Part 13

A moment more and the howling tempest had caught them and was whirling them madly forward. Upwards they sailed with poised wings, like immense birds, while their bewildered enemies below gazed after them with staring eyes and open mouths.

There was another flash of lightning, followed on the instant by a crash that seemed to shake the very rocks around; and then there were cries and shrieks from the crowd as stones and pieces of metal-work came flying through the air.

The lightning had struck the pavilion and wrecked it!

*CHAPTER XXVIII.*

*SAILING ON THE STORM-WIND.*

The five adventurous fliers were borne along by the wind in a fashion which can be better imagined than described.

To Gerald and Jack, at least, it was an absolutely novel experience, whatever it may have been to the others. Every time they glanced down it almost made them giddy to see the rate at which the various features of the landscape were racing, as it were, past them.

Of the wrecking of the pavilion by lightning they knew nothing. They had been dazzled by the awful flash, and almost deafened by the terrible crash which followed; but they were then already two or three hundred yards from the scene. A minute or two later, and they were a mile or more away; and the place itself would have been out of sight even if they could have looked round.

But they had no time to look round. They scarcely seemed to have time to look ahead. No sooner did they catch sight of something--a large building, a group of trees, or what not--in the distance, than, lo! it seemed to make a mad rush towards them. One moment it was half a mile away; the next it had vanished behind them.

But it was very difficult to distinguish any individual object.

The whole landscape beneath them was one vast blur. Cities, villages, trees, fields, woods, streams, lakes, hills, valleys--all seemed to be merged into a vague mass, and there was no time to single out details before they had slipped past.

Curiously enough--and contrary to all expectations of the two visitors from Earth--their progress, wild and mad as it seemed when they looked down, was serene, easy, almost quiet, when they looked up. So long as they made no effort to stop or turn they scarcely felt any wind at all; and so long as they could keep clear of possible obstacles in their course by sailing over them there appeared to be no immediate danger. Below them all was a wild, mad race amid a continuous, low, booming roar; above, everything looked quiet, almost stationary, for the black clouds travelled noiselessly and kept exact pace with them.

Whether they would be able to continue to travel thus so long as the storm should last was another matter--as also was the question of where they were being carried. They had no control over their course, no idea of what their ultimate destination was likely to be, no possible means of arresting their wild career. To have ventured on a lower course, nearer the ground, in the hope of stopping, would have meant certain death.

Nor could they so much as speak to one another. They were all roped together, it is true, and this proved a very wise precaution, for without it they would undoubtedly have quickly become separated and hopelessly lost to one another. Malto had left plenty of rope between each, and this was now extended to its utmost, leaving too great an interval to permit even of shouting. They all looked to Malto--who was in the centre--for guidance; and he conveyed his directions and advice by signs.

Of other fliers, or of airships of any kind, they saw none. It was the custom to send warnings ahead in such case, and for all air-craft to seek shelter until the storm had passed.

The wings they had found and appropriated were a sort of combination--that is to say, they were supplied with electric motors, but could also be used as ordinary wings when the supply of electricity stored in the batteries ran out, just as one can work a motor-cycle with one's feet. At present the travellers were husbanding their power carefully, using only just enough to keep them at what seemed to be a safe height.

It had been Malto's hope, when they had started, that the storm would not continue in such fury for any length of time. But this expectation proved to be delusive. Hour after hour passed, and still they were carried along at a pace which would have rendered any attempt at stopping sheer madness. Cities and towns had long disappeared; villages, even, now seemed to be no more. The ground became hilly, and less and less cultivated till they came upon a region which was little more than a rocky desert. Here the hills were growing into mountains; and some of these towered up to such a height that possible collision with their rocky peaks became a very ugly possibility.

Malto grew alarmed, and signalled to his companions to ascend yet higher. Upwards they mounted accordingly, and passed into the midst of the swirling clouds. Here they were in a thick mist, but presently, to Malto's relief, they struck into an upper current free from cloud, and there they entered a region of perfect calm.

They could now even talk, and look round, and take rest of a sort. The sun was shining, and everything was bright and cheerful. Beneath their feet they could see nothing save great masses of sombre, heavy-looking clouds scurrying furiously onwards.

'Whew!' Jack uttered a long whistle of relief. 'This is a change indeed! I began to wonder where on Earth--h'm, I mean where on Mars--we were rushing to! Where do you suppose we 've got to? I mean, supposing we dropped straight down, what part of your world should we be in?' He asked the question in a general sort of way, and Malto answered him as vaguely, by admitting frankly that he had not the least idea.

'I confess I 've lost count of all landmarks,' he declared. 'I am very much afraid we are now near what is known as the Great Desert. It is a more or less waterless tract which is uninhabited, save by some roaming tribes of wanderers who do not bear the best of characters.'

'Ha! You have deserts, then, as we have?' said Gerald.

Malto looked at him in surprise.

'Why, of course; I thought everybody knew that! Fully one-third of our globe is waterless desert, and, what is worse, the tract is gradually extending. Our scientific men prophesy that the proportion will grow larger and larger until the whole planet becomes a dried-up waste. That is the cheerful sort of doom they predict for future generations!'

'Curious, isn't it?' murmured Jack, glancing at Gerald. 'That is exactly what our earthly scientists have prophesied as likely to happen to Mars in the future!'

'And to our own planet also, some day, I suppose,' Gerald rejoined. 'Only, here, I suppose, the process has gone farther than it has with us.'

'Well, desert or no desert, it will be better than Agrando's dungeons,' said Jack. 'We shall have to go down into it, I suppose, when the storm subsides? We can't stop up here indefinitely. What are we to do meanwhile? Can't we try to work back in this upper current?'

Malto shook his head.

'It would probably be of very little use, and would certainly be unwise,' he counselled. 'We have come hundreds of miles--much farther than our whole store of electric force would carry us. If we expend it all in trying to work back we shall be in bad case if, when we come to the end of our store, we still find ourselves where we do not want to be. Now, to support ourselves up here quietly will take but very little of our reserve force, and we shall have a good stock left for emergencies. That is my advice; in fact, that is practically all we can do. We must wait here till the storm below has blown itself out. Then we will go down and try to find out what country we have got into.'

'I think you are right,' Alondra agreed.

'It is already well on in the afternoon--judging by the sun--and we have had nothing to eat. I 'm getting hungry!' Jack grumbled. 'Don't you have aerial inns up in the clouds here, where storm-tossed travellers can get a meal?'

Needless to say, they were all hungry, but there was nothing to be done but wait. So, to pass the time, they began to compare notes, and Alondra related his adventure of the early morning in the pool in the glass-house. Malto and Malandris nodded their heads significantly as they listened.

'Ah, there are strange tales afloat about that glass-house and the deadly plant it shelters,' the elder man declared. 'I have never seen it myself, but I have heard quite enough concerning it.'

The talk went on, and an hour or two slipped by; and then, just as the sun drew near the horizon, Malto, looking down, suddenly ventured an opinion that the wind below had subsided.

To test the point, they swept downwards, passed through several strata of dense cloud, and found, sure enough, that the guess had been correct. Below the cloud all was now almost as calm as above. There was scarcely breeze enough to carry them along.

They finally descended, just before sunset, in a gloomy, forbidding valley of rocks, where there were no signs of Martian inhabitants to be seen in any direction. They found, however, a small stream--a fact which surprised Malto--and this enabled them to quench their thirst. But how to obtain the wherewithal to satisfy their hunger was another and more hopeless matter.

*CHAPTER XXIX.*

*ATTACKED IN THE DARK.*

Presently Malto uttered an exclamation of surprise. He walked a short distance up the little watercourse and examined carefully some bushes growing on its banks. They seemed to excite both interest and pleasure.

'I know those plants,' he explained to his companions. 'They will provide us with a very fair and toothsome supper, and they also tell me a story. You wished to know where we had drifted to, and I can now tell you almost exactly.

'This is not the Great Desert--fortunately, we have not travelled far enough to reach that--but a tract lying upon its borders. We are in a region situated between the desert and the country of Iraynia, which,' he added slowly, and with some sadness in his tone, 'is my native land.'

'Oh!' said Alondra; 'so you are a native of Iraynia! I have heard a good deal about that country, though I have never been there. Was there not some great fuss or trouble there some years ago, before my father'----

'Before King Ivanta allowed the tyrant Agrando to annex it, would you say? Yes, Prince, there was. And thereby hangs a tale. I will not tell it to you now, however--it will keep for another time; but I may say that it is a tale of terrible, almost incredible wrong, and treachery, and wickedness. It is that great wrong which I wished to induce King Ivanta to inquire into, in order that the memory of a good man's name may be cleared from dishonour. That man was my father, Prince; and that was the reward I was hoping to win from King Ivanta. Now you will understand why I said I could not share my reward, if I obtained what I hoped for, with any one else!'

There were notes of deep feeling and sadness in the young fellow's voice as he spoke in low, incisive tones, turning his face away the while as though afraid he might break down.

There was a pause; then Alondra said gently and sympathetically, 'I am sorry, indeed, that you have such a heavy trouble to bear. Later on you shall give me fuller particulars, and I will myself lay them before my father. He is just and fearless in punishing where wrong has been done, and if he finds, on investigation, that your story is true, I am certain he will right you, and the memory of your father, and punish the wrongdoers.'

'He will have to fight to maintain his own position ere that can come about, I fear!' rejoined Malto gravely. 'But I thank you, Prince, all the same, for your sympathy and your promise. Another day I will, as you say, give you the details--when the time comes. Let me now explain how we are situated here. We are in a desolate territory known as Kubandia. It is nothing but a maze of arid rocks and mountains, and wild, gloomy gorges and valleys, almost waterless, but not so bad, in that respect, as the Great Desert which lies beyond. For the reasons I have mentioned the tract has a bad name, and also for another--that there are bands of reckless outlaws who have made it their fastness. They are, I believe, for the most part remnants or descendants of men who were originally honest patriots--men who were driven into exile by Agrando's heavy hand when he took over the government of the country. Now, I fear, they are, most of them, no better than brigands and unscrupulous adventurers. It is said that there are many bands, under different heads, but all directed by one leader--a clever, daring chief, of whom wild tales are told. His name is Fumenta; and it is a name held in terror by Agrando's followers. But for this man's wonderful genius and bravery, it is believed these brigands would all have been exterminated before this. He has, somehow, managed to evade capture for many years, and carry on a guerilla warfare, holding his own in these wild valleys and gorges in spite of all the forces Agrando has sent against him. Such, at least, is what we hear. I myself can say nothing as to this part from my own knowledge, because I have been brought up in Agrando's city and forced to be one of his servitors.'

'Naturally, however, you cannot help feeling a certain amount of sympathy for these outlaws, who are your own countrymen, and who have been driven, as you think, perhaps unjustly, into exile, eh?' queried Alondra, eying the other keenly.

'It may be so--deep down in my mind,' was the quiet answer. 'Certainly, however, I have no sympathy with tales of robbery and murder such as are related of these bands. But, of course, they may not be true, or they may be very much exaggerated. We only hear one side, that told by Agrando's people; and from my own experience I can tell you that it is not safe to believe all they assert.'

'But how do you know where we are, if, as you say, you only know of all these things by hearsay?' was Alondra's shrewd query.

'Oh, I have been in these parts before as a boy, and I know that those plants yonder are peculiar to this region. You do not find them anywhere else.'

'I see. Well, if they are good to eat, let us try them as soon as we can. For my part, I am hungry enough to devour anything that is fairly eatable.'

'We must have a fire. It is the root which is good to eat; and it requires cooking,' Malto returned. 'I have dug these roots up and cooked them many times when picnicking out here with other youngsters. If you others will get some wood together, and start a fire, I will soon have a first-rate supper ready for you.'

The young fellow proved as good as his word, and some half-hour later, just as darkness fell, they were all sitting round a cheerful fire, discussing a very agreeable meal off something which had a flavour not unlike baked potatoes.

'Humph! Not a bad thing to fall back upon in a wilderness like this!' Jack declared. 'And what are we going to do afterwards? How are we to get back to our friends?'

'That is not easy to say,' Malto answered soberly. 'We must have passed right over my country to get here, and that alone means two or three hundred miles. It is a land which is full of Agrando's followers, and you may be sure that his airships will, by this time, be cruising about in search of us.'

'That sounds cheerful! Looks as if we shall have to stay here and do a bit of outlaw business on our own account!' cried Jack.

Malandris glanced at him with a very grave expression in his eyes. 'Your remark exactly describes the position, young sir, though spoken, doubtless, half in jest. I am sorry to have to say it, for it is not a trifling matter. For myself, I accept it as preferable to the fate from which you all so pluckily aided to rescue me. But it grieves me that I should live to see the son of the good and wise King Ivanta in the position of a hunted fugitive!'

Alondra started and flushed up at these plain words. But there was in the elder man's eyes a look so thoroughly honest and kindly that it was impossible to take offence.

'Perhaps such an experience will do me no harm,' he answered, after a minute's thought. 'That is, provided it ends in the right way. It is better than passing the time in Agrando's palace as his captive. My father is sure to rescue us in his own good time. He will follow us up and find us out, wherever we are, and the punishment he will inflict on his daring enemies will be terrible. Does Agrando hug to himself the notion that he can pit himself against his overlord?' Alondra continued, with a proud curl of his lip. 'Why, where is his fleet? What means has he of resisting my father's power?'

'He has been making secret preparations ever since his return from his trip to the evening star. I feel sure of that!' Malto declared.

'Why don't you try a wireless message?' Jack asked of Alondra.

The young prince shook his head. 'It is useless. The little instrument you saw does not carry far enough,' he explained. 'Monck Affelda cannot hear me unless he is within a hundred miles. But you may be sure of one thing, the news of all that has happened has before this been flashed through to my father, and he is already on his way to our assistance in the _Ivenia_. How can Agrando think he can prevail in the end against such a monster of the skies as the _Ivenia_?'

As he spoke these words there was a sudden illumination of the spot where they were sitting round their fire, and the sound of voices was heard. Lights were flashed upon them from the air above, dazzling their eyes and rendering it impossible to make out what had happened or who the speakers were. But the words were unmistakable; some one had called out in harsh, hoarse tones, 'Surrender! You are my prisoners! If you make any attempt at resistance you are all dead men!'

*CHAPTER XXX.*

*CAPTURED.*

When the ominous summons to surrender was heard, shouted down from some invisible person in the air above them, it was Malto who took upon himself to reply.

His brain had been working quickly. At first he had feared that it was Agrando's people who had thus found them out, but a moment's reflection convinced him that such a thing was extremely improbable. If it were indeed so, then, such was his detestation of his late master, and horror of again falling into his clutches, that he would rather have died fighting than yield.

But Agrando's men would have acted first. There would have been no preliminary summons; they would simply have used their tridents to render the fugitives powerless at once. The inference was that these must be some other people who were not armed with tridents. All the same, resistance was probably useless, as they could not even see their adversaries, and a fight could only end in one way. So he called out, 'Who are you? And why do you threaten us? We have no quarrel with you, whoever you are. We are peaceable folk.'

'You will find out who we are in good time,' was the answer, given with a grim laugh. 'Will you surrender quietly, or shall we'----

The speaker did not finish the sentence, but waited for an answer, as though he considered it unnecessary to say more.

There were other sounds, however, which had caught Malto's quick ear--sounds as of a number of men moving about amongst the surrounding rocks, and from these he drew the inference that the threat that had been made was not likely to prove an idle one.

'If we yield, what are you going to do with us?' he asked again.

'That is for us to say. We cannot make any bargain with you,' was the answer given roughly and impatiently.

'Will you guarantee us good treatment? Remember, I have told you we are peaceable folk. Have you no fear that King Agrando will call you to account?'

At this there was a harsh laugh.

'We have no fear of Agrando or his ruffians,' the voice declared jeeringly. 'You will gain nothing by appealing to him here.'

'Then you ought to welcome us as friends instead of treating us as enemies, for we have no more bitter foe than that same Agrando.'

'Why,' cried another voice, 'the fellow is mocking us! Is he not himself one of Agrando's myrmidons? He is dressed in the tyrant's uniform--ay, and so is another I can see beside him!'

'A man may wear another's uniform and yet be no friend of'---- Malto began, when Malandris interrupted him. It struck him that the second speaker was not unknown to him.

'I ought to know that voice!' he exclaimed. 'I should recognise it among a thousand. Surely it is Landris, who was once a friend of mine!'

'It is Malandris,' they heard the second man then say; and there ensued a colloquy in a low tone between the unseen speakers. Presently the second man's voice was heard again.

'If you are Malandris, what are you doing here? If you have come out at the tyrant's bidding to join in hunting us down'----

'We are fugitives, Landris. We have run away from him, as you yourself did once, and for the same reason--because we could put up with his treatment no longer. He condemned me to the cage of the krudias--his great monstrous bats--but by good chance these brave gentlemen, who are my companions, rescued me, and we all had to flee for our lives in consequence.'

Again there was a conference in low tones, and what seemed to be an argument ensued. At last the one called Landris said aloud, 'I tell you I will have it so! I know this Malandris to be an honest man, and once he saved my life; and I insist that he and those with him shall go before the chief and speak for themselves.'

'Oh, very well, if you insist!' the other replied. 'But, recollect, if there is trouble about it, it is your doing, not mine.'

'You will have to be bound and blindfolded, Malandris--all of you,' Landris now said. 'I will conduct you to our leader, and you can tell your story to him. If he believes that you speak the truth he will not harm you--indeed, he may welcome you if so be that you care to join him and fight against Agrando, even as he did with me.'

'Lead us to him, friend Landris. That is all I ask,' Malandris said.

A few moments later the fugitives found themselves in the midst of a crowd of rough-looking men, who climbed down from the adjoining rocks, bringing with them lanterns and pieces of rope.

They were certainly not by any means of attractive appearance, and their apparel was of the coarsest. Their hair and beards, too, were unkempt, and their manners gruff and surly. But they had the appearance of alert, hardy veterans of the wilds; and in their handling of their prisoners there was nothing cruel or insulting.

The one named Landris greeted Malandris with quiet friendliness, and his companion--the one who had called upon them to surrender--also came and conversed with the prisoners. His name, it appeared, was Duralda. He was a fine, picturesque figure of a man, with bearded face, shaggy hair, and dressed in what had probably once been a rich costume, but had evidently seen its best days. This man examined and questioned each prisoner in turn, but showed no resentment when, acting upon a hint from Malandris, they told him civilly that they preferred to tell what they had to tell to his chief.

Their wings and other belongings were packed up by the band--of whom it was now seen there were fully a hundred--and in due time the whole party commenced a march over very difficult, rocky ground.

At the end of some two hours a halt was called. They were then blindfolded, and the march resumed in slow fashion, each captive being led by two guards, one on each side.

This time, after ascending some steep, broken ground, they came to steps, up which their guards assisted them.