The breeze grew--a breeze blowing directly over the forest to where in the distance the lights of the Great City showed plainly. Tarrano added: "I had thought to create the wind." He tapped his belt. "Create the wind to carry our onslaught. But you see, it is unnecessary. Nature is kind, and far more efficacious than our man-made devices." _"Jac! Danger!"_ She stood there in the breeze, watching Tarrano--his purpose as yet no more than guessed--praying that I might receive her warning. Tarrano selected his spot--a tiny little cone of rock no bigger than his thumb. He beckoned Elza. "Stand close, and watch. You shall see how from the merest spark, a conflagration may ensue." The cylinder in his hand darted forth a needle-like shaft--a light of intense purple. It touched the tiny cone of rock, and he held it there. "A moment. Be patient, my Elza." The point of rock seemed presently to melt. Like a tiny volcano, at their feet, lava from it was flowing down. A little stream of melted rock, viscous, bubbling a trifle; red at the edges, white within, and with wisps of smoke curling up from it. Elza stared with the fascination of horror, for now tiny tongues of flame were licking about. Blue tongues, licking the air, vanishing into wisps of black smoke. Tarrano snapped off his ray. But the tongues of flame stayed alive. Spreading slowly, soundlessly, their heat now melting the ground. A breath of the smoke touched Elza's face. Pungent, acrid. It stopped her breathing. She choked, coughed heavily to expel it. "Come away, Lady Elza. Let us watch from a safer distance." He led her from the hillock, up the wind to where at the edge of the forest they stood gazing. The blue fire had spread over a distance of several feet. A sluggish, boiling, bubbling area of flame. Tongues now the height of a man. And from them, rolling upward, a heavy black cloud--deadly fumes thick, blacker than the night, spreading out, welling forward over the forest toward the Great City slumbering in its falsely peaceful security. At last Elza knew. Stood there, cold, shuddering, thinking with all the power of her mind and being: _"Death, Jac! Death to all the City! The black cloud of death!"_ Oblivious to Tarrano she stood until at last the rocky eminence was one great mass of the surging blue fire. And the black cloud, compact as a thunder-head, rolled onward. _"You can see it coming! Death Jac! Death to all the City!"_ A sudden madness descended upon Elza. She felt abruptly that her warning was futile, felt an overpowering desire to run. Run somewhere--anywhere, away from the lurid sight she was facing. Or run perhaps, to the Great City; to race with that black cloud of death; to run fast and far, and burst into our palace to warn us.