e Time, where the laboratory and all it contained
would be but a shadow, and where he would be helpless to interfere with
her terrible will.

He saw the door open and Adam stride into the room. Behind him, lying
prone in the hall where she had probably fainted, was Athalia. In a mad
burst of strength he touched the lever together with Eve.

The projector, belching forth its stinking breath of corruption swung in
a mad arc over the ceiling, over the walls--and then straight at Adam.

Then, quicker than thought, came the accident. Eve, attempting to throw
Northwood off, tripped, fell half over the machine, and, with a short
scream of despair, dropped into the black path of destruction.

* * * * *

Northwood paused, horrified. The Death Ray was pointed at an inner wall
of the room, which, even as he looked, crumbled and disappeared,
bringing down upon him dust more foul than any obscenity the bowels of
the earth might yield. In an instant the black cone ate through the
outer parts of the building, where crashing stone and screams that were
more horrible because of their shortness followed the ruin that swept
far into the fair reaches of the valley.

The paralyzing odor of decay took his breath, numbed his muscles, until,
of all that huge building, the wall behind him and one small section of
the room by the doorway alone remained whole. He was trying to nerve
himself to reach for the lever close to that quiet formless thing still
partly draped over the machine, when a faint sound in the door
electrified him. At first, he dared not look, but his own name, spoken
almost in a gasp, gave him courage.

Athalia lay on the floor, apparently untouched.

He jerked the lever violently before running to her, exultant with the
knowledge that his own efforts to keep the ray from the door had saved
her.

"And you're not hurt!" He gathered her close.

"John! I saw it get Adam." She pointed to a new mound of mouldy clothes
on the floor. "Oh, it is hideous for me to be so glad, but he was going
to destroy everything and everyone except me. He made the ray projector
for that one purpose."

Northwood looked over the pile of putrid ruins which a few minutes ago
had been a building. There was not a wall left intact.

"His intention is accomplished, Athalia," he said sadly. "Let's get out
before more stones fall."

* * * * *

In a moment they were in the open. An omi