s he
rushed onward.

The machine was inside what looked like a flat boat, but more circular
than a boat, and apparently was made of some metal resembling
aluminum. Either from the metal hull or from the mechanism inside it
there was emitted a pungent odor resembling chlorine.

The mechanism itself bore some resemblance to the old Atom Smasher of
five years before, but it appeared to be immensely more complicated.
Wheels of various sizes were set at every conceivable angle around the
central tube, from which the violet light was emanating, and all were
rotating and gyrating so fast that they looked like discs of light.
The boat itself was trembling, and this movement appeared to be
communicated to the boiling mud in the central part of the pool.

* * * * *

As Jim tried to leap down through the sucking mud to snatch Lucille
from Tode, the latter stopped, straightened himself, and pointed a
short tube at Jim's heart.

Jim felt as if an enormous, invisible force had struck him in the
chest. It was apparently the same repulsive force that had driven back
the waters. The shock was not a violent one. It did not throw him off
his feet. It merely pushed him slowly and irresistibly backward.

And the whole picture was beginning to fade. Etched sharply in the
violet light one moment, it now looked like a drawing that had been
covered with tissue paper.

The outlines were dissolving into a haze--or, rather, each line seemed
reproduced an infinite number of times, as the edge of a vibrating saw
shows an infinitude of edges. The violet fire was becoming still more
diffused. It hovered over the waters, a pale, flickering glow. And
simultaneously the walls of water began to break and come surging
forward.

Jim saw Lucille stretching out her arms toward him, and tried to
struggle forward, but in vain. She cried out his name, and he put all
his strength into that desperate futile struggle to reach her. But he
was being borne backward by the invisible power in the tube. The
rushing torrent was surging about his knees; grew waist deep: in
another moment Jim was swimming for his life against the furious
flood.

Suddenly, however, the tremendous pressure on his chest was relaxed.
Tode had turned the tube away from him. He was leaning forward out of
the boat and grasped old Parrish, who had been flung violently against
it by the dissolving waters.

The same flood carried Jim to the boat's side. He