Adrift in the Unknown by William Wallace Cook

Author:William Wallace Cook [Cook, William Wallace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI. THE DILEMMA OF MR. MEIGS.

"My, my!" cried the professor. "What has happened, Mr. Meigs? How is it that we find you in this—er—forlorn condition?"

"I'm a wretched man!" wailed Meigs, grabbing the professor's knees in the stress of his emotion. "You have got to save me, Professor Quinn. It was you who brought me to this awful planet, and if I am slain my blood will be upon your head!"

That was Meigs for you. Even in his dire extremity he did not forget to heap censure upon the head of our great savant.

"You are not going to be slain," said the professor confidently.

"But these creatures are as venomous as centipedes!" murmured Meigs, suffering himself to be lifted erect by the professor. "Horrors! There they come now. Oh, this is too much, too much!"

Meigs got behind the professor. Turning our eyes toward the bend, we saw a detachment of the Baigadd army just hurling itself into sight.

We had made some acquaintance with military affairs in Baigol.

Soldiers, as may be surmised, were armed with zetbais, but word-boxes were kept out of the ranks. Only officers carried talking machines, matters being ordered on the principle that privates were to hear and obey. Each soldier wielded two zetbais—one with each pair of hands—thereby enormously increasing his capacity for destruction.

The fighting force of Baigol, we had been informed, although organized on a smaller scale, was equipped and maneuvred exactly as was the military arm of Baigadd.

The detachment approaching at a double-quick in pursuit of Meigs was, as we afterward found, a company of Gaddbaizets, or royal guards. They numbered fifty, wore yellow kirtles, had the torso gilded, and were commanded by a single officer carrying nothing but a word-box.

The sight of the professor and myself caused the Gaddbaizets to come to an abrupt halt. They had undoubtedly heard of us, but they were far from expecting to encounter us there at that time.

The officer was the first to recover his wits, and approached the place where we were standing, holding his talking machine over his head and punching its keys vigorously. His first words were a command to the soldiers: "Hold your zetbais and make no move against these fierce colossi until you get further orders from me!"

Then, to us:

"Behemoths! Whence come you and why are you protecting the monster in the red kirtle?"

Meigs, it could easily be seen, was not on familiar terms with the word-boxes. So far as he was concerned, the captain's words fell on deaf ears.

"We are from Baigol," said the professor, giving an amiable twist to his words by a deft use of Key 7, "and come on an errand from the king of that country. This gentleman is a friend of ours—"

"A friend!" screeched the captain's machine. "He is a thief and has stolen a hundred djins of kaka from our sovereign storehouse."

I thrilled an amused laugh on the seventh key of my own machine.

"How do you know he is a thief?" I asked. "Did you try the indexograph on him?"

"I'll do the talking, Mr.

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