een blows
of the hammer.

"And I guess the monsters have forgotten how they used to rule
machines. They seem to have depended upon machines, even giving up
their own bodies for mechanical ones, until the machine rules them.

"And when this old hammer kept pounding on through the ages, using
volcanic steam, I guess they got to considering it alive. They began
to regard it as a sort of god. And when they got the idea of giving it
sacrifices, it was natural enough to place the victims under the
hammer."

* * * * *

They went back to Dr. Whiting who was chained across the anvil. He was
still breathing, but unconscious. He had been injured in a struggle
with the monsters, and his body was much emaciated. Agnes explained
that he had been a prisoner in the pen for many months of the time of
this world, waiting his turn to die; she said that the monsters had
just completed the extermination of another race upon the Pygmy
Planet, and were just turning to the greater world for victims.

Larry noticed that the great hammer was slowly rising in its guides,
as the pressure of the steam from the planet's interior increased. In
a few hours--just at sunset--it reached the top of its stroke.

The air above the pen was suddenly filled with glittering swarms of
the green-winged monsters, sweeping slowly about, in measured flight,
with strange order in their masses. They had come to witness the
sacrifice!

With an explosive rush of steam, the hammer came down!

The ground trembled beneath the terrific blow; the roaring of escaping
steam and the crash of the impact were almost deafening. A heavy white
cloud shrouded the corroded green machine.

When the hammer slowly lifted, only a red smear was left....

Agnes had shrunk, trembling, against Larry's shoulder. He had put his
arms about her and was holding her almost fiercely.

"My turn next," she whispered. "And don't try to fight them. It will
only make them hurt you!"

"I can't let them take you, Agnes!" Larry cried, in an agonized tone.
And the words seemed to leap out, of themselves, "Because I love you!"

"You do?" Agnes cried, in a thin, choking voice, pressing herself
against him. "Ever since the first time you came to the laboratory--"

A score of the monster forms of violet-filled crystal and gleaming
green metal had dropped into the pen. They tore Agnes from Larry's
arms, hurling him roughly to the ground, at the bottom of the green