LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664617606

Table of Contents

       CHAPTER I

       CHAPTER II

       CHAPTER III

       CHAPTER IV

       CHAPTER V

       CHAPTER VI

       CHAPTER VII

       CHAPTER VIII

       CHAPTER IX

       CHAPTER X

       CHAPTER XI

       CHAPTER XII

       CHAPTER XIII

       CHAPTER XIV

       CHAPTER XV

       CHAPTER XVI

       CHAPTER XVII

       CHAPTER XVIII

       CHAPTER XIX

       CHAPTER XX

       CHAPTER XXI

      CHAPTER

      I. A MARVELOUS INVENTION

      II. A TRIP OF TERROR

      III. THE PLANETARY LIMITED

      IV. THE CAVERNS OF VENUS

      V. OFF FOR THE SUN LANDS

      VI. LOST IN THE CRYSTAL MOUNTAINS

      VII. THE CHILDREN OF THE SUN

      VIII. LANGUAGE WITHOUT SPEECH

      IX. AN AMAZING METROPOLIS

      X. IMPRISONMENT AND A WONDERFUL ESCAPE

      XI. BEFORE THE THRONE OF VENUS

      XII. MORE MARVELS

      XIII. WE FALL INTO TROUBLE AGAIN

      XIV. THE SUN GOD

      XV. AT THE MERCY OF FEARFUL ENEMIES

      XVI. DREADFUL CREATURES OF THE GLOOM

      XVII. EARTH MAGIC ON VENUS

      XVIII. WILD EDEN

      XIX. THE SECRET OF THE CAR

      XX. THE CORYBANTIA OF THE SUN

      XXI. THE EARTH

      LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

      "Standing on the steps … was a creature shaped like a man, but more savage than a gorilla"

      "We were in the heart of the Crystal Mountains!"

      "'Who and what are you, and whence do you come?'"

      "It curled itself over the edge of the hovering air ship and drew it down"

CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

      A MARVELOUS INVENTION

      I am a hero worshiper; an insatiable devourer of biographies; and I say that no man in all the splendid list ever equaled Edmund Stonewall. You smile because you have never heard his name, for, until now, his biography has not been written. And this is not truly a biography; it is only the story of the crowning event in Stonewall's career.

      Really it humbles one's pride of race to see how ignorant the world is of its true heroes. Many a man who cuts a great figure in history is, after all, a poor specimen of humanity, slavishly following old ruts, destitute of any real originality, and remarkable only for some exaggeration of the commonplace. But in the case of Edmund Stonewall the world cannot be blamed for its ignorance, because, as I have already said, his story remains to be written, and hitherto it has been guarded as a profound secret.

      I do not wish to exaggerate; yet I cannot avoid seeming to do so in simply telling the facts. If Stonewall's proceedings had become Matter of common knowledge the world would have been—I must speak plainly—revolutionized. He held in his hands the means of realizing the wildest dreams of power, wealth, and human mastery over the forces of nature, that any enthusiast ever treasured in his prophetic soul. It was a part of his originality that he never entertained the thought of employing his advantage in any such way. His character was entirely free from the ordinary forms of avidity. He cared nothing for wealth in itself, and as little for fame. All his energies were concentrated upon the attainment of ends which nobody but himself would have regarded as of any practical importance. Thus it happened that, having made an invention which would have put every human industry upon a new footing, and multiplied beyond the limits of calculation the activities and achievements of mankind, this extraordinary person turned his back upon the colossal fortune which he had but to stretch forth his hand and grasp, refused to seize the unlimited power which his genius had laid at his feet, and used his unparalleled discovery for a purpose so eccentric, so wildly unpractical, so utterly beyond the pale of waking life, that to any ordinary man he must have seemed a lunatic lost in an endless dream of bedlam. And to this day I cannot, without a nervous thrill, think how the desire of all the ages, the ideal that has been the loadstar for thousands of philosophers, savants, inventors, prophets, and dreamers, was actually realized upon the earth; and yet of all its fifteen hundred million inhabitants but a single one knew it, possessed it, controlled it—and he would not reveal it, but hoarded and used his knowledge for the accomplishment of the craziest design that ever took shape in a human brain.

      Now, to be more specific. Of Stonewall's antecedents I know very little. I only know that, in a moderate way, he was wealthy, and that he had

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