The sea girl

“What—you do—what you doing?” One of the women came in. A woman tall, but shorter than Rhana. She wore a similar shield, and a cloak of brown. She was jeweled.

I was panting, but alert. The chance might come any time. This woman did not seem armed. The two in the doorway stood keenly watching me. They were all garbed the same; they seemed rather more like high-born attendants upon Rhana, than guards.

I said, “He is a fool—I don’t want to be here with him.” My gaze was contemptuous. The other two women had come into the cell. Out of the tail of my eyes I surveyed them. Seemingly unarmed. I could make a run for it. Arturo was alert. Lying groveling, but tense to spring up at my signal.

Abruptly I relaxed. Men were in the corridor outside. A group of them. I could see weapons in their dangling hands.

“Take me out of here,” I demanded. “He sickens me—he is a fool—I will kill him if I stay here.”

The woman deliberated. I fancied I saw admiration for me in her eyes. She said:

“You must not fight—bad.”

As though we were children! Arturo was up on one elbow.

“I don’t like him—I don’t like this room. Take me to another—” He gestured overhead. “Up there—this has no air down here—”

If she would do it! I added, “He can come with me—it is the air here—I won’t fight—we’re both hungry—”

The woman rasped out a sudden command. Two men came into the room. They were about the woman’s height; stocky fellows, with bullet heads of close-clipped black hair. Guards, evidently, garbed in gleaming suits of metal cloth, wearing bands about their foreheads with gleaming jewels. In their hands, and hanging against their chests were weapons; a curving, knifelike blade; small girds and projectors.

The woman spoke imperiously to them. She said to me: “We take you—”

Arturo was on his feet, his eyes searching me.

“And him?” I demanded.

“He stay here.”

Disappointment flooded Arturo; I flashed him a warning glance.

“But he is hungry,” I pleaded.

“I send food.”

One of the men pulled at me, but I pushed him off. “I want him to come with me—”

The woman leaped. Her hands went to my shoulders; her dark eyes blazed at me; unreasoning anger in them—she might have done anything—ordered me killed without stopping to think of it. “You talk much. Go!”

With a last look at Arturo, I turned and let them lead me out.

We followed the dim vaulted corridor. The women went ahead with their catlike tread. There were two men beside me; others in front and behind. We passed other vaulted doorways. A turn up a small incline; over a dark interior bridge of metal. It spanned a black void; overhead, the vaulted metal roof was within touch of my hand. Into another larger corridor; this one brighter.

I was alert trying to remember the turns—I would have to get back here some way to Arturo. Or persuade Rhana to bring him up.

The interior of the building seemed enormous. We turned other corners evidently into another wing; ascended another incline. It was surprisingly long and steep. I realized Arturo’s cell must be underground. We came to an upper hallway. I saw a room with barred windows that seemingly opened to the garden. There were lights out there now. We advanced through a room thronged with Gians, men and women. They made way for us; the babble of their voices hushed, and they stared at my towering figure curiously. We crossed the room. A wide door opened.

I was in the presence of Rhana. She sat at a table. It was littered with flexible sheets—metal, perhaps—like paper, with strange writing upon them. Women sat around her. Men, garbed in vivid clothes of bright colors, were in the room, most of them standing. A man to whom Rhana had been speaking, made an obsequious gesture and hastened from the room. Two other men and a woman came forward to report to her.

There was an air of hurried activity. That outside room with its waiting, excited throng; here, in this inner private apartment, Rhana with her close subordinates, directing the departure. There were broad windows through which I could see the lighted garden; Gians out there, moving about with apparatus; a large aërocar was there, being loaded. Departure for battle. I did not need to be told it was that. It was plainly to be seen.

They stood me before Rhana. I met her gaze, with a level frown of my own. My heart was pounding. These windows were larger, and unbarred. The ground was no more than twenty feet below. I remembered my vaulting over the garden palisade. I could leap from one of these windows and not be hurt. Or, there was a staircase here in the room, leading to the roof.

Rhana was saying: “So? You make a disturbance? How do you dare?”

“I’m hungry. I want to be fed.”

Some of these men were armed. There were too many here now. If I could wait here until they went away.

Rhana looked at the women beside her, as though to see what they thought of me. She was smiling with faint amusement.

“You want food—now?”

“Yes.” I added boldly: “And here. I want it here with you.”

She said something about me to the other women. They nodded, smiled and regarded me with a new interest—as though I were a precocious child, to be admired and tolerated.

“Here with me?”

“Yes.”

A man was near me, standing by an empty chair. I shoved him out of the way, and sat down, as though I were a willful child. But there was something else in the expressions of these women. I was a man; it was to them a new masculinity, instinctively to be admired. The Gian man shrank from my frowning aspect. Rhana said:

“So? You are very bad—but interesting. You shall be fed here, if you do not annoy me.”

“I’ll sit over there.” Another empty chair, much nearer one of the windows. But these women were not fools. Rhana gestured sharply. Two armed men—they looked like beribboned popinjays in their bright gaudy costumes—moved quickly over between me and the window.

Rhana went back to her work. I sat there perhaps an hour. Food and drink came to me. I tasted it cautiously. But I was famished, and glad of the strength it would give me. Strange things—but I ate and drank with relish.

The activity of the room went on. I could not understand anything that was said. The garden was active—every appearance of bustling, feverish haste. The aëro—a gray thing a hundred feet in length—was loaded and got away. Another, empty, came sailing down to take its place. Gians were arriving. Men and women; and there were children. Food; apparatus—all loaded on the arriving and departing aëros. A line of marching gray men assembled, and were loaded on an aërocar. It left.

I saw not a single Middge. But down in the city I could hear occasional cries. Once, a throng of Gian families—carrying children and household goods—came up from the city escorted by soldiers. There had been a disturbance a moment before; I imagine a mob of the Middge may have assailed them. Rhana issued angry commands, and several messengers dashed away.

A stream of couriers constantly arrived with what seemed reports from distant localities. Rhana and the other women consulted over them.

The room at last began quieting. There was a lull in the garden. I wondered if my chance had come. But I was constantly being closely watched. There were three of these popinjays near me now. Each had a small black weapon in his hand; they never took their eyes off me.

Rhana at last stood up. Her command cleared the room of its waiting people. The women at the table went up the steps to the roof and vanished. I was alone with Rhana, save for my three men guards. They were still beside me, alert as ever.

She gestured. “Come over here—sit by me. I am tired now. It will amuse me to talk with you.”

The guards moved over with me. I sat by her. She began questioning me about my world. The size and the extent of the surface up there. She said nothing of her plans—nor asked me anything personal of myself. They seemed idle questions; generalities. I told her as well as I could, things about our civilization. Our mode of life. Things at random as they occurred to me. But I kept clear of anything which might be of military value to her.

She listened with an eager, absorbed interest. Once, when I paused, she said:

“You talk always of men. Your men must be very strange. Your friend they call Tad, spoke of them the same—men like women—”

I laughed. “Not like women.”

“I mean, born to command. To leadership, like women.”

I said: “Ours is a man-made world. But we realize, we men are what our mothers make us. There are things in life more important to women then trying to run the world.”

She raised her heavy eyebrows. “You think so?”

“Yes. Things only women can do. The best of our women think so, too.”

She said decisively: “It is not so here.” It amused her. “A world run by men! How absurd it must be!”

I could read her thoughts. She was going to war against men; she felt it a very simple thing.

She added: “You, Geoffry Grant, do not like women born to command?”

She said it with a smile, but there was an edge under it; a tigress’s claws lying within the soft paws.

I parried cautiously: “Did I say that? We have had women who were queens and empresses. Women who stood alone at the head of nations.”

“So? And they ruled well?”

“Some did. Some did not.”

She purred: “You do not like commanding women—like me?” She was toying with one of her dangling ornaments. I could have said I liked Nereid somewhat better, but I did not. I retorted:

“I am only a man. You embarrass me.”

She seemed annoyed at herself. At her weakness perhaps, for asking a man’s opinion. She said: “You are a fool. Conceited because you are big and strong. I will show you—”

She stood up quietly. “Sit still, Geoffry Grant.” The chains on her wrists were looped up around her arms to be out of the way. She began unfastening them.

I think it was her intention to flog me. I had been all this time surreptitiously watching my three guards. If I could get one of them near me—snatch his weapon. Or by a sudden rush knock them down—

Rhana unloosed the chains. “I will show you!” Her eyes were abruptly blazing with anger at me. A sound behind made her look around. A man blundered into the room through the farther doorway. He had seemingly come in not realizing where he was. A Gian from another city perhaps. Her anger turned on him. She leaped at him. My guards rushed for me; one stood with a weapon pressed against me. I remained docile.

The Gian man groveled as the chain struck him. She lashed; and with his cries of pain her rage burst into a fury ungovernable. He lay insensible and bleeding when she had finished. Other men appeared. They carried him away. She wound the chains around her sleek gray arms; came back to me. She was breathing hard, but the fire had gone from her eyes. Her voice was perfectly composed.

“A stupid man, Geoffry Grant, to come in here like that. He will not do it again.”

“No,” I murmured. “Doubtless not.”

My guards had relaxed. They were standing away, but still within reach of me if I leaped. I was tense. Rhana sat down. She began to talk. I scarcely heard her. I was planning how to fight my way out of here. My thoughts ran swiftly, no more than half coherent. Down to Arturo—fighting my way. But that was impossible. I would be caught and killed. But the flood-gates, off there in that distant cavern, must be closed. That was my purpose. Far above my own life, or Arturo’s. I could get out of here perhaps, with a rush for one of those windows.

I was answering Rhana mechanically. I would have to leave Arturo, but I could come back for him. These Gians would depart and leave him there to die. Tad and I would come back and release him.

Thoughts are swift-flying things. They flooded me; yet it was all but a moment. Tad. It seemed abruptly that something asked me, “Where is Arturo?”

My own thought? No, it was not that. Something else—Tad, or Nereid. I felt the presence of them both, their thoughts, something of them here—imploring me, “Where is Arturo?”

I had felt like this, that night in New York. I stirred restlessly in my chair.

“Yes,” I said to Rhana. “I think so.” What had she asked me? I could not remember. I was recalling the route I had taken up from Arturo’s underground cell. And something replied, soundlessly in my mind, “Oh, yes, I know.”

Like a thought from Tad, or Nereid. But now it was more than that. Something of them tangibly here. Rhana felt it. She, too, moved uneasily in her chair.

She abruptly stopped what she was saying to me. And added tensely: “You feel it? What is it?”

There was almost fear in her voice—the fear of the gruesome, the uncanny, the unknown. Her hand moved along the table edge. The illumination of the room abruptly vanished; darkness enshrouded us. I could see nothing. Then, just the outlines of the windows with the lights of the garden behind them. In the silence I thought I could hear Rhana’s breathing. I could sense her near me; and the guards. Make a run for it now! But I could barely see in this darkness; and I remembered that these Gians could see comfortably.

The three guards and Rhana? But there was something else here. Something not to be seen, scarce to be felt. The presence of something. It drove from my mind all thought of escape. I sat stiff, straining my vision in the darkness.

Something here, moving soundlessly. Something touched me! Brushed me gently. I shrank; my chair slid on the metallic floor with a grind. One of my guards, even now alert, moved over and held me firmly. Rhana’s voice said softly:

“Did you see anything? Something is here. No, it is gone.”

She illumined the room. It was so soft a light it did not bother my eyes, even after the blank darkness. But I realized that for a moment now it might dazzle the sensitive eyes of Rhana and these three men. Her hand was shading her face. The man holding me had an arm against his eyes. My chance had come. I stood up suddenly; knocked his weapon from his hand, and my other fist caught him in the face. He fell without a cry at my feet.

Rhana shouted. I whirled away from her; launched myself at the other two men who stood blinking in confusion. My body struck them full. Under my weight they went down. One of their weapons was discharged—a soundless stab of radiance. It missed me.

In my rush I stumbled over one of the falling men. I went down with him. He was far smaller, lighter than I, and his body seemed queerly, unnaturally fragile. My fist cracked against his shoulder; broke it. I caught his wrist. Gruesomely it snapped with my twist. I held his weapon when I rose, a small, heavy thing of metal. But I did not know how to fire it. I thrust it under the shirt of my suit.

Rhana stood by the table; she made no move. The third man whom I had flung down was up on one elbow. I saw his leveled weapon and leaped aside. He was evidently hurt. He twisted around, but before he could aim again, I seized a heavy metal chair and hurled it. He lay still, with the chair partly on him.

The way was open. I ran for the nearest window. A black metal grating slid up in it; barring it. I turned away; ran for another. I was confused now. Like an animal, caged, rushing one way and another and finding always bars. The uproar was bringing people to the room. Men and women were running in.

I dashed at another window. But the bars came up before I got there. And another. Two men and a woman were in my way. I scattered them. Some one fired at me. I felt the tingle of the flash, but it missed.

From the table Rhana was working a mechanism controlling the bars. The windows were all closed now; a grating closed the roof doorway at the head of the stairs. People were up there vainly trying to get in.

The place was in confusion. Shouts everywhere. They had spread to the garden; a gathering throng out there.

It was all a confusion of impressions to me. I made a dash at Rhana; decided against it; turned and ran the other way. There seemed perhaps twenty people in the room. Every instant I expected to be hit by that stabbing flash. The main doorway was still open, and men were coming in. I rushed at them and they scattered. There was another flash, which stung my shoulder. A woman was leaping at me, swishing a chain; the shot caught her and she went down. There was no more firing after that.

In the doorway I was engulfed by half a dozen men who rushed me at Rhana’s vehement command. I went through them; waded, kicking, twisting, heaving them off, flinging them bodily away.

I found myself in the entry room. The people in it scattered before me. There were several flashes, but I was untouched. I went through the room with a rush to find myself in a dark corridor. There was pursuit behind me; I could hear the shouts. I ducked into a long, empty, dim room, and went down its length at a full run. All its windows were barred. One of the gratings slid up as I got there.

Rhana was back at her table, I knew, barring every exit of the castle. I ran on, through doorways, always dark corridors—an endless maze. I was wholly lost. Occasionally I encountered a Gian, but none could stop me.

I found myself going down an incline; over a bridge up near a vaulted ceiling. It was familiar. I stopped; panting for breath I stood in the blackness clinging to the rail. An abyss was below me. I had shaken off my followers. I was alone here. In the silence I heard what seemed murmuring water far under me.

Familiar. I had crossed this interior bridge, or one very like it, on the way up from Arturo’s cell. I thought I could find my way back there now.

With recovered breath I started. Cautiously—now that I had escaped pursuit, I wanted to avoid any one again finding me. Get down to Arturo; if I could open his door from the corridor side, together we would find some way out of this place.

I moved along. Over the bridge. It was darker here now than when I had been brought up. I felt my way along the stone passage.

I rounded a corner. There was a small dim light. The passage was empty; but I ran squarely into something solid—something invisible. It gripped me.

CHAPTER XV.

THE FIRE CALDRON.

Tad stood in the garden of the castle, with Nereid and her father. Rhana was on the parapet, talking to the Middge crowd. Tad did not miss Arturo and me; he assumed we were close behind him. His attention was on Rhana. He knew her perhaps better than did any of us. When first he had been brought here, with a vague memory that the freighter on which he had been traveling was sinking, Rhana had taken him to the castle. He had lived there for a time, and had taught her much that she knew of our language.

He listened now to her, but of her language he still understood only occasional phrases. Entt joined him.

“She says the Middge need not fear. She will show them a way of escape from here. Or they can stay—”

“How can they stay?” Tad whispered. “Those flood-gates will break in a week or two at most.”

“She says, no danger. Or, if they care to go, a passage upward.”

“There isn’t any. Or if there is, Entt, the Middge can’t find it.”

“It must be found,” said Nereid. “Not where she says—we cannot trust her. We Middge must find it ourselves.”

For a long time now the Middge had been secretly sending out exploring parties, but so far without success.

Fen interrupted impatiently: “We listen to her, not talk.” Rhana’s speech went on. Then she stopped. At her final command the mob began dispersing. Soon the garden was nearly empty.

Bhool stood behind Tad. “Masters, we go?”

Nereid had just suggested it. “My father, should we not go home? There will be messengers there for you by now. You remember? We must go to the meeting in the Caldron.”

“Yes, you say right, child. There will be attack upon the gates. We must try to get them closed.”

Bhool insisted: “We go now, Masters. I go with you.”

It was then they missed Arturo and me. Nereid said: “Arturo, we will start now—”

But he was not behind her. Tad saw her look around; saw her run a few feet, gaze and then run back. He saw her face. It went suddenly blank. And then fear sprang to it. She gave a timid little cry: “Arturo!” She stood trembling and stricken.

She knew then, or guessed, I am sure. She stood, with trembling intense thoughts trying to reach us. But could not.

They searched around the garden. They did not see the dark arch in the wall into which we had been drawn; Tad thinks it was closed up, presenting only stones.

Bhool searched with them. He whined, “Masters, this is dangerous. If she sees us here, punishment with the chains.”

They decided we must have been separated from them, unable to find them in the departing crowd. We would go home; they would find us there waiting.

But we were not there. Instead were three Middge couriers. They had been there some time. Fen listened to them. His old face brightened.

“Good news,” said Entt. “A passage upward has been found. At the Caldron the meeting is called now. The weapons are not ready, but an attack will be made.”

“On the gate-house?” Tad demanded.

“Yes.”

Bhool was eagerly listening to what was being said. Tad shoved him out of the way.

“Fen, are you going to this meeting?” Tad asked.

“Yes. Now.” He added in his own language: “Bhool, get ready the arras. We will ride.”

Bhool left reluctantly. But Nereid did not want to go. We might come back here—she wanted to be here. But they would not let her stay.

Tad left us a note. They would be back in a few hours—three or four at most. Tad was worried over us. But he tried to persuade himself that in a little while we would be in. The note did not say where they had gone, some Gian might come upon it who could read it. He ended in his whimsical fashion: “Go to sleep—it will do you good for what is coming.”

Nereid had said nothing. She sat in a shadowed corner. Her face was solemn, fear-stricken. She sat thinking—calling intensely to us. We were both unconscious at this time. She thought once she had reached Arturo. She leaped to her feet; sank back. “No, it is nothing! He is gone.”

Bhool arrived at the street doorway with the arras. Sleek black animals, large as a horse, with long narrow faces and bulging eyes. They moved with a panther tread, soundless on padded feet.

The couriers were already gone. Bhool said: “I will carry her.” He indicated Nereid.

“You ride with me,” Tad declared, “if you go at all. I don’t see why you should.”

But the fellow seemed too frightened to stay in the house. Nereid mounted behind her father. Entt rode alone. Tad put Bhool in front of him on the broad saddle.

Like giant leopards the three arras loped off down the narrow street. They reached the open country, where the road was a waving gray ribbon over the rocks. Occasionally they were challenged by Middge guards. Then on again.

A ride infernal. The glare grew. The air was steadily hotter, as a sulphurous quality came to it. Down, as though into a legendary inferno. The passage broadened. Its walls spread; its rocky, shaggy ceiling lifted until Tad no longer could see it.

Bhool whimpered: “I do not like it here.” But Tad did not answer. If Tad had only known what was in that fellow’s mind!

Ahead, the red glare now was solid. The passage was gone. They ascended a gentle rising slope, came to the brink of a crest and stopped.

The caldron of fire lay before them.

Tad had never been here before. He gazed, awe-struck. He was on the lip of a huge circular caldron which lay perhaps a thousand feet beneath this upper rim. A round, shallow bowl. The ceiling over it was too high to be visible; behind the rim, rocky walls rose up into the black void.

The whole area was a dull glare of red; but soon Tad’s eyes grew accustomed to it, and he refused the glasses which Entt proffered. This upper lip of the bowl was bent in a huge circle; it stretched in both directions as far as Tad could see—a small segment of the whole—a caldron here a hundred miles across, at least.

There were boiling pits of red molten fire down there. One was quite close—a mile or so away. It boiled sluggishly, a viscous mass in a giant pot. Its surface bubbled; moved and crawled. Red, with a purple-green sheen on it.

A hundred such pits showed; the distance merged them into a solid red glare.

Far off, there seemed a lake of fire; a cloud of black gas hung over it; rolled slowly upward, and away.

The nearer jagged rocks here on the rim were painted with the lurid red. It hung like a mist everywhere—a monstrous red shadow of it slanted up into the void overhead. The heavy choking smell of sulphur was in the air; a black coil of smoke was drifting up from one side, slanting off on an air-current, a suction toward the further distance.

A scene infernal. Slumbering forces. Restless. Stirring. Nature infernal, here in leash. A slumbering giant down here, breathing uneasily.

And when, throwing off his bonds, the giant rose? Honeycomb passages, breaking upward with his lungs! His surging breath—we at the surface then would call this a volcano. Or if, still far underground, the porous rock strata broke sidewise; shivered, trembled and broke—an earthquake then, to dash a tidal wave against our coasts, to engulf our islands—or with a trembling, quaking earth-surface, to bring down our cities in ruins.

This slumbering giant!

CHAPTER XVI.

UNMASKING THE TRAITOR.

As Tad listened, standing on the caldron’s rim, he heard yet another sound, unnatural and fearsome. It seemed to come through a rift in the side wall here—a cañon rift slashed like a huge black gash. A sound very far away, but gigantic; a dim, monstrous surge—the roar of tumbling water! He turned.

“Entt, what is that?”

Nereid answered him. “The water coming through the flood-gates.”

Ah, and when, backed up with its pressure, or breaking through the walls, it reached here?

There was human activity here—sights and sound and movement. On the broad, nearer slope from this upper rim to the red level where the fire began, stone buildings were set in terraces. It was the main industrial village of the Middge. Great pipes led up, bringing the heat for power, to the factories, not active now. They stood with windows dark, their outlines edged with red.

But there was one large building, a mile away, with rows of lights. Figures moved about it, and the open rocky plateau beside it was busy with human activity.

This was the Middge scientific workshop. Nereid pointed it out. It was the laboratory and arsenal where the Middge were now assembling their equipment of war.

There was a broad, mile-long ledge, near at hand on the downward slope. It was thronged with Middge; several hundred young men seated in orderly array, and nearly as many young girls, like Nereid, of flowing robes and tawny hair. The pick of the youth of the Middge were here, small, slender, white-skinned, come here to be told what to do. There were older men moving around among them.

Tad was drawn away. Middge leaders came up to greet Fen—small men of middle age, alert, solemn. The party went down the slope, mingled with the crowd on the ledge. The arras were left at the summit, half-blinded by the glare, chained to the rocks.

Tad was there barely an hour. With inactivity came thoughts of Arturo and me. He was increasingly worried—anxious to return. He sat with Nereid. She, too, was frightened over us. She still could not communicate with Arturo.

The Middge meeting proceeded. Fen took no part in it, but Tad noticed that many of the leaders conferred with him frequently. There were speeches made to the assembled youth. Plans were told, immediately to be put into execution.

The plans of men! How easy to make them, earnestly looking ahead to their fulfillment! How easy to look back, too late, and see the causes of their frustration!

There was one cause, here at Tad’s elbow—Bhool, eagerly listening. Even then, it seemed to Tad strange that Bhool, a Gian, should be here. The Gians were never curious over the Middge industrial activity. No Gian ever came here. They bought or confiscated the Middge products, content to have them, incurious of their manufacture. Apathetic, ineffectual were the Gian men; and the ruling Gian women were unconcerned over industrial details. But Bhool now was admitted—Fen’s personal servant, nothing was thought of him.

Plans. There was, in all the chaos, some good news. The exploring party had returned. It had found a new tunnel-passage and followed it for nearly three hundred miles, coming at last to rushing water in a chasm, barring the way. But the scientists in the party had estimated their position: above the floor of the ocean—within what we call a submerged mountain, perhaps. This subterranean river would recede. It was of different quality from ocean water. Its volume lessened while for a day they waited. With the ocean draining, this river would empty. A way of escape for the Middge people was here.

A hundred couriers were now dispatched everywhere throughout the abyss. Most of them were these active young girls, more expert riders of the arras than were the men. The Middge people, nearly a million of them, would be started presently, most of them on foot. A march of a few hundred miles—a migration upward to safety.

The leaders needed Entt at once. He was to go to the tunnel entrance—two hours’ ride from here on his arras. He would stay there for a time, helping to erect the light-beacons which were to guide the Middge people in finding the entrance. He did not want to go; he had hoped to stay with Nereid. He faced her, pathetically. At her gentle smile he turned away, spoke to Tad, and left. A bustling group of Middge leaders swallowed him up.

Within a few days, it was believed, all the Middge public would have departed. But the gates might break at any time. An attack now was to be made upon them. It was hoped that perhaps the departing Gians had already abandoned them.

There were weapons for a small army here in the Middge arsenal, but almost none were ready; all unassembled as yet, for this thing Rhana had done had come too unexpectedly. The weapons—all this equipment for war against the Gians—would be taken up through the passage, to be assembled later. Unless the gates could be closed now, this realm down here was doomed. The Middge would have to cast their lot above—

“But they may get the gates closed,” Tad exclaimed.

“Then,” said Nereid, “the people will be turned back. We like it here—you know that, Tad. Each to his own portion. The Creator intended it.”

Some of the weapons were brought up for Fen’s inspection. There was one device which strangely interested Tad. Equipment complete now, for four people. He gazed at it, listened to Nereid as she translated what the scientists were telling Fen about it.

Tad said suddenly, “Nereid, I want those. Can they spare them?”

“What for, Tad?”

“I don’t know.” He did not. It may have been a premonition, dawning, unformed plans in his mind. But he knew he wanted this equipment—more eagerly than he had ever wanted anything before.

Nereid told her father. There was much discussion. The other men came over; Tad pleaded earnestly.

He got the equipment. He sat beside it, puzzling, wondering what had prompted him to demand it. Bhool had gone a short distance away to another part of the ledge to see what was going on there. He came back. Tad concealed his possessions; he made Nereid sit with her robe over them. He roughly, angrily ordered Bhool to keep away. That, too, was a premonition.

It seemed to the impatient Tad an endless time before they were ready to start back. But it came at last. The Middge expedition was starting now for the flood-gates.

The ride back also seemed endless. Bhool was put with Fen; Nereid and Tad, still with the equipment concealed, rode together.

The open void of the main abyss held a confusion of activity now. The roads were crowded with Middge—the beginning of the retreat. Every house showed lights and hurried, panic-stricken movement. Overhead, an occasional huge aëro of Gians would pass, flying for the City of the Mound.

Tad was hoping that we would be at Fen’s house. But we were not. The note was there, untouched. Tad went to his room, and hid the equipment. Bhool prepared food. Nereid was still trying to communicate with us. At this time, probably, I was still unconscious, and she could not reach Arturo with her thoughts. It may have been that his mind was too absorbed with our plight—I cannot say.

Fen had no plan to find us. But he said once, “They may be in the Castle—if it is success—the gate attack—I will have young men try to get in there—”

Tad recalls that from the adjoining room where Bhool was working a clang sounded as he dropped a metal platter.

They ate a brief meal. They were all exhausted. They would sleep for a few hours. Messengers would come to report the fate of the gate-house attack. If it failed, then Nereid would get together a few belongings. They would leave for the tunnel, join Entt and start upward, with hundreds of thousands of others, fleeing this doomed realm.

Nereid had other plans. She did not know just what, but she knew she would not leave Arturo. But she said nothing, nor did Tad. He was still puzzling, groping with half-formed ideas.

The house quieted. Tad was alone in his room. He lay down, trying to plan. It was coming to him. It was feasible. With this equipment he could get into the Castle. But how could he find us? How know even that we were there at all?

He would need Nereid. Let her sleep now for a few hours. And he needed the rest himself. He did not intend to sleep, but he drifted off, still vaguely planning.

Tad awakened suddenly, wide awake at once, with his mind clear. And like an inspiration he had the answer; as though in his sleep it had come to him, waking him up. That accursed Bhool! Tad saw it all now, clearly; the wonder of it was that he had not seen it before. Bhool in the garden—he had stayed always by me, edged me along. Rhana would want to see me; Bhool had displayed a great interest in me. Tad recalled a dozen suspicious things in Bhool’s actions. And in the garden, when we had disappeared, Tad remembered now that Bhool was for a few moments missing also. And the fellow dropped a platter when he heard Fen say that we were probably in the Castle. Tad had gone into the kitchen and found Bhool in confusion.

It came like an inspiration. Bhool knew where we were. Well, if he did, Tad now proposed to get it out of him.

Tad crept from his room. The house was silent; Nereid and Fen were asleep. He went to Bhool’s room. It was empty. But in a moment there was a step. Bhool came along the passage from the street door. He had in reality just been to the Castle, finding his opportunity now with the household asleep. He had seen us in our cell. Had told Rhana of the coming attack by the Middge on the gate-house; and she had sent him back to get further information.

Tad saw him coming along the passage, smirking to himself, satisfied with his accomplishment. No craven, cringing air about him when he was alone! That was a pose. But Tad leaped out upon him; jerked him roughly into the room. The cringing came to him; but it was not a pose this time—he was frightened, gray-white of face, chattering.

“M-master—what is it?”

Tad twisted him. “What became of Arturo and the big man, his friend?”

“M-master—”

“Tell me, you damned hangar-rat.”

“Master—I don’t know—what you talk—” He chattered off into his own language.

“Stop that! Talk English! Stand up here. I’m not hurting you!”

But Bhool’s knees gave away. He groveled at Tad’s feet.

“I want to know what you did with them. Where are they?”

“Them? Who?”

Tad shook him.

“M-master, you hurt—”

“Do I? Where are they? Where is Arturo?”

“I don’t know.” He took the cuff of Tad’s hand on his face, cringing, but he mumbled, “I cannot tell—I know nothing—”

It was possible he did not, but Tad wasn’t taking any chances.

“M-master! Oh, master—you hurt—”

“Stop your screaming! If you wake any one up I’ll kill you! Talk!”

It was exasperating.

“M-master—my wrist—it will break—”

Tad eased his twisting. “Will you talk?”

“N-no—oh, master!”

It brought Tad a sense of physical nausea, the fellow was so helpless, fragile—his wrist would crack. But Tad gritted his teeth and twisted.

“Tell me, damn you!”

“Master! Stop—” He screamed, “I’ll tell you! Oh—stop!”

Tad relaxed. And Bhool told; with a burst, half incoherent he told it all.

“But if she knows. Master, if she knows, she will kill me!”

“I don’t care what she does to you.” Tad straightened, triumphant. That cell in which we were imprisoned—he could locate it. He had lived in the Castle, and knew its interior well.

“Stand up, you!” He jerked Bhool to his feet, dragged him out, then woke up Fen and Nereid, and told them.

“Here, you take him.”

Fen was still confused. “But, Tad—tell me more of this. What did he—”

Tad told them it all. “Cursed traitor! By the code, he’s done enough damage.”

They barred him in a small windowless room. Tad explained his purpose. “Will you try it, Nereid?”

“Oh—” She was speechless with her eagerness.

They left Fen to guard Bhool. “We can do it in an hour,” said Tad. “We’ll be back, with Jeff and Arturo!”

They went to Tad’s room. Both of them trembling with the haste and excitement of it, they got out the equipment they had brought from the fire caldron. Within ten minutes they slipped like shadows from the house.

CHAPTER XVII.

PROWLING SHADOWS.

Tad and Nereid had found the apparatus easy to adjust. They tested it before they left Tad’s room; it seemed to work perfectly. It consisted of a long robe of fabric, light as gossamer, dull, dead black. There were four of these robes. Nereid took the smallest. It enveloped her from head to foot; it swept the ground; its sleeves ended in black gloves; its hood covered her head. There was a mask-like flap for her face; small, transparent black panes for eyes; a clip against her nostrils to hold a breathing valve in place.

“All right, Nereid?”

“Yes.”

Around her waist Tad adjusted a narrow black belt. It was a rope of interlaced, tiny black wires. A black curved box like a battery was fastened to the belt. Light in weight—all dead black. There were a dozen dangling black wires. Tad connected them at her shoulders, along her arms to the waist, down to the hem of the robe, and up to the crest of the hood. She stood, in the dim light of Tad’s room, a black grotesque blob of shape against the wall. Fantastic, hooded little figure merging with the shadows. But she was plainly to be seen—the outlines of her, blotting out the table and the wall behind her. An inky silhouette.

She said: “I’ll turn it on.” Her gloved hand fumbled with the battery. The current went into the robe. It glowed luminous for a moment. The shape of her was there, shimmering like a silver ghost. Misty—a fog dissolving—gone! The table and the wall behind her showed clearly; there was nothing to be seen in front of them.

It was uncanny. Tad said sharply: “Nereid, you all right?”

“Yes, Tad.”

Her voice, calm, from the empty air. Tad reached out his hand and, fumbling, came upon her. The robe was vaguely vibrating.

“It works, Nereid! I can’t see you! Stand back, close against the wall.”

He could faintly make out the distorted blur of her shape as she backed nearer the table and wall; the table outlines were distorted; the wall seemed to have a shadow on it.

“That’s too close, Nereid. We must remember that—keep away from things.”

There is one of these robes now in the Anglo-American Museum of Science, in London. Apparently it cannot be duplicated. But the fundamental principle of its operation is simple. The electrification of the fabric—vibrations of an unknown current akin to what we call electricity—set up in the air surrounding the robe, a magnetic field. As Nereid stood in the center of Tad’s room, the light rays from the table and wall behind her were bent around this magnetic field so that their image was carried unbroken to Tad’s sight. It was only when she stood too close to the wall that its light rays were blocked by the solidity of her.

The robe itself reflected no light rays. The color we call black is no color at all, but merely the absence of all colors—black, because it absorbs almost all the color-bearing light rays which strike it. There is, however, generally a glint, high lights and shadows. But this robe, with the current into it, reflected no light rays, no tiny glint from its folds.

And with these two principles, for practical purposes it was invisible. Nothing really eerie or uncanny. Solid science, strange but rational. The bending of light rays for a century has been observed and understood by our astronomers. Our sun itself has a similar magnetic field about it, bending the light rays from the distant stars which in reality are behind the sun, but seem to be off to one side.

Tad was triumphant. Nereid helped him adjust his robe. He carried under it two others—for Arturo and me—carefully folded and tied around his body.

Nereid was a little doubtful and cautious. “We must remember what they told my father—in the real darkness we Middge, and the Gians, are keener of vision for very close objects.”

They were both standing with the current turned on. Nereid put out a tentative hand. “Even in this light I can—I almost think I see you, Tad.”

They started from the house, invisible shadows, walking quietly, hand in hand not to lose each other. The streets were in a confusion of excitement. Middge couriers had aroused the people to the necessity of leaving. The houses showed bustling, frantic activity. Middge families, with household treasures piled on their arras, were starting for the open country. The beginning of the flight. Men, women and children, with impedimenta that very soon would be discarded, plodding away. A long line of them, assembled in an open, parklike space, started marching off. There was another street, up which a line of Gians was headed for the fortress garden. The Middge avoided them. The Gians, intent upon their own activities, took no notice of any one.

Through it all Tad and Nereid moved unseen. There was no danger, save for a chance collision. They came to the garden. The lower windows of the Castle were barred; the upper ones were open. The garden was bustling with activity. A huge aërocar was being loaded.

Tad whispered: “The main door is open. That’s the best way in.”

Gians were passing in and out. Tad and Nereid cautiously mounted the steps. They kept near the edge. At the top a man suddenly came out; he nearly ran into them. Tad pulled Nereid hastily aside; they stood at the doorway, pressed against the wall. Tad clung to her; he could not see his outstretched arm; nor her. He whispered:

“Careful, Nereid; he nearly hit us.”

In the doorway a group of Gian women were talking. One of them looked squarely at Tad. His heart leaped; but she idly looked away.

Nereid whispered: “Wait just a moment—I can hear them—”

They were talking of the Middge attack upon the gate-house. Gians had been sent to repulse it. That accursed Bhool!

One of the women spoke softly to her companions; abruptly they were all looking toward Tad and Nereid. Too close to the wall! He realized it. The women saw something—puzzling shadows.

“Nereid! Move!”

They moved soundlessly into the doorway. The women went on talking. Clinging together, the two slipped past.

They were in the Castle. A dim entryway. It was thronged with people. Nereid was frightened. It was difficult to avoid being run into—and to avoid getting too near anything.

“This way,” Tad whispered. He drew her toward a side corridor. In a few minutes they would reach our cell.

Abruptly Nereid stopped.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“Wait! Listen—”

He heard nothing but the babble of Gian voices. But Nereid’s hearing was keener.

“Jeff,” she whispered. “I hear his voice.”

She led Tad across the room; they threaded their way, infinitely dangerous. They came to a broad doorway, its door ajar. They did not dare open it. They waited, crouching aside from the passing people. The door opened presently; a woman looked in for a moment.

“Nereid—now!”

They slid through the doorway. Tad saw me sitting beside Rhana, with three men guards standing over me!

There was no one else in the room. Tad and Nereid found a place to crouch. They listened to our talk, waited, hoping to find a way to get at me and help me escape. A sudden rush at these guards—

Tad had brought Nereid because if blank darkness were encountered in the Castle corridors underground, Nereid would be able to guide him. He was sorry now that he had brought her. Had he been alone—a leap on these guards; he and I fighting our way out—

But Arturo? Where was Arturo, since I was not in the cell, but up here?

Nereid, crouching silently, reached me with her thoughts, but she must have reached Rhana also. Nereid, intently thinking, had crept forward close to the table; Tad still clung to her. Rhana suddenly put out the lights. Tad was confused. He decided to make a sudden rush for me. He even brushed me with his robe, but Nereid pulled him away. Her mind, her whole heart now, instinctively was for Arturo.

And Tad agreed it was better. My thoughts had given Nereid the information she sought.

She and Tad moved swiftly for the door. It was partly open now; they slid through. They would get Arturo and come back for me.

In the dark corridors they moved more freely. They crossed the bridge, went down the incline, came to Arturo’s cell. The route was what my thoughts of it had given them, for this was not the cell Bhool had described. Even in that he had lied to Tad.

The cell door could be opened from the corridor side. They found Arturo, and robed him like themselves.

They were ready. Nereid stood listening. From overhead came muffled sounds, cries, running feet.

They left the cell and crept back along the corridor. Tad was leading. At a sharp corner he ran full into me!

CHAPTER XVIII.

NEREID’S STRATEGY.

Four of us now, shadowed prowlers. It had taken them only a moment to get me into the robe and adjust its connections. Strange experience! I felt the tiny vibrations of the robe; it tingled my flesh. Through the dark panes of the goggles I could barely see the outlines of the dim corridor; but in a moment they seemed clearer. Empty corridor! It was so strange to hear the voices of others beside me—and yet not see them. To stretch out my hand, yet not see my arm. To touch, in a lighted corridor, something unseen.

“Who is that?”

“It’s Tad—let go of me!”

As if in blank darkness, fumbling, he started. It was difficult for so many of us to keep together, so we went in pairs, Arturo and Nereid went ahead. Tad and I momentarily lost them. We came to the bridge and stopped.

“Where are they, Tad?”

They had agreed to wait here for us. We had passed no Gians as yet; there were none in sight here. Tad spoke softly:

“Arturo?”

Arturo’s voice answered: “Yes—here—”

Nereid lifted the robe a trifle at her neck; a vague sheen of light was here now; I saw the patch of her skin, hovering in mid-air above the bridge rail ten feet away.

We joined them. I recalled that Rhana had closed every Castle door and window. In the silence under the bridge the running water sounded. I whispered:

“Could we get down there, Tad? Get out this way?”

“No.”

Nereid’s voice: “Only the dead, killed by Rhana, have gone down there.”

We decided to try to locate an upper window that might be open. Nereid thought she could leap with safety that far; she was not sure.

We were soon among the Gians. The Castle was in a turmoil over my escape. And presently from the lower passages we heard shouts; Arturo’s escape had been discovered.

We passed through many rooms. All the windows were barred. With all our strength we could not move them.

A dozen times we were nearly discovered. The Castle was being ransacked for Arturo and me.

We were passing through a small room. A Gian man came running from behind us. We did not hear him in time, and he ran solidly into us, and fell, shouting an alarm. Tad leaped on him.

I heard the gruesome splintering crack as Tad wrenched at his neck. The cries were silenced; Tad was shuddering as he rose.

Other Gians came running, but we avoided them easily. We came to the front main doorway, but found it closed. Gian women were on both sides of it, excitedly talking through the bars.

We were trapped. There was no way out. I told them how Rhana had stood at her table, closing the windows and doors. We decided to go there.

We got into the room. A dozen women were there; Rhana sat by the table. Nereid’s voice said, at my ear:

“If we could get to the roof, Jeff, a ladder at the farther end leads to the ground.”

But how could we get to the roof? From where we crouched I could see the steps leading upward—a seven-foot flight of stairs, but there was a grating, barring the top. The stairs were empty at the moment. And the roof up there seemed empty.

Freedom, beyond that grating. But how get past it? Rhana sat like a cool gray statue at the table; her hand rested beside the mechanism. Occasionally she would speak to one of the women, or issue some command.

Tad’s voice came: “We’ll creep over there, get up to her, make her open it. By Tophet, I’ll make her!”

But if she did not do it at once, her cries would bring the whole Castle upon us. And even with momentary control of the mechanism, we did not know how to operate it for ourselves.

“Let’s kill her and have done with it,” Tad whispered. But that would not get us to the flood-gates.

Nereid’s voice whispered: “I have a plan. I can talk like a woman of the Gians—let me try.”

We crept across the room, up the empty staircase. At the top, near the grating, we paused. My heart was beating fast. It might work, or within an instant we might be discovered.

Tad murmured: “They’ll see us here against the stairs.”

But Nereid tried it. Her voice rang out, startlingly loud in the silence up here at the top of the stairs. She spoke in her own language, imitating the Gian accent:

“Let me in, please!”

Rhana looked up, startled. Every woman in the room was staring at us.

“Let me in, please!”

Would they see us? They might have noticed the blur of us against the stairs near the top. But they did not. They were puzzled. Rhana spoke:

“Where are you?”

“Here, on the roof. Open, please, for an instant—you will want to hear my news.”

The bars slid aside. We jammed our way out before they were fairly open. Freedom!

Rhana called, puzzled: “Come down then. Hurry!”

Some imp within Nereid must have prompted her. She called back sweetly:

“Thanks. You may close it now!”

We dashed across the empty roof, down the ladder, and safely threaded the turmoil of the garden, plunging into the dark city streets.

“Why, there is Entt!”

Nereid saw him. We were almost to Fen’s home. The street chanced to be deserted. Entt rounded a corner, riding his arras. We were visible now; there seemed no Gians in this part of the city; we had cut the current from our robes and thrown back the hoods for greater comfort.

“Oh, Entt!”

He pulled up and we crowded around him explaining what had happened. He was pleased; he smiled as he shook my hand. But he was very solemn.

Arturo and I were told by Tad where Entt had been. Arturo said:

“Are the people getting away safely?”

He nodded. The first of them were past the tunnel-entrance; many were well on their way. But a million people could not be started on a march like that at once. It would take several days before they were all away. Much confusion had been reported. From the opposite surface across the abyss the Middge were being brought in aëros. But there was a shortage of cars. Many families were starting to march around, following the surface curve. It would take them too long; when cars were available, these Middge would have to be rounded up and brought across.

Entt was increasingly solemn. Nereid demanded: “What is it? Something is wrong?”

The Middge attack upon the gate-house had been defeated! The expedition had got close up to the gates. The place seemed abandoned by the Gians. And then an armed aëro had arrived from the City of the Mound. The Middge were caught by surprise by the counterattack. An utter rout; there were no more than twenty of the Middge band alive to struggle back to the tunnel, and the Gians remained in possession of the gates.

“Disaster,” said Entt. “There is nothing for any of us but to escape.”

“But there is!” I exclaimed. I outlined my plan. With these invisible suits two or three of us could get into the gate-house, even though it was held by the Gians. A desperate venture—suicide possibly. But if, before they found and killed us, we could get the huge gates closed and demolish the mechanism, it would be worth it.

Entt’s eyes flashed. “I think I understand that mechanism. I will go with you.”

I still held the small weapon I had seized from my Gian guard in Rhana’s Castle room. It had been of no use to us in the Castle, since none of us knew how to fire it. The weapons of the Gians in this realm had been very closely held. Nereid had never even had such a weapon in her hand before. But Entt knew how to use it. He would show me. At the gate-house it would be of service.

We started again for Fen’s home, walking, with Entt on the arras beside us. My plan was to leave Nereid with her father. They would get together what belongings they wanted and start for the tunnel and wait there at the entrance for the success or failure of our venture. If we were still alive, we would join them there.

We were three minutes, no more, reaching the house. My mind roved what lay ahead: The horrors here in this dark abyss, unseen by our great world spreading above. These escaping Gians—forty or fifty thousand of them, with all their equipment of war, passing upward through the locks into our falling ocean. This harried Middge people, unarmed, in panic, a million of them fleeing their doomed realm, marching desperately into a tunnel that might lead them to safety.

That titanic surge of water, off there in the neighboring abyss of the monsters—coming down to mingle with the slumbering fires of the earth. Vast horrors impended for our upper world.

But the human mind individualizes. I chiefly felt, and considered, the personal danger to this little band of friends with whom my interest lay. And as we approached the silent doorway of Fen’s home, the sense of impending tragedy—crowning horror—was strong upon me.

We entered. Nereid called: “Father—my father—we have come.”

I heard Tad mutter: “I hope he’s kept that fellow Bhool locked up.”

We passed the silent rooms. “Father—father!”

A fear was creeping into Nereid’s voice. We hastened, bursting into the main apartment.

Crowning horror!

The closet into which Bhool had been thrust and locked, stood open. There was food upon the table in the room. On the floor in a huddled heap lay old Fen. Gruesome, a red stain against his neck, a small, spreading pool of crimson on the floor; a broad knife-blade, bathed in crimson, lying here discarded by the murderer.

We stood stricken, staring, gasping. And then little Nereid flung herself down.

He lived to open his eyes and see us. He seemed to recognize us. Arturo knelt with Nereid.

“Oh, Fen, what did you do? Where is Bhool? Did you let him out?”

Fen’s words were faint. “Yes—he—was hungry—and then—he killed me.”

A kindly act at the last, and the reward was death! Life can be so tragic, so cruel!

Fen lay very still, with eyes closed. But in a moment he opened them. He tried to focus them on Arturo. “You—will guard—my little daughter—”

He drew Nereid’s head down to him. He seemed to sigh; and then he lay unbreathing. There was no sound but Nereid’s sobbing.

Arturo stood before me. “I want to go with you, Jeff. You know that!”

“Yes. I know it.” I smiled into his earnest, sorrowful eyes. “But three of us will be enough, Arturo. And Nereid needs you.”

“I just wanted you to know I ought to go with you.”

He turned away. We three were ready. Entt was equipped with his black robe. I carried my weapon. He had shown me how to advance the charge from its storage battery to the firing chamber; and how to fire it. An oblong thing of black metal the size of my hand, it discharged a stab of radiance with an effective range of perhaps a hundred feet. Or at fifty, with an altered form of its vibration, the radiance, like an electro-magnet, would seize an object, grip it, hold it.

“Is our arras ready, Entt?”

“Yes.”

We had one giant arras which could carry all three of us. There was a small aërocar available at the tunnel-mouth—the tunnel into which the Middge people were retreating. Entt had left the aëro there.

Tad demanded: “You’re sure it will be there?”

“Yes. It is hidden as I told you.”

I stood again with Arturo. “You take Nereid and three arras, Arturo.”

“Yes, Jeff.” He was docile now. No more forcing of his own ideas. “We’ll load one with our things, lead one, and ride the third.”

“Exactly. And wait at the tunnel-entrance. You’ll find our arras there, where the aëro is now. Wait there, Arturo—we’ll join you if we can. But not too long. Understand? If you know that the gates have broken and we have failed, ride on. Will you?”

He nodded. His eyes were full. “I may not see you again, Jeff. Good-by.”

I clapped his shoulder. “Good-by, Arturo. Good-by, Nereid.”

We left them standing together gazing after us.

To any one who cared to look, our giant arras was loping through the gloom unmounted. We clung to its long saddle, Entt in front, guiding it. We went in great bounding leaps, over the river-bridge, with the hot wind rushing past us. Tad’s solid body before me was a vague black blur, and I could not see Entt at all. We took the road Tad had already traversed toward the fire caldron, but we soon swung aside.

We came at last to the tunnel-entrance. Activity here. Twin light-beacons mounted on the rocks marked it for the arriving Middge people. They were coming in groups; a throng of them surged in confusion at the broad entrance, passing the guards, starting on their long upward march.

We avoided attracting attention. No one heeded our wandering, seemingly unmounted arras. We found, beside one of the rocky walls of the entrance, the small cavelike recess where Entt had left his aërocar, and here we chained the arras.

In my heart was a prayer that within a few hours we would be safely back, with the flood-gates closed, and find Arturo and Nereid here waiting for us.

Tad was hopeful of it. “Those Gians won’t stay in the gate-house. Why would they? The Middge attacked—they couldn’t figure it would be anything but a last attempt, and they’ve defeated it. To stay there, with the gates likely to break any moment, that would be crazy!”

“The Gians are nearly all departed now,” Entt agreed. “Our watchers say the last of them from this surface and the other are started for the locks.”

“And if,” Tad added, “Rhana did leave a few to guard the gates, they’d desert—wouldn’t wait there for the flood to kill them. They’re all cowards anyhow, unless they’ve got weapons and you haven’t. Don’t worry, we’ll find the whole place deserted. It’s exactly the time to strike at it now, at the last minute!”

It seemed logical reasoning. I could only hope it might prove true.

We climbed to the aërocar, where it rested on a rock ledge. It was no more than ten feet long—a narrow strip of gleaming metal. With the currents out of our robes, and hoods flung back, we lay upon the car. Entt was at the controls.

The car slowly lifted. We slid silently from the recess. The arriving Middge stared up at us. A guard up on the beacon platform challenged us. Entt called a signal, and he relaxed.

We rose and sped forward, gathering speed as we rushed into the darkness. Underneath I could see a long line of the arriving Middge families; but we soon were past them.

Flying low. Presently there were no houses, no signs of human life. A rocky, barren surface; sometimes a black area of squat forest trees; to the right I made out the outlines of a rocky wall which we were following. Then we turned toward it, into a mile-wide passage. We seemed nearly always ascending; but of that I could not be sure.

The glaring white beacons along here, placed to blind and turn back the monsters, had been extinguished and broken by the Gians. It was a dark, sinister passage, turning, rising, dipping; narrowing almost to a small tunnel; or again opening into a great rocky amphitheater, with an extent I could not estimate.

Half an hour’s flight. Tad and I saw almost nothing; but to Entt the way was clear.

I became aware that the air had changed. A fetid quality had come to it. The passage ceiling had lifted. We were beyond the confines of the connecting passage. The abyss of the monsters lay before us!