Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 07.djvu/40

Rh our direction. Our only thought was to escape from this dreadful place. At last I slowed down to take our bearings.

We had left the doomed capital behind the horizon, and only the well-known expanse of land beneath, with a few airplanes sailing about over it, and the cloud-dome above our heads, reminded us that we were still on the planet Venus.

BROUGHT the car to rest and sat down with Jack to consult. We looked at each other for a time in silence. Then we both burst into tears.

When wo recovered ourselves we got out some provisions and set the little table on which Edmund had served our first morning meal after leaving the earth. We were ravenous with hunger, but it was a sad repast.

Henry had to be forced to eat a few mouthfuls, for he was yet out of his head and kept up his strange mutterings. When the meal was finished Jack and I decided upon our course.

"There is no reason for staying here another hour," I said. "We must start at once for the earth."

"But are you sure that you can manage the car in open space?" Jack eagerly inquired.

"Yes; Edmund told me everything that needs to be done," and my eyes filled with tears as I spoke.

"Then let us go," said Jack solemnly.

We rose swiftly through the cloud-dome, and once more the magnificent spectacle of the great white globe was before us. As rapidly as possible I accelerated the speed of the car, and the huge planet seemed to sail away into space.

Once above the atmosphere the heavens turned black and the stars sprang out to view. There was the earth again shining brilliantly, with the moon close at her side, and I set our course for them.

After a while the indicator showed a speed of twenty miles a second.

"I hardly dare to work it up higher," I said, "but since Venus and the earth are now again in conjunction, the distance we have to travel is only about twenty-six million miles, and we can make it in a little over eleven and a half days."

"And the meteors?" suggested Jack.

"We shall have to trust to luck," I replied.

Oh, what a trip that was!

Our hearts were rilled with sadness, for, upon my word, we thought more of Edmund and Ala and Juba than of the home to which we were returning.

Henry added to our trouble, for his mind became every hour more clouded. At length he grew violent in his insanity, and sometimes we were obliged to use force to prevent him from injuring himself.

We had arrived, according to my calculations, within a quarter of a million miles of the earth, and already we could begin to see many of its geographical features, when a crisis arose in Henry's case.

He had been quiet for a long time, and we had ceased to watch him as carefully as we should have done, when, quite unexpectedly, he was seized with a maniacal fit, and before a hand could be laid upon him he had thrown open one of the windows and precipitated himself out of it.

E leaped with such force that he shot several yards away from the car. I realized in a flash that he bad gone to his death, for we could not recover him before his breath would be exhausted. It was necessary instantly to close the window, because the air was rushing out, and in a few seconds It would be all gone, and we could not replace it. The apparatus which Edmund had provided automatically purified the air in the car, and rendered it fit to be breathed over and over again for an indefinite time, but there was no means of making more air.

Already in the few seconds that the window had remained open the larger part of our supply of air had escaped, and the moment we had slammed the window back into its air-tight settings Jack and I gasped and sank almost helpless on the floor.

For several minutes we were unable to rise. At last I struggled to my feet and looked out of the window.

There floated Henry's body, accompanying us in our flight!

"Oh, Jack!" I said faintly. "I cannot bear this!"

"What is it?" he managed to whisper, painfully lifting himself to the window.

The instant he looked out he dropped back to the floor with a groan.

The thought of Henry following us was too horrible to be entertained. Desperately I turned a guiding wheel, and the car moved away on a different course. But with fascinated eyes I continued to watch the body of our friend until, a mere speck, it faded into the blackness of the sky.

Poor Henry! He had chosen a strange tomb, as deep as the heavens and as lasting. I shuddered at the thought that there he would continue to float forever, imperishable in germless space, unless, perhaps, his mother earth should draw him at last to her bosom, when, flashing for an instant with meteoric fire, his ashes would be scattered unperceived through the wide atmosphere.

The desperation of the situation in which I now found myself it is impossible to put into words. Jack, whose stoutness doubtless served to diminish his breathing capacity, continued lying on the floor, gasping and half asphyxiated. I myself was as weak as a child, yet I had to guide the car.

ITHOUT thought of anything but the necessity of reaching the earth, or at least of getting within the limits of the atmosphere, at the earliest possible moment, I recklessly increased the speed. A few minutes' time saved might mean life for Jack. When I spoke to him he could not reply, but I saw that he was still breathing.

How that car did spin!

Before I was aware that we were so near I suddenly perceived a vast dark mass filling all the sky that was visible from the window. The earth! At last we were almost there. We must be at the upper limit of the atmosphere, and I dared not continue this speed any longer.

I slowed down as rapidly as I could, and not a minute too soon, for I could feel heat coming through the walls of the car, and at the same moment the stout glass in one of the windows cracked