CHAPTER XXIX

_The Theft of the Rock_

It was the night of May 14 when Alt had come from the rock with his white flag of truce, and had taken me back into the atom with him. Togaro had been lurking outside; he had got into our guarded room. He had ridden me into smallness. Alt and I had not been aware of him. Father and Foley, watching us dwindle upon our journey, had not seen him.

But he was there; and he had leaped off me--small as an insect--and escaped. I have recounted the incident. It was in the caldron valley, not far below the upper surface of the rock fragment. I have described how we met a Togaro giant, who apparently was on his way out.

It seems obvious to me now that Togaro, when he was hidden upon me during that hour or so while Alt and I made the first stage of our inward journey, had been able to overhear our conversation. I recall that I told Alt then how I had arranged with father that, coming back, we would use a black and white flag as a signal. As a matter of fact, Togaro also was probably within our guarded room when father, Foley and I had discussed it.

He knew, then, about the flag. He escaped from Alt and me, in the caldron. He had seen and recognized his follower--had been clinging to me when we encountered and fought the giant. That fellow was on his way out, looking for Togaro, very probably, to see why the master was delayed all those months. There must have been near by other Togarites with him upon the journey, and Togaro escaped from us in order to join them.

I do not know any of this to be a fact; I construct it only in the light of what actually transpired afterward; and I think that doubtless it is what happened. Togaro met his men, told them the rock was in hostile hands, and told them of our flag signal. Then he ordered them out to capture the rock from father.

I can even fancy that Togaro lingered to aid in that capture, for it was very swiftly done; then, finding it successful, he had hastened back into smallness. Alt and I were inept at the size-change traveling. We made many blundering miscalculations; it would not have been difficult for the skillful Togaro to overtake us and to hide upon our ship as he did.

Thus Togaro, with the knowledge that the rock was in his possession, was enabled to bring his expedition up with utter confidence. Dianne and I had marveled at his assurance.

I think this is the true explanation. In any case, the fact remains that the rock was swiftly captured from father. Alt and I departed at about midnight of May 14. Father watched us go. He was depressed, harassed, over my going. He watched until Alt and I were no longer visible. Then he went to bed, leaving Foley on guard.

What happened to Foley, no one will ever know. Father lay in his room, with the alarm bell beside him. He could not go to sleep for a long time. Then he must have dozed.

He was awakened by the violent ringing of the bell. Foley calling him that there was danger! It was near dawn; father noticed the daylight through his bedroom windows. He had not undressed; he seized his automatic and rushed down the hall.

He was too precipitate, confused by being awakened too suddenly. The bell was clanging through the silent house with the urgency of a fire-alarm. Father burst incautiously into the room where Foley had been guarding the rock. He remembers seeing the body of Foley upon the floor. Three or four strange men were in the room--one large, the others very much smaller. The one of father's stature had a crudely fashioned black and white flag in his hand--with which, undoubtedly, he had deceived Foley.

Father fired point-blank as he blundered into the room. He evidently missed. The man with the flag flung it. The flagstaff was a bar of metal; it struck father's head and knocked him senseless.

Ransome was due to arrive to relieve Foley at seven in the morning. He came and found Foley dead, with a sharpened bar like a sword impaled in him. Father was lying there unconscious.

The room was in no disorder. Father's automatic was beside him. The granite slab was in its place.

But the fragment of rock was gone!

This was during the week of May 15. The local authorities were skeptical of father's story. Even with the public facts of the previous year--the coming of the giants, the battle on Bird's Nest Island--what father now said was incredible. This atom, within the rock, as the source of the inexplicable "giants," was to these local officials too much for belief. Heaven knows, one cannot blame them--especially since the rock had vanished and no one remained who had ever seen it, or even heard of it, save father and Ransome.

Father was taken to Portland for treatment. When he had recovered, the authorities at Washington sent for him. Officialdom there placed more credence in what he had to say; but not enough to do anything about it! As a matter of fact, what could they have done?

On the night of May 20, with father still ill, and in Washington with Ransome to give their testimony, our place at King's Cove was unoccupied. The Togarites poured from the tiny rock, a thousand of them in this first party. They grew into the boathouse, then left it, and roamed over King's Cove in the moonlight, still growing.

It must have been near dawn, when the first of them came out. Togaro was presently with them, I have no doubt. What they did was far different from the sporadic appearance of those giants of the year before. Organized, intelligent action now!

Shortly after that dawn of May 21, the world rang with the news that giants had come again. In Washington, the officials with whom father had been in consultation knew now that everything he said was the truth.

The menace was at hand! The world was fronted by the strangest, gravest crisis of its civilized history!