nt the radio systems, were also
described. Actual construction of the cable is expected to be
started in 1930, Mr. Grace said.

[Illustration: _The flight was hovering above the first fire-ball._]

Earth, the Marauder

CONCLUSION OF A THREE-PART NOVEL

_By Arthur J. Burks_

CHAPTER XIX

_Desolation_

Stranger, more thrilling even than had been the flight of the Earth
after being forced out of its orbit, was the flight of those dozen
aircars of the Moon, bearing the rebels of Dalis' Gens back to Earth.

[Sidenote: Martian fire-balls and the terrific Moon-cubes wreak
tremendous destruction on helpless Earth in the final death struggle of
the warring worlds.]

For the light which glowed from the bodies of the rebels, which had been
given them by their passage through the white flames, was transmitted to
the cars themselves, so that they glowed as with an inner radiance of
their own--like comets flashing across the night.

Strange alchemy, which Sarka wondered about and, wondering, looked ahead
to the time when he should be able, within his laboratory, to analyze
the force it embodied, and thus gain new scientific knowledge of untold
value to people of the Earth.

As the cars raced across outer darkness, moving at top speed, greater
than ever attained before by man, greater than even these mighty cars
had traveled, Sarka looked ahead, and wondered about the fearful report
his father had just given him.

That there was an alliance between Mars and the Moon seemed almost
unbelievable. How had they managed the first contact, the first
negotiations leading to the compact between two such alien peoples? Had
there been any flights exchanged by the two worlds, surely the
scientists of Earth would have known about it. But there had not, though
there had been times and times when Sarka had peered closely enough at
the surface of both the Moon and of Mars to see the activities, or the
results of the activities, of the peoples of the two worlds.

Somehow, however, communication, if Sarka the Second had guessed
correctly, had been managed between Mars and the Moon; and now that the
Earth was a free flying orb the two were in alliance against it, perhaps
for the same reason that the Earth had gone a-voyaging.

* * * * *

Side by side sat Sarka and Jaska, their eager eyes peering through the
forward end of the flashing aircar toward the Earth, growing minute by
mi