That one was wiped out by an aerial torpedo. It's a sort of rocket which carries up to fifteen miles, and you've seen its accuracy and speed."

While we were listening to his explanations, so far at least as the distress aroused by his abominable cruelty allows us, something has entered into our field of view. It sped rapidly along the milky wall, and the second patch has also vanished.

"What about that man?" asks Mlle Mornas, hardly able to speak, "Is he dead, too?"

"No," replied Harry Killer, "that one's still alive. You're going to see him in a moment."

He goes out, followed by our guard, who thrust us outside. Now we are once again on the platform of the tower. We look around, and some distance away we see coming towards us, with the speed of a shooting-star, an apparatus like that which brought us here. Suspended beneath its lower surface we can see something swinging.

"Here's the heliplane," Harry Killer thus tells us the name of the flying-machine. "In less than a minute you'll understand whether anyone can get in or out of this place against my wishes."

The heliplane indeed approaches us quickly. It looms larger in our sight. We suddenly tremble: the object swinging below it, it is a Negro, whom a sort of giant pincers has seized in the middle of his body.

The heliplane comes nearer still. It passes above the tower. . . . Horrible! The pincers have opened, and the wretched Negro has just smashed at our feet. From his shattered head the brains have spurted in every direction, and we are spattered with blood.

A cry of indignation escapes us. But Mlle Mornas is not satisfied with a cry, she acts. Her eyes flashing, pale, her hps bloodless, she thrust aside the startled warder and hurls herself upon Harry Killer.

"You coward! . . . You wretched murderer! . . she cries to his face, while her small hands knot themselves around the villain's neck.

He frees himself effortlessly, and we tremble for the foolhardy girl. Alas! We can do nothing to aid her. The guards have seized us and hold us helpless.

Fortunately the dictator does not seem to have, for the time at any rate, any intention of punishing our brave companion, whom two men have dragged back. If his mouth is set in a cruel grimace, something like a look of pleasure comes into his eyes; he fixes them on the young girl who is still trembling.

"Well, well," he says, in a fairly good-humoured tone, "she's got spirit, the filly."

Then thrusting his foot against the remains of the wretched Negro he adds, "you shouldn't worry about trifles, little girl."

He goes down, we are hustled after him, and we are taken back into that room, so well furnished with a table and one solitary chair, which I shall accordingly speak of in future as the Throne Room. Harry Killer takes his place on the said throne and looks at us.

When I say he's looking at us. . . .