"'What do you mean?' he asked, blankly.
"'Don't you know that the Big Chief of these freaks bounced you for jumping onto the platform?'
"'I don't remember anything but that I'd seen or dreamed I've seen Allie Lane alive!' he said, disconsolately.
"'Well,' I explained, 'The High Chief, who calls himself by the name of Abaris, didn't like the idea of you getting familiar with Allie and he knocked you out cold. I thought he killed you and he might have at that had he wanted to. I thought you were a goner!'
"'He's got a hell of a nerve then!' he exploded, his face twitching in terrible rage that under the glow of green made him almost as grotesque as Abaris himself. 'I've loved Allie Lane all my life and now that I've found her nothing but death will stop me from having her!'
"'We haven't found her yet, Sands,' I reminded him softly. 'She's somewhere down this tunnel! I think we ought to get to her as soon as we can. Those devils are going to leave here! Abaris'll probably take Allie with him!'
"For perhaps several hundred feet we picked our way, hugging the gem-studded walls, along the tunnel through which Allie Lane had entered the chamber. Overhead small balls of light flitted occasionally, illuminating the entire passageway. We encountered several smaller passageways branching off from the main shaft but we continued along the wider thoroughfare. What had become of the Jovians? I wondered, as we slowly edged our way along the wall. The only thing that seemed to mark their existence in the great underground maze of tunnel and caverns, deep below Death Valley, was the persistent high-pitched musical notes that smashed into the ear-drums with an unending viciousness.
"Presently our footsteps led us into another circular chamber somewhat larger than the one into which Abaris had come. This great room was illuminated by darting lights which exposed units of rapidly revolving machinery from which emanated the high-pitched musical notes!
"In our appraisal of the machinery we saw what appeared to be perhaps a half dozen cylindrical tubes that stood upright, spinning rapidly. Over each glowed a pale green luminosity. The bases of the cylinders went through the hard rock floor of the chamber and their spinning movement created a terrific suction, for the air in the cavern was swirling. Attached to each of the cylinders were hundreds of small tubes that gave off a deep green ray for their entire length. One tube ran from the cylinders to a central manifold to which was attached a larger tube that fairly sputtered and glowed under a force similar to but more powerful than a great vacuum tube.