r as silently as a hawk. About us were a dozen bombing planes, and
about fifty transports, carrying a battalion of marines.

I am not an adventure-loving man. Though a cordon of husky marines about
me was a protection against any possible danger, yet, stealing along
through that wild valley in the Virginia mountains toward the dark
masses of that fanatic city, the silent progress of the long, dark line
through the night, their mysterious disappearance, one by one, as we
neared the city, the creepy, hair-raising journey through the dark
streets--I shall never forget for the rest of my life the sinking
feeling in my abdomen and the throbbing in my head. But I wanted to be
there, for Benda was my lifelong friend.

I guided them to Rohan's rooms, and saw a dozen dark forms slip in, one
by one. Then we went on to the dormitory where Benda lived. Benda
answered our hammering at his door in his pajamas. He took in the
Captain's automatic, and the bayonets behind me, at a glance.

"Good boy, Hagstrom!" he said. "I knew you'd do it. There wasn't much
time left. I got my instructions about handling the New York telephone
system to-day."

As we came out into the street. I saw Rohan handcuffed to two big
marines, and rows of bayonets gleaming in the darkness down the streets.
Every few moments a bright flare shot out from the planes in the sky,
until a squad located the power-house and turned on all the lights they
could find.

[Illustration]

Jetta of the Lowlands

BEGINNING A THREE-PART NOVEL

By Ray Cummings

_Foreword_

_Have you ever stood on the seashore, with the breakers rolling at your
feet, and imagined what the scene would be like if the ocean water were
gone? I have had a vision of that many times. Standing on the Atlantic
Coast, gazing out toward Spain, I can envisage myself, not down at the
sea-level, but upon the brink of a height. Spain and the coast of
Europe, off there upon another height._

[Sidenote: Fantastic and sinister are the Lowlands into which Philip
Grant descends on his dangerous assignment.]

_And the depths between? Unreal landscape! Mysterious realm which now we
call the bottom of the sea! Worn and rounded crags; bloated mud-plains;
noisome reaches of ooze which once were the cold and dark and silent
ocean floor, caked and drying in the sun. And off to the south the
little fairy mountain tops of the West Indies rearing their verdured
crowns aloft._

[Illustration: "Look arou