The greatest adventure
most expert aviator. A landing at night obviously was out of the
question.
Edith was elected pilot by the simple process of elimination. Who
should be her helper? An active, practical man was needed for the
job. Although Drake pleaded for the honor of carrying his scheme into
effect, he was rejected on the first ballot. His forte was brains,
not beef. Lane followed him on the second. It was between Ole and the
Captain. Anderson being ignorant of aviation, Ole won the honor which
only Drake coveted.
Having loaded the plane with all the bent pipe and weighted hose it
could lift, Ole took his place behind Edith. They were off.
In all they made ten trips. Their work, they hoped, had converted a
hundred and eight of the blowholes nearest the ruined crater into
deadly engines of destruction. They had worked unmolested. The rookery
either was asleep or all except the babies were away for the week-end
foraging under the black smoke of the crater.
"Well, Drake," the Doctor asked, "have you the courage of your
invention?"
"Absolutely. It would wipe out an army."
"That may be just the optimism of the inventor. What about it,
Anderson? Do you feel like marching forward to await developments? Or
shall we camp here until after the blow is over?"
"To stay here would be the sane thing, I suppose. Still, I want to see
the show. I vote for marching."
"So do I. Unless we sit on him Drake of course won't miss seeing his
idea in action. How about you, Ole?"
"Miss Lane and I will take care of the plane."
"All right, go ahead with our packs and wait for us on this side just
before the beginning of the blowholes. If the reptiles see you before
the blow, don't bother about our packs. Leave them and fly due east to
confuse the brutes. Then they won't blunder into us."
Two hours after sundown Edith heard the far off crunching of the men's
boots in the frozen snow.
"There they are," she said. "Ole, meet them and show them the way here."
A hot drink all round from the thermos bottles and a full meal cheered
the tedium of the early watch. Deciding at eleven o'clock that the
blowholes probably would not spout that night, all but the first
watchman turned into their sleeping bags. The temperature being several
degrees above zero they were quite comfortable.
In the brilliantly clear starlight the black barrier of the crater lip
seemed ominously near. Yet, conscious as they were of what the rocks
hid, all but the sentry slept like stones. The rookery also was fast
asleep or numbed by the cold, for no drowsy squawks floated over the
silence of no man's land.
It was the calm sleep before battle. Should Drake's strategy prove
inadequate the attackers would not see the sunrise. If on the other
hand Drake's invention was all that he hoped, those huge two-legged
reptiles would never again visit the black ruins of their shattered
paradise. Their next gathering round the cheerful fires would be
their last. They would die happy, poor brutes. Better one last hour
of comfort and then oblivion forever, than the slow death of years of
recurrent cold and increasing starvation. Left to themselves they might
starve and fight and freeze and cling with all their brute instinct to
life for half a century. It was more humane to destroy them outright.
Midnight passed without a tremor. Anderson relieved Lane. Two o'clock
uneventfully came and went, and Drake relieved Anderson.
For the first half hour of Drake's watch all remained quiet with the
stillness of a dead world. Then he became aware of a faint stirring
among the infested rocks. Huge creatures not yet awake were moving
uneasily in their sleep. Something had disturbed them.
In a few moments they might awake fully and scour the plain. For all
Drake or the others knew the creatures might be nocturnal in their
habits, prowling for their food only in the darkest hours of the early
morning. He had not anticipated this. Should the monsters emerge before
the blowholes spouted his strategem was worthless. It took him but a
second to make up his mind. He instantly roused the sleepers.
"Get out of here at once. They're coming."
Not stopping to argue the men shook themselves together. They were
still half-dazed by sleep. Drake's news falling on befogged brains
completed their befuddlement. It did not occur to one of them that all
five might easily climb onto the plane and reach safety in ten minutes.
The unpractical Drake, being the only member of the party with all his
wits, of course did not think of anything so simple and obvious.
"Take your father north ten miles, leave him, and come back for one of
us," he ordered Edith. "Ole, crank up."
Ole was about to obey when a sleepy chorus of clattering squawks
drifted over the ice of no man's land. It occurred to him that probably
the reptiles had been away from home, foraging, while he and Edith were
preparing the attack that afternoon. This, in Ole's opinion, accounted
for their good luck.
"If I start the motor," he said in a hoarse whisper, "those brutes will
hear it. In five minutes we shall be smothered."
"They are awake anyway," Drake whispered back. "If they come out they
will see the plane against the snow."
Still hesitating Ole regarded Drake curiously in the dark.
"I can't see your face, String Bean," he said, still whispering
hoarsely, "but I can guess its color. What are you going to do if those
brutes race out before Miss Lane comes back to fetch you? She will take
you next."
"Don't stand there whispering and shaking like a blasted jelly. Crank
that motor! She could have been there and back by now."
"All right, General," Ole whispered. "One second. Now before I obey
orders I'll tell you what I'm going to do next. The instant this
propeller hums you'll see me making tracks for the nearest blowhole. If
I beat the brutes to it, I dive. It won't be suicide because there is
no way out. I had rather smash or drown in oil than die the other way.
Take my tip and follow me. I've seen the brutes; you haven't. And I've
had one race. Miss Lane will tell you about it in Heaven. I don't want
another. All right, General, here goes."
He braced himself to spin the blades.
"Wait," Lane whispered tensely. "I felt it coming."
His more sensitive nervous system had detected the true cause of the
reptiles' awakening. Scarcely breathing the others stood rigid in an
agony of hoping. Did the ice sway beneath their feet ever so gently?
Or was it merely the wish rocking their imaginations? Seconds passed
without a recurrence of the sensation. Then, with infinite relief they
heard, miles beneath them and far to the north, the faint, muffled
buffeting of subterranean thunder. The jarring became unmistakable. In
a moment the icebound plain was vibrating like a steel plate beneath
the impact of a trip-hammer.
Half a mile to the south they heard the swish of air being sucked down
the blowholes. Then while the ice heaved like a wave of the sea, they
saw the black skyline of the ruined paradise boiling with gigantic
shapes that inked out the low stars for an instant and vanished.
A moment later a thudding in the upper air announced the kindling of
the innumerable flame cones, the ice for twenty miles around leapt into
dull crimson, and they saw the whole herd of gigantic monsters racing
with incredible speed directly toward them.
Ten minutes would decide whether Drake's invention meant victory
or death. The flame cones descended, hovered a second in mid-air,
lengthened downward with a reverberant roar and became pillars of fire.
Once more the sociable monsters forgot the miseries of their frozen
existence. Gathering round the comforting flames with ludicrous yet
touching exclamations of delight they surrendered themselves to the
gracious warmth. Around many of the roaring fires a dozen or more
snuggled at a safe distance in rings of blissful enjoyment. Thawing
rapidly in the fierce heat they licked their flanks, rolled over on
their backs and pawed luxuriously at the warm air.
The sounds of their pleasure, the inarticulate noises of their
gratitude, would have softened the most calloused heart to pity. There
was an appeal in the playful antics of the colossal beasts that was
irresistible. Huge tails that might have buckled steel plates in the
full viciousness of their cut slapped harmlessly against lean sides
whose ribs stuck out like the timbers of an unfinished hull. They were
starving; yet for this hour they frolicked in the enjoyment of their
other great need, heat.
Their slow brains neither speculated nor dreamed. When once more the
flames vanished into the bowels of the earth they would crawl back to
their frozen caves. Waking or sleeping they would remember nothing of
their transient happiness. Only at the distant thunder of the next
subterranean tide would their instincts urge them to break anew the
iron spell of their misery. Without memory each pain was a miracle,
each pleasure an accident without cause or consequence. Without
consciousness of the past their future was a blank, their existence a
void. With no pleasure remembered they could look forward to none.
They were damned with life. Would it not be a gentle act of mercy to
bless them with death?
Watching their happiness the author of their destruction felt no
regret. They would be killed painlessly at the high tide of their
pleasure.
"Look," he said, pointing to a blowhole where four of the great lizards
basked in the heat. "Those have it already."
They saw the four huge bodies roll over as if to sleep. The monsters
shuffled on their sides and lay still, their great tails listlessly
curved on the ice, and their long necks resting on one another's
flanks.
One by one others of the friendly rings fell asleep. Then, in fifteen
minutes, all were locked fast in death.
Still the cheerful flames thundered up undiminished. The late comers,
the babies of the sleeping monsters, began to arrive. Hopping feebly
they joined their mothers and nestled down in the genial glow. Soon
they too were asleep forever.
Suddenly the air about the sleepers burst with a dull explosion into a
sheet of fire. The instant flame lived but a second. Only the cheery
fires rustled and glowed above the dead.
17
AT CLOSE QUARTERS
An hour before sunrise the ice again began to shake. They heard the
returning subterranean wave bursting through the underground corridors.
The pillared flames, struggling an instant, plunged down the blowholes.
Only the morning star shed its chilly ray on the sleeping monsters,
cold now as the barren ice they cumbered. Obliterating the very
memory of their last happiness the passing wave, with a whistling
reverberation, sucked down the warm air about the sleeping forms.
The party waited until two hours after sunrise before venturing among
the dead. There remained one simple task before proceeding to the
ruined paradise, lest on their return they meet the same fate as the
monsters.
To save time the men loaded their packs before starting. On the
previous afternoon Edith and Ole had transported four fifty-pound cases
of dynamite from the caches on the south shore of the oil lake. Each of
the men now loaded one of the fifty-pound cases on his back with his
sleeping bag and enough food to last two days, or on short rations,
four. In addition Ole packed a five-foot steel drill and a heavy
sledge-hammer.
Edith was to have charge of the plane. A landing in the ruined crater
being out of the question she was to circle above the men in their
descent, mark their route, and watch until they emerged from the smoke.
Should they not reappear by dark she was to fly to a safe place, camp,
and return at daylight to watch for them. If they appeared she was