After a time--I have no idea how long--we pa.s.sed through the storm and came again into the open air with the same gray sky above us.

We were several thousand feet up now, flying over what seemed to be a tumbling ma.s.s of small volcanic craters. In front of us rose a sheer cliff wall, extending to the right and left to the horizon. We pa.s.sed over its rim, and I saw that it curved slightly inward, forming the circ.u.mference of a huge circle.

The inner floor was hardly more than a thousand feet down, and seemed fairly level. We continued on, arriving finally over the mouth of a little circular pit. This formed an inner valley, half a mile across and with sheer side walls some five hundred feet high. As we swung down into it I noticed above the horizon behind us a number of tiny black dots in the sky--other girls flying out from the city to our meeting.

I have never beheld so wild, so completely desolate a scene. The ground here was that same shining ma.s.s of virgin metal, tumbled about and broken up in hopeless confusion.

Great rugged bowlders lay strewn about; tiny caverns yawned; fissures opened up their unknown depths; sharp-pointed crags reared their heads like spires left standing amid the ruins of some huge cathedral. There was, indeed, hardly a level spot of ground in sight.

I wondered with vague alarm where we should land, for nowhere could I see sufficient s.p.a.ce, even for our small platform. We were following closely the line of cliff wall when suddenly we swooped sharply downward and to the right with incredible speed. My heart leaped when, for an instant, I thought something had gone wrong. Then the forward end of the platform tilted abruptly upward; there was a sudden, momentary fluttering of wings, a scrambling as the girls' feet touched the ground, and we settled back and came to rest with hardly more than a slight jar.

Miela stood up, rubbing her arms, which must have ached from her efforts.

"We are here, Alan--safely, as we planned."

We had landed on a little rocky niche that seemed to be in front of the opening of a small cave mouth in the precipitous cliffside. I stood up unsteadily, for I was cramped and stiff, and the solid earth seemed swaying beneath me. I was standing on what was hardly more that a narrow shelf, not over fifteen feet wide and some thirty feet above the base of the cliff.

Mercer was beside me, looking about him with obvious awe.

"What a place!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

We stepped cautiously to the brink of the ledge and peered over.

Underneath us, with the vertical wall of the cliff running directly down into it, spread a small pool of some heavy, viscous fluid, inky black, and with iridescent colors floating upon its surface. It bubbled and boiled lazily, and we could feel its heat on our faces plainly.

Beyond the pool, not more than a hundred yards across, lay a ma.s.s of ragged bowlders piled together in inextricable confusion; beyond these a chasm with steam rising from it, whose bottom I could not see--a crack as though the ground had suddenly cooled and split apart. Across the entire surface of this little cliff-bound circular valley it was the same, as though here a tortured nature had undergone some terrible agony in the birth of this world.

The scene, which indeed had something infernal about it, would have been extraordinary enough by itself; but what made it even more so was the fact that several hundred girls were perched among these crags, sitting idle, or standing up and flapping their wings like giant birds, and more were momentarily swooping in from above. I had, for an instant, the feeling that I was Dante, surveying the lower regions, and that here was a host of angels from heaven invading them.

During the next hour fully a thousand girls arrived. There were perhaps fifteen hundred altogether, and only a few stragglers were hastily flying in when we decided to wait no longer.

Miela flew out around the little valley, calling them to come closer. They came flying toward us and crowded upon the nearer crags just beyond the pool, clutching the precipitous sides, and scrambling for a foothold wherever they could. A hundred or more found place on the ledge with us, or above or below it wherever a slight footing could be found on the wall of the cliff.

When they were all settled, and the scrambling and flapping of wings had ceased, Miela stood up and addressed them. A solemn, almost sinister hush lay over the valley, and her voice carried far. She spoke hardly above the ordinary tone, earnestly, and occasionally with considerable emphasis, as though to drive home some important point.

For nearly half an hour she spoke without a break, then she called me to her side and put one of her wings caressingly about my shoulders. I did not know what she said, but a great wave of handclapping and flapping of wings answered her. She turned to me with glowing face.

"I have told them about your wonderful earth, and Tao's evil plans; and just now I said that you were my husband--and I, a wife, can still fly as well as they. That is a very wonderful thing, Alan. No woman ever, in this world, has been so blessed as I. They realize that--and they respect me and love you for it."

She did not wait for me to speak, but again addressed the a.s.sembled girls.

When she paused a chorus of shouts answered her. Many of the girls in their enthusiasm lost their uncertain footholds and fluttered about, seeking others. For a moment there was confusion.

"I have told them briefly what we are to do," Miela explained. "First, to rid the Great City of Tao's men, sending them back to the Twilight Country; and do this in all our other cities where they are making trouble. Then, when our nation is free from this danger, we will plan how to deal with Tao direct, for he must not again go to your earth.

"And when all that is done I have said you will do your best to make our men believe as you do, so that never again will our women marry only to lose all that makes their virginity so glorious."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FIRE PLANET.

I think I should explain now a little about the physical conformation of Mercury--the "lay of the land," so to speak--in order that the events I am about to describe may be more readily understood. It has already been made clear by Bob Trevor, I believe, that Mercury revolves on its axis only once during the time of its revolution around the sun. Thus, just as a similar condition always makes our moon present very nearly the same face to us, so Mercury presents always the same portion of its surface to the sun.

It will be understood, therefore, that, theoretically, there must be on Mercury but one spot where the sun always is directly overhead. It could not be seen, however, owing to the dense clouds. This spot approximates the center of the region known as the Fire Country.

So far as I could learn, it was here that human life on the planet began.

Certainly it was the first region where civilization reached any height.

When Columbus was discovering America great cities flourished in the Fire Country--cities of untold wealth and beauty, now fallen into ruins like the great cities of our own Aztec and Inca civilizations.

The Fire Country was then like the equatorial regions of earth--a dense, tropic jungle, hotter than most temperatures we have to bear, but still, by reason of its thick enveloping atmosphere of clouds, capable of supporting life in comparative comfort. Its inhabitants were dark-skinned, but rather more like our Indians than Negroid races.

Then, several centuries ago--the exact time is uncertain, for no written records are kept on Mercury--came the Great Storms. Their cause was unknown--some widespread atmospheric disturbance. These storms temporarily parted the clouds in many places, allowing the direct rays of the sun to fall upon the planet's surface. The resulting temperature destroyed all life, withered all vegetation, with its scorching blast. The inhabitants of the Fire Country were killed by hundreds of thousands, their cities deserted, their land laid a desert waste.

These storms, which it appears began suddenly, have returned periodically ever since, making the region practically uninhabitable. Its surviving races, pushed outward toward the more temperate zone, were living, at this time I am describing, in a much lower state of civilization than the people of the Light Country--a civilization of comparative savagery. In the Light Country they were held as slaves.

This region--thus very aptly known as the Fire Country--embraces a circular area directly underneath the sun. So far as I could learn, it extended outward roughly to those points where--if it had been visible--the sun would have appeared some halfway between zenith and horizon.

Lying outside the circle, in a larger, concentric ring, is the zone known as the Light Country. Entirely free from the equatorial storms, no direct rays of sunlight have ever penetrated its protecting cloud blanket. Here exists the highest state of civilization on the planet.

Beyond the Light Country, in another concentric ring, lies the Twilight Country. It forms a belt about the planet, beginning roughly at those points at which the sun would appear only a short distance above the horizon, and extending back to where the sun would be below the horizon.

In this region, as its name implies, there is never more than twilight. It is lightest at the borders of the Light Country, and fades into night at its other side.

Still farther, beyond the twilight zone, lies the region of perpetual night and cold--the Dark Country. This area embraces the rest of the planet, comprising something less than half of its entire surface. Here is eternal night--a night of Stygian darkness, unlighted even by the stars, since the same atmosphere makes them invisible.

The Dark Country, so far as it has been explored--which is very little--is a rocky waste and a sea of solid ice that never melts. Near the borders of the Twilight Country a few people like our Eskimos exist--savages with huge white faces, and great, staring eyes. There are a few fur-bearing animals and birds, but except for this fringe of life the Dark Country is thought to be uninhabited, its terrible cold making life in any form impossible.

So much, in general, for the main geographical features of Mercury. The Great City stands about halfway between the borders of the Fire Country and the edge of the twilight zone. This level marshland, the barren, metallic mountains, and a sort of semitropic jungle, partly inundated by water, comprise nearly all the area of the Light Country.

From the Great City, through the watery jungle, extends a system of little winding bayous--a perfect maze of them, with hundreds of intercommunicating branches--which it would be almost impossible to traverse without losing all sense of direction.

Beyond these bayous, into which their sluggish currents flow, lies the Narrow Sea. On its farther sh.o.r.e begins the Twilight Country, much of it a barren, semifrigid waste, with a little level, tillable land, vast rocky mountain ranges, and a few forests.

In spite of its inhospitable character the Twilight Country is fairly densely populated; and, I realized when I got into it, civilized life is exceedingly difficult to maintain there. I understood then why the Twilight People were so envious of land in the Light Country; and, in truth, I could not blame them for that, or for looking toward our earth with longing.

But just as the Light Country People had defended their borders with implacable determination, so was I determined that they should not invade my world, either. And I was ready to stake my life and even the lives of those I loved here on Mercury in the attempt to prevent them.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FIGHT AT THE BAYOU.

Miela proceeded to explain our plan in detail to these fifteen hundred enthusiastic allies. It was my idea to build several platforms similar to this one on which Mercer and I had been carried up here into the mountains, only somewhat larger. We then proposed to seize these emissaries of Tao--there were not more than eight or ten of them altogether in the Great City--capturing them at night, without alarm, if possible, and transporting them summarily into the Twilight Country. My theory was that if they were to disappear thus mysteriously the people of the Great City would have no particular cause to make trouble afterward, and we hoped that the affair would soon be forgotten.

Miela thought it practical for us to carry them in this way across the Narrow Sea. The Lone City, from which Tao was operating, was located near the edge of the sea, and if we gave them food they would be enabled to reach it in safety in a day or two. The girls agreed enthusiastically with this plan, and we selected a number to carry it out.