Part 2

It was still turning over, but more slowly. He was about to separate the plates when it stopped of its own accord and the fiendish wail from above died away. The boy nimbly scaled the web-work construction and pried about the tangle of machinery until he found the obvious answer. It had been a blower operated by the motor, to which had been attached a simple siren. Burglar-alarm, perhaps, or danger signal, he thought. At any rate it had saved him.

He laughed as he descended slowly. The old book had been right. Fruit acid between zinc and copper made the simplest sort of generating battery cell. What knowledge he had possessed he had used to the full. He drank again from the canteen.

And a few moments later with Gecko at his side, he left the city of the dead behind, Don was going to a greener world.

End of Project Gutenberg's South to Propontis, by Henry Andrew Ackermann