into the welter of sagging weeds.

I heard the sharp whine of my ray generator going into action, but I
took no chances on the accuracy of my men. They were working under
tremendous difficulties. As I fell, I snatched an atomic bomb from my
belt, and, as the horrid head drew back to strike again, I threw the
bomb with all my strength.

I had thrown from an exceedingly awkward position, and the bomb exploded
harmlessly some distance away, showering us with muck and slimy
vegetation.

Evidently, however, the explosion startled the serpent, for his head
slewed around nervously, and I felt the ground tremble under me as his
mighty coils lashed the ground in anger. Scrambling to my feet, I seized
the projector tube of the disintegrator ray and swept the beam upward
until it beat upon that terrible head.

The thing screamed--a high, thin sound almost past the range of
audibility. Reddish dust sifted down around me--the heavy dust of
disintegration. In the distance, I could hear the slashing of the tail
as it tore through the rubbery growth of weeds.

With half his head eroded by the ray, the serpent struck again, but this
time his aim was wild. The mighty head half buried itself in the muck
beside me, and I swung the projector tube down so that the full force of
the ray tore into the region above and behind the eyes, where I imagined
the brain to be. The heavy reddish dust fairly pelted from the ugly
head.

Correy had come running back. Dimly, I could hear him shouting.

"Look out!" I warned him. "Keep back, Correy! Keep the men back! I've
got him, but he'll die hard--"

As though to prove my words true, the head, a ghastly thing eroded into
a shapeless mass, was jerked from the mud, and two tremendous loops of
tortured body came hurtling over my head. One of the huge fins swung by
like a sail, its hooked talons ripping one of Correy's men into bloody
shreds. Correy himself, caught in a desperate endeavor to save the
unfortunate man, was knocked twenty feet. For one terrible instant, I
thought the beast had killed Correy also.

Gasping, Correy rose to his feet, and I ran to assist him.

"Back, men!" I shouted. "Hendricks! Get away as far and as fast as you
can. Back! _Back!_" Half dragging Correy, who was still breathless from
the blow, I hurried after the men.

Behind us, shaking the earth in his death agonies, the monstrous serpent
beat the plain about him into a veritable sea of slime.

* *