Chapter II: Part 2

I turned away, reluctantly enough, and followed Lantin into the car. Crouched on the padded floor, in a half-sitting, half-lying position, he was already giving the car's machinery a last inspection, and at his command I clanged shut the round metal door that sealed the entrance. I then took up a position on the floor beside him.

His hands were moving over the gleaming controlling switches, searching, pulling, twisting. Abruptly something clicked under his fingers and the car rose smoothly in the air some fifty feet above the roof and hung motionless. There was a curious little humming now, that seemed to come from the floor beneath us, caused, as I knew, by the invisible streams of electronic force that lifted and held us.

Under the pressure of a little wind, the car drifted a short distance sidewise, and now hung directly over the streets. I glanced down through the dead-light in the floor of the car, and saw that from the height we had already attained, autos and pedestrians were but tiny specks moving in the blurred glare of the street-lights.

Without turning, Lantin spoke. "We'd better try the power of the time-wave," he said, "before going any distance in space."

I nodded, and again his hands moved over the car's intricate controls. He turned a large knob, and a rising, purring whine filled the car, while outside there was a growing roar of sudden wind. At the same time there came to me a staggering sensation of falling, and for a moment I seemed to be plunging helplessly down into unfathomable abysses. It lasted but an instant, and when my mind cleared, I heard the winds outside the car shouting with higher and higher intensity, caused, as I knew, by our swift passage through time.

I looked down into the streets below, and for a second could see no obvious changes, then noted that the autos and people seemed to have suddenly vanished. In place of them were misty blurs of undefined motion, and even these vanished as our progress on through time grew greater. The winking electric signs of the city had ceased to flash on and off, and appeared to be steadily illuminated.

I looked up, through one of the glasses in the car's top surface, and then gasped, prepared as I was for what I saw. The whole firmament was moving, its starry hosts moving slowly but visibly toward the west. Steadily it turned, and in hardly more than a minute a gray light began to grow over the eastern horizon, flushing swiftly to rose. Then, from the center of the growing light, sprang up the sun, crimson and mighty, leaping up above the horizon in a single bound, it seemed, and moving swiftly, ever more swiftly, up toward the zenith.

The winds had steadily risen to a cyclonic gale, and now I heard Lantin's voice, striving to make itself heard above them.

"We're going through time all right," he shouted, his voice thin and piping in sound, above the roar of the gale. "We may as well head west now, too."

I did not answer, but saw the buildings and streets below slide away to the east, as the car moved off in the opposite direction. By now the sun had traversed its whole circuit in the sky and was tumbling down behind the western heights. Before we had crossed above the Hudson, darkness had plunged down upon us, and as we rocketed over the Jersey meadows, I saw the stars again wheeling across the sky, but much faster than before. Our time-speed was steadily accelerating, now, as Lantin turned on more and more of the time-wave's power, and I knew that shortly we would be racing through the years with lightning speed.

Again the cycle of darkness and dawn was repeated, with the sun hurtling across the sky faster and faster, while the winds of our double progress through time and space were deafening. Day and night followed each other so rapidly that I could obtain but vague glimpses of the ground below us. We were progressing through space at the rate of a hundred and fifty miles an hour, holding an even altitude of a mile above the earth's surface.

Soon day and night had merged, had given way to a perpetual greenish dusk through which we raced with nightmare speed. I glanced at the dials that recorded our progress and position in time, and noted that already we had gone ahead almost four months into the future, while our progress was now doubling every few minutes. Passing over northern Pennsylvania, I saw the ground below turning to a blotched, patchy gray, the composite impression of weeks of snow and ice, below. The gray soon faded, changed to green, with the coming of spring. The cycle of green and white was repeated, again and again, until we were speeding through the years too swiftly to see it, and white and green had merged into a drab color that hung over all the landscape below.

By the time we passed over western Ohio, our car was racing into the future with a speed of nearly ten years a minute. At this speed, we saw little of human activities below. There were blurred, vague outlines of cities now and then, but these were only hazy, indefinite masses that passed from view as we fled on westward in the car.

Soon, though, Lantin slowed the car's progress through space and began to give close attention to the physical features of the country below us. He consulted maps constantly, now, and finally, after a number of stops and starts, brought the car to rest, in space, above the juncture of two small rivers. Hanging there, we still sped on through time, and above the winds Lantin shouted, "Stop there," pointing to the maps he held and then down toward the ground below. I understood his meaning, and knew that he had reached the spot in Illinois which he had calculated to be the Raider's home.

Intently we scanned the ground beneath the car. Gray and splotchy as it appeared, from alternate summer and winter, yet there were nowhere any buildings or signs of life, nothing but the two little rivers and the rolling fields that extended away to the horizon.

A glance at the dials told me that we had progressed through time some twelve thousand years, since our start. I heard Lantin utter a low exclamation, and looked up to see him gazing intently toward the north, through one of the side windows. Moving over beside him, I looked also, and saw, away on the distant northern horizon, a speck of gleaming white. We were still racing on through time, and as we watched, that white spot spread, expanded, grew to a thick line of dazzling white that lay across all the north horizon.

The white expanse grew still, coming nearer and nearer toward us, rolling slowly south and covering all the country it passed over with a blanket of whiteness. It came nearer toward us, moving with very slow speed, considering the rapidity of our progress in time. Now, above the shrill winds around us, there came the dull, grinding roar of the white blanket's passage. South rolled the gleaming sheet, until it had almost reached the ground directly beneath the car. I recognized, now, the material of that gleaming expanse.

"Ice!" I shouted in Lantin's ear, and he started, glanced down toward it, then nodded. A moment he studied the grinding wave below, then leaned over and shouted a single word in my ear:

"Glacier!"

The word was like a blinding flood of light on my thoughts. A glacier! And that was the meaning of this white tide from the north, this vast, resistless flood of ice that was rolling south over the world as it had rolled ages before. The mightiest force on earth, and the slowest, moving with deliberate, unswerving steadiness, calm and majestic, carving mountains and valleys, changing the very face of the earth. It had swept down over the earth before, had forced primeval man down to the very equator before it receded, and now the thing was re-enacting itself before my eyes. Fascinated, I watched the white masses forging south.

* * * * *

While we hung high above it, the gleaming, solid flood rolled on until it had obscured the last speck of land on the southern horizon, so that as far as we could see stretched nothing but the glistening fields of ice. The air in the car had become suddenly bitter cold, and as frost and rime began to congeal on the windows, I hastened over to the heating apparatus and switched it on. The glasses cleared soon, and we sped on into the future, but the white expanse below us seemed changeless.

I plucked at Lantin's sleeve, and when he turned, shouted to him, "Go back?", pointing to the gleaming frozen masses below.

"No!" he yelled, over the roar of the gale; "I'm going to circle a bit."

With the words, he snapped off the time-wave, and we came to a rest, in time. The dials now registered a little over fifteen thousand years, and with our stopping, the winds outside the car died away and we had a chance to converse in normal tones.

"Nothing but ice here," said Lantin, "and we can't tell how long it will last. I think the best plan would be to sweep around in a great circle, and look for any signs of the Raider's presence. If we see nothing we can go on into time and stop every few hundred years to circle again."

I agreed, and we put the idea into effect at once, rising to a height of nearly two miles and then racing away to the west in a curving course that would eventually bring us back to our starting point. As we sped on, both Lantin and myself were at the observation windows, scanning the landscape in every direction, but only boundless fields of ice met our eyes.

We reached a point some two hundred miles north of our starting position, and had begun to curve back toward that position, when Lantin uttered a sudden exclamation and hastily stopped the car's progress.

"Look!" he cried, excitedly, pointing away to the north.

At first I could see only the glaring ice, when I gazed in that direction, but gradually my eyes made out a distant spot of black against the horizon. Before I could comment on it, Lantin headed the car around and opened up on the power so that we shot north toward that distant spot with full speed.

On we went, until the spot had changed to a thick line, and its color from black to green. And as we neared it, we saw that there the ice ended, and beyond it were green fields and hills and valleys, with patches of gnarled, stunted trees here and there.

On we fled, still north, until the ice-fields had faded from view behind us, and the chilling cold we had felt above them had given way to a summer warmth. And the first dwarfed trees had changed to towering giants of the forest, though mostly the country below us was open fields and ranges of green-clad hills.

"I can't understand it," I told Lantin. "Who ever heard of a warm, semi-tropical country like this existing farther north than fields of glacial ice?"

"It is strange," he admitted, "but it's understandable, at that. You remember the explorer who found that warm, sunken valley in Alaska, somewhere? It was heated by steam, literally, for the interior fires of the earth had in some way bulged up near the surface of the ground, there, and their heat acting on the valley's springs and rivers made it a great steam-heated depression of almost tropical warmth. Probably the same thing has happened here, a shift of the earth's interior forcing up part of its inner molten core, the heat of which would counteract the glacier and keep it from covering this section of the country. Strange things happen under the earth's surface, Wheeler."

"You may be right," I said, "but there's no life here, Lantin. No--" I broke off, suddenly, staring out of the car's western windows. The western sky was glowing, for it was near to sunset, and there, far away, standing out black against the brilliant sky, was a city.

It was a city of enchantment, seen from our car. The jagged, serrated outline of its buildings loomed blackly against the glowing light, like the skyline of New York at the same hour. The buildings were all square and solid in appearance, and at the center of them there rose one building that towered far above the others, to a mighty height, its straight, perpendicular sides and flat roof standing up above the others, frowningly, brutally dominating them.

There was a gasp at my side, and I turned to see that Lantin was also gazing at the outline of the distant city. He had brought the car to rest, and together we looked away toward that metropolis of the future.

"We must go there," I said rapidly. "Spy out the place from a distance, learn what we can about it. Do you think that it is the home of the Raider?"

"It may be," he said, "but we must be careful, Wheeler. It wouldn't do to enter that place blindly, not knowing what manner of people inhabit it. Nor can we risk having the car destroyed or taken from us, as it's our only way to get back to our own time. The best plan would be to hide the car some distance from the city, and then go nearer on foot, learning as much as we can about the place before venturing inside."

And so we decided. Starting the car again, we sped along low over the ground, and finally, some five miles away from the city, came across a little range of rugged hills which appeared quite wild and uninhabited, like all the rest of the country we had traversed so far. On the slope of one of these hills was a little, shelflike clearing, patched with small trees, and we selected this for our hiding place, bringing the car gently down to rest on the ground there.

We stepped out, cramped and stiff from our hours in the car, and then proceeded at once to hide it, breaking off big branches from the trees around us and planting them in the ground in such fashion that any casual passer-by would never have suspected the car's existence. When it was concealed to Lantin's satisfaction, we made a hasty meal from the food brought with us, and then prepared for our trip toward the city.

The rifles we left in the car, as they were too heavy and cumbersome to carry through the thick underbrush that lined the slopes around us, but we looked to the pistols in our belts, which were of almost as heavy a caliber as the rifles. Then, with a last look at the car, we made our way down the slope to the bottom of the little valley which was formed by two low ranges of hills, on one of the slopes of which our car lay hidden.

We followed this valley north for some distance, the hills on each side leveling down to mere dunes as we approached its ends. A thick little wood lay directly across the end of it, and through this we forced our way, as quietly as possible. It gradually grew thinner, and then with a sudden shock we emerged from it into open fields.

Instinctively, we looked first toward the west. The sun was setting, now, and we saw that the city was not of wide extent, not extraordinarily large, but that the buildings that made it up were very large and were closely grouped together. And above them all rose the titanic central pile, an edifice that we judged to be all of two thousand feet in height, and half that in width.

Behind us there was a sudden yelping shout, and we turned quickly and then shrank back. Across the open fields toward us was running a group of men, a score or more in number, men in brazen armor and helmets, who carried spears and swords and who were bearing down on us with their lances outstretched toward us. Their eyes were gleaming, and they uttered wolflike shouts as they came on.

Flight was impossible, so close were they, so I jerked forth the pistol in my belt and fired hastily at the oncoming men. Too hastily, in fact, for the shot went wild and the mechanism of the pistol jammed before I could fire again. Lantin's pistol barked behind me, and one of the men in front staggered and went down, with a neat hole drilled through his armor, but the rest never hesitated, and before Lantin could fire again, they were upon us.

_CHAPTER 7_

THE CITY OF CYLINDERS

I had a confused vision of bronzed, black-bearded faces leaping toward me, and I know that I struck out with my pistol-butt at these, but the weapon was knocked from my grasp by a blow on the wrist, my hands were seized from behind and pinioned, and I waited for the spear-thrust that I expected.

It did not come. Those who held me turned to one who was evidently their leader, a tall man with armor more rich than that of the others, who carried no spear. They spoke to him, in a tongue strange to my ears, evidently asking questions concerning our disposal. This leader came nearer and inspected me, felt my muscles for a moment, then snapped out a brief order. He made similar inspection of Lantin, gave another order, and then the men behind me pushed me forward, toward the city in the west, a prod from a spear-handle emphasizing their commands. Lantin was similarly treated, walking beside me, but when I attempted to speak to him, another prod from behind warned me that no conversation between us was allowed.

So we marched on toward the city, our captors talking and jesting in their own language. Twilight was descending on the land, now, darkening quickly, and as we drew nearer toward the city, lights flared out here and there on its heights, steady and brilliant lights of red and yellow. And high above all these shone a single flashing beam of vivid purple, which I knew must be placed on the top of the big building we had seen from a distance.

We struck a road, smooth and wide and hard-surfaced, and marched along it. In the broad fields on either side of this road were what appeared to be great machines of some sort, that seemed to be rooting in the ground, with a panting, throbbing sound, but I could see these only dimly in the thickening dusk. And, too, we began to pass other men like those who had captured us, bronzed, bearded men in the same armor, who looked at us curiously and called out jests and greetings to our captors.

Buildings began to line the road, and I saw that all of these were of the same design, all being in the form of an erect cylinder, quite windowless and unbroken of surface, except for a single open entrance in their lower part. They were of white stone, I thought, glimmering faintly in the twilight, and were of many differing sizes, but whatever the size, all that we saw were of the same shape and proportions, that of a thick cylinder, standing erect.

Out of the doorways of these buildings streamed ruddy light, and now and then we passed one from which came shouting or laughter. More and more of the armored men met and passed us. And there were other men, not in armor, men black and brown and white and yellow, who were clad in a single robe of white cloth and who walked stiffly, like automatons. I shuddered as one of them brushed against me in passing, for he had come near enough for me to glimpse his face, and it was utterly repellent in the blankness of its expression. The eyes held no intelligence at all, staring straight ahead or turning mechanically from side to side, while the stiff movements, the rigid carriage of the body and the obliviousness to all around them made these men seem more dead than alive. All, or nearly all, were carrying tools or vessels of some sort, and it was easy to see that they were slaves.

I noticed now, scattered here and there among the buildings, little towers of metal on the top of which were placed globes of a gleaming material like glass. The towers were found at even intervals along the road, and each one could not have been less than thirty feet in height, much like a miniature Eiffel Tower, while the shining globe on top of each must have been five feet in diameter. Awhile I puzzled over their nature and purpose, but forgot even these in the wonder of the city we were now entering.

There was no wall or definite dividing line between the city and the suburbs around it. As we went on, the buildings grew thicker, larger, and the road became a street, a wide street that led directly toward the looming central pile, which I now saw was of the same cylindrical shape as all of the other buildings here. The white cylindrical buildings now were set farther back from the road, or street, and were very much closer to each other.

Overhead, aircraft were buzzing to and fro, flickering swiftly across the sky. They seemed to rise from and alight on the roofs of the cylindrical buildings, so that I could not glimpse their occupants.

There were throngs passing us in the street now, without attention, crowds of the armored guards and the white-robed slaves. The street itself was illuminated by glowing bulbs, set on top of metal pillars along the way, which emitted a ruddy, pulsating light. It was the same ruddy light that streamed out of the entrances of the buildings we passed, but how it was produced I could not conjecture.

* * * * *

My mind swung sharply back to my own predicament, when our captors suddenly halted in the street before a large building that was set some distance back from the street, in a smooth expanse of green lawn. A brief order was given and two of the guards seized me by my shoulders and hustled me toward the building I have spoken of, while the rest marched on down the street toward the gigantic central edifice, taking Lantin with them. I saw him looking back as he went, and would have given much to have been able to call out to him, but my guards gave me no chance to do so, pushing me ahead of them toward the building in front of us.

A high-arched entrance cut into the curving wall of the building, which was one of the largest I had yet noted. Through this open door led a broad flight of low steps, but my guards did not enter that way, taking me some distance around the building's side to a smaller door that was set in the wall close to the ground. Pushed ahead of them, I stumbled inside and found myself in a long, smooth-walled corridor, down which we went.

There were closed doors here and there along the hall's length, and in front of the last one lounged three or four of the guards, who looked up incuriously as we approached. My captors spoke a few words to these, who nodded, and unlocked the door they guarded. A rough shove sent me staggering through the door, and as I pitched forward on my face, I heard it clang shut behind me.

I rose to my feet and looked around. The room itself was quite unremarkable, about twenty feet square, walled with smooth stone, and windowless, being lit by several of the ruddy-glowing bulbs that were set in the ceiling. But the score or more of men who were in the room, and who had started up at my sudden entrance, were of intense interest to me.

Sinking down onto a bench against the wall, I regarded them. They were extraordinary in appearance and expression. All were dressed in ragged and torn costumes of cloth, save for one hulking fellow who wore a tunic of tanned skins. I was surprized to see that all of them carried sword or dagger at their belts, and some big battle-axes. Brown-skinned and white-skinned, with one or two blacks, they were a fierce-faced company, and after scrutinizing me for a second, went on pacing back and forth across the room, for all the world like a den of caged tigers. They spoke little, and glared as they passed one another.

While I stared at them, one of their number came up and seated himself beside me. He was a slender, dark-haired young man, dressed in a ragged coat of bottle-green trimmed in silver, with very tight knee-breeches of the same material. Like the rest, he was hatless, and carried at his belt a long, slender rapier. He caught my glance at his garments, and smiled in so winning a fashion that I smiled back, involuntarily. Then a wave of sudden warmth surged through me, for he spoke in English.

"Burn me," he drawled, in a soft, languid voice, "I don't blame you for eyeing my clothes, but then, y'see, the tailors here are cursed poor."

I leaned toward him, eagerly. "You speak English!" I cried. "Then how did you get here? What is this place, this city? And what are we brought here for?"

At my rush of questions he drew back a little, frowning in a puzzled manner. "What are we brought here for?" he repeated. "Why, man, you know as well as I do, why we're here."

"Not I!" I said, and his frown deepened, as he doubtfully considered me.

"But you're from the pit," he said, "the same as the rest of us," and he waved a hand toward the others in the room.

"The pit!" I repeated, puzzled, and he must have seen from my expression that I did not understand him. An odd, calculating light leaped into his eyes. "You are not of the guards," he said, half-musingly, "and you say you are not of the pit. But if you came from outside--"

"I was captured," I told him, "outside the city, and brought here. But why?"

"You're here to fight," he said, shortly, and I started.

"Fight! With whom?"

"Why, with these," he answered, indicating again the score of men in the room. "This is--"

Before he could finish the sentence, there was a sudden clanging of metal and the door of the room swung open. A guard stepped in and gave brief orders in his own tongue. At once the men around me began to file out of the room, into the corridor. As I passed out, beside my new-found friend, I saw that in the hall a heavy force of the guards awaited us, some fifty men being ranged along its length. We passed together down the corridor's length, but instead of leaving the building by the door I had entered, we turned to the right and proceeded up a long flight of steps, the guards following and preceding us, in two separate companies.

As we went up those steps, I turned to my companion and asked him, "You are English, aren't you?"

He nodded, and made a graceful half-bow. "Viscount Charles Denham, at your service," he said in a low voice, "captain in the armies of his Majesty, King George the Third."

The words were like a thunderclap in my ears. A soldier of King George the Third? A man of a hundred and fifty years before my own time? And here, fifteen thousand years in the future, in this strange city! And these other prisoners, these strange, ragged figures!

But before I could collect my dazed thoughts, our company was marching up the last few steps. Over the shoulders of those in front of me I saw the walls of a great room, and the crimson light of the glowing bulbs that illuminated it. There was a sound of crystal music, and laughter--a high, ringing laughter that was very different from the coarse mirth of the guards. Then we were surmounting the very last steps, marching up and over them....

_CHAPTER 8_

THE PEOPLE OF THE CITY

A harsh order from the guards ahead halted us, and I had time to survey the room in which we stood. It was a circular room, at the edge of which we were grouped. From where we stood, the walls swept away in a great curve on either side, meeting directly opposite us, as it seemed, some ninety feet away. The floor of the room was of smooth, black stone, resembling marble, while the curving walls were of the same white material as the building's exterior. A hundred feet above the floor was a ceiling of white, and I saw at a glance that this one great hall occupied the whole lower half of the cylindrical building's interior, the upper half, no doubt, being divided into smaller apartments. Set in walls and ceiling were many of the glowing bulbs, and from these a cascade of ruddy light poured down on the people in the room.

There must have been nearly a hundred of these people, men and women. They lay on couches along the room's edge, with long, curving tables of green metal before them, like the banquet halls of the ancient Romans. A shock went through me as I looked at the feasters, for they were unlike any of the people I had seen as I entered the city. These people were all tall and perfectly proportioned, and all were golden-haired, men and women alike. They were attired in short robes or tunics of brilliantly colored silks, and some wore circlets of flashing gems.

With a sudden shock it came to me that these were the first women I had seen in all this city, for there had been none among the guards and slaves outside. But before I could ponder this fact, it was swept from my mind by my wonder at the other things in the room.

The feasters, I saw, were engaged in drinking from transparent goblets which held brightly colored liquids. I could see no solid food of any kind on the tables, but there were many urns and flagons and amphoræ filled with the bright fluids. Long lines of the white-robed, stiffly marching slaves passed and repassed behind the couches of the feasters, with metal trays holding other glass and metal vessels, which they placed on the tables.

Two other things I noted before my brief survey of the place was interrupted. One was that among the laughing, shouting people at the tables there was not one face that would not be called beautiful. All seemed youthful, with the beauty of youth, and its high spirits, yet an impression of evil came to me as I watched them. I sensed, beneath their jesting and laughing, a cold, indolent _heartlessness_.

The other thing I noted was the source of the crystalline music. Across the room from me, in an alcove, were the musicians, slaves who operated an intricate instrument which allowed water to fall on thin plates of metal, in single drops or streamlets, producing a tumultuous chiming like a storm of silver bells, wild and clear and sweet, and for all its tempestuousness, oddly harmonious.

My companions had been surveying the scene, like myself, but it was evident from the expressions on their faces that it was not new to them. I wondered for what purpose we had been brought there, and remembering the Englishman's interrupted explanation, turned to speak to him. But as I did so, came another interruption, and with it my answer.

One of the men at the tables rose and uttered a brief order, and at once a great black slave strode across the room, seized a mace of metal, and with it struck a tremendous blow on a hanging brazen gong. At once the chatter and song at the tables stopped, and all eyes were turned toward ourselves. I felt their gaze sweeping over us, and involuntarily shuddered. Then, beside us, the captain of the guards barked out an order, that sounded across the silence like a whiplash. And at once two of the men who stood beside me strode out to the center of the room, to the wide, clear floor there, and stood facing each other.

There was a rippling whisper through the spectators at the tables, a murmur of pleasurable excitement. Without heeding it, the two men at the room's center inspected each other with fierce eyes.

One of the two was a proud, dark-faced figure, high-nosed and gleaming-eyed, dressed in torn, flowing robe and with a tightly twisted turban on his head. He jerked from his belt a long, curved scimitar and whirled it above his head, giving vent to a ragged, high-pitched yell of defiance. An Arab, I thought, maybe one of the very hordes that had carried the green banner of the Prophet over three continents like a whirlwind. He was a fierce enough spectacle, as he shook his gleaming blade aloft, but his opponent was a fit one, a gigantic Northman in leathern jerkin, whose blue eyes gleamed as he too sprang forward, brandishing aloft a great ax in one hand, and carrying a small, circular shield in the other.

With weapons upraised, the two cautiously neared each other, circling like wary tigers, searching for an opening. I turned away, and saw that the feasters were wholly intent now on the two opponents, and in that moment I understood the meaning of the Englishman in saying that we had been brought here to fight. For it was so, and all in our ragged, fierce group would no doubt be forced to fight and slay one another to amuse the indolent spectators at the tables, as the gladiators of ancient Rome had struck each other down in the great games. And what of myself?

There was a sudden great shout from the tables, and I turned my attention back to the struggle at the center of the floor. The Arab's blade had darted past his opponent's shield and had wounded the latter in the shoulder with a flashing down-stroke. But the leather-clad giant was not beaten. Though blood was streaming down from his shoulder now, he said no word, only lifted his shield higher and circled around the other, with ax still poised ready to strike. The tense silence had been broken by that first shout and now those at the tables were calling out to the two fighters, warnings and advice, I supposed, and were laying wagers on the result of the fight.

Suddenly the Arab again darted in, and again his blade slashed the other's arm, but as he stepped swiftly back, his foot slipped on the blood that smeared the smooth floor, and he staggered for a moment, striving to regain his balance. In an instant the uplifted ax crashed down through his skull and he fell like a dropped weight, his own spouting arteries adding to the red stains on the floor. The other stepped back, panting, and a great shout of applause crashed out from the spectators at the tables. The Northman rejoined our group, slaves rushed out and cleared the floor, and at a command, two more of our number rushed onto the floor and faced each other with drawn swords.

The circling and darting of the former duel was repeated, and in a few minutes one of the two lay dead and the other was limping back to us, bleeding. And another pair took their place.

For the fifth combat, the young Englishman beside me was called onto the floor, with a small Japanese in ancient, quilted armor as his opponent. The Japanese was armed with two short, broad-bladed swords, with which he chopped and slashed at his opponent, while Denham had but his thin, fragile-looking rapier. Yet he evaded all the sweeps and thrusts of his adversary's blades, and with a sudden lightning stab of the needlelike rapier he ended the duel, unscathed. He came back toward us, jauntily, unheedful of the great applause that followed his feat. I gripped his hand warmly, for in the short time I had known him, a sudden sympathy had sprung up between us, born of the fact of our mutual race and language, in this strange city.

* * * * *

There were but few of us left now who had not already fought, and at an order from the leader of the guards, one of these stepped out on the floor, a lithe, snaky Italian, with beady black eyes and an evil smile. The captain of the guard snapped out another order, looking at me, but I could not understand and looked around helplessly. His face flushed dark with anger, and he started wrathfully toward me, but the Englishman intervened, with rapid explanations.

"You are to fight Talerri," he said, indicating the Italian, and a wave of icy cold swept over me for a moment, then receded. "Here, take my sword," he continued, drawing and handing it to me, "and be fearful of foul fighting. Talerri was one of Cæsar Borgia's bravos and is a dangerous swordsman, full of treacherous tricks."

Half dazed, I gripped the rapier's hilt and walked out to face the Italian. "Good luck!" called Denham, behind me, but I did not look back.

As I strode out to where the Italian awaited me, I dimly saw the curving walls, the ruddy lights, and the white faces of those at the tables, turned toward me. The whole scene misted before my eyes, then cleared, and into my vision came the face of Talerri, who was regarding me with a derisive smile. And the realization came to me, coldly and clearly, that unless I killed my opponent, he would kill me.

I raised the blade in my hand. I had been a skilful fencer in my days at the university, but had not handled a foil for years. Yet the long, slender rapier was much like a foil itself, and as I twirled it in my grasp, some little confidence came to me. I glanced back momentarily, and saw Denham smiling encouragingly at me. And now the Italian advanced toward me, the same hateful smile passing over his face as he saw me raise the rapier to meet him.

At the first clash of our blades, I knew myself facing a master of swordsmanship, one who was doubtless in constant practise. So I threw all my efforts into staving off his first lightning rushes, though to this day I wonder that I was able to do so. His point seemed to stab at me simultaneously from a dozen different positions, and I parried more by instinct than by design. As it was, his blade passed twice through my shirt, so close was it. But after that first series of flashing rushes, the Italian drew back for a moment and we circled warily.

Again he came on, with a lightning feint at my heart. As my rapier flashed down to foil the stroke, his own stabbed upward, in a straight thrust intended to pierce through my left eye to the brain. It was a stab that could not be parried, but instinctively I swerved my head aside from that flashing point, and missing the eye, his blade grazed along the left side of my forehead, sending a stream of blood trickling down my cheek. At sight of that red stream, a shout of approval crashed out from the tables.

But now anger was rising in me, and ceasing to stand only on the defensive, I thrust out savagely at my opponent. He gave back a little under my unexpected attack, but suddenly I felt very tired, and knew that the combat must end soon if it was to end in my favor. As I thrust and parried there, the walls and lights and faces around me faded from view, and replacing them came the long, sky-lighted gymnasium where I had learned to fence. I seemed to hear the clicking foils and stamping feet there, and the voice of our trim little instructor explaining the most difficult of all thrusts, the time-thrust. Steadiness and accuracy were the very foundations of that difficult play, I knew, and it would be sheer madness for one as weary and rusty at sword-play as myself to try it, but as we surged back and forth on the smooth floor, I decided that it was my only chance, for the Italian was pressing me ever more closely.

Watching for a favorable opportunity, I dropped my guard for a single instant, leaving my heart exposed. Instantly Talerri's blade darted in like a striking serpent, his whole body behind that straight stab. My own rapier was extended toward him, and in the split-second before his point touched me, my own blade clicked gently against his, deflecting it to one side where it passed harmlessly by me, while the momentum of his leaping rush brought him right onto my outstretched rapier, spitting him. I felt the blade rip through him as through a man of sawdust, the hilt rapping against his ribs. I jerked it forth and he choked, gasped, and fell to the floor dead.

There was a shattering roar of applause from all around, and tired and sickened, I stumbled back to the group of fellow captives at the floor's edge, where Denham greeted me eagerly. While he congratulated me on my victory, the others in the group looked at me with something of respect on their fierce faces.

Weary from the hours on the time-car, and half-nauseated by the bloodshed I had seen and taken part in, I sank down onto a step and watched without interest the remaining two combats. When these were finished, another order was given and we were hurried back down the stairs up which we had come. Conducting us down a different corridor, the guards separated us, thrusting us in pairs into small cells along the corridor.

I had hoped to be placed in the same cell as Denham, for I wanted much to speak further with him, but luck was against me and I was paired off with the blond giant who had killed the Arab in the first combat. A vicious shove sent us reeling into the little room, and behind me I heard the thick metal door clang shut.

_CHAPTER 9_

PRISONED

For ten days I lay in that little cell, prisoned with the big Northman. At my first inspection of the place, I saw that there was no possibility of escape, for the walls were of smooth stone, and the only opening in them was that of a two-inch pipe that served to ventilate the cell. There was no window, as we think of it, yet the room was light enough in the daytime, for as the sun rose, the side of the cell facing on the building's outer wall became invisible, allowing plenty of light to enter. This explained a fact that had puzzled me, the absence of windows on the exteriors of the cylindrical buildings of the city. Evidently the people of the city treated the outside walls of their buildings in such a manner that in daylight they were invisible from the inside, while perfectly opaque when viewed from without.

I had other evidence of the scientific attainments of these people in the food that was furnished us twice each day. That food was nothing but a clear golden liquid, with a slight oily flavor but otherwise tasteless. Yet I found that it contained all the food-elements necessary for the human body, since in all my time in this strange city I had no other food, and never felt need of any other.

I found my cell-mate a dull enough companion. He was morose and fierce in disposition, and very suspicious of me. I think that he considered me a spy. I found that he knew a little English, a strange, archaic English, but enough for us to carry on a broken conversation. To all my eager questions, though, the fellow replied with a cold stare. By this time I felt convinced that Lantin and I had found in this city the home of the Raider, since the fact of Denham's presence and that of these other men of many times and races admitted of no other explanation. Yet when I asked the Norseman how he had come here, or if he had ever seen the Raider, he kept to a gloomy silence, and I cursed my luck in being confined with such a suspicious companion.

One service, though, he did do for me, and that was to teach me the strange language used by the guards and masters of the city around me. That tongue, I learned, was the Kanlar tongue, while the bright-haired master-race of the city were Kanlars. The language itself was not hard to learn, and in the long hours I lay imprisoned I acquired considerable facility in expressing myself in it.

Sometimes, too, the Norseman would break his silence, and growing excited with his own words, would tell me long, interminable stories of the wild adventures he had taken part in, the shield-ringed ships that he had sailed in, to leave fire and death along peaceful coasts, the long list of men he had slaughtered. His cold eyes burned as he related tales of butchery that appalled me, but when I ventured to interject a single question he would regard me stonily and then relapse into silence again.

The days went by, and through the transparent wall I watched night give way to dawn, dawn to noon, and noon to dusk and night. Much I thought of Lantin in those days. I wondered what fate had been his in the gigantic central building, whether he was alive or dead. Wondered, too, if I would ever find that out, for it was evident that we were being reserved for another gladiatorial battle, and I was not confident of coming through again unscathed.

One thing occurred, in those days of imprisonment, which still makes me shudder, sometimes, at the memory of it. The transparent side of our cell faced a smooth expanse of green lawn, with gardens beyond it, and most of my time I spent lounging against it, looking out. Very few people passed by there, now and then a few slaves, but scarcely ever any of the Kanlar people. So on the eighth day of my confinement, when I saw a slave approaching from a distance, I moved over to the invisible wall and watched him.

He was carrying a tool that looked much like a common garden-hoe, and walked toward me with that stiff, rigid movement that marked the white-robed slaves. He came closer, I glanced at his face, then reeled back against the side of the cell. For it was Talerri!

It was the Italian I had killed eight days before, garbed as a slave and walking with the same inhuman, puppetlike motion that all these strange servants used. He came closer toward me, so that I could see his staring eyes, then, with an angular movement, he turned aside and passed from view along the building's side.

For hours I puzzled over it, rejecting with a certain panic fear the one explanation that came to mind. I knew that I had killed the Italian that night, for my sword had pierced clean through his heart. Yet here he was, working as a slave for the Kanlars. And what of the other slaves, then, these rigid, staring-eyed figures? Were they too--?

For hours I speculated on the thing, but could find no rational explanation for it, nor would the Norseman enlighten me. Finally I gave it up as a mystery beyond me, and strove to banish it from my mind.

Two more days dragged out, days that were like weeks to me. I felt that I must soon go mad, if I were longer imprisoned. And then, sharply ending the monotony of dreary hours, there came a summons, a summons that in the end proved to be a call to an adventure utterly undreamed of by Lantin or myself.

_CHAPTER 10_

THE TEMPLE OF THE RAIDER

All that day I had sensed a tense activity outside, and many times there was the tramp of feet down the corridor outside our cell, as companies of the guards came and went. As sunset came, I stood beside the transparent wall and watched its brilliant colors fade from the sky.

Overhead, now, the aircraft of the Kanlars were flickering continuously past, all heading toward the giant cylinder that stood at the city's center, and when I scrambled up a little higher against the wall, to get a glimpse of the street, I saw that that street was crowded with masses of the armored guards and the staring-eyed slaves, all pressing on toward the same building.

Darkness came, and the noise of activity outside died away, so that it seemed that all the city around us was deserted, nor was there any sound from the building above us. For all of two hours after the darkness, we sat there, listening, waiting. Once I thought I heard a distant ringing music, but decided that my ears had been deceived. Then, abruptly, there was the stamp of sandals on the floor of the corridor, and we heard the doors of the cells along it being opened.

Our own was flung wide, as we rose, and I saw that a score of the guards waited outside, their leader ordering us to come out, which we were glad enough to do. Once in the corridor, I found Denham and the others of the group I had met before, shackled to each other, wrist to wrist, in a single file. The Northman and myself were fettered to the end of the line, and then we set out, a long file of guards on each side of us, marching us down the corridor and outside the building.

The big street up which I had come before was utterly deserted, as we turned into it. I looked back along its length, lit with the crimson bulbs, a winding serpent of red light that stretched away out into the country beyond the city, out to where our time-car lay hidden in the hills. At the thought of it, so fierce a desire seized me to win back to it, and my own time, that had I not been shackled I would have made a break for freedom down the empty street. But as it was, I had no choice, and followed the others in our fettered line down the wide street toward the gigantic cylindrical building at its end.

That great pile seemed to loom higher and higher as we drew near it. Brilliant, winking lights along its sides outlined it against the gloom of night, a huge, erect cylinder of smooth stone, its flat top all of a thousand feet in width, and nearly a half-mile above the ground. Obscured as the immense edifice was by the darkness, yet the vague glimpses I got of its sky-flung walls staggered me. And we were being marched directly toward it.

A quarter-mile from the building, the flat street we followed ended, changed to a wide, smooth ramp that led up toward the giant edifice in a slight upward slant. We went up that ramp, the guards still on either side, till we stood under the very shadow of the gigantic, perpendicular walls, and now I saw that the ramp led up to and through a wide, high-arched entrance cut in the building's side, much like the entrance of the cylindrical building where I had been prisoned.

We passed up and through that arched entrance, and were in a long tunnel, similarly arched, and cut through solid, seamless stone. It was a hundred feet in length, and as we passed on down its length it came to me that this must be the thickness of the great building's sides. The idea was too prodigious for speculation, even, and I shook it off, peering ahead toward the tunnel's end, where a ruddy light flooding down from above marked that end.

A few moments, and we had reached the tunnel's mouth, and emerged from it into the vast cylinder's interior. I swept one startled glance around that interior, then felt myself staggering, reeling, falling. The immensity of the place was soul-shaking, bearing down on me with a weight that seemed physical, crushing my thoughts down into nothing but dazed awe and terror.

I had imagined the building's interior to be divided, partitioned into apartments, but instead, the whole interior was one titanic room, shaped by the outside walls and roof, its sides looming up, dimly and vaguely, into a hazy darkness that hid their upper parts from view. Along the sides were many of the light-emitting bulbs, but these merely burned red holes in the dimness that surrounded the building's interior, rather than illuminated it.