epellers melted and dripped off in flaming balls of molten
metal, so that shells once more began to crash against the armor.
DuQuesne, with no thought of quitting apparent in voice or manner, said
calmly:

"Well, it looks as though they had us stopped for a few minutes. Let's
go back into space and dope out something else."

Seaton, thinking intensely, saw a vast fleet of enemy reinforcements
approaching, and at the same time received a wireless call directed to
Dunark. It was from the grand fleet of Kondal, hastening from the
bordering ocean to the defense of the city. Using Dunark's private code,
Seaton told the Karbix, who was in charge of the fleet, that the enemy
had a new invention which would wipe them out utterly without a chance
to fight, and that he and his vessel were in control of the situation;
and ordered him to see that no Kondalian ship came within battle range
of a Mardonalian. He then turned to Crane and DuQuesne, his face grim
and his fighting jaw set.

"I've got it doped right now. Give the Lark speed enough and she's some
bullet herself. We've got four feet of arenak, they've got only an inch,
and arenak doesn't even begin to soften until far above a blinding white
temperature. Strap yourselves in solid, for it's going to be a rough
party from now on."

They buckled their belts firmly, and Seaton, holding the bar toward
their nearest antagonist, applied twenty notches of power. The Skylark
darted forward and crashed completely through the great airship. Torn
wide open by the forty-foot projectile, its engines wrecked and its
helicopter-screws and propellers completely disabled, the helpless hulk
plunged through two miles of empty air, a mass of wreckage.

[Illustration: The Skylark darted forward and crashed completely through
the great airship.... She was an embodied thunderbolt; a huge,
irresistible, indestructible projectile, directed by a keen brain
inside....]

Darting hither and thither, the space-car tore through vessel after
vessel of the Mardonalian fleet. She was an embodied thunderbolt; a
huge, irresistible, indestructible projectile, directed by a keen brain
inside it--the brain of Richard Seaton, roused to his highest fighting
pitch and fighting for everything that man holds dear. Tortured by the
terrible silent waves, which, now that the protecting vacuum had been
destroyed, were only partially stopped by the fur suits; shaken and
battered by the terrific impacts and the even gr