Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 Part 18

"Rennell! Rennell!" repeated the old man in a sort of whimper. "Thank G.o.d you've come out of it! I was afraid you were dead."

"What's happened?" asked d.i.c.k. "Where are we? Didn't they get us?"

"They've got us, d.a.m.n them!" snarled old Evans. "All the rest burned to cinders, those fine fellows, Rennell! You were thrown unconscious, but none of my tough old bones were hurt. They pulled us out of the wreckage and brought us in here and tied us with these silver chains."

"In here? But where are we?" demanded d.i.c.k, trying to pa.s.s his hand across his aching forehead, and realizing that the chain, though it seemed fastened to nothing, was perfectly taut.

"In one of their d.a.m.ned invisible houses," whimpered the old man.

"They're fireproof. Nearly all our bombs fell on the tarmac, and they did hardly any damage at all. One of those devils was bragging about it to me. I couldn't see anything but his eyes. And they've taken away my gas-box," wailed old Luke.

d.i.c.k cursed comprehensively and was silent. The burning rage that filled him left him incapable of other utterance. Silver chains! They must be madmen--yes, that was the only explanation. Madmen who had escaped from somewhere, obtained possession of scientific secrets, and banded themselves together to overcome the world. If he could get the chance of a blow at them before he died!

He heard a door swing open--a door somewhere out on the prairie. Two men sprang into sudden visibility and approached him. There was nothing invisible about these men, though they had seemed to have materialized out of nothing. They wore the same black, trimly fitting uniform that d.i.c.k had seen in the White House. They were flesh and blood human beings like themselves.

"I congratulate you upon your recovery, Captain Rennell," remarked one of them with ironical politeness. "Also upon your shrewd coup.

Needless to say, it had no chance of success, but we were misinformed as to the hour at which you might be expected. We thought it would take the fools at Washington a little longer to puzzle out our location--and then we did not put quite sufficient force into our hurricane. Quite an artificial one, Captain."

d.i.c.k, glaring at them, said nothing, and the one who had spoken turned to his companion, laughing, and said something in a foreign language that he did not recognize.

"His Majesty the Emperor commands your presence, and that of this old fool," said the first man. "Do not attempt to escape us. Death will be instantaneous." He drew a gla.s.s rod from his pocket, the tip of which glowed with a pale blue light.

Again he spoke to his companion, who moved apparently a few feet distant out on the prairie. Suddenly d.i.c.k saw old Evans' chain slacken: then d.i.c.k's slackened too. He understood that he was unbound, though his wrists and ankles were still loosely fastened.

The second man took his station beside Luke Evans and motioned to him to rise. The first man beckoned to d.i.c.k to do the same. The two prisoners got upon their feet, trailing each a length of clanking chain. Each of the two guards covered his captive with the gla.s.s rod and motioned to him to precede him.

Choking with fury, d.i.c.k obeyed. He had taken a dozen steps with his guard uttered a sharp command to halt, at the same time shouting some word of command.

The edge of a door appeared, also seeming to materialize out of s.p.a.ce.

It widened, and d.i.c.k realized that he was looking at the unpainted inner side of a door whose outside was invisible. Beyond the door appeared a flight of steps.

d.i.c.k pa.s.sed through and descended them. He counted fifteen. He emerged into a timbered underground pa.s.sage, well lit with lamps, filled with what seemed to be mercury vapor. Behind him walked his guard: behind the guard he heard Luke Evans shambling. Both chains were clinking, and again d.i.c.k's fury almost overcame him.

He controlled himself. He had no hope or desire for life, but he meant to strike some sort of blow before he died, if it were possible.

They turned out of the timbered pa.s.sage, d.i.c.k's guard now walking at his side, the gla.s.s rod menacing his back. d.i.c.k found himself in a large subterranean room of extraordinary character. The walls were not merely timbered, but paneled. Pictures hung upon them, there were soft rugs underfoot, there was antique furniture. Everything was in plain sight.

There was a door at the farther end, from beyond which came the murmur of voices. Two guards in the same black uniform, but without the ornamental silver braid, stood to attention, long halberds in their hands. One spoke a challenge.

The guard at d.i.c.k's side answered. The two men stepped backward, each about two feet, and pulled the two cords on either side of a curtain behind the open door. d.i.c.k pa.s.sed through.

He stopped in sheer amazement. The gorgeousness of this larger room into which he entered was almost stupefying. It seemed to have been lifted bodily from some European palace. Mirrors with gilt edges ran along the side. On the floor was a single huge rug of Oriental weave.

At the farther end was a throne of gilt, lined with red velvet in which sat a man. An old man, of perhaps eighty years, with a grey peaked beard and fierce, commanding features. On his head was a gold crown glittering with gems. About him were gathered some twoscore men and a few women.

Those ranged on either side of the throne wore, like its occupant, robes of red, lined with ermine. The rank behind wore shorter robes, less decorative, but no less extraordinary. They might all have stepped out of some medieval court.

Behind this second line, and half-encircling them, were officers in the black uniform with the silver braid.

There had been chattering, but as d.i.c.k pa.s.sed through into the room it was succeeded by complete silence. d.i.c.k fixed his eyes upon the old man on the throne.

He knew him! Knew him for a once famous European ruler who had lost his throne in the war. A man always of unbalanced mentality, who, after living for years in exile, had been reported dead three years before. A madman who had vanished to make this last attempt upon the world, aided and abetted by the secret group of n.o.bles who had surrounded him in the days of his pomp and power.

Old men, all of those in the first line! Madmen too, perhaps, as madness begets madness. Behind them, younger men, infected by the strange malady, and enthusiastic for their desperate cause.

Yes, d.i.c.k knew this Invisible Emperor, lurking here in his underground palace. He knew Von Kettler, too, in the second line, close to the Emperor's throne. And, among the women in their robes, grouped picturesquely about that throne, he knew Fredegonde Valmy.

Dark-haired beneath her coronet, of radiant beauty, she fixed her eyes upon d.i.c.k's. Not a muscle of her face quivered.

Then only did d.i.c.k see something else, which he had not hitherto observed, owing to its concealment by the robes of those grouped about the Emperor, and the sight of it sent such a thrill of fury through him that he stood where he was, unable to speak or move a muscle.

The throne was set on a sort of dais, with three steps in front of it.

The lowest of these steps was hollow. Within this hollow appeared the head and shoulders of a man.

An elderly man clothed in parti-colored red and yellow, the time-honored garment of court fools. He was on his hands and knees, and the round of his back fitted into the hollow of the step, and had a flat board over it, so that the Emperor, in ascending his throne, would place his foot upon it.

He was kept in that position with heavy chains of what looked like gold, which pa.s.sed about his neck and arms, and fitted into heavy gold staples in the wood. And the old man was President Hargreaves of the United States!

The President of the American Republic, chained as a footstool for the Invisible Emperor, the madman who defied the world. d.i.c.k stood petrified, staring into the mild face of the old man, still incapable of speech. Then a herald, carrying a long trumpet, to which a square banner was attached, strode forward from one side of the grotesque a.s.semblage.

"Dog, on your knees when His Majesty deigns to admit you to the Presence!" he shouted.

The guard at d.i.c.k's side prodded him with his gla.s.s rod.

Then the storm of mad fury in d.i.c.k's heart released limbs and voice.

The cry that came from his lips was like nothing human. He leaped upon the guard with a swift uppercut that sent him sprawling.

The gla.s.s rod slipped from his hands to the rug, striking the edge of his shoe, and broke to fragments. A single streak of fire shot from it, blasting a black streak across the Oriental rug.

d.i.c.k leaped toward the throne, and the a.s.semblage, as if paralyzed by his sudden maneuver, remained watching him without moving. Then a woman screamed, and instantly the picturesque gathering had dissolved into a mob placing itself about the person of the Emperor, who sprang from his throne in agitation.

d.i.c.k was almost at the steps. But it was not at the Emperor that he leaped. He sprang to Hargreaves's side. "Mr. President, I'm an American," he babbled. "We've located this gang, we'll blow them off the face of the earth. In chains--G.o.d, in chains, sir--"

d.i.c.k stumbled over the length of his own chain that he had been dragging behind him--stumbled and fell p.r.o.ne upon the floor. Before he could regain his feet they were upon him.

A dozen men were holding him, despite his mad, frenzied struggles, and as, at length, he paused, exhausted, one of them, covering his head with a gla.s.s rod, looked up at the Emperor, who had resumed his seat.

d.i.c.k calmed himself. Still gripped, he straightened his body, and gave the mad monarch back look for look. For a moment the two men regarded each other. Then a peal of laughter broke from the Invisible Emperor's lips. And any one who heard that peal--any one save those accustomed to him--might have known that it was a madman's laughter.