A. G. Birch

“ With all my strength I hurled the empty revolver at the yellow devil. It struck him squarely between the eyes. The knife dropped and he clutched at his face, at the same time struggling to his feet to meet the new attack.
Freed from the struggle, Dr. Gresham's figure relaxed as in a swoon.
Instantly I was after the Chinaman—without a thought of his bull-like strength. I was seeing red. The furious joy of the primeval man hunter—the lust for blood—turned my head. ”

“ With deadly effect the machine guns raked the advancing semi-circle of Mongolians. As the foremost line began suddenly to melt away, the rest of the sorcerers wavered and presently came to a halt. They now were not more than a hundred feet from us. At a command, they all dropped down upon the ground, the ones with rifles in front, and began to return our fire.
I had drawn my revolver and joined in the fight—and so had Dr. Gresham beside me. But in our excitement we had remained on our feet, and I now heard the astronomer shouting at me:
"Lie down! Lie down!" ”

“ As I looked down upon his shriveled figure, a wave of savage joy swept over me! At last fate was strangely playing into our hands! Quite unsuspecting, the most menacing figure of the ages—the master mind of diabolical achievement, the would-be "dictator of human destiny"—had been cast into our net for final vengeance!
Just then the mortars boomed, and two charges of high explosives went hurtling toward the roof of the powerhouse.
Kwo-Sung-tao wheeled and stared off toward the opposite promontory. Seeing nothing, he hesitated in alarm. He did not look around in our direction. ”

“ THE EARTH is rocked to its foundation, and the end of the world is threatened, by a mysterious, unseen power known only as "KWO." At regular intervals, gigantic earthquakes and tidal waves visit the earth, destroying great cities and spreading terror. Dr. Ferdinand Gresham, American astronomer, attributes all this to the Seuen-H'Sin, a Chinese sect with which he is familiar. Finally, when the life of the world seems doomed, he gains permission from the U. S. Navy Department to proceed in the destroyer, Albatross, to the lair of "KWO" and do everything possible to stop the world-wide havoc. ”

“ By those cables attached to copper plugs, the impulses are conveyed to the earth.
"Every blow of that tremendous electric hammer is heavier than the preceding one because it has the accumulated power of all the others behind it. With every blow the earth grows weaker—less able to stand the shock. Continued, the planet's doom would be inevitable—if it is not already so!"
I had been listening to this recital with amazement too profound to admit of interruption. When Dr. Gresham finished I sat silent, turning it all over in my mind, and reflecting how simple the explanation seemed. ”

“ Instantly Seaman Burns, who was behind, hurled one of the bombs to the floor at the foot of the ladder—and then another and another.
The sorcerers halted a moment, surprised by the missiles—and before they could resume their rush they were blinded by tears. Screaming in rage and dismay, they retreated down the passage toward the other voices that were beginning to respond to their cries.
With this, Burns ran on up to the deck.
"Stay here and hold this stairway!" ordered Hallock. "I'll go forward to the other ladder! Don't let any of them reach the deck!" ”

“ The mechanism for using the oil is quite complicated, and the sorcerers are likely to have trouble operating her until they figure out the system. If we reach them before they have time to master the thing, they will be helpless to stop us!"
The young man's enthusiasm was contagious. Dr. Gresham began to give heed.
"Even if we fail to get away in the Nippon," the scientist admitted, "she has a powerful wireless outfit: Kwo-Sung-tao has been using it to communicate with Washington. With that radio in our hands for ten minutes, we can summon help sufficient to annihilate these yellow devils!" ”

“ Seizing the unconscious Chinaman by the arms, Hallock dragged him swiftly around the corner of the deck house to where Burns was waiting.
Would the approaching men enter the companionway and go below, or come on back to the stern? In the latter case they were bound to discover the intruders.
With drawn knives, the two Americans stood ready; the success or failure of their whole enterprise depended upon the next few seconds.
But the Chinamen turned down the steps, and their voices soon died out in the interior of the vessel. ”

“ Three hours later we came upon six large steel conduits which we knew must convey the water power to the plant, and in a few minutes we had followed these to our goal.
Here we found ourselves upon the brow of a promontory directly behind and fully 300 feet above the Seuen-H'sin's workshop. The promontory ended in a sheer precipice, from the outermost curve of which the conduits dropped straight down into the powerhouse. This tremendous fall of the six streams of water supplied the enormous energy to the turbines. ”

“ Accompanied by his friend, Arthur (who tells the story) , the astronomer sails to a lonely spot in the frozen North, where they discover the diabolical power plant of "KWO." It has developed, meanwhile, that "KWO" and his sorcerers are moon worshipers and are endeavoring to create a second moon by splitting the earth in two. In the Moon God's Temple Dr. Gresham and his friend, disguised as Chinese, witness the weird rites of the sect, in which a human being is sacrificed, and then their identity is discovered. ”

“ It is too late to wait for reinforcements. We must tackle the job ourselves—at any cost! The question is: how are we going to do it?"
Hallock thought a few moments, and then replied:
"We can't bomb the place from an airplane, because we brought no airplane bombs. And we can't shell it with the ship's guns without knowing its exact location. Our planes aren't equipped with range finders, either—so it would do no good to try to locate it from the air.
"That," he added with decision, "leaves us no choice but a direct attack!"
"Well," responded Dr. Gresham, "at any cost, we've got to try!" ”

“ Presently he rose without a word and, motioning me to follow, sought Ensign Hallock on the bridge. Briefly he told the young officer about the destruction of Manhattan, adding:
"Something serious has happened somewhere in the world, since then, completely to disorder the atmosphere. It may be the earth's final struggle for existence. Unless the Seuen-H'sin's power is broken at once, the end is near! ”

“ Not far below our present location, a tributary fiord entered Dean Channel from the left, and with sudden hope we saw that this waterway twisted back among the mountains for several miles—reaching a point in one of its windings where it was not more than six or seven miles directly south of the region in which the power plant was hidden.
"There's our chance!" Hallock announced. "If the sorcerers have missed the Albatross, they'll think we are on our way out of the country as fast as we can travel. They won't be expecting us to come back so soon—in broad daylight. ”

“ Now, suppose some person constructed an apparatus that could suddenly turn a tremendous flood of electric waves into the earth. That energy would go clear through the globe, imparting a tiny impulse to every atom of matter of which the sphere is composed—like a push upon the pendulum of a clock. ”

“ A slight rail only three feet high protected the outer edge of this grid—a little hand-hold for the workmen in case of a misstep. From this dizzy balcony it would be possible to drop a stone almost upon the roof of the powerhouse.
After a quick look around, Ensign Hallock chose a spot a little back from the cliff to set up the mortars that were to throw explosives upon the building. He also prepared to place mines under the conduits. But first the machine guns were planted to command the surrounding timber, in case of an attack. ”

“ And suppose that person knew the exact period of the earth's vibration, and sent another bolt, and another and another, into the globe—all exactly timed to impart a fresh impulse at the correct moment—to give the pendulum another push, so to speak. Then let him pile electric impulse upon electric impulse, each at just the right second, until the accumulation of them all represented millions of horsepower in electric oscillations. In time, the world would be shaken to pieces! ”

“ Fifty men can capsize a twenty-thousand-ton battleship merely by running back and forth from one side of the deck to the other and carefully timing their trips to the vessel's rolling. A child with a tack hammer can shake down a forty-story skyscraper if he can discover the natural period of the building's vibration and then tap persistently upon the steel framework at the correct intervals. ”

“ Thus assured of safety again for the moment, Ensigh Hallock ended the career of the Mongolian and dragged the body into the deeper shadows in the stern. Then the two men advanced together to the companionway. ”

“ Suffice it to say that within fifteen minutes the last of the sorcerers' bodies had been disposed of overboard.
Once more we were masters of the Albatross!
Our first move, we decided, would be to steam down the channel a few miles, where the Mongolians could not immediately get at us. Fortunately, two of the apprentice engineers were among the survivors, and they undertook to handle the machinery.
At the same time, Hallock and most of the crew went to work setting up rapid fire guns in convenient places to repel invasion, and storing ammunition and hand grenades on deck. ”

“ Again unsuccessful, he risked attracting the sorcerers back to the spot by shouting into the chasm.
All his efforts proved futile, so he finally returned to the destroyer and obtained this rescue party.
In grateful silence I gripped his hand,
"Now," the astronomer concluded, "if you are able to walk, we will get back to the ship. It is only 1 o'clock, and if we hurry there still is time to attack the Seuen-H'sin before daylight. Conditions throughout the world are so alarming that we must put this power plant out of business without delay!" ”

“ In a few minutes we came to the tributary inlet, and swung the vessel in between its high, constricted walls.
The ensign was now imbued with marvelous activity. Orders flew thick and fast. A couple of the machine guns were made ready for land transport. Two light mountain mortars and a quantity of ammunition were brought up on deck. A supply of shrapnel hand grenades was distributed among the men. ”

“ On the main deck, under the bridge, formerly had been stored a number of rifles, and Hallock now ran to see if these were still there: Luckily the Chinamen had not disturbed them, and the officer soon was back with a loaded weapon for each man. ”

“ Suddenly, above the crack of the rifles and the exploding of the grenades, an enormous roaring burst forth in the east—a sinister screaming of immeasurable forces, moaning, hooting, shrieking across the world—the weird, awful voice of the wounded planet's stupendous agony.
This new terror attracted so much attention that there was a momentary pause in the sorcerers' onslaught, and in that brief lull I noted that our grenades had wrought terrible havoc among the Chinamen, reducing their number to a mere handful. Dr. ”