so to say, onto the gale
somewhere in the Bahamas," said Graves. "That seems to me the most
likely explanation."

* * * * *

Vice-president Tomlinson nodded, and picked up one of the latest
telegraphic dispatches, as if absently.

"Gentlemen," he said, "the Invisible Death has already reached
Charlotte."

He picked up another. "Reported Abaco Island, Bahamas, totally wrecked
by storm. All communication has ceased," he read. He turned to Dick
and spoke as if inspired. "Captain Rennell, there is your
destination," he thundered. "They've betrayed themselves. We've got
them now. You understand?"

"By God, sir! It's from Abaco Island, then, that those devils have
been carrying on their game of wholesale murder!"

Suddenly a contagion of enthusiasm seemed to sweep the whole
assemblage. Every man was upon his feet in an instant, white,
quivering, lips opened for speech that trembled there and did not
come.

It was Secretary Norris spoke. "The Vice-president has hit the mark,"
he said, with a dramatic gesture of his arm. "Yes, they've betrayed
themselves. Their headquarters are on Abaco Island. It's one of the
largest in the Bahamas." He turned to the Secretary for the Navy. "You
can rush the fleet there, sir?" he asked.

"Within forty-eight hours I'll have every vessel that can float off
Abaco Island."

"I'll concentrate all airplanes. Take your flight, Captain Rennell.
We'll stamp out that nest of murderers if we blow Abaco Island to the
bottom of the sea. It can be done!"

"It can be done, sir--with Luke Evans and his invention," answered
Dick.

CHAPTER VII

_On the Trail_

Three hours later, about the time when the war council rose after
completing its plans, a sudden shift of the wind blew the poison gas
out to sea, just when it appeared certain that it would reach the
capital of the nation.

The southern half of Virginia had been swept over. Operators,
telegraph and telephone, staying at their posts had sent in constant
messages that had terminated with an abruptness which told of the
tragic sequel. Yet, at that distance from its source, the intensity of
the gas had been to some extent dissipated.

Poisonous beyond any gas known, so deadly as to make hydrocyanic gas
innocuous in comparison, still as it was swept northward on the wings
of the wind, there had been an increasing number of non-fatal
casualties. The most northernly point reached by the gas was Richmond,