the end of the world that's come?"

To all of which there was no answer. And at last, when New York had
vanished, they came to a smaller city and a broad expanse of roof that
took their wheels.

Danny followed where his companion led into great buildings and a
place of offices where excited officials stood in knots about
news-casting cones; then they were in a quiet room, in the presence of
a lean-bodied man whose hawklike face turned flinty at some request
the Infant made.

"What the lad wants, I don't know," said Danny to himself, "but
whatever it is he won't be gettin' it from old Gimlet-eyes."

* * * * *

But he saw the Infant write something on a card and he heard him say,
as he handed it to the official: "Send that to the President--_at
once_!" And though the words were hardly audible they had a quality
that brought an instant response; while the written words brought a
portly man who shook the Infant's hand fervently and inquired what
service a great electric company could render.

Danny heard Gimlet-eyes protesting; heard broken bits of sentences:
"... the great Sorenson tube ... he knows of our disintegrator ...
insists upon our furnishing ... preposterous...."

The portly man cut him short. "You will give Mr. Morgan whatever he
wishes," he ordered crisply. Then Danny saw him clutch at a desk for
support as still another man appeared at the open door to shout:

"New York! My God! New York's gone! Burning! The Empire State Building
melted! Crashed!... The whole city is being destroyed!"

And in the moment of numbness that seized Danny O'Rourke he heard the
Infant say: "How soon can we have it? I want it in our ship--up
above--an hour? We'll be there." But Danny had no further interest in
the Infant's arrangements for obtaining some unknown equipment; he was
plunging through the doorway and running at full speed toward the ramp
where they had descended.

He knew dimly that the younger man had followed and was crowding into
the cabin after him. Danny, as he locked the port and lifted his red
ship off her guides, was fully conscious of only one fact: that a
hundred miles south a city was being destroyed and that somewhere in
the vast heights above the city he would find the destroyer.

* * * * *

The Hudson that had been a thread of silver was no longer bright as
they approached the city at its mouth; burnished now with its
reflection of