p and down, bit into something soft and
yielding. The Mercutian screamed horribly; blood spouted from his
wide-split shoulder. He fell stumbling to his knees, and Hilary
stepped into the little open space. That gave him more elbow room. A
furious towering monster swung his tube around in the press. Hilary
ducked as the sizzling ray sped over his head. There were howls of
pain as the spreading beam cut a burning swath through the packed
Mercutians.

Thereafter no more tubes were raised. The quarters were too close. It
was to be hand-to-hand fighting; thousands of giant Mercutians against
a handful of puny Earthmen.

* * * * *

Hilary swung his red-dripping ax in ever-widening circles. At every
swing a Mercutian tumbled. A little space opened around him, literally
hewn out of living flesh. But with strange fierce cries he threw
himself again and again into the wall of bodies. There and there only
was salvation possible where the sun-tubes could not be used.

Far over to one side he caught glimpses of bodies in violent
upheavings, bodies that thrust explosively to either side as from the
sharp prow of an invisible ship. Then a great figure heaved staggering
into view, bloody, gashed, great arms encircling Mercutian heads,
smashing them together like eggshells, flinging them apart, seizing
others. Grim Morgan, berserk with bare hands.

Here and there in his own travail Hilary sighted little foci of
struggle, Earthmen with ax and pitchfork and spade battling valiantly
in a sea of Mercutians. A swirl, an eddy, and all too often a sudden
surge and flowing of gray warty faces, and smooth rippleless heads
where an Earthman had gone down, trampled into pulp.

Hilary's first rush with swinging flashing ax had caught the
Mercutians unawares. They had relied upon their sun-tubes, and in the
melee succeeded only in inflicting frightful havoc on their own kind.
Now, however, they came for Hilary in a solid mass, huge
three-fingered hands flailing, seeking to thrust him down by sheer
weight of numbers. He swung and swung again, the ax bit deep, but
still they came. His arm grew weary from so much slaughter, it rose
more and more slowly, and then it rose no more. The bloody ax was
wrenched from his nerveless fingers, and he was down, smothered by
innumerable trampling bodies. Over him the tide swirled smooth. Heavy
feet kicked and battered at his body, hands reached down to pluck and
rip at him.