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When M. Desmalions and Weber went downstairs again, they found the chief inspector lying on the bed in Gaston Sauverand's room on the second floor, gray in the face. He had been hit on the head and was dying. A few minutes later he was dead. Sergeant Mazeroux, whose wound was only slight, said, while it was being dressed, that Sauverand had taken the chief inspector and himself up to the garret, and that, outside the door, he had dipped his hand quickly into an old satchel hanging on the wall among some servants' wornout aprons and jackets. He drew out a revolver and fired point-blank at the chief inspector, who dropped like a log. When seized by Mazeroux, the murderer released himself and fired three bullets, the third of which hit the sergeant in the shoulder. And so, in a fight in which the police had a band of experienced detectives at their disposal, while the enemy, a prisoner, seemed to possess not the remotest chance of safety, this enemy, by a strategem of unprecedented daring, had led two of his adversaries aside, disabled both of them, drawn the others into the house and, finding the coast clear, escaped. M. Desmalions was white with anger and despair. He exclaimed: "He's tricked us! His letters, his hiding-place, the movable nail, were all shams.

* * * * * He moved soundlessly across the sand. There was no chance for concealment; the surface was too smooth for that. Yet he wished, as he moved onward down the long, gentle slope, that he had been able to keep under cover. In all the wide bowl of the great crater top was nothing but dead ashes of fires gone long centuries before, coarse, igneous rock--nothing to set the little nerves of one's spine to tingling. Rawson tried to tell himself he was alone. Even the gun in his hand seemed an absurd precaution. Yet he knew, with a certainty that went beyond mere seeing, that invisible eyes were upon him. The blocks were massive when he drew near to them. They were buried in the sand, their sides like mirrors, their edges true and straight. "Crystals," Rawson tried to tell himself, but he knew they were not.

"Only fancy, mamma, Uncle Jack took us to a picture gallery in Bond Street, and there we saw a picture of a lot of early christians, poor dears, who'd been thrown to a lot of lions and tigers, who were devouring them!" _Ethel_ (_with still more sympathy_). "Yes, and mamma dear, there was _one_ poor tiger that _hadn't got_ a christian!"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Mother_ (_to son, who has been growing rather free of speech_). "Tommy, if you promise not to say 'hang it!' again, I'll give you sixpence." _Tommy._ "All right, ma. But I know another word that's worth half-a-crown!"] * * * * * [Illustration: BETWEEN THE ACTS _Governess._ "Well, Marjorie, have you done crying?" _Marjorie._ "No--I haven't.

But I find a number of regularly recurring changes in light intensity and character ... and that proves the presence of a number of planetary bodies circling the star. That's the only way one could explain the fluctuations for the G-type star is a steady type. It doesn't vary greatly and has no light fluctuations to speak of. Not like the Cepheid and Mira types." "And that proves it's our Sun?" asked Chambers. Craven nodded. "Fairly definitely, I'd say." "How far away is it?" Stutsman wanted to know.

But I've played poker, which I should think is much the same." "We are going to do a play, and we want another man. The man who was going to play one of the parts has had to go back to London." "Poor devil! Fancy having to leave a place like this and go back to that dingy, overrated town." * * * * * The big drawing-room of the abbey was full when they arrived. Tea was going on in a desultory manner. In a chair at the far end of the room, Sir Thomas Blunt surveyed the scene gloomily through the smoke of a cigarette. The sound of Lady Blunt's voice had struck their ears as they opened the door. The Maxim gun was in action with no apparent prospect of jamming.

For a while the frog's symphony dominated all other sounds, then lagoon and forest and cypress branch awoke; and through the steadily sustained tumult of woodland voices I could hear the dry bark of the fox-squirrel, the whistle of the raccoon, ducks softly quacking or whimpering as they prepared for sleep among the reeds, the soft booming of bitterns, the clattering gossip of the heronry, the Southern whippoorwill's incessant call. At regular intervals the howling note of a lone heron echoed the strident screech of a crimson-crested crane; the horned owl's savage hunting-cry haunted the night, now near, now floating from infinite distances. And after a while I became aware of a nearer sound, low-pitched but ceaseless--the hum of thousands of lesser living creatures blending to a steady monotone. Then the theatrical moon came up through filmy draperies of waving Spanish moss thin as cobwebs; and far in the wilderness a cougar fell a-crying and coughing like a little child with a bad cold. I went in after that. Miss Barrison was sitting before the oven, knees gathered in her clasped hands, languidly studying the fire. She looked up as I appeared, opened the oven-doors, sniffed the aroma, and resumed her attitude of contented indifference. "Where is the professor?" I asked. "He has retired.

I was now master of myself, very calm. I sat down on the sill of the window, my feet in the void. A breath of cool air from the peaks refreshed me. I felt little Tanit-Zerga's hand in my vest pocket. "Here is a box. I must know when you are down, so I can follow. You will open the box. There are fire-flies in it; I shall see them and follow you." She held my hand a moment. "Now go," she murmured.

"We could have gotten into a turbulent updraft and been carried to the upper, eastward winds. The altimeter was trying to keep up with the boat and just couldn't, half the time. We don't know where we went. I'll take Abe's estimate and let it go at that." "Well, we're up some kind of a fjord," Tom said. "I think it branches like a Y, and we're up the left branch, but I won't make a point of that." "I can't find anything like that on this map," Abe Clifford said, after a while. Joe Kivelson swore. "You ought to know better than that, Abe; you know how thoroughly this coast hasn't been mapped." "How much good will it do us to know where we are, right now?"

On and on, and still on, until fatigued almost to exhaustion; and still, no land. A feeling of uncontrollable lonesomeness took possession of me. Silence reigned supreme. No sound greeted me save the swirl of the gently undulating waters against the boat, and the melancholy dip of the oars. Overhead, the familiar eyes of night were all that pierced the gloom that seemed to hedge me in. My feeling of distress increased when I discovered that my boat had struck a current and was beyond my control. Visions of a cataract and inevitable death instantly shot across my mind. Made passive by intense despair, I laid down in the bottom of the boat, to let myself drift into whatever fate was awaiting me. I must have lain there many hours before I realized that I was traveling in a circle. The velocity of the current had increased, but not sufficiently to insure immediately destruction.

Psmith had risen to greet him. "Won't you sit down?" he said. "I prefer to stand." "Just as you wish. This is Liberty Hall." Mr. Waring again glanced at Mr. Wilberfloss. "What I have to say is private," he said.

Who's been doin' things to ye?" "I had a currency debate with a man be th' name iv Joyce, a towny iv mine, in th' Audjiotoroom Hotel," said Mr. Hennessy. "Whin we got as far as th' price iv wheat in th' year iv th' big wind, we pushed each other. Give me a high glass iv beer. I'm as dhry as a gravel roof." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, handing over the glass, "ye're an ol' man; an', as th' good book says, an ol' fool is th' worst yet. So I'll not thry to con-vince ye iv th' error iv ye'er ways. But why anny citizen that has things in his head shud dhress himself up like a sandwich-man, put a torch on his shoulder, an' toddle over this blessid town with his poor round feet, is more than I can come at with all me intelligence.

Perhaps he was too tired. He had missed the proper time for morning prayer, but he poured water into a basin and washed his hands and face, then turned toward the risen sun and humbly addressed God, first bowing, then kneeling, then striking his forehead on the carpet. _When I pray, I am at home no matter where I am._ After praying, he pushed open the iron casement with its diamond-shaped glass panels to let in air and then pulled the green velvet curtains across the window to shut out light. He moved now in a cool dimness, as if underwater. He must rest, to be strong for the next battle. Crossing the room to his sleeping mattress, which lay on the floor Egyptian-fashion, he stripped off his sweat-soaked tunic and threw it down. He unbuckled his belt and laid it carefully on the mattress. Then he kicked off his boots and dropped his hose and his loincloth. He splashed water over his body and felt cleaner and cooler. There was another way to be home.

"But I'm afraid of it!" he had protested. "_We_ know it's true; but there's material on almost every page for the biggest libel and slander suits in history!" "I know it," the bald and paunchy Lensman-attorney had replied. "Fully. I hope they _do_ take action against us, but I'm absolutely certain they won't." "You hope they do?" "Yes. If they take the initiative they can't prevent us from presenting our evidence in full; and there is no court in existence, however corrupt, before which we could not win. What they want and must have is delay; avoidance of any issue until after the election."

Turning into Rupert Court, a dark and suggestive passage some short distance up the street on the right, I found a curious little comedy being played. A door gave on to the deserted passageway, and on each side of it stood a man--the lurcher type of man that is bred of London streets. The door opened inwards. Another man stepped out. The hands of one of the lurchers flew to the newcomer's mouth. The hands of the other lurcher flew to the newcomer's pockets. At that moment I advanced. The lurchers vanished noiselessly and instantaneously. Their victim held out his hand. "Come in, won't you?"

We done got the idea that sometimes there's such a thing as a quarrel that is right and just." The President's melancholy face lit up with animation and his voice rose to the sonorous vibration of the negro preacher. "We learn that out of the Bible, we coloured folks--we learn to smite the ungodly--" "Pray, pray," said Mr. Bryan soothingly, "don't introduce religion, let me beg of you. That would be fatal. We peacemakers are all agreed that there must be no question of religion raised." "Exactly so," murmured The Eminent Divine, "my own feelings exactly. The name of--of--the Deity should never be brought in. It inflames people. Only a few weeks ago I was pained and grieved to the heart to hear a woman in one of our London streets raving that the German Emperor was a murderer.

He was a man of uncertain age, bordering upon the elderly, with a black skullcap under which curled outward two silverygray horns of hair. The lower part of his face was covered with a grizzled beard. He must have been studying me as intently, for he now broke the silence which had prevailed all night. "You are not a poor man," he announced accusingly. "How is it you have waited so long?" "I'm afraid youve made a mistake in me, my friend," I told him jovially, "we shan't be making an illegal entry. I am resident in England and can come home at any time." He was silent; from disappointment, I concluded. "Never mind, I'll pay you as much as a refugee--within reason." "You are a follower of reason, sir?"

"Well, now, wait a minute, young fellow," Poole began to argue. "You don't know--" "No. I don't. And I want all of us alive after we find out, too," Karski replied. Rodney Maxwell's voice, in the background, said something indistinguishable. Poole said ungraciously, "Well, all right, if you think so...." The _Lester Dawes_ began dropping to the rear and going down toward the ground. Conn returned to the teleview screen in time to see the truncated cone of the extinct volcano rise on the horizon, dwarfing everything around it. Fred Karski was talking to Colonel Zareff, back at Force Command, giving him the radiation count. "That's occupied," the old soldier replied. "Mass-energy converter going.

"_Touché._ Go on." * * * * * "Since artifacts had been found in a part of the City from which they had previously been removed, I thought that Jim, here, had found a ... well, a cover-up. It looked as though some of the alien machines were being moved around in order to conceal the fact that someone was keeping something hidden. Like, for instance, a new weapon, or a device that would give a man more power than he should rightfully have." "Such as?" Duckworth asked. "Such as invisibility, or a cheap method of transmutation, or even a new and faster space drive. I wasn't sure, but it certainly looked like it might be something of that sort." Rawlings nodded thoughtfully. "A very good intuition, considering the fact that you had a bit of erroneous data."

Oscar asked. "Me? Flunked out? I never made less than an A in any course I took during my eight years at war with college. I was expelled from nine schools and barely escaped the highway patrol when I was bootlegging at Oklahoma University!" "Freddy," Willy said, "you're lyin' like a dog, butcha make it sound s' real!" * * * * * Jones squirmed uncomfortably in his seat in the briefing room, phrasing and rephrasing his thoughts. It seemed that no matter which arrangement of words he chose, it still was going to be obvious that he'd flopped. He re-examined his fingernails and selected one which was still long enough to chew. General Marcher concluded his current appraisal of the situation and began calling on the various individuals with whom certain phases of OPERATION SPACE CASE had been entrusted.

"There were forty-five men there; and their forty-five knives were smashed.... The chief flew at me as if holding me responsible for this incomprehensible phenomenon. He was a tall, lean old man, slightly hunchbacked, blind of one eye, hideous to look upon. He aimed a huge pistol point blank at my head and he struck me as so ugly that I burst out laughing in his face. He pulled the trigger. The pistol missed fire. He pulled it again. The pistol again missed fire.... "All of them at once began to dance around the stake to which I was fastened. Gesticulating wildly, hustling one another and roaring like thunder, they levelled their various firearms at me: muskets, pistols, carbines, old Spanish blunderbusses. The hammers clicked. But the muskets, pistols, carbines, and blunderbusses did not go off!

Pashkov asked. "They say they've been framed by a fat little Russian. But it's transparent, a clumsy job. Imagine, they left a stolen car in the ambulance court and in it an invoice for six cases of ammunition. It was traced to the Cubans in half an hour." Pashkov climbed into his flier. "Well, it's fashionable to blame the Russians for everything." He waved his chubby hand, and took off. Flying over the Baltic, he set the controls on the Moscow beam. Ten minutes west of Moscow he tuned the communicator in on Petchareff's office.

He said cheerfully, "How do you do, Mr. Holt?" Then he nodded to Horta. "Good to see you, Captain." He offered his hand as Terry straightened up on deck. "My name's Davis. We'll have your stuff aboard right away." Two young men in dungarees and with crew cuts appeared and took over the motley lot of cartons that Terry and Horta had made ready. "Have you everything you need?" asked Davis anxiously.

* * * * * There had been a grand tournament held near Shrewsbury Castle, in honour of the intended nuptials of the beautiful Lady Bertha de Cauci. She was the only daughter of the Earl de Cauci, a nobleman of some note; he was one of an ancient and unblemished name, and of great riches. The lady was beautiful, but, at the same time, she was an unwilling bride,--every one could see that; but the bridegroom cared not for that. There was a sealed sorrow on her brow,--a sorrow that seemed sincere and lasting; but she spoke not of it to any one,--her lips were seldom parted. She loved another. Yes; she loved one who was far away, fighting in the wars of his country,--one who was not so rich in lands as her present bridegroom. When he left her, she remembered his promise; it was, to fight on till he earned a fortune, or name that should give him some right to claim her hand, even from her imperious father. But alas! he came not; and what could she do against the commands of one who would be obeyed? Her mother, too, was a proud, haughty woman, one whose sole anxiety was to increase the grandeur and power of her house by such connections.

"Will," he repeated. "You must believe me. I know about you. I want to help you--if there's any help for you, God forgive us both. And God have mercy on Earth. It's worse than you can believe--and different. It's...." Horror washed over the old man's face. He stood, fighting within himself. Hawkes felt his own back hairs lift, and he drew back. For a second, the fat man seemed to waver before him, as if his body was only a projection.

We have been treated to the spectacle of what are practically keeled racing-planes driven a clear five foot or more above the water, and only eased down to touch their so-called "native element" as they near the line. Judges and starters have been conveniently blind to this absurdity, but the public demonstration off St. Catherine's Light at the Autumn Regattas has borne ample, if tardy, fruit. In future the "bat" is to be a boat, and the long-unheeded demand of the true sportsman for "no daylight under mid-keel in smooth water" is in a fair way to be conceded. The new rule severely restricts plane area and lift alike. The gas compartments are permitted both fore and aft, as in the old type, but the water-ballast central tank is rendered obligatory. These things work, if not for perfection, at least for the evolution of a sane and wholesome _waterborne_ cruiser. The type of rudder is unaffected by the new rules, so we may expect to see the Long-Davidson make (the patent on which has just expired) come largely into use henceforward, though the strain on the sternpost in turning at speeds over forty miles an hour is admittedly very severe. But bat-boat racing has a great future before it. CORRESPONDENCE Correspondence Skylarking on the Equator TO THE EDITOR--Only last week, while crossing the Equator (W.

As Arcot's party arrived, they learned that each of the wrecks was being assigned to one group. They further learned that because of their scientific importance, they were to go to the nearly perfect ship lying off to the west. Two Air Patrolmen were to accompany them. "Lieutenant Wright and Lieutenant Greer will go with you," said the Colonel. "In the event of trouble from possible--though unlikely--survivors, they may be able to help. Is there anything further we can do?" "These men are armed with the standard sidearms, aren't they?" Arcot asked. "I think we'll all be better off if I arm them with some of the new director-ray pistols. I have several in my boat.

It was a delicious awakening, recollection was so slow to come. Rachel might have been ill for days. She experienced the peace that is left by illness of sufficient gravity. But all she ailed was a slight headache, quickly removed by an inimitable cup of tea, that fortified her against the perplexing memories which now came swarming to her mind. This morning, however, enlightenment was due, and meanwhile Rachel received a hint, though a puzzling one, from the Swiss maid, as to the new identity which had been thrust upon her for the time being in lieu of her own. "It was very sad for madame to lose all her things," cooed the girl, as she busied herself about the room. "It was irritating," Rachel owned, beginning to wonder how much the other knew. "But it was better than losing your life, madame!" the girl added with a smile. And now Rachel lay silent.

He grinned. "Isn't a thing they can do that you and I can't do, too. They've got no special powers, believe me. I know." "You'd find it pretty hard to tell that one to Doc Rayson and make it stick," Wells told him. "And he's the guy you've got to talk to." He reached into a basket on his desk and took out a stack of papers. "Look, I've told you more'n I was supposed to all ready. Suppose you go over and talk to them for a while. They're waiting for you over in room Five."

Hassall... 33 M. Jackson, not out........................ 277 W. J. Stone, not out....................... 124 Extras............................... 37 ----- Total (for one wicket)...... 471 Downing's did not bat. CHAPTER XLI THE SINGULAR BEHAVIOUR OF JELLICOE Outwood's rollicked considerably that night. Mike, if he had cared to take the part, could have been the Petted Hero. But a cordial invitation from the senior day-room to be the guest of the evening at about the biggest rag of the century had been refused on the plea of fatigue. One does not make two hundred and seventy-seven runs on a hot day without feeling the effects, even if one has scored mainly by the medium of boundaries; and Mike, as he lay back in Psmith's deck-chair, felt that all he wanted was to go to bed and stay there for a week. His hands and arms burned as if they were red-hot, and his eyes were so tired that he could not keep them open. Psmith, leaning against the mantelpiece, discoursed in a desultory way on the day's happenings--the score off Mr. Downing, the undeniable annoyance of that battered bowler, and the probability of his venting his annoyance on Mike next day. "In theory," said he, "the manly what-d'you-call-it of cricket and all that sort of thing ought to make him fall on your neck to-morrow and weep over you as a foeman worthy of his steel. But I am prepared to bet a reasonable sum that he will give no Jiu-jitsu exhibition of this kind.

With a cord I pulled the lever, and the _jana_ vanished. I could not leave it for them to use. Then I followed--I knew by the sounds where they were taking you. And now, what can we do, Dean-San? Where can we go?" It was real! Loah was there beside him; he had her in his arms, his bruised, bleeding arms whose hurts he no longer felt. And then, through his mind, flashed the question: if this was real, what of the other--the rappings he had heard? Perhaps it hadn't been a dream. He lifted a fragment of rock and crashed it against the wall from which those rappings apparently had come.

was the cry which met and for the most part overbore and silenced every prophet or teacher who sought to rouse the world to discontent with the reign of chaos and awaken faith in the possibility of a kingdom of God on earth. Is it any wonder, then, that one like me, bred in that atmosphere of moral despair, should pass over with comparatively little attention the miraculous material achievements of this age, to study with ever-growing awe and wonder the secret of your just and joyous living? As I look back I see now how truly this base view of human nature was the greatest infidelity to God and man which the human race ever fell into, but, alas! it was not the infidelity which the churches condemned, but rather a sort which their teachings of man's hopeless depravity were calculated to implant and confirm. This very matter of air navigation of which I was speaking suggests a striking illustration of the strange combination on the part of my contemporaries of unlimited faith in man's material progress with total unbelief in his moral possibilities. As I have said, we fully expected that posterity would achieve air navigation, but the application of the art most discussed was its use in war to drop dynamite bombs in the midst of crowded cities. Try to realize that if you can. Even Tennyson, in his vision of the future, saw nothing more. You remember how he Heard the heavens fill with shouting, And there rained a ghastly dew From the nations airy navies, Grappling in the central blue. HOW THE PEOPLE HOLD THE REINS.

The geologist looked again, to make sure it was really his wife who had been talking thus. "I'm mighty glad to know that you're not intending to warn Supreme, anyhow!" "Maybe I shall! snapped Bilhe. "If you do," stated the doctor quietly, "then I'll break the circle myself." They looked at him with a renewal of their former respect as he concluded emphatically: "If you won't help us stop this slave raid, Billie, then, by George, you'll at least let the bees fight it out on their own!" And so the matter stood, so far as the investigators were concerned. They were to be lookers-on, nothing more. Meanwhile the survivors of a once great civilization prepared to move in person against the bees. They did this after Deltos had pointed out the advantages of such a step.

"I am certain you would. Do you not think, gentlemen, that Sir Francis Varney would enact the character to the very life? By Heavens, he would do it so well that one might, without much difficulty, really imagine him a vampyre." "Bravo--bravo," said Varney, as he gently folded his hands together, with that genteel applause that may even be indulged in in a box at the opera itself. "Bravo. I like to see young persons enthusiastic; it looks as if they had some of the real fire of genius in their composition. Bravo--bravo." This was, Charles thought, the very height and acme of impudence, and yet what could he do? What could he say? He was foiled by the downright coolness of Varney.

He had been made defendant in a suit brought against him by his own brother for the recovery of that sum. It was a very complicated case, but the brother really had no valid claim to the money. The father of the two men, ten minutes before his death, had told my client in confidence that it was his desire that he should inherit sixty thousand pounds more than the other brother, telling him, however, that he must get it for himself, since the written will of the dying man provided that the two sons should share and share alike. In spasmodic gasps the old man added that he would find the money concealed in a secret drawer in an old desk up in the attic, in sixty one-thousand pound notes. My client, realizing that his father could not last many minutes longer, and feeling that his dying wishes should not be thwarted, rushed from the room to the attic, and after rummaging about for nine minutes, found the drawer and touched the secret spring. Unfortunately the day was a very damp one, and the drawer stuck, so that it was fully eleven minutes before the money was really in my client's hands. He shoved it into his pocket and went downstairs again, where he learned that his father had expired one minute before, or just ten minutes after he had left him. "The other son not long after discovered what had been done, and after listening to my client's story, decided to contest his title to his share of the sixty thousand pounds, alleging that the money not having passed into my client's hands until after the testator's death, belonged to the estate, and could only be diverted therefrom upon the production of an instrument in writing over the deceased man's signature, duly witnessed. You see," added the spirit, "that was a very fine point." "Yes, indeed!"

But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the old mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's. (On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.) Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back. But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set there for some time alone. Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven--they wuz all ready, I had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the oven--and then I set down and read my letters. Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day.

He stiffened. Planeteer officers didn't worry about things like that. He forced his mind to the job at hand. The next step was to establish a base. The base would have to be on the dark side of the asteroid, once it was in its new orbit. That meant a temporary base now and a better one later, when they had blasted the little planet into its new course. He estimated roughly the approximate positions where he would place his charges, using the sun and the star Canopus as visual guides. "This will do for a temporary base," he announced. "Rig the boat compartment. While two of you are doing that, you others break out the rocket launcher and rocket racks and assemble the cutting torch.

There wasn't more than an inch of the fungus, but that inch stuck. There was no removing it. "No use, boss," gasped the negro, pausing breathless. "Cain't do it. Nothin' to do, I guess, but wait an' see what de Kite does. He'll sure want this ship and the horn." "I know," his captain answered slowly. "He'll want this ship, for it's the fastest in space--but I can't understand how he'll board us. I'm going up and see what I can find out. You stay here.

And there were far too few on the top, as it was not thought necessary to have them on duty when the 'roller was running in the post-sunset drizzle. Green had time for one short prayer--no nonsense about punching a god in the nose, now--and then he was hurled against the wall of the nest. There was the loudest noise he'd ever heard--the loudest because it was the crack of doom for him. Rope split like a giant's whip cracking; spars, suddenly released from the rigging, strummed like monster violins; the masts, falling down, thundered; intermingled with all that were the screams of the people below on the deck and in the holds. Green himself was screaming as he felt the foremast lean over, and he slid from the floor of the nest, which had suddenly threatened to become a wall, and fought to hold himself on the wall, which had now become a floor. His fingers closed upon the musket-support with the desperation of one who clings to the only solid thing in the world. For a minute, the mast stopped its forward movement, held taut by the tangled mass of ropes. Green hoped that he was safe, that all the damage had been done. But no, even as he dared think he might come out alive, the mighty grinding noise began again. The island of rock and trees was continuing its course and was smashing the hull of the ship beneath it, gobbling up wheels, axles, keel, timber, cargo, cannon and people.

"They made it," he muttered. "Both of them. Good!" He turned and entered the airlock. As soon as its air reached terrestrial density and composition, he removed his marshelmet. Goat rode the elevator to the ground level, left it and hurried down a corridor, reaching the outside airlock in time to admit the two figures. Adam entered first, easily confident, carrying his head like a king. Brute shambled behind him. "Everything go all right?" asked Goat, his voice quavering in his anxiety.

Perhaps he had come to murder me, as you surmise, Mr. Smith, though I find it hard to believe. But--I don't think this is the handiwork of your Chinese doctor." He fixed his gaze upon the sarcophagus. Smith stared at him in surprise. "What do you mean, Sir Lionel?" The famous traveler continued to look towards the sarcophagus with something in his blue eyes that might have been dread. "I received a wire from Professor Rembold to-night," he continued. "You were correct in supposing that no one but Strozza knew of my absence. I dressed hurriedly and met the professor at the Traveler's.

Bruce listened to the wind. It seemed to rise higher and higher. Terrence, who had climbed still higher, was calling. "Think of it! What a conquest! No man's ever done a thing like this. Like Stromberg says, it's symbolic! We can build spaceships and reach other planets, but that's not actual physical conquest. We feel like gods up here. We can see what we are now.

Swift fleeting batlike shapes would appear from nowhere for one sharp second, would beset him one after another in an almost constant stream, thinking his comparatively clumsy, bloated bulk easy prey, and then be gone. He snapped shut his face-plate under their assault. Sometimes there came different, more powerful wings, and he would duck in mechanical reaction, sensing the wings sweep past, often feeling them as, with sharp pecks and quick thudding blows, they sought to stun him. But the suit was stout; the repulsed attackers could only follow a little, glaring at him with fire-green malevolent eyes, then leave to seek smaller prey. The watch-beacon began to wink more often through the ranks of intervening trees as he neared the ranch. Carse was gliding so low that often branches raked and twisted him in his course. His low transit allowed one tree to loose great peril upon him. The tree loomed a black giant in his path. Fifty feet away, he was swerving to wind around it when he noticed its dark upper branches a-tremble. He had only this for warning when, with chilling surprise, what appeared to be the entire top of the tree rose, severed itself completely from the rest and soared right out to meet him.

Mildume shrugged. There was an abrupt, high-pitched squeak. Harold stared at the monsters. The smaller one was quivering. "They do that when they're angry," Dr. Mildume said. "Some sort of skin vibration. This smaller one here seems to take the initiative in things. Must be a male. Unless there's female dominance, as in birds of prey, wherever these things come from.