Bill struggled along beside him. "Too far!" he muttered. "Miles, in the night. In the cold. We'll never——"
He stopped, with a thin, rasping cry.
Before him, above the narrow black line of the cliffs, a slender bar of luminescent silver had shot up into view. It was the slim, tapering cylinder of the Red Rover, with her twelve rear motor rays driving white and dazzling against the mountain she was leaving. The sunship, unharmed, driving upward into space!
"My God!" Bill screamed. "Leaving us!" He staggered forward, a pitiful, trembling figure, encased in stiff, frost-covered garments. He waved his arms, shouted. It was vain, almost ludicrous.
The Prince had stopped, still holding Paula in his arms.
"They think—Martians got us!" he called in a queer voice. "Stop them! Fire torpedo—at boulder. They will see!"
Bill heard the gasping voice. He unfastened the heavy tube that he still carried on his shoulder, leveled it before him. With numb, trembling fingers, he tried to move the levers. His fingers seemed frozen; they would not move. Tears burst from his eyes, freezing on his cheeks. He stood holding the heavy tube in his arms, sobbing like a baby.
Above them, the slender white cylinder of the Red Rover was driving out into star-gemmed space, dazzling opalescent rays shooting back at the dark mountain behind her.
"They go," Bill babbled. "They think we are dead. Have not time to wait. Go to fight for world."
He collapsed in a trembling heap upon the loose, frosty sand.