost entirely unsupported. In weight, the whole approximated one-twelfth that of a girl, not at all a difficult amount to carry.

Within two hours after the report came—it was near midday—we were ready to start from the Great City to repel Tao's attack. Our forces consisted of some six hundred girls, each armed with a light-ray cylinder and a shield. This was the organization I have already mentioned, fifty squads of ten, each with a leader; and fifty other girls, the most daring and expert in the air, who were to act independently.

We had two platforms, protected by the fabric, and with a sort of canopy around the sides underneath, over which the girls grasping the handles could fly. Mercer and Anina rode on one platform, and Miela and I on the other. All of us were dressed in the black garments.

On each of the platforms we had mounted a projector of higher power than the hand cylinders, although of course of much less effective range than those the Mercutians had used in Wyoming.

Thus equipped we rose into the air from the castle grounds in the Great City, with a silent, awed multitude watching us—as strange an army, probably, as ever went forth to battle.



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE BATTLE.

We swept out over the Great City, flying in the battle-formation we had used many times before on our trips about the country. Mercer's platform and mine were some fifty feet apart, leading. Behind us, in a great semicircle, the girls spread out, fifty little groups of ten, each with its single leader in front. Below, a hundred feet perhaps, the fifty other girls darted back and forth, keeping pace with us. The aspect of these girls, flying thus to battle, was truly extraordinary. The pink-white flesh of their bodies; their limbs incased in the black veiling; their long black or golden hair; and the vivid red or blue feathered wings flashing behind those wide, fluttering, flimsy black shields—it was a sight the like of which I never shall see again.

There was almost no wind, for which I was thankful, as it made our maneuvers in the air considerably less difficult. When we reached the Narrow Sea our patrols reported that Tao's ships were still in the river, waiting for others from the Lone City to join them. We hastened on, for I wished to meet them as near the Twilight shore as possible.

We believed, from the reports our girls had brought us, that the enemy would have some twenty or thirty boats, most of them similar to that in which Mercer and Anina weathered the storm on the way to the Water City.

We assumed that the men in the boats would be armed with the hand light-ray cylinders. These projected a beam not over four inches broad and had an effective range of about five hundred feet. The boats probably would carry large projectors also. They might be set up in the boats ready for use, or they might not.

What range they would have we could not estimate, though we hoped we should encounter nothing more powerful than this one Miela and I had on the platform. Its beam was about twenty inches wide, its effective radius something like a thousand feet.

We did not expect to encounter the very large projectors. We had some in the Great City with a range of something like ten miles, and others of lesser range that spread the ray out fan shape. But these were extremely heavy, and we were confident it would not be practical to mount them in the boats.

We sighted the enemy in the Narrow Sea just before the Twilight shore was reached. The first intimation we had was the sight of one of the narrow beams of red-green light flashing about in the twilight. As we crept closer, at an altitude of some two thousand feet, we saw the dim outlines of the boats in the water below.

There were, I made out, some ten or fifteen in sight. They were heading out into the sea in single file. Miela and I had carefully discussed the tactics we were to employ. Mercer understood our plans, and we had three or four girls detailed to fly close to the platforms and carry our orders about to the leaders of the various little squads.

We sighted the boats when we were about a mile away, and, as I have said, at an altitude of some two thousand feet. They must have seen us soon afterward, for many light-rays now began flashing up from them.

So far as I could determine, each boat seemed armed only with one mounted projector; these I believed to be of somewhat similar power to our own. Our first move was to poise directly over the enemy, rising to an altitude of twenty-five hundred feet. The boats kept straight on their way, and we followed them, circling overhead in lengthening spirals, but keeping well out of range.

I had ordered that none of the rays be flashed at this time, and it must have been difficult for the men in the boats below to see us in the dusk, shrouded as we were in black. They sent up a rocket once; it mounted above us in a slow flaming arc, hung poised an instant, and then descended, plunging into the sea a mile or so away. We heard distinctly the hiss of its contact with the water, and saw, like a quickly dissipating mist, the cloud of steam that arose.

We were not armed with these rockets, for to discharge them from the platforms would have been impractical. But we did not fear them being used against us. Even if true aim had been possible, we could easily avoid their slow flight.

The protecting canopy below the sides of our platform made it difficult to see what was going on below us. Miela and I lay prone, with our heads projecting over its forward end. In this position we had an unobstructed, though somewhat limited, view. The girls carrying us could see nothing. They were guided by watching the other girls flying near them, and by Miela's constant directions.

For some ten or fifteen minutes we circled about over the leading boat. The Twilight shore was now almost over the horizon. The boats showed as little black patches on the gray-black of the sea, but the lights flashing up from them were plainly visible.

The boat that led the line was quite perceptibly drawing away from the others. Already it was a thousand feet or more ahead of the nearest one following. We waited through another period. This leading boat was now beyond range of the others, and, being isolated, I decided to attack it.

"Miela," I said, "tell them all to maintain this level. You and I will go down at that first boat. Have them all remain up here. Tell Mercer if anything goes wrong with us to act as he thinks best."

We waited while these commands were circulated about. Mercer's platform swept close over us, and he shouted: "We won't stay up here."

I persuaded him finally, and then we directed our girls to circle slowly downward with our platform. I ordered a slow descent, for I was in no mind to rush blindly into range of their ray.

We drooped down in a spiral, until at about fifteen hundred feet I ordered the girls to descend no farther. So far as I could make out now, this boat was protected from above by a broad overhanging canopy. Its sides evidently were open, or nearly so, for we could see now the smaller rays flashing out horizontally.

The large projector was mounted in the bow beyond the canopy. Its beam obviously could be directed into the air, for it was now swinging up toward us. But in the horizontal position its range was limited to an arc in front of the boat. I saw then that our play was to attack from a low level, since only in that way could we expect to reach a vulnerable spot in the boat's armor. And I believed that if we could keep behind it they could not reach us with their larger projector.

We swooped downward almost to the water level, and reached it a thousand feet perhaps off to one side of the boat and partly behind it. The smaller projectors flashed out at us, but we were beyond their range. The projector in the bow swung back and forth, and as we skimmed the surface of the water, heading toward the boat, it turned to face us.

What followed happened so quickly I had no time to consult with Miela. She directed our flight. I turned the current into our projector and tried to bring its beam to bear on the boat. We approached within some eight hundred feet of it, darting back and forth, sometimes rising a hundred feet or more, sometimes skimming the surface, but always keeping behind the boat as it turned in an endeavor to face us.

My light-ray beam hit the water frequently, with a great boiling and hissing, sending up clouds of steam that for a moment obscured the scene. Once or twice our opponent's beam flashed over us, but we were beyond its arc before they could bring it directly to bear.

I grew confused at the rapid turns we made. The dark outlines of the boat, with its twenty or thirty flashing red and green lights, seemed everywhere at once. I swung my projector about as best I could, but the swiftly shifting target seemed too elusive. Once, as we dropped suddenly downward, I thought we should plunge into the hissing, roaring water below. Again, the opposing ray swung directly under us, as we darted upward to avoid it.

"I can't make it, Miela," I said. "Hold steady toward them if you can."

She did not answer, but kept her face over the platform's end and issued her swift directions to the girls. Once, as we tilted sharply upward, I caught a glimpse of a black-shape sweeping past, overhead. It was Mercer's platform, flying unswervingly toward the boat, its red-green beam steady before it like a locomotive headlight. We turned to follow; my own light swung dangerously near Mercer, and I turned the current off hastily.

The wind of our forward flight whistled past my ears; Miela's directions to the girls rose shrill above it. I caught a glimpse of the darting lights of the boat ahead. Then, when we were hardly more than six hundred feet away, Mercer's light picked it up. I saw the little lurid red circle it made as it struck the boat's canopy top, and roved along it end to end. Mercer's platform darted lower, and from that angle his light swept under the canopy. A man's scream of agony came to us across the water. The lights on the boat were extinguished; only the yellow glare of the flames rising from its interior fittings remained.

Then, a moment later, the boat's stern rose into the air, and it slid hissing into the water, leaving only a little wreckage and a few struggling forms on the swirling surface.

We swung sharply upward. Again Mercer's platform—its light now extinguished—swept directly over us. His exultant voice floated down.

"We did it, Alan! We did it! Come on up!"

We rose to the upper air, where the girls were still circling about. The other boats were keeping on their course, spreading farther apart now to be out of range of each other's projectors. I had hoped they would turn back with this catastrophe to their leader, but they did not.

I consulted hastily with Miela, and then we gave the order for a general attack, allowing each of the leading girls to act as she saw fit.

Like a great flock of birds we swooped downward upon our prey, spreading out to attack all the boats at once. The girls now turned on their hand lights—a myriad tiny beams darting about in the semidarkness.

I cannot attempt to describe the scene that followed. It can be imagined, perhaps, but not told in words. As we swept within range of the lights that swung up from below to meet us, I saw a girl, flying alone, pass directly through one of the red beams. It seemed to strike her sidewise. In an instant she had passed beyond it. I saw the dim outlines of her form as she fluttered onward, wavering and aimless like a wounded bird. And then she fell, turning over and over as with one wing she strove vainly to support herself, until at last, wrapped in the sable shroud of her shield, she plunged with a great splash into the sea.

The flashing light-rays all about us now seemed mingled in inextricable confusion. The girls must have passed through them frequently, protected by their shields; and I know our platform was several times struck by them from below. The absence of sound was uncanny. Only the whistling wind of our flight, the flapping of the girl's wings, and the hissing of steam as our rays struck the water, accompanied this inferno of light.

We swept beyond the boat we had singled out, passing five or six hundred feet above it, and in the effort to avoid its ray turning so that I was unable to bring mine upon it. As we rose again, beyond it, I saw a boat off to the left in flames. A dozen girls had rushed upon it, darting in among its smaller rays to where their own would be effective. But there was only one girl above it now, struggling brokenly to maintain herself in flight. The boat sank with the roar of an explosion of some kind, but in the sudden darkness about I could still see this lone wounded girl fluttering onward.

We were not far away; I pointed her out to Miela, and instead of swinging back we kept on toward her. We contrived to pass close under her, and she fell abruptly almost into my arms. I stretched her out gently on the platform and turned back to Miela, who was kneeling behind our projector.

We were now nearly half a mile from the nearest of the boats. Several of them evidently had been sunk, and two or three others were sinking. One I could make out heading back for the Twilight shore; above it the lights of our girls following showed vivid against the dark-gray sky. Where Mercer's platform was I could not tell.

Miela gripped my shoulder.

"See, Alan—there!" She pointed off to one side. "One of the boats tries to escape."

We were now some five hundred feet above the water. Half a mile beyond us, all its lights out, one of the boats was scurrying away, on across toward the Light Country. For some reason none of our girls seemed following it.

Miela issued a sharp command; we swooped downward at lightning speed and, barely skimming the surface, flew after this escaping enemy. Whether its larger projector had been rendered inoperative, or many of its crew killed, or whether it thought merely to escape us and make a landing in the Light Country, I did not know.

Whatever the reason, no lights showed from this boat as we drew after it. I had our own light out. When we came close within range I flashed it on suddenly. We were flying steadily, and I picked up the boat without difficulty, raking it through from stern to stem under its protecting canopy. I could see the canopy drop as its supporting metal framework fused in the heat of the ray; flames rose from the interior wooden fittings; the boat's stern seemed to melt away as the thin metal was rendered molten; the water about it boiled under the heat. A cloud of steam then rose up, obscuring it completely from my sight.

I switched off the light. We continued on, rising a little. The steam dissipated. Directly below us on the bubbling, swirling water a few twisted black forms bobbed about. We were so close now I could see them plainly. I looked away hastily.

We swung back toward the Twilight shore, rising sharply. There seemed now only one boat afloat. Far above it I saw a tiny black oblong that I knew was Mercer's platform. A swarm of other dots, with the tiny pencils of red light flashing from them, showed where the cloud of girls were swooping down to the attack. Now that we were out of the action, I had opportunity to watch what was going on more closely.

This last engagement seemed to last less than a minute. The girls darted fearlessly downward among the rays that swung up from the boat. Scores of them were hit; I could see their forms illuminated for an instant by the lurid red and green light. Some passed through it safely; many fell. But those who got within range hit the boat without difficulty. Its lights went out suddenly and a moment later it sank. The girls' lights flashed off, and they rose again into the air—tiny black shapes circling about Mercer's platform.

The scene now seemed suddenly very dark, peaceful and still. A great weight lifted from my heart, though it still remained heavy with what I had seen. I turned to Miela; her face was white and drawn.

"We have won, my girl," I said.

She smiled wanly.

"We have won. But, oh, Alan, that women should have to do such deeds!"

Her eyes shone with the light of a soul in sorrow.

"Pray to your God now, my husband, that this war may be the last, for all time, in all the universe."



CHAPTER XXVII.

THE SIEGE OF THE LONE CITY.

Our losses totaled nearly a hundred and fifty girls. We brought back with us on the platforms but six wounded. I shall never forget that hour we spent searching among the wreckage—those blackened, twisted forms of what had once been men and women. I shall not describe it.

Of all the boats which Tao had dispatched on this ill-fated expedition, only one escaped to return with news of the disaster. I was glad now that one, at least, had survived, for the report it would give would, I felt sure, dissuade Tao from making any other similar attempt at invasion.

Our broken little army made its way slowly back to the Great City. We went, not in triumph, but indeed with all the aspect of defeat. The people received us in a frenzy of joy and gratitude to the girls for what they had done.

This first battle took place, as I have said, just after we four had returned from our tour of the Light Country, and before the recruiting of the young men was fairly under way. To this recruiting it proved an extraordinary stimulus. The girls, having been in successful action, stirred the young men of the nation as probably nothing else could, and all over the country they came forward faster than they could be enrolled.

It was two or three days after the battle that Miela came to me one morning with the wounded girl she and I had rescued in the air.

"We have a plan—Sela and I—my husband," she said.

The girl seemed hardly more than a sweet little child—fifteen or sixteen, perhaps. It gave me a shock now to realize that we had allowed her to go into such a combat. One of her blue-feathered wings was bound in a cloth. Its lower portion, I could tell, had been burned away.

"Never will she fly again, my husband," said Miela, "for she is one of those who has sacrificed her wings that we might all be safe from the invader."

She then went on to explain that now, while this feeling of gratitude to the girls ran so high among the people, the time seemed propitious for changing the long-hated law regarding their wings. I had not thought of that, but agreed with her wholly.

I called the people into the castle gardens that same night. Never had I seen such a gathering. We allowed fully ten thousand to come in; the rest we were forced to send away.

Miela made a speech, telling them that in recognition of the girls' services in this war, I had decided to allow them henceforth to keep their wings unmutilated after marriage. We exhibited this little girl, Sela, as one who had given her power of flight, not as a sacrifice on the altar of man's selfishness, but in the service of her country. Then Sela herself made a speech, in her earnest little child voice, pleading for her sisters.

When she ended there may have been some unmarried men in our audience who were still against the measure—doubtless there were—but they were afraid or ashamed to let their feeling be known. When the meeting broke up I had ample evidence of the people's wishes upon which to proceed.

Within a week my congress met, and the law was repealed. We informed the other cities of this action, and everywhere it was met with enthusiasm.

Enlistment and war preparations went steadily on, but despite it all there were more marriages that next month—three times over—than in any before. I had now been in power some three months, and the time was approaching when we were ready to make our invasion of the Twilight Country. We had been maintaining a rigid aerial patrol of the Narrow Sea, but no further activities of the enemy had been threatened.

The expedition, when it was ready, numbered about a thousand young men, each armed with one of the hand light-ray cylinders; fifty officers, and about fifty older men in charge of the projectors and rockets, who, for want of a better term, I might call our artillery corps. There was also the organization of girls, and a miscellaneous corps of men to handle the boats, mechanics to set up the projectors, and a commissariat.

The thousand young men represented those we had selected from the several thousand enlisted in the Great City. All the rest, and the many thousands in the other cities, we were holding in reserve.

We took with us, on this invading expedition, only small-wheeled trucks, on which to convey the larger projectors, and storage tanks and other heavy apparatus, for the Lone City river ran directly to the point where we planned to conduct our siege.

Some forty large boats were required to carry the men, ammunition and supplies. Mercer and I, with Anina and Miela, traveled as before through the air on the two platforms with the girls. We crossed the Narrow Sea without incident and entered the river.

Several hours up, the river narrowed and entered a rocky gorge, four or five hundred feet wide and a thousand feet deep, with almost perpendicular sides. Along one of these ran the Lone City trail. We passed through this gorge. The river here flowed with a current that amounted almost to rapids. Our boats made slow progress. Finally we emerged into an even wilder country, almost devoid of trees. Here we made our first night's encampment.

Noon of the next day found us approaching the Lone City. We did not need to surmise now that Tao would be warned, for far away on the horizon ahead we saw the beams from his great projectors mounting up into the blackness of the sky. Some four miles from the Lone City the river we were ascending swept off to the right. This was its closest point to the city, and here we disembarked. There were several docks and a few houses, but we found them all deserted.

The Lone City was particularly well suited to defense, even though the lay of the country was such that we were enabled to approach here within four miles, and establish our base in comparative safety. The country was wild and rocky, with few trees. The river bed lay in a canyon. From where we landed, a valley so deep and narrow, it might almost be termed a canyon, also led up to the city.

This valley was some two miles wide, with a level floor, and precipitous, rocky sides towering in many places over a thousand feet. Above it stretched a broken plateau country. The valley had many sharp bends and turns, as though in some distant past it had been the bed of a great river that had eroded its tortuous course through the rock.

The Lone City lay shut in at the bottom of this valley between two of its bends. It was a settlement of perhaps ten thousand people, the only city in the Twilight Country, with one exception, on this hemisphere of Mercury.

We established our field base here at the river, and I devoted the next few days to informing myself of the exact lay of the country, and the methods of defense of the city Tao had provided.

I found this defense the height of simplicity, and for its purpose as effective as it well could be. A vertical barrage of light surrounded the city, extending upward into the air with the most powerful projectors some ten or fifteen miles, and, with those of the spreading rays, forming a solid wall of light at the lower altitudes. There were no projectors past the first turn in the valley toward the river—where they could have been directed horizontally—and none of them on the cliff tops above the city. Thus, although we could not get over this light-barrage, we could approach it closely in many places.

Tao's tactics became immediately evident. He had thrown an almost impregnable barrier close about him and, trusting to its protection, was making no effort to combat us for the moment with any moves of offense.

My first endeavor was to find a position on top of the cliffs from which the city could be reached with a projector. It was practically the only thing to do. The city could not be approached in front from the valley floor; its entire surface beyond the turn was swept by the light-rays. Approach from below in the rear was likewise barred.

Had the barrage been not so high our girls might have flown over it and dropped bombs, or we might have sent rockets over it and dropped them into the city. Neither of these projects was practical. The girls could not fly over that barrage. It was too cold in the higher altitudes. Nor could we send rockets over, for rockets sent through the light were exploded before they could reach their mark.

The projectors along the sides of the city were located for the most part a hundred feet or more back from the base of the surrounding cliffs. This allowed them to cut the cliff face at the top. It will be understood then that we could approach the brink of the cliff in many places, but never sufficiently near to be able to direct our rays downward into the city.

These cliffs were exceedingly jagged and broken. They overhung in many places. Great rifts split them; ravines wound their way down, many of these with small, stunted trees growing in them. A descent from the summit to the floor of the valley, had we been unimpeded by the light, would in many places not have been difficult.

During the next week, we succeeded—working in the prevailing gloom—in establishing a projector at the mouth of a ravine which emerged at the cliff face hardly a hundred feet from the valley bottom. This point was below the spreading light-rays which swept the cliff top above. We mounted the projector without discovery, and, flashing it on suddenly, swept the valley with its rays. An opposing ray from below picked it out almost immediately, and destroyed it, killing two of our men.

The irregularities of the cliffs made several other similar attempts possible. We took advantage of them, and in each case were able to rake the valley with our fire for a moment before our projector was located and destroyed. One, which we were at great pains to protect, was maintained for a somewhat longer period.

I believed we had done an immense amount of damage by these momentarily active projectors, although our enemy gave no sign.

We then tried dropping rockets at the base of the lights in the valley. There were few points at which they could be reached without striking the rays first. But we persisted, sending up a hundred or more. Most were ineffective; a few found their mark, as we could tell by a sudden "hole" in the barrage, which, however, was invariably repaired before we could make it larger.

These activities lasted a week or more. It began, to look as though we had entered upon a lengthy siege. I wondered how long the city's food supply would last if we settled down to starve it out. The thought came to me then that Tao might be almost ready for his second expedition to the earth. Was he indeed merely standing us off in this way so that some day he might depart in his vehicle before our very eyes?

Tao began to adopt our tactics. Without warning one day a projector from a towering eminence near the city flashed down at the river encampment. That we were not entirely destroyed was due to the extreme watchfulness of our guards, who located it immediately with their rays. As it was, we lost nearly a hundred men in the single moment it was in operation.

We then withdrew our camp farther away down the river, to a point where the conformation of the country made a repetition of this attack impossible. A sort of guerrilla warfare now began in the mountains. Our scouting parties frequently met Tao's men, and many encounters, swiftly fatal to one side or the other, took place. But all the time we were able, at intervals, to rake the valley with our fire for brief periods.

Mercer constantly was evolving plans of the utmost daring, most of them indeed amounting practically to suicide for those undertaking them. But I held him back. Our present tactics were dangerous enough, although after the first few fatalities we succeeded in protecting our men, even though our projectors were invariably destroyed.

One of Mercer's plans we tried with some success. There were some places in the light-barrage that were much less high than others. We devised a smaller rocket that could be fired from the platforms. Mercer took it up some twenty thousand feet, and sent several rockets over the light, which we hoped dropped into the city.

A month went by in this way. We were in constant communication by water with the Great City, receiving supplies and reenforcements of men and armament. And then gradually the situation changed. Over a period of several days our hand-to-hand encounters with the enemy grew less frequent. Finally two or three days went by without one of them taking place.

We became bolder and prepared to establish several projectors at different points for simultaneous fire at a given signal. The light-barrage in the valley remained unchanged, although now its beams held steady instead of sometimes swinging to and fro. We dislodged one of its projectors with a rocket, making a hole in the barrage, which this time was not repaired. And then, to our amazement, the lights one by one began to die away. We ceased operations, waiting. Within half a day they had all vanished, like lights which had flickered and burned out.

Mercer, unthinking, was all for an instant attack. We could indeed have swept the valley now without difficulty; but there were thousands of people in the city—non-combatants, women and children—and to murder them to no purpose was not the sort of warfare we cared to make.

It seemed probable that Tao had evacuated his position. The valley beyond the city led up into the mountains toward the Dark City, almost on the borderland of the frozen wastes of the Dark Country. Tao had protected this valley from behind so that we had been unable to penetrate it without making a detour of over twenty miles. This I had not done, although had the siege lasted longer I think with our next reenforcement we should have attempted it.

With the extinguishing of the lights our long-range activities ceased. We anticipated some trick, and for several days remained quiet. Our girls could have flown over the city; but this I would not allow, fearing that a ray would bring them suddenly down.

Miela and myself, occupying one of the stone houses down by the river, held a consultation there with Mercer and Anina.

Mercer, as usual, was for instant action.

"We might as well march right in," he declared. "They're out of business, or they've gone—one or the other."

"To the Dark City they have gone, I think," Anina said.

"I think so, too," Mercer agreed.

"I'll go in alone on foot," I said, "and find out what has happened."

But Miela shook her head.

"One who can fly will go more safely. I shall go."

"Not you, my sister," Anina said quietly. "Warfare is not for you—now. That you can understand, can you not? I shall go."

Mercer insisted on accompanying her; and he did, part of the way, waiting while she flew close over the city. It was several hours before they returned, reporting that the place was almost in ruins, and that Tao and his men had fled some time before, leaving the light-barrage to burn itself out. The next day, with our men in the black cloth suits of armor marching up the valley, and the girls with their black shields flying overhead, we took possession of all that remained of the Lone City.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE END OF TAO.

The scene of desolation that met us in the Lone City was at once extraordinary and awesome. It seemed impossible that our rays, acting for so brief a period, could have done so much damage. The city was nothing more than a semicivilized settlement of little, flat-topped stone houses. Our rays, striking these, had discharged harmlessly into the ground. But the interiors had been penetrated through windows and doors, and everything inflammable about them, as well as about the streets, had been destroyed.

The people had taken refuge in cellars underground and in caves and crevices—wherever they could find shelter. But even so, there were a thousand dead in that city that morning, and rapidly spreading disease would shortly have killed them all. They came out of their hiding places little by little as we entered the streets, and stood about in groups staring at us sullenly. They seemed mostly old men and women and children, the younger men having fled with Tao's army. They were heavy-set, pathetic people, with broad, heavy faces, pasty-white skin, and large protruding eyes. We were in the Lone City nearly a month, burying the dead, doing what we could for the people, and destroying or removing the apparatus Tao had left behind him.

The Lone City, before the banishment of Tao, had been one of the most primitive settlements of the Twilight region. It was in the other hemisphere that the Twilight Country was more densely populated; but since this Lone City was so close to the Great City it had become the scene of Tao's exile.

This region about the Lone City was of the most barren of the whole Twilight country. Its people were almost entirely meat eaters. Back toward the Dark Country great bands of animals like caribou roamed. Living almost entirely in darkness, they had little power of sight, and were easy prey to hunters.

Their hides, which were covered with short, white fur, provided clothing; a form of candle was made from their fat, and used for lighting; and their flesh provided food. The Dark City, some two hundred and fifty miles away, was the center from which most of these animals were obtained.

"Then, that's where Tao has been getting his supplies from," Mercer exclaimed, as we heard all this from one of the Twilight People. "And that's where he has gone now."

Tao had indeed withdrawn to the Dark City, we learned positively. And more than that, we learned that he had factories there as well as here. We found in the Lone City some eight of the interplanetary vehicles—most of them almost entirely completed. The fact that Tao had abandoned them so readily made us believe he had others in the Dark City.

There seemed a curious lack of appliances for protection against the ray. This we attributed to two causes—that Tao had managed to take most of them with him, and that his supply of fabric came from distant cities on the other side of the globe. Within a month after we had occupied the Lone City we were again ready to start forward. It had been an irksome month for Mercer, and not a day had passed without my receiving a truculent declaration from him that we were fools to allow Tao to escape so easily.

Our occupation of the Lone City was to continue. On this second expedition farther into the Twilight Country I took with me a much smaller and more select force. We had before us a land journey of some two hundred and fifty miles, through an unknown, barren country, in which it would be difficult for us to maintain ourselves, so I was determined to be burdened with as few men as possible.

Our force consisted of all the older men trained in the operation of the larger projectors and rockets; a variety of mechanics and helpers, men selected for their physical strength; a corps of young men to the number of fifty, and fifty girls.

We did not take the platforms, for I assumed it would be too cold for the girls to make sustained flights. Against this cold we provided ourselves well with the white furry garments of the Twilight People. I need not go into details of our march to the Dark City. It occupied some three weeks. We met with no opposition, passing a few isolated settlements, whose inhabitants rather welcomed us than otherwise.

This region we passed through took us almost to the ill-defined borders of the Dark Country. It was not mountainous, but rather more a great broken plateau with a steady ascent. Each day it grew darker and colder, until at last we entered perpetual night. It was not the sort of night we know on earth, but a Stygian blackness.

We used little torches now, of the light-ray current, and our little army, trudging along in their lurid glare, and dragging its wagons piled high with the projectors, presented a curious and weird picture. The country for the most part was barren rock, with a few stunted trees growing in the ravines and crevices. There was an abundance of water.

We encountered several rainstorms, and once during the last week it snowed a little. Except for the storms, the wind held steady, a gentle breeze from the colder regions in front blowing back toward the Light Country behind us.

During the latter days of our journey I noticed a curious change in the ground. It seemed now, in many places, to be like a soft, chalky limestone, which ran in pockets and seams between strata of very hard rock. I called Miela's attention to it once, and she pointed out a number of irregular shaped, small masses of a substance which in daylight I assumed might be yellow. These were embedded in the soft limestone.

"Sulphur," she said. "Like that on your earth. There is much of it up here, I have heard."

The Dark City occupied a flat plateau, slightly elevated above the surrounding country, and on the brink of a sheer drop of some six or seven thousand feet to an arm of the polar sea.

Our problems now were very different from when we had laid siege to the Lone City. The conformation of the country allowed us no opportunity to approach closer than two or three miles to the barrage of light we must expect. We could not reach the city from these nearest points with our projectors.

There were many lateral ravines depressed below the upper surface of the main plateau, and though the light-rays from the city, directed horizontally, would sweep their tops, we found we could traverse many of them a considerable distance in safety. But from the bottoms of them we could only fire our rockets without specific aim and our projectors not at all.

Only by the most fortuitous of circumstances did we escape complete annihilation the first moment we appeared within range. We had no idea what lay ahead—although the guides we had brought with us from the Lone City informed us we were nearing our destination—and the scene remained in complete darkness until we were hardly more than five miles outside Tao's stronghold.

Then, without warning, his lights flashed on—not only a vertical barrage, but a horizontal one as well—sweeping the higher points of the entire country around for a distance of twelve or fifteen miles.

We were, at the moment, following the bottom of a narrow gully. Had we been on any of the upper reaches of the plateau we would undoubtedly have been picked out by one of the roving beams of light and destroyed.

We camped where we were, and again for several days I attempted nothing, devoting myself to a thorough exploration of the country about us. The Dark City appeared impregnable. Beams of light from Tao's larger projectors were constantly roaming about the entire plateau that surrounded it, and every higher point of vantage from which one of ours could have reached them must have been struck by their rays a score of times a day.

It will be understood, of course, that any place where we could mount one of the higher powered projectors, a task of several hours at best, and strike the city, must of necessity be also within range of their rays, for theirs were as powerful as ours. Upon observation I felt convinced that should we attempt to mount a projector anywhere on these higher points it would be sought out and destroyed long before we could bring it into action.

That this was Tao's stronghold, and not the Lone City, now became evident. I could readily understand why he had retreated here. Fully four times as many projectors as he had in operation in the Lone City were now in evidence. Those of shorter range, and spreading rays, kept the entire country bathed in steady light for several miles around him, while the larger ones—a hundred of them possibly—roved constantly over the black emptiness beyond.

From our encampment we could advance but little farther. Fortunately, retreat was open to us; and once beyond the circle of steady light, we had no difficulty in moving about in the darkness, even though momentarily we frequently were within range of the single light-beams, had they chanced to swing upon us.

This was the situation which, even Mercer agreed, appeared hopeless. We explored the brink of the precipice below which lay the sea. It was a sheer drop of many thousand feet. Although a descent might have been made closer to the Dark City, certainly it was not possible at any point we could reach. We sent our girls down, and they reported that from below it appeared probable that access to the ocean was had by the Dark City some miles farther along. They went but a short distance, for Tao's lights were occasionally sweeping about; and more than that, they could make but very short flights, owing to the cold.

To starve Tao out appeared equally as impractical as a direct attack. With our little army we could not surround the city on a circumference of some eighty miles. We might, indeed, have barred the several roads that entered it, but it seemed probable that if Tao wanted to come out he would come, for all we could do to stop him. And yet to starve him out seemed our only possible plan.

"We'll have to send back for reenforcements," I told Mercer, Miela and Anina at one of our many conferences. "An army of several thousand, if we can maintain it up here."

And then, the very next day, Mercer and Anina came forward with their discovery. We had set up our encampment of little black fabric tents in a ravine some six miles outside the city, securely hidden by surrounding cliffs. Above us across the black sky the greenish-red beams of Tao's light-rays swept continually to and fro. Miela and I were sitting together disconsolately in our tent, reviewing the situation, when Mercer and Anina burst in. They had been roaming about together, exploring the country, and came in now full of excitement and enthusiasm to tell us what they had found. We two were to accompany them. They would tell us no more than that; and as soon as we had all eaten we started off. It would be a trip of several hours, Mercer said, and would take us around to the other side and partly behind the Dark City.

We followed no road, but scrambled along over the open country, picking our way as best we could, and using the lights from the city to give us direction. The two girls half walked, half flew, and Mercer and I, with our ability to take huge leaps, made rapid progress.

The night was black—that unluminous blackness that seems to swallow everything, even objects near at hand. We made our way along, using little hand searchlights that threw a red glare a short distance before us.

We kept down in the gulleys as much as possible, avoiding the higher places where Tao's long-range beams were constantly striking, and passed around in front of the Dark City, keeping always at least five miles away.

We had been traveling two or three hours, and still Mercer and Anina gave us no clew to what we were about to see. It began to snow. Huge, soft flakes soon lay thick on the ground.

"Mercer, where are you taking us?" I exclaimed once.

"You shall see very soon now," Anina answered me. "What we have found, Ollie and I—and our plan—you shall understand it soon."

We had to be content with that. An hour later we found ourselves well around behind the Dark City and hardly more than four miles outside it. A great jagged cliff-face, two hundred feet high perhaps, fronted us. We, at its base, were on comparatively low ground here, with another low line of cliffs shading us from the light-beams of the city.

Mercer and Anina stopped and pointed upward at the cliff. A huge seam of the soft, chalky limestone ran laterally for five hundred feet or more across its face. I saw embedded in this seam great irregular masses of sulphur.

"There you are," said Mercer triumphantly. "Sulphur—stacks of it. All we have to do is set fire to it. With the wind blowing this way—right toward the city—" His gesture was significant.

The feasibility of the plan struck us at once. It was an enormous deposit of free sulphur. From this point the prevailing wind blew directly across the city. The sulphur lay in great masses sufficiently close together so that if we were to set fire to it in several places with our small light-ray torches we could be assured of its burning steadily. And its fumes, without warning, blowing directly over the city—I shuddered as the whole thing became clear to me.

"Good God, man—"

"That'll smoke 'em out," declared Mercer, waving his hand again toward the cliff. "I ask you now, won't that smoke 'em out?"

"Tao's men—yes." Miela's face was grave as she answered Mercer's triumphant question. "It will do that, Ollie. Kill them all, of a certainty; but that whole city there—"

Mercer stared at his feet, toying idly with the little torch in his hand.

"Can you think of any other way to get at Tao?" he asked.

Anina met my eyes steadily.

"There is no other way," she said quietly. "It must be done. It is your world—your people—we must think of now. And you know there is no other way."

We decided at last to try it. Once we had made the decision, we proceeded as quickly as possible to put the plan into execution. We moved our encampment farther away, well out of danger from the fumes.

We mounted several of the projectors in positions where their rays could reach the surrounding country, and the sky, although not the city itself. Then, ordering our men and girls to hold themselves in readiness for whatever might occur, we four went off together to fire the sulphur.

The wind was blowing directly toward the city as we stood at the base of the cliff, a silent little group. I think that now, at this moment, we all of us hesitated in awe at what we were about to do.

Mercer broke the tension.

"Come on, Alan—let's start it off. Now is the time—a lot of places at once."

We flashed on our little light-rays, and in a moment the sulphur was on fire at a score of different points. We drew off a few hundred feet to one side and sat down to watch it in the darkness. Overhead Tao's red beams swept like giant search-lights across the inky sky.

The sulphur started burning with tiny little spots of wavering blue flame that seemed, many of them, about to die away. Gradually they grew larger, spreading out slowly and silently in ever-widening circles. Under the heat of the flames the sulphur masses became molten, turned into a viscous dark red fluid that boiled and bubbled heavily and dropped spluttering upon the ground.

Slowly the blue-green flames spread about, joining each other and making more rapid headway—a dozen tiny volcanoes vomiting their deadly fumes and pouring forth their sluggish, boiling lava. The scene about us now was lighted in a horrible blue-green glare. A great cloud of thin smoke gathered, hung poised a moment, and then rolled slowly away—its deadly fumes hanging low to the ground and spreading ever wider as though eager to clutch the unsuspecting city in their deadly embrace.

The entire face of the cliff was now covered with the crawling blue fire, lapping avidly about with its ten-foot tongues. We drew back, staring silently at each other's ghastly green faces.

"Let's—let's get away," Mercer whispered finally. "No use staying here now."

We hurried back to the nearest place where one of our projectors was set up. The two men guarding it looked at us anxiously, and smiled triumphantly when Miela told them what we had done. We stood beside them a moment, then Miela and I climbed to an eminence near by from which we had an unobstructed view of the city.

The light-barrage still held steady. The individual, higher-powered projectors as before swung their beams lazily about the country. We sat partly in the shelter of a huge bowlder, behind which we could have dropped quickly had one of them turned our way.

"Soon it will be there," Miela said softly, when we had been sitting quiet for a time.

I did not answer. It was indeed too solemn a thing for words, this watching from the darkness while an invisible death, let loose by our own hands, stole down upon our complacent enemies.

A few moments more we watched—and still the scene before us showed no change. Then, abruptly, the lights seemed to waver; some of the beams swung hurriedly to and fro, then remained motionless in unusual positions, as though the men at their levers in sudden panic had abandoned them.

My heart was beating violently. What hidden tragedy was being enacted behind that silent barrier of light? I shuddered as my imagination conjured up hideous pictures of that unseen death that now must be stalking about those city streets, entering those homes, polluting the air with its stifling, noisome breath, and that even at this distance seemed clutching at my own lungs.

I suppose the whole thing did last only a moment. There was little in what we saw of significance had we not known. But we did know—and the knowledge left us trembling and unnerved.

I leaped to my feet, pulling Miela after me, and in a few moments more we were back beside the projector we had left with Mercer and Anina. Suddenly a white shape appeared in the sky over the city. It passed perilously close above the shattered light-barrage and came sailing out in our direction.

Mercer jumped for the projector, but I was nearer, and in a moment I had flashed it on.

"It's Tao!" Mercer shouted. "He—"

It was one of Tao's interplanetary vehicles, rising slowly in a great arc above us. I swung our light-beams upward; it swept across the sky and fell upon the white shape; the thing seemed to poise in its flight, as though held by the little red circle of light that fastened upon it, boring its way in. Then, slowly at first, it fell; faster and faster it dropped, until it struck the ground with a great crash—the first and only sound of all this soundless warfare.

* * * * *

It was three days before the great sulphur deposit we had ignited burned itself out. The lights of the city had all died away, and blackness such as I never hope to experience again settled down upon the scene.

We approached the Dark City then; we even entered one or two of its outlying houses;, but beyond that we did not go, for we had made certain of what we wanted to know.

I remember my father once describing how, when a young man, he had gone to the little island of Martinique shortly after the great volcanic outbreak of Mount Pelee. I remember his reluctance to dwell upon the scenes he saw there in that silent city of St. Pierre—the houses with their dead occupants, stricken as they were sitting about the family table; the motionless forms in the streets, lying huddled where death had overtaken them in their sudden panic. That same reluctance silences me now, for one does not voluntarily dwell upon such scenes as those.

A day or so later we found the interplanetary projectile which had sought to escape. Amid its wreckage lay the single, broken form of Tao—that leader who, plotting the devastation of two worlds for his own personal gain, had at the very last deserted his comrades and met his death alone.



CHAPTER XXIX.

THE RETURN.

There is but little more to add. With the death of Tao and the changing of the law concerning the virgins' wings, my mission on Mercury was over. But I did not think of that then, for with the war ended, my position as virtual ruler of the Light Country still held Mercer and me occupied with a multiplicity of details. It was a month or more after our return from the Twilight Country that Miela reminded me of father and my duty to him. "You have forgotten, my husband. But I have not. Your world—it calls you now. You must go back."

Go back home—to father and dear little Beth! I had not realized how much I had wanted it.

"What you have done for our nation—for our girls—can never be repaid, Alan. And you can do more in later years, perhaps. But now your father needs you—and we must think of him."

I cast aside every consideration of what changes would first have to be made here on Mercury, and decided in that moment to go.

"But you must go with me, Miela," I said, and then, as I thought of something else, I added gently: "You will, won't you, little wife? For you know I cannot leave you now."

She smiled her tender little smile.

"'Whither thou goest, I will go,' my husband," she quoted softly, "'for thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.'"

We were ready to start at the time of the next inferior conjunction of Mercury with the earth. At our combined pleading, and with the permission of his associates, Fuero was persuaded to take command of the nation during my absence; and I felt I was leaving affairs in able hands.

Lua refused to accompany us; but she urged Anina to go, and the little girl was ready enough to take advantage of her mother's permission.

Though he said nothing, I shall never forget Mercer's face as this decision was made.

The vehicle in which Miela had made her former trip was still lying in the valley where we had left it. We went away privately, only Lua and Fuero accompanying us out of the city.

Lua parted with her two daughters quietly. Her emotions at seeing them go she concealed under that sweet, gentle reserve which was characteristic of her always.

"Promise me you will be careful of her, Alan," she said softly as she kissed me at parting.

* * * * *

We landed in the Chilean Andes, with that patient statue of the Christ to welcome us back to earth. The Trans-Andean Railroad runs near it, and we soon were in the city of Buenos Aires. The two girls, with wings shrouded in their long cloaks, walked about its crowded streets with a wonderment I can only vaguely imagine. We had only what little money I had taken with me to Mercury. I interviewed a prominent banker of the city, told him in confidence who I was, and from him obtained necessary funds.

We cabled father then, and he answered at once that he would come down and join us. We waited for him down there, and in another month he was with us—dear old gentleman, leaning over the steamer rail, trying to hold back the tears of joy that sprang into his eyes at sight of me. Little Beth was with him, too, smart and stylish as ever, and good old Bob Trevor, whom she shyly presented as her husband.

The beach at Mar del Plata, near Buenos Aires, is one of the most beautiful spots in South America; and on a clear moonlit night, with the Southern Cross overhead, it displays the starry heavens as few other places can on this earth.

On such a night in February, 1942, Mercer and Anina sat together on the sand, apart from the gay throng that crowded the pavilion below them. The girl was dressed all in white, with a long black cape covering her wings. Her beautiful blond hair was piled on her head in huge soft coils, and over it she had thrown a filmy, sky-blue mantilla that shone with a soft luster in the moonlight and seemed reflected in the blue of her eyes.

Mercer in white flannels sat beside her, cross-legged on the white sand, with a newly purchased Hawaiian guitar across his lap. From the band stand in the pavilion down the beach faint strains of music floated up to them. The moon silvered the water before them; a soft, gentle breeze of summer caressed their cheeks; the myriad stars glittered overhead like brilliant gems scattered on the turquoise velvet of the sky.

Anina, chin cupped in her hand, sat staring at the wonderful heavens that all her life before had been withheld from her sight. She sighed tremulously.

"I want to say this is a night," Mercer declared, breaking a long silence.

"It's—it's beautiful," she answered softly. "Those millions of worlds—like mine, perhaps—or like this one of yours." She turned to him. "Ollie, which of them is my world?"

"You can't see it now, Anina. It's too close to the sun."

Again she sighed. "I'm sorry for that. It would seem closer, perhaps, if we could see it."

"You're not sorry you came, Anina? You don't want to go back now?"

"Not now, Ollie." She smiled into his earnest, pleading eyes. "For those I love are here as well as there. I have Miela and Alan—and—"

"And?" Mercer leaned forward eagerly.

"And Miela's little son—that darling little baby. We must go back soon and see Miela. She will be wondering where we are."

THE END