sease
would shortly have killed them all. They came out of their hiding places
little by little as we entered the streets, and stood about in groups
staring at us sullenly. They seemed mostly old men and women and children,
the younger men having fled with Tao's army. They were heavy-set, pathetic
people, with broad, heavy faces, pasty-white skin, and large protruding
eyes. We were in the Lone City nearly a month, burying the dead, doing
what we could for the people, and destroying or removing the apparatus Tao
had left behind him.

The Lone City, before the banishment of Tao, had been one of the most
primitive settlements of the Twilight region. It was in the other
hemisphere that the Twilight Country was more densely populated; but since
this Lone City was so close to the Great City it had become the scene of
Tao's exile.

This region about the Lone City was of the most barren of the whole
Twilight country. Its people were almost entirely meat eaters. Back toward
the Dark Country great bands of animals like caribou roamed. Living almost
entirely in darkness, they had little power of sight, and were easy prey
to hunters.

Their hides, which were covered with short, white fur, provided clothing;
a form of candle was made from their fat, and used for lighting; and their
flesh provided food. The Dark City, some two hundred and fifty miles away,
was the center from which most of these animals were obtained.

"Then, that's where Tao has been getting his supplies from," Mercer
exclaimed, as we heard all this from one of the Twilight People. "And
that's where he has gone now."

Tao had indeed withdrawn to the Dark City, we learned positively. And more
than that, we learned that he had factories there as well as here. We
found in the Lone City some eight of the interplanetary vehicles--most of
them almost entirely completed. The fact that Tao had abandoned them so
readily made us believe he had others in the Dark City.

There seemed a curious lack of appliances for protection against the ray.
This we attributed to two causes--that Tao had managed to take most of
them with him, and that his supply of fabric came from distant cities on
the other side of the globe. Within a month after we had occupied the Lone
City we were again ready to start forward. It had been an irksome month
for Mercer, and not a day had passed without my receiving a truculent
declaration from him that we were fools to allow Tao to escape so easily.