along the shore of a beautiful lake, on the frozen surface of which hundreds of skaters were darting here and there, and passed hillsides on which crowds of young people were coasting in sleds. When they had driven about ten miles in a circuitous route she turned the horses round.
“We had better return,” she said; “you have not seen all of the Park, but we can visit it some other time.”
Outside they found their flying-machine awaiting them, and were soon on the way back to the city. They parted at the fountain in the park, she hastening to the palace, and he turning to stroll through the little wood behind him.
He was passing a thick bunch of trees when he was startled by hearing his name called. He turned round, but at first saw no one.
“Thorndyke!” There it was again, and then he saw a hand beckoning to him from a hedge of ferns at his right. He stepped back a few paces; a man came out of the wood.
It was Johnston, his face was white and haggard, his clothing rent and soiled.
“My God, can it be you?” gasped the Englishman.
“Nobody else,” groaned Johnston, cautiously advancing and laying a trembling hand on the arm of Thorndyke; “but don't talk loud, they will find me.”
“Where did you come from?”
Johnston pointed first to the east, and then swept his hand over the sky to the west.
“Over the wall,” he said despondently. “From the dead lands behind the sun.”
“How did you get back here?”
For reply Johnston parted the fern leaves and pointed to the lank figure of the tall Alphian, who lay curled up on the grass as if asleep. “He brought me in that flying-machine there; but he has spent all his strength in trying to manage the thing, which was out of order, and now he is helpless. Twice we came within an inch of sinking down into the internal fires. The last time we escaped only by the breadth of a hair; if he had not had the endurance of a man of iron he would have succumbed to the heat and we would have been lost. We sank so far down that I became insensible and never knew a thing till the fresh air revived me. See, my beard and hair are singed, and look how he is blistered. Poor fellow! He is a hero.” Johnston stepped back and shook the Alphian, but the poor fellow's head only rolled to one side, showing his bloodshot eyes. He was insensible.
“He is in a bad fix,” said Thorndyke; “where did he come from?”
“Banished like myself; we met over there in the dark and roamed about together.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don't know; I was following his lead. We will both be put to death if we are discovered.”
“Did he not tell you his plan?”
Johnston started visibly. “Oh, I forgot,” he exclaimed. “He declares that all this vast cavern is in danger. Over in the west we discovered a hole in the roof through which the ocean is streaming in a torrent. He calculated that before many hours the water would overflow into the internal fires and produce a volcanic eruption that will swallow up all of Alpha.”
“Merciful Heaven! and you are hiding here at such a moment? The king must be informed at once.”
Johnston had grown suddenly paler. “It may not be as bad as Branasko feared, and the king would have no mercy on me and him.”
“Leave that to me,” said Thorndyke; “I have made a good friend of the Princess Bernardino. She will tell me what is best to do. Remain here.”
In breathless haste, Thorndyke went into the audience chamber. Fortunately the king was not on his throne, and he caught sight of the confidential maid of the princess.
She saw him approaching, and withdrew behind a cluster of tall white jars of porcelain containing rare plants.
“I must see your mistress,” he said; “tell her to come to me at once; we are in great peril!”
The girl swept her eyes over the balconies and the throne and said: “She is in her apartments, sir; I shall bring her.”
“Tell her to meet me at the fountain where we last met,” and he hastened back to the spot mentioned.
She soon came. “What is it?” she asked excitedly.
“Johnston is back,” he replied. “He is in the wood there with a fellow who escaped with him in a disabled flying-machine. He says the sea has broken through over in the west and is streaming into Alpha in a torrent.”
“Surely there is some mistake,” she said; “such a thing has never happened.”
“It may have been caused by the explosives during the storm,” went on Thorndyke. “Branasko, the Alphian who was with Johnston, says we are in imminent peril.”
“There must be some mistake,” she repeated incredulously, as she looked to westward. The green glow of the second hour of the afternoon lay over everything. She stood mute and motionless for a long time, looking steadily at the horizon; then she started suddenly, changed her position, and shaded her eyes from the sunlight.
“It really does seem to me that there is a cloud rising, and it is unlike any cloud I ever saw.”
“I see it too!” cried the Englishman; “it must be that the water has already reached the internal fires.”
Bernardino was very pale when she turned to him.
“My father must know this at once; come with me.”
Into the palace, through the vast rotunda, past the throne, and into the very apartment of the king himself she led him hastily. A royal attendant met them and held up his hands warningly. “The king is asleep,” he said in an undertone.
“Wake him—wake him at once!” commanded the excited girl.
“I cannot, it would offend him,” was the reply.
She did not pause an instant, but darting past the man and running to the king's couch, she drew the curtain aside and touched the sleeper. He waked in anger, but her first word disarmed him.
“Alpha is in danger.”
“What!” he growled, half awake. “The sea is breaking through in the west, and running into the internal fires.”
“How do you know that?”
“A dense cloud is rising in the west, and:——”
“Impossible!” the word came from far down in his throat, and he was ghastly pale. He ran to the table and touched a button and, to the astonishment of Thorndyke, the walls on the western side of the room silently parted, showing a little balcony overlooking the street below. The king went hastily out and looked toward the west. The others followed him. The princess stifled a cry of alarm when she glanced at the sky.
Great black, rolling clouds were rapidly spreading along the horizon.
The
