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<h2 id="c22">XXII FLIGHT</h2> There must be something in the airship in which he could swathe himself for the trip across the boiling seas. With this in view he made a frantic search of the entire cockpit. Doggo’s rifle and the ammunition were still there, but his own he had left in his room on his hurried departure. Here, too, was the little stone lamp, by the light of which they had watched their instruments beneath the kayack covering. Even some of their provisions were left. Finally he came upon some boxes which he did not recognize. A rank smell became evident upon closer examination. Gingerly he opened one of those boxes. It contained flesh, finely ground and putrid. And in this carrion there wriggled and swarmed scores of small white grubs! The last of Cabot’s doubts vanished. These were the devil-souls which he and Doggo and Quivven had been expected to carry to Cupia, to found there a new empire of Whoomangs. Evidently his hosts had expected some possible trouble from him, and therefore had prepared the plane for a quick get-away by Doggo and Quivven. Indignantly the lonely earth-man emptied out box after box onto the ground, and mashed the contents into the dirt with his sandaled feet. <div class="pb" id="Page_170">170</div> By this time it was nearly pitch dark, but of course, this would make no difference while flying through steam clouds, for visibility under such circumstances would be impossible even in daylight. If he only had some covering for the cockpit to keep out the steam, he could fly just as well at night as by day, except for one danger; how could he be warned of flying too high, passing through the circumambient cloud envelope, and being shriveled to a crisp by the close proximity of the sun. In despair the earth-man sat beside his beached airship, as the velvet blackness crept out of the east and enveloped the planet. So near, and yet so far! He had successfully transmitted himself through millions of miles of space from the earth to Poros. He had escaped the clutches of the Formians and the Roies. He had built a complete radio set out of nothing, and had talked with Cupia across the boiling seas. He had traversed those seas once without accident. He had eluded the machinations of the Whoomangs, with their moth grub “souls”. And yet here he was, with only a few miles of ocean separating him from his loved ones, and, nevertheless, blocked effectually by the lack of a few yards of cloth. What fate! As the last purple flush died on the western horizon, Myles suddenly jumped to his feet, and laughed aloud. The solution was so obvious that it had completely escaped him until now. It was the setting sun that had suggested the escape from his dilemma. There is no sun at night! Of course not! Therefore why not soar straight up, pierce the cloud envelope and fly above it to Cupia, letting the clouds protect him from the heat of the boiling seas, as they normally protect the planet from the light and heat of the sun? At any rate, it was worth trying. To remain where he was would mean either eventual starvation, or recapture by the terrible Whoomangs. <div class="pb" id="Page_171">171</div> So, by the light of his little Vairking stone lamp, he made a hasty lunch from his few remaining provisions, and then took his stand at the levers for a new experiment in Porovian navigation. Up, up, he shot through the dense blackness, up to a height which in earth would have filled his blood with air bubbles, and have suffocated his lungs. But on Poros, with its thicker atmospheric shell and its lesser gravity, the change was not so evident. Far to the eastward he saw the lights of Yat, the city of the beasts; but this was his only landmark. There was nothing but his gyro-compass to tell him exactly which was north, and south, and east, and west; nothing but his clinometer to indicate whether he was going up or down; nothing but his altimeter to indicate his approximate height above the surface of the planet. And these instruments he must read by the flickering light of a primitive open wick stone lamp on the floor of the cockpit. What if this faint illuminator should become extinguished? He certainly could not leave the controls for long enough to use flint and steel to rekindle it. During the early part of his stay in Vairkingi he had always gone to some one of the constantly burning lamps which were the primitive fire source of the furry Vairkings. Later he had found several pieces of flint, when investigating a small chalk deposit as a possible alternative for limestone in his smelting operations. After the manufacture of steel had begun he had practiced striking a light in this more modern method, and thereafter had always carried flint and steel and tinder with him in one of the pouch pockets of his leather tunic. It was with these crude implements that he had kindled his oil lamp for the present flight. But this fire source would avail him little if a gust of wind should extinguish his primitive lamp. In such event, what could he do? This question was immediately put to the test, for his ship struck a small air pocket and dipped. Out went the light! Now he could no longer read his compass nor his altimeter, but—happy thought—he could determine the inclination of the plane from time to time by touching his clinometer. So, on upward he kept. <div class="pb" id="Page_172">172</div> Presently he found it difficult to breath, and this difficulty was soon increased by a damp fog, which choked his nostrils and windpipe, causing him to cough and sneeze. The water condensed on the airship, and dropped off the rigging onto the matted hair and beard of the earth-man. Yet still he kept on up. Finally he breathed clear air once more. He pushed back the dripping locks from his forehead, and wiped out his water-filled eyes with the back of one wrist. All was still jet darkness, yet in front of him and above him there glowed some tiny points of light. Rubbing his eyes, he looked again. Stars! The first stars he had ever seen on Poros—a sky full of stars! With some surprise Myles Cabot noted that above him were swung the same constellations with which he had been familiar on earth, among them the two dippers, Orion and Cassiopea. He strove to recall the inclination of the axis of Venus to the ecliptic, but all that he could remember was that it did not differ appreciably from that of the earth. This information was enough for his present purposes, however, for it meant that the star which we call the pole star on earth was approximately north on Poros, and that its altitude above the northern horizon would give approximately the latitude of the location of the observer. The pole star, which he readily identified by means of the two pointers of the great dipper, now hung about twenty degrees above the horizon, thus showing that Cabot was opposite the southern tip of that part of the continent of Cupia which formerly was Formia; so he leveled out the plane and, turning its nose northwest by the stars, scudded along above the cloud envelope of the planet. <div class="pb" id="Page_173">173</div> It was not long before he noticed a quite appreciable increase of temperature. Gusts and swirls of hot vapor assailed him from below; so that if it had not been for the gyroscopic steadying apparatus, he must surely have foundered. Even as it was, it took all his efforts to control the ship. He suffered fearfully from the heat, but it was not absolutely unbearable. Navigation so compelled his entire attention that he lost all track of time; he struggled on as in a dream, and had not the slightest idea whether he had been flying for hours or only for minutes. On and on he drove through the terrific heat until at last he got so used to it that it actually seemed cooler. By Jove, he could almost believe that the air really was cooler! So cautiously he tipped the nose of the plane downward, and entered the clouds below him. Feeling his way at a low rate of speed, and ever ready to slam on the full force of his trophil engines and shoot upward once more, he gradually penetrated the cloud envelope which surrounds the planet. Yet the heat did not increase. At last he was through. And below him twinkled lights, the lights of a small city or town. Throwing the plane level once more, he hovered down in true Porovian fashion. The light of the town showed closer. Cabot’s heart beat fast, there was a lump in his throat, and his hands trembled at the controls. Was this Cupia, his own kingdom of Cupia at last? Was he home? Or—and his heart sank within him—was this some still new continent, with other nightmare beasts, and horrible adventures? Whichever it was, he ought not to land too near the town. His trophil-motor was making a loud racket, but he was not afraid of being heard, for Cupians have no ears, and their antennae can receive only radio waves. So he skimmed low over the houses, straining his eyes to try and make out their style of architecture. But it was no use; the jet blackness of Porovian night obscured all below. Accordingly he planned to land about half a stad from the village, and then reconnoiter at daybreak. <div class="pb" id="Page_174">174</div> This was to be accomplished as follows. His distance from the ground he could gauge from the lights of the houses. Therefore he would hold his craft as nearly as possible level, and hover softly down, taking a chance of landing on some bush or tree. The plan worked to perfection. After just about the expected drop, he felt the skids grate on solid ground. Land once more, after his sensational flight above the clouds! Exhausted and relaxed, he shut off his motor, and proceeded to crawl over the edge of the cockpit. Of course he could not even see his own machine in the intense darkness. As he started to clamber out the plane suddenly tilted a bit under his weight, then gave a lurch, and slid out from under him, dislodging him as it did so. He struck the ground, but it crumbled beneath him, and he felt himself slipping and sliding down a steep gravel bank until finally some sort of a projection stopped his descent. To this projection he frantically clung. During his slide he had heard the loud splash of the airplane below him, so he knew that there was water there. As he hung to the projection on the side of the steep sand bank, he looked about him in the jet black night; and, as he looked, he noticed the edge of the bank above him, just showing against the sky. The edge became more and more distinct. The sky above turned to slate, then purple, then red, then pink, then silver. Day had come once more. Cabot found himself clinging to a sharp spur of rock which stuck out from the bank. So he hauled himself into a comfortable position upon it and stared around at his surroundings. His location was halfway down the precipitous side of a craterlike hole about a quarter of a stad in diameter and three parastads deep, the banks of which were of coarse black sand. At the bottom a clear pool of water reflected the silver sky. There was no sign of either his rifle, his cartridge belt, or his plane. He possessed nothing save his leather tunic, his wooden Vairking sword, a steel sheath knife which he had made in his foundries at Vairkingi, and the contents of his pockets. <div class="pb" id="Page_175">175</div> Even his leather helmet was gone. He espied it, floating like a little boat, far out upon the pond; but even as he looked, some denizen of the deep snapped at it, and it disappeared beneath the surface. This was a forewarning of what might happen to Myles if he should have the misfortune to slip into the pool below. Well, he must risk it in an attempt to get out, for even a sudden death beneath the waters was preferable to starvation on a rocky perch. So, carefully and laboriously, he attempted the ascent. Many times he slipped back, losing nearly all that he had gained; but fortunately the bank was rather firm in spots and was dotted with large jagged rocks which afforded a good handhold, so that eventually Myles reached the top. Here he found a flat plateau, flanked by a continuous hedge of bushes about thirty paces from the edge. These bushes were too high to see over, and grew so thickly together that Myles was unable to penetrate them. Round and round the top of the pit he walked, repeatedly trying to force his way out, but with no success. The day wore on. Myles became tired, and hungry, and thirsty, and disgusted. By placing a small pebble in his mouth, he relieved the thirst for awhile, but this had no effect on his other symptoms. Finally even his thirst returned. The thirst was aggravated by the presence, almost at his feet, of the clear pool of water within the pit. He almost decided to slide down and try it, until he remembered what had happened to his leather hat. So instead he began systematically to hack at the bushes with his knife and tear them up by the roots at one given spot. At the end of an hour he had progressed only about a yard, so he gave this up, too. He sat down, wrapped his arms around his knees, gazed at the silver sky, and thought of nothing for a while. <div class="pb" id="Page_176">176</div> Then he thought of Lilla and the Baby Kew. Here he was, presumably in Cupia, perhaps within a few stads of them; and yet what good did it do him? It seemed to him as though the nearer he got to his loved ones, the more effectually he was separated from them. On the Farley farm, in Edgartown, Massachusetts, when he had received the S O S message from the skies, it had appeared but a simple matter to step within the coordinate axes of his matter-transmitting apparatus, and throw a lever, in order to materialize on Poros. In Vairkingi there had been the more difficult task of securing an ant plane, before essaying to cross the boiling seas. In the land of the Whoomangs, he had been confronted with the almost insuperable lack of swathing materials for such a flight. And now, in Cupia at last, he was hemmed in by an impenetrable wall of trees. Yet, he reflected, he had surmounted in turn each of these successively more difficult difficulties; so why not this? With renewed determination he arose, and resumed his grubbing operations. Another hour passed and another yard of path had been completed. This was encouraging, and yet he had no means of knowing how much farther there still remained for him to go. As he paused for breath, he heard a crashing noise almost directly across the pit. Concealing himself as well as he could in the recess which he had formed in the bushes, he watched expectantly. Presently the thick growth on the other side parted neatly, and the sharp edge of a wedge appeared. This wedge continued to divide the bushes until finally it came completely through. All curiosity to see what was pushing the wedge, Myles craned forward, but there was nothing behind it; it had been pushing itself. As the bushes slowly closed together again, the wedge stood up on six sturdy legs and trotted around the top of the pit, until it came to a stop directly opposite the hiding place of the earth-man. This gave him a good opportunity to observe it. <div class="pb" id="Page_177">177</div> Apparently it was some sort of insect. Its head came to a sharp cutting edge in the front about five feet high; and lateral projections extended diagonally backward from the edge, like the wings on a snow-plow, to a point well beyond the rear end of the animal. These two sides were covered with stiff backward-pointing bristles, which evidently served to catch on the bushes through which the creature passed, and thus to hold whatever gains it made. Its eyes, like those of a crab, were located on long jointed arms, which it could raise whenever it wanted to look around. The lower edge of the sides of the wedge were serrated, and Myles soon learned what this was for. After wiggling its eyes about for a while, the creature walked to the edge of the bank, thus giving the watcher a good view of the body and legs within the projecting wedge, and slid off into the pit, where a splashing sound indicated that it was probably drinking. Soon it reappeared over the top of the pit. Evidently the saw teeth on its sides were to hold its progress up the face of the sand bank in much the same way as its spines held its progress through the bushes. The wedge insect, upon topping the bank, made a beeline for the edge of the clearing, thrust its nose between two saplings, furled its eyes, braced it feet against the ground, and started forcing its way through. Quick as a flash, Myles Cabot darted from his hiding place and followed. The creature, rolling its eyes to the rear, saw him and tried to back out; for what purpose he could not tell, but probably either to attack him or at least to prevent him from attacking its vulnerable body. But it was already in too far, and its spines held it securely. It tried to kick at him, whereat he followed not quite so close. Then it stubbornly stopped moving, pulled in its eyes and its legs and lay down within its projecting head-piece, whereat he gave it a prick in the tail with his Vairking sword. The effect was immediate and sudden. The creature leaped to its feet and tore its way through the trees like a cyclone, plunging high in air like a frantic horse. This left such an erratic and only partially spread path that the earth-man had difficulty in following, and soon fell far behind. <div class="pb" id="Page_178">178</div> But just as he was about to despair, the branches which he parted ahead of him revealed a meadow of silver-green sward. He had reached the end of the wood. Beyond the field was a grove of gray-branched lichen trees, through which he could see the steep red-tiled roofs of a village. Just short of the grove there grazed a herd of those pale-green aphids, the size of sheep, which the Cupians call “anks,” and which Myles was wont to call “green cows.” Close by his right hand was a large shrub with heart-shaped leaves, unmistakably a tartan bush. Steep red roofs, gray lichen trees, anks and tartans! This must be Cupia! He was home! Myles quoted aloud: <div class="verse"> “Breathes there a man with soul so dead Who never to himself has said ‘This is my own, my native land’?” </div> Cupia might not be his native land, but it was his own, the land of his wife and child, the land of which his son was rightful king, the land whose armies he had twice led to victory. And now he had returned to lead them yet again. Drawing a deep breath of Cupian air into his lungs, Myles raced across the meadow to the shelter of the grove of trees. From that point of vantage he inspected the village. The architecture was undoubtedly Cupian. In fact, its character was so clear he was even able to judge by it just what part of Cupia he was in, for this architecture was typical of the southeastern foothills of the Okarze Mountains, a thousand stads or so north of Kuana, the capital city. These foothills held, among other spots of interest, Lake Luno, on an island of which he and Lilla had built their country home. And the inhabitants of these mountains had always been intensely loyal to the earth-man, his golden-haired wife, and royal son. <div class="pb" id="Page_179">179</div> On the outskirts of the village Cabot could see figures moving—figures in white togas with colored edges, figures with tiny vestigial wings projecting from their backs, figures with butterflylike antennae rising from their foreheads. These were Cupians, his own adopted countrymen. Yet they never would recognize him in his present condition, with shaggy hair, massive beard, and leather tunic, and without the artificial wings and antennae which he had been accustomed to wear among them. Therefore he could not yet reveal himself. He must first restore his appearance to normal and also find and put on one of the small portable radio sets which he had contrived years ago in his laboratories of Mooni, in order to talk with these folk who have neither ears nor voice. So, turning his back on the alluring village, he made a meal of the green milk of the grazing anks, and then set out to circle the settlement and find a road. When he did reach the road he recognized it. And now he knew exactly what village that was. For the moment he could not recall its name; but he knew it to be a little town which he and Lilla had often visited, scarcely twenty stads from Luno Castle. As he strode on toward Luno Castle, his thoughts raced ahead of him, sometimes picturing a happy homecoming with Lilla and Baby Kew standing in the great arched doorway to greet him, and sometimes desolation and destruction with Prince Yuri, the murderer of the baby king, and the kidnaper of Princess Lilla. What would Myles Cabot find on the beautiful island in Lake Luno? <div class="pb" id="Page_180">180</div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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