But they would not hear him out. The din from them submerged his voice. His lips snapped tight as abruptly he ceased talking; his brows lowered grimly and I saw his finger press upon the cylinder.
Maida's voice screamed: "Georg! Have mercy! Do not kill them!"
She spoke barely in time. His cylinder swept upward. The rays from it caught only the upper portions of the palms and the tree tops. The foliage withered, shriveled before that soundless, invisible blast.
Not a blast of heat. The mob, surprised, then frightened, stared upward. The soft tropical foliage in a great wide swath was dead, with naked sticks of limbs. Black, then turning white. Not with heat—but cold. Ice was forming from the moisture in the humid air. And then the sudden condensation brought snow—a thick white fall of it sifting down into the palm-laden garden; falling gently, then swirling in a sudden wind which had begun.
As though itself stiffened by the cold just overhead, the mob stood transfixed. Then a murmur of horror came. And I saw through the veil of whirling snow, that into some of the trees slaans had climbed. Their bodies, frozen now, slid and fell—black plummets hurtling downward through the swirling snow-flakes.
CHAPTER XXV
Immortal Terror
To Elza, approaching with Tarrano on the tiny flying platform the City of Ice, the place seemed truly like a child's dream of Fairyland. The rude snow huts of the Arctic of our Earth were all that she had ever conceived could be built of frozen water. Here, in the outskirts of the city, she saw indeed, quite similar huts. But further in—ornate buildings several stories high. She caught a vague glimpse of them only, as the platform flew above them and descended in the center of the city.
They had passed over great outer encircling ramparts—a huge wall many helans long—built entirely of ice blocks—fortifications like that fabled wall which in the dim history of our Earth had once encircled a portion of the domain of the Yellow Race.