Eve cut off the frightful power, and the black cone disappeared, leaving the room putrid with its defilement.
"And Adam would do that to the world," she said, her blue eyes like electric-shot icicles. "He would do it to you, John Northwood--and to me!" Her full bosom strained under the passion beneath.
"Listen!" She raised her hand warningly. "He comes! The destroyer comes!"
A hand was at the door. Eve reached for the lever, and, the same moment, Northwood leaned over her imploringly.
"If Athalia is with him!" he gasped. "You will not harm her?"
A wild shriek at the door, a slight scuffle, and then the doorknob was wrenched as though two were fighting over it.
"For God's sake, Eve!" implored Northwood. "Wait! Wait!"
Icy, cruel eyes cut into him, and a new-fleshed hand tried to push him aside. The door was straining open. A beloved voice shrieked. "John!"
Eve and Northwood both leaped for the lever. Under her tender white flesh she was as strong as a man. In the midst of the struggle, her red, humid lips approached his--closer. Closer. Their merest pressure would thrust him into Future Time, where the laboratory and all it contained would be but a shadow, and where he would be helpless to interfere with her terrible will.
He saw the door open and Adam stride into the room. Behind him, lying prone in the hall where she had probably fainted, was Athalia. In a mad burst of strength he touched the lever together with Eve.
The projector, belching forth its stinking breath of corruption swung in a mad arc over the ceiling, over the walls--and then straight at Adam.
Then, quicker than thought, came the accident. Eve, attempting to throw Northwood off, tripped, fell half over the machine, and, with a short scream of despair, dropped into the black path of destruction.
Northwood paused, horrified. The Death Ray was pointed at an inner wall of the room, which, even as he looked, crumbled and disappeared, bringing down upon him dust more foul than any obscenity the bowels of the earth might yield. In an instant the black cone ate through the outer parts of the building, where crashing stone and screams that were more horrible because of their shortness followed the ruin that swept far into the fair reaches of the valley.