Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 10.djvu/69

Rh with his army all the apes will be gone. There will be no trace of the people of the city, nor of the Princess. They will have been carried in those submarines nobody knows where. I have to find out where. That will be dangerous, and there will be fighting. That is a young man's job. Shall we say, 'Good-bye?

"Good-bye, then."

They shook hands. Professor Winterton's grey-haired figure disappeared into the darkness, carried in one of the coils of the snake.

Don looked at his deathray box. It was quite out of action, making no response to his turning of handles and pressing of knobs. Perhaps it might be repaired later. He slung it over his back by the strap and drew his broad, curved sword.

At the word of command the zekolo carried him toward the city.

SHRILL whistle was sounding, and all the ape-men seemed to be gathering in an open space where half a dozen Martians were giving them orders. Don reached the city unnoticed, and was soon hurrying through the streets. There were many bodies lying on sidewalk and roadway, testifying to the murderous violence of the apemen's assault.

He heard voices, and hid in a doorway. A crowd of inhabitants of the city was being driven through the streets by ape-men with metal clubs and ray boxes. The wrists of the captives were chained together.

When they had passed, Don made the zekolo carry him to the roof of one of the buildings to see where they were going. The zekolo climbed the wall without difficulty. Don looked across the city to see the captives being marched into the hatchway of one of the submarines in the harbor.

He heard voices calling. Several Martian girls were looking out of a window across the street and were calling to him for help.

In a few seconds the zekolo was down from the roof and across the street. Elongating two of its arms, it reached up to the window, gripped the sill with its pincers, then rapidly hauled up itself and Don.

Don found himself looking into a room where were many Martians of both sexes and all ages. All had their wrists chained together.

"What happened?" Don asked, as he and the zekolo came through the window.

"It was the big submarine," a Martian told him. "It bobbed up in the harbor, and from it came a new sort of ray, a threadlike burning ray that instantly destroyed all the defenses and important points of the city. Then came the rush of the ape-men out of all the unexplored caverns round us. When we tried to use our deathrays every one of them had mysteriously gone out of action. We were helpless.

"The apes carried deathrays with which they killed our snakes and zekolos. Everybody who tried to resist was killed. Those of us who gave in were chained and locked up, as we are. We have seen many batches like ourselves being marched away, and we are waiting for our turn."

"Oh, where are they taking us?" a Martian girl asked.

"There are batches of people being marched aboard the submarine," Don said.

"Submarine?" the big Martian repeated. "That might be taking us anywhere in Mars. But why do they use submarines? It must be some very secret place that we are going to, perhaps to somewhere that cannot be reached by any other means."