So, his mind made up, he spoke: “O king, you still owe me a life. Inasmuch as your guard has made the mistake of substituting this young lady for the Roy warrior, whose life I had elected to save, I now accept the substitution, and elect that you shall spare her life in place of mine.”
Quivven the Golden Flame stared at him with tears of gratitude and appreciation in her azure eyes. Grod the Silent smiled knowingly in a manner which infuriated Myles, but fortunately Quivven did not notice this, so Myles let it pass.
Then the Roy king spoke: “We shall see about that later. Meanwhile, guard, bring in therightprisoner.”
The guard sheepishly withdrew, and soon returned with the soldier who had befriended Myles.
“Why did you rescue this furless Vairking, who was a prisoner of your forces?” Grod asked the newcomer.
“Because he rescued me from a mountain torrent, O king,” was the reply. “A life for a life.”
“Quite true,” Grod admitted, nodding his head contemplatively. “But was it altogether necessary to that end that you leave your own forces?”
“No, O king,” the soldier replied, “but I fain would battle on your side. I have had quite enough of the fat one who commands our outfit.”
“Good!” cried Grod, clapping his hands. “We shall need every man we can muster. Thus have you bought your own life and freedom. Unbind him, guards, and give him weapons, so that he may fight for us. As for you, you yellow minx, the quicker you get out of here the better it will suit me. We are at war, and women have no place in warfare. Therefore I gladly give you your life, which this furless one had purchased.
“Do not think,” he continued, “that I do not know who you are, or that I do not realize that I could hold you for high ransom. But for the present it suits my purposes to release you; for my mind is a one-cart road, and at present I am engaged in an important and highly personal war.
“Besides, if I were to keep you, my enemy might get hold of you and collect the ransom himself, which would never do. Twelve days from now, if I should be in need of carts, a messenger from me will call at the palace of Theoph the Grim; and if you are at all grateful, you will make me a present of about twenty sturdy wagons.
“As for you,” turning to Myles, “your life is mine, since you failed to redeem it. Some day I may call upon you for it, but for the present I wish to use it. You are detailed, as my personal representative, to escort this lady safely to Vairkingi. Now both of you get out of here, for I have more important things to do. I must put my army on the march.”
One of the guards stepped up to Myles and cut his bonds. Quivven had not been bound.
“May I have arms, O king, so that I can fulfill your mission with credit to you?” Myles asked, with a twinkle in his gray eyes.
“You keep on improving,” Grod replied. “Yes, you may. Here, take my own sword. You are a brave man and an able warrior, as my chin well remembers. May the Builder grant that some day we shall fight side by side.”
This gave Cabot an idea. “Why can that not be now?” he suggested. “Why not form an alliance with Vairkingi against the unmentionable one?”
But Grod the Silent shook his head. “No,” he said positively, “it cannot be. In the first place, the unmentionable one is himself seeking to make such an alliance against me; and in the second place, this is my own private fight. I have spoken.”
Then Cabot had a further idea. “About the wagons,” he said, “would you mind sending for them to my brickyard north of Vairkingi? That would be more convenient.”
“Very well,” Grod replied.
Roy warriors then supplied the two prisoners with portable rations, and escorted them for quite a distance from the camp, until they struck a mountain trail. This, the escort informed them, led to Vairkingi. There the Roies left Myles and Quivven alone.
The first thing that she asked was, “With all these mountains full of warring Roies, do you believe that we shall be safe?”
“I think so,” Myles replied. “The very fact that they are at war will keep them much too busy to bother about us. Come on.”
As they hurried down the trail, each related his or her adventures to the other. Cabot’s have already been set down. As for Quivven, she had gone with a few soldiers to hunt for Myles after his prospecting party had returned and reported his disappearance by the river; but her party had been killed, and she had been taken prisoner.
“Did Grod treat you with respect?” Myles asked, with clenched fists.
“Absolutely,” she replied, tossing her pretty head. “I never knew a man so impersonal. I am accustomed to have men recognize my presence and pay some attention to my existence. But this brute—why, I might just as well have been a piece of furniture or one of his servants. I don’t believe he knows now what color my eyes are, or whether I’m pretty or not. And you’re just as bad as he is,” she added somewhat irrelevantly.
“Your eyes are blue, and you are very pretty,” Cabot replied. “In fact, you closely resemble my own wife, the beautiful Princess Lilla, who waits for me far across the boiling seas.”
“Which reminds me to ask,” Quivven said abruptly. “How successful was your expedition, apart from your being captured and getting yourself into all kinds of trouble?”
So he told her about the glistening metallic particles in the sands of the river. Also how he had found what were probably zinc-blende and galena. Then they discussed in detail his plans for his various factories. From time to time they munched some of the food which had been given them.
The day quickly sped, and evening drew near, yet still they were upon the mountain road with no sight of Vairkingi or of any landmark familiar to either of them. Quivven was for stopping and resting, but Myles urged her on.
“No matter how tired you are,” he said, “it is not safe to stop in this strange country.”
So still she struggled on. The sky darkened without the usual pinkening of the west. All too well they knew what that portended—one of the heaven-splitting tropical storms so common on Poros. And they were right. The storm broke, the thunder roared in one continuous volume of sound, the lightning and the rain alike poured down in continuous sheets. The trail became a mountain torrent, so that they had to cease their journey and crawl upon a huge boulder, in order to avoid being engulfed by the water.
The rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Again the silver sky appeared overhead. The extempore brook rapidly disappeared, but left in its wake a wet, muddy, and slippery trail, down which the two took up their journey once more.
Several times Quivven stumbled and fell, until at last her companion had to help her in order to keep her going at all. But, in spite of this assistance, she finally broke down and cried.
“I shall not go one step farther,” she asserted.
Myles seated himself beside her and talked to her as one would soothe a child. And that was what she was, a tired little child.
“You can’t stay here,” he urged, “the ground is damp, the night is coming on, and your fur is sopping wet.”
“I don’t care anything about anything,” she sobbed. “All that I know is that I positively cannot go on.”
So he decided that it would be necessary to change his tactics. “I am ashamed of you,” he replied, “You, the daughter of a king, and can’t stand a little exercise! Why, I believe you are just plain lazy.”
For reply she jumped to her feet in a sudden rage. “Oh, you beast!” she cried. “You insulting beast! You common soldier, you! I’ll show you that I can stand as much hardship as the pampered womenfolk of your Cupia, though the men of my country, even our common soldiers, would be gentlemanly enough not to force a lady to endure any more than is absolutely necessary. Oh, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
“You are not being forced to endure more than is necessary,” her escort harshly replied. “In the first place itisnecessary to go on; and, in the second place, I am not forcing you.Youcan go on or not, just as you see fit, but as for me, I don’t intend to spend the night here in this wet valley. Good-by!”
For reply Quivven raced ahead of him with, “Oh, how I hate you!” and disappeared around a turn in the trail.
His change of tactics had worked, although it made him feel like a brute. But only by arousing Quivven’s anger could he stir her to continue the journey; and to remain would have menaced her safety and her health.
She had a good head start of him. The silver sky was turning crimson in the west. Night was coming on. So he hurried after her down the wet and slippery trail.
At last it became so dark that he had to slow down and walk; and finally merely grope his way, shoving his feet ahead, one after the other, in order to be sure to keep to the trail and not to stumble.
Time and again his foot would touch something soft, which he would picture as some strange and weird Porovian animal, a gnooper for instance. Quickly he would withdraw the foot. Then waiting in suspense for the creature either to go away or to spring upon him, at last he would cautiously push his foot forward, touch the object again, kick it slightly, and find that it was only a clump of Porovian grass or a rotted piece of lichen log.
Poor Quivven! How terrifiedshemust be at such encounters!
After a while he got a bit used to these occurrences, and accordingly each succeeding one of them delayed him less than the preceding.
“You know,” he said to himself, “this will keep on until finally one of these obstacles will actually turn out to be a gnooper, and it will eat me alive before I can get out of the way.”
Just then his groping foot touched another of these soft objects.
“Get out of my way,” Cabot shouted, and gave it a kick. But this time it was not attached to the soil. It yielded and wriggled a bit. Then it gave a peculiar groaning sound.
Myles leaped backward and waited. But nothing happened; so he tried to circle the creature. Again the groan. His scientific curiosity got the better of his caution. He approached once more and investigated more closely, reaching down with his hand. The animal was covered with wet and muddy fur.
It was Quivven!
Tenderly he raised the crumpled form in his arms, and groped on down the treacherous trail.
Myles wondered how long he could bear up with this dead weight in his arms. But just as he was beginning to stagger, the road gave a turn and flattened out, and there before him were lights, the flares and bonfires of a city! They had reached the plain.
“Quivven!” he cried joyfully. “This is home! There ahead lies Vairkingi!”
But she made no reply. Her body was cold and still.
Quickly he laid her on the ground and placed one ear to her chest. Thank the Great Builder! Her heart still beat. So he chafed her hands and feet, and worked her arms violently back and forth until she began to groan protestingly.
“Quivven!” he cried. “Wake up! We are home!”
“Are you here, Myles?” she murmured faintly,
“Yes.”
“And you won’t make me walk any more?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll wake up for you,” she murmured cheerfully, and promptly fell fast asleep.
Again lifting her tenderly in his arms, he resumed the journey.
On reaching the city he circled the wall until he came to one of the gates, where he stood the girl on the ground and shook her gently into consciousness.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“At the gates of Vairkingi,” Myles answered.
She ran her hands rapidly over her mud-caked fur.
“Oh, but I can’t go in like this,” she wailed, “I’m covered with mud from head to foot! Think how I must look! No, I refuse to go in.”
“If you stay here,” he urged mildly, “then when morning comes every one will see you, the Princess Quivven, bedraggled with mud, hanging around outside the city gates. Better far to go in now, and take a chance of being seen by only one sentinel.”
“Oh, you beast, you beast!” she sobbed, beating him futilely with her tiny paws.
For reply he seized her in his arms, swung her across one hip, and shouted: “Open wide the gates of Vairkingi for Cabot the Minorian, magician to Jud the Excuse-Maker, and to his Excellency Theoph the Grim!”
The gates swung open, and the sentinel stared at them with surprise and some amusement. Myles whipped out his sword, and the smile froze on the soldier’s face.
“Thus do I teach men not to laugh at Myles Cabot,” the earth-man growled. “Remember that you have seen nothing.”
And he handed the soldier the choice blade of Grod the Silent. The soldier smiled again.
“I have seen nothing but a Roy, whom I robbed of his sword and drove off into the darkness. It is a fine sword, and I will remember that I have seen nothing. May the Great Builder bless Myles Cabot the Minorian.”
Cabot glanced at his burden, Quivven, the beautiful. No wonder she did not want to be seen. It always humiliates a lady not to look her best in public. But by the same token, no one could possibly recognize her. He might perfectly well have saved the sword.
So he passed on through the city streets. Finally he had to put the girl down, and ask her to help him find the way, which she did grudgingly. At the gate of Jud’s compound, Myles again swung her across his hip, before he demanded entrance. No swords this time, for diplomacy would take the place of payment.
“Myles Cabot demanding entrance,” he cried.
The local guard inspected them carefully by the light of his torch.
“It is Cabot all right,” he replied, “and you look as though you had seen some hard fighting. But who is this with you?”
“A girl of the Roies,” answered Myles. “That is what the fighting was about.”
“Not for mine!” the soldier asserted, grimacing. “Though there is no accounting for tastes. They are filthy little beasts, and spitfires as well, so I’m told. My advice to you, sir, is to throw it down a well.”
Quivven wriggled protestingly.
“Perhaps I will,” Myles laughed.
At their own gate at last, he placed her once more on her feet, whereat she shook herself free, raced into the house, slammed the door of her room.
Cabot himself went right to bed, without waiting to wash or anything, and dropped instantly to sleep the moment he touched his pile of bedding; yet, so intent was he on wasting no time in getting Cupia on the air that he was up early the next morning.
He found his laboratory force sadly demoralized, owing to the absence of Quivven and himself, but he quickly brought order out of chaos, and set the men to work on their first real construction job, to which all the other work had been mere preliminary steps.
Quivven kept to her rooms, but one of the other maids roguishly informed him: “The Golden One says she hates you.”
Now that his fire-bricks were ready, Myles Cabot laid out on paper the plans for his smelting plant, all the units of which were to be lined with fire-brick.
First he designed a furnace for roasting his ore. This furnace was to be in two sections, one above the other, the lower holding the charcoal fire, and the upper holding the ore. Later he planned to use the sulphur fumes of this roaster to make sulphuric acid, which in turn he would use to make sal ammoniac for his batteries. But at present he had not yet figured out this process in detail.
The smelting furnace, for smelting the roasted ore into copper-matter, was to consist of a chimney about two feet in diameter, sloping sharply outward for about two feet, and thence sloping gradually inward again for a height of about ten feet. Near the bottom were to be a number of small holes leading from an air passage.
This air passage and the vent for the hot flames from the top of the smelter were to run in parallel pipes made of hollow brick tile, to two chambers containing a checkerwork design of fire-brick. The two pipes were to be interchangeable; so that, when the exhaust had heated one of the checkerwork grids to a red heat, the pipes could be switched, and the incoming air would be warmed by passing through the heated grid. From gnooper hide and wood he could easily construct bellows to pump in the air for the blast.
Molten copper-matte and slag would be separately run off through two separate openings at different levels near the bottom of the blast furnace.
To further refine the matte, he designed a Bessemer converter, that is to say, a barrel-shaped box of layers of fire clay, the inner layer being very rich in quartz sand. This barrel, when filled with molten matte, would be laid on its side; and a hot blast introduced through holes near this side would convert the matte into pure copper in about two hours.
The first converter which he made was rather small, as he expected that it would not last very well without metal reinforcements, and of course he would have no metal for reenforcing purposes until after he had run off at least one heat.
For the extraction of iron, he made crucibles of fireclay, which he set in deep holes in the ground.
On the second morning after the unpleasant homecoming, Quivven appeared. All her rage had burned out, and she was meek and subdued.
With downcast eyes she reported to Myles: “I am ready to go to work now.”
With a welcoming smile he patted her golden-furred shoulder, whereat her old anger started to flare again, but this one remaining ember merely flickered and died out, and she submitted with a shrug of resignation.
So the Radio Man explained to her his plans for the furnaces; then, leaving her in charge of the work, he set out once more to the river of the silver sands, this time accompanied by a heavy guard of Vairking soldiers, and flying a blue flag, as agreed on with Prince Otto of the Roies.
As he was departing, Quivven flung her arms around him and begged him not to go to certain destruction, but he gently disengaged himself, smiling indulgently at this show of childish affection.
“My dear little girl,” he admonished, “most of our troubles last time came from your following me. This time I warn you that I shall be very displeased if you fail to stick closely to home and complete my two magic furnaces for me. Promise me that you will.”
So, with tears of dread in her blue eyes, she promised; and the expedition set forth. They were gone about five days. The trip proved uneventful from any except a scientific viewpoint. They returned, bearing several pounds of silvery grains, placermined from the river sands; also some large lumps of galena crystal, and nearly a ton of zinc-blende. They found that, under the skillful direction of little Quivven, the furnaces were nearly completed.
Quivven the Golden Flame was overjoyed at Cabot’s safe return, while even he had to confess considerable relief. He complimented her warmly on the progress of the furnaces, and noted her pleasure at his expressions of approval.
A few details which had perplexed her were quickly straightened out, and the work was rushed to completion.
He next tested the silver grains which he had brought from the river. His method was a very simple one, invented by himself. It consisted in filling a clay cup with water and weighing it, then weighing a quantity of the metal, and then putting this metal in the water and weighing the whole. A simple mathematical calculation from these three weights gave him the specific gravity of the metal. This process was repeated a number of times to avoid error, and gave as an average the figure 21.5, which he remembered to be the specific gravity of pure platinum.
As a further test he hammered some of the supposed platinum into a thin sheet, and attempted, without success, to melt it. Then he laid a sliver of one of his lead bullets on it, and tried again, with the result that the lead melted and burned a hole through the metal sheet. This test convinced him that he truly had found platinum.
Cabot next turned his attention to glass making. For ordinary glass he would need quartz, soda, potash, and limestone.
The reason for his employing both soda and potash instead of merely one or the other, was that together they would have a lower fusing point, and thus be easier for him to handle with his crude equipment. For glass for his tubes he would use litharge in place of the limestone.
The quartz and the limestone were already available. Soda would be a byproduct of his sal ammoniac when he got around to making it, but this would not be until he had made sulphuric acid from his copper ore, which was a most complicated process as he remembered it.
Potash could be got simply by dripping water through wood-ashes, evaporating the water, roasting the sediment, dissolving again in water, letting the impurities settle, and then evaporating the clear liquid, and roasting again. He started this process at once.
But he had no idea how to make litharge. Furthermore, he could not blow his glass until he had metal tubes, so he abandoned further steps for the present.
While he was pondering over these problems a messenger arrived, demanding his immediate presence at the quarters of Jud the Excuse-Maker.
Jud was in a state of great excitement when the earth-man arrived.
Said Jud: “Do you remember what you told me about the beasts of the south, who swim through the air, talk soundless speech, and use magic slingshots like yours which you captured from the Roies near Sur?”
“Yes,” Cabot replied. “I hope that by this time I have given sufficient demonstration of my truthfulness so that you now believe the story.”
“Oh, I believed it at the time,” Jud hastily explained, “But now I have proof of it, for we have captured one of these beasts. That is, wethinkit is one of them. I want you to see and identify it, before we present it to Theoph the Grim.”
“Thereby displaying commendable foresight,” Myles commented. “Where is this Formian?”
“In a cage in the zoo,” the Vairking noble replied. “Come; I will take you there.”
So together the two threaded the streets of Vairkingi to the zoo. This was part of the city which the earth-man had never before visited. Its denizens fascinated him.
There were huge water snakes with humanlike hands. There were spherical beasts with a row of legs around the equator, a row of eyes around the tropic of cancer, and a circular mouth rimmed with teeth at the north pole. There were—
But at this point Jud urged him on into another room, where he promptly forgot all the other creatures in the sight which met his eyes.
In a large wooden cage in the center of the room was an enraged ant-man gnawing at the bars, while a score or so of Vairking warriors stood around and prodded him with spears.
“Stop!” Jud shouted at the soldiery, whereat they all fell back obediently.
This called the attention of the imprisoned beast to the newcomers, so he looked up and stared at them. Cabot stared back.
Then he rushed forward to the cage!
“Doggo!” he cried. “Doggo! They told me you were dead!”
But of course all this was lost on the radio speech sense of the prisoner. Vairking soldiers interposed their spears between Myles Cabot and what they believed was sure destruction at the jaws of the black beast. Cabot recoiled.
“Jud,” he called out, “order off your henchmen! I am not crazy, nor do I court death. This creature is the only one of the Formians whom I can control. He will prove a valuable ally for us, if I can persuade him to forgive the indignities which your men have already heaped upon him.”
“I do not believe you,” Jud replied, “for how can men communicate with beasts, especially with strange beasts such as this, the like of which man ne’er set eyes on before?”
“Remember that I am a magician,” Myles returned somewhat testily. Then seeing that Jud was still obdurate, he addressed the guards. “You know me for a magician?”
“Yes,” they sullenly admitted.
“And you know the magic on which I am now engaged, and to which all of my recent expeditions relate?”
“Yes,” one replied. “You seek to call down the lightnings of heaven, and harness them to transport your words across the boiling seas.”
“Rightly spoken!” the Radio Man asserted. “Therefore, if you do not stand aside, I shall call those lightnings down for another purpose, namely, to blast you. Stand aside!”
One of the guards spoke to another, “Why should we risk our lives to save his? Let the magician save himself!”
So they stood aside. Myles stepped up to the cage, and he and Doggo each patted the other’s cheek through the bars.
Jud the Excuse-Maker sheepishly explained, “I knew that you were speaking the truth, but I wished to learn what method you would use to handle the soldiers. You did nobly.”
“Bunk!” the earth-man ejaculated, well knowing that the Vairking would not understand him.
“What means that word?” Jud inquired, much interested.
“That,” Myles replied, grinning, “is a complimentary term often applied on my own planet, the earth, to the remarks of our great leaders.”
Jud, highly complimented, let it go at that. Myles now ordered paper and a charcoal pencil, and began a conversation with his ant friend.
“They told me you were dead,” he wrote. “Or I never would have left the city of Yuriana or deserted your cause.”
“My cause died with my daughter, the queen,” Doggo replied. “I alone survive. I escaped by plane, and have been flitting around the country ever since, until my alcohol gave out. Then these furry Cupians captured me. They got me with a net so that I could not fight back.
“Also, I was distant from my airship at the time, or it would have gone hard with them for the ship is well stocked with bombs, and rifle cartridges, and one rifle. Now tell me of yourself. How do you stand with these furry Cupians?”
“They are not Cupians.” Myles wrote. “They are Vairkings, a race much like myself, who send messages with their mouths and with their ears, instead of using their antennae for both, as the Cupians and you Formians do. Do you remember the old legend of Cupia, that creatures like me dwell beyond the boiling seas? Well, it appears to have been true, though how any one could have known or even suspected it, is a mystery to me.”
“You have not yet told me how you stand,” the ant-man reminded him.
“They recognize me as a great magician,” Myles answered, “and I have promised to build them a radio set, and to lead them to victory over the Formians.”
“Just as you did for the Cupians,” Doggo mused. “But you will have a harder task here, for these furry creatures appear to know no metals, nor any of the arts save woodcarving.”
They patted each other’s cheeks again. Then, before any one could interfere, Myles Cabot unbolted the door of the cage, and out walked Doggo, a free ant once more.
The soldiery, and Jud with them, promptly scattered to the four walls of the room.
“Come over here, Jud,” Myles invited, “and meet my friend—that is, unless you are afraid.”
“Oh, no, I do not fear him,” Jud the Excuse-Maker replied, “but I do not consider it consistent with the dignity of my position to be seen fraternizing with a wild beast.”
It was typical. Myles laughed. Then he led the huge ant home with him to his quarters.
Quivven was amazed, but not at all frightened, at the great black creature; and when an introduction had been effected on paper, she and Doggo developed quite a strong liking for each other.
As soon as the Formian had been fed and assigned to a room in the ménage—some improvement over the menagerie, by the way—his host and hostess took him on a tour of inspection of their laboratory.
With the true scientific spirit so characteristic of the cultured but warlike race which once dominated Cupia, Doggo plunged at once into the spirit of the almost super-Porovian task which Myles had undertaken; and it soon became evident that the new comer would prove to be an invaluable accession. His scientific training would dovetail exactly with that of the earth-man, and would supplement it at every point.
Almost at the very start he suggested a solution of the problems which had been puzzling Myles.
Cabot’s recollection of the process of sulphuric acid manufacture had been that it required a complicated roasting furnace, two filtering towers, and a tunnel about two hundred feet long made of lead, and into which nitric acid fumes had to be injected. His recollection of nitric acid manufacture was that it required sulphuric acid among other ingredients. So how was he to make either acid without first having the other? And furthermore, where was he to procure enough lead to build a two-hundred-foot tunnel?
Doggo solved these problems very nicely—by avoiding them.
“What do you need sulphuric add for?” he wrote.
“Merely to use in making hydrochloric acid,” wrote the earth-man in reply.
“And that?”
“To use in making sal ammoniac for my batteries.”
“Do you need nitric acid for anything except the manufacture of sulphuric?”
“No.”
“Then,” Doggo suggested, “let us make our sal ammoniac directly from its elements. We shall build a series of about twenty vertical cast-iron retorts, as soon as you have smelted your iron. These we shall fill with damp salt, pressed into blocks and dried. We shall heat these retorts with charcoal fires, and through them we shall pass then, air, and the sulphur fumes of your ore-roasting.
“After about fifteen days we shall daily cut out the first retort, dump out the soda which has formed in it, refill it, and place it at the farther end of the series. The liquid, which condenses at the end of the series, will be diluted hydrochloric acid. By passing the fumes of roast animal-refuse through it we shall convert it into sal ammoniac solution.”
Accordingly, the quicker they started their foundry operations, the better.
By this time chalcopyrite, quartz, and charcoal were present at Vairkingi in large quantities. The ore was first roasted, and then was piled into the smelter with the quartz and charcoal; the air-bellows were started, fire was inserted through the slaghole, and soon a raging pillar of flame served notice on all Vairkingi that the devil-furnace of the great magician was in full blast. By this time it was night, but no one thought of stopping.
Of course, there were complications. The furry soldiers deserted the pumps at the first roar of green-tinged flame, but Doggo instantly stepped into the breach and operated all of the bellows with his various legs. Finally the warriors, on seeing that Myles and Quivven had survived the ordeal of fire, sheepishly returned to their posts, and were soon loudly boasting of their own bravery and of how their fellows would envy them on the morrow when they should relate their experiences.
Along toward morning Cabot drew his first heat of molten matter into a brick ladle and poured it into the converter. It was an impressive sight. The shadowy wooden-walled inclosure, lit by the waving greenish flare of a pillar of fire, which metamorphosed the white skin of the earth-man into that of a jaundiced Oriental, tinged Quivven with green-gold, and glinted off the shiny carapace of Doggo as off the facets of a bloodstone. In the darkness of the background, toiled the workers at their pumps.
Then there came a change. The fires died down, the pumping ceased, oil lamps were lit, and the ghostly glare gave place to a faint but healthy light, although over all hung the ominous silence of expectancy.
The ladle was brought up, a hand-hole-cover removed, and out flowed a crimson liquid, tinting all the eager surrounding faces with a sinister ruddiness.
Again the red glare, as the ladle was poured into the barrel-shaped converter. Then the pumps were started again, and the blast from the converter replaced that of the furnace with its ghostly light. Two hours later the converter was tipped, and pure molten copper was poured out into the ladle. Once more the sinister ruddiness.
Quickly the molds were filled, the red light was gone, the spell was broken, conversation was resumed. The first metallurgy of Vairkingi was an accomplished fact.
Day came, and with it loud pounding on the gate. Cabot answered it, carelessly and abstractedly sliding back the bolt before inquiring who was outside. The gate swung open with a bang, almost knocking Myles into a flower bed, and in rushed a Vairking youth with drawn sword and panting heavily.
“You beast!” he cried, lunging at the earth-man as he spoke.
But in his haste and anger he lunged too hard and too far; so that Cabot, although unarmed, was able to step under his guard and grasp him by the wrist before he recovered. Quick as lightning the boy’s sword arm was bent up behind his back, and he was “in chancery”, to use the wrestling term.
Slowly, grimly, Cabot forced the imprisoned hand upward between the shoulder-blades of his opponent, until with a groan the latter relinquished the sword, and it fell clattering to the ground.
Smiling, Cabot stooped down and picked it up, and forced the young intruder against the wall.
“Now,” said the earth-man, “explain yourself.”
The boy faced Myles like a cornered panther.
“It’s Quivven,” he snarled. “You have stolen my Quivven.”
“Nonsense!” Myles exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
“I am Tipi the Steadfast,” the youth replied. “Long have I loved the Golden Flame, and she me, until you came to this city. When you arrived I was away on a military expedition, winning distinctions to lay at the tiny feet of my fair one. Last night I returned to find her working at your laboratory. One or the other, you or I, must die.”
“You are absurd!”
“Inmycountry,” Tipi returned, looking the earth-man straight in the eye, “no common soldier is permitted to dictate manners to a gentleman. I repeat that Quivven—”
But at this point, Myles cuffed the young Vairking over one ear, knocking him flat upon the walk; and, as he scrambled sputtering to his feet, dealt him another blow which sent him reeling into the street. Then Myles barred the gate, and turned toward the house.
In the doorway stood Quivven, shaking with laughter. Myles was immediately embarrassed. He hadn’t known that his encounter had been observed. He hated to show off, and was afraid that his actions had appeared very melodramatic.
“Isn’t Tipi silly?” she asked.
“But he may make trouble with your father,” Myles said, with a worried frown.
“Oh, I’m not afraid of father.”
“But he will put an end to my experiments.”
So Quivven went home to chat with her father before young Tipi could get there to stir up possible trouble. She returned later in the day to resume her work. While she was gone, Cabot conferred with Doggo.
“Why are you building this radio set?” the ant-man wrote. “I did not ask you before in the presence of the lady, for I felt that perhaps you did not wish her to know your plans.”
“Doggo, you show remarkable intuition,” Myles wrote in reply. “It is true that I do not wish any of the Vairkings to know. My idea is to communicate with Cupia, learn how Lilla is getting along, and encourage my supporters there to hold out until in some way I can secure a Formian airship and return across the boiling seas.”
“Then cease your work,” Doggo wrote, “for my plane, in perfect condition, lies carefully hidden in a wood not a full day’s journey from this city. All that we need is alcohol for the trophil-engines.”
“We can make the alcohol in a few days in my laboratory,” Cabot wrote, “but it will not do for us to escape too precipitately, lest our plans be discovered and blocked. The Vairkings like sleight-of-hand, and wish to keep me with them as their court magician. Let us bide our time until they become sufficiently accustomed to you, so that they will not question your accompanying me on an expedition. Then, away to the plane, and off to Cupia!”
The ant-man assented. It seemed logical. And yet I wonder if this logic would not have done credit to Jud the Excuse-Maker. I wonder if Cabot was not subconsciously influenced by a scientific desire to complete his radio set in this land of people who used only wood and flint. I wonder.
At all events, the work proceeded.
He had planned to use the slag from the copper furnace as the “ore” for his iron, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that its high sulphur content would probably ruin any steel which he produced. Fortunately, however, he ran across a deposit of magnetic iron ore near Vairkingi.
This he ground and placed in his crucibles with charcoal, and they built charcoal fires in the pits around them. The slag he slammed off with copper—later iron—ladles. The melting had to be repeated many times in order to purify the iron sufficiently, and further in order to secure just the right carbon content for cast-iron, steel, or wrought-iron, according to which he needed for any particular purpose. This securing the proper carbon content was largely a matter of cut-and-try.
With iron and steel available, he now made pots, retorts, hammers, anvils, drills, wire-drawing dies, and a decent Bessemer converter.
Copper tubes for glass-blowing, and copper wire were drawn. A simple wooden lathe was made for winding thread around the wires. This thread, by the way, was the only Vairkingian product which the earth-man found ready to his hand.
As soon as the iron retorts were available, the joint manufacture of sal ammoniac and soda was started, as already outlined by Doggo.
In iron pots, Cabot melted together finely ground white sand, with lime, soda, and potash, and blew the resulting glass into bottles, retorts, test tubes, and other laboratory apparatus; also jars for his electric batteries. He used both soda and potash, as this would render the glass more fusible than if made with either alone.
Lead was melted from galena crystal in small quantities for solder. Thus was suggested to Doggo, the manufacture, on the side, of bullets, gunpowder, and cartridges, for the rifle which Myles had in his quarters, and for the one which lay in the concealed airplane.
Tales of the copper-smelting had spread among the populace, who evinced such great interest that double guards had to be placed and maintained about the laboratory inclosure. And every returning military expedition brought with it samples of unusual minerals.
Meanwhile, Cabot instituted a regular campaign of getting Vairkingi accustomed to Doggo. Every day, Doggo would parade the high-walled streets, with Quivven the Golden Flame perched upon his back. The ten-foot ant inspired great interest and considerable fear.
She enjoyed her rides thoroughly, not only for the novelty of the thing, but also because her seat on his six-foot-high back brought her head above the level of the fence palings, and thus enabled her to survey the private yards of everyone.
Tipi had not been seen or heard from.
Arkilu the Beautiful thoroughly made up with the earth-man, and even admitted that her love for him had been a mistake. Plans for her wedding with Jud proceeded rapidly. When this coming marriage was publicly announced, Att the Terrible sent in a Roy runner with the message that he didn’t in the least care.