nous stillness seemed to grip
the very air--the awful silence of the polar wastes which lay not far
beyond the mountains.

"How dark it is, John!" cried Athalia. "Dark and cold!"

"The sunshine projector!" gasped Northwood. "It must have been
destroyed. Look, dearest! The golden light has disappeared."

"And the warm air of the valley will lift immediately. That means a
polar blizzard." She shuddered and clung closer to him. "I've seen
Antarctic storms, John. They're death."

Northwood avoided her eyes. "There's the sun-ship. We'll give the ruins
the once over in case there are any survivors; then we'll save
ourselves."

Even a cursory examination of the mouldy piles of stone and dust
convinced them that there could be no survivors. The ruins looked as
though they had lain in those crumbling piles for centuries. Northwood,
smothering his repugnance, stepped among them--among the green, slimy
stones and the unspeakable revolting debris, staggering back and faint
and shocked when he came upon dust that was once human.

"God!" he groaned, hands over eyes. "We're alone, Athalia! Alone in a
charnal house. The laboratory housed the entire population, didn't it?"

"Yes. Needing no sleep nor food, we did not need houses. We all worked
here, under Dr. Mundson's generalship, and, lately under Adam's, like a
little band of soldiers fighting for a great cause."

"Let's go to the sun-ship, dearest."

"But Daddy Mundson was in the library," sobbed Athalia. "Let's look for
him a little longer."

* * * * *

Sudden remembrance came to Northwood. "No, Athalia! He left the library.
I saw him go down the jungle path several minutes before I and Eve went
to Adam's laboratory."

"Then he might be safe!" Her eyes danced. "He might have gone to the
sun-ship."

Shivering, she slumped against him. "Oh, John! I'm cold."

Her face was blue. Northwood jerked off his coat and wrapped it around
her, taking the intense cold against his unprotected shoulders. The low,
gray sky was rapidly darkening, and the feeble light of the sun could
scarcely pierce the clouds. It was disturbing to know that even the
summer temperature in the Antarctic was far below zero.

"Come, girl," said Northwood gravely. "Hurry! It's snowing."

They started to run down the road through the narrow strip of jungle.
The Death Ray had cut huge swathes in the tangle of trees and vines, and
now areas of heaped debris, livid with the