but we could have known we
could have destroyed these--Things--Destroyed--Them? Things that could
thrust their will and power up through ninety million miles of space and
suck from the sun the honey of power! Drain it and hive it within these
great mountains of the cones!

Destroy Things that could feed their own life into a machine to draw
back from the sun a greater life--Things that could forge of their
strength a spear which, piercing the side of the sun, sent gushing back
upon them a tenfold, nay, a thousandfold strength!

Destroy this City that was one vast and living dynamo feeding upon the
magnetic life of earth and sun!

The clamor had grown stupendous, destroying--like armored Gods roaring
at sword play in a hundred Valhallas; like the war drums of battling
universe; like the smitings of warring suns.

And all the City was throbbing, beating with a gigantic pulse of
life--was fed and drunken with life. I felt that pulsing become my own;
I echoed to it; throbbed in unison. I saw Drake outlined in flame; that
around me a radiant nimbus was growing.

I thought I saw Norhala floating, clothed in shouting, flailing fires. I
strove to call out to her. By me slipped the body of Drake; lay flaming
at my feet upon the narrow ledge.

There was a roaring within my head--louder, far louder, than that which
beat against my ears. Something was drawing me forth; drawing me out of
my body into unimaginable depths of blackness. Something was hurling me
out into those cold depths of space that alone could darken the fires
that encircled me--the fires of which I was becoming a part.

I felt myself leap outward--outward and outward--into--oblivion.

CHAPTER XXI. PHANTASMAGORIA METALLIOUE.

Wearily I opened my eyes. Stiffly, painfully, I stirred. High above
me was the tremendous circle of sky, ringed with the hosts of feeding
shields. But the shields were now wanly gleaming and the sky was the sky
of night.

Night? How long had I lain here? And where was Drake? I struggled to
rise.

"Steady, old man," his voice came from beside me. "Steady--and quiet.
How are you feeling?"

"Badly battered," I groaned. "What happened?"

"We weren't used to the show," he said. "We got all fed up at the orgy.
Too much magnetism--we had a sudden and violent attack of electrical
indigestion. Sh-h--look ahead of you."

Gingerly I turned. I had been lying, I now saw, head toward and prone
at the base of one of the crater's walls