Sherman pointed to Gloria, breathlessly. "Give the little girl a hand," he ejaculated. "She sure pulled us out of the fire that time."
"I'll say she did," said Murray, "but what happened, anyway? I thought that light-ray of theirs wouldn't work on these ships."
"It won't—in air," said Sherman ruefully, surveying the wreck of the Monitor. "But the air blankets down the effect a lot. Out there we got the whole dose. Even then it shouldn't have hurt us so seriously, but I expect a lot of our lead sheathing got jarred loose when we went through those yellow rays and when they let that light-ray go, she leaked all over the place. Wonder what made that Lassan ship blow up like that, though? I thought she sure had us."
"Oh," said Ben, "I think maybe I did that. When the light-ray came on it occurred to me that the gravity-beam might go down their beam of light just as fast as it would down ours, and they must have a port-hole or something through their gravity-screen or they couldn't let the ray out. So I just let them have it."
"Boy, you sure saved the lives of four of Uncle Sam's flying men that time. About one second more of that stuff and we'd have cracked up right there. Look at the front of our bus. The outer plating is all caved in and the inner is starting to go."
"She is pretty well used up isn't she? What gets me though, is that there's one more of those things loose."
"Look!" cried Gloria suddenly, pointing upward.
Far in the zenith above them they saw a point of light; a point that grew and spread and became definite as a great star; then it became a shooting star, plunging earthward, and so great was its speed that even as they watched they could make out a green fragment, flame-wrapped in its midst.
"The last one!" said Sherman. "Thank God for that. Wonder how they got her?"
"Wonder what we do next," remarked Murray, practically.