p it into strips, but it was a matter
of minutes, only, until he had a rope that would bear his weight. The
storm had broken; the black clouds let loose a deluge of water that
drove in at the window. If only the window below was still open!

He found the middle of his rope, looped it over a post of the bed,
and, with both strands in his grasp, let himself out and over the
dripping sill.

Would the guard see him, or had he taken to shelter? Harkness did not
pause to look. He left the branch tied fast. "A squirrel in a tree,"
he thought: the branch would mislead them. His feet found the
window-sill one story below. He drew himself into the room and let
loose of one strand of his rope as he entered.

Schwartzmann was gone. Harkness, with the bundle of wet fabric in his
hands, glanced quickly about. A door stood open--it was a closet--and
the rain-drenched man was hidden there an instant later. But he
stepped most carefully across the floor and touched his wet shoes only
to the rugs where their print was lost. And he held himself
breathlessly silent as he heard the volley of gutteral curses that
marked the return of Herr Schwartzmann some minutes later.

"Imbecile!" Schwartzmann shouted above the crash of the closing
window. "_Dumkopff!_ You have let him escape.

"Give me your pistol!" Harkness glimpsed the figure of his recent
guard. "Get another for yourself--find him!--shoot him down! A little
lead and detonite will end this foolishness!"

From his hiding place Harkness saw the bulky figure of Schwartzmann,
who made as if to follow where the other man had gone. The pistol was
in his hand. Walt Harkness knew all too well what that meant. The tiny
grain of detonite in the end of each leaden ball was the same terrible
explosive that drove their ships: it would tear him to pieces. And he
had to get this man.

He was tensed for a spring as Schwartzmann paused. From the wall
beyond him a red light was flashing; a crystal flamed forth with the
intense glare of a thousand fires. It checked the curses on the
other's thick lips; it froze Harkness to a rigid statue in the
darkness of his little room.

* * * * *

An emergency flash broadcast over the world! It meant that the News
Service had been commandeered. This flashing signal was calling to the
peoples of the earth!

What catastrophe did this herald? Had it to do with the Dark Moon? Not
since the uprising of the Mole-men, those creatu