arily
blinded the watching Terrestrians; then there came to the microphone
such waves of sound as it could not reproduce. From the rock on which
rested the fused mass of metal that they knew had been the wing, rose a
great cloud of dust. Still the motors on the other side of the ship
continued roaring and the giant propellers turned. As the blast of air
blew the dust away, the Terrestrians stared in unbounded amazement. Up
from the gaping, broken wing lanced a mighty beam of light of such
dazzling intensity that Arcot swiftly restored them to visibility that
they might shut it out. There was a terrific hissing, crackling roar.
The plane seemed to wobble as it lay there, seemingly recoiling from
that flaming column. Where it touched the cliff there was intense
incandescence that made the rock glow white hot, then flow down in a
sluggish rivulet of molten lava! For five minutes longer this terrific
spectacle lasted, while Arcot withdrew the _Solarite_ to a safer
distance.

The fifty motors of the remaining wing seemed slowing down now--then
suddenly there was such a crash and towering flash of light as no human
being had ever seen before! Up--up into the very clouds it shot its
mighty flame, a blazing column of light that seemed to reach out into
space. The _Solarite_ was hurled back end over end, tumbling, falling.
Even the heavy gyroscopes could not hold it for an instant, but quickly
the straining motors brought them to rest in air that whirled and whined
about them. They were more than twenty miles from the scene of the
explosion, but even at that distance they could see the glow of the
incandescent rock. Slowly, cautiously they maneuvered the _Solarite_
back to the spot, and looked down on a sea of seething lava!

Morey broke the awed silence. "Lord--what power that thing carries! No
wonder they could support it in the air! But--how can they control such
power? What titanic forces!"

Slowly Arcot sent the _Solarite_ away into the night--into the kindly
darkness once more. His voice when he spoke at last was oddly
restrained.

"I wonder what those forces were--they are greater than any man has ever
before seen! An entire hill fused to molten, incandescent rock, not to
mention the tons and tons of metal that made up that ship.

"And such awful forces as these are to be released on our Earth!" For an
interminable period they sat silent as the panorama of hills glided by
at a slow two-hundred miles an hour. Abruptl