ols?"

"My father had an old one," said the chief mate, Barnes.

"How many times can they be fired without reloading?" Nat asked the
old guard.

"Ten times; sometimes more; and they were all freshly loaded
yesterday."

"Take us to where Axelson is."

"First you must destroy the guards. I sent the one on duty here away
on some pretext. But the others may be here at any moment. Talk lower.
Are you going to kill them?"

"We must," said Nat.

The old fellow began to sob. "We were companions together. They seized
us and imprisoned us together, the capitalists, years ago. I thought
the proletariat would have won, and you say it is all different. I am
an old man, and life is sad and strange."

"Listen. Is Axelson in the house?" demanded Nat.

"He is in his secret room. I do not know the way. None of us has ever
entered it."

"And Madge?"

"She was with him. I do not know anything more." He sank down,
groaning, broken.

* * * * *

Nat pushed his way past him. It was fast growing light now. A ray of
sunshine shot from beneath the edge of the dark sphere overhead, which
still filled almost all the heavens. At that moment the hideous face
and squat body of one of the Moon men came into view at the end of
the path. The creature stopped, gibbering with surprise, and then
rushed forward, mewing like a cat.

Nat aimed his ray-rod and pressed the button. The streak of light, not
quite aimed, in Nat's excitement, sheared off one side of the Moon
man's face.

The creature rocked where it stood, raised its voice in a screech, and
rushed forward again, arms flailing. And this time Nat got home. The
streak passed right through the body of the monster, which collapsed
into a heap of calcined carbon.

But its screech had brought the other dwarfs running to the scene. In
a moment the path was blocked by a score of the hideous monsters,
which, taking in what was happening, came forward in a yelling bunch.

The ray-rods streaked their message of death into the thick of them.
Yet so fierce was the rush that some parts got home. Arms, legs, and
barrel chests, halves of men, covering the five with that impalpable
black powder into which their bodies were dissolving. Nat remembered
afterward the horror of a grinning face, apparently loose in the air,
and a flailing arm that lashed his chest.

For fifteen seconds, perhaps, it was like struggling with some vampire
creatures in a hideous dream. A