hts
went out.

"They've cut the wires!" rose a wild, wailing voice. "The devils have
cut the wires! Kill them! Kill everybody!"

His cry ended in a gurgle. Somewhere in that dark hell a struggle was
going on, a well defined struggle, different from the random, aimless
battling of the half-crazed soldiers and the civilians. President
Hargreaves was still within the walls of the White House, it was
known; it was physically impossible for him to have been carried away
when every foot of space was packed. And through that darkness the
invisible assailants were edging him, foot by foot, toward the
outside.

* * * * *

Dick was on the edge of this silent battle. He sensed it. Bracing
himself against a bureau, while the mob surged past him, he tried to
pierce the gloom, to reinforce with his perceptions what his instinct
told him. A soldier, crazed with fear, came leaping at him, bayonet
leveled. He thrust with a grunt. Dick avoided the glancing steel by a
hand's breadth, and, as the impetus of the man's attack carried him
forward, caught him beneath the chin with a stiff right-hand jolt that
sent him sprawling.

From below the cries broke out again, with renewed violence: "They've
got the President! Get them! Get them! Close all doors and windows!"

But a door went crashing down somewhere, to the tune of savage yells.
The mob was pouring down the stairs. It was growing less packed above.
Dick heard Stopford's voice calling his name.

"Here, sir" he shouted back, and the two men collided.

"For God's sake do what you can, Rennell!" shouted the Colonel.
"They've got the President downstairs. They had him in this very room,
in the thick of it all. I heard him cry out, as if under a gag. They
put one of those damned cloths over him. God, Rennell, I'm going
crazy!"

The upper floor of the White House was almost empty now. Dick thrust
himself into the crowd that still jammed the stairs. He reached the
ground floor. It was lighter here, but a glance showed him that it was
impossible to attempt to restore any semblance of order. The big East
Room was jammed with a fighting, cursing throng. Dick stumbled over
the bodies of those who had fallen in the press, or had been shot
down. Outside the mob was thickening, swarming through the grounds and
screeching like madmen.

* * * * *

Nothing that could be done! Dick found himself caught once more in the
human tor