closes
behind it. We are a modern version of Jonah and the whale, First
Mortgage."

"Well, Jonah got out," I ventured.

"We'll try to," he replied. "When that critter swallowed us, he got
something that will prove pretty indigestible. Let's try to give him a
stomach ache. I don't suppose that a machine-gun will affect him, but
we'll try it."

"I didn't know that you had any guns on board."

"Oh yes, I've got two machine-guns. We'll turn one of them loose, but I
don't expect much effect from it."

* * * * *

He moved over to one of the guns and threw off the cover which had
hidden it from my gaze. He fed in a belt of ammunition and pulled his
trigger. For half a minute he held it down, and two hundred and fifty
caliber thirty bullets tore their way into space. There was no evidence
of movement on the part of our host.

"Just as I thought," remarked Jim as he threw aside the empty belt and
covered the gun again. "The thing has no nervous organization to speak
of and probably never felt that. We'll have to rig up a disintegrating
ray for him."

"What?" I gasped.

"A disintegrating ray," he replied. "Oh yes, I know how to make the
fabulous 'death ray' that you journalists are always raving about. I
have never announced my discovery, for war is horrible enough without
it, but I have generated it and used it in my work a number of times.
Did it never occur to you that the rocket motor is built on a
disintegrating ray principle?"

"Of course it is, Jim. I never thought of it in that light before, but
it must be. How can you use it? The discharge from the motors is a
harmless stream of energy particles."

"Instead of turning the ray into powdered aluminum and breaking it down,
what is to prevent me from turning it against the body of our captor and
blasting my way out?"

"I don't know."

"Well, nothing is. I'll have to modify one of the motors a little, but
it's not a hard job. Get some wrenches from the tool box and we'll
start."

* * * * *

An hour of hard work enabled us to disconnect one of the reserve bow
motors and, after the modifications Jim had mentioned, turn the ray out
through the port through which the products of disintegration were meant
to go. When we had bolted it in place with an improvised coupling, Jim
opened the vitriolene screen which held in our air and turned to his
control board.

"Here goes," he said.

He pulled th