"What happened, Cliff? Cage give way? I was just figuring out what to do . . ."
"Only one thing you can do right now and that's drop a rope. And hurry!"
"O.K. Hang on; I'll fix a winch. And when you come up I've some news that'll interest you."
Cliff switched off.
"It's suicide!" Val protested. "If we cross the same point in the shaft again how do we know we won't be wiped out?"
Cliff shrugged. "Have to chance it. We can't stick here. If it took a whole cage to block the ray it's possible a small thing like a human body might get past without intercepting it."
IN a few minutes a cradle and rope came down the vast length of the shaft.
"I'll go first," Cliff said, slipping into the cradle. "If anything goes wrong, prepare to catch me!"
He gave two tugs and hung on tightly as the cradle began to rise. Nothing untoward happened. He sailed swiftly up past the danger point—higher and higher to the topmost levels. Sparks joined him anxiously at the winch top.
"How many others down there, Cliff?" he asked anxiously.
"Four," he answered with grim significance.
"The others coming up later, I suppose?"
"I only wish they were," Cliff muttered, and seeing the operator's amazed look he went on, "They're dead, Sparks—killed by mystic powers down in the bowels of this ungodly world. Tell you more afterwards. Get the others up first . . ."
Three times more the cradle was lowered, and Townshend, Val, and Morton arrived safely. But the fourth time there was a sudden ominous slackness in the rope followed by a desperate scream from far down in the depths. There came the thump of a body falling back on the ruin of timber. Cliff gave a frantic order and the winch screamed round its drum as the rope was whirled up. The end was smoking ominously.
"It got him," Cliff whispered. "We others avoided it, but Gilby must have been swinging from side to side and intercepted the beam . . . Hey, Gilby!" he yelled hoarsely. "Gilby! You there?"
There was no answer from the depths. Val reached out and tied the rope round his waist. "I'll go see . . ." he announced briefly, and before Cliff could say anything he nodded to Sparks who threw the switches that sent him into the depths.
There was an interval of five minutes in which the party waited anxiously, then came two tugs on the rope. Very slowly, due to extra weight, the winch began to turn. Val emerged with the blood spattered but still living figure of Gilby in his arms.
Gently Val laid him on the floor, turned his head for the emergency kit—but Gilby called him back weakly.
"No use doing that, Val," he whispered. "I'm—I'm sunk . . . But I guess I can tell you one thing. I—I saw where the electric eye lens is hidden . . . Behind a V-shaped chunk of rock . . . You—you'll find it. You can avoid it then. I—"
He fell back gently, became still.
The long succession of shocks had left the remaining engineers incapable of further emotions of pity. They could feel the same net of death tightening around them.
"We'll bury him—over there," Cliff said quietly. "The others we'll have to cremate . . . At least we know where the electric eye is and can dodge it even if we can't destroy it—"
