was felt and he was thrust into safekeeping with no ceremony.

He half crouched against the questionable security of the wall, waiting
through two more twisting earth waves, both of which were accompanied or
preceded by dull sounds. Bombing! That last wrench was really bad. Ross
found himself lying on the floor, feeling tremors rippling along the
earth. His stomach knotted convulsively with a fear unlike any he had
known before. It was as if the very security of the world had been
jerked from under him.

But that last explosion--if it was an explosion--appeared to be the end.
Ross sat up gingerly after several long moments during which no more
shocks moved the floor and walls. A line of light marked the door,
showing cracks where none had previously existed. Ross, not yet ready to
try standing erect, was heading toward it on his hands and knees when a
sharp noise behind him brought him to a stop.

There was no light to see by, but he was certain that the scrape of
metal against metal sounded from the far side of the wall. He crawled
back and put his ear to the surface. Now he heard not only that
scraping, but an undercurrent of clicks, chippings....

Under his exploring hands the surface remained as smooth as ever,
however. Then suddenly, perhaps a foot from his head, there sounded a
rip of metal. The wall was being holed from the other side! Ross caught
a flicker of very weak light, and moving in it was the point of a tool
pulling at the smooth surface of the wall. It broke away with a brittle
sound, and a hand holding a light reached through the aperture.

Ross wondered if he should catch that wrist, but the hope that the
digger might just possibly be an ally kept him motionless. After the
hand with the light whipped back beyond the wall, a wide section gave
away and a hunched figure crawled through, followed by a second. In the
limited glow he saw the first tunneler clearly enough.

"Assha!"

Ross was unprepared for what followed his cry. The lean brown man moved
with a panther's striking speed, and Ross was forced back. A hand like a
steel ring on his throat shut the breath away from his bursting lungs;
the other's muscular body held him flat in spite of his struggles. The
light of the small flash glowed inches beyond his eyes as he fought to
fill his lungs. Then the hand on his throat was gone and he gasped, a
little dizzy.

"Murdock! What are you doing--?" Ashe's clipped voice was muffled by
another sud