The camera dropped from her outstretched hands, and Rhoda staggered toward where the Ring would land. Slowly it descended to the ground--settling like a fiery bird to its nest--a lunar roc in Sinbad's Valley of Bones--reducing the velocity of its fall by means of the counter-force of the ray which, driving down upon the porous plain, threw up great clouds and geysers of lava dust. These hurled high in air, dropped almost immediately again to the surface--a dead weight in a vacuum. But there was no sound--no wind. It might, for the absence of physical phenomena, have been an optical delusion. Yet, as Rhoda staggered, half fainting, toward that cloud of tumultuous matter, she knew that there alone could she support life, receive into her lungs once more that essential of all human existence--oxygen. Would she arrive in time? Already, there was a dreadful pressure upon her lungs, and she breathed, like an exhausted animal, in multitudinous little gasps. Fierce pains shot through her head, and there was a strange ringing in her ears and a contraction of the muscles in her throat. The frozen carbonic acid in the dregs of the liquid air was beginning to evaporate. The lunar landscape swam before her eyes like the rush of a moonlit river--then suddenly faded. She had entered the dust cloud raised by the Ring as it reached the surface. She reeled--the yellow detritus enveloping her like a sand-storm. She was like a fish swimming through a stratum of muddy water. Suddenly, the sabulous drift sank at her feet, and she found herself lying prone beside the Ring, with the steel ladder dangling from the landing-stage and an armored figure preparing to descend. She waved her arms feebly and shouted, and the figure waved in response to her gesture. A moment more, and Burke had leaped down beside her and placed his helmet against hers. "Put your arms around my neck quick!" came vibrating through the telephonic metal and glass. "Where have you been?" She heard, but could not answer. Burke put his arm around her and lifted her from the ground. How light she was! It gave him a shock. Could it be that a human being was inside, or was he holding the empty shell of the armor? Then, suddenly he felt her hand clutch his arm, and, remembering the diminished gravity on the moon, scrambled up the ladder with her clinging to his shoulders. It was not a moment too soon. For, as they closed the outer door of the air-lock, everything turned black and she lost consciousness. She came to, a few seconds later, as Bennie, having unscrewed her helmet, yanked it from her shoulders and dragged her inside the chart-room--pale, but still alive. "I watched you from the top of the tripod," explained Atterbury, as she handed back to him the whiskey-glass which she had emptied. "Saw you climb up on that peak. No harm in that! But then you disappeared, and I began to get nervous. So, as soon as we had finished our repairs, we decided to follow you. Lucky we did!"