ad left with Mercer and Anina. Suddenly
a white shape appeared in the sky over the city. It passed perilously
close above the shattered light-barrage and came sailing out in our
direction.

Mercer jumped for the projector, but I was nearer, and in a moment I had
flashed it on.

"It's Tao!" Mercer shouted. "He--"

It was one of Tao's interplanetary vehicles, rising slowly in a great arc
above us. I swung our light-beams upward; it swept across the sky and fell
upon the white shape; the thing seemed to poise in its flight, as though
held by the little red circle of light that fastened upon it, boring its
way in. Then, slowly at first, it fell; faster and faster it dropped,
until it struck the ground with a great crash--the first and only sound of
all this soundless warfare.

* * * * *

It was three days before the great sulphur deposit we had ignited burned
itself out. The lights of the city had all died away, and blackness such
as I never hope to experience again settled down upon the scene.

We approached the Dark City then; we even entered one or two of its
outlying houses;, but beyond that we did not go, for we had made certain
of what we wanted to know.

I remember my father once describing how, when a young man, he had gone to
the little island of Martinique shortly after the great volcanic outbreak
of Mount Pelee. I remember his reluctance to dwell upon the scenes he saw
there in that silent city of St. Pierre--the houses with their dead
occupants, stricken as they were sitting about the family table; the
motionless forms in the streets, lying huddled where death had overtaken
them in their sudden panic. That same reluctance silences me now, for one
does not voluntarily dwell upon such scenes as those.

A day or so later we found the interplanetary projectile which had sought
to escape. Amid its wreckage lay the single, broken form of Tao--that
leader who, plotting the devastation of two worlds for his own personal
gain, had at the very last deserted his comrades and met his death alone.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE RETURN.

There is but little more to add. With the death of Tao and the changing of
the law concerning the virgins' wings, my mission on Mercury was over. But
I did not think of that then, for with the war ended, my position as
virtual ruler of the Light Country still held Mercer and me occupied with
a multiplicity of details. It was a month or more after our r