dged nimbly as Dorothy sought to take him
in her arms, and tore off his suit.

"Nothing but red paint to stop their light-rays," he reassured her as he
lifted her clear from the ground in a soul-satisfying embrace. Out of
the corner of his eye he saw the Kondalians staring in open-mouthed
amazement at the Skylark. Wheeling swiftly, he laughed as he saw a
gigantic ball of frost and snow! Again donning his fur suit, he shut off
the refrigerators and returned to his party, where the Karfedix gave him
thanks in measured terms. As he fell silent, Dunark added:

"Thanks to you, the Mardonalian forces, instead of wiping us out, are
themselves destroyed, while only a handful of our vessels have been
lost, since the grand fleet could not arrive until the battle was over,
and since the vessels that would have thrown themselves away were saved
by your orders, which I heard. Thanks to you, we are not even crippled,
though our capital is destroyed and the lives of some unfortunates, who
could not reach the pits in time, have probably been lost.

"Thanks to you," he continued in a ringing voice, "and to the salt and
the new source of power you have given us, Mardonale shall now be
destroyed utterly!"

After sending out ships to relieve the suffering of the few wounded and
the many homeless, Dunark summoned a corps of mechanics, who banded on
new repellers and repaired the fused barrels of the machine-guns, all
that was necessary to restore the Skylark to perfect condition.

* * * * *

Facing the party from Earth, the Karfedix stood in the ruins of his
magnificent palace. Back of him were the nobles of Kondal, and still
further back, in order of rank, stood a multitude of people.

"Is it permitted, oh noble Karfedo, that I reward your captive for his
share in the victory?" he asked.

"It is," acquiesced Seaton and Crane, and Roban stepped up to DuQuesne
and placed in his hand a weighty leather bag. He then fastened about his
left wrist the Order of Kondal, the highest order of the nation.

He then clasped about Crane's wrist a heavily-jeweled,
peculiarly-ornamented disk wrought of a deep ruby-red metal, supported
by a heavy bracelet of the same material, the most precious metal of
Osnome. At sight of the disk the nobles saluted and Seaton barely
concealed a start of surprise, for it bore the royal emblem and
delegated to its bearer power second only to that of the Karfedix
himself.

"I bestow