Smasher."

"I hate the idea of bargaining with that wretch," said Lucille.

"So do we all, dear," answered Jim. "But there's nothing else that we
can do. It's just a matter of give and take. And I'd be glad to
consent to any terms that would bring us three safe back to earth,
with all this business behind us."

"I'll start back, then," said Parrish, turning back to the instrument
board.

And, to the familiar thump, thump of the electrical discharge, the
Atom Smasher took up its backward journey once more.

* * * * *

A long time passed. With her head resting against Jim's breast,
Lucille rested. Jim bent over her, trying to discover whether she was
asleep or not. Her eyes were closed, her breathing so soft that she
hardly seemed alive. An infinite pity for the girl filled Jim's heart,
and, mingled with it, the intense determination to overcome the madman
who had subjected her to these perils. He glanced across at Parrish,
fingering his screws. Old Parrish looked up and nodded. There was a
new determination in the old man's face that made him a different
person from the crazed old man whom Jim had encountered at the
Vanishing Place.

"We can beat him, Parrish!" Jim called, and Parrish looked back and
nodded again. "We're nearly back to the top of the column," he
answered.

Not long afterward Parrish looked up once more. "Stand by, Jim!" he
called. "And be ready. Tode will be aware of our approach by means of
the sensitive instruments he keeps in his laboratory. But don't harm
him. We want him aboard, and we want him badly. He won't be able to
play any more tricks with us. I've learned too much about the Atom
Smasher."

He pressed a lever, and the greyness dissolved into its component
parts of light and darkness. A jar. Thump, thump! The violet light!
Lucille looked up, raised herself, uttered a low cry and caught at
Jim's arm, trembling.

They had run their course truly. The Atom Smasher was vibrating
outside the entrance to Tode's cave. And that was Tode, standing
there, watching them, that devilish grin of his accentuated to the
utmost. A blurred figure that appeared and vanished, and a surrounding
crowd of Drilgoes--how many it was impossible to guess, for they
looked like a crowd of apes in motion.

Suddenly Tode disappeared, and a moment later Lucille uttered a
terrified cry as his voice spoke in her ear:

"I thought you'd be back. I knew you'd got away from Atlantis