The Battle Of The Darkness
: When The Sleeper WakesHe was no longer in the hall. He was marching along a gallery
overhanging one of the great streets of the moving platforms that
traversed the city. Before him and behind him tramped his guards. The
whole concave of the moving ways below was a congested mass of people
marching, tramping to the left, shouting, waving hands and arms, pouring
along a huge vista, shouting as they came into view, shouting as they
passe
receding in perspective dropped down it seemed and hid the swarming bare
heads. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.
The song roared up to Graham now, no longer upborne by music, but coarse
and noisy, and the beating of the marching feet, tramp, tramp, tramp,
tramp, interwove with a thunderous irregularity of footsteps from the
undisciplined rabble that poured along the higher ways.
Abruptly he noted a contrast. The buildings on the opposite side of the
way seemed deserted, the cables and bridges that laced across the aisle
were empty and shadowy. It came into Graham's mind that these also
should have swarmed with people.
He felt a curious emotion--throbbing--very fast! He stopped again. The
guards before him marched on; those about him stopped as he did. He saw
the direction of their faces. The throbbing had something to do with the
lights. He too looked up.
At first it seemed to him a thing that affected the lights simply, an
isolated phenomenon, having no bearing on the things below. Each huge
globe of blinding whiteness was as it were clutched, compressed in a
systole that was followed by a transitory diastole, and again a systole
like a tightening grip, darkness, light, darkness, in rapid alternation.
Graham became aware that this strange behaviour of the lights had to
do with the people below. The appearance of the houses and ways, the
appearance of the packed masses changed, became a confusion of vivid
lights and leaping shadows. He saw a multitude of shadows had sprung
into aggressive existence, seemed rushing up, broadening, widening,
growing with steady swiftness--to leap suddenly back and return
reinforced. The song and the tramping had ceased. The unanimous march,
he discovered, was arrested, there were eddies, a flow sideways, shouts
of "The lights!" Voices were crying together one thing. "The lights!"
cried these voices. "The lights!" He looked down. In this dancing death
of the lights the area of the street had suddenly become a monstrous
struggle. The huge white globes became purple-white, purple with a
reddish glow, flickered, flickered faster and faster, fluttered between
light and extinction, ceased to flicker and became mere fading specks
of glowing red in a vast obscurity. In ten seconds the extinction
was accomplished, and there was only this roaring darkness, a black
monstrosity that had suddenly swallowed up those glittering myriads of
men.
He felt invisible forms about him; his arms were gripped. Something
rapped sharply against his shin. A voice bawled in his ear, "It is all
right--all right."
Graham shook off the paralysis of his first astonishment. He struck his
forehead against Lincoln's and bawled, "What is this darkness?"
"The Council has cut the currents that light the city. We must
wait--stop. The people will go on. They will--"
His voice was drowned. Voices were shouting, "Save the Sleeper. Take
care of the Sleeper." A guard stumbled against Graham and hurt his hand
by an inadvertent blow of his weapon. A wild tumult tossed and whirled
about him, growing, as it seemed, louder, denser, more furious each
moment. Fragments of recognisable sounds drove towards him, were whirled
away from him as his mind reached out to grasp them. Voices seemed to be
shouting conflicting orders, other voices answered. There were suddenly
a succession of piercing screams close beneath them.
A voice bawled in his ear, "The red police," and receded forthwith
beyond his questions.
A crackling sound grew to distinctness, and there with a leaping of
faint flashes along the edge of the further ways. By their light Graham
saw the heads and bodies of a number of men, armed with weapons like
those of his guards, leap into an instant's dim visibility. The whole
area began to crackle, to flash with little instantaneous streaks of
light, and abruptly the darkness rolled back like a curtain.
A glare of light dazzled his eyes, a vast seething expanse of struggling
men confused his mind. A shout, a burst of cheering, came across the
ways. He looked up to see the source of the light. A man hung far
overhead from the upper part of a cable, holding by a rope the blinding
star that had driven the darkness back. He wore a red uniform.
Graham's eyes fell to the ways again. A wedge of red a little way along
the vista caught his eye. He saw it was a dense mass of red-clad men
jammed the higher further way, their backs against the pitiless cliff
of building, and surrounded by a dense crowd of antagonists. They were
fighting. Weapons flashed and rose and fell, heads vanished at the edge
of the contest, and other heads replaced them, the little flashes from
the green weapons became little jets of smoky grey while the light
lasted.
Abruptly the flare was extinguished and the ways were an inky darkness
once more, a tumultuous mystery.
He felt something thrusting against him. He was being pushed along the
gallery. Someone was shouting--it might be at him. He was too confused
to hear. He was thrust against the wall, and a number of people
blundered past him. It seemed to him that his guards were struggling
with one another.
Suddenly the cable-hung star-holder appeared again, and the whole scene
was white and dazzling. The band of red-coats seemed broader and nearer;
its apex was half-way down the ways towards the central aisle. And
raising his eyes Graham saw that a number of these men had also appeared
now in the darkened lower galleries of the opposite building, and were
firing over the heads of their fellows below at the boiling confusion of
people on the lower ways. The meaning of these things dawned upon him.
The march of the people had come upon an ambush at the very outset.
Thrown into confusion by the extinction of the lights they were now
being attacked by the red police. Then he became aware that he was
standing alone, that his guards and Lincoln were along the gallery in
the direction along which he had come before the darkness fell. He saw
they were gesticulating to him wildly, running back towards him. A great
shouting came from across the ways. Then it seemed as though the whole
face of the darkened building opposite was lined and speckled with
red-clad men. And they were pointing over to him and shouting. "The
Sleeper! Save the Sleeper!" shouted a multitude of throats.
Something struck the wall above his head. He looked up at the impact and
saw a star-shaped splash of silvery metal. He saw Lincoln near him. Felt
his arm gripped. Then, pat, pat; he had been missed twice.
For a moment he did not understand this. The street was hidden,
everything was hidden, as he looked. The second flare had burned out.
Lincoln had gripped Graham by the arm, was lugging him along the
gallery. "Before the next light!" he cried. His haste was contagious.
Graham's instinct of self-preservation overcame the paralysis of his
incredulous astonishment. He became for a time the blind creature of
the fear of death. He ran, stumbling because of the uncertainty of the
darkness, blundered into his guards as they turned to run with him.
Haste was his one desire, to escape this perilous gallery upon which he
was exposed. A third glare came close on its predecessors. With it came
a great shouting across the ways, an answering tumult from the ways.
The red-coats below, he saw, had now almost gained the central passage.
Their countless faces turned towards him, and they shouted. The white
facade opposite was densely stippled with red. All these wonderful
things concerned him, turned upon him as a pivot. These were the guards
of the Council attempting to recapture him.
Lucky it was for him that these shots were the first fired in anger for
a hundred and fifty years. He heard bullets whacking over his head, felt
a splash of molten metal sting his ear, and perceived without looking
that the whole opposite facade, an unmasked ambuscade of red police, was
crowded and bawling and firing at him.
Down went one of his guards before him, and Graham, unable to stop,
leapt the writhing body.
In another second he had plunged, unhurt, into a black passage, and
incontinently someone, coming, it may be, in a transverse direction,
blundered violently into him. He was hurling down a staircase in
absolute darkness. He reeled, and was struck again, and came against a
wall with his hands. He was crushed by a weight of struggling bodies,
whirled round, and thrust to the right. A vast pressure pinned him.
He could not breathe, his ribs seemed cracking. He felt a momentary
relaxation, and then the whole mass of people moving together, bore him
back towards the great theatre from which he had so recently come.
There were moments when his feet did not touch the ground. Then he was
staggering and shoving. He heard shouts of "They are coming!" and a
muffled cry close to him. His foot blundered against something soft, he
heard a hoarse scream under foot. He heard shouts of "The Sleeper!" but
he was too confused to speak. He heard the green weapons crackling. For
a space he lost his individual will, became an atom in a panic, blind,
unthinking, mechanical. He thrust and pressed back and writhed in the
pressure, kicked presently against a step, and found himself ascending
a slope. And abruptly the faces all about him leapt out of the black,
visible, ghastly-white and astonished, terrified, perspiring, in a livid
glare. One face, a young man's, was very near to him, not twenty inches
away. At the time it was but a passing incident of no emotional value,
but afterwards it came back to him in his dreams. For this young man,
wedged upright in the crowd for a time, had been shot and was already
dead.
A fourth white star must have been lit by the man on the cable. Its
light came glaring in through vast windows and arches and showed Graham
that he was now one of a dense mass of flying black figures pressed back
across the lower area of the great theatre. This time the picture was
livid and fragmentary slashed and barred with black shadows. He saw that
quite near to him the red guards were fighting their way through the
people. He could not tell whether they saw him. He looked for Lincoln
and his guards. He saw Lincoln near the stage of the theatre surrounded
in a crowd of black-badged revolutionaries, lifted up and staring to
and fro as if seeking him. Graham perceived that he himself was near
the opposite edge of the crowd, that behind him, separated by a barrier,
sloped the now vacant seats of the theatre. A sudden idea came to him,
and he began fighting his way towards the barrier. As he reached it the
glare came to an end.
In a moment he had thrown off the great cloak that not only impeded
his movements but made him conspicuous, and had slipped it from his
shoulders. He heard someone trip in its folds. In another he was scaling
the barrier and had dropped into the blackness on the further side. Then
feeling his way he came to the lower end of an ascending gangway. In
the darkness the sound of firing ceased and the roar of feet and voices
lulled. Then suddenly he came to an unexpected step and tripped and
fell. As he did so pools and islands amidst the darkness about him leapt
to vivid light again, the uproar surged louder and the glare of the
fifth white star shone through the vast fenestrations of the theatre
walls.
He rolled over among some seats, heard a shouting and the whirring
rattle of weapons, struggled up and was knocked back again, perceived
that a number of black-badged men were all about him firing at the
rebels below, leaping from seat to seat, crouching among the seats
to reload. Instinctively he crouched amidst the seats, as stray shots
ripped the pneumatic cushions and cut bright slashes on their soft metal
frames. Instinctively he marked the direction of the gangways, the most
plausible way of escape for him so soon as the veil of darkness fell
again.
A young man in faded blue garments came vaulting over the seats.
"Hullo!" he said, with his flying feet within six inches of the
crouching Sleeper's face.
He stared without any sign of recognition, turned to fire, fired, and,
shouting, "To hell with the Council!" was about to fire again. Then it
seemed to Graham that the half of this man's neck had vanished. A
drop of moisture fell on Graham's cheek. The green weapon stopped
half raised. For a moment the man stood still with his face suddenly
expressionless, then he began to slant forward. His knees bent. Man and
darkness fell together. At the sound of his fall Graham rose up and ran
for his life until a step down to the gangway tripped him. He scrambled
to his feet, turned up the gangway and ran on.
When the sixth star glared he was already close to the yawning throat of
a passage. He ran on the swifter for the light, entered the passage
and turned a corner into absolute night again. He was knocked sideways,
rolled over, and recovered his feet. He found himself one of a crowd of
invisible fugitives pressing in one direction. His one thought now
was their thought also; to escape out of this fighting. He thrust and
struck, staggered, ran, was wedged tightly, lost ground and then was
clear again.
For some minutes he was running through the darkness along a winding
passage, and then he crossed some wide and open space, passed down a
long incline, and came at last down a flight of steps to a level place.
Many people were shouting, "They are coming! The guards are coming. They
are firing. Get out of the fighting. The guards are firing. It will be
safe in Seventh Way. Along here to Seventh Way!" There were women and
children in the crowd as well as men. Men called names to him. The crowd
converged on an archway, passed through a short throat and emerged on a
wider space again, lit dimly. The black figures about him spread out and
ran up what seemed in the twilight to be a gigantic series of steps. He
followed. The people dispersed to the right and left.... He perceived
that he was no longer in a crowd. He stopped near the highest step.
Before him, on that level, were groups of seats and a little kiosk. He
went up to this and, stopping in the shadow of its eaves, looked about
him panting.
Everything was vague and gray, but he recognised that these great steps
were a series of platforms of the "ways," now motionless again. The
platform slanted up on either side, and the tall buildings rose beyond,
vast dim ghosts, their inscriptions and advertisements indistinctly
seen, and up through the girders and cables was a faint interrupted
ribbon of pallid sky. A number of people hurried by. From their shouts
and voices, it seemed they were hurrying to join the fighting. Other
less noisy figures flitted timidly among the shadows.
From very far away down the street he could hear the sound of a
struggle. But it was evident to him that this was not the street into
which the theatre opened. That former fight, it seemed, had suddenly
dropped out of sound and hearing. And--grotesque thought!--they were
fighting for him!
For a space he was like a man who pauses in the reading of a vivid book,
and suddenly doubts what he has been taking unquestioningly. At that
time he had little mind for details; the whole effect was a huge
astonishment. Oddly enough, while the flight from the Council prison,
the great crowd in the hall, and the attack of the red police upon the
swarming people were clearly present in his mind, it cost him an effort
to piece in his awakening and to revive the meditative interval of the
Silent Rooms. At first his memory leapt these things and took him back
to the cascade at Pentargen quivering in the wind, and all the sombre
splendours of the sunlit Cornish coast. The contrast touched everything
with unreality. And then the gap filled, and he began to comprehend his
position.
It was no longer absolutely a riddle, as it had been in the Silent
Rooms. At least he had the strange, bare outline now. He was in some way
the owner of half the world, and great political parties were fighting
to possess him. On the one hand was the White Council, with its red
police, set resolutely, it seemed, on the usurpation of his property and
perhaps his murder; on the other, the revolution that had liberated him,
with this unseen "Ostrog" as its leader. And the whole of this gigantic
city was convulsed by their struggle. Frantic development of his
world! "I do not understand," he cried. "I do not understand!"
He had slipped out between the contending parties into this liberty of
the twilight. What would happen next? What was happening? He figured
the redclad men as busily hunting him, driving the blackbadged
revolutionists before them.
At any rate chance had given him a breathing space. He could lurk
unchallenged by the passers-by, and watch the course of things. His eye
followed up the intricate dim immensity of the twilight buildings, and
it came to him as a thing infinitely wonderful, that above there the
sun was rising, and the world was lit and glowing with the old familiar
light of day. In a little while he had recovered his breath. His
clothing had already dried upon him from the snow.
He wandered for miles along these twilight ways, speaking to no one,
accosted by no one--a dark figure among dark figures--the coveted man
out of the past, the inestimable unintentional owner of half the world.
Wherever there were lights or dense crowds, or exceptional excitement
he was afraid of recognition, and watched and turned back or went up and
down by the middle stairways, into some transverse system of ways at a
lower or higher level. And though he came on no more fighting, the
whole city stirred with battle. Once he had to run to avoid a marching
multitude of men that swept the street. Everyone abroad seemed involved.
For the most part they were men, and they carried what he judged were
weapons. It seemed as though the struggle was concentrated mainly in
the quarter of the city from which he came. Ever and again a distant
roaring, the remote suggestion of that conflict, reached his ears.
Then his caution and his curiosity struggled together. But his caution
prevailed, and he continued wandering away from the fighting--so far as
he could judge. He went unmolested, unsuspected through the dark. After
a time he ceased to hear even a remote echo of the battle, fewer and
fewer people passed him, until at last the Titanic streets became
deserted. The frontages of the buildings grew plain and harsh; he seemed
to have come to a district of vacant warehouses. Solitude crept upon
him--his pace slackened.
He became aware of a growing fatigue. At times he would turn aside
and seat himself on one of the numerous seats of the upper ways. But
a feverish restlessness, the knowledge of his vital implication in his
struggle, would not let him rest in any place for long. Was the struggle
on his behalf alone?
And then in a desolate place came the shock of an earthquake--a roaring
and thundering--a mighty wind of cold air pouring through the city,
the smash of glass, the slip and thud of falling masonry--a series of
gigantic concussions. A mass of glass and ironwork fell from the remote
roofs into the middle gallery, not a hundred yards away from him, and
in the distance were shouts and running. He, too, was startled to an
aimless activity, and ran first one way and then as aimlessly back.
A man came running towards him. His self-control returned. "What have
they blown up?" asked the man breathlessly. "That was an explosion," and
before Graham could speak he had hurried on.
The great buildings rose dimly, veiled by a perplexing twilight, albeit
the rivulet of sky above was now bright with day. He noted many strange
features, understanding none at the time; he even spelt out many of the
inscriptions in Phonetic lettering. But what profits it to decipher a
confusion of odd-looking letters resolving itself, after painful strain
of eye and mind, into "Here is Eadhamite," or, "Labour Bureau--Little
Side?" Grotesque thought, that in all probability some or all of these
cliff-like houses were his!
The perversity of his experience came to him vividly. In actual fact he
had made such a leap in time as romancers have imagined again and again.
And that fact realised, he had been prepared, his mind had, as it were,
seated itself for a spectacle. And no spectacle, but a great vague
danger, unsympathetic shadows and veils of darkness. Somewhere through
the labyrinthine obscurity his death sought him. Would he, after all, be
killed before he saw? It might be that even at the next shadowy corner
his destruction ambushed. A great desire to see, a great longing to
know, arose in him.
He became fearful of corners. It seemed to him that there was safety
in concealment. Where could he hide to be inconspicuous when the lights
returned? At last he sat down upon a seat in a recess on one of the
higher ways, conceiving he was alone there.
He squeezed his knuckles into his weary eyes. Suppose when he looked
again he found the dark through of parallel ways and that intolerable
altitude of edifice, gone? Suppose he were to discover the whole story
of these last few days, the awakening, the shouting multitudes, the
darkness and the fighting, a phantasmagoria, a new and more vivid sort
of dream. It must be a dream; it was so inconsecutive, so reasonless.
Why were the people fighting for him? Why should this saner world regard
him as Owner and Master?
So he thought, sitting blinded, and then he looked again, half hoping
in spite of his ears to see some familiar aspect of the life of the
nineteenth century, to see, perhaps, the little harbour of Boscastle
about him, the cliffs of Pentargen, or the bedroom of his home. But fact
takes no heed of human hopes. A squad of men with a black banner tramped
athwart the nearer shadows, intent on conflict, and beyond rose that
giddy wall of frontage, vast and dark, with the dim incomprehensible
lettering showing faintly on its face.
"It is no dream," he said, "no dream." And he bowed his face upon his
hands.
More
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He was no longer in the hall. He was marching along a gallery overhanging one of the great streets of the moving platforms that traversed the city. Before him and behind him tramped his guards. The whole concave of the moving ways below was a co... The Battle Of The Elements
Friday, August 21st. This morning the magnificent geyser had wholly disappeared. The wind had freshened up, and we were fast leaving the neighborhood of Henry's Island. Even the roaring sound of the mighty column was lost to the ear. The weathe... The Beginning Of Horror
WITHIN PELLUCIDAR ONE TIME IS AS GOOD AS ANOTHER. There were no nights to mask our attempted escape. All must be done in broad daylight--all but the work I had to do in the apartment beneath the building. So we determined to put our plan to an ... The Beginning Of The End
As early as January, 1913, Ernest saw the true trend of affairs, but he could not get his brother leaders to see the vision of the Iron Heel that had arisen in his brain. They were too confident. Events were rushing too rapidly to culmination. A c... The Bishop
It was after my marriage that I chanced upon Bishop Morehouse. But I must give the events in their proper sequence. After his outbreak at the I. P. H. Convention, the Bishop, being a gentle soul, had yielded to the friendly pressure brought to bea... The Bishop's Vision
"The Bishop is out of hand," Ernest wrote me. "He is clear up in the air. Tonight he is going to begin putting to rights this very miserable world of ours. He is going to deliver his message. He has told me so, and I cannot dissuade him. To-night ... The Black Blow
"Oh, Ronnie, darling," Myra asked, in a pitiful voice that went to my heart. "What can it mean? I--I--I can't see--anything at all." "It's the sun, darling; it will be all right in a minute or two. There, lie in my arms, dear, and close your poo... The Black Pirates Of Barsoom
"What is it?" I asked of the girl. For answer she pointed to the sky. I looked, and there, above us, I saw shadowy bodies flitting hither and thither high over temple, court, and garden. Almost immediately flashes of light broke from these ... The Black Raider
For a stunned moment they were helpless as they struggled to pick themselves up. The stable airlock deck was suddenly no longer stable ... it was lurching back and forth like a rowboat on a heavy sea, and they grabbed the shock-bars along the bulk... The Black River
The portion of the terrestrial globe which is covered by water is estimated at upwards of eighty millions of acres. This fluid mass comprises two billions two hundred and fifty millions of cubic miles, forming a spherical body of a diameter of sixt... The Blue Disease
Next day the first news of the Sarakoff-Harden bacillus appeared in a small paragraph in an evening paper, and immediately I saw it, I hurried back to the house in Harley Street where Sarakoff was writing a record of our researches. "Listen to ... The Boise Acts
But what of the super-ship? What happened after that inertialess, that terribly destructive take-off? Doctor Frederick Rodebush sat at the control panel of Triplanetary's newly reconstructed space-ship, his hands grasping the gleaming, ebonite ... The Bowels Of The Comet
The whole night was spent in speculating, with gloomy forebodings, upon the chances of the future. The temperature of the hall, now entirely exposed to the outer air, was rapidly falling, and would quickly become unendurable. Far too intense was t... The Brat Gigantic
I. The giant child was ugly--the Vicar would insist. "He always had been ugly--as all excessive things must be." The Vicar's views had carried him out of sight of just judgment in this matter. The child was much subjected to snapshots even in t... The Bread Of Affliction
Two miles from the keep was a cave that Constans had discovered on one of his hunting-trips, and which, boylike, he had proceeded to fit up with some rude furniture for lodging and cooking, little dreaming that he should ever stand in actual need ... The British Barbarians
I The time was Saturday afternoon; the place was Surrey; the person of the drama was Philip Christy. He had come down by the early fast train to Brackenhurst. All the world knows Brackenhurst, of course, the greenest and leafiest of o... The Building Of The Moon Pool
She paused, running her long fingers through her own bronze-flecked ringlets. Selective breeding this, with a vengeance, I thought; an ancient experiment in heredity which of course would in time result in the stamping out of the tendency to depart ... The Building Of The Sphere
I remember the occasion very distinctly when Cavor told me of his idea of the sphere. He had had intimations of it before, but at the time it seemed to come to him in a rush. We were returning to the bungalow for tea, and on the way he fell humming.... The Bull Whip
As von Horn and Virginia Maxon walked slowly beneath the dense shadows of the jungle he again renewed his suit. It would please him more to have the girl accompany him voluntarily than to be compelled to take her by force, but take her he would o... The Burglary At The Vicarage
The facts of the burglary at the vicarage came to us chiefly through the medium of the vicar and his wife. It occurred in the small hours of Whit Monday, the day devoted in Iping to the Club festivities. Mrs. Bunting, it seems, woke up suddenly in... The Butterflies
Two years passed by after my return to London without special incident, save that my black cat died. My work as a consulting physician occupied most of my time. In the greater world beyond my consulting-room door life went on undisturbed by any th... The Camp
Felix walked steadily on for nearly three hours, when the rough track, the dust, and heat began to tell upon him, and he sat down beside the way. The sun was now declining, and the long June day tending to its end. A horseman passed, coming from t... The Camp Of Lahore
An unusually beautiful and dry spring favoured the advance of the Russian army through the mountains. In the north of India the temperature kept at an average of 68 degrees F., and day after day the sun streamed down from a cloudless blue sky upon... The Campaign
So the undiscoverable commander had reappeared upon the territory of the United States! He had never shown himself in Europe either on the roads or in the seas. He had not crossed the Atlantic, which apparently he could have traversed in three... The Cannibalistic Orgy
At first Jim and Dennis could only comprehend the numbers of the foe--could only grip their bars and resolve to die as expensively as possible. But then, as a few seconds elapsed during which they were amazingly not charged by the insects, they be... The Canoe
Felix had scarcely worked half an hour before Oliver returned and threw himself on the ground at full length. He had wearied of fishing, the delicate adjustment of the tackle and the care necessary to keep the hook and line from catching in the br... The Captain Makes An Exploration
Hector Servadac was not the man to remain long unnerved by any untoward event. It was part of his character to discover the why and the wherefore of everything that came under his observation, and he would have faced a cannon ball the more unflinc... The Captain's Wife
As a married man, Captain Irwin was not quartered in one of the wooden barracks of the English camp, but had his own bungalow in the suburbs. It was a house of one story with a broad verandah, was surrounded by a large well-kept garden, and form... The Captive Earth-man
As we came out of the valley I had my first view of the Great City. It occupied a huge, mound-shaped circular mountain which rose alone out of the wide plain that spread before me. As far as I could see extended a rich muddy soil partially covered... The Casting Of The Shadow
Now we were racing down toward that last span whose ancientness had set it apart from all the other soaring arches. The shell's speed slackened; we approached warily. "We pass there?" asked O'Keefe. The green dwarf nodded, pointing to the right... The Catastrophe
The Esmeralda was putting out to sea when I thought of a last expedient to draw the attention of her captain. Filling my revolver with cartridges which I had loose in my pockets, I fired all the chambers as fast as I could snap the trigger. My ... The Cavern Of The Shining Ones
Layroh's hiring of husky down-and-outers for his expedition is part of a plan made ages past. It was shortly after midnight when a persistent nightmare aroused Don Foster from sleep. For a moment he lay drowsily in his blanke... The Celestial Globes
For a while, many thoughts crowded my mind, so that I was unable to do aught, save stare, blindly, before me. I seemed whelmed in a sea of doubt and wonder and sorrowful remembrance. It was later, that I came out of my bewilderment. I looked about... The Central Sea
At first I saw absolutely nothing. My eyes, wholly unused to the effulgence of light, could not bear the sudden brightness; and I was compelled to close them. When I was able to reopen them, I stood still, far more stupefied than astonished. Not a... The Challenge Of The Mound
It was a curious, somehow weird-looking thing, that mound. About a yard in height and three and a half in diameter, it squatted in the grassy grove next the clump of trees like an enormous, inverted soup plate. Here and there tufts of grass waved ... The Chamber Of Life
I didn't know what Melbourne meant, and I looked at him inquiringly. He explained: "I have in my home a model--or rather a complete test-apparatus. It was finished only a few days ago. I have been postponing my trial of it from day to day, afrai...