The Winged Men of Orcon | Page 7

glanced over the side of the ship to see

whether trouble was to be expected from his fellows.
And for the moment they surged about so much, and made so much
noise, that I thought trouble might come. The shouting, however, was
caused by their dismay at all that had happened to them, and I saw that
instead of making ready to attack they were preparing a retreat. We had
whipped them temporarily.
We had thrown them into such disorder, indeed, that in another
moment a whole force of them gave proof of their ability to fly, by
taking off from the beach. Up and out they swept, out into the intense
blackness which overhung the sea behind us. In another moment the
whole crew had vanished, and I was glad enough of it.
"Come on below," I said to my two companions. "There's no telling
how long Leider will keep his hands off us, and we've got to find out
from our prisoner whatever we can."
With that I turned to the companionway, lugging the winged man, and
the others followed.
CHAPTER III
In the Grip of Ludwig Leider
Once we were below, LeConte joined us from the radio room. After
taking a swift look at our prisoner, and listening to our account of what
had happened above, he reported that the radio had been put out of
commission by the crash but could be repaired. All of us then held a
hasty conference and decided that since no one was badly in need of
rest, LeConte would return to his sending set, Koto would keep a deck
watch, and Captain Crane and I would see what we could learn from
the prisoner.
From the start it had been certain that the Orconite's strength was not to
be compared to our earthly powers. Therefore I made no attempt to
bind him, but simply shoved him into a seat in the main cabin of the
flier--the room in which Forbes' body still lay--and began to try to

make him talk.
I knew that Leider must have some way of communicating with his
allies, and I was determined that if he could, I could. But it was uphill
work. The creature closed his mouth, assumed a sullen look, and sat
tight. He knew what I was after--that I could tell by the expression of
his face--but he met with stolid silence all of my attempts to address
him in such languages as I knew of Earth and our allied planets. I got
nowhere, until, in a manner as sudden as it was unexpected, something
happened which ended the deadlock.
* * * * *
The way it happened was this. As LeConte, working in the radio room
close off the main saloon, completed a connection which had been
broken, he called to us that he was making progress, and a moment
later we heard the click of his sending key and the shrill squeal of a
powerful electric arc breaking across the transmission points of his set.
I realized at once that this did not mean that the set was wholly in order,
for the pitch of the squealing arc was too high and too sharp, but I did
know that there was hope of establishing communication with Earth
soon. And, too, I realized another thing.
The moment that shrill, squealing sound impinged upon the Orconite's
ears, he jumped and uttered a cry of pain. There was something about
his nervous organism that could not stand these sounds!
"LeConte," I shouted, "close your key again!"
After that the battle was won. By the time I had explained to LeConte
why I had given him the order, and he had filled the cabin two or three
times with the screech, the Orconite was ready to speak. He trembled in
his seat. His mouth twisted with pain, and a look of agony seared his
eyes. He burst into fluent Orconese speech. Then he made a swift pass
with one hand at the black box on his chest, touched a switch there, and
began to rattle his Orconese into the mouthpiece.
The result--well, one might have known that Leider would have found

some ingenious means of making the difficult speech of Orcon easy.
Out of the small instrument into which our prisoner spoke his hard,
rattling words, came a flood of pure German.
An instrument for translating spoken Orconese into spoken German.
That was what the little box was.
"Shut the accursed transmission set off!" came from the box in a clear
German which I understood readily. "I will talk. Ask what you want to
know. I cannot stand this!"
* * * * *
His face still contorted, the Orconese touched a second switch on the
box, and indicated that I was to speak at the