I caught my breath at that cry of his, for I saw that he was pointing down toward one of the great circular openings in Neptune's roof, openings that were set in it here and there, all being open now as when we had first explored Neptune's mysteries. To flash down beneath the roof through that opening was our one chance of escape from the relentless smiting death above. I saw it, too, so the next instant our own flier and all the long column behind us were diving downward at a dizzying angle toward that great circular opening; and in the next moment before the Neptunian cylinders above could fathom our purpose, we had passed through that opening and were racing forward beneath the great roof! In an instant, though, the Neptunian cylinders had followed in their long column and were racing after us, through the dim Neptunian day above the dead and lifeless surface of the great compartment-city that covered all of Neptune! On we flashed, with the Neptunian column some distance behind, numbering now some half-thousand more in cylinders than our own bare thousand space-fliers. On until above us we saw another similar opening in the great roof, and then at Marlin's quick order our narrow, long column of fliers were slanting up toward it, through it. And then, outside of the great roof once more, Marlin gave a swift order that revealed to me the purpose of his strategy. For at that order our fleet checked its upward rush and bent its long column lightning-like around to form a great circle, a circle hovering there around and above the great circular opening in the roof through which we had just emerged. And in the next moment, as the Neptunian column flashed up through that opening likewise in hot pursuit of us, never suspecting us of waiting there for it, from all the fliers of our great circle there had radiated toward them storm on storm of deadly concentrated rays, rays that smote them with blinding shock as their column rushed upward and that crashed through hundreds of their upflashing cylinders even as they burst up through the opening, before ever they could catch sight of us around them! In those seconds of dazing surprise there was no chance for them to recoil, and their column of cylinders, as if too astounded for the moment to answer with a single ray, was flashing up from the opening through a hurricane of rays that in that moment was annihilating their cylinders by hundreds! But a scant three or four hundred cylinders of those that ran upward through that gauntlet of death escaped it, and these swirled for a moment in stunned confusion above us, and then were without formation racing away from us over Neptune's surface, racing away toward the gleaming disk of Triton! "Beaten!" I cried, as our own space-fliers whirled up now after the fleeing cylinders. "They're beaten--they're fleeing back to Triton!"