but there was no force in the stroke, for in that instant Sime
paralyzed his enemy's heart with the beam.

An officer barked a command, and the spang of neuro-beams ceased, to
be followed by the lethal rustling of swords. The passage was too
crowded for the neuro-pistols, giving the outnumbered prisoners the
advantage.

* * * * *

Tolto could not swing his club, but he hurled it, like a battering
ram, into the middle of twenty or twenty-five of the garrison who were
still below him on the steps, trying to get closer. The heavy timber
cleared a lane and the two stumbled down over crushed bodies. Sime was
now the only one to use his pistol, for he had no friends there to
kill accidentally.

The Martians, were putting up a game battle. They were heirs to the
traditions and the spirit of Earth's best fighting men. Science had
given them deadly and powerful weapons that could kill over long
distances, but they preferred to get close to their adversaries.

But Tolto was a Martian too. He had seized a sword from a dying hand
and was wielding it with aptitude and power. No formal thrust and
parry for him, but merely a savage sweep that sent swords, arms and
heads flying indiscriminately.

Sime, following him, his neuro hissing death from side to side,
marveled at his ferocity. He saw a bare-bodied, bleeding fighter leap
to Tolto's back, his sword poised for a downward stab for the jugular.
Kicking viciously at the man who was just then coming at him, Sime
tried to bring Tolto's would-be killer down. But Tolto himself
attended to him, dashing him to his death with the elbow of his sword
arm.

That diversion nearly cost Sime his life. Fortunately for him he
tripped, and the sword-thrust that was to disembowel him merely gashed
his side. Sime was beginning to enjoy the fight. The exercise was
loosening up his cramped muscles, and the shaky feeling due to the
reflected beams of the neuro-pistols was leaving him.

* * * * *

Tolto had smashed down the light-wands as they fought their way down
the steps, so that now they were in almost complete darkness. One
could still see the occasional rise and fall of a glinting sword and
the dark shadow of an arm or head. They were almost clear when Tolto
received his first serious wound, a stab in the abdomen that let out a
sticky stream of blood.

There was an interval of silence, broken only by the groans of the
woun