* *

Two more shifts of fighters took the flaming jets before the monsters
began the retreat slowly back toward their tunnel. And here the
Professor took command again.

"We mustn't let them get away to try some new scheme!" he snapped.
"Martin, take fifty men and beat them back to the break in the wall. Go
around a side street. They move so slowly that you can easily cut off
their retreat."

"There isn't any more hose--" began Stanley.

"There's plenty of it. The Quabos brought it with them." The Professor
turned to me again. "Take metal-saws with you. Cut sections of the
Quabos water-hose and connect them to the nearest wall jets. Run!"

I ran, with fifty of the men of Zyobor close behind me. We dodged out
the side of the palace grounds least guarded by the Quabos, ducking
between their ranks like infantry men threading through an opposition of
powerful but slow-moving tanks. Four of our number were caught, but the
rest got through unscathed.

Down a side street we raced, and along a parallel avenue toward the
tunnel. As we went I prayed that all the Quabos had centered their
attention on the palace and left their vulnerable water-hoses unguarded.

They had! When we stole up the last block toward the break we found the
nearest Quabo was a hundred yards down the street--and working further
away with every move.

At once we set to work on the scores of hoses that quivered over the
floor with each move of the distant monsters.

* * * * *

A Zyobite with the muscles of a Hercules swung his ax mightily down on a
hose. The metal was soft enough to be sheered through by the stroke. The
cut ends were smashed so that they could not be crammed down over the
tapering jets; but we could use our metal-saws for cleaner severances at
the other ends.

The giant with the ax stepped from hose to hose. Lengths were completed
with the saws. A man was placed at each jet to hold the connections in
position. Before the Quabos had reached us we had rigged six fire-hoses
and had cut through forty or fifty more water-lines.

The end was certain and not long in coming.

We sprayed the monsters with fire as workmen spray fruit trees with
insect poison. Stanley, the Professor and a Zyobite came up in the rear
with their three hoses.

Caught between the two forces, the beaten fish milled in hopeless
confusion and indecision.

In half an hour they were all reduced to huddles of slimy wet