Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-03-02
CHAPTER Nj
"Hail TO the Master!"

TLEVEN hours Of incessant labor. care,
IL watchfulness and fatigue, three hours OF
fight and eight of coasting into the ter
rife depths, brought Allan once more
through the fogs, the dark, the heat, to
sight Of the vast sunken sea, five hundred
miles below the surface.
Throughout the whole stupendous labor
he thanked Heaven the girl was safely left
behind not forced to share this travail and
exhaustion. Myriad anxieties and fears as
sailed him-fears he had taken good caro-
not to let her know or dream Of
Always existed the chance that some
thing might go wrong about the machine
and II be hurled with him. into that black
and steaming sea the possibility of land
ing not among the Folk, but in some settle
ment of the Lanskaarn on the rumored
islands he had never seen the menace of
the Great Vortex. of which he knew moth
ing save the little that the patriarch had
told him.
All these and many other perils sought
to force themselves upon his mind. But
Allan put them resolutely back and, guided
by his instruments. his reason and that
marvellous sixth sense Of location which his
long months OF battling with the wilder
ness had brought to birth in him. swiftly
yet carefully slid in vast spirals down the
purple, then the black and terrifying void
that yawned interminably below.
The beam of his underslung searchlght,
shifting at his WILL shot its white ray
in a long fading pencil downward as he
coasted. And hour after hour II found
nothing whereon to rest II. too, seemed
lost forever in the welter of uprushing.
choking vapors from the pit.
"Ah At last :"
The cry, dull In that compressed air
burst triumphantly from his lips as the
light-ray. suddenly piercing rift of cloud
sparkled dimly on a surface shiny-black
as newly cleft anthracite.
IN,
quickly got the Pauillac under control. In
a long downward slant he rushed, like some
vast swallow skimming a pool. over the
mysterious plain of steaming waters And
ever. peering eagerly ahead, he sought
a twinkle OF the fishermens oiliares VIM
bling across the sunken sea.
Moment by moment he consulted his in
struments and the chart he had stretched
before him under the CLEAN Of the hooded
bulbs
Inside Of half an hour now" said he,
"I ought 10 sight the first flash of the
flares upon the parapet--the glow Of the
flaming well !"
And singular eagerness all at once
possessed him, strange yearning to be-
hold once more the strange. fog-shrouded.
reeklng City of the Lost People, almost as
though II had been home. as though these
white barbarians had been his own people.
Men, To see men once more The idea
leaped up and gripped him with power
full fascination.
So 1t was that when In reality the first
faint twinkle OF the fishing boats peeped
through the mist-and beyond, tiny neck
lace of cleaning points that he knew
marked thel walls of the town--his heart
throbbed hotly and a cry of eager greeting
welled from his soul.
Quickly the Pauillac swept him onward
Maneuvering cautiously. jockeying the
great machine with that consummate skill
he had acquired from long practice, he
soon beheld the dim outlines of the vast
cliff = the long walls, the dull reflections
of the fire-plume, the slanting slope of
beach
And with keen exultation, thrilled with
his triumph and his greeting TO the Folk
he came TO rescue. he landed with whir
upon the reeking slope.
To him, even before he had been able to
free his cramped body from the saddle,
came swarming the people, with loud cries
OF welcome and rejoicing. Powerfully the
automatics he and Beatrice had used In the
Battle of the Walls had impressed their
simple minds with almost superstitious
reverence. More powerfully still his terrible
0ght with Kamrou, ending with the death
- that grs7<1kief In the boiling vat. Ana
~. A916t 1SiRg him their oysrlord and
N ~ fecrsd y ~ ~