tired lungs gasp.

Then he saw flames, and heard a motor car roaring away from close by
the laboratory.

"They've stolen the catapult and set fire to the place," he remembered
dizzily, "and now they're skipping out...."

Even that did not seem to matter. But then he heard the chain clank,
next to him on the floor. The white mist! Denham and Evelyn waiting
for the white mist to reach them, and Denham jerking desperately on
the chain to signal that he was ready....

The flames had released ammonia from the metal Von Holtz had made.
That had roused Tommy. But it did not give him strength. It is
impossible to say where Tommy's strength came from, when somehow he
crawled to the clutch lever, with the engine roaring steadily above
him, and got one hand on the lever, and edged himself up, and up, and
up, until he could swing his whole weight on that lever. That instant
of dangling hurt excruciatingly, too, and Tommy saw only that the drum
began to revolve swiftly, winding the chain upon it, before his grip
gave way.

And the chain came winding in and in from nowhere, and the tall
laboratory filled more and more thickly with smoke, and lurid flames
appeared somewhere, and a rushing sound began to be audible as the
fire roared upward to the inflammable roof, and the engine ran
thunderously....

* * * * *

Then, suddenly, there was a shape in the middle of the laboratory
floor. A huge globular shape which it hurt the eyes to look upon. It
became visible out of nowhere as if evoked by magic amid the flames of
hell. But it came, and was solid and substantial, and it slid along
the floor upon small wheels until it wound up with a crash against the
winding drum, and the chain shrieked as it tightened unbearably--and
the engine choked and died.

Then a door opened in the monstrous globe. Two figures leaped out,
aghast. Two ragged, tattered, strangely-armed figures, who cried out
to each other and started for the door. But the girl stumbled over
Tommy and called, choking, to her father. Groping toward her, he found
Smithers. And then Tommy smiled drowsily to himself as soft arms
tugged bravely at him, and a slender, glorious figure staggered with
him to fresh air.

"It's Von Holtz," snapped Denham, and coughed as he fought his way to
the open. "I'll blast him to hell with these things we brought
back...."

* * * * *

That was the last thing Tommy knew until h