Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 06.djvu/17

Edmund laughed again as he looked down into it.

"No, no, messieurs," he shouted, "we're no gudgeons. You'll have to do better than that."

"See here, Edmund," cried Jack suddenly, "why don't you make off and leave them? By keeping just out of their reach, as you have said, we can easily escape?"

"And leave our own car!" was the reply.

"Jove!” said Jack, "I never thought of that. But, see here, in that case, what did you run away for at all?"

"Because," said Edmund quietly, "I thought it better to parley than to lie in prison."

"Parley? How are you going to parley?"

"That remains to be seen, but I guess we'll manage it."

We were now, as I estimated, about ten miles high. When we were highest, the great cloud dome that I have described was but a little above our heads, and we might have gone up into it and been lost from sight.

Our pursuers circled about to keep their positions a quarter of a mile or so below us. They were evidently parleying on their side, for waves of color flowed all about them, and the spectacle was so brilliant that we almost forgot our situation while watching it.

"I suppose you'll play them a prismatic symphony?" said Henry mockingly.

"Perhaps. Who knows?" replied Edmund coolly. "I've no doubt that the materials are aboardship."

A minute later he added:

"If I'd been here a month, I'd do it sure. But I haven't had time to study that subject yet. We must manage otherwise."

While we had been talking Edmund had not relaxed his vigilance, and two or three times he baffled a sudden dart of the enemy by circling derisively high above their heads, each time returning to a lower level as soon as Juba began to gasp.

At last we noticed a movement among the crowd below which betokened something important. In a moment we saw what it was. A gorgeous airplane, by far the handsomest that we had seen, had arrived in the midst of the flotilla. The others made way for it, and it came on directly towards us, as high as it could get. Immediately Edmund dropped down as if to meet it.

"I thought she'd come," I heard him mutter.

My heart jumped at the words, and in an instant my theory had possession of me again. I was sure that he had referred to Ala, and once more the conviction grew very strong within me that there was at least the beginning of an understanding between her and Edmund.

I felt glad; and, even in our apparently desperate situation, that feeling was not merely on account of the promise of escape. It partook of the sentiment which every human being experiences when he sees two young people's hearts opening to each other.

"Love will pull us through, if nothing else can," I said to myself. But I gave no hint to Jack or Henry, who would probably have laughed at me.

It was a very Cleopatra's barge that approached us, and Edmund didn't stop until we could see the eyes of the others. Then both air-ships, as by common consent, came to rest, simply soaring in parallel circles to maintain their buoyancy.

Ala stood forward on the deck, with her female attendants about her.

Exactly how they managed it I do not know; but I have already told you of the strange power of mind-reading, or telepathy, or whatever it was, that these people possessed, and that Edmund had made some little progress in this mysterious method of thought transference. He and Ala looked at each other, and I could see signs of pleasure in her face.

For half an hour or more we hung there, slowly circling, but without change of distance; and all the time those two continued their silent converse, occasionally emphasized by gestures, which even we could understand. Finally it was plain that a conclusion had been reached. There was a flashing of colors between Ala's airplane and the others, and all began to descend, we along with them.

After a while Edmund turned to us and said:

"Well, boys, it’s coming out all right; and isn't she a queen worthy of Venus?"

"Is she really a queen?" asked Jack.

"You'll see," Edmund replied, in his old manner, smiling a little. "But let me tell you the rest."

Then he went on to tell us that the trouble had all come, as we had suspected, out of his having killed a person of very great importance. But we had never guessed how extremely important that person was from our own point of view.

He was a prince of Venus!

"My luck is almost as bad as that of Œdipus," said Edmund. “But, prince or not, he acted like a blanked idiot; and, as you know, I had to kill him.

"Of course, you understand that there is a certain amount of guesswork in all this. I have had to reason from analogy, putting this and that together. My 'conversation' with Ala was not exactly as free as a tête-à-tête at home. But the fact that she could read my thoughts with comparative ease helped us along, because it was more important that she should understand our side of the story than that I should be able to understand hers.

"I may be mistaken in the prince idea, but I think not. Anyway, the fellow was of that degree of importance that Ala did not dare to interfere with their bringing us to book about it. As I told you before, I had confidence that, once I could make clear my motives, we should come out all right. But when the chance of escape from the dungeon presented itself, this idea of getting beyond their reach in the high air, and holding a parley, flashed into my mind, and I determined to try it."

"It ought to have been plain to them why you shot that chap," said Jack.

"It was plain to Ala," Edmund replied, "and I know that she intended to use the fact for our exculpation. But I was afraid of the others. Remember that we are nothing to them, except objects of curiosity. If it had been a common fellow that I had killed, it might have been different; and they