Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

836 stopped stock still, flinging their arms wide in token of surrender. Miela came down among us, and we went back to where we had lain hidden in the palmettos. There we had left a num- ber of short lengths of rope. While we were tying the arms of these two prisoners ‘behind them and fettering their ankles so they could not run Anina joined us. “Two-—in water,” she cried; and then added something to Miela. ‘“‘ Two were in the water. Now they are in the woods, running. Anina will show you.” | Miela stood guard in the boat over our first two prisoners, while Mercer and I rounded up the others. It was half an hour or more before we had them all trussed up, but none of the ten escaped. We were a long time reviving two of those we had injured, but finally we had them all lying or sitting in the boat. Mercer’s head had stopped bleeding. He washed it, and I found his injury no more than an ugly scalp wound. “1 fell and cut it on something,” he explained lugubriously. “ Couldn’t see for the blood in°my eyes. But we got ’em, didn’t we?” Under Miela’s direction Mercer and I shoved the boat out into the stream. I need not go into details regarding the pro- pelling mechanism of this craft. Mlela ex- plained it hastily to me as we got under way. It used a form of the light-ray from a sort of strange battery. The intense heat of the ray generated a great pressure of superheated steam in a thick metal cylinder underneath the keel. This steam escaped through a nozzle un- der water at the stern of the boat, and its thrust against the water propelled the boat forward. The boat was constructed to draw very little water, and when going fast its bow planed upward until only the stern of the hull touched the surface. It was steered by a rudder not much different from some of those types we are familiar with on earth. When we got out into open water I found the boat was capable of great speed. This I attributed not so much to the effi- cacy of its propelling force as to the light- ness of the boat itself. It was built of ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. some metal that I may perhaps compare with aluminium, only this was far stronger and lighter. The boat was, in fact, a mere shell, extraordinarily buoyant. Miela sat in the stern, steering and op- erating the mechanism. I sat with her, . Mercer was farther forward, beside Anina, talking to her earnestly. Our prisoners lay | } huddled in various attitudes—frightened, all |. of them, and obviously in no condition to © give us further trouble. They were, I saw | now, not ruffians by any means, but rather © men of superior intelligence, selected by Tao evidently as those best fitted for spreading his propaganda among the people of the Great City. We made slow progress down the bayou. Some of its turns were so sharp and. so overhung with trees, and obstructed by fall- en logs, we could hardly get through. Dur- ing the latter part of the trip the bayou broadened rapidly, dividing into many channels like a delta. We came out into the open sea finally— a broad, empty expanse, -with a mirrorlike surface. The curvature of the planet was even more apparent now; it seemed almost as though the water should be sliding back downhill over the horizon. We turned to the left as we came out of the delta, and for the first time Miela put the boat to the limit of its speed. The best comparison I can make, I think, to this rapid, noiseless, smooth progress, is that of sailing on an iceboat. We sped along some five or ten miles, keeping close inland. I saw some of the small thatched shacks along here, though not many. For a while the shore re- mained that same palm-lined, half-inun-— dated marshland. Then gradually it began to change, and we came upon a broad beach ef white sand. : We landed here, and found the girls with the platform waiting for us. Miela took Anina and one or two of the older girls aside, and gave them last instructions. “What do I do—just dump them on the other shore?” Mercer asked me. “That’s about it. I don’t know the lay of the land over there. Anina does. You do what she tells you.” “You bet I will,” he “agre ce enthusias-—