Swaying under impacts which had shaken the earth itself, the unslain, the man-crushing car of Juggernaut began to glide, began to roll—checked itself, hanging crookedly on the platform—trembled like a ship, perishing on the rocks, lashed by the breakers—and shook itself free, amidst groans. Then, from their glittering thrones, Baal and Moloch, Huitzilopochtli and Durgha arose. All the god-machines got up, stretching their limbs in a fearful liberty. Huitzilopochtli shrieked for the jewel-sacrifice. Durgha moved eight murderous arms, crackling the while. Hungry fires smouldered up from the bellies of Baal and Moloch, licking out of their jaws. And, roaring like a herd of a thousand buffaloes, at being cheated of a purpose, Asa Thor swung the infallible hammer. A lost grain of dust among the soles of the gods, Freder reeled his way through the white rooms, the roaring temples. “Father—!!” he shouted. And he heard the voice of his father: “Yes!—Here I am!—What do you want?—Come here to me!” “Where are you?” “Here—!” “But I can’t see you—!” “You must look higher!” Freder’s gaze flitted through the room. He saw his father standing on a platform, between the outstretched arms of the crosses of Golgotha from the ends of which long, white, crackling sprigs of sparks blazed. In the hellish fires his father’s face was as a mask of unmistakable coldness. His eyes were blue-gleaming steel. Amidst the great, raving machine-gods, he was a greater god, and lord of all. Freder ran over to him, but he could not get up to him. He clung to the foot of the flaming cross. Wild impacts crashed through the New Tower of Babel. “Father—!” shrieked Freder. “Your city is going to ruin—!” Joh Fredersen did not answer. The sweeping sprigs of flame seemed to be breaking from his temples. “Father—! Don’t you understand—? Your city is going to ruin!—Your machines have come to life!—They are dashing the town to pieces!—They are tearing Metropolis to tatters!—Do you hear—? Explosion after explosion—! I have seen a street in which the houses were dancing upon their shattered foundations—just like little children dancing upon the stomach of a laughing giant.... A lava-stream of glowing copper poured itself out from the split-open tower of your boiler-factory, and a naked man was running before it, a man whose hair was charred and who was roaring: ‘The end of the world has come—!’ But then he stumbled and the copper stream overtook him.... Where the Jethro works stood, there is a hole in the earth which is filling up with water. Iron bridges are hanging in shreds between towers which have lost their entrails, cranes are dangling on gallows like men hanged. And the people, incapable of flight as of resistance, are wandering about among houses and streets, both of which seemed doomed....” He clasped his hands about the stem of the cross and threw his head back into his neck, to see his father quite clearly, quite openly in the face.