ao's men as we planned. They were on their way back when
the earth-man suddenly bid Anina return. Something was wrong, he said.
This girl does not understand what. But they went back. And Anina and
Ollie they left there, standing on the shore together. We are to go over
to the same place to-night, if we can, and get them. That is all the girl
knows."

The girl withdrew after a moment.

Mercer and Anina left in the Twilight Country! Miela and I stared at each
other blankly.

CHAPTER XX.

IN THE TWILIGHT COUNTRY.

Mercer sat on the rear end of the platform and waved good-by vigorously as
he was carried swiftly up and out over the water. Under him was a pile of
blankets and a coat, and beside him a box of baked dough-like bread--the
food he was to turn over to Tao's emissaries when he set them free.

Anina flew at his side, at intervals smiling up at him reassuringly.
Before him on the platform his captives huddled. Although all of them were
trussed up securely, he menacingly kept his little wooden revolver pointed
at them from the level of his knee.

He chuckled as he thought of the fight at the bayou. Everything was
working out all right; it was surprising what one could do with his
physical strength here on Mercury.

The girls had carried the platform up some five hundred feet above the
sea. Mercer turned and looked back. The shore had already dropped almost
to the rim of the close-encircling horizon. He leaned over toward Anina,
resting one hand on the bamboo handle she was holding. "How long will it
take us to get there, Anina?"

He knew the girl would understand his words, but he did not realize she
had little basis for comparing time in his language.

"Long time," she answered, smiling. "But we go quickly now."

He sat back again and waited. It seemed like hours--it _was_ hours
probably, three or four--and still they swept onward straight as an arrow.

After another interminable interval Anina raised one hand and pointed
ahead.

"Twilight Country--there," she said.

Mercer saw, coming up over the horizon, the dim outlines of a rocky land
sparsely covered with trees. It spread out rapidly before him as he
watched, fascinated. It seemed a desolate land, a line of low, barren
hills off to one side, and a forest of stunted, naked-looking trees in
front. The platform swept on over the shore line, a rocky beach on which
the calm sea rolled up in tiny white lines of breakers. Then in a great
curve