Beyond the cubby doorway was the
open darkness within the wall. A scuffed path leading inward from the
gate showed for a few feet.

I walked over the threshold, with Alan crowding me. The Essen in my
coat pocket was leveled. But from the cubby doorway, I saw that the
guard was gone! Then I saw him crouching back of a metal shield. His
voice rang out.

"Stand!"

A light struck my face--a little beam from a television sender beside
me. It all happened in an instant, so quickly Alan and I had barely
time to make a move. I realized my image was now doubtless being
presented to Polter. He would recognize me!

I ducked my head, yelling: "Don't do that! You frighten me!"

It was too late! The guard had received a signal. I was aware of its
buzz.

From the shield a tiny jet of fluid leaped at me. It struck my hood.
There was a heavy, sickening-sweet smell. It seemed like chloroform. I
felt my senses going. The cubby room was turning dark; was roaring.

I think I fired at the shield. And Alan leapt aside. I heard the faint
hiss of his Essen. And his choked, horrified voice:

"George--come back! Run! Don't fall! Don't!"

I crumpled; slid into blackness. And it seemed, as I went down, that
Alan's inert body was falling on top of me....

* * * * *

I recovered consciousness after a nameless interval, a phantasmagoria
of wild, drugged dreams. My senses came slowly. At first, there were
dim muffled voices and the tread of footsteps. Then I knew that I was
lying on the ground, and that I was indoors. It was warm. My overcoat
was off. Then I realized that I was bound and gagged.

I opened my eyes. Alan was lying inert beside me, roped and with a
black gag around his face and in his mouth. We were in a huge dim open
space. Presently, as my vision cleared, I saw that the dome was
overhead. This was a circular, hundred-foot-wide room. It was dimly
lighted. The figures of men were moving about, their great misshapen
shadows shifting with them. Twenty feet from me there was a pile of
golden rock--chunks of gold the size of a man's fist, or his head, and
larger, heaped loosely into a mound ten feet high.

Beyond this pile of ore, near the center of the room, twenty feet
above the concrete floor, there was a large hanging electrolier. It
cast a circular glow downward. Under it I saw a low platform raised a
foot or two above the ground. A giant electro-microscope was hung with
its twenty-foot cy