rbulence. And, in one place, where the floor was
smooth, Spud found what he was searching for: a circular, metal ledge
that projected above the smooth rock; and, within it, a still smoother
sheet of what appeared to be hammered metal.

"A door it is," whispered the pilot, half-fearful of listening ears,
"and the gateway to Hell!" He grinned broadly at some thought. "And here
I've been told 'twas, of all places, the easiest to get into; one little
slip from grace and there you were! Sure, and the priests were as wrong
as the scientists. It must be Heaven that's easy to crash, for the front
door of Hades is shut fast without even a keyhole to peep through."

* * * * *

Then his face sobered to its customary homely lines. "The poor bhoy!" he
exclaimed. "I've got to get in some way. I wonder how hard and thick it
is."

He was raising a mass of black, shining rock in his hands--a fragment
that his strength would not have moved a fraction of an inch on Earth.
He steadied it above his head, preparing to crash it upon the metal
door; then waited; stared incredulously at the black metal sheet;
lowered the great stone silently and turned to leap mightily yet with
never a sound for the shelter of an upflung saw-toothed ridge.

And, from its shelter, he watched the black door swing smoothly into the
air, while, from the gaping black mouth of the pit beneath, incredible
man-shapes of fish-belly white drew themselves up to the edge of the pit
and perched there, where they might stretch their long necks into the
light of the Sun.

Below them, Spud saw, dangled long, rat-like tails; and their wings,
black and leathery, hung down too from their backs or dragged on the
rocks behind where some three or four of the owl-eyed creatures crawled
out and walked across the rock toward the place where an Irish pilot
waited and stared with unbelieving and horrified eyes from the
concealment of his rocky fort.

CHAPTER VIII

_The Fires_

Great vortices of whirling light rolled out to either side in an endless
pyrotechnical display to show the power of those flailing wings that
were bearing Chet and his companion through the dark void--bearing them
to some destination Chet could not envisage.

His body turned in space at times, and he saw the spreading cone of
luminous gas behind them like the wake of a great ship in a
phosphorescent sea. The hiss and threshing of many wings came
unceasingly. Once