s imploring him to abandon his hellish purpose. He glared at
her and shook his head. Then, as she still went on praying, he struck
her across the face with his hand and pushed her to her feet again. My
blood boiled as I saw it and I think I should have sprung at him, had
not Bickley caught hold of me, shouting, "Don't, or he will kill her and
us too."

Yva lifted her shield and returned to her station, and in the blue
discharges which now flashed almost continuously, and the phosphorescent
glare of the advancing mountain, I saw that though her beautiful face
worked beneath the pain of the blow, her eyes remained serene and
purposeful. Even then I wondered--what was the purpose shining through
them. Also I wondered if I was about to be called upon to make that
sacrifice of which she had spoken, and if so, how. Of one thing I was
determined--that if the call came it should not find me deaf. Yet all
the while I was horribly afraid.

At another sign from Oro, Yva did something more to the lens--again,
being alongside of her, I could not see what it was. The beam of light
shifted and wandered till, far away, it fell exactly upon that spot
where the rock began to rise into the ridge which separated the two
grooves or roads and ended in the razor-edged cliff. Moreover I observed
that Oro, who left it the last of us, had either placed something white
to mark this first infinitesimal bulging of the floor of the groove, or
had smeared it with chalk or shining pigment. I observed also what I
had not been able to see before, that a thin white line ran across the
floor, no doubt to give the precise direction of this painted rise of
rock, and that the glare of the search-light now lay exactly over that
line.

The monstrous, flaming gyroscope fashioned in Nature's workshop, for
such without doubt it was, was drawing near, emitting as it came
a tumult of sounds which, with the echoes that they caused, almost
over-whelmed our senses. Poor little Tommy, already cowed, although he
was a bold-natured beast, broke down entirely, and I could see from his
open mouth that he was howling with terror. He stared about him, then
ran to Yva and pawed at her, evidently asking to be taken into her arms.
She thrust him away, almost fiercely, and made signs to me to lift him
up and hold him beneath my shield. This I did, reflecting sadly that
if I was to be sacrificed, Tommy must share my fate. I even thought of
passing him on to Bickley, but had no