The Moon Terror/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
PLAYING OUR FINAL CARD
IN THEIR ASTONISHMENT at the terrible upheaval, Ensign Hallock and his men had left their posts und crowded toward the end of the promontory, a few feet away from the mortars. At Dr. Gresham's command to fire, most of them leaped to obey the order.
Instantly the woods behind us sprang into life as a horde of Chinamen dashed from cover, charging straight at us!
From the size of the attacking force, it was evident our presence had been know for some time and our capture delayed until a sufficient number of the sorcerers could be assembled to insure our defeat: there seemed to be scores of the blue-clad figures, Most of them were armed with rifles, although some had only knives and a few iron bars which they wielded as clubs.
The distance across the clearing was not much more than 200 feet, and the Chinamen advanced at a run—without any outery.
But before they had traversed a quarter of the space Ensign Hallock recovered from his surprise and, with a few terse commands, led his crew into action. Dashing to the machine guns, the seamen threw themselves flat on the ground; and while some manned these weapons, the rest resorted to their revolvers. In two or three seconds the booming of the distant cataclysm was augmented by a steady volley of firing.
With deadly effect the machine guns raked the advancing semi-circle of Mongolians. As the foremost line began suddenly to melt away, the rest of the sorcerers wavered and presently came to a halt. They now were not more than a hundred feet from us. At a command, they all dropped down upon the ground, the ones with rifles in front, and began to return our fire.
I had drawn my revolver and joined in the fight—and so had Dr. Gresham beside me. But in our excitement we had remained on our feet, and I now heard the astronomer shouting at me:
"Lie down! Lie down!"
Even as I dropped, my hat was knocked off by a bullet; but; unharmed, I stretched out and continued shooting.
Pausing to slip a fresh magazine of cartridges into my automatic, I suddenly became aware that a vast wind was starting to blow out of the east; the very air seemed alive and quivering.
The Chinamen still outnumbered us heavily, and all at once I realized—chiefly from the lessening of our fire—that their rifle attack was beginning to take effect. Glancing about, I saw five or six of the seamen lying motionless.
At this juncture one of the machine guns jammed, and while its crew was trying to fix it the yellow devils took toll of several ,ore of our men. I now saw that only six of us were left to fight.
Simultaneously I became half conscious of a strange, mysterious something going on about us—a subtle, ghostly change, not on the earth itself, but in the air above—some throbbing, indefinable suggestion of impending doom—of the end of things.
Snatching a glance over my shoulder, I saw arising upon the eastern horizon a black, monstrous cloud of appalling aspect—a spuming billow of sable mist— twisting, flying, lifting into the heavens with tremendous speed, And each moment the wind was growing more violent.
Was this, after all, to be the finish? Was the world—the white man's world, which we had fought so hard to save—to go to smash through these yellow devils' fiendishness? Having come with in actual sight of the machinery that was the cause of it all, was our task to remain unfinished?
With a terrible cold fury clutching at my heart, I crawled quickly forward, discharging my revolver steadily. as I went, to lend a hand with the disabled machine gun.
But as I reached it Ensign Hallock dropped the weapon, with a gesture of uselessness, and moved quickly back to the mortars. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him trying to fire the things, and a wave of fierce joy seized me,
But the task caused the naval officer to half raise himself from the ground, and as he did so I saw him clutch at a bleeding gash on his head and fall forward, where he lay still.
An instant later the Chinamen leaped to their feet with a loud cry and charged upon us. They, too, were greatly reduced in numbers, but there were only four of us now, so nothing remained but an attempt at retreat. As we did so we began hurling our hand grenades, all the while moving slowly in the only direction we could go—toward the brink of the precipice.
Suddenly, above the crack of the rifles and the exploding of the grenades, an enormous roaring burst forth in the east—a sinister screaming of immeasurable forces, moaning, hooting, shrieking across the world—the weird, awful voice of the wounded planet's stupendous agony.
This new terror attracted so much attention that there was a momentary pause in the sorcerers' onslaught, and in that brief lull I noted that our grenades had wrought terrible havoc among the Chinamen, reducing their number to a mere handful. Dr. Gresham saw this at the same time, and shouted to us to let them have it again with the missiles.
Apparently sensing the purport of this command, the Chinamen sprang forward, seeking to engage us at too close range for the grenades to be used. But several of the missiles met them almost at their first leap, and when the hurricane of shrapnel abated, there remained only three of the yellow fiends to continue the attack.
But at the same time I made the grim discovery that on our side Dr. Gresham and myself alone survived!
With the realization that it had now come to a hand-to-hand encounter, I braced myself to meet the shock as the trio darted forward. I somehow felt that nothing mattered any longer, anyway, for so tremendous had become the earth-tumult that it seemed impossible the planet could resist disruption many minutes more.
Nevertheless, the passions of a wild animal surged within me; a sort of madness steeled my muscles.
One powerful, thick-set Chinaman leaped upon Dr. Gresham and the two went down in a striking, clawing test of strength, A second later the remaining pair hurled themselves upon me.
I whipped out my revolver just as one fellow seized me from the front, and, pressing the weapon against his body, I fired. In a moment he relaxed his hold and crumpled down at my feet. The other chap now had me around the neck from the rear and was shutting off my wind. Round and round we staggered, as I vainly sought to loosen his hold. Before long everything went black in front of me and I thought I was done for—when I heard faintly, in a daze, the crack of a revolver. Quickly the grip about my neck fell away.
When I began to come to myself again I saw Ensign Hallock sitting up on the ground, his face covered with blood, but wielding the revolver that had ended the career of my last adversary.
At the same time I saw that the officer was trying desperately to train his weapon upon something behind me. Looking about, I saw Dr. Gresham and his opponent rolling over and over on the ground, almost at the edge of the precipice, struggling frantically for possession of a knife. Because of their rapid changes of position, Hallock dared not shoot, for fear of hitting the scientist.
Just then the Chinaman came on top for an instant, and I leaped forward, aiming my revolver at him. The trigger snapped, but there was no report. The weapon was empty.
Less than a dozen feet now separated me from the wrestlers, when the Celestial suddenly jerked the knife free and raised it for a swift stroke.
With all my strength I hurled the empty revolver at the yellow devil. It struck him squarely between the eyes. The knife dropped and he clutched at his face, at the same time struggling to his feet to meet the new attack.
Freed from the struggle, Dr. Gresham's figure relaxed as in a swoon.
Instantly I was after the Chinaman—without a thought of his bull-like strength. I was seeing red. The furious joy of the primeval man hunter—the lust for blood—turned my head. My one idea was to kill.
Leaping over the prostrate scientist, I flung myself at the last of the sorcerers. He had retreated three or four feet, and now stood at bay upon the iron bridge that ran along the top of the water mains, overhanging the precipice. As I dashed at him he stepped quickly aside. I missed him—any my heart leaped into my throat as I stumbled across the perilous eyrie and brought up against the outer rail, which seemed to sway.
I staggered, seized the rod, and saved myself. Far, far below, jagged rocks and the roof of the Seuen-H'sin's powerhouse greeted my gaze.
And at the same time—although I was not conscious of paying attention to it—I became sensible of the fact that the monstrous cloud above the horizon was soaring swiftly, beating its black wings close to the sun—and that a weird twilight, a ghostly gloom, was settling over everything. From the distance, too, still came that appalling uproar.
As I recovered my balance the Chinaman bounded at me. But his foot caught in the grating and he stumbled to his knees, Instantly I threw myself upon him. My knee bored into the small of his back; my fingers sank into his throat. I had him! If I could keep my hold a little while the life would be strangled from his body.
In spite of his disadvantage, the fellow staggered to his feet. And there above the void—upon that narrow steel framework, protected only by its leg-high rail—we began a life-and-death struggle.
I hung on, like a mountain lion upon the back of its prey, while the Chinaman lurched and twisted this way and that.
Once he staggered against the railing, lost his footing, swung around—and I hung out over empty space, a drop of fully 300 feet. I thought the end had come—that we would topple off into the void. But his mighty strength pulled us back upon the grating—the whole slight structure seeming to sway and creak as he did so.
I tightened my grip upon his throat, digging my fingers into his windpipe, until I felt the life ebbing out of him in a steady flow. My own strength was almost gone, but the primitive desire to kill kept me clinging there tenaciously.
At last he began to weaken. In his death throes he lurched about in a circle—until his foot slipped through a manhole above one of the ladders, and he fell across the rail with a choking moan. With me hanging upon his back he began to slip outward and downward, inch by inch.
I knew the end had come. He was falling—and I was falling with him. But thoughts of my own death were smothered in a wild rejoicing. I had conquered this yellow fiend! Everything grew blurred before my eyes as we sagged toward the final plunge into the gorge.
Suddenly my ankles were seized in a stout grip, and I felt myself being dragged back from the sickening void, With this, I loosened my hold upon the Chinaman's throat, and his body went hurtling past me to its doom.
Another instant and I was off the rocking bridge, upon solid ground, and Dr. Ferdinand Gresham was shaking me in an effort to restore my senses.
He had recovered from his own fainting spell just in time to save me from being dragged over the cliff.
Swiftly I drew myself together. The weird twilight was deepening. But a few feet away I beheld Ensign Hallock. busy at the mortars and mines, preparing to touch them off.
He motioned to us to run. We did so. In a moment his work was finished and he took after us.
Back along the ridge we fled, away from the danger of the coming blast.
A couple of hundred yards distant, and about fifty feet below us, a bare promontory jutted out from the hillside. affording an unobstructed view of the whole region—the crumbling mountains upon the horizon, the power plant at the base of the cliff, and the bare space behind us where the mines were about to end the career of the sorcerers' workshop.
We started to descend to this plateau—when suddenly I dragged my companions back and pointed excitedly below, exclaiming:
"Look! Look!"
There in the center of the promontory, seemingly all alone, stood the arch fiend of all this havoc—the high priest of the sorcerers, Kwo-Sung-tao!
Apparently the old fellow had chosen this spot whence he could view in safety his followers' attack upon our party. He had not heard my outcry behind him, and remained absorbed in the Titanic upheaval of the distant mountains.
As I looked down upon his shriveled figure, a wave of savage joy swept over me! At last fate was strangely playing into our hands! Quite unsuspecting, the most menacing figure of the ages—the master mind of diabolical achievement, the would-be "dictator of human destiny"—had been cast into our net for final vengeance!
Just then the mortars boomed, and two charges of high explosives went hurtling toward the roof of the powerhouse.
Kwo-Sung-tao wheeled and stared off toward the opposite promontory. Seeing nothing, he hesitated in alarm. He did not look around in our direction.
Another instant and the explosives fell squarely upon the roof of the building, and with two frightful detonations—so close together that they seemed almost as one—the whole structure burst asunder vanished in a flying tornado of débris. For a few moments nothing was visible save a tremendous geyser of dirt, steel, concrete and bits of machinery.
While the air was filled with this gust of wreckage, my gaze sped back to the leader of the Seuen-H'sin.
The old man stood stock still, petrified by this sudden destruction of all his hopes and work. What agony of soul he was enduring in that moment I could only guess. His mummified figure suddenly to have shriveled unbelievably—to be actually withering before our eyes!
Just then the mines under the water mains went, off, ripping the conduits to tatters—and the immense hydraulic force, suddenly released, roared down the precipice, tearing the ground at the bottom of the gorge away to the foundation rock and obliterating the last scrap of wreckage!
Almost at the same moment Dr. Gresham left us and plunged down the slope toward the high priest, as if to settle the score with him alone. Recovering from our surprise, we followed rapidly.
Apparently sensing the danger, Kwo-Sung-tao suddenly glanced around. As he beheld Dr. Gresham he pulled himself together and I saw a look of malignity come over his face such as I never before nor since have seen upon a human countenance! It was as if he sought to blast his enemy with a glance!
The demoniacal fury of that gaze actually caused the astronomer to slacken his rush.
Promptly the old sorcerer's hand darted beneath his robe and came out with a revolver. But before the weapon could be aimed I had snatched a hand grenade and hurled at the Chinaman. The missile flew over him, exploding some feet away; but a bit of its metal must have-hit the old fellow, inflicting a serious wound, for he dropped the revolver and clutched at his side.
As he did so he turned his eyes upon me—and the blood seemed to freeze within my veins! Not to my dying day shall I forget the awful power of that look!
But only for a second did this last—for I had already drawn another grenade and was in the act of hurling it. This time the bomb fell directly at the feet of the high priest and burst with deadly force.
Even while the old man's eyes were boring through me with that unearthly fury, Kwo-Sung-tao was blown to fragments!
An instant later the sun vanished, and a ghostly semi-night fell like a thunderbolt!
IT WAS several days later when Dr. Ferdinand Gresham, Ensign Hallock and myself returned to the Mare Island navy yard at San Francisco.
And there, for the first time, we learned that the world remained intact and was out of danger.
When we had ascertained that we three were the only survivors of our expedition, we had started wandering over the mountains through the semi-darkness until we found the destroyer. Unable to navigate the vessel, we had taken the hydroplane, which Hallock knew how to handle, and started south. Engine trouble had prolonged our trip.
Back from the grave, as it seemed, we listened with tremendous elation to the story of the wounded planet's convalescence.
That last terrible upheaval, just before the destruction of the sorcerers' power plant, had seemed for a time to be the actual beginning of the end. But, instead, it had proved to be the climax—after which the earthquakes had begun rapidly to die out. Scientists now declared that before long the earth would regain its normal stability.
With our return, the story of the Seuen-H'sin was given to the public. So universal became the horror with which that sect was regarded that an international expedition proceeded into China and dealt vigorously with the sorcerers.
The tremendous changes that had been wrought in the surface of the planet presently lost their novelty.
And New York and other cities that had been destroyed, or partially so, speedily were rebuilt.
Here I must not omit one other
strange incident connected with these events.
One evening, nearly two years after our encounter with the sorcerers, Dr. Gresham and I were sitting at the window of his New York apartment, idly watching the moon rise above the range of housetops to the east of Central Park.
Suddenly I began to stare at the disk with rapt interest. Clutching the astronomer by the sleeve, I exclaimed excitedly:
"Look there! Odd I never noticed it before! The face of the Man in the Moon is the living image of that Chinese devil, Kwo-Sung-tao!"
"Yes!" agreed Dr. Gresham with a shudder. "And it makes my flesh creep even to look at it!"
THE END