those squat, human-like figures came hurrying from the neighboring wood directly towards the sphere bearing amongst them some struggling creature swathed evidently in their own garments, for the captors were nude. Their bodies revealed in ugliness.
They came directly to the open door of the sphere, as if they had themselves left that vehicle there, or expected to find it in the neighborhood, and were in the very act of bearing their burden into the sphere when the three men sprang upon them from the tall scarlet grass, where they had crouched for concealment at the unexpected approach of the enemy.
"Don't kill!" the little corporal cried to his companions. Yet they found they had to kill, and Davidson was the first to do so, for the enemy proved to be four furies that only death could turn aside. The toad-men would have made short work of them if they had not been armed with their automatics, and as it was they were tom as by rip saws. The enemy ripped them down to nakedness in a trice with their teeth and nails, then laid strips of their flesh bare from the bone.
Half-blinded with his own blood, Davidson shot to kill before he could no longer distinguish friend from foe, and Hal-Al and Bailee gave no quarter. Such was the fury and tenacity of the toad-men that one of them, with his head hanging on his chest from his neck being shot half away, seized a companion, being no longer able to distinguish his own kind, and tore an arm from its socket.
"Devils of the old school!" grinned Bailee, rather ghastly, the blood pouring from his very hair roots. Then he patted his automatic. "He's barked his last, but he barked up the right tree!"
They carried their dead enemies' captive into the sphere, for long, fair hair hanging from one end of the swathed form told its story of beauty in distress. Then they shut fast the door and removed from the scene, as they thought it wiser to be elsewhere, and that too with dispatch.
Bailee bore the swathed form that they had rescued closer to the circular glass-like substance that allowed light to enter the sphere. "Let's take a look at what we pulled out of that crater of steel cats."
They gathered around and unwrapped the bundle, half on guard lest the captive might prove to be a female of the same species, and if the female was more cruel than the male they might well retreat before they advanced, according to the old humorous bull of caution.
They gasped as their capture was exposed. Innocence, distress, and loveliness, in one perfect womanly form, glowed before them in the half-light, like some holy flame suddenly disclosed by their rude, torn and blood-stained hands.
"Not for me!" muttered Hal-Al, half veiling his eyes with his hands as from a light too bright to bear.
Bailee got up and moved away, but quickly returned with three long strips of cloth, which he distributed, one to each man. Wrapping his own about his nude, blood-stained person, he drew a breath of relief. Hal-Al and Davidson attired themselves similarly, then the latter fetched some water in a small shallow vessel of clear blue crystal and offered it to their guest.
She drank, and the offer of water must have been among her kind a token of friendship, for she seemed at once relieved of her former fears. Or else she sensed that these were males of another sort than her former captors. She was very lovely, and it must go at that. To attempt to paint such beauty, with a glow of innocence behind it exceeding beauty itself, would be, with the limitation of words, but to fail miserably, and traduce the lovely original with a crude imitation.
"She's no bat-girl!" sighed Bailee. "The cherubs have lit up the holy angel in her and you can see that bright taper burning! I must go take a bath!"
Hal-Al fell to stripping thongs from a piece of fabric, and offered no comment. Davidson went above to study the pilot-board, and when he returned below he found both of the others attired in sack garments similar to those torn from them by the toad-men, and Hal-Al was just finishing a third garment, which he informed the little corporal was for him. Their guest had removed to a kind of couch against the wall of the sphere, where she remained very quietly regarding them.
"She certainly has about her something above common blood and salt," meditated Davidson. "If we can get her safely back to her own kind, her people may stake us, just from gratitude, to a little certainty on this uncertain planet."
For a moment the little corporal felt his spine tingle, for he had noted a light in the lovely, intelligent eyes of their guest as if she had understood what he had said. But he immediately dismissed the thought as the wildest fancy that hope could conjure of imagination.
Suddenly Bailee demanded of the girl. "Is there anything I can do for you? I am the captain, and these two rude fellows are my crew."
The girl seemed to understand that she had been addressed. She replied in a language at once so unfamiliar and musical that it seemed more like the low, sweet tone of some harmonic instrument than the voice of a living creature.
Bailee turned to the others. "She says she has long looked up the winding future towards this happy hour, as one might look through the tender blue toward a distant, golden star that mystic voices whispered was the star of destiny. She requests that you both withdraw and allow her to remain alone with her fate, which is me. She adds that fate is mighty but love prevails, and both love and fate being in my favor, it is unnecessary that she advertise further for a tall handsome young destiny, or interview any other applicants waiting in the vestibule of time. In brief, she has selected her leading man and I am that handsome, uncensored Close-Up."
With a groan of disgust Hal-Al wound a bronzed arm around Bailee's neck and led him to the upper floor of the sphere. Davidson re-
(Continued on Page 278)
