He looked for the big driving propellers which he thought must draw the ship, but he could see none.
At that moment four soldiers with a large metal cage approached the DeLong Geographical party. At the same time on one of the upper rounds of the airship, some seventy-five feet above the base, appeared a yellow man with a peculiar scintillating star fixed to his big yellow head. The personage looked directly toward the explorers but said nothing.
When he looked Mr. Three drew himself up and saluted in military fashion.
Then, evidently for the benefit of his captors, Mr. Three answered aloud the mental questions which his superior must have put to him. Here are the words of the one-sided conversation:
“Yes, sir.”
“No, sir.”
“Ordinary ruby-blooded mammals, sir, with intelligence somewhat higher than monkeys, sir.
“They communicate their simple thoughts exactly as monkeys do, sir—by chattering.
“They are absolutely insensible to all mental vibrations, sir, more completely so than the fourlegged animals.
“I would suggest you take all five. They will prove very amusing, sir, in the national zoo. Their attempts to deceive each other and to deceive even me, sir, are as good as a farce. I believe you will find them much more humorous than chimpanzees or the ordinary monkeys, sir.
“Sorry you can't. In that case I suggest we take the brown one. His color is the nearest human. Then, too, he has the best physique. None of them have any minds to speak of.
“Very well, sir.”
Here Mr. Three saluted stiffly and directed the four workmen with the cage toward Pablo Pasca.
As the laborers lowered their cage and started for the half-breed Pablo's eyes almost started from his head.“ He whirled to run, but seemed to realize the hopelessness of trying to escape from the amazing agility of the men from One. Next moment he whipped out a knife and dashed into the midst of his assailants, slashing and stabbing like one possessed.
But the soldiers of One had feline agility. They dodged, whipped under his blows like game-cocks. One leaped straight over the heads of his comrades and landed headlong on the Zambo. It was an unfortunate leap. Pablo's blade caught him in the shoulder and a dark liquid spurted out.
In the instant of withdrawing the blade, the yellow men seized the half-breed's arms and legs. They went down with the Zambo in a struggling pile. Pablo kicked, bit, twisted his knife with a wrist movement, trying to cut something. But the yellow men worked swiftly and methodically.
“Quick!” commanded Mr. Three. “We must start in four minutes!” Then in answer to some question the yellow soldiers thought to him, “I can't use my focusing-rod. It might destroy what little mind he has.”
A moment later the yellow men got to their feet with the ex-thief hanging between them by his legs and arms. The poor fellow turned an agonized face to Pethwick.
“Señor! Señor!” he screamed. “Save me! Save poor Pablo! Oh, Holy Mary! Sacred Mother! Señor, Señor Pethwick!”
His voice rose to a screech. Blood trickled from his nostrils. His face was white with fear.
Pethwick stared with wide eyes at the struggle. The injustice of this capture for scientific purposes thundered at the American's heart. Pethwick was a white man, of that race which deals justice among weaker men and carries out its judgments with its life.
At Pablo's shriek of despair something seemed to snap in Pethwick's head. He hesitated a second, then lunged into the victorious yellow men.
He never reached them. A wave of flame seemed to lap around him. Then came blackness.
When Pethwick revived, there were no more yellow men in sight. The great shining dirigible stood entirely closed and apparently lifeless. The sun was setting and its rays filled the great charnel valley with a bloody light. The dirigible looked like an enormous red water-stand. In a few minutes the lower half of the great ship was purple in shadow, while the upper half turned a deeper red. The silence was absolute. The three white men stood staring at the strange scene.
Quite suddenly from where the stern of the Zeppelin nested on the ground broke out a light of insufferable brilliancy. A luminous gas seemed to boil out in whirls of furious brightness. It spread everywhere, and in its radiance the great ship stood out in brilliant silver from stem to stern.
In that fulgor Pethwick saw the restraining rods cast off, and the dirigible from the land of One mounted straight into the green heart of the evening sky.
The moment it struck full sunlight at a height of five hundred yards it seemed caught in some tremendously strong wind, for it moved eastward with a velocity that increased by prodigious bounds. Within half a minute its light was reduced from the terrific glare of a furnace to the glow of a headlight, and then to a radiance like that of a shooting star against the darkening eastern sky.
As the watchers followed it with their eyes a strange thing happened. That white light turned to violet, then indigo blue, green, yellow, orange and red, and so faded out.
In the Valle de Rio Infiernillo lingered a phosphorescent mist that told of the first men's passing. It settled on the cliffs and crags and glowed with spectral luminosity. The men looked at each other; they too were covered with this shining stuff.
“Gentlemen,” quavered M. Demetriovich, “I believe we have on us the residual emanations of radium. It will likely kill us. Let us go down to the river and wash it off.”
The three men set out, stumbling through the darkness, guided somewhat by the faint light given off by their own bodies.
They waded into the black waters of the Infernal River, and began scrubbing each other furiously, trying to rid themselves of this dangerous luminosity. High above them it still shivered from cliff
