his face, at the same time struggling to his feet to meet the new attack.
Freed from the struggle, Dr. Gresham's figure relaxed as in a swoon.
Instantly I was after the Chinaman—without a thought of his bull-like strength. I was seeing red. The furious joy of the primeval man hunter—the lust for blood—turned my head. My one idea was to kill.
Leaping over the prostrate scientist, I flung myself at the last of the sorcerers. He had retreated three or four feet, and now stood at bay upon the iron bridge that ran along the top of the water mains, overhanging the precipice. As I dashed at him he stepped quickly aside. I missed him—any my heart leaped into my throat as I stumbled across the perilous eyrie and brought up against the outer rail, which seemed to sway.
I staggered, seized the rod, and saved myself. Far, far below, jagged rocks and the roof of the Seuen-H'sin's powerhouse greeted my gaze.
And at the same time—although I was not conscious of paying attention to it—I became sensible of the fact that the monstrous cloud above the horizon was soaring swiftly, beating its black wings close to the sun—and that a weird twilight, a ghostly gloom, was settling over everything. From the distance, too, still came that appalling uproar.
As I recovered my balance the Chinaman bounded at me. But his foot caught in the grating and he stumbled to his knees, Instantly I threw myself upon him. My knee bored into the small of his back; my fingers sank into his throat. I had him! If I could keep my hold a little while the life would be strangled from his body.
In spite of his disadvantage, the fellow staggered to his feet. And there above the void—upon that narrow steel framework, protected only by its leg-high rail—we began a life-and-death struggle.
I hung on, like a mountain lion upon the back of its prey, while the Chinaman lurched and twisted this way and that.
Once he staggered against the railing, lost his footing, swung around—and I hung out over empty space, a drop of fully 300 feet. I thought the end had come—that we would topple off into the void. But his mighty strength pulled us back upon the grating—the whole slight structure seeming to sway and creak as he did so.
I tightened my grip upon his throat, digging my fingers into his windpipe, until I felt the life ebbing out of him in a steady flow. My own strength was almost gone, but the primitive desire to kill kept me clinging there tenaciously.
At last he began to weaken. In his death throes he lurched about in a circle—until his foot slipped through a manhole above one of the ladders, and he fell across the rail with a choking moan. With me hanging upon his back he began to slip outward and downward, inch by inch.
I knew the end had come. He was falling—and I was falling with him. But thoughts of my own death were smothered in a wild rejoicing. I had conquered this yellow fiend! Everything grew blurred before my eyes as we sagged toward the final plunge into the gorge.
Suddenly my ankles were seized in a stout grip, and I felt myself being dragged back from the sickening void, With this, I loosened my hold upon the Chinaman's throat, and his body went hurtling past me to its doom.
Another instant and I was off the rocking bridge, upon solid ground, and Dr. Ferdinand Gresham was shaking me in an effort to restore my senses.
He had recovered from his own fainting spell just in time to save me from being dragged over the cliff.
Swiftly I drew myself together. The weird twilight was deepening. But a few feet away I beheld Ensign Hallock. busy at the mortars and mines, preparing to touch them off.
He motioned to us to run. We did so. In a moment his work was finished and he took after us.
Back along the ridge we fled, away from the danger of the coming blast.
A couple of hundred yards distant, and about fifty feet below us, a bare promontory jutted out from the hillside. affording an unobstructed view of the whole region—the crumbling mountains upon the horizon, the power plant at the base of the cliff, and the bare space behind us where the mines were about to end the career of the sorcerers' workshop.
We started to descend to this plateau—when suddenly I dragged my companions back and pointed excitedly below, exclaiming:
"Look! Look!"
There in the center of the promontory, seemingly all alone, stood the arch fiend of all this havoc—the high priest of the sorcerers, Kwo-Sung-tao!
Apparently the old fellow had chosen this spot whence he could view in safety his followers' attack upon our party. He had not heard my outcry behind him, and remained absorbed in the Titanic upheaval of the distant mountains.
As I looked down upon his shriveled figure, a wave of savage joy swept over me! At last fate was strangely playing into our hands! Quite unsuspecting, the most menacing figure of the ages—the master mind of diabolical achievement, the would-be "dictator of human destiny"—had been cast into our net for final vengeance!
Just then the mortars boomed, and two charges of high explosives went hurtling toward the roof of the powerhouse.
Kwo-Sung-tao wheeled and stared off toward the opposite promontory. Seeing nothing, he hesitated in alarm. He did not look around in our direction.
Another instant and the explosives fell squarely upon the roof of the building, and with two frightful detonations—so close together that they seemed almost as one—the whole structure burst asunder vanished in a flying tornado of débris. For a few moments nothing was visible save a tremendous geyser of dirt, steel, concrete and bits of machinery.
While the air was filled with this gust of wreckage, my gaze sped back to the leader of the Seuen-H'sin.
The old man stood stock still, petrified by this sudden destruction of all his hopes and work. What agony of soul he was enduring in that moment I could only guess. His mummified figure suddenly to have shriveled unbelievably—to be actually withering before our eyes!
Just then the mines under the water mains went, off, ripping the conduits to tatters—and the immense hydraulic force, suddenly released, roared down the precipice, tearing the ground at the bottom of the gorge away to the foundation rock and obliterating the last scrap of wreckage!
Almost at the same moment Dr. Gresham left us and plunged down the slope toward the high priest, as if to settle the score with him alone. Recovering from our surprise, we followed rapidly.
Apparently sensing the danger, Kwo-Sung-tao suddenly glanced around. As he beheld Dr. Gresham he pulled himself together and I saw a look of malignity come over his face such as I never before nor since have seen upon a human countenance! It was as if he sought to blast his enemy with a glance!
The demoniacal fury of that gaze actually caused the astronomer to slacken his rush.
Promptly the old sorcerer's hand darted beneath his robe and came out with a revolver. But before the weapon could be aimed I had snatched a hand grenade and hurled at the Chinaman. The missile flew over him, exploding some feet away; but a bit of its metal must have-hit the old fellow, inflicting a serious wound, for he dropped the revolver and clutched at his side.
(Continued on page 118)
