much as a hair's breadth. "You're the finest little
fellow that ever waved a plume, and I would love you no matter what
happened. I'd trade my immortal soul to the devil if it would get you
out of this mess, but we're both in it up to our necks and we can't dog
it now. If they kill him we beat it--he and I both knew that it was on
the chance of that happening that I took you first--but as long as all
three of us are alive it's all three or none."

"Of course," she said again, as steadily, thrilled this time to the
depths of her being by the sheer manhood of him who had thus simply
voiced his Code; a man of such fiber that neither love of life, nor the
infinitely more powerful love of her which she knew he bore, could make
him lower its high standard.

"We are going through. Forget that I am a woman. We are three human
beings, fighting a world full of monsters. I am simply one of us three.
I will steer your ship, fire your projectors, or throw your bombs. What
can I do best?"

"Throw bombs," he directed, briefly. He knew what must be done were they
to have even the slightest chance of winning clear. "I'm going to blast
a hole down into the auditorium, and when I do you stand by that port
and start dropping bottles of perfume. Throw a couple of big ones right
down the shaft I make, and the rest of them most anywhere, after I cut
the wall open. They'll do good wherever they hit, land or water."

"But Captain Bradley--he'll be gassed, too." Her fine eyes were
troubled.

"Can't be helped. I've got the antidote, and it'll work any time under
an hour. That'll be lots of time--if we aren't gone in less than ten
minutes we'll be staying here. They're bringing in platoons of militia
in full armor, and if we don't beat those boys to it we're in for plenty
of grief. All right--start throwing!"

The speedster had come to a halt directly over the imposing edifice
within which Bradley was incarcerated, and a mighty beam had flared
downward, digging a fiery well through floor after floor of stubborn
metal. The ceiling of the amphitheater pierced, the beam expired; and
down into that assembly hall there dropped two canisters of Vee-Two; to
crash and to fill its atmosphere with imperceptible death. Then the beam
flashed on again, this time at maximum power, and with it Costigan
burned away half of the gigantic building. Burned it away until room
above room gaped open, shelf-like, to outer atmosphere; the great hall
now resembling