s a club.

The Rogan squeaked with pain; the arms recoiled. Dex jerked the tube
back over his shoulder for another blow....

There was a shriek from the doomed wretch fastened to the metal plate.
The slave that had been tortured before Dex's eyes as an object
lesson! He had been returned to consciousness a short time since, and
had been writhing and shuddering against the plate.

Dex flashed a glance at him over his shoulder, as he shrieked, and
cried aloud himself at what he saw.

* * * * *

The tortured slave was rapidly disappearing! Another shriek left his
lips, to be broken off halfway. In an instant nothing was left of the
struggling body but a wisp of greasy black smoke!

Dex stared stupidly at the tube in his hand. Then, as a squeak of
agony sounded from a Rogan in front of him, his mind grasped what had
happened. Somehow its mechanism had been jarred into functioning when
he dashed it against the groping arm. In some way its death dealing
power had been unleashed. With a cry of exultation, Dex began to use
it!

The Rogan in front of him, squealing, collapsed on the floor,
dwindling swiftly into nothingness. Dex turned the mysterious death
against another teetering creature. It too went up in oleaginous
smoke.

The Rogan leader came next. Dex whirled the tube in his direction, and
saw him go down. Then he sprang to annihilate still another grotesque
monster who had almost reached the bench on which were the other
tubes. He shouted and raved as this fourth Rogan crumbled. Torture
him, would they! Plan to capture Earth, would they! He'd kill off the
whole damned population with this tube!

The Rogan survivors, squeaking in panic, gave over their attempts to
retrieve the tubes. They dove for various hiding places--under
benches, behind retorts, anywhere to get away from the terror running
amuck in their midst. And after them sprang Dex, mad with his sudden
miraculous success, to ferret them out one by one and blow them into
hell with their own horrible death-engine.

* * * * *

In his ecstasy of rage, Dex overlooked the Rogan leader. He had seen
that attenuated monstrosity go down, and had assumed he was dead. But
such was not the case. In the corner Dex had vacated when he sprang
after the fleeing guard, the tall leader twisted feebly and sat up.

One of his four arms was missing, a smoking stump showing where the
annihilating ray from t