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.