In a moment they were in the open. An ominous stillness seemed to grip the very air--the awful silence of the polar wastes which lay not far beyond the mountains. "How dark it is, John!" cried Athalia. "Dark and cold!" "The sunshine projector!" gasped Northwood. "It must have been destroyed. Look, dearest! The golden light has disappeared." "And the warm air of the valley will lift immediately. That means a polar blizzard." She shuddered and clung closer to him. "I've seen Antarctic storms, John. They're death." Northwood avoided her eyes. "There's the sun-ship. We'll give the ruins the once over in case there are any survivors; then we'll save ourselves." Even a cursory examination of the mouldy piles of stone and dust convinced them that there could be no survivors. The ruins looked as though they had lain in those crumbling piles for centuries. Northwood, smothering his repugnance, stepped among them--among the green, slimy stones and the unspeakable revolting débris, staggering back and faint and shocked when he came upon dust that was once human. "God!" he groaned, hands over eyes. "We're alone, Athalia! Alone in a charnal house. The laboratory housed the entire population, didn't it?" "Yes. Needing no sleep nor food, we did not need houses. We all worked here, under Dr. Mundson's generalship, and, lately under Adam's, like a little band of soldiers fighting for a great cause." "Let's go to the sun-ship, dearest." "But Daddy Mundson was in the library," sobbed Athalia. "Let's look for him a little longer." * * * * * Sudden remembrance came to Northwood. "No, Athalia! He left the library. I saw him go down the jungle path several minutes before I and Eve went to Adam's laboratory." "Then he might be safe!" Her eyes danced. "He might have gone to the sun-ship." Shivering, she slumped against him. "Oh, John! I'm cold." Her face was blue. Northwood jerked off his coat and wrapped it around her, taking the intense cold against his unprotected shoulders. The low, gray sky was rapidly darkening, and the feeble light of the sun could scarcely pierce the clouds. It was disturbing to know that even the summer temperature in the Antarctic was far below zero. "Come, girl," said Northwood gravely. "Hurry! It's snowing." They started to run down the road through the narrow strip of jungle. The Death Ray had cut huge swathes in the tangle of trees and vines, and now areas of heaped débris, livid with the colors of recent decay, exhaled a mephitic humidity altogether alien to the snow that fell in soft, slow flakes. Each hesitated to voice the new fear: had the sun-ship been destroyed? By the time they reached the open field, the snow stung their flesh like sharp needles, but it was not yet thick enough to hide from them a hideous fact. The sun-ship was gone. * * * * *