Some of the buildings were low and small. Others of several stories, pretentious and ornate. One very large, like a palace, standing alone on its verdant island.

The houses were mostly gathered in cl.u.s.ters of various shapes and sizes.

Yet a semblance of order prevailed. Winding streets of open water lay between the groups. There were trellised walks and arching spider bridges, sometimes over the streets, sometimes joining one house to another.

Here and there I saw lagoons of open water, dotted with small green islands like parks--islands on which the vegetation grew far higher and more luxuriant than any even in the tropics of our Earth. Vegetation always under careful training and control. Profuse with flowers, vivid and gigantic. The houses too, were roofed with gardens--sometimes with pergolas and trellises of the aerial scarlet blossoms.

Occasionally--these latter details I observed as we descended close upon the city--I saw houses with a tiny swimming pool on the roof--a private pool hidden in ma.s.ses of colored flowers.

A playground--the playground of Venus. It seemed very backward--uncivilized. And then Wolfgar pointed out the surrounding hillsides. On them, cleared of their vegetation, our modern civilization stood gaunt and efficient. Towers, aerials, landing stages, aerial trams, factories, tall stacks over the dynamo houses belching thick black smoke, which artificial wind-generators carefully blew away from the city.

In the midst of their hillside ring of necessary modernity, the people of the Great City had kept their playground inviolate. Work, science, industry--all necessary. But the real business of life was pleasure.

Art, music, beauty.... And I am not far from thinking that unless abused, their formula is better than ours.

CHAPTER XVII

_Violet Beam of Death_

We landed on a stage at the summit of one of the nearer hillsides. Our coming--unheralded since we had carried no sending instruments--created a furor. The workers rested to watch us as we disembarked. It was not so different a scene, here on the hill, than might have occurred on Earth.

We took a moving platform, down the hill, to the water's edge. A barge was awaiting us--a broad flat vessel with gaudy trappings. A score of attendants lined its sides, each with a pole to thrust it through the shallow water. And on its high-raised stern, beneath a canopy was a couch upon which Tarrano reclined, with us of his party at his feet.

A royal barge, queerly ancient, barbaric--reminding me of the flat, motionless pictures of Earth's early history. Yet it was a symbol here on Venus, not of barbarism, but of decadence.

We started off. I may have given a false idea of the size of the Great City. Its lake, indeed, was fully fifteen miles or more in diameter.

Half a million people lived on or close around that placid stretch of water.

The news of Tarrano's arrival had instantly spread. Graceful boats, all propelled by hand, thronged our course. From them, and from every house-window, balcony and roof-top, a waving mult.i.tude cheered the coming of the Master. The new Master, to whom so recently they had given their allegiance--the Master who in return was to endow them with life everlasting.

It was a gay, holiday throng--cheering us, tossing flower-petals down upon us as we pa.s.sed majestically beneath the bridges. Yet among these gaudily dressed women and men with the l.u.s.ter of wealth and ease upon them, others mingled. Others of a lower cla.s.s, poorly dressed, with the badge of servitude upon them, enthralled in a social peonage which I did not yet understand.

"_Slaans_," Wolfgar called them. A term half of derision, half contempt.

And Wolfgar pointed one out to me. A huge grey, surly-looking fellow pa.s.sing in a one-man sh.e.l.l or boat of tree-fibre. He gazed up at us as he went by--a furtive glance of cold, sullen fury. Unmistakable. And I saw it again on others of his kind--men, women, even children who gazed at us with big, round eyes. A dumb, sullen resentment, with a smouldering fury beneath it.

During the trip, which may have taken an hour, I remarked something also, which did not at the time seem significant but very soon I was to recall it and understand its import. Argo, of course, was still with us.

As we embarked upon the barge, a man evidently an official of the Great City had paid his humble respects to Tarrano and then withdrawn to a further part of the vessel, drawing Argo with him. I saw the two in close conversation. The official evidently was telling Argo something of importance. I could see Argo growing indignant and then his eyes gleaming, a leer upon his cruel lips.

During the trip Tarrano sat calm, half reclining on his couch--sat watching with his keen expressionless eyes the applause of the mult.i.tude. It was, I think, and I believe he felt it also, the height of his career up to that time--this triumphant entry into the greatest city of Venus. He did not speak, just sat watching and listening, with a half smile of triumph pulling at his mouth. Yet I know too, that those keen eyes of his did not miss the sullen glances of the _slaans_.

The weather, as always in the Venus Central State, was warm--a luxurious tropic warmth. And now I felt--as I had seen from above--the languorous, sensuous quality of it all. Music, mingled with the ripple of girlish laughter and cheers, came from the houses as we pa.s.sed. Soft, fragrant flower-petals deluged us. The very air was laden heavy with exotic perfumes from the flowers which were everywhere.

We arrived at last at what appeared to be a palace--a broad, low building of polished stone, on an island of its own. It was the building I had noticed when first we saw the Great City from above. Gardens were about the building, and on its roof. Flowers lined its many balconies.

We drew up to a stone landing-place.

"The palace of the Princess Maida," Wolfgar whispered.

But I had no time to question him. Attendants appeared. A queer mixture.

Incongruous men of science, armed with belts of instruments. They greeted Tarrano humbly; escorted him away.

Other attendants. Natives of the city, in the flowing, bright-colored robes we had seen everywhere. A group of them--laughing young girls--descended upon us.

"The Princess Maida bids you welcome."

They hurried us into the building. I was surprised. Tarrano had seemingly ignored us. It was quite as though we were honored guests, arriving in the Central State when Maida was its ruler.

Led by the girls, we pa.s.sed upward into the building past splashing fountains, cascades of perfumed water with tubes of silver light gleaming in its midst; and were thrust at last into a room.

The girls withdrew. Across the floor-polished stone, with heavy woven rugs upon it--Georg and the Princess Maida advanced upon us.

Our greetings were brief. I could have talked to them both for a day, questioning them; and they, no doubt, had as much to ask of us. But they were solemn, grave and anxious.

"Not now, Jac," Georg said to check me. "Elza dear--I have been so worried over you."

"But----" I demanded.

"Jac--the situation here--our own cause--the safety of our Earth itself--this Tarrano--"

But Maida stopped him. "The very air has ears. Not now." Her glance turned to Wolfgar; her slim hands went out to greet him. "Wolfgar, my friend. It is good to see you here."

Wolfgar knelt before her, gazed for one instant into her eyes, and then with head bowed, brushed the hem of her robe to his face.

She laughed gently. "Stand up, Wolfgar. I would not be the Princess Maida to you now. Only--your friend. Your grateful friend."

There was a sudden soundless flash. From across the room a beam of violet flame darted at us. It struck just between Maida and Wolfgar, as he rose from his knee. Both of them involuntarily stepped backward, apart from each other. And between them, breast high, the flame hung level across the room. Maida was on one side of it; all the rest of us, on the other.

I turned. At the door, Argo had appeared. From a black object in his hand, the beam was streaming. He rested the black thing on a wall ledge so that the beam hung level.

"Stand where you are, all of you." He started toward Maida, behind the beam from the rest of us.

Georg made as though to leap forward, but Wolfgar restrained him. "Wait!

You don't understand--that's death!"

I saw now that the violet light had encircled us. Only Maida and Argo were outside it. He was approaching her, with a cylinder in his hand.

The ray from it struck her without power of movement or speech. Her eyes, terrified, turned to us. Again Georg would have leaped, but Wolfgar shouted, "Wait! That's death! Don't you understand?"

Argo was leering. "Death? Yes! If you touch that violet light! Death, of course. But you won't touch it! You will stand and watch--stand silently for you know that if you shout, the vibrations will bring the beam upon you. You won't move--you'll stand and watch me kill your Princess Maida--not quickly--she is too beautiful for that. You, Georg Brende--you, Wolfgar, traitor from Mars. You shall see your Princess Maida die--this would-be traitoress to my Master Tarrano!"

With all the strength of his puny body Wolfgar flung Georg backward--safely away from the deadly violet beam. And then, without warning, without a cry which would endanger us, the little Mars man sprang headlong, into and through the violet beam of death.

CHAPTER XVIII

_Pa.s.sing of a Friend_