"I thought—" she gasped, "I think I see something in the ray! The machine-monster is coming back!"
Her lips tightened. She lifted the little automatic and began to shoot into the pillar of crimson fire beside the tiny, spinning globe.
Larry, watching tensely, saw a curious, bird-like something fluttering about in the red ray, swiftly growing larger!
Deliberately, and pausing to aim carefully for each shot, the girl emptied the little gun at the figure. Her body was rigid, her small face was firmly set, though she was breathing very fast.
A curious numbness had come over Larry. His only physical sensations were the quick hammering of his heart, and a parching dryness in his throat. Terror stiffened him. Though he would not have admitted it, he was paralyzed with fear.
The glittering thing that fluttered about in the crimson ray was not an easy target. When the gun was empty, it seemed still unharmed. And its wings had increased to a span of a foot.
"Too late!" Agnes gasped. "Why didn't we do something?"
Trembling, horror-stricken, she shrank toward Larry.
He was staring at the thing in the pillar of scarlet light.