Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/57

Rh "Good luck, Cabot!" he smiled.

With the gun firmly gripped, Dane suddenly began to plead.

"Kris, for God's sake—!"

Kris' hand moved toward his other gun.

"Fire—before I do!"

Dane closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. His body pushed forward a trifle, braced against the expected recoil of the powerful revolver. And that empty click sounded again.

Kris took the gun roughly from his fingers. Without a second's pause, he pulled the trigger. He had flipped it about and handed it back to Dane before the Earthman realized what had happened. Once more it was his turn, and he steadied his nerves for the ordeal.

The curved sliver of metal yielded to the pressure of his finger. In the next moment an explosion rocked the ground. The noise was a thunder-clap in Dane's ears. Dane sobbed aloud, and his eyes opened.

But Kris was standing before him, unharmed!" [sic]

The Ionian was trembling. His eyes were like two black holes in his pale face. Slowly he twisted to look down the hill, to cry out as though a knife had been stabbed in his back. Dane echoed his cry with a groan.

"Bombs! Good Lord, Kris, they've done it! Bayard's attacking!"

EARS were streaming down the Ionian's face.

"I tempted the gods too far!" he said. "Last time, on this very hill, my jealousy brought what we though was an attack. This time it's happened!"

Below them, a red column of shooting flames showed where the first bomb had dropped. Buildings were tumbling for several hundred feet about the spot. Overhead there was the staccato booming of rockets. While Dane searched for the ship, another bomb landed close to the knoll. The shock hurled both men to the ground.

Kris yelled a warning and began tugging at Dane's arm.

"The Intensifier!" he cried. "It's coming down!"

Dane half ran, half crawled, to the edge of the terrace. Stone columns crumbled behind him, and a second later the ponderous bronze bowl crashed in upon the plant. Before the rolling echoes lost themselves in the sky, he was on his feet and running.

"Come on, Kris! They'll need us in the ship."

"If we can make it," the shadow-man grunted.

Into the city they plunged, fighting crowds of panic-stricken emigrants. Dane still held the gun. Time after time he had to chop with it to batter his way through an impenetrable mob. They climbed through heaps of broken masonry where bodies lay buried and the injured shrieked for help. Screaming women implored their help as they dragged dead or dying husbands and children toward the square. Flames raked across the housetops.

And everywhere there was the thunder of crashing buildings, the roar of bombs. A feeling of horrible unreality fastened on Dane. He hardly felt the smash of bodies against his own, the hot blood that poured from cuts on his face and arms.

Then, suddenly, the teeming square was before them. Clawing, crawling, fighting, clubbing, they made their way to the battleship. The doors were closed when they reached it, but Dane pounded on one of the ports until Nile Vanz