Blake turned to face him, and Devries saw a look in his eyes similar to that he had seen in the Martian's. "He's alive, still alive!" Blake cried. "And it's still going on!" It was then Devries heard those sounds of hate surging up again, and knew that the throng had again gathered to watch; but it was Blake's voice, and the look in his eyes, that made Devries' blood run cold. "And I should have been down there instead of him!" Blake said; but the voice didn't sound like his any longer. Devries should have watched him closer. He turned to wake Janus. Blake sprang suddenly past him, toward the doorway. Devries made a grab at him and missed. Blake leaped straight into that crackling sheet of electrical blueness. But he didn't get through. He seemed to hang suspended in the air for a few seconds; then he crashed to the floor across the doorway, as the electrical flame enveloped and crackled over his body. There was nothing they could do about Blake except keep their faces averted from the entrance where his charred body lay. But they couldn't close their ears to the waves of sound that came up from below. It seemed even more suggestive than before. Blake's words kept hammering in Devries' brain: "He's alive, still alive!" Blake had been the last to look out that window. Devries hated to think of what he had seen down there. Grimly they examined the room again, although they'd done so a hundred times before. Two bare stone walls. In the third wall the window, far too narrow, and the adjacent stones solid and unmovable. In the fourth side the doorway, open except for the deadly sheet of blue crackling across it. "That's the only way," Devries said, nodding toward it. "I'm sure V'Naric will be around here again; when he comes, watch for my nod and we'll make a rush. If we die, at least it won't be the way Ketrik did." V'Naric did come again. He stared down at Blake's charred body and shook his head distressfully as he shut off the flame. He motioned for some of his men to take the body away. "That is too bad," he said. "Very wasteful. It leaves only two of you." He nodded to the window. "It will soon be over with your friend down there, and I regret that. The fools have allowed it to progress too rapidly!" Janus' attention was more on the flame-pistol than on the words. He glanced quickly at Devries, but the latter flashed him a look that said no. V'Naric must have seen it. He raised the pistol slightly so that it leveled between them. "You are quite right," he said, "it would not be wise." Janus tried to engage him in more conversation, but V'Naric seemed to know his purpose. He left, still watching them carefully as he shut off the flame and stepped out and turned it on again. His last words were: "I will leave you to decide between yourselves who will be next. It will be soon." * * * * * Janus whirled angrily. "Why didn't you take the chance? Now we're sunk. We'll probably never have another!"