The man who mastered time

him. "Too late! Toroh had two dogs waiting for him--they're mounting them now. He has tied Azeela. They're starting--the dogs are running." George stared at her blankly. "Where to? Where is he taking her? Can you ask her that? Can she tell you?" The girl was hastening forward now, with George after her. "Yes. She says to Orleen. I have told her we are coming." Abruptly, she stopped and faced him. "George, we have two dogs at home. Shall you and I get them and go after Azeela?" "Yes," he exclaimed impulsively. "And I know where father keeps his weapons." "Good. We can't find Loto and your father in this crowd. Had we better try, Dee?" They were hurrying forward again. "No, we'd lose too much time. Father forbade me touching his weapons," she added as an afterthought, "but this is different, isn't it?" "Of course," he agreed excitedly. "You know how to work them, Dee?" "Yes, I experimented. He doesn't know it." They left the grove. "Dee, where's Azeela now?" "Crossing the city. West toward Orleen. We won't be far behind them." George was trembling with the excitement of it. "Is Toroh armed? Ask Azeela that." "I did. She doesn't know. She thinks he is." "Oh!" "We'll do something. He won't know we're after him--that's our advantage. Hurry, George!" There were a few figures in the almost deserted streets, but George and Dee did not notice them. She was telling him of this branch of science for which she and her sister were distinguished--this telepathy they had developed. Bound in a union of thought by an unusual devotion, they had perfected it until they could know, always vaguely, and, with effort, quite distinctly, what was in the other's mind. "We mustn't waste any time getting started, Dee." They had entered the silent garden of Fahn's home. The city behind them was humming with confusion now, but they did not hear it, did not know that a murder had just been committed at the festival. Inside the house, Dee went at once to her father's room. George waited. When she returned she held two weapons out for his inspection. One was a crescent of transparent metal, with a tiny wire connecting its horns and a black bone handle by which to grasp it. There was a firing mechanism on the handle. It was the projector of the ray which caused muscular paralysis--the weapon Bool had used against Loto. Dee described its operation briefly. The other weapon was a small black globe the size of a man's fist. It also had a handle with a trigger; in the globe opposite was a tiny orifice like the muzzle of a revolver. This was one of the smallest models of the thunderbolt projectors. With it, a bolt of electrons could be thrown over a distance of some twenty feet. The former weapon Dee kept; the little thunderbolt globe she handed to George. Dee had discarded her white robe; a blue ribbon around her forehead held the hair from her eyes. She had another in her hand, and she tied it around George's head. "It's hot riding, even at night," she explained. "Your hair gets moist--gets in your eyes." They had been delayed only a moment. "This way," she added. They ran outside, across the patio, through a dark room and into the garden behind the house, where a small white outbuilding stood. A new misgiving overcame George. "Oh, Dee--these dogs of yours..." "Can you ride a dog?" she asked over her shoulder. Her expression was impish. "I can ride anything," he said stoutly, but his tone was dubious. "If the dog is--" She must have understood him, for she laughed. "Wait! You will find these dogs your friends." George said nothing more, and in a moment they were within the kennel. It was dark, very dimly lighted by the moon from outside. A gray-black shape came toward them; a shaggy dog whose shoulders stood nearly as high as his own. George's first instinct was to turn and run, but the dog padded up to Dee, and she put her arms up around it. "Good, Rotan. Will you run fast for Dee?" She called it toward George, and patted him to show the dog he was her friend. George impulsively put his hand up to the great shaggy neck, felt the dog's warm tongue as it turned to lick his hand. This huge brute was his friend. The other dog, Atal was a male, larger than its mate; and standing beside it, George marveled at the power that its great body must hold. The dogs knew they were going out. They whined with eagerness, and leaping across the kennel, they came back to Dee with saddles in their mouths with which she was to harness them. Rotan, which Dee was to ride, was saddled with a leather seat and a pommel with a small stirrup on one side. It was not unlike the sidesaddle for girls that had been in use just before George's time. On Atal she strapped a thick leather pad with a stirrup on each side; men rode astride. There were no bridles. "You tell Atal which way to go," she explained. "Right or left, slower or faster. If you want him to run or walk or stop, he will understand. Since Loto came we have taught them your way of saying it." It all took no more than a moment or two, for Dee was hurrying, and her eagerness seemed to communicate itself to the dogs. They had barked at first--barks of such volume that George was startled. But when Dee silenced them, they stood trembling with impatience, their heads turned to follow her as she adjusted the saddles. George mounted Atal. It was almost like mounting a horse; and yet not like a horse either, for the dog's huge body under him was springy, supple. As it moved toward the doorway, George was reminded of the lithe grace and strength of a tiger. He missed the reins, and in lieu of them, twisted up two handfuls of hair on the dog's neck and clung. Dee was ahead of him. "All right, George?" "Right," he said confidently. "But we might as well take it slow for a minute or two." They moved silently through the garden. George leaned forward and down to the dog's face. "Nice dog, Atal. You go slow till I tell you different." In the street, Dee was drawing away, and Atal broke into a run. George clung desperately. But it was unnecessary. The dog's strides were even and long; its padded paws made no sound as they hit the ground; its legs, all its muscles, seemed to give to the shock and absorb it. They were running faster now; the dog's body seemed to settle closer to the ground. The wind whistled by George's ears, but he felt curiously secure. There was no question of the dog stumbling, falling; and its gait, now at a steady run, was far easier to ride than any horse he had ever mounted. Dee was still ahead; the ends of the ribbon band about her head fluttered out behind her. The white road was a blur; the houses and gardens of the city were flying past. An exhilaration--a feeling of triumph and power--came over George. He was perfectly at home on the dog's back now. This little Dee was a daredevil, as Loto had said. Well, that was the sort of girl he liked. They'll overtake Toroh, kill him with a flash from the thunderbolt globes and rescue Azeela. George leaned forward over the dog's neck. "We might as well catch up with Dee," he said into the silky ear. "Faster, Atal!" At once the dog increased its pace, overtaking its mate. Side by side, they swept through the city. To George the ride soon became a blur: a white moonlit road passing under him, palm trees flashing by, occasional houses, thatched shacks; the wind whistling past his ears, and that lithe, powerful body beneath him, with its rippling muscles. Dee rode gracefully and easily, leaning slightly forward into the rush of air. Often she would draw ahead, but a whispered word from George to the brute beneath him, and again the dogs were running side by side. Presently Dee stopped them; the dogs stood panting, with tongues lolling out. "What is it?" George demanded. "Where are we?" The girl's face was drawn with anxiety. "Azeela had been trying to find out from Toroh why he takes her to Orleen." "Yes?" he prompted. "And I wondered--" "Toroh has told her now. Loto's old plane is there. He wants the plane!" "Oh!" George's heart sank with dismay. "But the plane is in the Orleen Cavern. How can they get to it? Isn't the cavern guarded?" "Yes. Wait. Toroh says he can get it. He has a spy there--a man whom we trust. One of the guards." "Good grief! Dee, where are they now?" "A few miles west of here. I can't tell how far--Azeela does not know just where we are, either." "Does Toroh know we're after him?" "No." George tried to think coherently. "Can't we overtake them, Dee? Before they reach Orleen?" "I don't know. Azeela says not. Their dogs are very fast--perhaps faster than ours." Suddenly George had an inspiration. The other plane--the one he and Rogers had come in! It was back in the cavern in Anglese City. He and Dee could get that, and he could operate it--he'd have to, now. Then they could fly to Orleen, and perhaps by that method get there before Toroh and Azeela. He explained this swiftly to Dee. "We're not so far from Anglese City, are we?" "No," she agreed. "It's the best thing to do." They turned the dogs, starting back over the road they had come. A new thought occurred to George. "Dee, what does Toroh want with that plane? Is he going to take Azeela north in it?" The dogs were already at a run, but he caught her answer. "No. He will take the plane back into time! He wants to get greater weapons with which to conquer us!" * * * * * Fahn, Loto and Rogers hurried through the city streets. The faint distant cries of the mob ahead drifted back to them. There were no Arans to be seen, but the Bas men and women were everywhere, most of them moving in the direction of the palace. As Fahn and his two companions advanced, the turmoil ahead grew louder. The palace stood on a rise of ground in the midst of a lavish garden, with its swimming pool, its trellised pergolas and its graceful palms. The building was a two story rectangular, with huge white columns from the ground to the roof. A broad balcony ran the length of the second story. The roof was flat, with palms growing upon it. A crowd of Bas was surging up the hill toward the palace; in the gardens, the armed mob was already massed, shouting, threatening, but lacking, as yet, the courage to advance upon the building. Fahn had turned into a side street at the foot of the hill. "Where are we going?" Rogers demanded. "We've got to get into the palace unseen, so we'll go through the tower," Loto explained. "There's a secret way into it that the Bas don't know." The tower, which rose like the skeleton of a lighthouse, stood close beside the main palace building; a covered bridge connecting the two as the level of the second floor of the palace. Swiftly Fahn led the two men to the beach that lay behind the bluff on which the palace and its tower stood. The moonlit strand was deserted. They came to a thick clump of palmettos in the heavy sand at the foot of the bluff--a green tangled clump higher than a man's head. Into this Fahn plunged unhesitatingly, forcing the fronds aside, pushing his way in with the others after him. Inside the palmetto thicket was a small tunnel mouth, leading downward. It seemed an endless journey through a black underground passageway not much higher than their heads and so narrow that they could always touch both its walls with their outstretched arms. The air was heavy and fetid. They went down a slope, across on a level, then up. Once they arrived at an iron grating barring the way. But Fahn opened it in some fashion and it swung on a central, horizontal pivot so that they might crawl under it.