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Georg was no longer beside us! Elza was still clinging to me in fright. I shook her off. Wolfgar flung his smoking, useless cylinder to the floor. The blackness at once sprang into light; the sparks died. Tarrano was standing in the room, quietly, before us. Standing with a grim, cynical smile, regarding us. But only for an instant did he stand quiet.
Dimly to my fading senses came the triumphant thought, the realization that Argo outside, upon whom Tarrano depended to seize Georg had failed. Action had come to Tarrano. He snapped off his weapon. Released from it, Wolfgar and I wilted to the floor lay inert. The returning blood in my limbs made them prick as with a million needles. To my sight and hearing, the room was whirling and roaring.
You acted in very clumsy fashion but, at least, you doubtless did your best." Gravely he turned to Wolfgar. "I shall not forget, Wolfgar, that, in an emergency, you saved the life of Lady Elza.... Enough! These are busy moments. You chose an awkward time to raise this turmoil. Come with me all of you." He summoned Argo and two other guards.
The shrilling of sirens; roaring of megaphoned commands ... women screaming hysterically.... A chaos, out of which, for a few moments, Georg knew no order could come. But his heart was in his mouth. The Princess Maida, within that burning building.... He had located the tiny postern gate at the bottom of the tower where Wolfgar had told him she would appear.
Wolfgar was not dead; but when we picked him up it was obvious that he was dying. The violet beam vanished as his body struck it vanished with a hiss and splutter, and a puff of sulphuric smoke that mingled with the smell of burning garments and flesh. Georg and I leaped forward. Argo was standing transfixed by surprise at what Wolfgar had done; and as the beam died, Georg was upon him.
We lifted Wolfgar up, carried him to a depression in the floor by the wall a shallow, couch-like bowl half-filled with down. On the floor we gathered, seated on cushions; and presently Wolfgar regained consciousness. His face was not burned. It lighted with a dazed smile; and his eyes, searching us, picked out Maida. "You are safe I'm so glad."
And then Wolfgar pointed out the surrounding hillsides. On them, cleared of their vegetation, our modern civilization stood gaunt and efficient. Towers, aerials, landing stages, aerial trams, factories, tall stacks over the dynamo houses belching thick black smoke, which artificial wind-generators carefully blew away from the city.
The buildings here were almost all at the ground level. Georg and Maida ran onward, hardly noticed, for everyone was gazing upward at the distant, burning tower. Georg was heading for where Wolfgar had an aero secreted. A mile or more. They reached the spot but the aero was not there. They were in the open country now Venia is small. Plantations an agricultural region.
"Unfortunate. He was a good man in many ways I shall be sorry to lose his services." He saw me with my arm around Elza, and he frowned. "So?" Instinctively, involuntarily and I hated myself for it I dropped my arm. Georg exclaimed: "Wolfgar he " Tarrano turned from me. "He is not dead but he will die. There is nothing we can do. I'm very sorry very sorry indeed." A sincere regret was in his tone.
We drew up to a stone landing-place. "The palace of the Princess Maida," Wolfgar whispered. But I had no time to question him. Attendants appeared. A queer mixture. Incongruous men of science, armed with belts of instruments. They greeted Tarrano humbly; escorted him away. Other attendants. Natives of the city, in the flowing, bright-colored robes we had seen everywhere.
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