In the sudden silence, agonized shrieks rang out across the compound.
"What's wrong, Limpy?" demanded MacAloon.
"It's Al, but I can't see what happened!"
"Stay where you are, Swede!" Mac ordered. "Keep the fishmen fighting!"
He raced to Birchall's station, saw that Al's flame-thrower had jammed. Hundreds of centaurpedes had hurled themselves over the fence and surrounded two natives. Others had brought up a tree trunk and hammered a big hole in the wire. Through the gap, a full regiment was pouring into the enclosure.
"Take care of the ones inside!" Al shrieked. "I'll stop them!"
"Don't be a fool!" shouted Mac. "Fall back and get another flame-thrower!"
Unheeding, Al smashed a path to the fence with the butt of his weapon. 'Pedes were already climbing up his body and wasting no time. He bit his lip and charged on. The trickle of blood running down his chin was the smallest one flowing from his torn flesh. In a last desperate lunge, he grabbed the ends of the broken fence.
"Al!" Mac cried out.
He was too late. A sheet of blue flame had sprung up. There was a piercing scream of pain beyond endurance. Then Birchall hung limply, caught, as he had intended, by the jagged ends of wire. His mangled, lifeless body, through which the current flowed, had closed the gap.