of their whole enterprise depended upon the next few seconds.
But the Chinamen turned down the steps, and their voices soon died out in the interior of the vessel.
Thus assured of safety again for the moment, Ensigh Hallock ended the career of the Mongolian and dragged the body into the deeper shadows in the stern. Then the two men advanced together to the companionway. Everything appeared quiet below.
Down the stairs they noiselessly crept. At the bottom they could faintly hear voices—seemingly many of them—somewhere forward, or else on the next lower level. But they did not hesitate. The officer indicated the door of a compartment only a dozen feet away. They reached it and got inside.
The room had been converted, during this voyage, into a storeroom. Among its miscellaneous contents was a quantity of tear bombs—grenades that discharge a gas which makes the victim's eyes water until he is temporarily blinded and helpless. To obtain all these missiles they could carry was the work of but a few seconds, after which the Americans dashed for the steps and started to the deck.
Just as they got halfway up, a couple of Chinamen appeared suddenly in the passage below and caught sight of them. The Celestials uttered loud warning cries and darted after the visitors.
Instantly Seaman Burns, who was behind, hurled one of the bombs to the floor at the foot of the ladder—and then another and another.
The sorcerers halted a moment, surprised by the missiles—and before they could resume their rush they were blinded by tears. Screaming in rage and dismay, they retreated down the passage toward the other voices that were beginning to respond to their cries.
With this, Burns ran on up to the deck.
"Stay here and hold this stairway!" ordered Hallock. "I'll go forward to the other ladder! Don't let any of them reach the deck!"
And the officer ran off.
He reached the forward companion-way just as half a dozen of the Chinamen were crowding toward the foot of the stairs. A couple of the bombs hurled among them drove them back. Two more missiles followed; then Hallock slammed the door shut and fastened it.
Running to the rail, he signaled us to advance. In two or three minutes our rowboat was alongside and we were scrambling up the anchor chain.
On the main deck, under the bridge, formerly had been stored a number of rifles, and Hallock now ran to see if these were still there: Luckily the Chinamen had not disturbed them, and the officer soon was back with a loaded weapon for each man.
"The effect of the tear gas must be wearing off below," he announced, "so we can go down now and clean up those devils! But confine all your shooting under decks, where it's not so likely to be heard on shore!"
"And," interposed Dr. Gresham, "don't show a spark of mercy, or we will be certain to pay dearly for it later!"
Leaving six men on deck to keep watch, the rest of us divided and went down fore and aft. The gas still was strong, but no longer overpowering. The Chinese, we found, had groped their way into the engine room. Here we came upon them—forty-eight in all.
Upon the scene of slaughter that followed I will draw the veil. Thus the Seuen-H'sin had slain our comrades—and we knew that, were our positions now reversed, we would meet the same bloody end. Suffice it to say that within fifteen minutes the last of the sorcerers' bodies had been disposed of overboard.
Once more we were masters of the Albatross!
Our first move, we decided, would be to steam down the channel a few miles, where the Mongolians could not immediately get at us. Fortunately, two of the apprentice engineers were among the survivors, and they undertook to handle the machinery.
At the same time, Hallock and most of the crew went to work setting up rapid fire guns in convenient places to repel invasion, and storing ammunition and hand grenades on deck. A couple of the larger guns likewise were unlimbered, ready for action.
By the time these tasks were completed, steam had been gotten up, and the vessel began its retreat down the channel.
Meanwhile, Dr. Gresham and myself hastened to the radio room to summon aid from the Mare Island navy yard at San Francisco.
But barely had the astronomer placed the receivers to his ears and reached forward to adjust the apparatus, before a startling event forestalled his call.
CHAPTER XII
THE VOICE OF SCIENCE
AT THE PRECISE instant when Dr. Gresham seated himself as the radio of the Albatross, the great consolidated News Syndicate, which dealt with newspapers all over the world, was broadcasting a "flash" of terrible import:
An hour ago New York had been wiped out by a stupendous tidal wave!
Details of the disaster still were lacking.
And then, before the astronomer could lift a hand to send his call, some instantaneous and terrific disturbance of the atmosphere blotted out all wireless communication!
What this disturbance might be, or what it might portend, seemed to arouse in my companion the gravest alarm. His face looked ashen as he sat there at the key. Over and over he sought to get Mare Island, but without success: the ether was as unresponsive as if his instruments were dead.
Presently he rose without a word and, motioning me to follow, sought Ensign Hallock on the bridge. Briefly he told the young officer about the destruction of Manhattan, adding:
"Something serious has happened somewhere in the world, since then, completely to disorder the atmosphere. It may be the earth's final struggle for existence. Unless the Seuen-H'sin's power is broken at once, the end is near! It is too late to wait for reinforcements. We must tackle the job ourselves—at any cost! The question is: how are we going to do it?"
Hallock thought a few moments, and then replied:
"We can't bomb the place from an airplane, because we brought no airplane bombs. And we can't shell it with the ship's guns without knowing its exact location. Our planes aren't equipped with range finders, either—so it would do no good to try to locate it from the air.
"That," he added with decision, "leaves us no choice but a direct attack!"
"Well," responded Dr. Gresham, "at any cost, we've got to try!"
At once we consulted the ship's charts—and made a discovery.
Not far below our present location, a tributary fiord entered Dean Channel from the left, and with sudden hope we saw that this waterway twisted back among the mountains for several miles—reaching a point in one of its windings where it was not more than six or seven miles directly south of the region in which the power plant was hidden.
"There's our chance!" Hallock announced. "If the sorcerers have missed the Albatross, they'll think we are on our way out of the country as fast as we can travel. They won't be expecting us to come back so soon—in broad daylight. We can steam up this side channel to the proper spot and then march across the mountains until we find the plant."
