In the blackness the apes ruled supreme. They could pick out their foes by smell or by the sound of their breathing. The confused fighting swung the way of the apes again. Presently even the searchlights on the roofs went out, for apemen, climbing silently up the walls of the houses, overwhelmed the crews of the lights by hurling stones at them, or iron clubs.
Soon, utter blackness reigned over wide sections of the city. In the dark were none to dispute the reign of the beast. And the zekolo added section after section.
Abruptly, Don and Wimpolo came upon a company of soldiers, each with a bright searchlight in his hand. They were marching in mass formation, trying to restore some order in the darkened parts of the city. Their lights blazed all round them. An ape hurled a huge stone at them from a rooftop. A searchlight picked it out, and before it could escape a threadray cut out a section of the top of the wall, the ape falling with it.
"Haven't you got a searchlight?" the officer in charge snapped at Wimpolo. "It's as good as suicide to walk the streets with only a little headlamp. Go to the big sub, at once. Lights are being handed out there."
Wimpolo hurried along the streets. In the uncertain glare of the flashing searchlights none suspected that she was a woman. On the wall of the buildings the zekolo, like a huge spider, kept pace with her, Don on its back. An ape on a roof poised a stone to hurl at Wimpolo. An arm of the zekolo, stretching incredibly, snatched that ape off the roof and hurled it into the street.
They reached the docks where the big sub lay. The place was such a blaze of lights that the failure of the city's illumination was not noticed. They dared not enter the brightly illuminated dock. Soldiers were arriving here, being handed out searchlights, and marching away in squads of twenty, an officer in charge of each squad.
"I have an idea," Don whispered.
He gave the command, "Hoddors!" to the zekolo. The creature slid over a darkened quayside into the water. Its pincers lifted Don and Wimpolo down, onto its back. It swam between mighty hulls. Presently Don whispered the word. They went swiftly over the edge, and dropped into the cargo hold where Don had stowed away on the journey here.
ABOUT half the cargo had been off-loaded. The metal plate that Don and the zekolo had pried loose was still open. They went through the hold where the people of Selketh had lain imprisoned, first helping themselves to re-charged deathray boxes from the cargo hold. They were the boxes that Vans and he had re-charged for their break which failed to come off. In here they were shielded from the blanketing ray.
The door through which the prisoners had been fed was open. They went along a corridor. A sentry, hearing a slight noise, turned. He had time to open his mouth halfway before he fell, his intended shout a mere gurgle.
They stepped through a door. Another sentry gaped, and fell. Two others were in front of a cabin door.
"Bommelsmeth's room," Wimpolo whispered.
The two sentries fell, caught unawares.
Wimpolo laid a hand on the door, opened suddenly. Don walked in, raybox ready,
A lean man, a haggard, desperate look in his eyes, sat at a table before a huge television view of the darkened city. He wore the regalia of Emperor and overlord of all Mars.
