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289
Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930
·
Various
41
"Axelson--the
Black
Caesar,"
Nat
muttered.
For
the
moment
he
was
taken
aback.
He
had
anticipated
any
sort
of
person
except
this
man,
who
stood,
looked,
and
spoke
like
a
Viking,
this
incarnation
of
pride
and
strength.
Axelson
smiled--and
then
his
eyes
lit
upon
Madge
Dawes.
And
for
a
moment
he
stood
as
if
petrified
into
a
block
of
massive
granite.
"What--who
is
this?"
he
growled.
"Why,
I'm
Madge
Dawes,
of
the
Universal
News
Syndicate,"
answered
the
girl,
smiling
at
Axelson
in
her
irrepressible
manner.
"And
I'm
sure
you're
not
nearly
such
a
bold,
bad
pirate
as
people
think,
and
you're
going
to
let
us
all
go
free."
Instantly
Axelson
seemed
to
become
transformed
into
a
maniac.
He
turned
to
the
old
men
and
shouted
in
some
incomprehensible
language.
Nat
and
Madge,
Brent
and
Benson,
and
two
others
who
wore
the
uniforms
of
officers
were
seized
and
dragged
across
the
bridge
to
the
landing-stage
where
the
black
ship
was
moored.
The
rest
of
the
crew
were
ordered
into
a
double
line.
And
then
the
slaughter
began.
Before
Nat
could
even
struggle
to
break
away
from
the
gibbering
Moon
men
to
whom
he
and
the
other
prisoners
had
been
consigned,
the
aged
crew
of
the
Black
Caesar
had
begun
their
work
of
almost
instantaneous
destruction.
Streams
of
red
and
purple
light
shot
from
the
ray-pistols
that
they
carried,
and
before
them
the
crew
of
the
ether-liner
simply
withered
up
and
vanished.
They
became
mere
masses
of
human
débris
piled
on
the
landing-stage,
and
upon
these
masses,
too,
the
old
men
turned
their
implements,
until
only
a
few
heaps
of
charred
carbon
remained
on
the
landing-stage,
impalpable
as
burned
paper,
and
slowly
rising
in
the
low
atmospheric
pressure
until
they
drifted
over
the
crater.
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