They only laughed derisively, with howls of demoniacal scorn.
"You slave! You cur!" shouted Waldron, and spat at him as he drew the
vault door shut. "You cringing dog--stay there, now, and face it!"
The great door boomed shut. In the cool of the winding stairway of steel
which led, lighted by electricity, to the trap-door and the ladder down
into the tremendous vaults, the world-masters breathed deeply once more,
respited from death.
Herzog, screaming like a fiend in torment, clawed at the impenetrable
steel door, raved, begged, entreated, and tore his fingers on the lock.
No answer, save the muffled echo of a jeer, from within.
_Boom!_
What was that?
Mad with terror though he was, he whirled about, and faced the room now
quivering with heat.
Even as he looked, a great gap yawned in the western wall, farthest from
the flame-belching oxygen-tank that had been struck.
Through this gap, pouring irresistibly as the sea, swept a tide of
attackers, storming the inner citadel of the infernal, world-strangling
Air Trust.
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