hem, then were running with great leaps along the
base of the building from which they had just escaped.

In the darkness of night the Martian city stretched away to their
right, its massive dark cone-structures outlined by points of glowing
ruddy light here and there upon them. Beside the city's metal streets
were illuminated by the brilliant field of stars overhead and by the
soft light of the two moons, one much larger than the other, that
moved among those stars.

Along the street crocodilian Martians were coming and going still,
though in small numbers, there being but few in sight in the dim-lit
street's length. Lanier pointed ahead as they leaped onward.

"Straight onward, Randall!" he jerked. "There seem fewer of the
Martians this way!"

"But the great cone of the matter-station is the other way!" Randall
exclaimed.

"We can't risk making for it now!" cried the other. "We've got to keep
clear of them until the alarm is over. Hear them now?"

For even as they leaped forward a rising clamor of hissing cries and
rush of feet was coming from behind as scores of Martians poured out
into the darkness from the great cone-building. The two fugitives had
passed by then from the shadow of the mighty structure, and as they
ran along the broad metal street toward the shadow of the next cone,
through the light of the moons above, they heard higher cries and then
glimpsed narrow shafts of crimson force cleaving the night around
them.

* * * * *

Randall, as the deadly rays drove past him, heard the low detonating
sound made by their destruction of the air in their path, and the
inrush of new air. But in the misty and uncertain moonlight the rays
could not be loosed accurately, and before they could be swept
sidewise to annihilate the two fleeing men they had gained, with a
last great leap, the shadow of the next building.

On they ran, the clatter of the Martian pursuit growing more noisy
behind them. Randall heard Lanier gasping with each great leap, and
felt himself at every breath a knife of pain stabbing through his
lungs, the rarified atmosphere of the red planet taking its toll.
Again from the darkness behind them the crimson rays clove, but this
time were wide of their mark.

With every moment the clamor of pursuit seemed growing louder, the
alarm spreading out over the Martian city and arousing it. As they
raced past cone after cone, Randall knew even the increased power of