The segment of barrage here went dark. No trickery now; the barrage at this point actually was broken. The boiling river went through the wall, swept down the slope into the city. Through the great clouds of steam I could see the Ice Palace with its brittle outlines softening under the heat ... one of its thin spires broke off and fell.... Feverishly we added to the river source. The whole area here was grey with steam. Girls had joined us ... Elza was not among them ... Elza! With my triumph there lay always in the background of my consciousness the weight of my fear for Elza.... The fighting in the other sector had continued desperately. Our power house was hopelessly damaged; the towers, with their power gone, were using their batteries; soon they would be exhausted. But now we abandoned that sector; our remaining towers--all our flying forces--came to this melting area where the vanishing city lay defenseless before us.... We hurled ourselves into it, using only our heat-rays. Everywhere we added to the boiling torrent; even the interference heat of the fighting was to our advantage. This brittle city which owed its very existence to the congealing cold, lay enveloped in a cloud of steam. Then Tarrano played his last card. The cubical building of metal with the cables depending from it, still hung motionless. It now burst into sound. A low electrical hum; then louder to a whine--a scream. Our men and girls were in the air around it. I too was there. Tarrano's men--the remaining few who were desperately fighting--had suddenly withdrawn. And then we knew the purpose of this hanging room. A strange form of some tremendous electro-magnet. I could feel it pulling at me. My power to guide myself in the air was wavering. From my height I could see down into this ceilingless rectangle. It was un-manned by humans. A room of whirling, flashing knives! Above it, even then some of our men were struggling in its magnetic grip ... being drawn down into it ... a girl's power must suddenly have collapsed; she was sucked in with a rush--torn to fragments by the whirling knives.... The area of magnetism seemed to spread for a helan or more. Everywhere around me I saw our men and girls struggling with it, fighting to keep away, but closing in a ring around it ... faster, continually more helpless until at last, their bodies out of control whirling end over end, they were sucked in like water rushing into a turbine.... One of our weakened towers attacked it; but some of the remnants of Tarrano's projectors caught the tower and darkened it. Through the rising clouds of steam I could see the magnet vaguely now. But I could feel it pulling; and soon, in spite of myself, I was fairly close above it. I strove to keep my wits. The others who were meeting their death lost control of their bodies at the last and could not use their cylinders. I had some battery power remaining; I snapped on my disintegrating ray to test it. It was my last desperate recourse.