Johnston clung tenaciously to the rock. He tried to look down to see if the barge had passed beneath him, but the intense strain on his arm now drew his head back, so that he could not do so. Once more he made an effort to regain his position on the rock, but he was not able to raise himself an inch.
He felt certain that the fall would kill him, and he groaned in agony. His fingers were benumbed and beginning to slip. Then he fell. The air whizzed in his ears. He tried to keep his feet downward, but it was no use. He was whirled heels over head many times, and his senses were leaving him when he was restored by a plunge into the cold water.
Down he sank. It seemed to him that he never would lose his momentum and that he would strangle before he could rise to the surface. Finally, however, he came up more dead than alive. He had narrowly missed the flat-boat, for he saw it receding from him only a few yards away. On the shore stood Branasko motioning to him; and, slowly, for his strength was almost gone, Johnston swam toward him.
The latter waded out into the shallow water and drew him ashore.
“You had a narrow escape,” he said, with a dry laugh. “I saw the boat come from under the cliff just as you hung down from the ledge. At first I hoped that you would get back on the rock, but when I saw you try and do it and fail I thought that you were lost.”
The American could not speak for exhaustion; but, as he looked at the departing craft with concern, Branasko laughed again: “Oh, you thought it had a crew; so did I at first, but it has no one aboard. It is drawn by a cable, and seems to be laden with coal.”
“Did they notice our fall up there?” panted Johnston, nodding toward the lights in the distance.
“No, they are farther away than I thought.”
“Well, what ought we to do?” “Hide here among the rocks till our clothing dries and then look about us. We have nearly twenty-four hours to wait for the sun to return through the tunnel.”
“Where is the tunnel?”
“Over on the other side of that black hill. There, you can see the mouth of the tunnel through which the sun comes.”
“We need sleep,” said the Alphian, when their clothing was dry, “and it may be a long time before we get a chance to get it. Let us lie down in the shadow of that rock and rest.”
Johnston consented, and, lying down together, they soon dropped asleep. They slept soundly.
Johnston was the first to awake. He felt so refreshed that he knew he must have been unconscious several hours. He touched Branasko and the latter sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked about him bewildered.
“I had a horrible dream,” he said shuddering. “I thought that we were in the sun and over the capital city when it fell down. I thought the fall was awful, and that all Alpha was aflame. Then the fires went out. Everything was black, and the whole world rang with cries of terrified people. Ugh! I don't want to dream so again; I'd rather not sleep at all. But hush! what is that?”
Far away, as if in the centre of the earth, they heard a low monotonous rumbling. They listened breathlessly. Every moment the sound increased. They could feel the ground trembling as if shaken by an earthquake.
“It is the coming sun,” said Branasko. “We must get nearer the tunnel and see what can be done. It would be useless to try to go back now.”
Stealing along in the shadow of the cliffs to keep from being seen by the workmen on the plateau above, they climbed over a rocky incline and saw in the side of a towering cliff, a great black hole. It was the mouth of the tunnel. Into it ran eight wide tracks of railway and six mammoth cables each twenty or thirty feet in diameter.
“The sun cannot be far away now,” remarked the Alphian.
“Is it not lighted?”
“I presume not; I think it comes through in darkness. The light is saved for its passage over Alpha.”
“Would it not be as safe for us to attempt to walk through the tunnel to the palace of the king?”
“Never; it would be over fifty miles in utter darkness. There may be a thousand trestles and bridges over frightful chasms: for the most part, I have heard the tunnel is a natural channel or a succession of caverns united by tunnels. The other is the safer way, though it certainly is risky enough.”
Louder and nearer grew the rumbling noise, and a faint light began to shine from the tunnel and flash on the cliff opposite.
“It is the sun's headlight,” explained Branasko.
Johnston was thrilled to the centre of his being as he saw the light playing over the polished tracks and cables and illuminating the walls of the great tunnel.
Suddenly there was a deep, mellow-toned stroke of a bell in the sun, and, as the two men shrank involuntarily into the deeper shade of the cliff, the great globe, a stupendous ball of crystal, five hundred feet in height, slowly emerged from the mouth of the tunnel and came to a stop under the opening in the rock which led to the space above.
“What had we better do now?” said Johnston.
“Wait,” cautioned Branasko, and he drew the American to a great boulder nearer the sun, from behind which they could, without being seen, watch the action of the crowd of workmen that was hurriedly approaching. They placed ladders of steel against the sides of the sun and swarmed over it like bees.
“They are cleaning the glass and adjusting the lights,” said the Alphian; “wait till they go round to the other side. Don't you see that square opening near the ground?”
The American nodded.
“It is the door,” said Branasko, “and we must try to enter it while they are on the other side. Let us slip nearer; there is another rock ahead that we can hide behind.” Suiting the action to the word, Branasko led the way, stooping near to the ground until both were safely ensconced behind the boulder in question. They were now so near that they could hear the electricians rubbing the glass.
One who seemed to be superintending the work opened the door and went into the sun and lighted a bright light. From where they were crouched Johnston and Branasko caught a view of a little hall, a flight of stairs, and some pictures on the walls.
Presently the man extinguished the light and came out.
“They are removing their ladders from this side,” said Branasko in a whisper. “Be ready; we must act quickly and without a particle of sound. Run straight for that door and climb up the steps immediately.”
The men had all gone round to the other side, and no one was in sight.
“Quick! Follow me,” and bending low to the earth the Alphian darted across the intervening space and into the doorway. Johnston was quite as successful. As he entered the door he saw Branasko crawling up the carpeted stairs ahead of him, and, on his all-fours, he followed. The first landing was large, and there in the wall they found a closet. It would have been dark but for a dim light that streamed down from above. Branasko opened the closet door. “We must hide here for the present,” he whispered.
They had barely got seated on the floor and closed the door when a bright light broke round them and they heard somebody ascending the stairs. The person passed by and went on further up. The two adventurers dared not exchange a word. They could hear the footsteps above and the sound of the electricians outside as they polished the lights and moved their ladders from place to place.
“If he should stay, what could we do?” asked Johnston, after a long pause, and when the footsteps sounded farther away.
“There are two of us and one of him,” grimly replied the brawny Alphian.
Johnston shuddered. “Let's not commit murder in any emergency,” he said.
“It would not be murder; every man has a right to save his own life.”
Nothing more was said just then, for the footsteps were growing nearer. The man was descending. He crossed the landing they were on and went down the last flight of stairs and out of the door.
Branasko rubbed his rough hands together. “We are going alone,” he said with satisfaction.
There was a sound of sliding ladders on the walls outside. The workmen had finished their task. A moment later a great bell overhead rang mellowly; the colossal sphere trembled and rocked and then rose and swung easily forward like the car of a balloon.
“We are rising,” said the Alphian, in a tone of superstitious awe. Johnston said nothing. There was a cool, sinking sensation in his stomach and his head was swimming. Branasko, however, was in possession of all his faculties.
“We shall soon be through the shaft we first discovered and throw our light over Alpha.” As he spoke the space about them broke into blinding brightness and for a few moments they could only open their eyes for an instant at a time. After a while Branasko opened the closet door and they went up the stairs.
The first apartment they entered was most luxuriously furnished. Sofas, couches and reclining-chairs were scattered here and there over the elegant carpet, and statues of gold and marble stood in alcoves and niches and strange stereopticon lanterns, hanging from the ceiling threw ever-changing and life-like pictures on the walls. The light streamed in from without through small circular windows. After they had walked about the room for some minutes, the Alphian pointed to a half-open door and a staircase at one side of the room.
“I think it leads to some sort of observatory on top,” he said. “I have heard that when the royal family makes this voyage they are fond of looking out from it. Suppose we see.” Johnston acquiesced, and Branasko opened the door. From the increased brightness that came in they were assured that the stairs led outward.
Ascending many flights of stairs and traversing a narrow winding gallery which seemed to be gradually sloping upward, they finally reached the outside, and found themselves on a platform about forty feet square surrounded by iron balustrades. Above hung impenetrable blackness, below curved a majestic sphere of white light.
The sunlight was fading into gray when the princess turned to leave Thorndyke. Night was drawing near.
“Have they assigned you a chamber yet?” she paused to ask.
“No.”
“Then they have overlooked it; I shall remind the king.”
Her beautiful, lithe form was clearly outlined against the red glow of the massive swinging lamp as she moved gracefully away, and Thorndyke's heart bounded with admiration and hope as he thought of her growing regard for him. He resumed his seat among the flowers, listening, as if in a delightful dream, to the seductive music from bands in different parts of the palace and the never-ceasing sound in the air which seemed to him to be the concentrated echo of all the sounds in the strange country rebounding from the vast cavern roof.
It grew darker. The gray outside had changed to purple. In the palace the brilliant electric lights in prismatic globes refused to allow the day to die. He was thinking of returning to the throne-room when a page in silken attire approached from the direction of the king's quarters.
“To your chambers, master,” he announced, bowing respectfully.
Thorndyke arose and followed him to an elevator near by. They ascended to the highest balcony of the great rotunda. Here they alighted and turned to the right, the page leading the way, a key in his hand. Presently the page stopped at a door and unlocked it and preceded the Englishman into the room. As they entered an electric light in a chandelier flashed up automatically.
It was a sumptuous apartment, and adjoining it were several connecting rooms all elegantly furnished. The page crossed the room and opened a door to a little stairway.
“It leads to the roof,” he said. “The princess told me to call your attention to it, that you might go out and view the starlight.”
When the page had retired, Thorndyke, feeling lonely, ascended the stairs to the roof. It was perfectly flat save for the great dome which stood in the centre and the numerous pinnacles and cupolas on every hand, and was very spacious. The Englishman's loneliness increased, for no matter in what direction he looked, there was not a living soul in sight. Far in front of him he saw a stone parapet. He went to this and looked down on the city. The electric lights were vari-colored, and arranged so that when seen from a distance or from a great height they assumed artistic designs that were beautiful to behold.
The regular streets and rows of buildings stretched away till the light in the farthest distance seemed an ocean of blending colors. Overhead the vault was black, and only here and there shone a star; but as he looked upward they began to flash into being, and so rapidly that the sky seemed a vast battlefield of electricity.
“Wonderful! Wonderful!” he ejaculated enthusiastically, when the black dome was filled with twinkling stars. He leaned for a long time against the parapet, listening to the music from the streets below, and watching the flying-machines with their vari-colored lights rise from the little parks at the intersection of the streets and dart away over the roofs like big fireflies. Then he began to feel sleepy, and, going back to his chambers, he retired.
When he awoke the next morning, the rosy glow of the sun was shining in at his windows. On rising he was surprised to find a delectable breakfast spread on a table in his sitting-room.
“Treating me like a lord, any way,” he said drily. “I can't say I dislike the thing as a whole.” When he had satisfied his sharp hunger he went out into a corridor and seeing an elevator he entered it and went down to the throne-room. The king was just leaving his throne, but seeing Thorndyke he turned to him with a smile.
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
“Well, indeed,” replied Thorndyke, with a low bow.
“I cannot talk to you now. I intended to, but I have promised my people a 'War of the Elements' to-day and am busy. You will enjoy it, I trust.”
“I am sure of it, your Majesty.”
“Well, be about the palace, for it is a good point from which to view the display.”
With these words he turned away and the Englishman, as if drawn there by the memory of his last conversation with Bernardino, sought the retreat where he had bidden her good-night. He sat down on the seat they had occupied, and gave himself over to delightful reveries about her beauty and loveliness of nature. Looking up suddenly he saw a pair of white hands part the palm leaves in front of him and the subject of his thoughts emerged into view.
She wore a regal gown and beautiful silken head-dress set with fine gems, and gave him a warm glance of friendly greeting.
“I half hoped to find you here,” she said, blushing modestly under his ardent gaze; “that is, I knew you would not know where to go——” She paused, her face suffused with blushes.
“I did not hope to find you here,” he said, coming to her aid gallantly, “but it was a delight to sit here where I last saw you.”
She blushed even deeper, and a pleased look flashed into her eyes. “It was important that I should see you this morning,” she continued, with a womanly desire to disguise her own feeling. “I wanted to tell you where to meet me when the storm begins.”
“Where?” he asked.
“On the roof of the palace, near the stairs leading down to your chambers. At first it will be very dark, and it is then that we must get out of sight of the palace. No other flying-machines will be in the air, and Captain Tradmos thinks, if we are very careful, we can get away safely before the display of lightning.”
“If we find my friend what can we do with him?”
She hesitated a moment, a look of perplexity on her face, then she said: “We can bring him back and keep him hidden in your chambers till some better arrangement can be made. We shall think of some expedient before long, but at present he must be saved from starvation.”
Thorndyke attempted to draw her to a seat beside him, but she held back. “No,” she said resolutely, “it would never do for us to be seen together. If my father should suspect anything now, all hope would be lost.”
Thorndyke reluctantly released her hand.
“You are right, I beg your pardon,” he said humbly. “I shall meet you promptly. Of course I want to save poor Johnston, but the delight of being with you again, even for a moment, so intoxicates me that I forget even my duty to him.”
After she left him he wandered out in the streets along the busy thoroughfares, and into the beautiful parks, the flowers and foliage changing color as each new hour dawned. The fragrance of the flowers delighted his sense of smell, and the luscious fruits hung from vine and tree in great abundance.
He was impatient for the time to arrive at which he was to meet the princess. After awhile he noticed the people closing the shops and booths, and in holiday dress going to the parks and public squares. He hastened to the palace. The great rotunda and the throne-room were energetically astir. Everybody wore rich apparel and was talking of the coming fete. The king was on his throne surrounded by his men of science. In a cluster of ladies in court dress, the Englishman recognized Bernardino. Catching his eye, she looked startled for an instant, and, then, with a furtive glance at the king, she swept her eyes back to Thorndyke and raised them significantly toward his chambers. He understood, and his quick movement was his reply. He turned immediately to an elevator that was going up, and entered it. Again he was alone on the palace roof. The color of the sunlight looked so natural that he studied it closely to see if he could not detect something artificial in its appearance, but in vain. He found that it did not pain his eyes to look at the sun steadily. He took from his pocket a small sunglass, and focussed the rays on his hand, but the heat was not intensified sufficiently to burn him.
Just then he heard a loud blast of a trumpet in a tall tower to the left of the palace. It seemed a momentous signal. The jostling crowds in the streets below suddenly stood motionless. Every eye was raised to the sky. Not a sound broke the stillness. Following the glances of the crowd a few minutes later, Thorndyke noticed a dark cloud rising in the west, and spreading along the horizon. A feeling of awe came over him as it gradually increased in volume, and, in vast black billows, began to roll up toward the sun.
Suddenly out of the stillness came a faraway rumble like a fusillade of cannon, now dying down low, again reaching such a height that it pained the ears. Belated flying-machines darted across the sky here and there, like storm-frightened birds, but they soon settled to earth. Every eye was on the cloud which was now gashed with dazzling, vivid, electric flashes. Thorndyke looked over the vast roof. He was alone. He walked to the western parapet to get a broader view.
The clouds had increased till almost a third of the heavens were obscured by the madly whirling blackness. There was a rumble in the cloud, or beyond it, like thunder, and yet it was not, unless thunder can be attuned, for the sound was like the music of a great orchestra magnified a thousand-fold. The grand harmony died down. There was a blinding flash of electricity in the clouds, and the Englishman involuntarily covered his eyes with his hands. When he looked again the blackness was covering the sun. For a moment its disk showed blood-red through the fringe of the cloud and then disappeared. Total darkness fell on everything.
The silence was profound. The very air seemed stagnant.
Then the wind overhead, by some unseen force, was lashed into fury, and all the sky was filled with whirlpools of deeper blackness. Suddenly there was a flash of soft golden light; this was followed by streams of pink, of blue and of purple till the whole heavens were hung with banners, flags, and rain-bows of flame. Again darkness fell, and it seemed all the deeper after the gorgeous scene which had preceded it. Thorndyke strained his sight to detect something moving below, but nothing could be seen, and no sound came up from the motionless crowds.
Behind him he heard a soft footstep on the stone tiling. It drew nearer. A hand was being carefully slid along the parapet. The hand reached him and touched his arm.
It was the princess. “Ah, I have at last found you,” she whispered, “I saw you in the lightning, but lost you again.”
He put his arm round her and drew her into his embrace. He tried to speak, but uttered only an inarticulate sound.
“I could not possibly come earlier,” she apologized, nestling against him so closely that he could feel the quick and excited beating of her heart. “My father kept me with him till only a moment ago. Captain Tradmos will be here soon.”
“When do we start?” he asked.
“That is the trouble,” she replied. “We had counted on getting away in the darkness, before the display of lightning, but there is more danger now. If our flying-machine were noticed the search-lights would be turned on us and we would be discovered at once.”
“But even if we get safely away in the darkness when could we return?”
“Oh, that would be easy,” she replied. “As soon as the fete is over, commerce will be resumed and the air will be filled with air-ships that have been delayed in their regular business, and, in the disguises which I have for us both, we could come back without rousing suspicion. We could alight in Winter Park and return home later.”
“What is Winter Park?”
“You have not seen it? You must do so; it is one of the wonders of Alpha. It is a vast park enclosed with high walls and covered with a roof of glass. Inside the snow falls, and we have sleighing and coasting and lakes of ice for skating. It was an invention of the king. The snowstorms there are beautiful.”
Thorndyke's reply was drowned in a harmonious explosion like that of tuned cannon; this was followed by the chimes of great bells which seemed to swing back and forth miles overhead.
“Listen!” whispered Bernardino, “father calls it 'musical thunder,' and he declares that it is produced in no other country but this.”
“It is not; he is right.” And the heart of the Englishman was stirred by deep emotion. He had never dreamed that anything could so completely chain his fancy and elevate his imagination as what he heard. The musical clangor died down. The strange harmony grew more entrancing as it softened. Then the whole eastern sky began to flush with rosy, shimmering light.
“My father calls this the 'Ideal Dawn of Day,'” whispered Bernardino. “See the faint golden halo near the horizon; that is where the sun is supposed to be.”
“How is it done?” asked the Englishman.
“Few of our people know. It is a secret held only by the king and half a dozen scientists. The whole thing, however, is operated by two men in a room in the dome of the palace. The musician is a young German who was becoming the wonder of the musical world when father induced him to come to us. I have met him. He says he has been thoroughly happy here. He lives on music. He showed me the instrument he used to play, a little thing he called a violin, and its tones could not reach beyond the limits of a small room. He laughs at it now and says the instrument that father gave him to play on has strings drawn from the centre of the earth to the stars of heaven.”
The rose-light had spread over the horizon and climbed almost to the zenith, and with the dying booming and gentle clangor it began to fade till all was dark again.
“Captain Tradmos ought to be here now,” continued the princess, glancing uneasily toward the stairway. “We may not have so good an opportunity as this.”
Ten minutes went by.
“Surely, something has gone wrong,” whispered Bernardino. “I have never seen the darkness last so long as this; besides, can't you hear the muttering of the people?”
Thorndyke acknowledged that he did. He was about to add something else, but was prevented by a loud blast from the trumpet in the tower.
Bernardino shrank from him and fell to trembling.
“What is the matter?” he asked. “The trumpet!” she gasped, “something awful has happened!”
A moment of profound silence, then the murmuring of the crowd rose sullenly like the moaning of a rising storm; a search-light flashed up in the gloom and swept its uncertain stream from point to point, but it died out. Another and another shone for an instant in different parts of the city, but they all failed.
“Something awful has happened,” repeated Bernardino, as if to herself; “the lights will not burn!”
“Had we not better go down?” asked Thorndyke anxiously, excited by her unusual perturbation.
For answer she mutely drew him to the eastern parapet. Far away in the east there still lingered a faint hint of pink, but all over the whole landscape darkness rested.
“See!” she exclaimed, pointing upward, “the clouds are thinning over the sun, and yet there is no light. What can be the matter?”
At that juncture they heard soft steps on the roof and a voice calling:
“Bernardino! Princess Bernardino!”
“It is Tradmos,” she ejaculated gladly, then she called out softly:
“Tradmos! Tradmos!”
“Here!” the voice said, and a figure loomed up before them. It was the captain. He was panting violently, as if he had been running.
“What is it?” she asked, clasping his arm.
“The sun has gone out,” he announced.
A groan escaped her lips and she swayed into Thorndyke's arms.
“The clouds are thinning over the sun, yet there is no light. The king is excited; he fears a panic!”
“Has such a thing never happened?” asked Thorndyke.
“An hundred years ago; then thousands lost their lives. As soon as the people suspect the cause of the delay they will go mad with fear.”
“What can we do?” asked the princess, recovering her self-possession.
“Nothing, wait!” replied Tradmos. “This is as safe a place as you could find. Perhaps the trouble may be averted. Look!”
The disk of the veiled sun was aglow with a faintly trembling light; but it went out. The silence was profound. The populace seemed unable to grasp the situation, but when the light had flickered over the black face of the sun once more and again expired, a sullen murmur rose and grew as it passed from lip to lip.
It became a threatening roar, broken by an occasional cry of pain and a dismal groan of terror. There was a crash as if a mountain had been burst by explosives.
“The swinging bridge has been thrown down!” said Tradmos.
Light after light flashed up in different parts of the city, but they were so small and so far apart that they seemed to add to the darkness rather than to lessen it.
“The moon, it will rise!” cried the princess.
“It cannot,” said Tradmos in his beard, “at least not for several hours.”
“They will kill my father,” she said despondently, “they always hold him responsible for any accident.”
“They cannot reach him,” consoled Tradmos. “He is safe for the present at least.”
“Is it possible to make the repairs needed?”
“I don't know. When the accident happened long ago the sun was just rising.”
“Has it stopped?”
“I think not; it has simply gone out; the electric connection has, in some way, been cut off.”
The tumult seemed to have extended to the very limits of the city, and was constantly increasing. The smashing of timber and the falling of heavy stones were heard near by.
Tradmos leaned far over the parapet. “They are coming toward us!” he said; “they intend to destroy the palace; we must try to get down, but we shall meet danger even there.”
Johnston and Branasko looked down at the great ball of light below them in silent wonder. Johnston was the first to speak. He pointed to the four massive cables which supported the sun at each corner of the platform and extended upward till they were enveloped in the darkness.
“They hold us up,” he said, “where do they go to?”
“To the big trucks which run on the tracks near the roof of the cavern; the endless cables are up there, too, but we can not see them with this glare about us.”
“We can see nothing of Alpha from here,” remarked Johnston disappointedly, “we can see nothing beyond our circle of light.”
“I should like to look down from this height at night,” said the Alphian. “It would be a great view.”
“What is this?” Johnston went to one side of the platform and laid his hand on the spokes of a polished metal wheel shaped like the pilot-wheel of a steamboat. Branasko hastened to him.
“Don't touch it,” he warned. “It looks as if it were to turn the electric connection off and on. If the sun should go out, the consequences would be awful. The people of Alpha would go mad with fear.”
The American withdrew his hand, and he and Branasko walked back to the centre of the platform. Johnston uttered an exclamation of surprise. “The light is changing.”
And it was, for it was gradually fading into a purple that was delightfully soothing to the eye after the painful brightness of a moment before.
“I understand,” said the Alphian, “we are running very slow and are only now about to approach the great wall, for purple is the color of the first morning hour.”
“But how is the light changed?” asked Johnston curiously.
“By some shifting of glasses through which the rays shine, I presume,” returned the Alphian; “but the mechanism seems to be concealed in the walls of the globe.”
Not a word was spoken for an hour. They had lain down on the platform near the iron railing which encompassed it, and Branasko was dozing intermittently. Again the light began to change gradually. This time it was gray. Johnston put out his hand to touch Branasko, but the Alphian was awake. He sat up and nodded smiling. “Wait till the next hour,” he said; “it will be rose-color; that is the most beautiful.”
Slowly the hours dragged by till the yellow light showed that it was the sixth hour. Branasko had been exploring the vast interior below and came back to Johnston who was asleep on the floor of the platform.
“I have just thought of something,” said Branasko. “This is the day appointed by the king to entertain his subjects with a grand display of the elements.”
“I do not understand,” said Johnston.
“The king,” explained the Alphian, “darkens the sun with clouds so that all Alpha is blacker than night, and then he produces great storms in the sky, and lightning and musical thunder. We may, perhaps, hear the music, but we cannot witness the storm and electric display on account of the light about us. It usually begins at this hour; so be silent and listen.”
After a few minutes there was a rumble from below like the roar of a volcano and an answering echo from the black dome overhead. This died away and was succeeded by a crash of musical thunder that thrilled Johnston's being to its very core. Branasko's face was aglow with enthusiasm.
“Grand, glorious!” he ejaculated, “but if only you could see the lightning and the dawn in the east you would remember it all your life. The sunlight is cut off from Alpha by the clouds, and there is no light except the wonderful effects in the sky.”
Johnston had gone back to the wheel and was examining it curiously.
“I have a mind to turn off the current for a moment anyway,” he said doggedly; “if the sun is hidden they would not discover it.”
Branasko came to him, a weird look of interest in his eyes. “That is true,” he said; “besides, what matters it? We may not live to see another day.”
Johnston acted on a sudden impulse. He intended only to frighten Branasko by moving the wheel slightly, and he had turned it barely an eighth of an inch, when, as if controlled by some powerful spring, it whirled round at a great rate, making a loud rattling noise. To their dismay the light went out.
“My God! what have I done?” gasped the American in alarm.
“Settled our fate, I have no doubt,” muttered the Alphian from the darkness.
Johnston had recoiled from the whirling wheel, and now cautiously groped back to it, and attempted to turn it. It would not move.
“It has caught some way,” he groaned under his breath.
“And we have no light to find the cause of the trouble,” added the Alphian, who had knelt down and was feeling about the wheel. Presently he rose.
“I give it up,” he sighed, “I cannot understand it. The machinery is somewhere inside.”
“It has grown colder,” shuddered Johnston.
“We were warmed by the light, of course,” remarked Branasko, “and now we feel the dampness more. We are going at a frightful speed.”
Just then there was a jar, and the sun swung so violently from side to side that the two men were prostrated on the floor. The speed seemed to slacken.
“I wonder if we are going to stop,” groaned the American, and he sat up and held to Branasko. “Perhaps they will draw us back to rectify the mistake, and then——”
“It cannot be done,” interrupted the Alphian. “The machinery runs only one way. We shall simply have to finish our journey in darkness.”
“They may catch us on the other side before the sun starts back through the tunnel,” suggested the American.
“Not unlikely,” returned Branasko. “There, we are going ahead again. One thing in our favor is that we can more easily escape capture in darkness than if the sun were shining.”
“Does the sun stop before entering the tunnel?”
“I do not know,” replied Branasko; “perhaps somebody will be there to see what is wrong with the light. We must have our wits about us when we land.”
Johnston was looking over the edge of the platform. “If the king's display is taking place down there I can see no sign of it.”
“How stupid of us!” ejaculated Branasko. “Of course, clouds sufficiently dense to hide the sun from Alpha would also prevent us from seeing the display below. I ought to——”
He was interrupted by a grand outburst of harmony. The whole earth seemed to vibrate with sublime melody. “Our blunder has not been discovered yet,” finished Branasko, after a pause, “else the fete down below would have been over. I am cold; shall we go inside?”
Johnston's answer was taken out of his mouth by a loud rattling beneath the floor, near the wheel he had just turned; the sun shook spasmodically for an instant, and its entire surface was faintly illuminated, but the light failed signally.
“It must have been an extra current of electricity sent to relight the lamps,” remarked Johnston; and, as he concluded, the sun trembled again, and another flash and failure occurred. “Look,” cried the American, “the clouds are thinning; see the lights below! They have discovered the accident!”
They both leaned over the railing and looked below. As far as the eye could reach, within the arc of their vision, they could see fitful lights flashing up, here and there, and going out again. And then they heard faint sounds of crashing masonry and the condensed roar of human voices, which seemed to come from above rather than from below. The Alphian turned. “I cannot stand the cold,” he said.
Johnston followed him. The rapid motion of the swinging sphere made him dizzy, and he caught Branasko's arm to keep from falling.
“How can we tell when we go over the wall?” he asked anxiously.
“We shall have to guess at it,” was the answer. “At any rate we must be near the lower door so as to get out quickly if it is necessary to do so to escape detection.”
In the darkness they slowly made their way down the stairs to the great room.
“There ought to be some way of making a light,” said the Alphian, and his voice sounded loud and hollow in the empty chamber. After several failures to find the stairs they descended to the door they had entered. Branasko opened it a little, and a breeze came in. They sat down on the stone, and after a while, in sheer fatigue, they fell asleep. Hours passed. Branasko rose with a start, and shook Johnston.
“Our speed is lessening,” he exclaimed. “We must be going down. Be ready to jump out the instant we stop. There, let me open the door wider.”
When Tradmos spoke the words of warning, Thorndyke put his arm round the princess and drew her after Tradmos, who was hastening away in the gloom.
“Wait,” she said, drawing back. “Let us not get excited. We are really as safe here as there; for in their madness they will kill one another and trample them under foot.” She led him to a parapet overlooking the great court below. “Hear them,” she said, in pity, “listen to their blows and cries. That was a woman's voice, and some man must have struck her.”
“Tell me what is best to do,” said the Englishman. “I want to protect you, but I am helpless; I don't know which way to turn.”
“Wait,” she said simply, and the Englishman thought she drew closer to him, as if touched by his words.
There was a crash of timbers—a massive door had fallen—a scrambling of feet on the stone pavement, and they could see the dark human mass surging into the court through the corridors leading from the streets.
“What are they doing?” asked Thorn dyke.
She shrank from the parapet as if she had been struck.
“Tearing the pillars down,” she replied aghast; “this part of the palace will fall. Oh, what can be done!”
There was a grinding of stone upon stone, a mad yell from an hundred throats, the crash of glass, and, with a thunderous sound, a colossal pillar fell to the earth. The roof beneath the feet of the princess and Thorndyke trembled and sagged, and the tiling split and showered about them.
Raising Bernardino in his arms, as if she were an infant, Thorndyke sprang toward the stairway leading to his chambers, but the roof had sunken till it was steep and slippery. One instant he was toppling over backward, the next, by a mighty effort, he had recovered his equilibrium, and finally managed to reach a safer place. As he hurried on another pillar went down. The roof sagged lower, and an avalanche of mortar and tiling slid into the court below. Yells, groans, and cries of fury rent the air.
Bernardino had fainted. Thorndyke tried to restore her to consciousness, but dared not put her from him for an instant. On he ran, and presently reached a flight of stairs which he thought led to his chambers. He descended them, and was hastening along a narrow corridor on the floor beneath when Bernardino opened her eyes. She asked to be released from his arms. He put her down, but supported her along the corridor.
“We have lost our way,” he said, as he discovered that the corridor, instead of leading to his chambers, turned off obliquely in another direction.
“Let's go on anyway,” she suggested; “it may lead us out. I have never been here before. I—” A great crash drowned her words. The floor quivered and swayed, but it did not fall. On they ran through the darkness, till Thorndyke felt a heavy curtain before. He paused abruptly, not knowing what to do. Bernardino felt of its texture, perplexed for an instant.
“Draw it aside, it seems to hang across the corridor,” she said. He obeyed her, and only a few yards further on they saw another curtain with bars of light above and below it. They drew this aside, and found themselves on the threshold of a most beautiful apartment.
In the mosaic floor were pictures cut in colored stones, and the ceiling was a silken canopy as filmy and as delicately blue as the sky on a summer's night. The floor was strewn with richly embroidered pillows, couches, rugs and ottomans; and here and there were palm trees and beds of flowers and grottoes. A solitary light, representing the moon, showed through the silken canopy in whose folds little lights sparkled like far-off stars.
Thorndyke looked at the princess inquiringly. She was bewildered.
“I have no idea where we are,” she murmured. “I am sure I have never been here before; but there is another apartment beyond. Listen! I hear cries.”
“Some one in distress,” he answered, and he drew her across the room and through a door into another room more beautiful than the one they had just left. Here, huddled together at a window overlooking the court, were six or eight beautiful young women. They were staring out into the darkness, and moaning and muttering low cries of despair.
“It is my father's ladies,” ejaculated the princess aghast. “He would be angry if he knew we had come here. No one but himself enters these apartments.”
Just then one of the women turned a lovely and despairing face toward them, and came forward and knelt at the feet of Bernardino.
“Oh, save us, Princess,” she cried.
“Be calm,” said the princess, touching the white brow of the woman. “The danger may soon pass; this portion of the palace is too strongly built for them to injure it.” Then she turned to Thorndyke: “We must hasten on and find our way down; it would never do for us to be seen here.” Then she turned to the kneeling woman and said gently: “I hope you will say nothing to the king of this; we lost our way in trying to get down from the roof.”
“I will not,” gladly promised the woman, and seeing that Bernardino knew not which way to turn, she guided them to a door opening into a dimly-lighted corridor. “It will take you out to the balconies and down to the audience-chamber,” she said. The princess thanked her, and she and the Englishman descended several flights of stairs. Reaching one of the balconies they met the denser darkness of the outside and the deafening clang and clamor of the multitude. There was no light of any kind, and Thorndyke and his charge had to press close against the balustrade of the balcony to keep from being crushed by the mad torrent of humanity.
Now and then a strident voice would rise above the din:—
“Down with the palace! Death to the king!”
The trumpet in the tower sounded again and again.
“It is my father trying to attract their attention,” explained the princess. “Something very serious has happened for once. In speaking of the time the sun went out before, he told me that he had made an invention which, in such a crisis, would instantly restore confidence to the people. I cannot understand why he does not use it. Oh, I am afraid they will kill him!”
Thorndyke tried to console her, for he saw that she was weeping, but just then there was a strange lull in the general tumult. What could have happened?
“The dawn! the ideal dawn!” cried Bernardino, pointing to the eastern sky. Thorndyke looked in wonder. A purple light had spread along the horizon, and as it gradually softened into gray and slowly turned to pink, the noise of the populace died down. No sound could now be heard save the low groans of wounded men and women. What a sight met the view as the rose-light shimmered over the city! The dead and dying lay under the feet of the crowd. Almost every creature bore some mark of violence. Eyes were blood-shot, clothing torn, limbs were bleeding, and mingled fury and sudden hope struggled in each ashen face. The young trees and shrubbery had been trampled under foot, and walls, arcades and triumphal arches had been thrown down. The fragments of statues lay here and there, and the bodies of human beings filled the basins of broken fountains.
“It is not the sun,” explained Bernardino; “but the invention my father spoke of. He is doing it to calm them.”
Thorndyke made no answer. He stood as if transfixed, gazing at the horizon. The rose-light had spread over a third of the sky when gradually there appeared in its centre a bright circle of yellow light. The yellow light faded, leaving a perfect picture of the throne of the king; and as the now silent masses looked at the picture, a curtain behind the throne parted and the king himself appeared. He advanced and sat on the throne, and turned a calm face towards his subjects.
“Wonderful!” ejaculated Bernardino, and her face was full of hope. “See what he will do!”
“Where is the picture?” asked Thorndyke; “can it be seen by all of—of the people?”
“Yes, by all Alpha, for it is on the sky.”
Thorndyke said nothing further, for the king had stood up, and with hands out-stretched was bowing. Above the circle of light, as if cut out of the solid blackness, in flaming letters stood the word,
“SILENCE!”
And there was silence. Even the lips of the wounded men closed as the king began to speak. The sound of his voice seemed as far away as the stars, and to permeate all space:—
“All danger is over. Tidings from the west state that the sun is setting. No harm has come to it. It will rise in the morning, and the moon and stars will be out in a few hours. Let the dead be removed, the wounded cared for, and everything be repaired. This is my will.”
That was all. The king bowed sedately and retired from the throne, and the circle and pink glow faded from the black sky. The stillness was unbroken for a moment, then glad murmurings were heard in all directions.
“They are lighting the palace,” cried the princess. “See, down there is the arcade leading to the rotunda.”
“I am glad it is over,” said Thorndyke.
She grasped his arm and impulsively looked into his face. “But your friend, we have forgotten him, and done nothing to save him, and now it is too late.”
“We could not help it; we had to think of our own safety.”
“I shall send for Captain Tradmos and try to devise some other plan,” she said, as they descended the stairs.
“We should not be seen together,” she added, as they approached the throne-room; “besides, you ought to go to your chambers. No one is allowed to be out when the dead is being removed.”
“Where is the dead taken?”
“Over the wall, to be burned in the internal fires,” she concluded, as she was leaving him.
He found everything in order in his rooms and he lay down and tried to sleep, but he was too much excited over the happenings of the day. Hours must have passed when his attention was drawn to a bright light shining on the wall of his room. He went to a window and looked out on the court. The light came from the rising moon.
Below lay the ruins of fallen columns, capitals, cornices and statues. Figures in black cloaks and cowls were removing the dead from the debris. With a fluttering sound something swooped down past his window to the ground. It looked like a great bird, carrying the car of a flying-machine. Thorndyke watched its circular descent to the earth, and shuddered with horror as the black figures filled the car with bodies and the gruesome machine spread its wings and rose slowly till it was clear of the domes and pinnacles of the palace, and then flew away westward.
Other machines came, and, one after another, received their ghastly burdens and departed. In a short time all the dead was removed, and hundreds of workmen came from the palace and began repairing the fallen masonry.
Thorndyke went back to his couch and tried to sleep, but in vain. Slowly the hours of night passed, and as the purple of dawn rose in the east he dressed himself and went up on the roof. The moon had gone down and the stars were fading from the sky. The dark earth below showed no signs of life; but as the purple light softened into gray he saw that the streets of the city were filled with silent expectant people, all watching the eastern sky. And, as the gray light flushed into rose, and the rose began to scintillate with gold, they began to stir, and a hum of joyful voices was heard. The promised day had come.