They were dragging Inspector Chadwick to the altar. Huge black slaves were preparing to toss him into the flames. The pealing laughter of the Golden Image rang through the temple. The maidens were dancing; and in the very center of their circle was Ruth, now wild-eyed with passion, her face livid with the same desire Carl had seen upon the faces of the others. She was moving to the Golden Image to give herself to the God of Sudre. "Reach into your left pocket!" Carl's frustration ceased as he heard Pierre snap this command. The dancing ceased. An awed hush fell upon the scene of the orgy. A demoniacal scream arose from a chorus of horrified throats as Carl whipped from his pocket the silver disk. Through the glasses he was wearing, Carl saw a reflected ray of glaring intensity flash out from the disk. He flashed it over the heads of the screaming dancers. Forked tongues of fire leapt in all directions, and licked out against the naked bodies that fled beneath its swiftly darting flames. The Golden Image roared in anger and plunged forward to strangle Carl. He flashed the ray across the face of the thing, and to his astonishment, the Golden Image seemed no longer alive. It stood still as if it had returned to its former immobile self. Then it began to melt! "Strike Moonere! Strike Moonere!" came Pierre's staccato command. Carl lashed the serpentine beam full across the Countess Moonard's face. She cursed him, and screamed a horrible oath. He lashed her again. Retreating before the flailing whip of fire from the disk, the Countess ran and threw herself upon the altar. The flames leapt up, as she disappeared in a flash of blue smoke. "My work is almost over," Carl heard the faint voice of Pierre Soret, coming like a sigh. "Throw the disk into the flames upon the altar. Hurry, for the altar of Sudre will soon be cool, and only the ashes of its evil reign will smolder in remembrance of the Fire of Sudre." * * * * * Carl hurled the disk into the now dwindling flames upon the altar. It twisted and curled with the flames that wrapped about it. Finally the flames sank and vanished, as a silvery snake-like wisp of smoke coiled upward, and then sank gradually into obscurity. "Now my work is finished," Carl heard Pierre's voice, this time coming to him in the tones of whispered weariness. "Young man, do you know, strange as all my life has been, strange as all the stories of my family's struggle against the evil God of Sudre, I have never been really frightened until now--now I find myself upon the brink of another world. "The house was burned. The flames consumed me; even as you raced to the temple, the flames were destroying me, yet I did not die. I was so afraid that I would die, and leave you in the temple with the evil I knew was there; but I lived, even after I knew that everything in my house was destroyed by fire. My inventions, my years of work--all were destroyed.