grabbed a rifle out of somebody's hands. He clubbed it and began to swing, scattering men like ten-pins off the edge of the stand.

"Get out of here, you fools!" he howled at them. "Can't you get it through your thick skulls? The Vurna are coming. Get out!"

Numbers of them were already streaming up the stairs. Now more and more took up the cry, seeming to understand suddenly that someone's treachery had made this place a trap. Sawyer said to the Chief of the Michigans,

"Go on, take that hot head back to the lake and cool it. Hurry up, before they get you."

Michigan snorted like an angry bull, but he turned and jumped down into the crowd. The man with the linen shirt was gone. Price was about to follow when he saw the muzzle of a rifle, upflung, glinting darkly in the lamplight. He shouted to Burr and Twist to look out, and then flung himself upon Sawyer. The shot was stunning in that closed space. He heard the slug go whistling overhead and then ricochet from the low concrete roof. Someone on the far side of the room cried out in rage and pain. 

"I thank you," said Sawyer, "and now let's get off this damned target."

They got off, the four of them sticking close together. Price did not see Oakes, nor the man who had carried their lantern. Most of the lights were going out, knocked over and trampled. The dark surge of running men carried them to the stair and up and out into full, blinding day.

Somebody pointed to the sky and yelled, "There they come--the Vurna!"
CHAPTER VI

They were still a long way off but coming fast, whistling down the sky. Price could make out about a dozen bright dots flashing against the blue. Sawyer said,

"We'd better run for it!"

They fled, along the twisting path through the ruins. All around them, ahead and behind, other men were running, bolting away like wild creatures into the shadows of the broken walls.And this was once their city, Price thought. A place of streets and homes and schools and churches, a good place, built with long hope and striving. What right did the Vurna have to break it?

He looked up at the fliers. They were larger now, moving swiftly above ragged crenellations that showed stark white in the hot summer sun. He looked down, and there was desolation. He ran in it, leaping and stumbling over the bones of a city, driven like the rest.

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