lame.

Side-stepping, now crouching, now dodging to this side and that, they
fought their strange duel. Asher's right arm was burned, his hair
singed from his head, and his body jarred again and again as Krenski
touched him. Krenski, groaning through gritted teeth, suffered burns
all over his chest and left leg.

As the Petrolia came on, and the lightning play of deadly electric
charges continued, Asher made a discovery. He noticed that the rays,
or charges, of the two guns, when they met in mid-air, caused blue
flame, and that the charge went no farther.

It did it again. The two charges met, crackled to explosion in the
air. Krenski, too, noticed it, and he also noticed that the Petrolia
were almost upon them again. Coming on in a wave that could not be
hurled back.

* * * * *

He looked at Asher, and met the dare in Asher's eyes. Straight at each
other, neither moving, they shot their static charges. Neither would
move: it was a challenge from Asher that Krenski had to meet. One of
them would have to die before the other would be able to gain the cage
in the shaft. There could be no compromise, and only one man at a time
could go surfaceward. If they continued to dodge and fight, the
Petrolia would overwhelm them.

Power against power, they fought it out.

Asher's finger tightened on his trigger release until it seemed the
skin would split; then he caused his hand to tremble just enough to
make his electric charges cover the space in which Krenski's charges
traveled. Hissing, spitting, flashing explosions, giving off sounds
and light like big explosions of flash powder, the charges met.

Asher tingled from head to foot, and thrilled to the very marvel of
the thing. Two deadly beams of electricity, holding each other off!

In one long, continuous flash, the contact point of the charges began
to shift. Closer and closer, as the force of superior charges cleaved
through the other, the contact points neared Krenski. He saw death
upon him, for in another instant, Asher's charges would hurl his own
bolts back upon him. The smaller weapon of Blaine Asher, attracting
more static electric currents by reason of having a small attracting
battery inside, where the larger gun of the other depended upon
magnets for attraction, was triumphing.

Krenski's mustache and light beard singed and curled. He cried out,
stepped back, throwing up his arms as death flashed through his body.