Argosy All-Story Weekly, August 9, 1924 — page 141: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MAN WHO MASTERED TIME. tion absorbed all light over a radius of five hundred feet from its source. Fahn smiled grimly. The darkness there would pass presently. His own leaders, Loto, Georgie, Mogruud and the two girls, were so equipped. Each of them could dis- charge such a bomb—a puif of darkness, cloaking everything around them in tem- porary invisibility. Fahn heard his own orders roared by Loto. The attacking figures came up. But there were not two hundred of them now— a score perhaps Jay down there in the water. A dozen more were wounded; a few were moving slowly homeward through the air. Around the attacked Noth vessel the darkness still hung. But it was thinning out; in it now the vague outlines of the barge could be seen. Within a minute the dark patch was gone. One end of the barge was blazing; but the Noths were extinguish- ing the flames. Other figures were cutting loose the dead dogs in the water—dogs were leaping overboard to take their places. The attacked barge presently moved on- ward; slowly, inexorably, they were all com- ing down the coast. They were no more than a mile or two now from the estuary of the channel-mouth. * Three times more Fahn ordered a division down at the same barge. The Noth tactics were repeated. The barge discharged a few of its bolts and then enveloped itself in blackness—an absence of light that even the thunderbolts could not illumine. These brief engagements were largely a matter of individual action. Warfare was new to the Anglese, but they were learn- ing. The huge bolts from the barge could not parallel for long the water level; in- evitably they turned downward to discharge themselves. Close to the water the attack- ers were comparatively safe. When the Anglese came up after these attacks and re-formed themselves in orderly array, there were but ten more of their number missing. But it was fifty in all; and a score of wounded. The attacked barge now was blazing end to end. Its crowded deck was a turmoil of figures. They were plunging overboard— men and dogs—to avoid the flames. In a moment the barge tilted upward at its stern. 291 Its torn bow was admitting the water; it slid downward, hissing, and disappeared beneath the surface. Figures bobbed up from the swirl—inert, charred figures; and others among them, still alive, swam about in aimless confusion. One barge! But there were five others. And these others had all pushed forward un- til now they were almost down to the chan- nel, Fahn realized that there were five hun- dred Noths and as many dogs crowded upon each of them. They could take to the water when still beyond range of his coast projectors and come forward swimming in- dividually—each man mounted upon his dog. The coast defense could strike down no more than a few of them if they came in that fashion. Twenty-five hundred men and giant brutes, landing on the island. Azeela and Dee were hovering close to Loto; they were asking their father’s per- mission to try anew plan. The battle could not be maintained as it was going; the hand thunderbolt globes held but ten charges each, and the equipment of each individual was only three globes. A third of the thun- derbolts were already exhausted in sinking one barge. Fahn’s expression did not change; only the grip of his fingers as he clenched them and the rising muscles under his thin cheeks betokened his emotion. His voice was steady, grim as always when he ordered “his daughters to their desperate venture. Azeela and Dee, with their twenty-six comrades, selected the barge that was now leading. In a closely knit group they hov- ered above it. Its thunderbolt shot up, but could not reach them. From the girls a pure-white beam of light shot downward— twenty-six tiny rays blending into one. Rogers, bending over Fahn to gaze into the little mirror, was amazed. Unlike any beam of light fe had ever seen, this one was curved. It descended from the girls in a slightly bent bow, ending at the barge. Fahn whispered a swift explanation to Rogers. To the Noths, looking upward along the beam, it would not appear curved, but straight. The figures of the girls, by an optical illusion, would be seen, not where they actually were, but to one side. GoMmilGebdoo O im