Part 9

That ended the professor's talk with our unseen enemy who, presumably, was the high chief of the forces. It was sufficiently discouraging, although I was reckless enough to ease my feelings with a few expletives on Key 7--the most insolent and defiant that I had learned in Baigol.

"Mr. Munn, Mr. Munn!" cried Quinn in rebuke. "This is no time to express yourself in that key."

"I am not endowed with your magnificent forbearance, professor," said I, "and I had to say something."

"What's it all about, anyway?" asked Meigs.

"We are to die at sunrise, Meigs," I answered roughly, "or as soon after sunrise as the executioner-general may find it convenient."

"I would have spared Mr. Meigs that information," said the professor.

"He ought to have time to prepare himself," I returned. "As the night is far spent I am going to turn in and snatch forty winks against the time the reflectors begin to work. Good night, professor," I added, as I stretched out on the ground. "I don't amount to much more than Meigs, and will never be missed, but I am sorry for you."

Quinn groped for my hand.

"Life, in itself, is a small thing," said he, "no matter whether it is long or short. It is what we do with life that counts, Mr. Munn."

"I have no regrets for what I have done with mine," I declared.

And I had not. Conscience did not accuse me in the least. Never had I taken a penny from those who could not afford to lose it.

"Think again, Mr. Munn!" implored the professor. "I would not have you face your doom in that mental attitude. Surely your senses are not blunted to the evil of your past life?"

"Sir," I answered, imbued to the core with the sophistry that had made me what I was, "I have been a financier in a small way. Not having the requisite capital for large operations, I was compelled to work in a small way. My business, however, while it may not have been as legitimate, was every whit as honest as that of Meigs and his associates."

"If you men would stop that useless palavering," called Meigs, from somewhere in the dark, "and try to think of some way for making our escape, you would be putting in your time to better advantage."

"Never mind him, professor," said I. "This is probably the last opportunity we shall ever have for an extended talk. At such a time a man speaks from the heart, and I want you to know just where I stand."

"Just a moment, Mr. Munn." The professor turned his head to answer Meigs. "It is impossible for us to escape," said he. "Even if we could get away from here, we should find the entire country in arms against us."

"Possibly we could get back to that other benighted kingdom from which you and the thief come accredited as ambassadors?" returned Meigs.

"It is a hard journey from here, Mr. Meigs, and we should be overtaken and recaptured before we could cross the border into a friendly country. Before we could take to flight, however, we should have to beat down the barrier of zet that hems its in. That, as I know from experience, is out of the question."

Meigs began to complain, and to find fault, and the professor turned from him and went on talking with me.

"I have brought these troubles upon you, Mr. Munn," he continued, a sad note in his voice, "and upon the others. It seems impossible to accomplish any great good without causing some small amount of misery."

"Don't let my situation worry you," I remarked. "While constantly exercising my wits to secure the best fortune for myself, I have always made it a point to be prepared for the worst. I shall face the zetbais in the morning without the quiver of an eyelid."

"Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Munn," said the professor earnestly. "While I grieve that matters should have fallen out in this fashion, yet I would not undo the one thing which brought us into these troubled waters. In other words, I would rather be here, in Njambai, with death staring us in the face, than back there on Terra, with Meigs, Markham, Popham, and Gilhooly free to work out their nefarious plans."

"That's the spirit!" I cried warmly.

"It's the spirit that has put many a man in the penitentiary," called Meigs, who appeared to be following our conversation even if he was not taking any part in it.

I turned with a stinging reply on my lips, but the professor dropped a hand on my arm, and I held my peace.

"We are sharing together our last few hours," said he, "and let us have no quarrelsome talk. Personally, I have a good deal of charity for Meigs. He is a man who, until very recently, has been accustomed to having scores of people wait upon his slightest nod. Here he has been subjected to much indignity, and at the hands of a people whom he believes to be his inferiors. Naturally that renders him disagreeable."

"He might, at least, have the grace to leave you alone," I answered.

"Not so, Mr. Munn. He is perfectly right in badgering me. I am at fault, so far as he and his associates are concerned, and he knows it. I do not expect approbation at their hands, but at the hands of those, in far-away Terra, whom my drastic actions have helped. Your calm acceptance of your fate is so different from the attitude of Meigs that it touches me deeply. You have the same cause to blame and abuse me, and yet you let the opportunity pass."

"It has been worth something, professor," I responded, "to stand at your side and to pass through these remarkable adventures shoulder to shoulder with you."

"Thank you for that, my friend."

"I have no doubt," I continued, "that if you and I were to be spared, you might in time lead me to see what you are disposed to call the error of my way, for you are a master hand at arguing; but, as I am at present, I feel that my chances in the next world are as good as any one's. The rich have taken from the poor in a way that the law sanctions; and I have taken from the rich in a way the law does not sanction, and, in a few rare instances, have given to the poor. There's nothing in that to oppress my conscience. The only thing I am sorry for is that I entered your castle with my felonious intention centred upon your property. Now that I know you so well, my plan to steal from you looks more like a crime than anything else I have done."

"Munn," he replied, "it grieves me to think that your career is to be cut short before you have had an opportunity to reform. However"--and he sighed softly--"there is no escaping fate on our own planet or on this. Good night to you."

I was dog-tired and went off into slumber the moment I closed my eyes. About the last thing I heard was the peevish voice of Meigs resisting what little comfort the professor tried to offer him.

I was aroused by the professor.

"The first gleam of day, Mr. Munn," said he, bending over me with a quiet smile.

I rubbed my eyes and got the cobwebs out of my brain. Yes, it was the first gleam of day--our last day.

We were in an open square in the heart of a diminutive city. From every side radiated trim little streets bordered thickly with white dwellings.

In front of us was a palace, rising dome upon dome until it stood full thirty feet high. Inhabitants of the royal city were already abroad, walking rapidly or gathering in groups and using their word-boxes excitedly.

"Toot! toot! Ting-a-ling-a-ling!"

The familiar sounds came from a distance, and I sprang erect and with the professor gazed in the direction from which they reached us. Presently Gilhooly came along with a loaded train.

He halted in front of the palace, the passengers disembarked and Gilhooly bent over the cars, picked them up carefully and turned them the other way along the V-shaped groove.

"All aboard!" he cried, and a minute later he was off and away.

"Poor Gilhooly!" murmured Quinn. "He is bringing excursionists to witness our execution. I am glad that he does not know what he is doing and that Meigs is asleep."

Quinn laid his hand on my shoulder.

"I deeply regret, Mr. Munn," he went on, "that I am the indirect cause of Gilhooly's lunacy. It was a great surprise to me to find that his intellect was not strong enough to withstand the ordeal to which I subjected it."

"It couldn't be helped, professor," I returned. "It was a grand idea of yours--that of abducting these trust magnates and placing them where they could do no harm to the poor of our planet. What though one mind has been wrecked? Better that than the misery and enslavement of hundreds of thousands."

"Mr. Munn," said the professor with feeling, "I thank you. Such words from a companion who is about to suffer jointly with me the extreme penalty prove that you are a man of parts and fitted for a nobler walk in life than the one you have heretofore taken. I am very, very sorry that you are to be cut off so soon."

Quinn was fortitude itself, his courage born of a knowledge of duty well done. I am prone to believe, also, that I myself was not less firm, although a less laudable cause lay back of it.

The square, I should judge, measured about two hundred feet on each side. While the professor and I were engaged in talk, sight-seers had been gathering in the streets, keeping carefully to the sidewalk boundaries of the open space.

Every eye was turned upon the professor and myself and the sleeping Meigs. The broker was snoring dismally, the sound rumbling above the babble of the word-boxes and echoing through the adjacent thoroughfares.

"What has happened to the executioner-general?" I said to the professor. "He isn't very punctual in keeping his engagement with us, it seems to me. We have had daylight for an hour."

"Something has gone wrong, Mr. Munn," Quinn answered, taking note of a ripple of excitement that ran through the crowds around us. "Ah! Here comes the high chief of the military forces. He has his word-box ready, so I suppose he is going to explain."

The high chief was pushing through the throng into the square, two of his hands holding a word-box and the other two a zetbai. Advancing upon us, he halted just without the ring.

"Be patient, gentlemen," he said through his talk machine. "You will not be kept waiting much longer."

"We are not so wildly impatient as you seem to think," I sent back at him; whereupon he tittered a little with Key 7.

Seeing that I was getting ready to use the same key for a few expletives, the professor made haste to break in.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"It has just been discovered that there is no white paint in the king's storehouse," replied the high chief.

"What is the white paint to be used for?" came curiously from the professor.

"The executioner-general is obliged by law to give himself a fresh coat of white paint at every execution. It would be impossible for him to perform his function without first complying with the statute."

"Could not some one else, who has been freshly decorated, do the work in his stead?" I inquired, somewhat flippantly.

"No," answered the high chief. "He is the only one in the kingdom who is duly empowered to execute criminals. Our executioner is a proud person, and jealous of the prerogatives of his office. He receives no less than two kanos for every happy dispatch that he performs. In this case he will be the richer by six kanos, so you will understand how anxious he is to have everything done as it should be."

A kano was the equivalent of a half cent of our own money; so that our one-time millionaire, Mr. J. Archibald Meigs, was to yield up his valuable life and help swell the executioner-general's income to the extent of a single copper. Had he been awake, I should have explained the matter to him so that he might have still further expatiated upon the irony of fate.

This kingdom of Baigadd differed from the other kingdom with which we had already made acquaintance in one material respect: The surface of the country had shrunk much farther from the outer crust of the planet.

In Baigol, for instance, we were always able to see the vault that covered us; but in Baigadd the sight reached into nothing but empty space.

Shortly after the high chief had finished speaking there came a flourish of word-boxes from the direction of the palace. Turning our eyes toward that point we beheld two resplendent soldiers in turrets to right and left of the richly hung balcony.

"Hail to our munificent sovereign, Gaddbai, ruler of the realm and mightiest monarch of Njambai!"

Thus the paeans of the soldiers.

The words were echoed by the crowd, and a surging roar went up from the talking machines: "Hail to his majesty, King Gaddbai!"

On the heels of the tumult the kaka draperies parted at the rear of the royal balcony and the king appeared, bowed and seated himself. He had a reserved seat for the performance and could see everything that took place.

"Let the executioner-general stand forth, prepare himself for his work and then proceed--all in the royal presence!"

Instantly the master of ceremonies put in an appearance. He wore a white kirtle, carried himself with a lordly air, and was followed by a retinue of attendants.

Two of the attendants bore the official zetbais; another carried the official word-box; four more were dragging a cart on spherical wheels--an open cart laden with an object that startled us.

"Great heavens, Mr. Munn!" gasped the professor. "Unless my eyes deceive me, the executioner-general is having my tub of anti-gravity compound hauled after him!"

"Your eyes do not deceive you, sir," I made answer.

"But what in the world are they going to do with it?"

"We shall be able to tell in a few moments. Look! The executioner takes his word-box and kneels; he is about to address the king."

"Your majesty," said the executioner-general through his talking machine, "your slave craves your indulgence in the matter of preparing for this happy dispatch. The supply of the official pigment is quite exhausted, and it has been found necessary to fall back upon the white paint that was found in the dwelling recently fallen from the top of the crater."

"Will it answer the purpose?" demanded the king.

"It is white, your majesty, and of proper consistency. So far as I can see, it will answer the purpose well."

"Then proceed with your preparations. I would have this matter over with as quick as possible."

Of course Quinn and I understood all this. I knew that the professor was meditating a final appeal to the king, and he shot a strange look at me as his trembling hands lifted his word-box.

"Before the executioner-general proceeds, your majesty," remarked the professor, his fingers none too steady, "will you allow me a word?"

His majesty gave an exclamation of surprise.

"Where have you learned our language?" he inquired.

"In Baigol, your majesty. We come from that country on a visit to you, under the protection of the royal banner of Golbai."

The professor nodded to me and I shook out the banner and held it aloft.

"My royal friend," said Gaddbai, "should have been more particular in choosing the subjects he sends to visit my realm. The sleeping colossus, in the ring with you raided my storehouse, and you sought to save him from capture. For that lawless act death has been decreed to all three of you, and the sentence must be carried out."

"But we were ignorant of the law," pleaded the professor.

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse."

"The gentleman in the red kirtle is a friend of ours----"

"If we know a person by the company he keeps, that speaks ill for you," interrupted the sovereign.

"You are determined to have us slain, your majesty?"

"It is my royal will."

"Then I shall have to set forces at work to combat the royal will," said the professor calmly.

Cries of consternation and anger went up on every hand. The king rose wrathfully from his seat.

"You dare to dispute my authority?" he demanded.

"I dare to dispute your ability to slay us," returned Quinn. "Your executioner will disappear from before your eyes if he attempts it."

The king laughed ironically.

"We shall see," he said, sinking placidly back on his seat. "Let the executioner-general proceed with his preparations."

I was greatly pleased with the drift of affairs. Circumstances had conspired to favor us, and the professor was making the most of his opportunity.

The executioner-general motioned to one of his attendants and then raised his four hands above his head. A moment later the attendant had seized the whitewash brush, dabbed it into the anti-gravity compound, and with two quick strokes had covered the executioner's chest and back.

Had a third stroke been needed it could not have been given. In a flash the official had been snatched away, vanishing like a streak of white in the void above.

The king rose gasping, clutching at the balcony rail. The throng around us was paralyzed for a space, and not a word-box was heard.

As for Quinn, he had struck an attitude, his left hand raised aloft and his glittering, bead-like eyes transfixing the king.

*CHAPTER XIII.*

*A THREATENING CALAMITY.*

And through all this J. Archibald Meigs slept placidly on. Presently a perfect roar of awe and dismay broke from thousands of word-boxes. In the midst of the hubbub the king could be seen waving his hands to command silence and attention. The glittering soldiers in the turrets sounded a clarion warning and silence fell once more.

"Marvelous are the powers of these colossi!" cried the king with trembling voice. "The sleeping thief receives my royal pardon; the offense of his two friends, in attempting to succor him, is condoned. From now henceforth these three are my honored guests! Let all take heed!"

I caught the professor's hand and gave it a fervent clasp.

"You saved our lives, professor," said I.

"Hardly," he returned, smiling. "It was the anti-gravity compound that did that. Now that we can inflate our lungs without catching our breath, suppose we waken Mr. Meigs."

On being aroused Meigs sat up and stared around at him. He was not long in picking up the trend of events where he had left off during the night.

"Are they ready to--to kill us?" he asked, clasping his hands.

"They are not going to kill us, Mr. Meigs," answered the professor. "The king has changed his mind, and we are now his honored guests."

"You don't mean it!" exclaimed the broker.

The professor replied that he did mean it, and went on to tell how the unexpected result had been accomplished. Before he had fairly finished, the king, clad in his robes of state and accompanied by a dozen members of his household, could be seen approaching across the square.

Attendants followed the royal party, bearing basins of food, a chair on which his majesty could repose himself and a canopy to shield his august person from the reflected rays of the sun.

"The first thing you do, Quinn," said Meigs, while the royal party was making itself comfortable, "tell the king I've got to have my clothes."

"Have patience, Mr. Meigs," answered the professor.

"Patience?" spluttered Meigs. "Merciful powers, man! How can I be patient and cut such a figure as this?"

"Attend his majesty!" came from a word-box among the king's suite. "Our gracious sovereign is about to speak."

Our close attention being secured, the king remarked:

"Now that these colossi have been spared they will need food. See that it is given them."

This command was very satisfactory to me, for I was little short of famished. Presently our paddles were flying over the basins, and we were breaking our fast in a way that made the king open his eyes.

The lord of the exchequer--a most important officer of state--drew near his majesty and said that if the kingdom was going to board us for any length of time it would behoove them to till all the crown lands and get every available acre into produce.

The king made answer that the little man with the beady eyes was a wonder-worker; he had taken care of the executioner-general with a mere wave of the hand, and no doubt he could, with a stamp of the foot, materialize as much food as he wanted and whenever he wanted.

The lord of the exchequer thereupon retired in much confusion.

In the midst of our repast we were startled by a voice behind us.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen! Out of your abundant store will you not have the goodness to give me a few mouthfuls of food? I'm starving, literally starving!"

"Markham!" cried Meigs, whirling around.

"Mr. Markham!" exclaimed the professor.

The food-trust magnate was fully clad, although his clothing showed signs of much hard usage. His cheeks were sunken and pale, while his eyes were round and abnormally bright. In his left hand was a metal plate, and in his right a small paddle.

Both Meigs and Quinn started toward Markham with the food that still remained in their basins. The zet-ring, however, reared its intangible barrier between so that Markham could not so much as touch the receptacles extended toward him.

It was pathetic to watch this one-time master of millions struggling to get the coveted food. He would throw himself at it and recoil trembling from the mysterious force that had shocked and baffled him; he would sink to his knees or leap in the air, trying to reach above or below the invisible barrier; and then he would dissemble, slink toward the basins and make a sudden dash, as though the strong chemical was an enemy whom he thought he could take off its guard.

At last he gave over and turned away with a despairing moan. Meigs faced the king and began an angry outburst which the professor made haste to interrupt.

"Your majesty," said Quinn, "this needy gentleman is also a friend of ours. Will you not supply his wants, or enable us to do so?"

"The indexograph informed me as to his character," answered the king, "and it is a law of the realm that punishment must fit the crime. When your friend will truly acknowledge himself in the wrong his needs will be plentifully supplied. Until that time he must beg his food from house to house, morsel by morsel."

"And this other gentleman in the kirtle," proceeded the professor, "will you not exercise a little clemency in his case?"

"I have already exercised a good deal of clemency," the king answered; "nor can I go any further until he also announces a change of heart."

Markham was as deaf to the word-boxes as was Meigs, and his majesty's will was interpreted to them.

"I am not in the wrong!" declared Markham. "The principle involved is of vital importance, and I will die for it, if need be."

"So will I," averred Meigs.

"We will eliminate your friends from our calculations for the present," said the king. "Just now I would like to know what has become of my executioner-general."

"He is pinned to the roof of the under-world," said the professor.

"Can you bring him back?" asked the king, turning his eye aloft. "Really, I don't see how we are to get along without him."

"Possibly I can return him to you," answered the professor. "I will try, at least, providing you will grant a request I have to make."

This dallying with the royal prerogative was not well received by his majesty, nor by those around him.

"What request would you make, in case I was inclined to receive it?" asked the king.

"I would have you bring out the Bolla and allow these two gentlemen to take it in their hands."

The king gave a start, and a look of consternation overspread the faces of those in his retinue.

"Where did you hear of the Bolla?" the king asked sharply.

"In the other kingdom, your majesty," the professor replied.

The king was silent a few moments.

"We will take that matter up later," said he finally. "From whence come you and your friends? That point has been bothering me for some little time."

"We come from another planet which is called the Earth," said Quinn.

"Does the planet you speak of circle around our sun?"

"Yes, your majesty."

"Is it as large as Njambai?"

"Much larger, your majesty."