The man beside them spoke quickly. “One moment—you will pardon me—someone is calling—” He listened intently to some soundless call, and he sent a silent message in reply.
“I have instructed them,” he said. “Come and you shall see how impregnable is our position. The red ones have resented our destruction of their ship.”
The face of the girl, Althora, was perturbed. “More killings?” she asked.
“Only as they force themselves to their own death,” her brother told her. “Be not disturbed.”
The throng in the vast space drew apart as the figure of their leader strode quickly through with the two men following close. There were many rooms and passages; the men had glimpses of living quarters, of places where machinery made soft whirring sounds; more sights than their eyes could see or their minds comprehend. They came at last to an open chamber.
The men looked up to see above them a tremendous inverted-cone, and there was the gold of cloudland glowing through an opening at the top. It was the inside of a volcano where they stood, and McGuire remembered the island and its volcanic peak where the ship had swerved aside. He felt that he knew now where they were.
Above them, a flash of light marked the passage of a ship over the crater’s mouth, and he realized that the ships of the reds were not avoiding the island now. Did it mean an attack? And how could these new friends meet it?
Before them on the level volcanic floor were great machines that came suddenly to life, and their roar rose to a thunder of violence, while, in the center, a cluster of electric sparks like whirling stars formed a cloud of blue fire. It grew, and its hissing, crackling length reached upward to a fine-drawn point that touched the opening above.
“Follow!” commanded their leader and went rapidly before them where a passage wound and twisted to bring them at last to the light of day.