* * *

Thalma soon revived, but she clung to Omega and gazed about fearfully.
How she had wandered out of doors and had been snapped up by the beast
she could not tell, but Omega said that she must have been walking in
her sleep. They went at once to the ship and there spent the remainder
of the night.

Every light, including those about the Mirror, had been extinguished by
the beast breaking the circuit. Yet it appeared that the latter's
passage through the electric wall had caused no harm. Omega explained
that likely its bony scales had acted as an insulator against the action
of the invisible wall.

While the cottage was being repaired they remained on the ship. But
despite their recent harrowing experience, they went back to the cottage
when the repairs were complete. It was more home-like than the ship, and
Thalma had learned to love it, for it was to be the cradle of a new
race. But before they again took up their residence there Omega had
erected a high fence around the cottage yard. This fence was built of
heavy cables securely fastened to huge posts, and each cable carried an
electric charge of 75,000 volts. Omega was confident that the beast
could never break through. His confidence was shared by Thalma, but as
an additional precaution she suggested that Omega place a similar fence
about the lake. He did so, and when the last cable was in place they
stood back and surveyed the work with satisfaction.

"We have him now," exulted Omega. "He can never leave the lake alive,
much less reach the cottage. Despite his tough armor of scales this high
potential will penetrate to his vitals."

"It is well," said Thalma as they turned away.

As they neared the cottage they knew that a crisis was at hand.
Forgetting the dead world about them and subduing the fears that
sometimes clutched their hearts, they lived in the joy of anticipation
and made ready for the advent of a new soul.

Night came down moonless and dark save for the light of the stars. In
the recesses of the rocks and in the bottoms of the valleys intense
darkness held sway. But the grounds and the home of Omega and Thalma
were ablaze with a thousand lamps, and on the near-by hillsides giant
searchlights, which seemed to have no basis, which were born in the
bosom of the air and blazed without visible cause, shot their rays into
the sky for miles. Yet the powerful lights about the cottage were so
tinted as to be restful to the eye. Thus si