Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 06.djvu/27

I confessed that I wouldn’t, and added that I wouldn’t have dared invent anything that had occurred on this expedition.

"You’d better be thankful for what has happened,” Edmund interrupted, "and not be railing at Providence when it interferes in your behalf.”

When everything was ready, we listened for a while to learn if any survivors yet remained unfound. Finally, hearing nothing, Edmund called out: “All aboard!”

I never learned how many, if any, had been lost.

At any rate, we were a company of fifteen, including Juba, when, at last, we circled up into the air and left that awful place.

Ala, as the nervous shock wore off, resumed her queenly air, but with it there was mingled an expression of fond admiration for Edmund that warmed my heart. If ever a couple were born for one another, I thought they were. Yet they had been born a long way apart!

The crew of the airplane seemed to know the way well enough, once we were aloft, and after but a momentary hesitation, our course was set, and we began to speed at a great elevation. Finally, we caught sight of the arc of daylight far away, and it gradually rose and spread, until we emerged from under the cap of dark vapors and the region of twilight into the now familiar land of the great seashell-tinted cloud-dome.

Edmund remained for a long time communing with Ala, but at last he approached us.

Henry, meanwhile, had recovered a little equanimity.

“I suppose,” Edmund began, "that you would like to know how they found us.”

“Upon my word,” I said, “I never thought about that in the confusion that we have gone through. But, yes indeed, we should like to know how under heaven they ever managed it.”

Thereupon Edmund sat down and told us the story as he had learned it from Ala and the others. It seemed that Juba had finally been our savior, though, of course, it was Ala who had inspired and managed the whole thing.

When they saw us snatched away from under the tree, they instantly comprehended Ingra’s plot, and, calling upon the others to follow, Ala ran like a deer for the mines. Juba alone was able to keep up with her, the two handmaidens being left far behind in the race. Fortunately, most of the way was down hill.

“I guess they made those three miles in less than fifteen minutes,” said Edmund, smiling with a fond glance at Ala.

Arrived at the mines, Ala instantly ordered her airplane under way, with the best crew she could find at a moment’s notice. She knew what to do first.

She had long since lost sight of us, but she had noted the direction of our flight and her first measure was to rise rapidly to a great elevation so as to command a wide prospect, at the same time in order not to lose valuable ground, making toward the mountains.

Ingra’s delay in choosing his course, and his oversight in going to a great height, aided our pursuers, and they soon caught a glimpse of us, a mere speck in the air, miles and miles away.

Ala immediately ordered top speed. She drove the machine at such a rate that, as Edmund made out the story, her engineer protested. But she would listen to nothing.

Faster and faster their driving-fans spun, until they seemed about to whirl themselves off their shafts. They soon had the satisfaction to see that they were gaining, for Ala’s airplane was one of the swiftest.

Slowly they drew up on us, until the twilight borders were reached, and then their hopes quickly faded. As we entered under the dark clouds, we were swallowed from sight.

Ala’s heart gave way, and finally, in an agony of despair, she sank upon the decck. She knew too well the horrible fate that Ingra had prepared for his rival.

Then it was that Juba unexpectedly came to the rescue. Possessing already the basis of the wordless language that was employed by them, he had little difficulty in learning how to communicate with Ala’s people, and seeing her despair, and comprehending the purpose of the chase, he now respectfully approached her and made her understand that he could see in the dark. He had lived all his life in a land of shadow and of night, and his eyes, while half blinded in the light, were exactly suited for the conditions that now confronted them.

He proved the truth of his assertion, or tried to, by pointing out the escaping craft, averring that it was perfectly visible to him. Ala was filled with joy at this happy turn of events. Immediately she recovered her self-command, and gave orders to all her crew that Juba’s directions should be implicitly followed.

With the shades removed from his great eyes, Juba took his place on the prow of the airplane and guided its course. Without the slightest delay, without abating their fearful speed, they plunged into the gloom, straight on our track.

When Ingra made his sudden change, of course Juba saw the manoeuver and turned it against its inventor, for now Ingra himself could not see his pursuer, and could not know that he was still followed. The nose of the bloodhound is not more certain in the chase than were Juba’s eyes in that terrible flight through the darkness.

They continued to gain upon us so rapidly that they were close at hand when Ingra rose from the swamp after pitching us out. Following Juba’s indications, the pilot was about to dash at the escaping airplane, when Ala, divining what had been done, checked him, and ordered him to seek the spot where she was sure that we had been left, by Ingra’s orders, to be devoured by the monsters of the morass.

But even Juba’s eyes could not locate us, hidden as we were on the dark, swampy ground and amid the twisted vegetation. Having commanded the pilot to descend near the ground, Ala was beginning a careful search, which even yet might have failed, when the sudden flashing out of Edmund’s lamp told them where we were.

I need not tell you how breathlessly we listened