The next period proved unsuitable; the dancer's car arrived considerably before Sherman's and the plan was dropped for the time, but on the following occasion, as Sherman came down the passage, he noticed Marta Lami just ahead of him. He hurried to catch up and she evidently understood, for she avoided the guard's outstretched hand and hung back a minute against the wall as Sherman came up behind. He made one quick motion; the cable sheared half-way through exposing two wires of bright metal. As luck would have it, it proved unnecessary to put the second part of the plan into operation. For just as Sherman was nerving himself to swing round and attract the ape-man's attention, he heard the soft pad-pad of one of the approaching Lassans. The ape-man stepped back to clear the entrance as he had before, and as he did so, there was a trickle of sparks, a blinding flash, and the cable short-circuited. The result was totally unexpected. From the great machine before Sherman there came an answering flash; the ground glass split across with a bang, there was a hissing sound and something blew up with a roar that rocked the underground chambers.... Sherman came to himself flat on his back and with pieces of rock and the debris of the machine lying across his legs. He looked around; Marta Lami lay some little distance across the room, half covered with fallen rock, one arm flung across her eyes as though to protect them. Above, the solid granite looked as though a blasting charge had been fired in its midst. Sherman pulled himself to a sitting posture, and finding nothing damaged, stood upright. The machine, badly shattered, lay in fragments of bent rods, broken pulleys and wrecked cylinders all about him. In the place where it had stood was a long narrow opening, down at the end of which something irregular shut off a bright point of light. A blast of heat exuded from the place and a steady, deep-voiced roaring was audible. The ape-man guard was nowhere to be seen. He bent to pick up the unconscious girl, wondering how one revived a mechanical woman, especially without water, but she solved the problem for him by opening her eyes and asking: "Who touched off the pineapple, boy friend?" "I did. Come out of it and tell me what we do next. Anything busted?" "Only my head." She patted the mass of stiff wire. "Boy, am I glad I wore my hair long before they made a robot of me!" And with an effort she stood up, looked down the pit where the machine had been and said, "Say, let's get out of here. That don't look so good." "All right," said Sherman, "which way? Wait till I get my knife." "No, leave it," she said. "Those babies are nobody's saps. If they find it on you they'll know you shot the well. Come on, I think that thing is going to pop again."