"So rapidly were the slugs hurled from my gun that the Jovians did not instantly grasp their significance. Then abruptly the entire chamber seemed alive with thin green rays that played with deadly precision around me. Abaris, suddenly ill from the effect of the six slugs passing through his head, made a weak attempt to lift a tentacle-like arm. It was with an effort that he brought it up. I made a leap at him but I was too late. A ray shot from the tip of his fiendish arm! I felt a tingle on my left side, just over the heart. The chamber floor seemed to rush up as I fell, heavily. For several seconds I lay there, in full command of my faculties but unable to move a muscle. My head swam and I had a feeling that I was being hurled through space at a terrific speed. Then a terrible blackness overcame me and I seemed to be falling into a yawning abyss. "How long I lay there I do not know. For ages, it seemed, I lay on my back making no attempt to move, but staring into an inky blackness overhead. What had caused the chamber to become dark, I wondered? Were my eyes really open? I pinched myself. I was not dead after all! I listened attentively for some sound to indicate the presence of someone. I heard nothing. The silence was awful. Then I wondered if I had succeeded in killing Abaris. If so, he should be lying at my feet. With an effort I wiggled a leg in an attempt to feel the floor near it. Perhaps Abaris had crawled away, or his men had removed him from the room, I thought. Then I remembered the futility of trying to kill a Jovian! "I felt no pain although the blood pounded at my temples and I felt terribly weak and nauseated. My left side seemed numb--deadened where Abaris' ray had struck. Presently as I lay in the darkness, my ears caught a low moaning sound. Increasing in volume, the sound soon became a high-pitched wail like that which we had heard when we beheld the sphere whirling on the column in the center of the radium pool. My ear drums pounded under the force of the shriek and I placed my hands over them to shut out the maddening sound. "Suddenly the whole earth seemed to tremble! A rumble filled the room as though the world were in the tumultuous throes of some great upheaval! With an ominous roar the floor under me shuddered and cracked. I lay panic-stricken, thinking that a terrible earthquake had swept over the Valley of Death. Crashing earth-slides roared around me as I lay helpless. Overhead I could see a thin streak of light penetrating through a fissure that was slowly widening! The chamber was becoming brighter under the glare of light that entered it from the fissure. I stood upon my feet and braced myself to keep from falling under the swaying movements of the earth. I looked around quickly. The chamber was entirely vacant. Not a sign remained of Abaris, his Jovians, Allie or any of them! They were gone! At my feet I noticed a spreading pool of green liquid. I cursed Abaris and his hideous followers roundly.