ky waters were
in that instant ablaze with fire.

[Illustration: _The inky waters were ablaze with fire._]

Fire that threw itself in flaming balls; that broke into many parts and
each part, like a living thing, darted crazily about; that leaped into
the air to fall again among ape-men who screamed frenziedly in animal
terror.

* * * * *

"It unites with water," Kreiss was saying: "a spontaneous liberation and
ignition of hydrogen." The white-coated hand had dumped another mass
into the primitive engine of war. "Now pull--so--and I cut it!" And the
leaping, flashing fires tore furiously in redoubled madness where a
shrieking mob of terrified beasts, and one white man among them, drove
ashore beyond the end of a barricade.

Chet felt Harkness beside him. "We drove 'em off in back. What the devil
is going on here?" Walt was demanding. But Chet was watching the retreat
of the blacks straight off and down the shore where the sand was smooth
and neither grass nor trees could hinder their wild flight.

"You've got them licked," Harkness was exulting: "and we've cleaned them
up on our side. Just came over to see if you needed help."

"We sure would have," said Chet; "more than you could give if it hadn't
been for Kreiss."

"We've got 'em licked!" Harkness repeated wonderingly; "we've won!" It
was too much to grasp all at once. The victory had been so quick, and he
had already given up hope.

The two had clasped hands; they stood so for silent minutes. Chet had
been nerved to the point of destroying his companions and himself; the
revulsion of feeling that victory brought was more stupefying than the
threat of impending defeat.

* * * * *

Staring out over the black waters, he knew only vaguely when Harkness
left; a moment later he followed him gropingly around the jagged rocks,
while there came to him, blurred by his own mental numbness, a shouted
call.... But a moment elapsed before he was aroused, before he knew it
for Walt's voice. He recognized the agonized tone and sprang forward
into the clearing.

The fire still blazed on the rocky platform above; its uncertain light
reached the figure of a running man who was making madly for the opening
in the wall. As he ran he screamed over and over, in a voice hoarse and
horrible like one seized in the fright of a fearful dream: "Diane!
Diane, wait! For God's sake, Diane, don't go!"

And the driven cloud