Part 10

"And are all the creatures on Earth two-handed, as large as you, and able to communicate thoughts without a word-box?"

"The inhabitants of Earth are just as you see us. But they do not live beneath the crust of the planet. The sun's rays are so tempered by the time they reach the Earth that beings are able to live in comfort on the outer shell."

The king clapped two of his hands at this, and gave other evidence of his pleasure on the word-box.

"Most wonderful!" he exclaimed, and launched into a series of questions concerning the physical attributes of our mother planet and the character and institutions of its people.

Quinn answered him fully, expatiating on the progress in arts and sciences already made by the Earth dwellers. The king's wonder grew into awe and admiration. Rising from his chair he paced back and forth in front of us, thinking deeply.

"What sort of weapons have your people?" he inquired at last.

The professor described our powder-and-shot machines to the best of his ability. The king was puzzled.

"Don't they know anything about zet on your native orb?" he inquired.

"No," answered the professor. "There is no zet in our atmosphere."

"Suppose a company of my soldiers were to land on Earth, fully equipped with zetbais. Could they be resisted?"

Quinn shuddered.

"No, your majesty, they could not be resisted. With your wonderful zetbais you could conquer and lay waste the entire planet. Candor compels me to tell you this, knowing full well that such a result would not be possible to you."

"Why impossible?" cried the king, with wild enthusiasm. "You and your friends must have come hither in that strange house which fell into the crater. Why could I not load a company of my soldiers into the house and go back with you?"

Then, and only then, did we see what this crack-brained monarch was driving at. Quinn was in trepidation over the outcome.

"Such a thing is not to be thought of!" he cried. "Your majesty, let me beg you not to give your attention to such a quixotic project!"

"I am fully resolved!" exclaimed the king, striding up and down with clinched hands. "It is a very alluring picture you give me of this planet called Earth. I'll conquer it, annex it and own it."

He halted and raised his word-box.

"Ho, there, Olox!" he cried.

The high chief stepped forward and made the royal salaam of four hands.

"We are going forth to conquer the solar system, Olox," paid the king in a brisk, matter-of-fact way.

"Yes, your majesty," answered Olox, as readily as though the capturing of a planet or two was an every-day occurrence.

"You have overheard what this strange two-handed creature has been telling me?" went on the king.

"Yes, your majesty."

"Trains that burn the black blocks and need not be hauled by hand! Green vegetation, laughing rivers and babbling brooks all on the outer shell! Rich cities, stores of art and heaps of yellow gold! These, and myriad other marvelous things are on the Earth, Olox, and guarded only by two-handed, five-fingered colossi, who have to load a tube of iron with black powder and round missiles before they can attack their foes!"

The king threw back his head and laughed on the word-box. Taking a cue from the king, Olox also laughed, and so did the others.

"And these Earth dwellers can't even see in the dark!" rippled the king with contemptuous fingers.

"But they are large, your majesty," ventured the high chief.

"Large and therefore awkward; not quick like our people, Olox. The zetbai is the key to the situation. We could girdle the green star of these colossi, devastate it and destroy all who sought to oppose us. That is what we shall do."

"It will be a noble campaign, your majesty."

"Noble? That is not the word, Olox. It will be stupendous! We'll monopolize everything when we get there, my dear sir--everything we can get our hands on. And I guess we can get our hands on whatever there is--zet will clear every obstacle out of our way."

The king looked at the theoretical side. Olox, naturally, had an eye to the practical.

"What are your orders for the campaign, your majesty?" he asked.

"I shall leave a regent to look after Baigadd," said the king, "and myself accompany the expedition. You will be the military head, Olox."

"Yes, your majesty. We are to go in the metal house?"

"It is the only thing we have to go in. The metal house was unhurt by its fall into the crater?"

"That appears to be the case, your majesty, strange as it may seem. It fell into the kingdom right side up and----"

"The interior is in good condition?"

"Very good, your majesty."

"My orders to the effect that nothing should be removed from it have been carried out?"

"The executioner-general would have that tub of white pigment. Nothing else has been taken from the house."

"Very good. How many of our people will the house contain comfortably?"

"I should say that fifty or more could dwell in it without much inconvenience."

"Then select fifty soldiers, the flower of the Gaddbaizets. Among your stores be sure you have a good supply of black kaka. I want some one who is away up in ideographs to accompany the expedition as historian."

"It will be attended to, your highness."

The king turned and aimed his word-box at the professor.

"Is that tub of white pigment essential to the proper equipment of the metal house?" he asked.

"Very essential," replied Quinn.

Three weeks and more in the nether kingdoms had whitened us considerably, but the professor's face was now a sickly grayish color.

"Then I will have it taken back to the house," said the king.

He gave orders to that end at once, and the cart was laid hold of and drawn out of the square and down the street, Olox accompanying it.

"I had no idea," the king drummed on his word-box, "that there were any people in the solar system with so much wealth and so little power with which to guard it. I've got the other three kingdoms of Njambai pretty well under my thumb, and the regent I leave behind to boss things will have an easy time of it. Quite possibly I may conclude not to come back to Njambai. This other star has natural advantages which we do not seem to have here, and may prove a more comfortable place in which to live."

Professor Quinn was shivering, like a man with an ague. He proceeded to use his talk-machine, and the words shook under his unsteady fingers.

"What you are thinking of, your majesty," ran the professor's words, "is only the wildest of dreams."

"I have had dreams before, and wild ones," the king's word-box rattled off complacently, "and I have made them come true. It shall be the same with this. I am a conqueror, and I come of a line of conquerors."

"There are millions upon millions of people on our planet," persisted the professor, despairingly. "They could hurl these countless numbers against you faster than you could slay them with your zetbais."

Key 7 of the royal word-box gave a screech of contempt.

"Suppose we draw a line of zet," the box added, when the derision had died out, "imprison groups of those countless numbers and then wipe them out by detachments? How would that work?"

"The atmosphere of Earth is different from that of Mercury," continued the professor. "You cannot draw zet from the air of our planet."

"Thanks for the hint," replied the king. "We will take an ample supply with us and charge the atmosphere with it. Then we shall have a store at hand whenever the need develops."

While the king was using his word-box with two of his hands, he was rubbing the other two together with ill-concealed delight.

"Conditions there are absolutely unknown to you, your majesty," persisted the professor in a frantic endeavor to turn the king from his designs. "You will be brought face to face, at every turn, with situations that will puzzle you and be fraught with danger. All the nations of the Earth will combine against you."

"Let them combine!" was the monarch's answer. "I hope they will display sufficient strength to make the campaign exciting. I will capture this Earth of yours and rule over it! From one end of it to the other I will make it mine! I have long felt that Njambai was too small for the proper exercise of my wide abilities."

"This is your world," the professor thumped angrily on his word-box, "and you have no right to meddle with any other planet."

That caused the king to turn his keen eye on the professor, and to keep it there for a full minute.

"I have the right to do whatever I see fit," snapped his talk machine. "There is no will in this kingdom but mine, and no other will in the four kingdoms, if I choose to have it so. But why are you saying such things on your word-box? After firing me with a kingly ambition to capture and annex a distant planet, why do you proceed to throw discouragement in my way? Ha! I wonder if you have been telling me the truth?"

"Your majesty," hummed the professor's talk machine, with dignity, "I am not in the habit of making misstatements."

"We'll find out whether you are or not," came from the king. "This is an important matter, and I shall take no man's word for anything. Ho, there!" and the word-box was leveled at some of the retainers; "bring an indexograph, varlets! We will settle this question of veracity here and now."

Some of the retainers scurried away and vanished inside the palace. Presently they reappeared with the indexograph.

The professor was backward in facing the test--strangely backward, as I thought, for a man so clear-minded and conscientious.

"The test is not necessary," he demurred.

"Your actions are far from being open and aboveboard," remarked the king. "You must submit."

The royal eye was on the machine as the professor was tried out. The ideograph told of a truthful mind, sadly perturbed. The royal word-box chattered mirthfully.

"You are afraid I can accomplish my purpose!" laughed his majesty. "You are worried about your planet! Such a state of mind merely enhances my determination, for you, if I mistake not, are a clever man. You would not feel worried if you did not believe I could accomplish what I have in mind. But be at peace, my dear sir. You shall in nowise suffer. I will make you ruler of one of the captured kingdoms."

This was no lure for the professor. He maintained an attitude of dignified silence, watching the king with steady eyes.

"A wise general," went on his majesty, "always looks over his ground, as well as he may, before going out to battle. That will be advisable in the case of my present campaign."

"What do you mean by that, your majesty?" queried the professor.

"To-night," explained the king, again, "we shall mount to the upper crust and make a reconnoissance of this orb I am to subjugate."

"Have you any astronomical instruments?" asked Quinn.

"None whatever," replied the king. "Have you?"

"There is an instrument in the steel car which will bring the planet Terra much nearer to us than the naked eye could do."

"What is it? Describe the instrument to me and I will have it brought out for our night's work."

The professor described the telescope, and the king dispatched a messenger after Olox in hot haste, with supplementary orders. Thereupon the king bade us farewell and left the square, followed by his suite.

As I stood watching the royal party out of sight, I heard a gurgling groan behind me. Facing about I saw the professor reeling unsteadily; the next moment I had caught him in my arms and saved him a fall.

*CHAPTER XIV.*

*PLAN TO STEAL A BUILDING.*

Professor Quinn did not become unconscious. The frightful catastrophe that threatened Terra had preyed upon him at the expense of his strength. Easing him to the ground, I dropped beside him and held his head on my knee.

"Cheer up, professor," said I. "It surprises me to see you give way like this."

"Mr. Munn," he returned brokenly, "if this rattle-brained monarch goes out into the universe with a picked company of fifty men and a hundred zetbais, it will mean that the whole solar system will get a set-back to a period corresponding with our Middle Ages!

"These creatures of Njambai are far beneath those of Terra in civilization, and fate has placed in their hands the terrible zetbai, a weapon whose destructive powers are beyond compute.

"Oh, Mr. Munn, think of our government being overwhelmed by these four-handed, one-eyed creatures! Think of the word-box screeching through the lofty corridors of the Capitol at Washington, where the soul-stirring eloquence of Senators and Representatives has been thundered amain! Think of the----"

The professor could give no added touch to the harrowing picture. Throwing his hands to his face, he groaned aloud.

"This hasn't happened yet," said I.

"No, but it will happen unless we can do something to circumvent the mad scheme. Anarchy will reign in our beloved land--over the whole earth--and I will be held responsible. Ah, me! In removing the trust magnates I have but paved the way for a mightier monopolist! I have but followed the sad example of Frankenstein, for out of my plans has sprung a monstrous project that will check progress and hurl civilization back five hundred years."

"Don't give up hope," said I, but not very cheerfully, for I was greatly cast down. "Let us pretend to help them. We will lend our aid in making the car ready, and then, at the final moment, perhaps we can dart away and leave them behind; or, failing in that, we may be able to throw the zetbais from the car while in space. That will pull the fangs of the Baigadds, I think, and they will land on Earth as harmless as a lot of kittens."

The professor took heart at this. He would have rallied any way, for his resourceful nature could not struggle long in the slough of despond.

J. Archibald Meigs had been circling around the edge of our barrier seeking for another glimpse of Markham and even calling his name with all his lung power. But the food-trust magnate neither answered nor showed himself, being engaged in a house-to-house canvass for the pittance of provender that would keep him alive.

Meigs finally turned to us and demanded the cause of the professor's downcast air. Quinn revealed the king's plot and Meigs tore off into an outburst of recrimination, just as I expected he would do.

The professor bowed his head meekly to the tempest and even restrained me when I would have put a stop to the broker's intemperate language.

By and by we had our noon meal, and with the attendants who brought it came Olox, seating himself on the ground and watching us as we ate. The high chief was quite amiable, and I began asking him questions relative to our surroundings.

He indicated the king's private apartments in the palace, and pointed out his own residence, as well as the dwelling occupied by the late executioner-general, besides vouchsafing other information of interest.

"What is that small, square building under the wing of the palace?" I asked.

"That is the imperial exchequer," said he. "Within that building the king keeps the most priceless of all his treasures."

"And what is that?" inquired the professor.

"The Bolla," was the startling answer.

Quinn and I exchanged expressive glances. Here, through a chance remark by Olox, we were suddenly reminded of our duty to the king of Baigol. It was necessary that Olox should not see the startled looks which the professor and I were exchanging, and Mercurial eyes were preternaturally sharp.

"Bolla?" I allowed to come limpingly from the talk instrument. "What may that be?"

"A stone," answered Olox, and there was suspicion in his manner in spite of my attempt to avert it. "You already know of the Bolla. Your friend requested his majesty to have it brought out, and at that time you said that you had heard of it in the other kingdom."

"So we did," I replied, trimming my sails to another breeze, "but what is it? Our information is rather vague."

"A stone, as I just said," went on Olox. "It has a beneficial moral and physical effect on whoever touches it."

"Where did it come from?"

"It has been in Njambai for ages," was the indefinite answer.

"How did King Gaddbai get hold of it?"

"He borrowed it from the king of Baigol."

"And yet you call it one of his treasures! If it was borrowed, Olox, how could it possibly belong here?"

"King Gaddbai has taken it," was the calm response. "What he wants he makes his own. If King Golbai had not loaned the stone, there would have been a war."

"Was that the right thing for your king to do?" inquired the professor.

"Whatever our sovereign does is right."

There was no getting around a flat statement of that sort. Evidently the ruler of the country had drilled his subjects thoroughly.

"What did you do at the car, Olox?" said the professor.

"At the iron house?" The professor nodded.

Nods and gestures were well understood by the people of Njambai, for, with four hands, they were well equipped for finger and whole arm movements.

"The king's orders were carried out, at the iron house," finished Olox.

"The paint was returned to its proper place?"

"Even so."

"And the telescope----'

"That matter was attended to."

"I trust you handled the telescope with care? It is exceedingly fragile and could be easily injured."

"After the king spoke as he did, death by zet would be meted out to the one who injured the instrument."

There were several things I wanted to ask Olox, and the principal one had to do with Gilhooly, and the way he had been taken from the car and made to serve the traction interests of the kingdom. However, the professor was keeping Olox so busy with his word-box that my own questions were crowded out.

"The family of the executioner-general are anxious to have him returned," remarked Olox, while the professor was looking for the proper key on which to formulate his next question. "Could that be accomplished?"

"It might," replied the professor guardedly.

"What has become of him?"

"He disappeared as he was about to commit a deed of base injustice," said the professor grimly.

"We are aware of that," and Olox looked uneasily around as he punched the words, "but we are ignorant of the cause of his disappearance. He is a distant relative of mine, and I promised his next of kin to put these questions to you. Is he alive?"

"Undoubtedly."

Olox pressed closer and muffled his word-box so that the sounds could not carry to dangerous limits.

"If you would tell us how to proceed in the matter of getting the executioner-general back," he whispered, "I can promise you and your friends help in getting out of the country."

"Look out for the indexograph, Olox," said I. "If they should happen to give you a try out with it, the ideograph wouldn't look well to the king."

Olox was greatly shaken--so shaken, in fact, that he could not pursue the subject further.

"I will talk with you later about the executioner-general," he finished, noting the empty dishes before the professor and Meigs and me, and the curious manner of those who had come with him. "Until then, pray consider that nothing has been said on the subject." With that, he arose and beckoned to his companions.

After Olox had led the attendants away with the empty food receptacles, the professor and I got our heads together on the mission that had brought us to Baigadd.

We did not think it necessary or advisable to let Meigs know of our purpose in regaining control of the Bolla.

"We are pledged to secure the mysterious stone if we can, Mr. Munn," said Quinn. "Undoubtedly the work will put us in bad odor here, and may interfere with our attempt to balk the king in his comprehensive scheme of conquest, but that does not release us from the task in question."

A tingle of gratification shot along my nerves. The feeling of oppression that had burdened me was lifted, for I ever loved to crack a professional nut, and here was one that would certainly try me to the utmost.

I surveyed the small building with critical eyes.

"Here is where my inches get the better of me, professor," said I. "For one of my size to get into that house is out of the question. And I wouldn't know where to lay hands on the Bolla if it were physically possible for me to effect an entrance."

"I can make a suggestion, Mr. Munn," said Quinn, "which would get you safely around that difficulty."

"What is that?"

"Whisper." I inclined my ear to his lips. "Why not run away with the imperial exchequer?"

"Eh?" I gasped.

"Steal it bodily, I mean. When you get to Baigol with it, let the king effect entrance, secure his Bolla, and then you return the exchequer to its original location. Of course, it would be very wrong to steal the king's treasury, and I would not counsel that under any consideration. You merely borrow it to obtain the Bolla; the stone returned to its rightful owners, you return the exchequer."

"And get zetbaied for my pains!" I exclaimed.

"Let us hope," said the professor, "that before you can get zetbaied we shall be in a position to use the car and escape from the planet."

I gave much thought to the matter.

"It is a long chance," I returned frankly, "but I have been taking long chances ever since I became a cracksman. I will put the plan in operation, professor, at the very first opportunity that presents itself."

Thus we left the matter, the professor warmly congratulating me on my courage and expressing the hope that I would prove equally courageous in more worthy pursuits, if the chance ever offered.

*CHAPTER XV.*

*SURVEYING OUR OWN PLANET.*

Day slipped along to its close, and shortly after the reflectors winked out the king came, accompanied by Olox, a guard of Gaddbaizets, and six attendants bearing the telescope.

To our surprise and gratification, both Markham and Popham were in the midst of the royal guard.

"It struck me," said the king graciously, "that your friends might also wish to view the orb from which they came. It is a little thing and can be done without inconvenience, so I am pleased to favor them."

The high chief traced an opening in the zet ring with the black tip of his weapon, and Meigs was first to rush through and hurl himself into the arms of Popham. The unfortunate gentlemen were long in each other's embrace.

When they finally drew apart, Meigs groped through the black gloom by Markham, while the professor felt for the coal baron's hand and gave it a gentle and reassuring pressure.

"Professor Quinn," said Popham, "I am being badly treated. The king has put me on the night shift in one of the royal coal mines and the soldiers make me work like a galley slave. This is the first night I have had off since they set me to work."

Popham was loud in his complainings, but was cut short by the king.

"We must proceed, gentlemen. I have word from above that the night is fine and everything propitious for an excellent view of your planet, but storms come suddenly and we can never be sure of the weather on the outer crust. It is well to make haste."

We started stumblingly, each of us led by a soldier to whom the way was plain. We were jostled here and there through the gloom, and finally were made to mount some object which gave a metallic ring beneath our feet.

"This is the royal lift," explained the king. "When the heat of the day is suspended I often go above."

He then addressed himself to Olox. "Give the signal at once."

The signal was given and we shot aloft. The transformation from the fury of a storm to the light and tranquillity of the underworld had been great and astounding; but this second transformation was none the less impressive.

We emerged into a wonderful night set with stars that were perfectly familiar to me. The Dipper and Polaris were in the north and occupying relatively the same positions that they do when viewed from Earth--so little effect has the immensities of distance upon their posts in the vault.