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Weird Tales
September, 1926
Cover by E. M. Stevenson

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as it is known today, has long held a fascination for the world, since its discovery, and christening, by the Dutch in 1722. Some believed the statues that dotted its landscape were due to a race of extinct giants who had once inhabited its shores. Others suggested that the statues had been carved and placed by another race; possibly alien. Although a 1919 book by English archaeologist and anthropologist Katherine Routledge, The Mystery of Easter Island, contained the first scientific account of the island and its nearly extinct population (much of it garnered from oral accounts), her findings were overshadowed in the mid-1920s by the claims of James Churchward.

Churchward, an inventor and engineer, claimed, in a series of lectures and articles, that Easter Island was once part of a super-continent known as Mu. The small islands scattered across the Pacific were the remnants of this giant land mass that was once populated by an advanced civilization. Newspapers and radio programs also reported on Churchward’s assertions as fact and, for a time, Easter Island was a popular topic of conversation and speculation—something that wasn’t lost on Edmond Hamilton.

Obviously, current events had some influence on Hamilton’s creative process and his second published work was a three-part serial that appeared only a month after his first published story, “The Monster-God of Mamurth” (he was all of twenty-two at the time). Stylistically, “Across Space” is far removed from the adventure/fantasy of “Mamurth” and is basically the template for later Hamilton works that would have at their center an alien invasion and the response, usually, of a group of Earthmen who thwart the invasion. In this case, Mars is central to the story and the first part of the tale concerns a disaster that could destroy the Earth, while the latter sections shift their focus to an alien invasion and, of all things, Easter Island.

Hamilton gives a nod to Wells concerning one reason for the Martian invasion, but in a twist that is purely his own, he gives the Martians technology that is powerful enough to pull planets from their orbits—something we don’t believe anyone had done before this time. Another possible first concerns the introduction of mindless humanoids who are artificially created. Hamilton also manages to incorporate many of the theories of Churchward and others into the narrative, once the story centers on Easter Island. All in all, the adventurous qualities of “Mamurth” are here, but now it is science fiction, and not fantasy, which which drives the story.

To go into further detail would require endless spoiler warnings, so we leave it to you, the reader, to see how all the seemingly disparate parts come together.

“Across Space” originally appeared in the September, October and November issues of Weird Tales in 1926. We hope you enjoy it.

Bob Gay
February, 2025
Introduction © 2025 by Bob Gay

Editor’s Note: We used the original printing of “Across Space” as a guide for story layout and corrected a few words that were obvious typos. Also, in a break from tradition, we included the single illustration where it originally appeared as a part of the story title.

“As I whirled around, my eyes met a sight that froze the words on my lips in sheer surprize and terror.”

IT WAS very quiet in the big observatory. High up amid the peaks of the Coast Range, no sound from outside could be heard but the whispering of the night wind, and inside, only an occasional rustling movement of the man at the telescope, who was the room’s single occupant. From time to time there was a clashing of smooth metal surfaces, as he manipulated the intricate mechanism that supported and swung the great tube.

Suddenly he rose to his feet and walked across the dark room to a desk in an alcove, where he snapped on a shaded light. Seen by its indirect glow, he was an unimpressive figure, short, plump and bald, but with keen blue eyes that searched the surface of the desk impatiently for some object that eluded his gaze.

After a moment he uttered a slight grunt of satisfaction and pulled a sheet of calculations from under a mass of papers that had hidden it from view. As he studied this, pencil in hand, a look of annoyance appeared on his face, soon fading into a perplexed expression. For some minutes he examined the sheet of figures, then, with a dawning excitement, turned off the light and hurried over to the telescope, making new adjustments to its controlling machinery. And when he again took up his position of observation at the eyepiece, a low exclamation broke from him.

For more than an hour he continued to peer through the telescope, and for another hour sat at the desk, covering the surface of a pad with computations, and referring now and then to a thick book of astronomical tables that lay beside him. When he finally laid down the pencil, he pulled his chin for a moment in meditation, then reached for the telephone and gave a number.

“Hello—Williams?” he spoke into the instrument. “Here’s something for your paper. Important? Well, interesting, at any rate. Got pencil and paper? Here it is——”

For several minutes he talked steadily, then replaced the receiver, and taking his hat from a hook, snapped out the light. When the door of the observatory had closed behind him, he stood for a time on the steps outside, surveying the heavens.

The night was moonless, but far from dark, for in the clear mountain air the riot of stars above stood out in blazing splendor, and the Milky Way was a brilliant belt of light across the zenith. A distant cluster of snow-crowned peaks could be dimly seen in the starlight, like immense, white-capped giants, crouching together in a silent council. High above them hung a star of burning red, and it was on this that the astronomer fixed his gaze, standing for minutes, lost in thought.

“Interesting,” he mused aloud, “and strange. Quite strange.” Farther down the mountain, in the cottage that was the living quarters of the observatory, a window suddenly glowed with yellow light. The abrupt illumination caught the eye of the man on the steps, and his thoughts shifted.

“Sleep,” he muttered; “should have been in bed an hour ago.” And then, beholding some luscious inner vision: “I wonder, now, if any of that pie’s left? Ice-box—maybe——”

The words trailed off into nothingness as he cautiously began to descend the steep path. You see him, I hope—a chubby, serious little figure, carefully picking his way down the path, intent on pie and bed.

And hours later that night, while he lay sleeping, the news was flashed to a thousand cities that the planet Mars had apparently stopped dead in its orbit about the sun, and was hanging motionless in space.

I FIRST heard the great news when I went down to breakfast the next morning. While many of the boarding houses in Berkeley are filled with students and instructors, I was the only person in this one who was connected with the university, and my fellow roomers evidently expected me to clear up the matter for them at once, as an assistant professor of science at California’s greatest institution of learning.

When I entered the dining room, a chorus of questions greeted me, and several of the people at the table pushed newspapers toward me. I could hear the word “Mars” in their chatter, now and then, as I tried to concentrate on the newspaper I held.

Across its top ran a flaring headline, “PLANET MARS STOPS IN ORBIT,” and beneath it was that first monumental dispatch from the Crosshill Observatory. I read it with dazed wonder, a wonder that was enhanced when I read the reports from other observatories throughout the country.

They were almost identical. Every telescope that had been pointed at Mars that night had made the same discovery, that the planet had seemingly stopped short in its course. From the great Washington observatory came even stranger news. It reported that the two tiny moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, were no longer circling the planet, but had broken away from its attraction and were continuing in Mars’ regular orbit about the sun, the smaller moon now revolving about the larger.

I will admit that I was stupefied by such news, and with reason. To anyone who knows the terrible exactness, the undeviating accuracy of the movements of the planets, the thing was astounding. What could have caused Mars to stop? And how had its two satellites been able to break away from, its hold and roll on in the orbit of their parent planet, leaving that planet motionless?

But my thoughts were soon broken into by the eager questions of those in the dining room. It signified little to them, that, as a chemistry instructor, astronomy was outside of my province of knowledge. They had all of the layman’s pathetic confidence in the omniscience of anyone bearing the name of scientist, and they asked innumerable questions as to the cause and effect of the planet’s strange behavior.

I was forced to own myself as much in the dark on the matter as themselves, though I could see that it shook their naive faith in my wisdom for me to do so. From questioning me, they passed into a lively discussion of the event, some of the absurd suggestions that were made causing all of us to laugh.

I hurried through breakfast and left early for the campus, for I wanted to stop on the way at Dr. Whitley’s, and talk the thing over with him. And now that I must bring into my chronicle a man who is now one of Earth’s immortals, I hesitate; for who am I, to describe him?

Yet at that time I knew him well, and loved him, as all on the campus loved him, for though he was Dr. Jerome Whitley, a world-authority in the realm of physics for the last twenty of his forty-two years, yet he had retained that warm personal touch so often missing in scientists of his rank. He had often used his own time to clear up some intricate problem for me, and I was sure that he would have some idea, some rational theory, at least, on the strange action of Mars.

His home was several blocks down my own street, a small cottage in which he had kept bachelor’s hall for years, and a few minutes after I left my own house I was knocking on his door. To my disappointment, however, the withered old Chinaman who was the butler, cook, and house-maid of the place informed me that my friend had gone to San Francisco the day before, without saying when he would return. So, planning to see him at my first opportunity, I went on to the campus.

It was one of the first fine days of June, and I thoroughly enjoyed the brilliant sunshine and soft, balmy air as I walked along. The sidewalks were crowded with throngs hurrying to work, and in the street a steady stream of autos alternately dashed ahead and stopped short at the shrill whistles of the traffic policemen. The hurry and confusion, the rush and turn of traffic, the stimulating aliveness of everything about me was particularly pleasing that morning, I thought.

Reaching my classroom somewhat early, I sat on the edge of the open window and watched the students pouring up the walks into the university buildings. They came in happy, laughing groups, arms linked with arms, busily retailing to each other the small-talk of the campus.

All through the land that sunny morning, in New York and Louisiana and Idaho, boys and girls were laughing and shouting, men in offices and factories were talking of automobiles and radio and golf, dogs were barking and children running to school, women sweeping porches in neat suburbs were chatting across their front yards of fashions and recipes and bridge.

And all the while, the shadow of doom that hung above the unsuspecting Earth was growing and darkening and deepening, like an evil cloud that was to burst in storm over the whole world.

LOOKING back, I think that one of the very strangest things of that strange time is the calmness with which people received the first great news of the planet’s stopping. To be sure, the thing was discussed everywhere that day, and in the evening newspapers it crowded completely off the front page a notorious divorce trial that had been headlined for weeks. Also a particularly atrocious murder that came to light just then got but little space in the face of this new interest.

But as I looked over the papers that evening, I was struck with the light manner in which the thing was discussed. Solemn, meaningless editorials were written about it, humorists filled their columns with jocose references to it, and “eminent scientists” who were for the most part cheap popular lecturers advanced theories on the matter that were simply high-sounding nonsense. From the great observatories nothing was heard, except the statement that the behavior of the planet would have to be studied further before any conclusions could be drawn. And this did not interest the public, who turned to the cock-sure statements of the pseudo-scientists.

Telescopes, field-glasses, almost anything with a lens in it doubled and tripled in price that day, and when twilight came and deepened into night, streets and parks and roofs were dotted with people eager for a sight of the errant planet, the most of them having probably walked for all their previous lives without a single thoughtful glance at the stars.

As I sat on the steps of my lodging house that night, contemplating the people on the lawns and porches around me, I thought that their mood was rather flippant. One would have supposed they were waiting for some novel entertainment to be staged for them, after which they would go on to other amusements. After all, to nine people out of ten, the sky is simply a blue roof, and the stars pinpoints of light. With no conception of the vast gulf that lies between the worlds, the greatness and grandeur of the universe, the matter could assume but slight importance in their minds.

So I thought as I heard them discussing their ailments and servant troubles, and the like, while they awaited the rising of Mars. Now and then there were bursts of youthful laughter, indicating the presence of witty swains amusing their fair companions at the expense of the red planet.

But a few minutes later, when the planet swung up into view, the crowd became silent. Burning out in unheard-of splendor, its unnatural brilliance seemed to touch all with a certain awe. The ruddy hue of Mars was very plain that night, so plain that the planet was like a glowing ruby set in the dark-blue enamel of the summer night.

All around me I heard the comment, “How bright it is!” And bright it was, indeed, bright as the scarlet fires of the Aztecs, that flashed from crag to peak, an ominously brilliant crimson, the color of blood and war and hell. Even these gay groups about me seemed affected by its magnificence, a little troubled, a little disturbed.

But in a few minutes their usual temper reasserted itself. The silence was broken by a woman’s laugh, and instantly the buzzing of talk began again. Little gatherings broke up and people walked slowly along the street to their homes, shouting jests and greetings to each other. Whispering couples stole away, absorbed in themselves, and down the street, houses lit up and music began, a dozen pianos and phonographs.

And I sat on the steps alone, silently watching the red planet swing higher and higher toward the zenith. For a long time I sat there, smoking, and when I rose stiffly and entered the house, it seemed very high and small and harmless. As I dropped wearily into bed, I even regretted that it was not visible through the open window of my bedroom.

Lying there, listening to the myriad whispering sounds of the summer night, I felt very safe. There were footsteps on the street outside, and now and then a low laugh. I remember that the last sound I heard before dropping off to sleep was a sudden burst of dance music from a house farther down the street.

I WAS lying across a railway track, bound tightly to the steel rails. Far down the track a locomotive appeared and rushed rapidly toward me. As I struggled madly to free myself, I could see the horror-stricken engineer leaning out of his cab, and loud in my ears was the clamor of the engine’s ringing bell and screaming whistle. It was thundering down on me, only a few yards away, a few feet——

With a shudder of terror I sat upright and found myself in my own bed, still thrilled with horror by the nightmare I had just experienced. By the clock on my table I saw that it was only a few minutes after 4 o’clock, and I felt mildly surprised at awaking so early.

And now a great multitude of noises began to force their way into my slow-returning consciousness. I could hear several church-bells ringing wildly, and somewhere in the city a high-pitched whistle was shrieking. As I lay listening, another bell joined in the din, and another, until it seemed that all of the city was bent on producing the most possible noise.

There came cries from the street outside, now, and I jumped out of bed and ran to the window, to witness an amazing sight. The street was filled from curb to curb by a seething mob of people from the houses around, in all stages of dress and undress. They were milling about in a blind, aimless manner, in a high state of excitement to judge by their shouts to each other. I could see, too, several shirt-sleeved men who ran through the crowd distributing newspapers from the stacks they carried, and voicing some hoarse cry which I could not hear distinctly.

As I watched, astounded, a siren screamed farther up the street, and the crowd parted hastily to let an automobile race through. It was jammed with people and going at an extremely high speed.

For a moment I watched the scene below, then turned and dressed hastily, quivering with excitement. When I descended to the street I grasped the nearest man by the shoulder and shouted to him across that roaring din, “What’s the matter?”

The man I had collared was a neighbor, an insurance salesman with whom I had a slight acquaintance, and his ordinarily good-natured face had a strange expression on it as he tried to make himself heard by me over the noise of the crowd. Seeing that this was almost impossible, he leaned over and shouted in my ear, “It’s the end of the world, they say!”

“What!” I yelled. He nodded his head vigorously, then handed me one of the newspapers I had seen being distributed. I opened it, and as I read the headline, a hand of ice seemed to grip my heart and hold it tightly. For across the paper’s top, in immense black letters, ran the words: “THE END OF THE WORLD!”

Beneath that screaming message, the whole of the paper’s usual printed matter had been hacked away to make room for a dispatch that was printed in half-inch letters. It read as follows:

When I finished reading that, I said nothing, but stared with unseeing eyes at the mob around me. It was the end of the world. The end of the world! The long centuries of struggling progress, the civilization that had cost so much in thought and toil and blood, all would be wiped out in a few seconds by the crimson star I had watched only a few hours ago. A mighty shock, a burst of flames, and they would have disappeared forever.

Nor was there any comfort for me in that hope of the astronomers, that the planet would veer toward the sun. For if it did fall sunward, the increased heat of the sun after such a collision would burn out all life on the Earth. There was no hope. It was the end.

Fear surged through me then, for I knew that death was rushing toward me, out of the depths of space, and I did not want to die. And those people in the street, they knew it too, and they were like beasts in a slaughter-pen, crazed by their fear, voicing it in inarticulate cries.

But a thought came to me, a sentence from that dispatch recurred to my mind and calmed me. What had it said, that it was hoped some kind of preparation could be made to save the Earth? That thought steadied me. If our science was worth anything, if it could do anything, now was the chance, for our great crisis had come. Could we men, with our accumulated knowledge, save ourselves from the doom that confronted us? Could we?

Suddenly I turned and started to run up the street, but the crowd barred my way, so I cut across lawns instead, running hatless and coatless, but unnoticed by that frenzied throng. The crowd thinned as I approached the end of the street, and as I sped along I wondered what conditions must be like in the thickly populated down-town sections of the city.

It took me only a few minutes to reach Dr. Whitley’s cottage, my objective, and already breathless, I dashed up the walk and in through the door without knocking. I burst into the little library, then stood speechless in astonishment, for although the roar of the crowd in the street was quite audible here, yet a man was seated at the desk calmly surveying a large map, with pencil and ruler in his hand. A thin, middle-aged man with hair of iron-gray, whose keen, intellectual face lit up in a welcoming smile as he looked up and saw me.

I remained motionless, amazed by his calmness after the wild scene outside. Then, motioning to a chair, he said, quietly, “Sit down, Allan. I’m glad you came, for I was just going to phone you and ask you to come over.”

IN A second, my stupefaction of surprise had passed, and I sprang toward him.

“Whitley!” I cried; “haven’t you heard the news? Have you seen this?” And I thrust the newspaper toward him.

He glanced at it, the serenity of his expression unchanging, then said calmly, “Please sit down, Allan.” And as I slumped into a chair he continued, absently, “Yes, I saw that a few hours ago.”

“But you realize what it means?” I insisted. “Why, Whitley, it’s the end of the—world. It must be!”

For a moment he did not answer, but gazed at me reflectively. Then, “You come at an opportune time, Allan,” he said. “As I told you, I was just going to ask you to come over, for I wanted to give you some news of importance.”

“This thing here?” I asked, and indicated the paper I had given him.

“No, not that,” he answered, “but something that is equally important, I think.”

“Equally important?” I repeated, incredulously. Without answering, he reached for a newspaper on the desk and handed it to me. I noticed a small item in one corner ringed with a blue pencil-mark. “But this is yesterday’s paper!” I told him.

“I know that,” he replied, “but read the article in the corner,” and he pointed to the blue-marked item. So, folding down the paper, I read it. It was only a few lines, as follows:

I dropped the paper and looked at Whitley, perplexed. “But what is important about that?” I asked. “For God’s sake, Whitley, this thing about Mars——”

He silenced me with a swift interruption. “Did you never hear of Easter Island before?” he asked me. “Think, man!”

I was about to reply in the negative when a sudden memory came to me. “Why, that’s the place where Dr. John Holland disappeared, isn’t it?”

His face clouded slightly. “Yes, that is the place,” he said, simply. And now the whole story returned to me. It had been a sensation at the time of its occurrence, two years ago, but almost forgotten now, save by Holland’s personal friends, of whom Dr. Whitley had been one.

This Dr. Holland, a young anthropologist of high rank at the university, had sailed for Easter Island in an effort to clear up the mystery that has always shrouded the place. A tiny speck of land, two thousand miles out in the Pacific, and more than a thousand from the nearest land, the island has been a great riddle for years, its unsolvable enigma being the six hundred or more great stone statues with which the island is dotted.

It is a truly amazing thing, when one considers it, those hundreds of stone figures, many over thirty feet in height, set in the grassy slopes of an island of a few square miles. More than one scientist has worked and delved there to learn the origin of the statues, yet nothing had ever been discovered concerning the race who carved the things, nor their purpose, nor anything else that would clear up the matter. Shrouded by the mists of time, those who had placed the statues on the island had gone down into a darkness not to be penetrated by us modems, and were passed away forever from the memory of man.

Yet Dr. Holland had been very confident when he went to the island. He had a new theory, he said, but divulged it to none, waiting until his work on the island would substantiate his idea with incontrovertible facts. What he did there, what he found there, no one ever knew, for he failed to return from one of his exploring expeditions into the interior of the island, and when the natives of the place (part of the three or four score employees of the grazing company) combed the island for him, they found no trace of him whatever.

Naturally it caused talk, his disappearing so completely on a tiny isle like that, but though a small search party went out from the university to hunt for some trace of him, headed, as I remember, by Dr. Whitley himself, they had found nothing, and the final verdict of the party was that Holland had somehow wandered into the sea and been drowned.

A STRANGE story it was, but a small enough matter to drag up in the face of a cosmic disaster such as threatened us. Yet when I said so to Dr. Whitley, his face became very earnest and he leaned toward me to emphasize his words.

“It may be more important than you can guess,” he said. “Tell me, what do you think happened to Holland?”

The only thing I could see that could have happened to him was the death by drowning which everyone else thought had occurred, and I said so.

“You think so?” he asked. “Yet the night he disappeared, Holland was at the very center of the island, several miles away from the sea. And what do you think caused that shaft of red light seen by the Queensland?”

“I take it that the volcano mentioned has broken out again,” I answered.

“Impossible!” he exclaimed. “I have a fair knowledge of geology and you may believe me when I say that my own examination of Rano Kao at the time I visited the island convinced me that the volcano is extinct beyond possibility of revival.”

I was astonished by his assertion. “What other force of nature could have caused it?” I asked. “An earthquake?”

“Perhaps it was not a force of nature at all,” he replied quietly.

“You don’t think that men could cause such a thing?” I cried.

“I am not at all sure that it was done by men,” he said. Then as my face must have shown my bewilderment, he added, “Do you think that those statues on the island were carved by men?”

“Why not? I have only seen pictures of them, of course, but I don’t see why not.”

“Are you so sure?” he asked. “Well, I have examined those statues, and if they are figures of men they are not of men as we know them! They are different, strange, unearthly. The ear, for instance, totally unlike a human ear, for it is a long, ropelike appendage. The faces, too: high, thin-featured, cruel-looking, quite unhuman. No, I am not so sure they were carved of men, or by men.”

“But what on Earth could have carved them, if not men?” I asked. “And why in God’s name are you going into all this at a time like now?”

He paused before answering, his face earnest, determined, illumined with purpose.

“Listen, Allan,” he said; “suppose I told you that there might be a connection between that strange island and the falling of Mars toward us. Suppose there was a chance, a million to one chance, it is true, but still a chance, that we might save the Earth from wreck by going down to Easter Island. Would you go with me?”

I rose to my feet, electrified. “You don’t mean to suggest?” I began, but he broke into my sentence swiftly.

“I am suggesting nothing, for I know next to nothing myself concerning this. But I will tell you a thing which you may not have heard yet. Three nights ago, at twenty-nine minutes after midnight, to be exact, every compass-needle in the world turned away from the northern direction, pointed in a different direction for a few minutes, then swung back to north again. When I heard this I went to San Francisco to verify it. And I did so. For on that night, two nights ago, at approximately twenty-four minutes past midnight, the magnetic needle swung about so that it pointed almost due south, stayed in that position for more than three minutes, then swung back to normal. Strange, is it not? Almost as strange as the falling of Mars toward us.

“And ships far out in the Pacific reported the thing too, but they said that the needle pointed east! And ships in the Atlantic said that it had happened to them also, but that the needle’s direction in those few minutes of deviation had been west! You see what it meant? Each night something was attracting all of the compass-needles for a few minutes, and to find the center of that attraction I needed only to draw lines on a large-scale map, drawing one almost exactly south from San Francisco, others east from the ships in the Pacific, others west and southwest from the ships that had reported the deviation in the Atlantic. Where the lines intersected, there must be the center of attraction, the unthinkable power that was nullifying the magnetism of Earth’s north magnetic pole, that was seemingly removing that pole to a totally different spot on Earth, for a few minutes each night. And the lines on the map intersected exactly at Easter Island!

“And last night, only a few hours ago, the thing was repeated, for about nineteen minutes after midnight, while I watched the needle of my compass, here on the desk before me, it swung suddenly south, quivered in that position for a few minutes, then turned back to its accustomed northerly direction. I asked myself, what did it mean? What force on Easter Island was attracting every magnetic needle in this manner? And another thing puzzled me. The phenomenon occurred earlier each night, some four minutes earlier. Why so? I wondered. And then came these newspapers, spreading the news of the falling of Mars toward the Earth, and I seemed to see a connection. A theory shaped itself in my mind, a wild hypothesis that rests on three little facts: the shaft of red light seen by the Queensland, the veering of the magnetic needle toward the island at the same time, and a curious assertion which Holland made to me before he sailed for the island. I will not tell you more now. I can not tell you more, for I know scarcely more myself. Yet I am asking you, will you leave for Easter Island with me today, this morning? We can get a hydroplane in a few hours.”

He awaited my answer, but I was so dumbfounded by this sudden proposition that I was silent for a few moments, and evidently construing my silence as unwillingness, he added, “It may be the one slender hope we have of saving this world of ours. It may be that the thing on the island has no connection with the falling of Mars; perhaps even if it has we can do nothing, but still it is a chance! And surely worth taking, when we have all to gain, and nothing to lose.”

“I’ll go with you, of course I’ll go!” I cried. “It was just that my head is spinning already, and this strange thing you tell me——”

Again that gentle smile illumined his face. “I know, my boy,” he said, then, walking to the window, flung it open and called me over to him, so that we gazed out together.

The sun was just rising, and I saw that the throngs on the street had disappeared, leaving it silent and deserted. That first mad touch of panic at the dreadful news had passed, and people now sat silently in their homes, chilled by their ever-growing fear. I thought of the happy scene on that street only the night before, and it sickened me that all of that peace and gladness should have been struck down so quickly, and that the laughing groups of the night before should now be watching in dumb terror the approach of a dreadful death.

Down the unnaturally silent street, birds were singing and flashing through the trees, joyously greeting the morning sunshine. I felt Whitley’s arm across my shoulder, and it strengthened me. And his gentle voice, as he, too, gazed thoughtfully at the sunny beauty of the morning.

“Our splendid Earth! Surely it is worth fighting for. And these poor, frightened children!” There was an infinite sadness and pity in his voice, and God knows it was reflected in my heart.

Five hours later we were roaring south in a mighty hydroplane, winging across the Pacific to Easter Island in a headlong race to save the world.

NO ONE in the world behind us knew of our journey except the navy officials at San Francisco, to whom Dr. Whitley had applied for a plane to take us to the island. He had told them only that if we could get to the island we might have a chance to stave off the threatened wreck of the Earth, and without asking more, they had instantly put at our disposal a great bombing plane that was quite capable of making the three thousand mile trip to the island, having been designed especially to carry mail between San Francisco and Hawaii, and being in complete preparation for its first trip. A young officer, Lieutenant Rider, was our pilot, and he assured us that the plane was capable of making the flight in less than thirty-six hours.

So, except for a few men at San Francisco, the world knew nothing of our expedition, or our existence even. Nor, if it had known, would it have cared very much, for ours would have been only one of innumerable plans that were advanced to save the Earth. It seemed that every charlatan on the globe came forward with his own scheme, and wild and crazy enough these plans were.

Some ingenious American even suggested that vast numbers of airplanes and balloons be built as hastily as possible, so that people could ascend several miles above the ground, before the collision, and thus save their lives’ And that scheme was backed by millions of frantic people, who could not be convinced that the collision would result in both planets flaming out into a new sun with the shock of contact.

And other and wilder plans were proposed, that giant guns be trained upon Mars to blow it to pieces when it got near enough; that the moon be hurled out to meet the red planet, none knew how; that people put on diving-suits and get in submarines, and thus be safely under the ocean’s surface when the shock came. All of this came to us over the radio of our plane, as we rocketed across the Pacific, and it seemed that every hour brought wilder news.

A thrill of hope shot through the world when in Rome, an Italian astronomer came forward with the announcement that after exhaustive study, he had discovered that Mars was not falling toward the Earth, but in the opposite direction, and that the astronomers at the Washington and other observatories had been deceived by a curious optical illusion. The whole world waited, breathless, for further news, then fell back into the abyss of fear when it was discovered that the Italian astronomer was only a shoemaker who had seized this wild hour to make himself famous. A raging mob tore the man to pieces.

WHEN night came we were still speeding south, and the steady song of the three mighty motors, the back of our pilot in front of us, and the sheet of darkness around us, these were all our world. Then came the stars, making dimly visible the tossing ocean, far below. A time of tense waiting, and we each sighed when Mars swam up above the sea in flashing crimson brilliance, brighter than any star ever seen by man before.

In the world behind, the sight of that burning star worked havoc, and we received appalling reports of rioting and disorder. On all the Earth, law had seemingly ceased to function, and there were wild scenes as the world rocked toward its doom.

Murder was rampant, and the dwellers of the underworld came out to rob and burn and kill, almost undisturbed. We heard that Chicago was a mass of flames, that the roads were choked by vast crowds leaving the city, striving to save their lives, if only for a few days.

In Washington, a wild mob besieged the government offices, begging and praying that the disaster be averted, and when the president refused to make empty promises, the crowd rolled up to the Capitol with torches alight for burning, but were held back by hastily summoned soldiers.

Everywhere, in city and village and countryside, there were great prayer meetings and revival services. As hope waned, millions turned toward the promises and comfort held out by religion, and the churches were crowded with praying masses. Many who had formerly watched street evangelists in amusement, now fell to their knees in the street and prayed, and all those who lifted tear-stained faces to the heavens saw above them the fiery, menacing planet that swung ever nearer.

Wildest place of all was New York City. There were prayers there, too, and the cathedrals were jammed, but as a whole, the temper of the people there was different. Discarding all hope, those in the metropolis set out to make their last hours their most joyous, and there were scenes of unbridled license. Music was blaring, and huge crowds were dancing, and a frenzied throng surged through the canyons of the city in utter abandonment. The great city was going to its death in a blaze of light and splendor, and though it was mad, it was, too, magnificent.

Now and then we got fragments of news of Europe and Asia. The cables were deserted, it seemed, but most of the radio men had stayed at their posts and an occasional message got through. London was burning, organized gangs were looting and killing in Paris, all Europe writhed in fear. There were vague rumors of Africa, where great hordes of fear- maddened blacks were slaughtering the whites and each other, indiscriminately, and of India, where human sacrifices were being offered up to the Blood Star, and of China, where there was a vast ringing of bells and detonation of firecrackers to scare away the falling planet.

All that night, through the next day, and far into the night again, we continued to receive news of the world behind, a world gone mad with fear of the death that was hurtling toward it. It was 10 o’clock of our second night when we disconnected the radio and turned our attention to the sea below, for by that time we were arrowing through the velvet darkness on the last hundred miles of our trip.

PEERING intently into the black gulf below, Dr. Whitley suddenly made a signal to the pilot with one hand, and instantly the song of the motors died and we drifted along as silently as a wind-caught leaf. Turning then to me, he pointed over the side of the plane, without speaking.

At first I could see nothing in the thick darkness, but gradually my eyes made out a black irregular mass that stood out indistinctly in the starlit sea, far below. And we were spiraling down to it as silently as a ghost.

Nearer and nearer we came, until I could make out the roughly triangular shape of the island, a triangle each of whose sides was about ten miles in length, I judged. Our pilot was evidently aiming the plane at a little bay near one corner of the island, and as we sank swiftly down toward it, the great volcano on the very tip of that corner seemed to rise higher and higher, so that when we neared the surface of the ocean it loomed above us, a tremendous, dark mass, the mile-width of its crater at the top making its height of thousands of feet seem low and squat to us.

As I gazed, Dr. Whitley jerked a thumb toward it and whispered, “Rano Kao,” and the words redoubled my interest. Certainly it looked like anything but an active volcano, for no spark of light showed on its dark mass, nor anywhere else on the island, for that matter. Had we had our long trip for nothing? I looked at Dr. Whitley, but he was keenly watching the shore, which we were fast nearing.

With a slight splash the plane broke the surface of the water and glided across the bay, bringing up directly beside a tiny point of land that projected from the shore, forming a natural landing. And while the plane lay beside it, swaying gently, we made our plans, speaking in whispers.

Our decision was that Lieutenant Rider should stay with the plane while Whitley and I made a reconnoitering trip to the inhabited part of the island, with the object of getting in touch with the people on the isle, if any were left. We had seen no light or other indication of their presence, but felt that some of them at least must still be there, as it would be impossible for them to leave the island.

So, buckling on heavy automatics, we jumped onto the little headland and started up the shore. The whole island seemed as silent as the grave, except for the washing of the waves on the beach, and the sighing of the wind. As I followed Dr. Whitley, I glanced up and noticed that Mars was almost directly above us, its evil crimson beauty making the other stars seem pale and weak. I even fancied that I could see it getting bigger as I tramped along, and that thought made my mood a despairing one.

My companion soon left the shore and started inland, up a long, grassy slope, motioning silently for me to follow. For some minutes I moved along behind him, then shrank back suddenly, for a gigantic figure had abruptly loomed up out of the darkness before us!

My pistol was out in a flash, but Dr. Whitley’s low chuckle stayed my hand. He was standing directly beside the figure and beckoned me to come forward. When I did so, cautiously enough, I found that the thing was only one of the great stone heads which have made the island famous.

As I surveyed it in the dim light, the sight of it did nothing to relieve my fearfulness. I suppose it was twenty-five feet in height, a huge head of stone projecting out of the ground, the rest of the statue being buried beneath the surface. How large it must be, I thought, when the head alone was of that size!

And it was a devilish thing to see. High, thin features, with deep-set eyes and a saturnine expression on its long, narrow face, like nothing I had ever seen before, though it suggested to my mind certain of the crude, medieval demons that are pictured in European cathedrals. In a low whisper Whitley pointed out to me the long ear, if ear it was, an elongated, ropelike mass that extended on each side of the face from the forehead down to the jaw. Certainly he had been right, I thought, in his statement that the ear was totally unlike any conception of a human ear. And I doubted now if the statues were intended to represent humans at all.

We came across several more of the stone figures as we pushed up the slope, all of them facing down toward the sea, and I had queer fancies about them as we stumbled on. But I forgot these when we drew into sight of a cluster of small cabins, that lay before us in complete silence, with no sign of human life about them.

Stealthily, soundlessly, we crept down toward them, but our precautions were needless, for we found no living thing in all that place. According to Dr. Whitley, more than a hundred workers resided on the island, but certainly none of them were still in their little village, nor did we glimpse any of the herds of sheep, the grazing of which is the island’s single industry.

In the huts, though, were indications that men had been there not long before. It seemed, too, that they must have left very suddenly. Cooking had been left to burn on long-dead fires, blankets were flung aside, there were numberless signs of a sudden exodus on the part of the workers.

One thing else we found that I must mention. That was a curious, somewhat greasy white powder that lay in smears on the ground outside, here and there around the huts. There were several dozen such smears in the one street of the little village, and we could see more between the huts. What the stuff was, neither of us could determine by examination, so we gave it up and left the village to its darkness and death, heading now for the place called Mataveri, where was the office and home of the manager of the island, so Dr. Whitley said.

MATAVERI was less than a mile from the workers’ huts, and as we came near enough to see it in the dim starlight, I noticed that the long, low building was surrounded by trees, the only trees on the island, in fact. Directly behind this bungalow rose the mighty bulk of Rano Kao, its sides sloping up at a steep slant. I gazed speculatively up the slope as we drew near the bungalow, but a call from Dr. Whitley brought me to him quickly.

Before him, on the edge of the veranda, was another smear of the white powder, and lying directly on it was a modern repeating rifle. As my companion pointed out, the rifle had lain there for some time, since it was already much rusted by the dew.

We stared at each other, marveling, then passed into the house without speaking. And even as we had expected, we found no living thing in the bungalow, nor any trace of a recent visit. Evidently the manager had followed the native workers in their flight.

Crouched on the ground outside, we discussed the matter in whispers. It was my idea that the inhabitants of the place had fled to the other end of the island, terrified by some strange manifestation from the volcano, such as the Queensland had seen. I suggested that we scout the other end of the island for them, and learn what we could from those we might find.

ut Dr. Whitley was convinced that all of the people who had formerly resided here were dead. He pointed to the absence of any light or sign of life on the island, when we saw it from the plane, and recalled to my memory the fact that the radio of the island had not been heard for several weeks. And in the face of those facts, I could not but agree that any search would be useless.

Suddenly our whispering broke off sharply and we sat in silence, listening intently. And now the sound that had startled us came again, a thin humming, like the whine of some great machine. Scarcely audible, it seemed to have its source in the very air around us, yet we both turned and looked up behind us, where Rano Kao towered into the darkness.

Then, without warning, from the invisible summit of the volcano, a mighty bell sounded, a great, clanging note that seemed to roll down the slope and overwhelm us in a flood of deafening sound. Down the volcano’s sides it rushed and over the island, and sounded out across the sea, God knows how far, then died into a whispering silence in which the memory of it still seemed to beat.

Crouched motionless on the ground, I gazed at Dr. Whitley, and my heart was clutched by a terrible fear. But not his! His face was afire with eagerness to know, everything else in his mind consumed in the flame of his scientific curiosity.

A moment of silence, and the great sound rolled out again, deafening, compelling, cosmic, like the chime of some vast clock that timed the movements of suns! And again it ebbed and died.

Came another silence of minutes, when a new sound smote our ears, low and deep, sustained a mournful, solemn intonation that was like the chanting of mighty hosts, swelling out into a vast dirge, as if all the choirs on Earth were voicing their woe. Human-voiced it was not, yet it was rhythmic, timed, unutterably awe-inspiring, sounding out across the dead island. And it swelled out until it reached its peak, then slowly died away.

Still we lay without moving, striving to pierce with our eyes the darkness that veiled the volcano’s top, whence these sounds came. And as we waited tensely, a wonderful thing happened.

The clanging bell-note sounded once more, and at the same instant, it seemed, a huge shaft of brilliant crimson light shot into the air from the crater far above, soaring into the sky at a slight angle to an infinite distance. With involuntary cries we shielded our eyes with our hands, for the red light was blinding in its brilliance. As we lay with hands over our eyes, the chant swelled out again, but different now, stronger, deeper, joyous! And this time it did not die, but rolled forth in a triumphant, exultant flood.

Gazing between our fingers, we saw that the light was still shooting up, and now we could see its size and awfulness. Fully a half-mile it was in thickness, springing out of the gigantic crater like some dreadful flower of scarlet flame. Pointing almost straight up into the sky, its end was not visible, for it simply seemed to fade into nothing far out in the void between the worlds.

I felt my arm gripped, and turned to Dr. Whitley. His face was alight with interest, and he spoke in low, excited tones. “See where it is pointing?” he asked, jerking his hand toward the heavens.

I looked again, then felt awe creeping over me, for the shaft of light seemed aimed directly at the tiny crimson disk that was Mars. As I stared, I heard his voice again, “You see the connection now?”

I did not answer, for I was stupefied. In silence we watched the column of light for perhaps three minutes, when the bell-note again rang out, and the light was simultaneously extinguished, leaving us in a deeper darkness than before. And the triumphant chanting fell slowly lower, then died away.

Minutes passed and there was no sound from the crater. Finally my companion rose to his feet, and I did likewise, stretching stiffly, after the uncomfortable position I had assumed while crouching on the ground.

“Let’s go back to the plane,” said Dr. Whitley. “There will be nothing more to see tonight, I am sure.”

Silently, thoughtfully, we walked down to the shore. Each of us was brooding on what we had seen, and my thoughts were despairing enough. We had found the thing that was warping Mars out of its course, down to our destruction. But who—what—controlled it? And what was their object in doing such a thing, that meant death for them as well as us?

More important far, what could we do to stop it, to hurl the planet back?

What? For how could two men hope to strive against beings who could reach out and halt a rushing world, who concentrated their power and their craft into a mighty ray with which they stabbed out at the very stars themselves—across space!

ALL through the next day we lay hidden by the shore, in a little cavern amid the rocks. To the eager questions of Lieutenant Rider we gave small answer, nor did we discuss the thing much between us. Dr. Whitley was speculating on it. I could see, and for my part I did not care to talk much about it. One suggestion, however, I did make, which was that we fly over the crater in the plane and bomb it, when the ray started. We carried enough high- explosive in the bomb-racks of the plane to almost destroy the crater itself, and I felt that it would not be hard to blow up whatever devilish machine was operating inside that volcano.

But Dr. Whitley refused altogether such a proposal. “What good would that do? he asked. “Would it stop Mars from falling toward us?”

I was silent, for it was evident that it would not. Yet what could we do? When I put that question to my friend, he said, “The only thing to do is to find out more about the thing in the crater, and then decide. At least we have found what is sucking down Mars, and we have several days yet before there will be danger to the Earth.”

“You spoke of a suggestion Dr. Holland had made to you,” I reminded him. “Did it have anything to do with this, by any chance?”

He was silent, reflecting. “Perhaps, perhaps,” he answered absently; “though Holland was rather imaginative by nature. I will tell you later, though.” And knowing how impossible it was to extract information from him when he felt unwilling to talk, I said nothing more.

Night had come before we ventured forth from our hiding place, the swift tropical night, dropped on the island like a cloak and leaving us in complete darkness for a short time, then relieving that darkness by the light that rained down from the starry heavens.

Our plans for the night were already made. We two were to take up our position at the very edge of the crater, as soon as darkness had fallen, and were to wait until the action of the light began, as we were sure it would do, at midnight. After that we had no definite ideas, since what we might be able to do depended entirely on what we saw in the crater.

In the meantime, the pilot was to try to get a new supply of gasoline for the plane, from the stores in the village. There was quite a large amount kept on the island, so Whitley told us, used when the old brush and rubbish were burned away from the island’s surface each year. If it was still intact, Lieutenant Rider should be able to transport enough of it down to the shore to have the plane refueled, and ready for emergencies.

So when night came, we two set out for the crater at once, leaving a penciled map with the pilot to guide his explorations. I do not think that we spoke much on our way to the crater. In fact, we were fully occupied with the task of getting to the volcano’s top, since the slopes were extremely steep, and we were forced to proceed with the utmost silence and caution. Now and then we rested in the shadow of one of the great stone heads, a number of which were imbedded in the volcano’s side.

IT must have been well after 9 o’clock when we finally reached the very rim of the crater, and concealed ourselves under some low shrubs that grew at the chasm’s edge. In the dim light we could make out almost nothing in the abyss below, save the steep, almost perpendicular sides, that sank down into the unfathomable darkness. There was no light in the crater, nor any movement that we could perceive. We could see nothing, I thought, until midnight came, and with it the crimson light.

So we lay there in silence, now and then whispering to each other, and the hours wheeled slowly by. My companion kept his eyes fastened on the crater, striving to pierce its shrouding darkness, but I soon tired of that, and watched Mars traveling across the sky, its evil eye of red coming closer and closer to a spot directly above our heads.

It was the size of an orange now, a tiny, bloody moon that must have struck terror into savages in far-off jungles who could not comprehend the cause of the phenomenon. I pictured to myself the scenes that must be in enactment in the world behind us, and the thought, curiously enough, steeled my resolution, for I knew that on us depended Earth’s only chance.

I heard the click of Dr. Whitley’s watch shutting, then his whisper, “Almost midnight,” and I turned my attention to the depths below. For moments the same unbroken silence continued, then a sound broke from the pit below us, the same thin humming noise that had startled us on the night before. Simultaneously a light of bluish-white appeared on the crater’s floor, a thousand feet beneath us, a deathly, ghastly illumination that resembled the light from a photographer’s Cooper-Hewitts, yet nothing near so intense, being seemingly reflected, spread out.

And now we found that we had chosen a spot on the crater’s edge where only a little of the bottom could be seen, since directly beneath us the side of the crater bulged out toward its center for some distance, shutting off view of the bottom. So we left our hiding place and crawled along the edge to a spot where we had a complete view of the bottom, though there were no sheltering shrubs at our new position.

But we forgot that in the intense interest of the sight below. The light seemed to emanate from a single point some distance above the crater’s bottom, and though we could see but imperfectly by it, we made out the disk at once. I shall call it that for want of a better name. It was a stupendous circle, smooth and flat, a half-mile in diameter, covering the most of the crater’s floor, and absolutely smooth and unbroken of surface.

Grouped around it were a number of low buildings, hardly visible in the dim light. And our eyes caught movement on the floor of the abyss—a continual flowing movement that we could hardly perceive, that seemed to circulate through the buildings and around the disk.

I JERKED out my watch and noted that it was two minutes after midnight. If the ray was operated four minutes earlier each night, as it had been so far, then according to our calculations it must be almost time for it to begin. And I heard Dr. Whitley’s voice, without turning, “You see now that they can only send up that ray when Mars crosses its path. It would be impossible to tilt that disk, or to aim the ray in any different direction.”

I did not answer, for at that instant the first gigantic sound pealed out, the clanging note of the gong we had heard the night before. It did not startle us this time, though it seemed far louder to our ears, welling up from the crater in a flooding fountain of deafening sound.

Again it rang out, and even as we had expected, the chanting began and swelled out and died, swelled out again and again ceased, and now we waited with tense nerves the ray itself.

There was no delay, for the third bell-note clanged at once, and simultaneously the great shaft of crimson light sprang into terrific being, flashing forth from the surface of the disk and stabbing out across the millions of miles of space to the red planet that swung above us!

Nor were we blinded this time, as before, for we had remembered to look at it from between our fingers, until its radiance became bearable. Now the chant swelled out once more, in triumph, and for the first time I saw clearly the crater’s bottom, lit up by the red ray’s lurid light. And, too, I saw the things that chanted!

They were human in shape, it seemed, for I could see a great multitude of heads gathered about the disk in a thick circle, standing in apparent motionlessness. I turned eagerly to my companion, to ask if he had seen also.

But that question I never uttered, for as I whirled around to Dr. Whitley, my eyes met a sight that froze the words on my lips, in sheer surprize and terror. Winging out of the air behind my unsuspecting companion was a great white thing with flapping wings, that seemed for a moment to be a giant white bat with a human face. In one horror-stricken glance I saw the shadowy white wings, the thin, spindling body, with taloned hands that were grasping for Whitley’s throat from behind, then the face held my gaze like a dreadful magnet, a face that was high and cruel and thin-featured, with deepset, darkly-lustrous eyes, a face of a deathly white, a repulsive white, the white of a snake’s belly! And the ears were long and ropelike! The taloned hands were descending toward my companion, and I gave an awful scream, a scream that was shut off in my throat by other cold, hard hands that gripped me from behind, and pinioned me.

I felt myself being raised into the air, a great pair of wings flapping somewhere behind me; I was being carried over the crater’s edge, and floating down, down, down——

The shaft of red light seemed to snap out suddenly—or was it my brain darkening? I heard the clang of the great bell, then dimly, out of the unconsciousness that was rapidly overtaking me, I seemed to hear the sound of a mighty, chanting throng swell up and meet me, from far below, exultant, triumphant! Then a flood of darkness and silence rolled over my mind, and I knew no more.