The Heads of Apex, Page 2

which theyhad come had closed, leaving no sign of its existence.

  In the center of the room stood a mechanism like a huge gyroscope, anda plunging piston, smooth and black, went up and down withfrictionless ease. In front of what was evidently a control board sata swarthy man with a large hairless head and peculiarly colored eyes.The adventurers stared in surprise, for this man, too, sat in awheelchair, seemingly a cripple; but unlike Mr. Solino he wore nocloak, his body from the neck down being enclosed in a tubular metalcontainer. The body must have been very small, and the legs amputatedat the hips, since the container was not large and terminated on theseat of the peculiar wheel chair to which it seemed firmly attached.

  Solino did not offer to introduce them to the man at the controlboard, who, aside from a quick look, paid them no attention. Heushered them ahead into another, though smaller cabin, and afterindicating certain arrangements made for their comfort, withdrew. Fromthe slight sway of the floor under their feet and the perceptiblevibration of the craft, the adventurers knew they were under way.

  "Well, this is a rum affair and no mistake about it," said one ofthem.

  "A freak--a bloomin' freak," remarked another whose cockney accentproclaimed the Englishman.

  "Yuh're shore right," said a lean Texan. "That hombre out there had nolegs."

  "Nor hands either."

  Miles and Ward glanced at one another. The same thought was in bothminds. Neither of them had ever seen Mr. Solino's hands. A rum affairall right!

  * * * * *

  Hours passed. Some of the men fell to gambling. At intervals they ate.Twice they turned in and slept. Then, after what seemed aninterminable time, Solino summoned Miles and Ward to his presence inthe control room. "It is time," he said, "that you should know more ofthe enterprise on which you have embarked. What I say, you cancommunicate to the other men. A year's salary for all of you lies toyour credit at the Chase Bank of New York. And this money will not beyour sole reward if you survive and serve faithfully."

  "Thank you, sir," said Ward; "but now that we are well on our way toour destination, could you not tell us more about it? You have saidsomething of a city, a country. Where is that country?"

  "Down," was the astounding answer.

  "Down?" echoed both men.

  "Yes," said Solino slowly, "down. The gateway to that land is at thebottom of the ocean."

  As the two men gaped at him, incredulous, an awful thing happened.With an appalling roar and a rending of steel and iron, the submarinehalted abruptly in its headlong flight, reared upward at an acuteangle and then fell forward with a tremendous crash. The adventurerswere thrown violently against a steel bulkhead, and slumped downunconscious....

  * * * * *

  How long they lay there insensible they never knew. Justus Miles wasthe first to come to, and he found himself in Stygian blackness."Rusty!" he called, feeling terribly sick and giddy. Only silenceanswered him. "Good God!" he thought, "what has happened?" His handwent out and recoiled from something soft and sticky. Gingerly he satup. There was a lump on his head. His body felt bruised and sore butit was evidently sound. He recollected the small but powerfulflashlight in his pocket, and drew it forth and pressed the button. Areassuring pencil of light pierced through the gloom. Even as it didso, someone groaned, and Ward's voice uttered his name.

  "Is that you, Kid?"

  "It's me, all right."

  "You ain't hurt?"

  "Nothing to speak of. How about you?"

  "O. K., I guess. An awful headache."

  "Can you stand up?"

  "Yes."

  Ward's face appeared in the ray of light, pale and blood-streaked.

  "I wonder what happened."

  "It sounded like a collision."

  They stared at one another with fearful eyes. A collision whileunderseas in a submarine is a serious matter.

  "Where's Solino?"

  Justus Miles ran the beam of his torch this way and that, and saw thatthe room was in a fearful confusion. The gyroscopic mechanism hadbroken from its fastenings and rolled forward. Somewhere beneath itscrushing weight lay the control board and the swarthy operator. Thenthey saw Solino, still in his overturned wheelchair, the cloak drawntightly about himself and it; but the top of his head was crushed inlike an eggshell. Justus Miles had touched that head when he stretchedout his hand in the darkness.

  He and Ward had been saved from death as by a miracle. Over theirheads the great piston had hurtled, killing Solino and tearing throughthe steel partition into the chamber beyond, visiting it with deathand destruction. One hasty examination of that place was enough. Themen in there were dead.

  * * * * *

  Sick with horror, the two survivors faced the stark reality of theirterrible plight. Trapped in an underwater craft, they saw themselvesdoomed to perish even more miserably than their companions. As thehorrible thought sank home, a cool breath of air, suggesting the smellof stagnant salt water, blew through an opening created by thecrushing of the plates in the vessel's hull--an opening larger thanthe body of a man. Miles and Ward stared at it with puzzled eyes. Withsuch a hole in her hull, the boat should have been admitting water andnot air. However, they approached the gap and examined it with theirtorches.

  "Here goes," Ward said after a moment's hesitation, and clamberedthrough the opening, followed by his friend. When they were able tomake out their surroundings, they saw that they were in a vast tunnelor cavern, the extent of which was shrouded in darkness. How thesubmarine had left the ocean and penetrated to this cavern it wasimpossible to say; but evidently it had come so far over a shiningrail, a break in which had caused the disaster. The cavern or tunnelwas paved with disjointed blocks of stone which once might have beensmooth and even, but which now were disarranged by time and slimy withdampness and seagrowths. In the clammy air Miles involuntarilyshuddered. "Good Lord, Rusty, we're certainly up against it! The onlyfellow who could tell us our whereabouts is dead!"

  Ward's jaw tightened. "That rail leads somewhere: it's our only hope.But first let us get our guns and some food."

  * * * * *

  They were fortunate enough to discover several thermos bottlesunbroken. Hot coffee revived their fainting spirits. Treating theirbruises and cuts as well as they could, they left the submarine orcar--it seemed to have been convertible for use either in water or onrail--and trudged ahead.

  Beyond the break that had caused the wreck, the rail stretched awayinto illimitable blackness. Over rough stones, stumbling into shallowpools of water, the light of their torches serving but faintly to showthe depressing surroundings, the two men plunged. Neither of them waswithout fear, but both possessed the enduring courage of menhabituated to facing danger and sudden death without losing control oftheir faculties.

  Time passed, but they had no means of telling how much, since theirwrist watches no longer functioned. But after a while they noticedthat the grade was upward and the going easier. At the same moment,Ward called attention to the fact that, even without electric torches,it was possible to see. All around the two Americans grew a strangelight--a weird, phosphorescent glow, revealing far walls and massivepillars.

  Now they could see that they were in a vast chamber, undoubtedly thework of human hands; a room awe-inspiring to behold, and even morethan awe-inspiring in the reflections it forced upon their minds.Passages radiated on either hand to mysterious depths, and great bulksloomed in the spectral light. Justus Miles gave a low cry of amazementwhen a closer investigation revealed those bulks to be the wrecks ofmighty and intricate machines, the use of which it was vain toconjecture. He looked at Ward.

  "Solino spoke of a city down in the ocean. Can this be it?"

  Ward shook his head. "Everything here is old, abandoned. Look--what isthat?"

  * * * * *

  The figure of a giant creature, carved either from stone or marble andencrusted with pho
sphorous, stood lowering in their path. It was thatof a winged beast with a human head. Its features were negroid incharacter; and so malignant was the expression of the staring face, solifelike the execution of the whole statue, that a chill of fear ranthrough their veins. It was in Ward's mind that this gigantic carvingwas akin to the ones he had seen in Egypt, and as old, if not older.

  Beyond the statue the rail curved and the grade leveled; and, roundingthe bend, they were amazed to come upon a sort of "yard" where therail stopped. In that enclosure, on several sidings, were submarinecars similar to the wrecked one they had abandoned. But that was notthe sight which brought them to a breathless halt. Beyond the sidingsstood what appeared to be a small building of gleaming crystal.

  After a moment of breathless wonder they