In two minutes more I had been drawn to within fifty yards of that vast shining column of metal. Then the force of fear that had seized my body permitted it to stop, and I stood still. That awful twisting beam of green flame reached out of the top of the thing, and bent down over me! It touched me! [Illustration: _That awful twisting beam of green flame reached out of the top of the thing and bent down over me! It touched me!_] I felt tiny whip-like fingers of it feeling--exploring my body! The green radiance grew denser about me. It enshrouded me in a fog of green light--so painfully intense, blinding and terrible, that I tried to shut my eyes against it. But that horror held them open! And that green fire came into my body, and into my brain. It was eager, insistent, questioning--and so horrible that my being rocked with pain. It questioned; it commanded! It sought to know of me, and of my companions, of the Omnimobile, and of the world we had left above. I struggled against it, fiercely, terribly, until I felt my limbs chilling with the sweat of the conflict. But it won! It took my mind as it had taken my body! It beat about my brain like a vast storm; it penetrated my being in a flood of green fire! My brain reeled, was swept by an avalanche of awful power! I sank at last into merciful oblivion that was the counterpart of the death I had so desired! At last, when I was vaguely conscious again, I had a curious feeling of mental exhaustion. I felt as if I had undergone a fearful ordeal. I felt as if I had toiled as I slept, as if I had answered many questions put to me by that power. It seemed as if the green light had swept the contents from my brain, had searched all my knowledge. As I awoke, bodily sensation returned, and I felt someone lifting me gently from the bare earth upon which I lay: My limbs were cold and stiff; but the awful force that had controlled them was, for the moment, relaxed. I opened my eyes, and cried out, first in incredulous joy, and then in utter despair. Xenora--the Green Girl--was lifting my head. There was anxiety and care in her violet eyes, and unutterable fatigue was shown in her body. She had followed me into the pit, to give her life with mine! "Oh, Xenora, my dream girl, why did you come? There was no need for you to give your life!" I protested in bitter despair as she raised me in her arms and held me against her breath. "I felt you battle with the Lord of Flame. I felt it conquer you. So I left the camp, to come." "And how, in all wonders, did you get into this pit, and so soon?" "My chieftain, it is not so soon! For three sleeps I have come through the forests and rocks, without stopping, while you lay still in the power of the Flame!" "But why--why--come to throw away your life--"