Illeria touched his arm. "If the Queen must die, that the Moon people and the Earth folk may be saved, let it be so," she urged simply.
The two men bit their lips.
"Come!" urged the girl. "There is a guardroom above. There must be weapons."
"I could use one of those antique hook-'em swords on old Horta," growled Moore.
They burst into the guardroom prepared for sudden and violent action. But the great chamber was empty of Moon men. On the walls hung ray rifles. Ross and Moore each snatched one.
"Now where?" asked Moore.
Ross surveyed the room. Windowed on all sides, it had only two doors, the one they had entered and another opposite. "We'll try that," Ross decided. "What we've got to find now is a spot that commands the square where the ray machine is bedded."
The sloping corridor led them to such a spot. On a balcony they stood and for a moment were content to watch Horta's artisans toiling with sandbags and debris to make barricades against the flood.
"They'll do it, too," Moore said aloud, voicing his chief's thought.
"Artana's trick was probably just to help us out," Ross judged. "He hadn't enough water to flood 'em out."