Azeela and Dee, with their twenty-six comrades, selected the barge that had replaced the leader. In a closely knit group they hovered above it. Thunderbolts shot up, but could not reach them. The girls aimed a pure-white beam of light downward--twenty-six tiny rays blending into one. Rogers, bending over Fahn to gaze into the little mirror, was amazed. Unlike any beam of light he had ever seen, this one was curved; It descended in a slightly bent bow, ending at the barge. Fahn whispered a swift explanation to Rogers. To the Noths, looking upward along the beam, it would not appear curved, but straight. The figures of the girls, by an optical illusion, would be seen, not where they actually were, but to one side. The girls held their curved ray steady. And plunging down the beam, following its slightly curved path, were the figures of Azeela and Dee. The Noths saw them coming; a dozen bolts leaped into the air, one upon the other, but they flashed harmlessly to one side of their mark. Within twenty seconds the two girls were close to the barge; yellow-red spurts of flame leaped from their weapons--flame that could be hurled thirty feet but no farther. It enveloped the barge with licking, seething, burning liquid gases that withered everything they touched. A puff of darkness, which the retreating girls had left behind them, blotted out the scene. An instant later Azeela and Dee emerged from the darkness, safe. The shaft of light from the girls above was extinguished as the two rose to join them. When light shone again around the barge, it was sinking. Soon the swirling water held nothing but black, twisted figures. The maneuver could not be repeated successfully. From the other barges the Noths would have seen the curved beam, understood it and made allowances for it. Azeela and Dee, triumphant and flushed with their success, pleaded to try it again, but Fahn would not let them. The afternoon was waning; the western sky was red and overhead clouds were gathering. And then Fahn ordered a general attack on all the barges. The sun had set; the twilight deepened into night--a night of flashing lights, crackling, artificial thunder, spurts of lurid flame and the hissing of fire against water. At intervals, rockets came up; bursting, they cast a blue-white glare that for the space of a minute clearly outlined the menacing, darting figures for the Noths. The atmospheric disturbance of the past hours suddenly brought forth an electrical storm. Nature, more powerful than man, shot forth her own bolts to add to the din. They were, in character, very different from the harnessed, man-made lightning; forked, jagged, crackling with their nearness, they leaped downward out of the low-hanging clouds. The storm was as brief as it was severe. It swept away and the moon rose, blood-red, casting its lurid light over the water.