Queen of the Flaming Diamond Part 11

"We are here by our own choice," he went on. "Sylvia and I, lost children, found our way here from a trapper's cabin when we were very young. We never tried to leave. When Lardner stole our precious gem, she and I alone knew the ways of civilization. It was our task to return the stone to its rightful place."

"If that diamond is the solution of this mess," Puffy asked in a puzzled voice, "why don't we clean up the mystery right now?"

"Wait!"

Silvaris went slowly down the long steps to the fox pit. He climbed the steps to the side of the polar bear and his sister's lifeless body. From her armpit, he took a huge gem. As he came toward them, Drake knew it was the Lardner stone, flashing and alive in the semi-darkness.

He pushed it into Drake's hands.

"Somehow Lardner p.a.w.ned a paste imitation of the real Flaming Diamond off on us that night in Chicago," Silvaris said sadly. "The real stone is the only gem that will make the transformation."

Drake examined the diamond curiously.

"Hey!" Puffy said excitedly. "Wait a minute. How come Lardner is so almighty hot after us, if he thinks we've only got a paste?"

"That I cannot explain," Silvaris admitted helplessly. "I purposely disguised myself to mingle with his men. He came to destroy us and yet he knows our life is short now that the diamond is gone. We cannot live long as animals."

Far away toward the mouth of the tunnel came the sound of an idling motor. Drake sprang into action.

"I think," he said, "that we can outplay Lardner at whatever game he's playing. He must be wounded. Perhaps too badly to fly."

The face of Silvaris, the Fox King, lightened.

"You are a pilot?" he asked.

Puffy chuckled.

"Cinderella can fly the blind spots off a j.a.p Zero," he said. "Just strap a pair of wings on him."

They charged toward the mouth of the tunnel. A few hundred feet from the entrance Drake stopped. He picked up a tommy gun where it had been dropped by the fleeing gunmen. Going forward more slowly they saw three men at the entrance, guns pointed into the darkness.

On one knee, Drake fingered the trigger. He picked up a large rock with his free hand and tossed it ten feet to one side. It struck with a loud thump. Immediately red fire cut loose around the place where the rock had hit. Drake brought his finger back lightly against the trigger and watched coldly as the men went down. They pitched forward like alley pins, bleeding and screaming with the pain. There was no time to lose.

Dropping the gun he went forward swiftly, whipping an automatic from his pocket as he ran. Then, seeing Lardner, he took a head dive into the deep snow as the vicious crack of lead whizzed over his head. He rolled over silently coming to his feet with a bound. Lardner, waiting by the plane, shot again and the lead burned into Drake's shoulder. He sprang forward as Lardner's foot lifted toward the open door to the cabin.

Clutching his foot, Drake jerked the man back into the snow with all his strength and they rolled into a white, seething ma.s.s of fury. With a short, terrifying blow on the chin he snapped the man's head backward. It twitched queerly and his eyes bulged. Lardner's neck was twisted to one side, stiff and broken.

"The diamond?" Puffy was at his side. Jim Drake bent over the dying man, watched his face as it twitched in pain.

"You want the girl," Lardner croaked. "You'll never get her. Even with the diamond, you'll never...."

His body relaxed suddenly, as though deflated of life. Drake pushed him back into the drifted snow, a look of disgust in his cold eyes.

"Give me that paste imitation," Drake said. "Perhaps somehow...?"

Silvaris nodded helplessly.

"It's of no use," he groaned. "We tried, but it has no power."

Puffy, a knife in his hand once more, was working slowly over the gem with its keen blade. His face was solemn and deep with interest. In spite of themselves, the two men stood close to him watching the thin, case-like stuff that he peeled away from the surface.

"This ain't paste," he said excitedly. "It's a kind of silicate.

Lardner must have dipped the gem into it and let the stuff harden as a protective cover."

Drake took the gem eagerly.

"Then he realized that whatever the power was that this stone has, it couldn't work unless the diamond itself was clean and unprotected."

The late afternoon sun was fading slowly beyond the far end of the frozen lake. They turned and went into the cave of the Fox People.

Perhaps the gem would work. But if it didn't, Lardner had died with the secret on his lips.

"_You'll never get her_," he had said, "_even with the diamond_."

At the edge of the pit they stopped. Silvaris spoke in a faraway, silencing voice.

"Our lives depend on you. I am no longer able to control myself. In a few hours we will all be dead...."

He hesitated and the voice trailed off into nothingness. Before their eyes the man fell away into a light mist. Instead, a large fox stood at Drake's feet, tail drooping and its eyes staring ahead dully.

Silvaris the Fox King had returned to the stature of his people.

The chamber grew silent as death. The fox turned slowly and walked down the steps into the marble pit. He mixed quickly with the others and no movement came from below. The spot of color over the throne wavered and went out. The cave was black as pitch.

"Now or never," Drake muttered. His tongue was rough and dry. His hands shook under the weight of the diamond. It and it alone seemed alive and glittering in the cold unnatural tomb of the cave.

He went toward the bottom of the pit and gently forced his way through the sleeping animals. Up toward the throne his legs carried him step by step, and each step was a million years. A torture of uncertainty and hope.

He lifted the diamond and without hesitation pushed it with all his strength into the outstretched claws of the marble bear.

The Flaming Diamond suddenly glittered more powerfully than ever before. The claws seemed to grasp it tightly, as though the power of the gem must stay where it could never be stolen again.

Bright flames of every hue sprang from the surfaces of the stone. They bathed his body like colored lightning and he fell backward down the steps, his arm upraised in protection. The place came alive with sound. Pealing, silvery tones of rich bell-like music tore the air asunder and the light of the diamond flashed warmly against the flesh of the girl on the throne.

On his feet now Drake stumbled toward Puffy Adams at the entrance of the chamber. Puffy was on his knees, face blinded with the light.

"Holy Ned," he shouted. "Now look what you've done, Cinderella."

Drake didn't answer. His eyes had grown accustomed to the glare. The chamber was hot and brilliant with some new world born from the cold womb of the old. Men and women arose from where animals had been waiting for the end.

Silvaris, the Fox King, came toward them. His face was alight with thanksgiving. Looking over his shoulder, Drake saw something that made him lose all interest in the others. Something that he had prayed for was taking place atop the polar bear's throne-back.

Sylvia Fanton, her body alive and glowing, sat upright. No false modesty marred the perfect, cla.s.sically molded body. She slipped down from the beast's back and caressed its side with slim fingers. Then she came toward him slowly.