y the sound of Anita's soft voice
distorted to shrill sounds that echoed throughout the hall.

"Tell them now," said Chet when the hall was still, "that I have come
from another world. Tell them that I hold the thunderbolts of their
ancient gods in my hands. Then tell them if they permit us to depart we
will go and leave them in peace. But if they try to harm us, the temple
of their gods will be destroyed, and they, too, shall die. Tell them!"

* * * * *

There was something of unwonted solemnity in the voice of the master
pilot--something of quiet power and the dignity that became a messenger
of the gods--as he gave his orders and faced the throng.

And there was the patience of a god who is sickened of slaughter as he
faced the discordant din and the threatening forward surge of the demon
throng below. The girl had spoken, and the air was black with their
threshing wings, while still Chet waited with outstretched hand.

To the creatures below--the things half-men and half-beasts--the shining
tube in that extended hand meant nothing of threat. And even to the
Irish pilot, who stood silently watching, the gesture seemed futile.

"You've overplayed your hand, lad," he said in a tone of despair. "'Tis
no little gun like that will stop them now!"

He was watching that hand and the shining tube; watching in amazement
as he saw it swing slowly up toward the advancing horde risen level with
them in the air--up above their massed blackness of wings--on and up,
until the tube was pointing toward the base of a carven pendant, whose
blending colors were fairy lights at play.

And still the weapon waited until the snarling faces of the enemy were
close. Then the pistol cracked once, and the roar of its exploding shell
came thundering after.

For an instant all motion ceased; the very wings of the flying beasts
seemed frozen rigid in mid-flight. Then the whole of the vast room was
in motion.

* * * * *

A rush of escaping air whirled upward the black-winged monsters in an
inverted maelstrom of shrieking winds. And, falling to meet them, came
an enormous pendant whose rioting colors seemed glorying in their own
death. And with that came the swift disintegration of the vaulted arches
where the one central supporting point of their intricate maze had been
shattered; till, with a crashing avalanche of sound that obliterated the
thundering echoes of the detonite c