is eyes
shoreward, Jim saw it sweep along the causeway and tear a black path
through the forest. Frantically he soared, and circled around the
temple.

The ray went out. Two minutes more. And now the temporary panic had
passed; Jim's nerves grew steady as a rock. He eased the controls and
floated in toward the glowing orb. Sea-mews, screaming, dashed
themselves against it and fell, wounded and broken, into the breaking
seas below. They fluttered past Jim's face, one impacted against his
chest with a thud that rocked him where he hovered.

But Jim knew that he could not fail. At a distance of fifty feet he
drew a bead upon the centre of the Eye and pressed the trigger.

And instantly the light went out....

CHAPTER X

_The Fight in the Dark_

He dropped down softly to the causeway. Within the city he heard a
sound such as he had never heard before, as if some ancient prophecy
of doom had been fulfilled, a wailing "Aiah! Aiah! Aiah!" that was
caught up from throat to throat and rose upon the wind in a clamor
wild and mournful as that of the sea-birds around the broken Eye. It
was the death-keening of proud Atlantis, Queen of the Atlantic for
fifty thousand years. She was dying in darkness.

For, with the blinding of the Eye, all the soft lights within the city
had gone out. Dense, utter, impenetrable darkness reigned, and even
the gibbous moon, floating overhead, seemed to give no light.

Jim dropped to the causeway and began running in the direction of the
city. But, feeling the drag of his wings, he unbuckled the strap and
flung them away. He might need them, but his one thought was to get to
Lucille, if she were still alive. And he felt that each moment lost
might mean that he would be too late.

Through the blackness he raced forward, hearing that sobbing ululation
within the walls. But behind him he heard another sound, and shuddered
at it, all his hopes suddenly reversed. For that sound was the
shouting of the Drilgoes as they rushed forward to conquest. And now
it seemed a monstrous thing that proud Atlantis should be at the mercy
of these hordes. He had let loose destruction upon the world. But it
was to save Lucille.

That was his consolation. Yet he hardly checked the racing thoughts
within his mind even for a moment, to meditate on what he had done.
Those thoughts were all of Lucille. He must get to her before the
Drilgoes entered. And he ran faster, panting, gasping, till of a
sudden the portal