tal.

Mouthing and squealing with the pain of his seared arm-stump, he
wobbled toward the lever, a mere turn of which would readily convert
the plate into a bed of agony.

CHAPTER VII

_In the Power-House_

Alone in the prison room, after Dex had been dragged away to be
subjected to the Rogan inquisition, Brand gnawed at his fingers and
paced distractedly up and down the stone flooring. For a while he had
no coherent thought at all; only the realization that his turn came
next, and that the Rogans would leave no refinement of torment untried
in their effort to wring from him the secret of the atomic engine.

He went to the window, and absent-mindedly stared out. The whining
hum from the great domed building off to the right, like the
high-pitched droning of a swarm of gargantuan bees, came to his ears.
He listened more intently, and leaned out of the window to look at the
building.

Under that dome, it came to him again, was, in all probability, the
mainspring of the Rogan mechanical power. If only he could get in
there and look around! He might do some important damage; he might be
able to harass the enemy materially before the time came for him to
die.

He leaned farther out of the window, and examined the hundred feet or
so of sheer wall beneath him. He saw, scrutinizing it intently, that
the stone blocks that composed it were not smooth cut, but rough hewn,
with the marks of the cutters' chisels plainly in evidence. Also there
was a considerable ridge between each layer of blocks where the
Rogans' mortar had squeezed out in the process of laying the wall.

Never in sanity would a man have thought of the thing Brand considered
then. To attempt to clamber down that blank wall, with only the slight
roughness of the protruding layers of mortar to hang on to, was
palpable suicide!

* * * * *

Brand shrugged. He observed that to a man already condemned to death,
the facing of probable suicide shouldn't mean much.

With scarcely an increase in the beating of his heart, he swung one
leg out over the broad sill. If he fell, he escaped an infinitely
worse death; if he didn't fall, he might somehow win his way into that
domed building whence the hum came.

Cautiously, clutching at the rough stone with finger tips that in a
moment or two became raw and bleeding masses, he began his slow
descent. As he worked his way down, he slanted to the right, toward
the near wall of th