Part 31 (2/2)

”Go down toward the s.h.i.+p,” he ordered. ”Wait where it is safe. Then when the gas ceases you will have but three minutes. Three minutes!--remember! Lose no time at the port!”

He had reached the base of the hill of mud. He was on the windward side; above him the fumerole was grunting and roaring. And, to Chet, the thin figure, gaunt and ungainly and absurd in its wrappings of dilapidated garments, became somehow tremendous, vaguely symbolic. He could not get it clearly, but there was something there of the cool, reasoning sureness of science itself--an indomitable pressing on toward whatever goal the law might lead one to; but Kreiss was human as well. He stopped once and looked about him.

”A laboratory--this world!” he exclaimed. ”Virgin! Untouched!... So much to be learned; so much to be done! And mine would have been the glory and fame of it!”

He turned hesitantly, almost apologetically, toward Chet standing motionless and unspeaking with the wonder of this turn of events.

”Should you be so fortunate as to survive,” began Kreiss, ”perhaps you would be so kind--my name--I would not want it lost.” He straightened abruptly.

”Go!” he ordered. ”Get as near as you can!” His feet were climbing steadily up the slippery ascent.

The faintest breath of the gas warned Chet back. Almost infinitely diluted, it still set him choking while the tears streamed down his face. But he worked his way as near the s.h.i.+p as he dared, and he saw through the tears that still blinded his stinging eyes the tall figure of Kreiss as he reached the top.

A table of steaming mud was there, and Kreiss was sinking into it as he struggled forward. At the center was a hot throat where fumes like a breath from h.e.l.l roared and choked with the strangling of its own gas.

The figure writhed as a whirl of green enveloped it, threw itself forward. From one outstretched hand an object fell toward the throat; its leafy wrapping was whipped sharply for an instant by the coughing breath....

And then, where the hot blast had been, and the forming clouds and the erupting mud, was a pillar of fire--a white flame that thundered into the sky.

Straight and clean, like the sword of some guardian angel, it stood erect--a line of dazzling light in a darkening sky. And the fumes of green had vanished at its touch.

But Kreiss! Chet found himself running toward the fumerole. He must save him, drag him back. Then he knew with a certainty that admitted of no question that for Kreiss there was no help: that for this man of science the laws of cause and effect were no longer operative on the plane of Earth. The heat would have killed him, but the enveloping gas must have reached him first. And he had sacrificed himself for what?--that he, Chet, might reach the s.h.i.+p!... Before Chet's eyes was a silvery cylinder whose closed port was plainly marked.

No gas now! No glint of green! The way was clear, and the slim figure of Chet Bullard was checked in its rush toward a mound of mud and the body of a man that lay next to a blasting column of flame; he turned instead to throw himself through the clean air toward the s.h.i.+p that was free of gas.

”Three minutes!” This was what Kreiss had said; this was the allotted time. In three minutes he must reach the s.h.i.+p, force open the long unused port, get inside--!

At one side, across the level lava rock he saw Towahg. The savage was running at top speed. He had thrown away his bow, dropping it lest it impede his flight from this terrifying witchcraft he had seen. There had been a witch-doctor in Towahg's tribe; the savage knew sorcery when he saw it. But never had his witch-doctor changed green gas to a column of fire; and this white sorcerer, Kreiss, powerful as he was, had been struck down by the fire-G.o.d before Towahg's eyes. Towahg ran as if the roaring finger of flame might reach after him at any instant.

Chet saw this in a glance--knew the reason for the black's desertion: then lost all thought of him and of Kreiss and even of the waiting s.h.i.+p.

For, in the same glance, he saw, springing from behind a lava block, the heavy figure of a man.

Black as any ape, hairy of face, roaring strange oaths, the man threw himself upon Chet! It was Schwartzmann; and, mingled with profane exclamations, were the words: ”the s.h.i.+p--und I take it for mineself!”

And his heavy body hurled itself down upon the lighter man in the instant that Chet drew his pistol.

But, tearing through Chet's mind, was no rage against this man as an enemy in himself; he thought only of Kreiss' words; ”Three minutes! Lose no time at the port!” And now the brave sacrifice! It would be in vain.

He twisted himself about, so that his shoulder might receive the human projectile that was cras.h.i.+ng upon him.

CHAPTER XXIII

_The Might of the ”Master”_

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