ealized for the first time the real reason for the presence of the
gold-flecked walls of force. Without those shimmering walls the captives
would not have lived for a minute in the deadly purple atmosphere of
this weird world beneath the twin suns. The gold-flecked walls were both
their protection and their prison. The swirling purple mists outside
those walls held the Earthlings as effectively and hopelessly prisoners
in their enclosure as gold-fish in a bowl of water.

* * * * *

Blake turned back to the thicket to see how Helen and Mapes had fared in
that terrific battle with the headless things. He was relieved to see
that the girl had apparently escaped without even a scratch. She was
kneeling beside Mapes' prone figure, doing what she could to revive him.
The gangster was badly battered, but he seemed to have no serious
injuries. He was already beginning to stir weakly and show signs of
returning life.

Blake started to step over to the two. Then he stopped abruptly as he
heard a sharp metallic clang from the cone-building out in the purple
mists beyond the end wall. He looked quickly up and saw that an oval
window had opened in the structure near its tip. Framed in the opening
was what seemed to be a large concave mirror. At one side of the mirror
was a living being of some kind, but the intervening mists prevented
Blake from making out any details beyond a hazy glimpse of a cluster of
what seemed to be long slender snake-like black tentacles.

The next moment there spurted from the mirror a broad and swiftly
spreading beam of red light so brilliant that it glowed clearly even in
the bright purple rays of the twin suns. Before Blake could shout a
warning to Helen the racing flood of ruddy radiance was upon them. The
scene reeled in a blurred kaleidoscope of flaming colors before Blake's
eyes for a brief second, then complete oblivion swept over him.

* * * * *

After an interval that seemed hours, consciousness returned to him as
suddenly as it had left him. His first bewildered look around him
disclosed the fact that startling changes had occurred in his
surroundings during the period while he was under the anesthesia of the
red ray.

His first effort at movement brought realization that he was in the grip
of a strange paralysis. His head and neck seemed quite normal in every
way, but from the throat downward his body was completely dead as far