The Hawk relaxed from the brink on which he had wavered. A sudden mad rush--what else remained? What else? For an instant he had lost his head--one of the several times in his whole life. Just for an instant he had forgotten his phenomenal patience under torture, his own axiom that in every tight place there was a way out. "That's much safer," said Ku Sui. "Perhaps you and the black had better return to your cell." Certain little muscles in the Hawk's face were trembling as he turned to go, and his feet would not work well. The ray-guns of the coolie-guards covered his every move. Friday followed just behind. As the adventurer came to the door he stopped and turned, and his eyes went back to those of the frail, elderly scientist. The doomed man met the gray eyes and their agony with a smile. "It's all right, old comrade," he said. "Just remember to destroy this hellish device, if you ever possibly can. My love to Sandra; and to her, and my dear ones on Earth, anything but the truth.... Farewell." Carse's fingernails bit each one into his palms. He hesitated; tried, but could not speak. "All right, Carse--you may go." The feelingless guards nudged white man and black out, and the door swung solidly closed behind them.... CHAPTER X _In the Visi-Screen_ There were those among the few claiming to have any insight into the real Hawk Carse who declared that a month went out of his life for every minute he spent in the cell then. The story, of course, came trickling out through various unreliable sources; we who delve in the lore of the great adventurer have to thank for our authorities Sewell, the great historian of that generation--who personally traveled several million miles to get what meager facts the Hawk would divulge concerning his life and career--equally with Friday, who shared this particular adventure with him. Friday's emotional eyes no doubt colored his memory of the scenes he passed through, and it is likely that the facts lost nothing in the simple dramatic way he would relate them. But certainly the black was as fearful of his master during that period in the cell as he was of what he saw acted out on the screen. We can picture him telling of the ordeal, his big eyes rolling and his deep rich voice trembling with the memories stamped forever in his brain; and picture too the men who, at one time or another, listened to him, fascinated, their mouths agape and a tickling down the length of their spines. It was probably only Friday's genius as a narrator which later caused some of his listeners to swear that new lines were grooved in Carse's face and a few flaxen hairs silvered by the minutes he spent watching Eliot Leithgow strapped down on that operating table, close to the beautiful surgeon fingers of Dr. Ku Sui.