Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 06.djvu/78

728 leap for the open door, where with outstretched hands the two already there awaited to snatch at him. He only just managed to clutch the outer flange of the doorway, but in a breath the two had hauled him to safety. Looking back he saw what he had so narrowly escaped. A score of gleaming wires were uncoiling and falling toward the globe.

"What are we to do about the two down there? We can't leave them to that sort of death! Got any more rope, Aylmer?" cried Burgoyne, staring at the two wretches below, who, crouching close to the in-curving wall of the globe, were trying to evade a perfect rain of wires which were descending upon it.

"Help! For God's sake, help!" they screamed in a frenzy of terror, and there was very good reason for even such fears as theirs. For already, not far off, Kobloth had seen several of the bat-like creatures captured, and drawn up by the wires, and heard their shrieks of agony abruptly silenced as their captors presumably devoured them immediately. The ladder, of course, had been ripped away and aloft, as though it were no more than pack-thread.

"Look out for the rope!" warned Burgoyne, flinging an end of the line Carscadden had snatched from a handy cleat by the doorway. "Only one of you at a time—it won't bear more than that!"

Both men clutched the rope together and clung to it fiercely.

"Let go, one of you!" shouted the scientist angrily. The clawed and hooked wires were hovering near them, and frantic with terror neither of the unfortunate men would relinquish his grip.

"Let go! One must die—or both!" shouted Burgoyne, as a wire with a fiery red star at the end of it was cast by a Martian toward them. The crack of a revolver rang out behind him; Carscadden had fired at the car above. The shot took effect, apparently, for the fiery red star at once fell harmlessly to the red sand.

With a frenzied strength the Austrian snatched his companion's grip from the rope, and shouted, "Haul up! He shall die first," and as he shouted he sprang with astounding agility high up and caught the line far up its length. But Whipps, too, made a desperate leap—a leap to evade a fiery star that swung toward him.

He was too late; the point of light fell on his shoulder. With a wild cry of agony he fell back on the sand, his face and body contorted horribly, as one electrocuted. In a flash a clawing wire had seized him, and his rigid body was hauled aloft into the network of cables. In a moment Kobloth was dragged inside the globe, and the fear in his eyes was unforgettable.

had his hand on the door immediately, when the scientist stopped him.

"No! not yet. We must keep it open for a little," he warned him. "We have nearly exhausted our compressed air tanks, and must replenish them before the door is closed. I have already set the electric pumps going—it will not take more than an hour at the outside; but we dare not make a start with nearly empty tanks. Moreover we must try and hold on until daylight."

"Why?" asked his friend in surprize.

"Because before daylight we should be leaving Mars on the side opposite to the earth, and going still farther away from our planet."

"Well, we have our guns and plenty of shells, and may be able to stand the brutes off. But I don't fancy those fiery stars. Is it possible they could electrocute us through the steel walls?" he asked gravely.

"No, I don't think so. Just now we