ended itself to some mind at Washington.

Over a square mile of territory, ringed with jungle the victims lay.
The majority of them ringed this terrain; that is to say, attempting
to escape, they had been hurled back by the electrical charge, and,
having no strength or will remaining, they had dropped where they had
been hurled, and lay in apathetic resignation.

There had been screams and cries for mercy, and piteous scenes when
the Government airships had deposited them there and flown away, but
now an intense silence had descended upon the doomed. Resigned to
their fate, they sat or lay in little silent groups, all eyes turned
toward the gloomy jungle.

* * * * *

And everywhere within this jungle a wraith-like mist was forming at
this dawn hour. From a thousand miles around, the devils were
mustering for their prey, agglutinating, in order that the meal of one
might become the meal of all.

Wisps of protoplasmic fog were stealing out through the trees,
changing shape every instant, but always advancing: now presenting the
appearance of an aligned regiment of huge, shadowy men, now nothing
but a wall of semi-solid vapor. And still, with eyeballs straining in
their sockets, the victims watched.

Suddenly all were seized with the same spasm of mad terror. Again they
hurled themselves against the electrified lines, and again they were
hurled back, masses of boys and girls tumbling against one another,
and screaming in one wail that, could it have been heard in
Washington, would have driven all insane. Again and again, till they
fell back, panting and helpless. And solidly the wall of devils was
creeping up from every side.

Ruth Deane, one of the few who had themselves in control, lay some
distance back from the electrified field. From the moment when she was
surprised in her apartment by the Government representatives, she had
known that there was no hope of escape.

* * * * *

She had slipped the ring off her finger, snapped the plastic metal,
and attached it to a thread torn from her dress. She had managed to
insert it in the door, hoping that Kay would find it. It would serve
as a last message of love to him.

Every removal of a selected victim was in the nature of a kidnapping.
At dead of night her apartment had been opened. She had been ordered
to dress. Nothing could be written, no arrangements made. She was
already considered as one dead.