CHAPTER XXXIV

_Princess of the Cottage_

It seems that there is not much more I need record. A year has passed. It is summer again, and but for the fact I have lived those scenes over in my memory as I set them down here, they would seem remote indeed.

There was a mild turmoil, that morning of the second of June when the titanic body of Togaro came crashing down. Wild scenes of a tiny battle. But it was over almost before it started. Only the war planes, of all the earth forces, had time to get into action. They soared over the Togarite lines. But there was no courage left in the giants. They had no drugs. It was as we thought--Togaro kept upon his person the entire supply. The giants had seen his monstrous body fall--

They fought. Some of them were killed by the planes--and some of the planes were brought down. Then Drake entered the battle. He had seen from his rising plane at Mount Vernon what was transpiring. He hastily landed and took a heavy dose of the enlarging drug.

The giants fled before him.

The thing was over almost before Dianne and I could stride across the intervening tiny landscape to reach Drake. He had trampled some of the giants. But most of them he spared.

There was a day of wild confusion; but the Togarites were ready enough to do what they were told.

They were herded by Drake and me into Maine, then were reduced to normal earth size.

There is an island now where they, and the forty thousand followers with them, are isolated. Dianne and I have never been there. Dianne wants to forget the Mitans--those of her loyal people who were lost within the rock fragment.

The futile dragging of the Atlantic Ocean off Sandy Hook has proved unavailing. The rock must have been no larger than a grain of sand in that fragile globe which Togaro cast away. It is gone forever.

The drugs, too, are gone. The authorities very wisely decided it was too dangerous a thing to be allowed to exist on earth. The entire supply unanalyzed has been chemically destroyed.

It is June again now. One would hardly know that all these strange things happened only a year ago. The devastated area up through New England is looking better every week that passes. The countryside is green again in the summer warmth; the wrecked cities are repeopled and being rebuilt.

There was a gruesome task for Drake and me. In monstrous size we carried the dead body of Togaro as far out into the ocean as we could wade, then fastened rocks to it, and a rope. Then, swimming, we towed it a thousand miles farther and sank it into the ocean depths.

We want to forget all that now. When this narrative is finished--as it will be in a moment--I want to forget it forever. That was the past; the future holds so much of peace and beauty.

There is for me the glory of Dianne and her love.

We are living in a cottage by the sea. Drake and Ahlma live near us. Father is in New York. He says he would not live with a married couple--even with such beautiful and amiable daughters-in-law as Ahlma and Dianne. But he visits us often.

There is nothing of the princess about Dianne now, save that she is princess of our little cottage. We have no servant. When our family is larger we will have one, but just now Dianne is playing at housekeeping.

She was in here half an hour ago, urging me to stop my writing.

"It's nine o'clock, Frank. Bright moonlight. I'm going to build a fire. Camp fire--I've got clams. We'll bake them for Ahlma and Drake when they get back from the pictures."

"Right, Dianne. Go do that."

"But, Frank--"

"Get it started. Remember your signal fire on Bird's Nest? Let's make the signal again--like we used to when we were kids--"

"Come on."

"Can't--but I'll be through soon."

She went away, but she came back after awhile.

"The fire's built. Come on, Frank."

I imagine I ignored her. But she came again, just a minute ago.

She called in: "Oh, Frank!"

"Yes, Dianne?"

"Come on. Please stop."

"Presently."

"Frank Ferrule, you can make your own smoke signals for Drake and Ahlma. I'm going to bed."

I think I had better stop.

THE END

* * * * *

A SCIENCE-FICTION MASTERPIECE

A beautiful girl comes from nowhere to warn a world against a dreadful peril--Giants rise up out of the sea to threaten unsuspecting cities and towns--And two young men battle an Atomic Napoleon to save their girls from his lustful clutches and a world from his greedy ambitions.

AMAZING--the journey through smallness to a world of the atomic hidden in the heart of a meteor!

STARTLING--the destruction of a planet by one man's wrath!

ASTOUNDING--the invasion of America by an army of giants tall as the Empire State Building!

PRINCESS OF THE ATOM is a long-sought masterpiece by a leading imaginative writer, Ray Cummings. This unusual novel introduces the new series of AVON FANTASY NOVELS, designed for the millions who enjoy the new thrill of Science-Fiction.

RAY CUMMINGS, author of "Princess of the Atom," has been called "the dean of fantasy writers." As assistant to Thomas A. Edison, he became well-grounded in science and its potentialities, and has since achieved a distinguished reputation as an author of outstandingly imaginative novels and short stories.