Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1917-10-11


| tors club. Unfortunately, Hatfield
! had won the ballot for the editorship
! that month. Masterman's scholarly
| contribution had been consigned to the
| waste basket, and the articles in the
magazine had been as follows: "A
King in Masquerade" King James !
! as Universal Man." Shakespeare and
| the JIM cipher" Bacon and the NIL
| Cipher" "Nhat Civilization Owes to
! James l."
! When Masterman's proxy ballot won
the editOrship during his absence, the
! printers, instead of inserting his latest
! paper, as he had requested, used a
| quantity Of his old, unpublished ma
teriaI
Secretly 3IacRcarG had known that
the carupace which Masterman had
! drought back from the North was not
that Of q ejagosaurus. His attack upon
Mast @rman Lad been inspired by envy
and hatred. He had examined the
reiic, ami admitted to himself that it
was that of an unknown deep-water
animal.
His respect for Masterman's abili-
| ties increased tenfOld.
! lie had begun spying upon the cap
tain. He broke into his house While
he was away and read his papers, with
out, however, learning anything of use
to him. Incidentally, he stole gold
presentation watch, Chinese vase of
the Ming dynasty, and a pair of lapis-
! iaZuli earrings which had belonged to
MaSterman's wife.
When MacBeard heard the first ru-
mors to the effect that Masterman's
ship had been wrecked, and that all
/ on board had persisted, he planned to
/ fit out a secret expedition to go to the
scene of the disaster and see what was
TO be discovered. Then he had seen
the captain in the dining room of the
club.
He had been thrown off his guard
by BLasterman's unexpected return,
had followed him and Donald to the
door Of the card room, and had heard
the greater part of the story. He had
been unable to restrain his eagerness.
and had been detected spying.
Baked in his scheme to get posses
sion of Mastcrmans letter, he had fol
| IGWed Donald to the house in Balti-
more. There he had assaulted him
! and taken the papers from him. He
! had had no intention of killing Don
| aid whom he despised heartily. Once
/ the secret, in which he now firmly be-
/ ieved, was in his possession, there
| would come no reckoning for the as
! sault. He saw his way to immediate
rulerShip over the world.
To do MacBeard justice, he had been
scared away, not by fear of the mon
ster, but by the realization that Mas
! termans terrific story was true. After
| Donald had left the house MacBeard
| crept back. He discovered the mon
Ster upon the floor, where it had pre-
! cipitated itself in its death agony. It
had been disrupted by the internal
pressure, under a normal atmosphere.
He made a quick examination of it.
sat down in the kitchen, and spent the
remainder of the night porting over
Masterman's papers. In these he
! learned much that was essential to his
! success.
He read that the creature in the
tank was 4 young one, which had not
yet acquired the power of resistance
to an ordinary atmosphere. Nature
was still in process of modifying her
! creation, and, as is always the case,
the young retained the atavistic dis
abilities, just as the young of fiatfish
| swim like other fishes and have one
eye on either side of the head. The
| notifications in the physiological
| structure come with maturity.
The adult monsters, MacBeard
learned, had already acquired the abil-
ity to exist for an indefinite period
upon the surface Of the sea. While
the young had gills, these became mod
flied into Il species of lung, capable of
breathing both above and under wa
ter This was new adaptation of ma
/ ture MacBeard hurried back to the
dead monster, and found the lung al
/ ready partly formed. That satisfied
him that Masterman was an accurate
observer.
The captain had spent weeks on the
island. He had put all the results of
his Investigations into his letter to
Donald. He described deliberately the
structure of the monsters, tracing the
notifications of the gills, air bladders
fins and flippers.
Lastly, he told Donald the secret
of controlling them. And this was SO
amazing that MacBeard almost doubt
ed it.
Unfortunately, two pages were miss
ing, and these contained part of the
instructions for keeping the monsters
in subsection. And what alarmed
MacBeard, the manuscript ended with
:, the statement that the Eruption was
not likely to prove of permanent in
, jury to humanity, because
However, MacBeard cared little fol
+ this in his supreme joy. His dreams
> took definite shape at last, rushing into
the concrete with a violence that sent
! him into an ecstasy. He saw the mar
of the future, the superman, who was
already at hand, irresistible by reason
of his numbers, strength and cunning
: And he saw himself, the ruler Of a new
world whicj, had never heard of the
! eighth commandment.