how was he to tell Jaska?
How show her that a way of deliverance had been given into their
hands, if they only possessed the courage to use it!

Again came that thought, which Sarka recognized as the telepathy of
his father:

"Courage! You will win, and Jaska with you!"

Thoughts could come in to them then, but could not go out. Or did it
mean that the cubes, or the masters of the cubes, did not care if the
prisoners received messages from outside, because they knew themselves
capable of frustrating anything the prisoners planned? Perhaps. More
than likely that was it.

But, looking through the bottom of the globe, into the sea of white
flames below, Sarka gripped more tightly his ray director, and tried
to marshal the forces of his courage. There was surely some way of
escape. Some way out of their strange predicament.

CHAPTER XVII

_Casting the Die_

Somehow Sarka believed that this white radiance of the abyss held the
secret of the omnipotence of Luar, if omnipotence she possessed. That
she did seemed sure, else Dalis would not have been with her. Besides,
she had asked Sarka and Jaska to swear allegiance to her. Yes the
secret was here, in the heart of the lake of white flames.

It might have been the Moon Fountain of Youth, or of omnipotence.
There was no telling, unless Sarka tried an experiment.

His fury at Dalis now knew no bounds, and he was conscious of a
desire, too poignant almost to be borne, in some way to circumvent the
arch-traitor. For here in the craters of the Moon Dalis was working
out a strange amplification of the scheme which he had, centuries
before, proposed to Sarka the First. He was subjecting the people of
his Gens to the white flames.

If they immersed themselves voluntarily, they became as Luar was, but
still subservient to the will of Dalis--and, in his hands, invincible
instruments of war! Dalis had doubtless already been bathed in the
flames. Sarka was not sure, for in the home of Luar the white light
was so blinding it would have been impossible to make sure that the
white radiance clothed the others with Luar.

"That's it!" said Sarka to himself. "That's it! Dalis and those guards
at the dais of Luar have already been subjected to the white flames!
The rest who immerse themselves, voluntarily, come forth as Luar and
Dalis! Who do not, die. Dalis' manner of forcing the survival of the
fittest! His idea of the flood in grandfather's time, only now he
causes his selecti