A deathly silence claimed them all. Just within the doorway Stuart appeared, having his arm about the shoulders of Miska. The Throne of the Gods was empty! A thin coating of grey dust was settling upon it and upon the dais which supported it. They had witnessed a scientific miracle ... the complete and instantaneous disintegration of a human body. Gaston Max was the first to recover speech. "We are defeated," he said. "'The Scorpion,' surrounded, destroys himself. It is the way of a scorpion."