berish in impotent despair. Fascinated, I stared until the writhing thing, whimpering almost inaudibly, lay back and was quiet.
I turned my eyes to Boris. He surveyed his victim a brief, triumphant second, then clutched the ray-machine with both hands as blood oozed from a half-dozen holes in his body. The top-heavy machine tottered, then fell over with a crash. A dead man, Boris fell clear of it to the floor.
I moved toward Virginia, who still held her father in her arms. A sheet of flame burst between us. I stepped backward, saw that, in crashing, the ray-machine had been shorted. I smelled burning insulation as flames shot from its interior.
Rapidly I skirted the flames, got to Virginias side. I took Bronson's wrist in my hand. There was no pulse. The blaze behind me seared my back. I seized Virginia firmly by her shoulders and lifted her to her feet. She sobbed, struggled to loosen my grip.
"Don't you see?" I pleaded. "The place is on fire. We can't stay here."
I did not exaggerate. The flames from the ray-machine had ignited the inflammable materials in the laboratory. A whole section of it blazed furiously, and the single doorway was threatened.
"But my father"
I held Virginia close.
Tm sorry. We can do nothing for him now."
By main force I got her to the doorway, stumbled over the body that lay sprawled there. Impatiently I bent over it, found it dead. I hurried Virginia to the stairs.
In the street a wind swirled vigorously. Without a fire department the city would be razed in a matter of hours. All traces of the mad ambition of Bronson would be destroyed. The fate of Europe's tyrant would be a mystery never to be revealed.
It was with a certain satisfaction that I led Virginia from the doomed city, never permitting her to glance backward as I held her close.
TheBeggar
By Frances Elliott
All day the beggar on a sun-drenched stone
Barters his jests for paltriness of coins;
At dusk he winds a sash about his loins
And mounts his poppied throne of dreams, alone.
He jousts with tigers under magic skies,
And knows the joy that fantasy purloins,
A glinting mask of star-dust on his eyes.
