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Show ! WHEN WO RID is ffM nefB?- By EDWIN BALMER j aJimmttjf'Q, and PHILIP WYUE X Copyright by Edwin Balmer St Philip Wylie g 5 WNU Service ' SYNOPSIS TavlI Ransdell, aviator, has been commissioned at Capetown to de-fiver de-fiver a consignment of photographic platen to Dr. Cole Hendron, in New York. Tony Drake calls at the Hen-drons' Hen-drons' apartment. Kan sd ell arrives and Eve Hendron, with whom Tony is deeply in love, introduces Tony to Ttansdell. Newspapers publish a statement made by Hendron, saying that Professor Bronson has discovered discov-ered two planets, which are approaching ap-proaching the earth. The result ot the inevitable collision must be the end of this world. The approaching bodies' are referred to. as Bronson 1 Alpha and Bronson Beta. To devise ..means of ( transferring to Bronson Beta is what is occupying the minds ..- - . i "I suppose so but there's no istinmlunt in the- world like you, Eve." "She turned the tiny tap of the silver sil-ver coffee pot, tilled a cup for him, one for herself., a few minutes later they went down together. The rushing ebb of the tremendous tremen-dous title was swirling less than a foot depp over I he pavement, and was falling so rapidly that the curb emerged even while they were watching. From upper floors, where many nutomnhiles had been stored against the tide, cars were reaching reach-ing the street. One drove up to Tony and Eve and stepped. The driver turned it over to them; and Tony took the wheel with Eve beside be-side him. They went with all possible speed, no longer encountering the tide i t se f , bn t 1 urcl d n g tliro u gh vast puddles. Pebris from offices,' shops and tenements swept by the tides bestrewed the streets. Bodies lay in the street; and now on the right a haze of smoke drifted drift-ed from an area that had burned down during the night. The East river, when Unreached Un-reached it, was a torrent low in its channel being sucked dry toward of the members of the League of the Last Days. Eve outlines to Tony the idea of the Space Ship, which Hendron has. in contemplation. Tony rounds up suitable men and women to build the ship. Hendron has not been able to find a metal or an alloy al-loy which will withstand the heat and' pressure of atomic enerey to he used in propelling the Spaceship. The tjdes rusli through the streets of ew York. , i the World war. the Civil war, Tti 1S12, and to join the army of Washington. Tony tried not to think about hi mother yet. Eve placed her band over- his which held the steering wheel. "You'll let me slay close, beside be-side you, Tony," she appealed. "Yes. We're almost there." Familiar landmarks bobbed upon both sides, everywhere; a log cabin cab-in he had built as a boy; here was the way to the old well the "Revolutionary "Revo-lutionary well." The house was before them, white, calm, confident. Tony's heart leaped. How be loved It and she who had been its spirit! How often she bad stood in that doorway awaiting him! Some one was standing there now an old woman, slight, white-haired. white-haired. Tony recognized her Mrs. Ha skins, the minister's wife. She advauced toward Tony, and old Hczekiah Haskins took her place in the doorway. "What happened?" Old Haskins told Tony, as kindly as he could: "She was alone; she did not feel afraid, though nil the village and even her servants had fled. The band of men came by. She did not try to keep them out. Knowing her and judging by what I found-she found-she asked them in and offered them food. Some of them had been drinking; drink-ing; or they were mad with the intoxication in-toxication of destruction. Some one shot her cleanly onre, Tony. It is certain, Tony, she did not suffer." Tony could not speak. Eve clung to his hand. "Thank (Jod for that, Tony !" she whispered. Briefly Tony unclasped his hand from Eve's and met the old minister's min-ister's quivering grasp. He bent and kissed Mrs, Haskins' gray cheek. "Thank you. Thank you both," he whispered. "You shouldn't have stayed here; you shouldn't have waited for me. But you did." Old Hezekiah and his wife, and Orson the sexton, and Tony Drake and Eve Hendron stood on the hilltop hill-top where the men of the Drake blood and the women who reproduced repro-duced them in all generations of memory lay buried. A closed box lay waiting its lowering into the ground. "Hear my prayer, O Lord ; and with thine ears consider my calling. call-ing. . . . For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner as all my fathers fa-thers were. "Oh, spare me a little, that I ma.i CHAPTER V Continued "At points upon the seacoasts and at points in the river valleys where . intelligent beings if tliey once lived .on the globe would have built cities, there are areas plainly plain-ly marked which have distinct characteristics char-acteristics of their own. There is no doubt In the minds of the men who have studied them ; there is no important disagreement; The telescopes of the world were trained last night, Tony, tipon the sites of cities on that world. Tony, for millions of years there was life on Bronson Beta as there has been life here. For more than a thousand thou-sand million years, we believe, the slow, cautious but cruel process of evolution had been going on there as it has here. "It is a developed world a fully developed world which approaches us, Tony, with its cities that we now can see." "Not inhabited cities," objected Tony. "Of course not Inhabited now; but once. There' can be no possible possi-ble doubt that every one on that world Is dead.1 The point is, they lived; so very likely we also can live on their world if we merely reach It." "Merely," repiied Tony mockingly. mock-ingly. ' 'Yes,'1 said Hendron, Ignoring -his tone. "It is most likely that where thoy lived, we can. And think of stepping upon that soil up there, finding a road leading to one of their cities and entering it." He recollected himself suddenly and extended his hand. "You have an errand, Tony, to complete between be-tween the tides. I gladly lend you Eve to accompany you. She will tell you later what we all have to do." He led Tony to Eve's door but did not linger, thereafter. Tony went iu alone. ' ' j CHAPTER VI J EVE was at a tiny table where a blue dame burned below a coffee cof-fee percolator, and where an oil recover my strength before I go hence, and be no more seen." Old Hezekiah Haskins held the book before him, but he did not read. A thousand times In his 5U years of the ministry he had repeated re-peated those words. "Thou turnest man to destruction destruc-tion ; again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men." Men and children of men on Bronson Bron-son Beta, too. Men millions and thousands of millions of years in the making. Azoic time proterozoic time, hundreds of millions of years, while life slowly developed in the seas. Hundreds of millions more, while it emerged from the seas; a hundred million more, while reptiles rep-tiles ruled the land, the sky and water. Then they were swept away ; mammals came; and man a thousand thou-sand million years of birth and death and birth again before even the lirst brick could be laid in the oldest city on Bronson Beta, which men on earth had seen last night with their telescopes. "For a thousand years In thy sight are but as yesterday; seeing that Is past as a watch in the night." "For when thou art angry, all our days are gone ; we bring our years to an end like a tale that is told." The sexton and old Hezekiah alone could not lift the box to lower low-er it. Tony had to help them with it. He did; and his mother lay be-1 side her husband. fro tsr noxTrNniwD. Two Men Sprang at Them. Tony Jerked Out His Pistol. He beat Down One With the Butt, and With the Barrel Cowed the Other. the sea. Wreckage strewed the strangely exposed bottom. The bridge; a few miles more of flood debris in steaming streets. Then towns and villages which also had been overswept. Now the country with Its higher : hills, whereon Tony and Eve marked the line left by the water at its height. They dipped through empty villages and rose to hamlets whose Inhabitants still lingered, staring in a dulled wonderment at the speeding car. The effect of the vast desolation beat into the soul; derelict, helpless people, occasional occasion-al burning houses. They climbed a slope with a sharp turn which was blocked; and there two men sprang at them. Tony jerked out his pistol; but today to-day and though he was on his way to his mother who was murdered mur-dered lie could not pull the trigger on these men. lie heat down one with the butt, instead, and witlf the barrel cowed the other. He got the car clear and with Eve drove on. Ah here was the road home ! Home ! His home, where he had been horn and where he was a lillle boy. Home, the home that . had been his father's and his grandfather's and before that, for four generations. Down this road from his home, some man naumd Drake had gone to tiudit in lamp, following the failure of electricity, elec-tricity, augmented the faint gray of approaching dawn. Was it the light, Tony wondered, or was Kve this morning really so pale? Me came to her, and whatever what-ever the rules for this day, he claimed her with his arms and kissed her. "Now," he said with some satisfaction, satis-faction, "you're not so paie." She did not disengage herself at once; mid before she did, she clung tightly tight-ly to' him for a moment. Then she Baid, "You've got to have your cof-Tee. cof-Tee. Tonv." |