"I thought, if I couldn't get them, I'd crumble the earth away--bury them. They're underneath the debris, Kay, a mile deep, buried, beneath the impalpable powder that represented the inorganic salts and minerals of the earth. They'll never get out of that. Protoplasm needs oxygen. They'll trouble us no more. "You must take the top, Kay. Use our old method. You'll find its application to the psenium emanation written in a book fastened beneath the hood. Wipe out the rest of them. If any more come, you'll know how to deal with them." "Cliff, you're not badly hurt?" Kay asked again. "Don't look, I tell you! Keep Ruth away!" * * * * * But the dust was settling fast, and suddenly Ruth uttered a scream of fear. And a strangled cry broke from Kay's throat as he looked down at what had been Cliff Hynes. The man seemed to have become resolved into the same sort of protoplasm as the Earth Giants. He lay, a little heap, incredibly small, incredibly distorted. Flesh without bones, shapeless lumps of flesh where arms and legs and body frame should have been. Cliff's voice came faintly. "You remember the leakage through the rubber and analektron container, Kay. The W-rays even fused the craolite socket. The psenium rays are stronger. They destroy even bone. They're fatal to the man who operates the machine, unless he follows the directions. I've written them out for you, but I had--no time--to apply them." His voice broke off. Then, "Good luck to you and--Ruth, Kay," he whispered, absent inaudibly. "Don't let--her--look at me." Kay led Ruth gently away. "Did you hear that?" she whispered, sobbing. "He died to save us Kay." * * * * * It was like a return from the grave for the amazed boys and girls who--since the onset of the monsters had destroyed the electric lines--poured out of the plain of Golgotha to life and freedom. Many of them had gone mad, a few had died of fright, but the rest would come back to normal, and the world was saved. Hunger was their greatest problem, for, despite Kay's hurried flight to the nearest occupied post, it was difficult to convince the Federation officials that the devils were really gone, buried beneath a mile of crumbled earth. And Kay had to be back to mop up other, smaller bands that had spread through the forests. It was six months before the last of the monsters had been obliterated, and then Kay, now one of the highest officials in the Federation's service, was granted a lunarian's leave of absence pending his taking command of an Antarctic expedition for the purpose of destroying the remaining monsters in their lair. He took this opportunity to be married to Ruth, in the church in his native town, which was _en fete_ for the occasion.