The Flying Death - Samuel Hopkins Adams (story reading .txt) 📗

The little human creatures far below followed with awful eyes. Not until a low-scudding cloud blotted the portent from sight did the power of speech and coherent thought return. Then, each according to his own way, they bore themselves in the face of a terror such as no creature of human kind ever before had confronted. Professor Ravenden, holding an envelope on his knee, burrowed fiercely for a pencil muttering:

“Gyrations comprising three distinct turns. Most amazing. New light upon the entire race of flying reptiles. I must preserve my calm; surely I must preserve my calm!”

Dolly Ravenden was looking at Dick with her soul in her eyes.

Old Johnston, fallen to his knees, was praying with the formal steadfastness of the blue Long Island Presbyterian.

Everard crossed to Helga, who was pale but quiet, and threw his arm around her. She leaned against him and gazed into the sky. Dick wrenched his hungry eyes from Dolly and turned a face absolutely white and absolutely set to Professor Ravenden.

“The pteranodon!” he said.

“Yes. Oh, what an opportunity! What an enlightenment to science! To no observer has it been given since the beginning of the race. May I trouble you for a pencil?”

“Then it was this creature,” said Dick, “that killed Petersen the sailor, and the sheep. It fouled Ely’s kites and snapped the strong cord as if with scissors. It impaled Ely on its beak, carried him aloft and shook him to earth again. It made the footprints which Whalley—”

“Eet will come back!” shrieked the little juggler, who had been speechless with terror. “Eet will kill you all! Zat is not matter. But her! Eet shall not kill her while I leef! Eet see ze kite man, an’ I see it come down, an’ I run. See! Ze moon!”

From behind the clouds the moon moved again, and now they saw the reptile swaying back toward them. Of a sudden it uttered a harsh, grating sound and passed.

“That is what I heard just before my horse bucked,” said Everard.

“Raucous—metallic,” said the professor in rapt tones. “Sounded twice—or was it three times?” He looked up from his notes, questioning the group.

Again the hideous sound was borne to their ears as the monster whirled and soared downward, in a long slanting line.

“It has sighted us!” said Dick. “Dolly! Helga! Run for the gully. Find what cover you can. Ev, go with them.”

Helga reached out her hand. “Come, Dolly,” she said.

For one moment the girl hesitated. Then, with a little wail of love and dread, she leaped to Dick and clung close to him, pressing her lips upon his.

“Now you know!” she sobbed. “Whatever happens, you know! I could not leave you so, without—”

“God bless and keep you, my own!” said Dick, thrusting her from him into his brother’s grasp. “Quick, Ev! It’s coming!”

With another metallic cry, the pteranodon increased its speed in a wide, dropping curve. Instantly Dick became the man of action again.

“Professor, I want you with your pistol on the right. Ev, stand by the gully and guard the girls. Johnston, take the left; don’t fire until it is close. Fire for the head.”

“For the wing-joint where it meets the body, if you will allow me,” amended the scientist, putting away his notes carefully in his pocket.

“Thank you. For the wing-joint,” said Dick coolly. “If it strikes, throw yourselves on the ground, all of you. Look out for the beak. Whalley, give me your knife.”

“I keep eet,” returned the little juggler. He had regained his courage now, and with an intelligent eye had stationed himself on a hummock above the depression whither Everard had guarded the two women. “What can you do wiz eet? But me, I show you! Now come ze death-bird!”

“That’s all right then,” said Dick approvingly. “Remember, Whalley, whatever happens, you are to save the ladies.”

Throwing off his coat, he swung the heavy net-butt in the air, and stationed himself.

“If it tackles me first,” thought he, “the pistol shots may do the business, while I check it.”

Yet, beholding the terrific size and power of the tiger of the air, it seemed impossible that any agency of man might cope with it. That it meant an attack was obvious; for while Dick was disposing his little force it had been circling, perhaps two hundred yards above, choosing the point for the onslaught.

Now it rushed down; not at Dick, but from the opposite quarter. All ran in that direction. The pteranodon rose, sounding its raucous croak as if in mockery. Before they had regained their position, it had whirled, and was plunging with the speed of an express train down the aerial slope directly upon Dick. Straight for his heart aimed the great bayonet that the creature carried for a bill.

Dick stood braced. The heavy, leaded club swung high. The creature was almost upon him when he leaped to one side, and brought his weapon around. The next instant he lay stunned and bleeding from the impact of the piston-rod wing.

The reptile swerved slightly. Shouting aloud, Professor Ravenden poured the six bullets from his revolver into the great body. From the other side Johnston was shooting. The monster was apparently unaffected, for it skimmed along toward the spot where the girls crouched, guarded by Everard Colton, who held ready a small boulder, his only weapon.

But between stood “The Wonderful Whalley” with knife poised. On came the reptile. Like a bow, the little juggler bent backward until his knife almost touched the ground behind him. Then it swung, flashed, and went home as the pteranodon, with a foot of steel driven into its hideous neck, pierced the man through and through, and rising, shook the limp body from its beak.

The air was poisoned with the reek of the great saurian. Sharp to the left it turned, made a half-circle and, beating the air with the thunder-strokes of sails flapping loose in a mighty wind, fell to the ground ten paces from Professor Ravenden.

Instantly that intrepid scientist was upon it, with clubbed revolver, everything forgot except the hope of capturing such a prize. Everard, holding aloft his rock, sprinted to the rescue. Dick staggered after him. They had almost reached the spot when the reptile’s dying agony began.

The first wing-beat hurled Professor Ravenden headlong with a broken collar-bone. Frenzied and unseeing, the monster of the dead centuries projected itself from the hill, and with one dreadful scream that might have rung from the agonised depths of hades, sped out across the waters. Once, twice, thrice, and again, the vast pinions beat; then a plunge, a whirl, a wild maelstrom of foam far out at sea—and quiet.

Dolly Ravenden, with a cry, ran to her father, and with the help of Dick and old Johnston got him to his feet.

“A boat! A boat!” he cried. “We must pursue it!”

Then he tried to lift his arm, and all but fainted.

Meantime Helga and Everard were bending over the juggler. He was dead as instantly as Haynes had been dead by his stroke.

“Poor fellow!” said the young man. “He has paid his debt as best he could. It was his knife that saved us, my Helga.”

The girl said nothing, but she loosed the soft neckerchief that she wore and covered the worn, fantastic and peaceful face. They stood with clasped hands looking at the body when a loud cry from Professor Ravenden brought them hurriedly to where he stood, frenziedly gesturing toward the sea.

About the spot where the pteranodon had fallen glittered little flashes of phosphorescence. Soon the sea was furiously alight. A school of dogfish had found the prey. One great black wing was thrust aloft for a brief moment. The water bubbled and darkened—and the sons of men had seen the last of the lone survival that had come out of the mysterious void, bearing on its wings across the uncounted eons, joy and sorrow, love and death.