October 1930 Read online

  Von Kettler stepped to a switch attached to a stanchion of whitemetal, surmounted by a huge opaque glass dome, and threw it over.Instantly the hum and whir of machinery became audible, the sound offootsteps, the voices of the workmen, and the creak of boards beneaththeir feet.

  "You see, we have discovered the means of destroying sound waves aswell as shadows, and it was a much simpler feat," said Von Kettlerwith a sneer. "Tell them that when you get back to Washington, Yankeepig. Also you might be interested to know that most of your bombs fellon camouflaged structures that we had erected with the intention ofdeceiving you."

  He gestured to Dick to precede him, and halted him at a plain roundiron pipe or rod that rose up through the floor and passed through theroof. It was surrounded by a mesh of fine wire. Attached to it werevarious gauges, with dials showing red and black numbers.

  "This is perhaps our greatest achievement, swine," remarked VonKettler, affably. "You shall see its operations from above." Hepointed to a narrow spiral staircase rising at the far end of theroom. "It is the practical application of Einstein's gravitation andelectricity in field relation. It is by means of this, and the threedynamos on the ground that we were able to neutralize your engineslast night and bring them down where we wanted them. You must be sureto tell the Washington hogs about that."

  * * * * *

  He motioned to Dick to cross the room and ascend the spiral staircase.Following him, he flung another switch similar to the first one, andinstantly all sound within the room was cut off.

  They ascended the winding flight and emerged upon a floor or platform.Dick felt it under his feet, but he could see nothing except theground, far beneath him. He seemed to be suspended in the void. Hestopped, groping, hesitating to advance. Von Kettler's jarring laughgrated on his ears.

  "Don't be afraid, swine," he jeered. "This place is enclosed. There isa shadow-breaking device on every floor, which renders us completemasters of camouflage."

  A switch snapped. Dick found himself instantly in a rotunda, roofedwith glass, sections of which were raised to a height of three or fourfeet from the wooden base, admitting a gentle breeze. Three or fourmen were moving about in it, but these wore the black uniform with thesilver braid, and Von Kettler's manner was deferential as he addressedthem, jerking his hand contemptuously toward Dick. Grins of derisionand malice appeared on all the faces.

  Save one, an elderly officer, apparently of high rank, who cameforward and raised his hand to the salute.

  "Captain Rennell," he said, "we are at war with your nation, but weare also, I hope, gentlemen." He turned to Von Kettler. "Is itseemly," he asked, "that an officer of the American army should bebrought here in chains and cords?"

  "Excellency, it is His Majesty's command," responded Von Kettler, witha servile smirk that hardly concealed his elation. "Moreover, theAmerican is to witness the forthcoming destruction of the Yankeefleet."

  The elderly officer reddened, turned away without replying. Dicklooked about him.

  * * * * *

  There was less machinery in this room. The iron pillar that he hadseen came through the floor and terminated some five feet above it inanother of the opaque glass domes, filled with iridescent fire. Aboutit was a complicated arrangement of dials and gauges.

  In the centre of the room was a sort of camera obscura. A large hoodprojected above a flat table, and an officer was half-concealedbeneath it, apparently studying the table busily.

  "Come, American, you shall see your navy on its way to destruction,"said Von Kettler, beckoning Dick within the hood.

  The officer stepped from the table, whose top was a sheet of silveredglass, leaving Von Kettler and Dick in front of it. Dick looked. Atfirst he could see nothing but the vast stretch of sea; then he beganto make out tiny dots at the table's end, terminating in minute blursthat were evidently smoke from the funnels.

  "Your ships," said Von Kettler, smiling. "This is the dirigible." Hepointed to another dot that came into sight and disappeared almostinstantly. "They are a hundred and fifty miles away. Explain to yourfriends in Washington that our super-telescopic sights are based upona refraction of light that overcomes the earth's curvature. It issimple, but it happens not to have been worked out until my Mastercommanded it."

  Dick watched those tiny dots in fascination, mentally computing. At anaverage speed of fifty knots an hour, the squadron's steaming rate,they should be off the coast within three hours. The dirigible wouldtake two, if it went ahead to scout, as was almost certain.

  * * * * *

  Dick stepped back from beneath the hood and glanced about him. If onlyhis arms were not bound, he might do enough damage within a fewseconds to put the deadlier machinery out of commission, if only thesilvered mirror. He glanced about him. Von Kettler, interpreting histhought, smiled coolly.

  "You are helpless, my dear Yankee pig," he said. "But there is moreto see. Oblige me by accompanying me up to the top story."

  He pointed to a ladder running up beside the iron pillar through anopening in the roof, and Dick, with a shrug of the shoulders,complied. He emerged upon a small platform, apparently protruding intovacancy. Far underneath he saw the clearing, and two airplanes on thetarmac, the aviators looking like beetles from that height. He lookedout to sea and saw no signs of the fleet.

  "You have heard of St. Simeon Stylites, Yankee?" purred Von Kettler."The gentleman who spent forty years of his life upon a tall pillar,in atonement for his sins? It is His Majesty's desire that you spend,not forty years, but two or three hours up here, meditating upon hisgrandeur, before returning to earth. It is also possible that you willwitness something of considerable interest. Look out to sea!"

  Dick turned his head involuntarily. He heard Von Kettler's laugh,heard the snap of a switch--then suddenly he was alone in the void.

  At that snap of the switch, everything had vanished from view behindhim, the building, even the platform on which he stood. His feetseemed to rest on nothing. Yet below him he could still see theairplanes, and more being wheeled out.

  * * * * *

  A sense of extreme physical nausea overcame him. He reeled, thenmanaged to steady himself. He, too, was invisible to his own eyes.Involuntarily he cried out. No sound came from his lips. He stoodthere, invisible in an invisible, soundless void.

  For what seemed an unending period he occupied himself withendeavoring to obtain the sense of balance. Then, with a great effort,he managed to loosen the cords that bound his right arm to his side. Amighty wrench, and he had slipped them up above his elbow. His rightlower arm was free.

  He extended it cautiously, and his hand encountered a railing.Instantly he felt more at ease. He began moving slowly around in awidening circle, and discovered that the platform was enclosed. Thefurther side was, however, open, and he began sliding forward, foot byfoot, to locate himself. Once his foot slipped over the edge, and hedrew back hastily. He felt on the other side, and discovered that hewas upon what seemed a plank walk, perhaps a hundred and fifty feetabove the ground, with no rail on either side, and some six feet wide.

  Very cautiously he shuffled his way along it. It was solid enough,although invisible, but more than once Dick walked perilously close toone edge or the other. At length he went down on his hands and knees,and proceeded, crawling, until his movements were arrested by what wasunmistakably a door.

  The plank bridge, then, connected the top stories of two buildings,but what the second was, there was no means of knowing. The door wasbarred on the other side, and did not yield an iota to Dick's cautiouspressure. Dick felt the frame. Beyond was glass, reinforced with ironon the outside, the latter metal forming a sort of lattice work.Cautiously Dick began to crawl up the rounded dome.

  * * * * *

  Foot by foot he made his way, clinging to the iron bars, until he feltthat he had reached the point of the dome's maximum convexity. Hewedged his feet against a bar and rested. Only now was it brought hometo him that it would be impossible for him to find his way back to theplank.


  A long time must have passed, for, looking out to sea, he could seethe squadron now, minute points on the horizon, exuding smudges ofsmoke. The dirigible was still invisible. The airplanes had eitherleft the tarmac or had been wrapped in the gas-impregnated cloth, forboth they and the aviators had vanished.

  Suddenly Dick had an odd sensation that the iron was growing warm.

  In another moment or two he had no doubt of it. The iron bar heclutched was distinctly warm; it was growing hot. He shifted his graspto the adjacent bar and even in that moment the heat had increasedperceptibly.

  Suddenly there came a vibration, a sense of movement. Dick was beingswung outward. The whole dome seemed to be dropping into space. He dughis feet and fingers under the hot rods, and felt himself sliding overon his back.

  Back--back, till he was lying horizontally in space, and clutchingdesperately at the iron bar, which was growing hotter every moment.

  The sliding movement ceased. It was as if the whole upper section ofthe glass dome had opened outward. But the heat of the bars wasbecoming unbearable, and gusts of hot air seemed to be proceeding fromwithin.

  Hot or not, Dick's only alternative was to work his way back to thestable portion of the dome, or to frizzle until he dropped throughspace.

  Clinging desperately to the bars, he began working back, reaching frombar to bar with his right hand and dragging his feet, with theclanking chain attached, from bar to bar also.

  * * * * *

  How he gained the base of the dome he was never able afterward tounderstand. The heat had grown intolerable; his hands were blistering.Somehow he reached it. He rested a moment despite the heat. But tofind the plank walk was clearly impossible. In another minute he mustdrop. Better that than to fry there like St. Lawrence on his griddle.

  And then, just when he had resigned himself to that last drop, therecame an unexpected diversion. Almost beside him a window was hungback. A man looked out. Dick saw one of the workmen in the blueblouses, and, behind him, within the dome, what seemed like an emptyroom.

  Dick was slightly above the man. As his head and shoulders appeared,he let himself go, landing squarely across his back. He slid down hisshoulders through the open window into the interior of the dome.

  The man, flung against the frame of the window by the shock, uttered apiercing cry. Before he could recover his stand, or take in what hadhappened to him, Dick had gained his feet and leaped upon him. Hisright hand closed upon his throat. He bore him to the floor and chokedhim into insensibility.

  CHAPTER XI - In the Laboratory

  Not until the man's struggles had ceased, and he lay unconscious,panting, and blue in the face, did Dick release him. Then he lookedabout him.

  Save for the workman, he was alone in a rotunda, open to the sky, and,as he had supposed, the whole upper portion of the dome had been flungback, leaving an immense aperture into which the sun was shining,flecking the interior with shafts of light. The temperature, despitethe opening of the dome, must have been in excess of a hundred andtwenty-five degrees.

  There was nothing except an immense central shaft, up which ran ahollow pole of glass, cut off by the invisible paint at the summit ofthe dome. The inside of this glass pole was glowing with coloredfires, and it was from this that the intolerable heat came, though itsfunction Dick could not imagine.

  One thing was clear: It was growing hotter each moment. To remain inthat rotunda meant death within a brief period of time.

  And there was no way out! Dick glared around him, searching theglass walls in vain. No semblance of a stairway or ladder, even. Yetthe workman must have entered by some ingress--if only Dick coulddiscover it!

  He began running round the interior of the dome in the brilliantsunshine, searching frantically for that ingress. And it was growinghotter! The sweat was pouring down his face beneath the invisiblegarment.

  Dick was vaguely aware that the silence switch had been thrown in theroom, for his feet made no sound, but the knowledge was latent in hismind. Two or three times he circumnavigated the interior of the dome,like a rat in a trap.

  Then suddenly he saw a section of the flooring rise in a corner, and aworkman in a blue blouse appear out of the trap door.

  * * * * *

  He stood there, his face muscles working as he shouted for hiscompanion, but no sound came from his lips. He looked about him, andsaw the unconscious man beside the window. He started in hisdirection.

  With a shout, Dick hurled himself toward him. And he checked himselfeven as he was about to leap. For he realized that the second workmanneither saw nor heard him.

  Yet some subconscious impression of danger must have reached his mind,for the workman stopped too, instinctively assuming an attitude ofdefense. Dick gathered a dozen links of his wrist-chain in his righthand, leaped and struck.

  The workman crumpled to the floor, a little thread of blood creepingfrom his right temple.

  It was the thing upon which Dick looked back afterward with lesssatisfaction than any other, leaving the two unconscious men in thatroom of death. Yet there was nothing else he could have done. He ranto the trap, and saw a ladder leading down. In a moment he had swunghimself through and closed the trap behind him.

  The material that lined the walls below must have had almost perfectinsulating qualities, for the temperature here was no hotter than inthe Bahamas on a hot summer day. Dick scrambled down the ladder andfound himself in a machine-shop. Nobody was there, and tools of allsorts were lying about, as well as machinery whose purpose he did notunderstand. A pair of heavy pliers and a vise were sufficient to ridDick of his wrist and ankle chains in a minute or two. With a knife heslashed the cords of invisible stuff that bound him. He stood up,cramped, but free.

  He picked up an iron bar that was lying loose on a table beside amachine, and advanced to the staircase in one corner of the shop. Ashe approached it, another workman came running up.

  * * * * *

  Dick stood aside in an embrasure in the wall partly occupied by amachine. The man passed within two feet of him and never saw him. Onlythen did Dick quite realize that he was actually invisible.

  The moment the man had passed him, Dick ran to the staircase. Hedescended one flight; he was half way down another when a yell of painand imprecation came to his ears. He knew that voice: it was LukeEvans's!

  With three bounds Dick reached the bottom of the stairs. He saw alarge room in front of him. No mistaking the nature of this room; itwas an ordinary laboratory, fitted out with the greatest elaboration,and divided into two parts by paneling. And sight and sound were on.

  In the part nearer Dick three men were grouped about a large dynamo,which was sending out a high, musical note as it spun. Levers anddials were all about it, and above it was the base of the glass tubethat Dick had seen above. In the other part were five or six men.Three of them were testing some substance at a table; three more weregathered about old Luke Evans, whose silver chains had been removedand replaced by ropes, which bound his limbs, and also bound him to aheavy chair, which seemed to be affixed to the ground. One of thethree had a piece of metal in a pair of long-handled pliers. It waswhite hot, and a white electric spark that shot to and fro between twoterminals close by, showed where it had been heated.

  Dick started; he recognized one of the three men as Von Kettler. Hemoved slowly forward, very softly, his feet making no sound on thefiber matting that covered the floor.

  * * * * *

  "Did that feel good, American swine?" asked Von Kettler softly, andDick saw, with horror, a red weal on the old man's forehead. "Now youare perhaps in a more gracious mood, Professor? The unknown isotope inthat black gas of yours--you are disposed to give us the chemicalformula?"

  "I'll see you in hell first," raved old Luke Evans, writhing in hischair.

  Von Kettler turned to the man holding the white-hot metal, and nodded.But at that moment a door behind Evans's chair opened, and FredegondeValmy appeared in the entrance. Von Kettler turned hastily, snatchedthe pliers from the man'
s hand, and laid the metal in a receptacle.

  But the girl had seen the action. She looked at the weal on Luke'sforehead, and clenched her hands; her eyes dilated with horror.

  "You have been torturing him, Hugo!" she cried.

  "Freda, what are you doing in here? Oblige me by withdrawingimmediately!" cried Von Kettler.

  "Where is Captain Rennell?" the girl retorted. "I will know!"

  "He is upstairs, watching the approaching Yankee fleet, and waiting tosee its destruction," returned the other.

  "You are lying to me! He has been killed, and this old man has beentortured!" cried Fredegonde. "I tell you, Hugo Von Kettler, you are nolonger a half-brother of mine! I am through with you!"

  "Unfortunately," sneered Von Kettler, "it is not possible to disposeof a family relationship so easily."

  * * * * *

  "It is cheap to sneer," the girl retorted. "But you sang a verydifferent song when you were in the penitentiary, in terror of death,and you begged me to come and throw you the invisible robe through thebars. You promised me then that you would abandon this mad enterpriseand come away with me. You swore it!"

  "I have sworn allegiance to my Emperor, and that comes first,"retorted Von Kettler. "Oblige me by retiring."

  "I shall do nothing of the sort," cried the girl hysterically. "Whenyou used me as a tool in your enterprises in Washington, you playedupon my patriotism for my conquered country. I thought I wasundertaking a heroic act. I didn't dream of the villainy, thecold-blooded murder that was to be wrought.

  "You've kept me here virtually a prisoner," she went on, with risingviolence, "an attendant upon that old madman, your Emperor, and hissham court, while more murder is being planned. Where is CaptainRennell, I say?" She stamped her foot. "I demand that he and this oldman be set at liberty at once. Hugo," she pleaded, "come away with me.Don't you see what the end must be? This is no heroic enterprise, itis wholesale murder that will arouse the conscience of civilizedmankind against you! Order that the vortex-ray be turned off," shewent on, looking through the opening in the partition toward thedynamo. "That gas--you cannot be so vile as to send it forth again, todestroy the American ships?"