up from the floor and now
came clutching blindly for him.

Garth knew he would have to leave the chamber at once; so, struggling
for command of his muscles through the paralysis that numbed them, he
tensed his hold on the other wire and pulled it a little. The control
lever swung back to neutral; the ray faded and Garth jumped out. He
was only a few feet away from the huge convulsed face as the German
roared:

"By God, you'll never get back on _this_ machine!"

His purpose was plain; his groping hand had already found the control
lever. To prevent his ripping it out, Garth plunged head first into
Hagendorff's stomach, and they both went down in a flurry of arms and
legs. Garth, scrambling to get loose, was conscious of the ray pouring
down again in the chamber above. The lever had not been wrenched out,
but jerked over, setting the process of increase on.

The next few minutes were a chaos. Now that Howard was three feet tall
he was without some of the advantages of his former smallness and
compactness, and his utmost efforts failed to free him from the death
clutch of the pain-maddened giant. Over and over they rolled on the
floor. Garth trying only to break free, and the other relentlessly
holding on and dragging him over to the chamber again.

It was a losing fight for the diminutive one, weakened as he was by
his exposure and the fierce fights he had had. Little by little,
squirming and resisting with all his remaining strength, he was
brought near--to see the German, at last, pull half the reducing
apparatus with a crash to the floor.

The ray in the chamber faded off. The machine was silenced forever, so
that Garth could never hope to regain his full size in this one....

* * * * *

With the realization of this, most of his spirit went, while the
savage giant, successful in smashing the machinery, now turned and
devoted himself exclusively to his victim.

"Now for you!" he roared in frightening triumph, clutching the smaller
man's neck with his great hands and bearing him to the floor.

Against those fingers gouged into his wind-pipe like a vise of steel,
Garth could do nothing. Feebly he gagged, and feebly he clawed at the
pitiless hands--and futilely.

It was the end, he told himself. He had come close, but closeness did
not count. His eyes bulged, and a shroud of black began to obscure his
vision.

And then, suddenly, over the giant's flexed arms, he glimpsed, comin