Before the searing heat that sprang out at us the Chief and I shrank back a step or two. At the same moment the man we pursued sent forth a wailing shriek that I shall remember as long as I live and suddenly leapt through the opening into the heart of the cylinder.
For an instant our straining eyes saw him glow suddenly red and almost transparent, in a bower of leaping, licking flames. Then we turned hastily away. When we looked back again, only the glowing cylinder and the searing heat remained.
As the miserable man leapt into the cylinder there had come a rush of feet from behind us. And I recovered from the shock of such a terrible death to the consciousness that some one was plucking at my arm.
“Clayton! Clayton! And you, Chief! For God’s sake come away! Come out! Quick!” It was Moore’s voice.
We turned and stumbled out of the building in response to the urgency in Moore’s tone. But we had taken hardly three steps from the door when there came a tremendous flash of light, followed by a roar that seemed to shake the world. With it, something crashed against my chest and I fell to the ground.
“Chief,” I called faintly, “get Natalie——” and then darkness swooped down upon me.
I have a vague recollection of regaining at least partial consciousness some time later. I seemed to be lying full length on a couch in a brightly lighted room, and I was struggling in some way with a racking, searing agony in my chest. It seemed to me, too, that Natalie was kneeling beside me, her lovely face pressed close to mine.
But it was only a vague impression before I plunged back and down again into terrible, endless darkness.