Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1911 — A Columbus of Space [ARTICLE]

A Columbus of Space

By Garrett P. Serviss.

Copyright by Frank A. Munsey Co. . o CHAPTER XX. In The Whirlwinds of Yenus. But the case proved, on examination, not to be so bad, after all. Jack was not dead, and the great beast was. Still, the poor fellow seemed terribly injured. His clothing was ripped to shreds, and his face was dishgured. He had been rolled up almost into a ball, and 1 marveled when I saw him stretch out his legs, lor I thought that every bone must have been broken. His athletic training had, perhaps saved him, his joints being supple ;.:id his muscles elastic. “Just in time,” he muttered, trying bfavely to smile. “He had me in his jaws once, but I kicked away.” As we lifted him between us to carry him back to the car, Ala approached, pushing her way with anxious face through the tangle oi' weeds and shrubs. Juba, his great eyes shining like flames, was close behind her. Ala uttered a cry of Joy when she saw that we were safe, but her face was filled with pity as her eyes fell upon Jack. She helped Juba open a way for us back to the car. No sooner had we placed the injured man on the floor than she was on her kness beside him, striving to stanch the wounds on his face and hands. , She and Edmund worked together as if they had been trained nurses.

They tore up garments to bandages, and in a little while Jack looked like a patient in an emergency hospital. Fortunately, he seemed to have no internal injuries, and Edmund declared that, barring the possibility of poison from the fangs, there was no danger of a fatal result. Nevertheless, he said, we must start on our return at Once. “Not on your life!” Jack exclaimed. “See here, Edmund. I won’t go back. This expedition is not going to be ruined on account of such a little accident. It’s just beginning to get interesting.” “But you may be poisoned,” said Edmund. “Stuff and nonsense!” returned Jack. “There’s no poison about it. I tell you I won’t go back. I’m not going to be scared out by a beast like that. You’ve finished him, and that ends it.” At first Edmund insisted, but Jack was so obstinate, and he really seemed so strong, that at length Edmund said: “Well, we’ll go on a little way. If Jack seems to be the worse for it, we’ll put back again at top speed.” So it was decided, and we kept on. No one had any desire to examine the hiorister we had slain. But Edmund declared that in the interests of science he ought at least to photograph him with a flashlight, and we did pause long enough for that, hovering over the place with the car, but the picture when developed showed nothing but a blur. No other adventure happened at once, and we saw no more of the strange inhabitants of the fens, who had probably been scared ofT by the noise and the light.' 0 For a long time we bore away in the darkness, without any guide except a general sense of direction. In that respect Edmund was the most remarkable person I have ever known. It seemed impossible for him to be lost. He could make his way through the air like a migrating bird. After a long while it began to grow a little lighter ahead. I thought that we had inadvertently turned on our course and were approaching the temperate zone, but Edmund averred that he had not lost his direction, and that the light must come from some other source. Before the darkness around us had begun perceptibly to lift I happened to glance out of one of the windows and noticed a stranre fluttering in the air. Hugh inky shadows Beeraed to be flitting through the gloom. Presently there came a smart blow against the car, and for an instant something covered the window. All were greatly startled, and we looked out at both sides, but could see nothing except the curious shadows that I had first noticed. The air was misty around us, and the shadows, except for their blackness, resembled apparitions like the spector of the Brocken cut upon the dark fog by moving objects, whose position .we could not immediately determine. "There Is something odd overhead,” •aid Edmund at length, “and I'll steer

A little higher to see what it is.” .No sooner had the. car started gliding on an upward slope than a perfect thunder of raps began on the outside, like heavy hail on a roof. At the same time both the windows were covered by moving forms, the nature of which we could not determine, so fast Mid they flit by. But it was evident that they were hitting the car and causing the noise. Suddenly the rapping ceased and the forms disappeared from the windows. But now dfeain the ebon shadows began fluttering in the mist all about the car.

"What has become of those things, and what are they, anyhow?” demanded Jack, nervously. Owing to his comparative helplessness he was no doubt more startled and alarmed than he would otherwise have been. “I don’t know what they are,” Edmund replied, “but I do know that they are overhead again, and I’m going to keep the car rising until I find out what the mystery means.” “But what makes the shadows?” I asked. “Where does the light come from?” “Of course, it must come from above,” Edmund replied, “since the shadows are below our level and appear all around us. I take it that the sun is breaking through the clouds overhead. But what the objects are that cast the shadows I can’t guess. That they are very much alive and that their name is legion are facts which require no demonstration after our recent experience.” All this time we were rising, and in a few moments the strange phenomenon recurred. The thunder of blows again fell upon the car, and the indistinguishable rush by the windows was resumed. Ala turned slightly pale, her maids cowered together, Henry hid his face, and even Edmund seemed disconcerted.

“It’s very strange,” he muttered. “I’ll have to turn on the searchlight.” This had been extinguished upon the closing of the glass of the window when we resumed our journey, Edmund not taking the trouble to replace the apparatus at the forward lookout. He now put the light in its original position, and as its brilliant beam sprang out into the darkness, placed himself close by the small opening. After a moment of intense gazing he looked back over his shoulder with a queer expression. Catching my eye, he beckoned to me, and I went to his side. “Look out there!” he said in a low voice. As I did so I was unable to repress an exclamation. The shaft of light fell upon thousandi of huge flapping wings, belonging to what I can only liken to enormous bats, which were whirling about the car and blindly striking by hundreds against it as they rushed on in an endless procession. Soon it became apparent that they were revolving in a vast circle, and their previous sudden disappearance was explained when, as if at a signal, they all turned their flight upward and rose again above the level of the car. The things looked so uncanny that I shuddered at the recollection of the sight, while Edmund seemed lost in thought. What is it?” called out Jack, impatiently from his bench. “What do you see?” While I was trying to frame an answer Edmund spoke up in words that filled me with surprise. “It’s the next step to Hades, I reckon,” is what he said: Jack didn’t catch his drift, and 1 had to think a moment before I asked: “What in the world do you mean?” “I mean this,” replied Edmund, seizing one of the knobs and giving it a Sudden turn. “We’ve got to get us out of here before the tempest strikes us.” “You don’t think that they can harm us, do you?” I said, with my mind on the flying creatures. “Not they, but what they announce. Hold on tight now, for I am going to make her spin.” ' Before touching the knob again he took Ala by the hand and made her sit on one of the benches, showing her how to hold herself firmly in position. Then he planted himself by his controllers, and a moment later we felt the car bound upward. But the warning which Edmund had read In the conduct of the gigantic birds had come too late. We shot through their array, knocking them right and left by thousands as we rushed upward, but the deafening sound thus created was nothing to the awful uproar that immediately succeeded. I turned dizzy as the car began to spin and plunge like a\cork in a whirlpool. We were caught in a tempest with a vengenance! It was getting lighter outside, but the light was more fearful than the darkness. It was a lurid red gleam that made the boiling clouds which surged against the windows resemble foam upon a sea of blood whipped to madness by furiously battling winds. All that we had experienced in the terrible passage of the crystal moun-

tains was child’s play to this! The howling and shrieking of the wind was enough to drive one mad. It seemed to blow a dozen ways at once. The car rolled, bobbed, tossed and plunged, and despite all our efforts, we were flung upon the floor, striking against one another, grasping at supports, out of breath, helpless with terror, all shouting at tervals and nobody hearing a word in the hubbub of noises. Edmund abandoned all efforts to control the car, and devoted himself to saving Ala as much as he could. He held her in his arms and braced himself in a corner where two of the benches running along the walls met. Even in that terrible excitement I noticed a look of confidence in her face as she fixed her byes upon Ed-' mund. Jack suffered fearfully from the shocks he received, and I did my best to aid him. * Once I caught Edmund's eye, and he glanced meaningly upward, which 1 took for an Intimation that the car was still rising and that he looked for deliverance from our peVil In that way. But there were certainly times when we plunged downward with

fearful speed, for we would be almost lifted from the floor by the inertia. (To be continued.)