ertainly it would not willingly enter
into a conflict with the whole southern continent for the solution of
a problem that so far affected that continent alone. The Master's
kidnapping had solved nothing, so far.

* * * * *

Jamison tapped his shoulder.

"No pursuit, so far," he observed coolly. "I've looked." Bell nodded.

"They don't dare. Not yet, anyhow. They're depending on The Master.
How is he?"

"Smiling peacefully to himself, damn him!" snarled Jamison. "Do you
know what we're up against?"

"Ourselves," said Bell coldly. "But I'm nearly licked. He's got to
talk!"

Jamison moved away again. The earth below looked as if it had been
torn to shreds in some titanic convulsion of ages past. The sea was
everywhere, and so was land! There were little threads of silver
interlacing and crossing and wavering erratically in every conceivable
direction. And there were specks of islands--rocks only yards in
extent--and islands of every imaginable size and shape, with their
surfaces in every possible state of upheaval and distortion. A broader
mass of land appeared ahead and to the left.

"Tierra del Fuego again," muttered Bell. "If we cross it...."

For fifteen minutes the plane thundered across desolate, rocky hills.
Then the maze of islets again. Bell scanned them keenly, and saw a
tiny steamer traveling smokily, for no conceivable reason, among the
scattered bits of stone. The sea appeared, stretching out toward
infinity.

Bell rose, to survey a wider space. He swung to the left, so that he
was heading nearly southeast, and went on down toward that desolation
of desolations, the stormy cape which faces the eternal ice of the
antarctic. He was five thousand feet up, then, and scanning sea and
earth and sky....

And suddenly he swung sharply to the right and headed out toward the
open sea. He felt a small figure pressing against his shoulder.
Presently fingers closed tightly upon his sleeve. He glanced down at
Paula and managed to smile.

"There are some rocks out there," he told her quietly. "Islands, I
think, and Diego Ramirez, at a guess."

* * * * *

They were specks, no more, but they were vastly more distinct from the
plane than from Mount Beaufoy. That is on Henderson Island in New Year
Sound, and its seventeen-hundred-foot peak was almost below Bell when
he sighted the islands. But the islands have been seen full fifty
miles from there