Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 07.djvu/25

600 I am in hopes that Ingra has not seen us, and does not know that we have kept within eyesight. You remember that the car has no window in the rear—a mistake of construction which until now I have regretted. It has not swerved from its course since starting, and I have been careful to keep directly behind it.

"Consequently, there is every reason to think that Ingra, trusting to the speed of the car, has not even taken the trouble to look behind. Besides, we have kept comparatively close to the ground, where it is not easy to see us from a distance, and the moment I perceive the car beginning to descend I shall run down to the very tree-tops in order to be the better concealed."

Our hopes now rose high. We had demonstrated an ability to keep the car in view, though, to be sure, it had become little more than a dark speck in the sky, and its steady motion relieved our anxiety concerning a possible disaster from Ingra's inability to manage it.

Several hours passed, and once more we had left the inhabited lands behind and were passing over the border of the wilderness, where the luxuriance of the vegetation surpassed that of the Amazonian forests of the wilds of Borneo.

Suddenly, Edmund uttered an exclamation.

"Great Heavens!" he cried, "Look! Something is wrong. It is all to end in disaster at last!"

ACK and I, startled by Edmund's agitation, glanced at the distant car. It was falling from the sky!

It shot hither and thither, sweeping in long descending curves, and darting to one side and another, like a collapsed balloon.

"What can have happened?" I exclaimed. "Good Heavens! If Juba should be flung off now, our only ally would he lost."

"No; we have another," said Edmund quietly, all his self-mastery asserting itself—"Ala, herself."

"Look," he continued, a moment afterward, "the car rights itself. It will come down all right."

It was so. The eccentric movements ceased, and we saw the car descending rapidly, but with a steady motion which indicated that it was again under control. During the ten minutes that the wild tumble lasted, it had fallen within half a mile of the ground, and now it wa3 gliding swiftly away from us, over the top of the great forest.

Edmund strove to increase our speed, making the silent engineer and his men aid him with their utmost exertions. Glancing behind, I now noticed, for the first time, that several airplanes were pursuing us; but they were far behind.

They had probably started in pursuit as soon as possible after our chase began, but we had been so absorbed in watching the car that we had not even thought of looking behind. We had trusted entirely to ourselves, but now I felt a satisfaction in knowing that we should have assistance in an emergency.

I called Edmund's attention to our pursuers, but he gave no heed. His whole mind and soul were fixed upon the car. In a little while it had descended so low that it became necessary for us to rise, in order to keep it in view.

Nevertheless, as Edmund had foreseen, our course, lying so near the ground, had given us a certain advantage, and we had drawn preceptibly nearer while running for the point toward which the car was descending. Still, it now became very difficult to keep the object of our pursuit in view.

At times we lost sight of it entirely against the dark background of foliage. But an occasional gleam from the polished sides of the car enabled us to retain a general notion of its location.

T last it dropped into the great sea of vegetation, and was completely lost. At this time we were apparently, about three miles behind it. "Keep your eyes fixed on the point where it disappeared," said Edmund. "Don't let your sight waver. I shall make straight for the place."

Fortune favored us, for at the spot where the car had sunk from sight a group of enormous trees lifted their mighty tops high above the general surface of the forest, and this landmark was invaluable to us.

When we had run within an eighth of a mile of these trees, Edmund at last slowed up, and got the airplane under perfect control.

We crept silently above the tree-tops, every eye fixed upon the spot where we expected at any moment to see the car.

Suddenly a forest glade appeared, shadowed by the very trees that had served as our guides, and there was the car resting upon the ground! The door was toward us, and open.

In it stood Ala, looking with a horrified countenance upon a spectacle that might well have frozen her blood.

Ingra and Juba were engaged in a terrific battle. At one moment they rolled upon the ground, locked together, looking like a man and a wild beast at death-grips.

Each was fiercely exerting his utmost strength. Now one, now the other, was on top.

Each endeavoring to throttle the other, they revolved so rapidly that the eye could hardly follow the successive phases of the struggle.

Suddenly they rolled against a rock, and the shock releasing their hold, both leaped to their feet. But neither flinched, nor gave back.

They sprang together again with demoniac fury, Juba's huge eyes blazing out of the wild tangle of his hair, while his huge, shaggy arms resembled those of a bear rushing madly to the death-hug.

But Ingra was a foe worthy to encounter so formidable an antagonist. With amazing strength and agility, he hurled his assailant backward, and then, to my horror, I saw that he had his long knife in his hand, while Juba had no weapon.

OWERING his form as he sped to the onset, and with a wicked lunge, Ingra darted upon his foe. For an instant I thought that the blade had reached the vitals of his antagonist, for Juba staggered backward, but a second later Ingra shot away as if the walking-beam of an en-