I knew that, if my terrible months of toil had not been in vain, a few hours more would see a raging torrent of water rushing into the pit. At last I judged my task completed. I walked a few yards north to the rim. I stood on the brink of that sheer precipice, and gazed down into the rosy mist, alight, as always, with the wavering, reflected fires of the metal brain. I made no attempt to get beyond the range of the explosion. Hope was dead. Life meant no more to me. I was ready to be swept into the abyss on the crest of the wave that, if my plans went well, would drown the flaming brain. For a long time I stood there waiting, lost in dreams of Xenora. I had no doubt that she was dead. My regret was bitter; I stormed vainly and passionately at fate. If my reason had been tottering, now it was almost gone. I wept, and cursed, and then laughed loud and bitterly. A strange figure I must have been, wild and unkempt, red and burned from exposure, half naked, with insanity in my eyes, laughing and waiting to be blown to my doom! And then I heard a sound that brought me into silent and cunning alertness! I sprang to the mouth of my shaft and crouched like a savage with my great copper-bladed spear at hand. I heard a stone rattling and crashing down into the abyss! Someone--or something--was climbing up out of the pit! I crept forward where I could see, and lay tense and silent, a desperate madman, determined to protect my mine against whatever might find it. At last a human figure clambered up over the brink, and drew itself erect in the edge of the jungle! It was a Sleeper of Mutron! The emaciated form was bent beneath the weight of the bar of gleaming violet metal clamped upon its back. It was clad in tattered, bloody rags. The flesh was bleeding from the fearful climb. With the dull, mechanical motions of a sleeping person, or of a walking corpse, galvanized by some weird power, that terrible figure got deliberately to its feet. The bloody hands raised a long, glittering weapon of silver metal. And it plodded dully, lifelessly, toward me. And then a hoarse, wild cry echoed through the silent jungle--my own scream! The Sleeper was Xenora! With her old intuition of my thoughts, she had been able to penetrate my helmet! Through her, the Lord of Flame had read my thoughts of victory! She had been sent to prevent the mine's explosion, to snuff out that candle flame! If she heard my scream, she paid no heed. She walked on toward me, with the same weary, mechanical gait. There was no light, no life in her eyes. They stared straight ahead, dully, unseeing! And the strange silver tube was held ready in her hand. She was more like a moving corpse--a dead avenger--than a living person!