crimson gleam! It grew brighter and deeper, until it was an intense, bloody glare. And then the climbing vines and trees about it, gleaming like ruby plants, began to melt away! The house began to dissolve into crimson light!

The green mist swirled lower. The silvery central moon waxed brighter. Once or twice thin fingers of purple mist were again thrust out exploringly, all in a silence of death. And the red gleam grew! The house glowed as though washed in a rain of blood. And swiftly it faded into that awful light!

The chimney tottered and came down in a shower of red sparks that faded into nothingness before they touched the ground. The roof fell, and the remnant of the walls collapsed upon it in a heap of crimson dust of fire that faded swiftly--dissolved--vanished!

The little hill was a bare red waste, gleaming with that terrible scarlet glare. The two purple tentacles of misty flame shot out again, and swept searchingly over the spot. Suddenly the green mist stopped its seething motion. Its fires died out. It grew dim, faded, was gone like a cloud of dissipating steam. The white glow of the silver globe waxed dull, and suddenly it, too, was no more.

Quickly the red glow faded from the weirdly denuded hilltop, and the night fell in a heavy mantle. I stood wrapt in a spell of amazement and terror.

CHAPTER VIII 
Out of the Sea's Abyss

"Well, how was the show?" Sam's voice was a little weak and strained. Suddenly I was conscious of an unpleasant tremor of the knees. I went into the conning-tower and dropped myself weakly on a seat. I tried to speak, but my mouth was very dry. I swallowed twice.

"What was it?" I contrived to articulate at last. The old man stood erect in the opening, with a hand upon his thoughtful brow. "I don't know," he said. "I didn't think they could come. They must have mastered secrets of time and space that we know nothing of. They have conquered our limitations of distance. They must be ages ahead of us!"

"But the house--it just melted away!"

"As for that, the emanations of the green cloud must have disrupted the atoms, allowing the electrons to fall together to make neutrons (formed of united protons and electrons) so small that they fell through the ground, toward the center of the earth. That is easy enough to understand--in fact, I could probably have developed a similar ray myself, as a result 

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