Now confronted her but a few scant yards, and these the most dangerous of all. Could she cross these without drawing the fire of the guards about the box, she could lift that lever, if only for a moment, and let in the battering host of Wild Ones. Once she had raised it, Meg vowed, the lever would remain upright so long as she had a hand to hold it. The Gods favored her in two ways. The guards about the box were looking the other way, gaping at this astonishing counter-attack being made by the supposedly vanquished Women. And--at Meg's feet lay something that had been overlooked by the detail of yellow soldiery assigned to cleaning up evidence of the first battle! One of the yellow invaders' ray-sticks! With difficulty Meg stifled the cry that leaped to her lips. From force of habit, she stopped to lift the stick with her right hand; winced with pain when those benumbed fingers touched the ground and refused to grasp the object. Her left hand gripped it, held it; her questing fingers found the button that activated its ray. Which ray, Meg had no way of knowing. Nor could she take time to experiment. Like a swift, golden ghost she sprang from the shelter of her alley into the cleared space. She was halfway across that space when one of the guardians of the god-box, by sheer chance, happened to turn and see her. His mouth opened in a shout of warning that never emerged. For Meg lifted the stick--pressed the button! A spurt of cherry-flame engulfed the dwarf, and he sank lifeless to the ground. But his death was warning enough. Shock slowed the turn of the other guardians, and in their slowness lay their doom. Meg's finger remained rigid on the button; her ray swept clear the defenders of the force-field--and she had reached her goal! With a great shout of triumph she stumbled through that foul, steamy mist, feeling scorched cinders beneath her feet, and found the lever. With a mighty heave of her shoulders she forced it upward-- Then all was Bedlam! CHAPTER VI "The Old Order Changeth--" A new note rose suddenly in the din of battle. It had been a howling note of despair before; the outraged cries of impotent Wild Ones mingling with the dying screams of the gallant Women. Now there rose to the skies a paean of joyous triumph. Hoarse masculine voices cheered madly as the horde of hairy Wild Ones found the barrier before them gone. Daiv foremost, their avenging circle closed in upon the village. Where but a few moments before this engagement had been a slaughter of the Jinnians upon which the Wild Ones had been forced to look helplessly, now the battle became a free-for-all, split into a half-hundred tiny sectors.