“But—but, you have shown me—how do you dare——”
“I know what you think.” Oomlag spoke suavely, mockingly. “You think that, once free, you will spread the alarm to your fellows. How ridiculous! In the first place, no one would believe you, you would be considered mad. In the second place, you humans could do nothing to hinder us if you wished. We have the power of ‘Venusite.’ I need say no more. It is one of the best jokes I ever heard! You alone of the earth inhabitants will know of our existence, and your knowledge will be useless. You can do nothing, absolutely nothing. Your friends will discover you, wandering. A word of this to anyone—well, your mind has been wandering, too!”
I was sickened by his fiendish, throaty laughter as he derided me, mocked me with this terrible truth.
Suddenly his manner changed. The leer on his face was replaced by an ugly snarl of determination. He uttered a few words in his own language, and I felt myself seized from behind. Oomlag’s ochre face came close to mine.
“Goodbye, earth creature. You go out the way you came!”
Again I felt myself blindfolded and gagged, rapidly losing consciousness under the influence of the sweetish drug . . .
The rest can be told in a few words. I regained consciousness not far from the camp-site. The sun was high in the heavens. I staggered to where I had seen the rock camouflage. It was not there—absolutely no sign of any disturbance, nothing but ordinary flat ground. Something made me think of the note I had received from the dark-haired girl. I found it where I had stuffed it in my pocket. In a hasty scrawl she had written, in charcoal, now scarcely legible:
“India is safe.”
The sun was setting when Olin appeared with a posse in search of me. I trumped up an explanation of how I had been restless, had gone for a ride in the moonlight, had been thrown from the horse . . . what else could I do? It was as Oomlag had said.
Now, in India, I write these lines. The girl must have thought I had a chance to get free. My friends, for God’s sake do not regard me as a second Jack Pansay with his phantom “rickshaw.”*Olin knows I disappeared—and I know what happened. If I am not spared to read this document myself, for the sake of those whowillbelieve, give it circulation. How wise was Shakespeare when he had Hamlet say: “There are more things in Heaven and earth . . .”
I can say no more.
THE END
*The reference is to one of Rudyard Kipling’s early stories called “The Phantom Rickshaw.”
Transcriber’s Note. This is a replica of a promotional booklet sent out byAmazing Storiesmagazine to readers in 1928. The only way to get the story was to fill out the form on the advertisement shown below. An advertisement forVanguard of Venusappeared on page 557 of Amazing Stories in September 1928.
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