Part 3

"We had succeeded, and I was eager to return to the world with our success, but Dr. Munson refused! The long, intense work of years that he had gone through, the super-human eagerness with which he had sought this success, the killing strain of our toil for it--all these I think had unhinged his brain, had changed him into a monomaniac, and the other three with him. 'We five are the masters of life!' he told us. 'We have done what only gods were ever thought to do, have created life from the non-living! We can, by building a greater condenser, concentrate the cosmic ray vibrations from a vast part of space on earth, and cause protoplasm floods to form in all earth's seas in giant masses, protoplasm masses that will inevitably, when they reach a certain development of life and power, sweep out over earth in blind movement and search of food, wiping out forever all the blotches of flesh that make up humanity! Then we can destroy all those protoplasm floods in a moment by switching the condenser to the radio-active vibrations, and can people the world with the forms of life that we think best, can people it with beings over whom we shall reign supreme--the life-masters--the creators--the gods!'

"The thing was madness, madness the more terrible because we could actually do the thing, and I recoiled in horror. The other three, though, driven on by the strange craziness of soul, the monomania, that filled Munson, like him regarded themselves as gods, as life-masters, and agreed to his mad plan. Before I could more than protest, before I could even attempt escape from the island, they had seized me, had prisoned me in this empty storeroom, guarding its windows with metal bars and assuring me that I was only preserved until they might need me for further experimentation. They were mad, Munson and the others, yet it was even to me an explicable madness, for I too had felt the same terrific pride as they at the thought that we had actually created life from the non-living, and that terrific pride it was that had driven them now on their evil plan to become life-masters of all the world.

"Swiftly then they went about their work, building up a great condenser many times larger than our small one but similar in design, a great globe-condenser that stands in the center of the clearing there and that took them weeks to complete. Through one of my windows here I watched it growing beneath their hands, while night and day, four burning-eyed madmen, they labored upon it, driven on by Munson's mad purpose of soul. At last, days ago, it was completed, and at once they put it into operation. The great knob-switch, on its switch-board, regulated the wave-length of the etheric vibration it attracted and condensed, I could see. While at the bottom, or at zero, it attracted no vibration, was not in operation. Moved up to the wave-length of the cosmic ray vibrations it attracted those vibrations, drawing them inward from a tremendous region of space to concentrate them in a great sheath of intensified vibrations upon all the earth, penetrating through all its seas.

"Already in those seas, I knew, the cosmic ray vibrations, millions of times intensified, would be beginning their work, would be forming great masses of protoplasm in inconceivable quantities out of the inorganic sea-silt's elements. Days more would loose those gigantic tides of death upon the earth, I knew, when they had been developed by the rays to a certain stage, and I raged with despair in my prison while outside the four exultantly watched their work. Striving to escape from my prison, knowing that if I could but smash or turn off the great condenser I might yet prevent the loosing of those protoplasm floods, I worked desperately with the bars of one of my windows. They had been hastily set into the concrete wall with cement, and now with odd bits of metal left to me I chipped and scratched at that cement, endeavoring to loosen one of the bars. But I could do little with it, and one by one the days passed, until I knew that today would see the protoplasm tides rolling out upon earth, knew that by then they would have reached a stage of development and life to enable them to do so.

"The four outside--Munson and the others--knew, too, for I saw them exultant, and so, hours ago, I gave up in utter despair my work at the bar, lapsing into sleep from which I was aroused by an uproar in the clearing. I saw then that you had come to this island of hell unheeding, and that the four madmen outside had seen you at the condenser, had with mad fury at the thought of harm to their work knocked you senseless, thrusting you in here with me. And now, in these hours that you have lain unconscious, I could see the work of Munson and the others coming at last to its completion, could see in the starlight, as you have seen, the first protoplasm floods rolling out from the sea onto the island's sands. They can not reach the great cone's summit, of course, since Munson had our laboratories built upon the summit so that any work we desired could be carried out unhampered on the sands below. But they are not only pouring out over this island, they are pouring out over the shores of all earth's seas, while we talk here, through the great cities and over all the lands of earth. They will roll on, new gigantic tides of protoplasm formed unceasingly by that great condenser outside and loosed upon earth, until Munson and the others have swept man and all the races of men from earth, until the protoplasm tides themselves have been destroyed by them and there is left a lifeless world over which the life-masters shall rule supreme!"

4

Ralton sat unmoving, unspeaking, when the whisper of Mallett's voice had ceased. The other had risen, and he felt himself swaying to his feet, looking strangely about the little room, and then into his friend's tense eyes. No sound save the fine, half-heard hum of the great globe in the clearing broke the stillness of the great cone's summit, and as the two stood there it seemed to Ralton that that stillness, that silence, had suddenly become thunderous in his ears.

"Protoplasm," he heard himself saying. "The whole world----"

And then as swift pictures rose in his whirling brain the reality of it all came sharply and abruptly to him. "Mallett!" he cried, in a half whisper. "If I had known when I stood at that condenser-control!"

Mallett's eyes were suddenly eager. "But if there's still a chance!" he was muttering. "Even now--if the two of us could get out of here----"

He turned swiftly toward the windows, Ralton beside him. Through the narrow, barred opening of one of them, gazing downward they could see vast masses of the gray, glistening protoplasm towering upward against the great cone's steep, smooth sides of rock, rolling upward and falling back in vain endeavor to flow up over the sides and summit of the cone as they had done over the rest of the island, in their blind, mindless search for food.

Mallett gestured swiftly toward those upward-striving masses.

"They can't flow up the cone's steep sides," he said. "Munson knew it when he loosed them on the world. But turning off the condenser now will not destroy those protoplasm masses, nor those over all the world."

"But how----?" Ralton began, to be interrupted by the other.

"Our only chance is to switch the condenser's control," he told him swiftly, "to turn it from the cosmic ray vibration wave-length to the radio-active vibration wave-length. Then instead of attracting and concentrating the cosmic ray vibrations on all earth it would do so with radio-active vibrations and would disintegrate and destroy the protoplasm instantly."

They had turned toward the other window, the one that gave upon the clearing, and gazing through it into the open space they could see that no one moved in it, could hear faintly the voices of Munson and the others, and the occasional tap of tools, from the white-lit laboratory building to the right, which was out of their line of vision. Open and unprotected lay the great condenser at the clearing's center, its vast globe gleaming dully, its glass-faced dials on the black switch-box reflecting the starlight faintly. As they watched, one of those from the laboratory, a dark, intent figure that Ralton recognized as Kingsford, the electrical expert, approached the box, inspected the dials, and then as though satisfied turned back to the laboratory building from which he had come, and from which in another moment they could make out his voice again. Mallett turned swiftly toward his friend.

"They're busy on something," he said, excitedly, "and if ever we're to try for a break now is the time."

Swiftly he produced from his pockets a few odd bits of metal that he had rudely sharpened upon the room's concrete sides, and with these the two began the slow digging and scratching at the cement at the base of one of the bars which was their single chance for freedom. It seemed to Ralton that though they worked madly at the painful task they were making no impression upon the hard cement, in which Mallett had during the past days made some shallow cuts, but still they toiled on at it, hands bruised and bleeding, while the great condenser in the clearing hummed on, and the star-groups above wheeled slowly down toward the west with the near approach of dawn.

In the time that followed, a time that seemed unending to Ralton's dulled senses, they were mocked by the unyieldingness of the cement upon which they worked, and only by continued toil could they make even shallow scratches upon the rough cement. Around the bar's base, silently and unceasingly, though, they worked, hands bloody now, while there came still the occasional murmur of voices from the laboratory building to the right which they could not see. In the clearing the great condenser lay unprotected as ever, but as they worked on it seemed that they were no nearer freedom, and now a gray tinge of light in the dark skies above was bespeaking the coming of dawn. Once, from the window, Ralton glimpsed the gleaming masses at the great cone's base, still surging upward, and saw that they had managed to gain a hold half-way up its steep sides and were vainly and blindly striving to pour still farther upward.

It was not those glistening floods on the barren island below, however, that were central in the thoughts of Mallett and Ralton as they worked on at the bar, bloody and blind with sweat, all but exhausted; it was those other gigantic floods that both knew were even then sweeping over coasts and islands, engulfing the peoples of earth as they rolled on. Neither spoke of that; neither spoke at all as they labored on with all their waning force at the stubborn bar, but the thought was as though visible between them, spurring all their strength into their efforts. And at last, when the dawn-light was strengthening swiftly eastward, they had scratched away the cement from one side of the bar's base, and straightened up, all but exhausted.

"It's all we can do!" panted Mallett. "Our only chance is to get the bar out now--if we wait longer it'll be broad day."

The two paused a moment, then gripped the bar, braced themselves against the concrete wall, and put all the strength of their muscles into a great pull inward. Ralton heard the muscles of himself and his friend cracking beneath the strain, and closing his eyes with the agony of that effort, felt the bar stir a little in their grip. But when they straightened, inspected it quickly, they found that hardly had they loosened it. Again they gripped it, again threw all their strength into a mighty pull, and this time felt it give perceptibly in its socket. Neither could speak, for the moment, and Ralton saw his friend breathing in great gasps, as he was also; but only for a moment they paused, then gripped the bar again. Another tremendous effort--a giving of the bar--and then, with a harsh, shrill squealing of the iron against the cement, it had come out completely from its socket.

* * * * *

For the moment the two leaned motionless against the wall, breathless and exhausted but listening with pounding hearts to ascertain whether that last shrill squeal of the bar had given the alarm to Munson and the others. The faint voices from the laboratory, they noted, had apparently ceased, but there was no sound of alarm, and no one appeared in the clearing or within sight of their prison-room. Then, after that moment's pause, Mallett had pulled himself upward, was squeezing through the window between bar and wall, and in a moment Ralton had followed him. Crouched on the ground beneath the window, the gray light of dawn growing over the cone's summit, Mallett pointed across the open clearing to where stood the mighty globe-condenser and its unprotected switch control.

"The control!" Mallett was whispering thickly. "If we can get to it----!"

They stepped forward, stealthily, silently. No sound came from any part of the cone's summit, save for the great condenser's half-heard hum. Another step--another. Slowly, carefully they crept on, out from the shelter of their prison and the long building beside it, into the great circular clearing. Ralton's blood was pounding through his veins, for now the gleaming condenser lay but a few hundred feet ahead, at the clearing's center. Should he make a rush for it and trust to chance to get him to the condenser's control in time? He discarded the idea, even as Mallett and he crept forward; for within moments more their stealthy, silent progress would bring them to their goal. Within moments more----

"Your strategy, Mallett, is somewhat infantile, I fear!"

_Munson's voice!_ Cool and mocking, it cut like a sword through their whirling thoughts and the two spun about, then recoiled. Out from the open door of one of the buildings behind them had stepped the massive, coldly smiling scientist, a heavy automatic in his grasp turned upon them. From between the other buildings, to right and to left of the clearing, had stepped the other three--Labreau, Kingsford, Krauner--their own pistols trained upon the two. Still hundreds of feet from the condenser, Ralton knew, with finality, in that moment, that never could they make it, never could they reach it with the steel-nosed bullets of four guns tearing through their bodies. That noise the bar had made had roused the four, had brought them pistols in hand to watch mockingly the two before them. The gray-haired, mocking-eyed Munson, the dark face of Labreau, contorted with insane rage; the gloating Kingsford, his strong, intellectual face twisted now as though by some devil's hand; the coldly indifferent countenance of the blond-haired Krauner, whose eyes yet burned madly behind his gleaming glasses--all these faces appeared to be slowly turning about Ralton in that seemingly eternal moment.

Munson's voice came to his ears again. "It has been something of a comedy to watch your clumsy progress," he mocked them, "though unfortunately we can not allow you, of course, to proceed any farther." His voice rose suddenly, the cords of his neck swelling with fury as all amusement left him. "You fools! You try to wreck the greatest scientific experiment ever conducted on this earth; try to save a humanity, a race, as trivial as yourselves from the doom which we, the masters of life, have decreed for them; try to make impossible the new races which we life-masters shall give earth when the protoplasm floods have swept all other life away!"

Then, as abruptly as that burst of insane fury had blazed up it calmed, and the mocking gleam returned to his eyes. "Humanity is passing, even now," he told them, "and as for you two--I think it best that you pass with it----"

Ralton saw his pistol raised a little to bear full upon them, saw in that infinitesimal instant the guns of the others upon them as their hands tensed about their grips, their fingers about the triggers. In that flashing instant it seemed to him that those black muzzles had become, somehow, mighty round dark doorways down which he and all the world were thundering to their doom. It was the end, for him as for the world. The whole scene seemed withdrawn suddenly to a great distance, made suddenly remote, in that instant before death leapt upon them. It was the----

There was a sudden wild scream from Munson, wild shrieks from the others, and Ralton came back to complete reality to see that the madmen were rushing wildly toward great gray glistening masses of jelly-like stuff that had flowed suddenly up over those edges, and were gliding swiftly over it!

_The protoplasm masses below were pouring up onto the summit!_

* * * * *

Ralton and Mallett swayed there, stunned, transfixed; saw Munson and the others fling themselves insanely upon the forward-gliding masses; saw those masses tower up suddenly beneath that mad, fierce attack and then crash down upon the struggling men, burying them in their glistening folds; saw the insane struggle of the four ceasing abruptly in swift suffocation, saw those masses leaping glidingly forward toward themselves, great glistening arms forming and looping out toward them!

It was that which broke the spell for the two, and they flung themselves toward the great condenser, still yards away, hurled themselves toward the control, the great arms looping toward the staggering two. Ralton heard a cry from Mallett, felt him jerked back from his side by one of those arms, but did not look back even in that instant, flinging himself madly on toward the control. He was within a dozen feet of it, a half-dozen--was almost within reach of it--and then another great glistening arm had looped lightning-like from the masses behind and had caught and held him in its cold grip, while upon him and upon Mallett swept the gleaming floods from which those arms had shot out!

Ralton felt that cold, terrific grip about him, pulling him backward, the shining masses behind gliding swiftly upon him, and as they did so he put his last strength into one supreme effort, straining with a final mad burst of strength toward the control-knob just before him. Beneath that super-human effort the relentless grip that held him relaxed a little for an instant, and in that instant Ralton's forward-straining fingers had just touched the control-knob, had flicked it sharply upward from the white letters at which it stood to those just above, from the cosmic ray vibrations to those of the radio-active vibrations.

The next instant it seemed to him that over all the world there lay a sudden, tremendous stillness, a complete and utter cessation of all movement and sound, as the grip that held him, the gray masses that had been rushing forward upon him and upon Mallett paused, halted, hesitated. Then, as he swayed there, he felt the grip relax and disappear, saw dazedly that the translucent arm about him had changed oddly, had shriveled suddenly, crumbled into a smear of gray powder that fell to the ground! And the mighty masses behind him, the great tides of protoplasm on the cone's summit and sides, and those he could see out over the island's level sands far below, all had crumbled, too, disintegrated in that same moment, and where they had been was but a thick coating of fine gray powder! Gray powder in the coating of which behind them lay the dark, twisted bodies of Munson and the others! Gray powder that lay, he knew, over all earth where the protoplasm masses had been but a moment before, that lay in city and on land, the sole remaining evidence of the gigantic masses which the great condenser with its concentrated cosmic rays had built up over all earth and which with its concentrated radio-active rays it had in the same way destroyed! Gray powder, that alone remained of the greatest and most terrible menace ever to challenge the existence of man and the world of man!

Ralton staggered to Mallett's side, half led and half dragged his friend, still dazed, toward his plane that stood still untouched at the clearing's other side. Into its front cockpit he helped him, turned a switch and whirled the propeller. Another moment, and with motor roaring the little plane was speeding across the clearing, lifting sharply upward into the growing light of dawn, speeding away from the giant cone and island, over the gray waters toward the south.

South--south--Ralton, with hands on the controls and with head thrown weakly back, let the plane find its own track through the upper air as it roared on. Swaying drunkenly, it flashed southward high above the clean gray sea, with the clean salt air rushing cold against his face and that of Mallett before him. And still toward the south he raced, with the gray light of dawn to his left changing to gold as the rising sun lifted above the horizon. South--south----

The world ahead of him, which had been saved from doom at the last, not by Mallett and him but by fate, was not in Ralton's thoughts as he thundered on. Nor were the explanations of that doom and that escape which only they could give to rejoicing humanity. He wanted only, in that moment, to race farther and farther from the island of hell that was dwindling in the waters far behind them; wanted only to speed farther and farther from the dark, gigantic cone upon the gray-strewn summit of which there lay the twisted bodies of the men who had planned to be the life-masters of the world, and whose plans had reaped but death.