"Right. That's the one thing that might stop me. I'm counting on you to take care of it, though. Is there anything you can do?"
There was a long moment of tension-studded silence. Then:
"Perhaps there is. I have been working on equipment to prevent fighter pilots 'blacking out' during power dives, and I believe there is a relationship between time travel and terrific speeds in space. It is possible that I could insulate you—"
"That's all I need, then. Make me a mirror, professor, and something to insulate me—"
"But you have no focal point! You might go through time to a place a thousand miles and a thousand years from where Elaine is captive—"
Mark laughed harshly.
"Wrong, professor! I've got the most accurate focal point in the world. Or I will have—"
"The most accurate—? What do you mean?" The old man's face was bewildered.
"I'll have the same focal point Elaine had, sir: Gustav Jerbette's painting, 'Elaine Duchard's Escape'." Again that laugh. "I'm going now to steal it from Adrian Vance!"
The house of Adrian Vance was one befitting a professional dealer in antiquities. It set far back from the street, towering against the sky like the black bulk of a medieval castle. A high iron fence surrounded it.
At this moment Mark Carter stood surveying the estate from the shelter of a nearby clump of trees.
"It's like a damned fortress!" he muttered to himself. "He's taking no chances on anyone getting in."
Turning, then, he gripped a branch of the nearest tree. Swung up into it. Clambered out, cat-like, until he lay beyond the fence and above the grounds of Vance's home.
The limb bowed under his weight as he proceeded until at last he was able to drop lightly to the ground.
One hazard passed!
"And with no worries about that fence being wired for an alarm system, either!" he told himself triumphantly.
He hurried toward the house, thankful for the darkness of the night.
On one side of the big building lay a terrace. French windows opened onto it.
Like a wraith in the night, taking advantage of every shrub and patch of shadow, Mark crept close to the casements.
They were locked.
The trespasser stripped off his coat. Wrapped it around his hand, a bulky, protective wad of cloth covering the flesh. Then, as silently as possible, he pressed on one of the small panes of glass close beside the lock. Harder ... harder ... harder....
With a faint tinkle of falling glass, the pane gave way.
Tense seconds crawled by on leaden feet. Mark's mouth was dry, his throat cottony. He stood taut, his back to the wall, waiting fearfully for some sign that Vance had been aroused.
At last he relaxed again. Reached through the broken pane and unlocked the big window. Swung it open, ever so gently, and stepped inside, fading swiftly into the thick blackness of the nearest corner.
Once Mark had interviewed a burglar as a feature assignment. He remembered the man's words now.
"Gettin' in ain't the hard part," the second-story worker had explained. "It's gettin' out that's tough. The first thing you gotta do on a job is to line up an exit."
Now, as his eyes grew accustomed to the blackness, Mark searched for a means of escape. There was a window at the far end of the room. He approached it with swift, silent strides. Opened it wide.
The slightest of creakings caught his ear. Instantly he was on the alert, every muscle tense.
The sound was not repeated. He relaxed.
Where would the picture be?
A large canvas hung above the fireplace. He tiptoed over to it.
The lovely face of the first Elaine Duchard looked down at him!
With trembling fingers he whipped a knife from his pocket. Looked about for a chair to stand on—
"It ain't smart to work a room without fixin' the door first," the burglar had said. "You feel lots better if you know nobody ain't gonna stumble in on you unexpected."
Ten seconds later Mark had wedged a straight-back chair under the knob of the only door leading into the rest of the house.
Turning, he hurried back to the Jerbette painting. With swift, deft slashes he cut it from its frame. Started to roll it up.
"Ah! A visitor!"
The trespasser whirled as if he had been stabbed. He stumbled from the chair on which he stood. As he did so, the brilliant beam of a five-cell flashlight hit him square in the face like a physical blow. It blinded him. Left him helpless.
"No doubt this is just a social call. Too bad that the police will call it breaking and entering with larcenous intent!"
It was the oily, mocking voice of Adrian Vance, and it came from the French window through which Mark had entered.
"Try to lie out of it!" Vance gloated. "Just try to explain that picture in your hands!"
"I don't have to explain, Vance. You know why I'm here."
The wail of a siren sounded in the distance.
"Oh, of course I know." The other was laughing softly, greasily. "But will the police understand, Carter? That siren you hear—it's coming here, you know; I called the station before I came down to grab you."
Mark's heart jumped like a wounded stag. He looked around wildly. Was this to be the end of it all? Was he to lie in jail while Elaine went to her death, back there in Bourbon France?
His captor was speaking again:
"I didn't dream I could have this much luck! To see that slut Elaine dead—that was the height of my ambition. But now—to have you sent to the penitentiary for burglary—"
The words ended in a roar of laughter. It died, and Vance went on, his tone grim and deadly:
"It's time you dropped that picture, Carter. Drop it—and put your hands up!"
The picture! The one link between 1942 and 1780!
"Drop it!"
Slowly, Mark's hands relaxed. He let the picture fall to the floor.
"Now—raise your hands and walk over to the corner. Stand with your face to the wall!"
Mark moved like one paralyzed. His hands came up as if they were weighted with lead. His brown eyes were fixed on the shadowy finger back of the flashlight, and impotent rage and hatred seethed within them.
Yet what could he do? Jump Vance? Try to wrest the inevitable gun from the antiquarian's hand?
Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head. No. It was impossible. His slug-riddled body would pitch lifeless to the floor before he could take two steps forward.
Nor was it mere fear of death that made him halt. That he would have faced, and gladly.
But what actually held him back was that such a suicidal attempt would avail him nothing. It would bring him no nearer his real goal than before: Elaine still would meet that awful doom which history had recorded as her fate!
"Turn around, damn you! Get over to the corner! Put your face to the wall!"
Ever so slowly, Mark turned. His brain was pounding with frantic effort as he strove to find some flaw in the awful wall of circumstance that rose about him.
And then he saw the curtain!
It was just an ordinary curtain, buff-colored and a trifle stiff with starch.
But it hung in front of the window he had opened as an emergency exit when he came in. At the moment, it swayed ever so slightly in the ripple of draft.
Most important of all, that window was set in the wall against which Adrian Vance had directed that he stand. The corner Vance had indicated was a step to the right of where Mark now stood; the window, a step to the left. And a grand piano half-sheltered it from the antiquarian's line of fire!
"Hurry up! Get into that corner!"
Instinctively, the captive tensed to leap.
But the picture! What about it? He must have it! Without that painting, the time mirror Professor Duchard was constructing would be useless!
Then, suddenly, a grim smile played across Mark's lips. There was an angle! There was one wild chance by which he might escape alive and take Jerbette's masterpiece with him!
"Hurry up, or I'll shoot!"
Like a stone from a sling, Mark hurled himself toward the window in a headlong dive. The blackness of the outer night engulfed him.
In the room behind, Vance's Magnum roared a cannonade of death. Copper-jacketed slugs splintered the sill at the fleeing man's heels.
Mark landed on one shoulder in a somersaulting roll. The next instant he was on his feet and sprinting for the shadows at the corner of the house.
Flashlight in hand, Vance sprang to the open window.
On Mark ran, and on. Around the house as fast as he could go. Then the smooth plateau of the terrace loomed before him, with its wide-open French window.
He slowed, silenced his pounding footsteps.
On the other side of the big room, still peering out the window through which Mark had hurled himself, stood Vance. His sleek form was silhouetted behind the flashlight's beam.
Like a wraith in the night, the other slipped inside. He crossed the room on tiptoe. His hand darted down to snatch the rolled picture from where it still lay on the floor.
And then Vance turned. His flashlight caught Mark.
But this time it was the antiquarian who was surprised. He jerked back. Already his adversary was leaping for the cover of a heavy mahogany table. Vance snapped a shot at him. Tried again to place him with the light.
Mark's hand came down on a porcelain vase. He hurled it at Vance with all his might.
Vainly, his enemy tried to dodge. But too late. The vasethunk'dhome against his left shoulder. The flashlight fell to the floor.
Like a thunderbolt, Elaine's fiance lunged forward. His left hand slashed down; pinioned the arm that held the Magnum. His right fist came up with express-train speed. Smashed home on the point of Vance's jaw. The antiquarian's body jerked spasmodically. Went limp. Sagged to the floor.
But now the sound of harsh voices and running feet came to Mark's ears.
Clutching the Jerbette painting in one hand, he ducked back out the window. Even in the gloom he could see black figures converging on the house. A sedan stood in the driveway, its spotlight sweeping the house.
"The police!"
Cold sweat stood out on Mark's forehead as he gasped the exclamation. But he did not hesitate. Keeping to the shadows, he headed for the still-open gate through which the car had come.
The iron fence loomed close. He ran along it in a half-crouch.
"Hey, you! Stick 'em up or we shoot!"
For the barest fraction of a second Mark halted in mid-stride. The spotlight was swinging toward him.
But the gate was only a dozen yards away. He made for it in a mad rush. Bullets sang about him. Slugs ricocheted from the iron spikes. But on he went. Lunged through the opening and into the shadowy fastnesses across the street.
The return to Professor Duchard's laboratory was a nightmare of mad dashes and narrow escapes. Squad cars seemed everywhere. Police always on his heels.
And then—
He was slipping through the door, alive and unharmed, with the picture clasped under his arm!
The professor jerked about from the task of hanging a new and bigger time mirror on the easel. It still was shrouded with a heavy cloth.
"It's ready?"
The scientist nodded.
"Yes. I got special co-operation from an old friend who is manager of a glass works." He paused. "And you?"
Mark waved the Jerbette.
"I got the picture," he clipped, "but we're going to have to work fast. The police probably are on their way here now. Vance caught me in the act of stealing the painting." He still was panting from the exertion of his race here.
"Then clip it to this frame quickly!" The professor indicated an arrangement like an oversize drawing board. He hurried to assist the younger man. In a moment their work was done.
There, at last, was "Elaine Duchard's Escape." Mark for the first time studied it carefully.
Four people were shown. The central figure was that of the first Elaine Duchard. She was in the act of entering a carriage, her lovely face alive with panic. Beside her a young man—his face in the shadows—held a horse pistol on another man. This second man's features were twisted with hate; Mark thought he never had seen such malevolent eyes.
"Baron Morriere" the professor explained. "The younger man is Jacques Rombeau, Elaine Duchard's lover."
Mark nodded. Turned to scrutinize a third man, unidentifiable, who was clambering to the driver's seat of the coach.
The next instant the laboratory was re-echoing with the sound of heavy blows upon the door.
"Open up!" roared a muffled voice. "It's the law!"
"The police!" Mark's face went pale.
Professor Duchard darted to the bench which lined one wall. Seized a strange-looking helmet which stood there. Rushed with it to Mark.
"The insulator-helmet!" he explained hastily, his blue eyes feverish with excitement. "Strap it on! Quickly!"
"Open up!" the alien voice roared again. "We want in!"
And then the angry accents of Adrian Vance:
"Break it down, officer! Don't let them get away!"
Mark hauled the frame on which the painting was stretched to a position in front of the mirror. Whirled back. Gripped his companion's hand.
"Will it work, professor? Will the mirror take me back through time?"
"That I cannot tell you, my boy. But it should. You know the formula I worked out. You understand the process by which it was constructed." A second's pause. "Actually, I believe it should work far better than the previous time mirror. The one Vance gave Elaine was very old, very crude. This one is the product of modern science, modern workmanship. It creates a tremendously larger rift in the space-time continuum—"
A shot rang out.
At the other end of the laboratory, the outside door burst open, lock shattered. Uniformed police rushed in, Adrian Vance at their head.
"Mark! Quickly! I shall hold them!"
With a savage jerk, Elaine's fiance ripped aside the cloth that veiled the new time mirror. The reflection of Jerbette's painting sprang across its silver surface.
Mark's jaw went hard with tension. He glued his eyes to the figure of Jacques Rombeau, Elaine Duchard's lover.
Behind him, Adrian Vance charged down the laboratory, struggling to shake off the frail, tenacious figure of Professor Duchard. He brought up his heavy Magnum.
But Mark paid him no heed. Already his brain was spinning, his senses reeling. Yet still he concentrated on the lithe, tense figure of Jacques Rombeau holding the fuming Baron Morriere at bay. And through his mind the words kept ringing:
"I shall take over the brain of Jacques Rombeau! I shall save Elaine from her fate!
"I shall change history!"
"You dog!" said Baron Morriere in a voice that trembled with passion. "I'll see you drawn and quartered for this! You'll swing from the highest gibbet in all France—"
"Save your breath!" snapped Mark—and then nearly dropped the horse pistol he grasped as the sound of his voice struck his ears. For he spoke in the French of the late eighteenth century, and the voice was not his own, but that of Jacques Rombeau!
From behind him came another voice—faintly tremulous, the voice of a woman:
"Jacques,mon cher! We are ready! Quick!"
"Right!"
Then, prodding the baron's stomach with the gun barrel:
"Why I don't kill you now I'll never know.Le Bon Dieuknows I've got cause enough. And may He have mercy on your soul if you try to follow us!"
Turning on his heel, Mark sprang aboard the coach. From the driver's seat came a shout and the crack of the whip. With a jerk that nearly threw Mark to the floor, they were off!
"Oh, Jacques! I was so afraid! The baron—"
He turned in his seat. Looked into the lovely, appealing face of Elaine Duchard. Her arms reached out to him. Instinctively he accepted the embrace. He held her close, and his lips sought hers.
It was strange; incredible. Even as he kissed the girl, Mark realized it. He was two people simultaneously—Mark Carter and Jacques Rombeau. The brain of the former had traveled back through time into the body of the latter. In so doing, it had somehow acquired all the knowledge, the personality, the character traits of Rombeau. Yet because the mind of Mark Carter had been protected by Professor Duchard's insulating helmet, he still was able to think independently—almost as if his own twentieth century being was held apart in a special brain lobe within Jacques Rombeau's skull!
"I knew you would come, Jacques! I knew it!"
A wave of sentiment choked off Mark's reply. Again he kissed the soft hollow of that first Elaine Duchard's throat, trying the while to fight off the awful sense of futility that swept over him as he remembered history's verdict as to her fate.
Then, suddenly, the coach was halting.
"Whoa, there!" came the voice of the burly man on the box. And then: "Well, Jacques, what now? We're away from the castle, but where do we go?"
Mark swung to the ground. Glanced back to where the Chateau Morriere still loomed black and menacing on a distant ridge.
"Every road and bridge is blocked," the other went on. "The peasantry's none too peaceful in these parts, and the baron's taking no chances."
Mark nodded slowly.
"What do you think, Baroc?" he asked. Somehow, he knew that was the man's name.
The burly one scowled.
"Paris, I suppose," he grunted. "If you once get there, and into the slums, the devil himself couldn't rout you out."
"Do you think we can make it?"
"Maybe." A shrug. "We could try the post road."
"All right. Let's go."
They jogged on through the night, the coach swaying and bumping over the rough track. Then lights began to sparkle ahead. Baroc pulled up.
"The Golden Cock Inn," he grunted, nodding toward the lights. "Morriere's guards will be there. We'll have to run for it, so be ready for rough going."
The next instant they were rolling again. Closer the lights came, and closer. Now they were almost abreast them....
"Halt!"
A man was running toward them, waving his arms.
Baroc shattered the night with a fearful oath. His long whip cracked over the backs of the double-span of greys ahead. The horses leaped forward.
They were past the inn, driving hellbent through the pitch-blackness of the countryside. But behind them was a tumult of shouts, a wild disorder.
Mark shot a glance through the window. Caught a glimpse of running figures.
"Jacques! Are they after us?" There was panic in Elaine's voice.
A clatter of hooves answered her before Mark could open his mouth. The girl clung to him, her face chalky with fear.
"If the baron catches me again, Jacques—"
"He won't catch you! I promise it, Elaine! He won't!"
But the words of Adrian Vance leaped into his brain like red-hot branding irons:
Elaine Duchard was tortured and murdered by Baron Morriere's retainers!
Were these men the ones history had marked to do the awful deed?
The thunder of hooves was almost upon them now. The coach rocked from side to side. Bounced wildly from one rut to another.
A hoarse bellow from Baroc:
"They're coming, Jacques!"
Then out of the night like the wind itself the riders came. Big men, with fierce eyes and savage, brutal faces. Men cut from the same pattern as their master, Baron Morriere.
"Halt!"
"To hell with you!"
A rider surged ahead. He cut in toward the coach's horses.
"Oh, no, you don't!"
Baroc's whip lashed out. Bit into the face of the horseman. Laid the flesh bare from eye to jaw. The man gave a shriek of agony. Pitched from his saddle into the road. The coach leaped high as it struck his falling body.
But the others closed in. One sprang from his horse to a precarious perch on the mounting-board. His bearded face leered in. A knife flashed.
Boom!
The man fell back, dead before he hit the ground, his throat torn out by the slug from Mark's horse pistol. The coach was blue with the acrid stench of gunpowder smoke.
"Oh, Jacques! Don't let them get me! I love you so, Jacques—no matter what happens—"
Mark's arm was tight around Elaine. His face was taut and grim as they bounced onward. He fingered the haft of a broad-bladed knife in his belt.
"They won't get you! I promise it—"
Then, suddenly, their enemies were rushing to the attack again. From all sides they came. The point of a sword cut off Baroc's hoarse cry in mid-breath. He pitched from the box.
On through the night plunged the driverless coach, the horses mad with fright. A bridge loomed ahead. They raced for it like creatures from hell, flanks lathered, nostrils flaring.
Another rider tried to spring to the coach. Mark's knife flashed out. Drove home.
Then they were onto the bridge.
With a roar the coach jumped sidewise on the boards. Crashed into the flimsy railing. Tottered for a moment above the stream. Plunged backward into the water, dragging the horses with it.
Mark felt himself hurled back into one corner. His head smashed hard against something. Consciousness waned.
But the rush of water revived him. He lurched half-erect as the river spilled through the windows in a tidal wave.
Elaine lay unconscious on the floor. He caught up her limp body. Kicked open one door. Lunged out into the turbulent stream. Drifted with the current, barely keeping their heads above water.
From the banks came the shouts of searching men.
Onward Mark and Elaine drifted. The girl's eyes still were closed. Her body slack.
All his life those endless hours were a nightmare to the man. He remembered, vaguely, that they lay hidden under the roots of a willow while guardsmen on the bank above them cursed the luck that had let the pair escape. Mark's teeth were chattering and his muscles weak. Elaine's face, beside him, was growing blue with cold. Yet still she did not recover consciousness.
Then, at last, the baron's men were clumping off, and Mark was dragging his sweetheart out onto the bank.
A voice said:
"Praise God they did not find you!"
Mark staggered to face the man who spoke. His hand flashed to the knife in his belt.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
The stranger was old. The hands he raised in a gesture of peace were toil-worn.
"Only a poor peasant, friend," he answered. "I welcome you because the baron's men would not be hunting you were you not his enemies—may his soul rot in hell!"
"You will help us?"
The old man nodded.
"As much as I can. There is an abandoned chateau near here. You can hide there. I shall bring you food."
All but one wing of the ancient edifice to which the peasant took them was in ruins, gutted by fire. It stood high on a hill like a blackened skeleton.
"Once those who lived here were as cruel and proud as Baron Morriere," commented their guide. "Fire made them our equals."
And the part of Mark that was Jacques Rombeau answered:
"Fire will make many equals in the years to come, old man. And swords will help, for a poor man's arm can strike as lusty a blow as any lord's."
They laid Elaine on a bed of straw high in the unburned wing. She was conscious now, but screaming in delirium.
"We've got to get a doctor!" Mark grated tensely. "If she dies—"
The thought brought him up short. History said Elaine Duchard could not die! No! She must be tormented and murdered! And already the time was short, for Professor Duchard had asserted that she was killed two days after her first escape. Twelve hours had passed since he and the girl had clambered into the coach. That left thirty-six—
The old peasant was shaking his head.
"There is no doctor here who can be trusted," he declared. "One and all, they would run to Baron Morriere. The nearest who would help you and keep his mouth shut is in Paris—"
For ten long seconds Mark struggled with himself.
Elaine was sick. Perhaps dying. Well, why not let her die? Wouldn't it be better than to see her perhaps back in the hands of Baron Morriere? Was it not to kill her that he, Mark Carter, had come across a hundred fifty years of time? Had he not sworn he would contradict history's verdict—
"Jacques! Don't let them get me! Save me! Jacques—"
She was screaming in delirium again, her lovely face pale, her golden hair water-soaked to limp stringiness. Mark knelt beside her. Chafed her wrists. Sponged the fevered brow.
"Jacques! Jacques!"
"History be damned!"
He shouted it aloud. Sprang erect, eyes flashing cold fire.
"I won't let her die now, and I won't let the baron get her! History or no history, she's my Elaine, and I'll save her!"
He whirled on the bewildered peasant.
"How far is it to Paris?"
"About eleven miles."
"Then I'll go there. I'll get a doctor." Even as he spoke, Mark was pulling on his jacket. He strode toward the door, then hesitated and came back. He gripped the old peasant's shoulders. "Stay with her, old man, 'till I come back."
"I shall stay."
Mark drew the knife from his belt. Handed it to the other. When he spoke, his voice was but a cracked whisper:
"Iftheycome ... use this. She would rather have it so."
And the answer came back:
"I promise it, friend! They shall not take her alive!"
A wild trip it was, that journey to Paris. A dozen times before he was beyond Baron Morriere's domains, Mark was certain he would be trapped.
Then he was in the city and searching out the doctor's office in a vast, ancient rookery on the Left Bank. Outside—although it was only mid-afternoon—hovering storm clouds transformed day into night, while, at last, he pounded on the door to which he had been directed.
The door opened. A scowling, youthful man with tousled hair glared out at him, reeling tipsily all the while.
"Wha' y' want?"
"I'm looking for Doctor d'Allempier."
"Then why y' come here?Iain' no doc-tor. Me, I'm painter. Gustav Jerbette. 'M bes' dam' pain'er—"
Disgust welled within Mark's heart like the thunder that rumbled overhead. He jerked free of the drunk's pawings.
And then, suddenly, he stopped. Stopped coldly and completely, as if he had been turned to stone. Deep within him an idea was growing. An idea so stupendous that it made his brain reel within his skull.
He whirled on the drunk.
"What did you say your name was?"
"'M Gustav Jerbette. 'M pain'er. Bes' dam' pain'er—"
The next instant the tipsy one was reeling backward into his room under the impetus of a powerful shove.
"Hey! Wha's idea?" he burbled. "Qui' pushin'—"
"Shut up, you stew-bum! I'm going to sober you up if I have to kill you! You've got a job to do!"
The doctor was a grave, bearded man. At last he rose from beside Elaine's straw bed in the fire-gutted chateau.
"How is she, doctor? Is there any hope?" Mark's voice was choked with emotion, his face drawn and haggard with strain.
Slowly, the medical man shook his head.
"I am sorry,m'sieur," he said quietly. "I can offer you little solace. Her lungs already are filling. I doubt that she can last until morning."
The other was breathing hard. His eyes were like fiery gimlets.
"Isn't there anything you can do?" he begged, half-sobbing. "Can't you at least give her something so she'll recover consciousness? I must talk to her—"
"That I can do."
The physician turned back to the bed. Raised the dying girl's head from the pallet to administer doses of several medicines.
"I have done all I can," he said. "From here it is in the hands ofLe Bon Dieu."
Dazedly, Mark thanked him. Paid him with coins from Jacques Rombeau's wallet.
The door to the room beyond opened on sagging hinges and Gustav Jerbette stepped out. His eyes still were red-rimmed from drink, but otherwise he appeared sober.
"It's done," he said in a disgusted tone. "Lord knows it looks like nothing in this world or the next, but it's done."
Again Mark dealt out coins.
The old peasant entered the room.
"The baron is furious," he reported grimly. "They are searching every hut and hovel—"
The doctor shifted his feet nervously.
"Since there is nothing more I can do—" he murmured.
Mark seemed to shake off the strange, dream-like lassitude that gripped him.
"Of course, gentlemen. All of you have done your best. But there isn't any need of your staying longer, imperiling your lives by the chances of Baron Morriere's vengeance. Please leave—and my thanks go with you."
Out they marched, a weird procession: painter, doctor, peasant. Only the old man hesitated at the door.
"God be with you, friend!" he whispered, and pulled the heavy portal shut behind him.
Like a man in a trance, Mark watched them go. His feet were spread apart; fists clenched. Nor did the Sphinx at Giza look out upon the world with a face more grey or stony or implacable than was his.
"History!" he cried aloud, and his voice was half-hysterical. "Damn history! I'll beat it yet! Those devils shan't have Elaine—"
"Jacques!"
It was Elaine. Wanly she looked up from the pallet where she lay. Tried to force a smile.
Mark dropped to his knees beside her.
"Elaine! My darling!"
The girl raised a hand that trembled. Caressed his forehead.
"Poor Jacques!" she whispered. "He looks so worried; so frightened—"
"And good cause he has, too!"
Mark whirled, every muscle taut, at that harsh voice.
There, in the doorway, backed by his guardsmen, stood the Baron Morriere!
Tension hung over the silence of the room like smoke above a battlefield.
"Did you think you'd get away, you fool?" the noble gloated. "Did you think you'd escape Raoul Morriere's vengeance?"
Mark was breathing hard. His face was pale, his eyes over-bright. Deep within his brain words were pounding, with the beat of a giant sledge....
"I shall defeat fate!" those words throbbed. "I shall rewrite history! Not as I wanted to. No. But they shall not have Elaine—"
His hand clashed down, then, as a cobra strikes. Down to the broad bladed knife Jacques Rombeau carried in his belt. All his mind, all his heart, was concentrated on this one thing: Even though lightning should strike him this very instant, he would seize that knife. Whip it out. Bury it to the hilt in Elaine's breast, that death—not Baron Morriere's retainers—might claim her!
But his hand clutched empty air. He stared down in shocked incredulity. Stared down, and remembered—
He had given that knife to the old peasant before he went to Paris! And he had failed to ask it back!
"Look! He reaches for his knife!" whooped the baron. "He would protect his sweetheart!"
The guardsmen behind him joined in his roar of laughter.
Something came over Mark Carter in that moment. Something at once cold and deadly, and hotly, fiercely passionate. He felt a kinship to all earth's fighting madmen—the Malay, run amok; the Viking, gone berserk; the Arab, charging through hell to paradise.
Like a human projectile he launched himself, straight for the throat of Baron Morriere!
"Ai!"
It was not a word, that sound that came from the noble's throat. No. There was something more primitive than that about it.
It was terror, incarnate.
Before the man could move, Mark's fingers were clutching at him, tearing his clothing and his flesh. Again he screamed.
As one possessed, Mark jerked him from the bosom of his guardsmen. Hurled him bodily across the room, to slam against the farthest wall with a crash that echoed through the ancient wing.
But now the guardmen's paralysis was broken. They surged forward as one man.
"Jacques! Look out!"
Elaine's scream lent strength to her lover's arms. He slammed the door in the face of the oncoming fighters. Half a dozen swords stabbed deep into its wood, so closely were they upon him. He hurled himself at the portal. Forced it shut by sheer desperation. Slammed home its triple bolts.
He turned, then, his breath coming in great, sobbing gasps.
Baron Morriere had lurched to his feet. His right hand gripped a sword, his left a dagger.
"You'll die yet, you dog!" he snarled. "I'll spit you on my sword like a pig above a bed of coals!"
The flames of the pit showed in Mark's eyes.
"And I'll seeyouin hell," he grated.
With a curse of contempt, the baron charged.
Mark sprang aside.
Again the other rushed to the attack.
Once more Mark dodged. But now desperation gleamed in his eyes. He was unarmed, helpless. One slip, one misstep, and that cruel blade would pin him to the wall!
Another rush. Another escape. But this time the blade had come close. Mark's shirt was ripped; his shoulder bleeding from a long scratch.
Even worse: from the end of the room came the sound of splintering wood as the guardsmen smashed in the panels of the door. A moment more and they would be upon him!
Again the deadly play of wits. And then, suddenly, Mark found himself penned in a corner. Trapped. The baron faced him, panting, his face alight with evil joy. And beyond the noble, on her bed of straw, Elaine Duchard stared at her lover with horror-straught eyes.
"Die, you dog!"
The baron lunged. His gleaming sword stabbed for Mark's vitals. The unarmed man's teeth clenched to the take the fatal blow.
It never came!
One moment the baron was charging. The next, falling.
"Elaine!"
For the girl's white body was sprawled across the floor. Her thin hands still clutched the baron's ankle.
The next instant her lover was at the noble's throat. His fists beat a tattoo of mayhem on the other's face. Forced him back against a window-sill. Beat him to a senseless, bleeding pulp.
"Jacques!"
He whirled. Saw the door at the far end of the room buckle and give way.
With one sweep of his arms, he sent the baron's body toppling through the window. Falling down ... down ... down, to death on the stone-slab walk three stories below.
Even as he did it, Mark was leaping toward Elaine. He caught her in his arms and lunged for the room's second door. He made it bare inches ahead of the guardsmen's swords.
This door was lighter. Already it rattled under the blows of the baron's men.
"Let me die, Jacques!" Elaine whispered. "I know I am going. You need not try to save me."
"Don't say it!" Mark's voice was a jagged knife of command. "You can't die now. Don't say it!"
He carried her, then, to where the picture Gustav Jerbette had painted stood. A strange picture, for that day and age, for it portrayed Mark Carter and his fiancee, Elaine Duchard, standing side by side in front of a building clearly identifiable as Professor Duchard's laboratory. And the pair were dressed, not in the garb of eighteenth century France, but in that of twentieth century America.
"Shut your eyes, Elaine!"
Wearily, the dying girl obeyed.
With one savage jerk, Mark whipped the cover from another stand. A stand on which stood a mirror. A mirror whose surface seemed to ripple in the fading light. A circular mirror, full three feet in diameter. A mirror with a garishly ornate frame.
His hands trembling with feverish haste, Mark adjusted the picture to reflect in the glass.
Already the door was cracking.
He snatched Elaine from where she lay. Held her half-conscious body before the mirror.
"Open your eyes, Elaine! Open your eyes and look at that girl in the mirror! Concentrate on her, Elaine!Concentrate!"
His own eyes were fixed on the image of his twentieth century self that Gustav Jerbette had painted. His brain ached with the force of will he was exerting. He felt himself falling through endless miles of space. Falling ... falling ... falling....
"Thank God!" exclaimed Professor Duchard fervently. "You both are safe!"
Dazedly, Mark and Elaine looked at each other across the narrow aisle separating their white hospital beds. Across the room, sunlight streamed in an open window, its rays glistening on the snowy linen of a third but empty bed.
"What happened?" Mark queried in a bewildered tone. "I was in your laboratory, professor, and Vance rushed in—"
"You went through the time mirror, my boy. Back to eighteenth century France. And Vance went with you. Apparently he came too close to the glass in his eagerness to stop you; his eyes must have focussed on one of the other figures from Jerbette's picture, reflected in the gap through the space-time barrier. He fell in a coma at the same instant you did."
"But I don't remember anything!" Mark protested. "I was going to go back through time to save Elaine, even if I had to change history to do it. Then Vance came in, and everything went blank—"
"Yes," broke in Elaine. "The same thing happened to me. I was sitting in front of the mirror Adrian gave me. Then I saw my ancestor from the painting, and I seemed to be falling—"
Professor Duchard nodded.
"Of course. Time travel apparently brings with it complete loss of memory—"
"But I was insulated against amnesia!" exclaimed Mark.
"Only on the trip back, my boy. Not on your return. No doubt you remembered the twentieth century while in the eighteenth. But your return destroyed your memories of Bourbon France."
The younger man scowled.
"It doesn't make sense," he grunted. "I'm beginning to think the whole business is so much imagination. After all, how could I transport Elaine back from 1780 to 1942? Or myself, for that matter—"
"Perhaps I have some information which will throw light on the subject," the white-haired scientist interrupted. "Yesterday my old friend, Strong, the historian, was passing through the city. He came here to see me.
"He told me he had run across Gustav Jerbette's unpublished memoirs in the course of his researches. And Jerbette, in describing how he came to paint 'Elaine Duchard's Escape,' says the figure in the time mirror on which you concentrated—the man with the horse pistol—was the first Elaine Duchard's lover, Jacques Rombeau.
"Jerbette says Rombeau came to him with a strange assignment. First he took him to the largest glass works in Paris and made him wait while the craftsmen manufactured a special mirror to his order. Then Rombeau led the way to an abandoned chateau a few miles out of Paris. Elaine Duchard lay hidden on the top floor, desperately ill.
"Jerbette's job was to paint a picture of the girl and a strange man, as described to him by Rombeau. Both wore clothes of a different type than any then known, and were in strange surroundings. The job done, Rombeau dismissed the painter. Later, Jerbette says he heard that the two lovers were surprised and murdered by Baron Morriere and his men, although the baron himself was killed in the fight.
"All this so intrigued Jerbette that he promptly painted his famous 'Elaine Duchard's Escape,' showing the lovers getting away from the baron's chateau."
Mark frowned. Shook his head.
"I see how you think it ties in, Professor," he admitted, "but there are too many loopholes."
The savant smiled.
"Yes, there are loopholes," he agreed, "but I do not think there are too many.
"The strange portrait Jerbette painted unfortunately never turned up again. It, of course, would be final proof. For if we found a picture of you—Mark Carter—and Elaine, in a twentieth century scene and wearing modern clothes, yet painted by Gustav Jerbette, there could be no doubt that your brain—cloaked in Jacques Rombeau's body—did the job.
"However, Jerbette does leave a very accurate description of the mirror Rombeau had made. And there is no doubt in my mind that it is the same one Vance gave to Elaine."
"But it's impossible!" Mark protested. "I couldn't have made a time mirror with the primitive equipment of that era—"
"I believe you could. Our work in discovering the formula for the one I made gave you a sufficient understanding of the device's fundamentals to construct a crude model."
"But a terrific bolt of electricity was required, professor. And there was no electrical equipment in those days. It's a complete anachronism."
"You think so?" The old scientist smiled. "Well, I do not wonder. You convinced Jerbette that Jacques Rombeau was stark, raving mad."
"You mean—"
"What other conclusion could any sane mortal draw from the actions of a man who insisted on defying God and the elements by exposing great circular trays of molten glass on top of the highest tower in all Paris during the worst electrical storm in years, until finally one of them was struck by lightning?"
Mark stared open-mouthed. Again he and the bewildered Elaine exchanged glances. And instinctively their hands reached out across the aisle, to join in love's tender clasp. The happiness of utter confidence and peace glowed in their eyes.
Then, still holding the girl's hand, Mark turned back to the professor. His brows knitted with incredulity.
"My God!" he exclaimed half to himself. "Could it be possible? Could I have done such a thing?"
Abruptly, he halted.
"No!" he clipped decisively. "There are other angles to be considered. Vance, for instance. You say he went with me through the time mirror—"
"Yes." The savant nodded slowly. "That, Mark, is the final proof. The evidence beyond contradiction. The thing that convinces me—"
"Proof? Evidence? I don't get it."
"You will recall, Mark, that Jerbette's memoirs said Baron Morriere was killed in that final battle with Jacques Rombeau?"
"Yes. Of course. What's that got to do with it?"
The scientist leveled a trembling finger at the window across the room, through which the sunlight still streamed. Never had he been more impressive. Solemn conviction gleamed in his blue eyes.
"Not five minutes before you and Elaine aroused from your state of suspended animation," he said, "Adrian Vance—still in a coma—sprang from his bed to that window and hurled himself to his death!"
Horror widened the two young people's eyes. Elaine's face was pale.
But understanding now was flooding through Mark. He nodded slowly.
"You can't change history!" he said.
THE END