d at the offender, who returned the stare, and stepped up to him
insolently, then pushed him back roughly, forgetting that his strength,
great upon Earth, would be gigantic upon this smaller world. The officer
spun across the corridor, knocking down three of his men in his flight.
Picking himself up, he drew his sword and rushed, while his men fled in
panic to the extreme end of the corridor. Seaton did not wait for him,
but in one bound leaped half-way across the intervening space to meet
him. With the vastly superior agility of his earthly muscles he dodged
the falling broadsword and drove his left fist full against the fellow's
chin, with all the force of his mighty arm and all the momentum of his
rapidly moving body behind the blow. The crack of breaking bones was
distinctly audible as the officer's head snapped back. The force of the
blow lifted him high into the air, and after turning a complete
somersault, he brought up with a crash against the opposite wall,
dropping to the floor stone dead. As several of his men, braver than the
others, lifted their peculiar rifles, Seaton drew and fired in one
incredibly swift motion, the X-plosive bullet obliterating the entire
group of men and demolishing that end of the palace.

* * * * *

In the meantime the slave had taken several pieces of apparatus from a
cabinet in the room and had placed them in his belt. Stopping only to
observe for a few moments a small instrument which he clamped upon the
head of the dead man, he rapidly led the way back to the room they had
left and set to work upon the instrument he had constructed while the
others had been asleep. He connected it, in an intricate system of
wiring, with the pieces of apparatus he had just recovered.

"That's a complex job of wiring," said DuQuesne admiringly. "I've seen
several intricate pieces of apparatus myself, but he has so many
circuits there that I'm lost. It would take an hour to figure out the
lines and connections alone."

Straightening abruptly, the slave clamped several electrodes upon his
temples and motioned to Seaton and the others, speaking to Dorothy as he
did so.

"He wants us to let him put those things on our heads," she translated.
"Shall we let him, Dick?"

"Yes," he replied without hesitation. "I've got a real hunch that he's
our friend, and I'm not sure of Nalboon. He doesn't act right."

"I think so, too," agreed the girl, and Crane added:

"I can't