Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 06.djvu/16

The air-ships swarmed out on every side, like hornets from their nests. The air seemed full of them. I gave up all hope of escape, but Edmund was like a racer who hears the thunder of rival hoofs behind him. He put on more and more speed, until we had to hang to anything handy to prevent being blown off by the wind we made or whirled overboard on sharp turns.

Crash! We had run straight into a huge airplane that persisted in getting in our way. She dipped and rolled like a floating log. I saw the men on her deck tumble over one another as we shot by, but fortunately none fell off. I say fortunately, because surely it would not have bettered our case to kill any more of them just now.

Busy as he was, dodging and turning, Edmund did not cease occasionally speaking to us.

"There's just one chance to beat them," he said, "and only one; and I'm going to try it as quick as I can get out of this press."

I had no notion of what he meant, but a few minutes later I divined his intention. All the while, I observed, he was working higher and higher. The spectacle of that magnificent city, spreading every moment wider as we rose, and changing shapes and colors like a view in a kaleidoscope, would have held me enchained with admiration—if I had had time to fix my attention upon it.

Still we shot upward, making the necessary circles as small as possible; and so recklessly had Edmund turned on the speed that at last it really began to look as if we should escape. Two-thirds of our pursuers were far below our level. But the others comprehended our plan and rose with us, some endeavoring to get ahead and cross our bows.

While I saw that Edmund's idea was to hold a skyward course, I was far from guessing the particular reason he had for doing so. Finally Jack spoke up.

"See here, Edmund," he said, "if you keep on going up instead of running off one way or another, they'll corner you in the middle of the sky. Don't you see how they have circled out on all sides, so as to surround us? Then, when we get as high as we can go, they will simply close in all round, and we'll be in a trap."

"Oh, no, we won't," said Edmund.

"I don't see why."

"Because they can't go as high as we can."

"I'd like to know why they can't. I guess they understand these things as well as you do?"

"Can a fish live out of water?" asked Edmund, laughing.

"What are you driving at?"

"Why, it's plain enough. These people are used to an atmosphere two or three times as dense as that which we have on the earth. It doesn't trouble our breathing much, having plenty of oxygen; but we can go where they would gasp for breath, because we can stand the rare air at a great height.

"My only doubt is about the flying ability of the airplane; but luckily this is a light car, and being under way, I think she'll run as high as we need to go, and stay there. You'll see them dropping off pretty soon."

And they did drop off with great rapidity. Their own strategy, which Jack had called attention to, was simply a playing into our hands. They really thought to catch us in the middle of a gradually contracting circle, when, to their evident amazement, we rose into a region of the atmosphere where they knew that they could not live. Edmund fairly roared with laughter when he saw the success of his ruse.

But there was one thing that he had forgotten, and it struck to our hearts when we became aware of it. Poor Juba! He could endure this rare air no better than our pursuers. Already, unnoticed in the excitement, he had fallen upon the deck, where he lay gasping like a newly landed sturgeon. At last he ceased to struggle.

"Good Heavens!" cried Jack, "the poor fellow is dying."

"We must save him," said Edmund.

"But how? You wouldn't go back down there?"

"If we drop down near the limit, that stops the others," said Edmund; "he'll revive, and then we can dodge up and down enough to keep out of danger both ways."

No sooner said than done, and we began to descend. I reflected that here was the only mistake that Edmund had made during the whole trip; I mean the mistake of bringing along the natives from the caverns.

It was their presence that had prevented us from sailing triumphantly over the crystal mountains, at an elevation where there would have been no danger; it was because of them that we had wrecked the car; and now it was the presence of Juba that prevented us from keeping in a safe place. This wrought upon my mind so that finally I spoke about it to Edmund. Instantly Henry chimed in:

"Better let him die than lose our own lives."

"Stop!" said Edmund sternly. "A thousand times I have cursed myself for my error. I thought that those fellows would be of use. Instead, they were an encumbrance. But it was not their fault that they came. It is I that am responsible for their fate, and I shall never forgive myself; neither shall I ever abandon the last one that is left. I'd give up my own life rather."

That ended the discussion. We continued to drop, until, with much chafing of his hairy hands and body, and the aid of a little stimulant poured into his mouth from a pocket flask, we brought poor Juba round.

In the meantime the crowd of air-ships watching us from below began to close in their circle, evidently under the belief that we had been compelled to descend on account of the rarity of the atmosphere, and that at last they would have us sure. It was impossible not to admire their preparations for catching the expected fish.

There was such a multitude of the craft that they were able to form themselves into the semblance of a huge bag-net, the edge carried as high as they could go, while the sides and bottom were composed of airships packed as close almost as meshes. This great "net" was a mile across.