But now the undergrowth all about them was alive with Drilgoes. The
three dodged and doubled like hunted hares. High overhead something
began to clack with a sound like that made by a woodpecker drilling a
tree, but infinitely louder.

And out of the void above came Tode's voice, shouting commands to the
Drilgoes in their own language.

Suddenly a column of fire shot up from the volcano, infusing the white
mists with a reddish glare. Overhead the three could see Tode. He was
flying with a pair of mechanical wings strapped to his shoulders, not
more than two hundred feet above them. With a shout of triumph he
swooped down. In his hand was a small cylinder, about the mouth of
which a phosphorescent violet light was beginning to play.

"I've got you, Dent," he screamed in triumph, hovering above the
three, while the wings drummed and vibrated till they seemed the mere
play of light and shadow about Tode's shoulders. "Halt, or I'll blast
your body and soul to hell! Halt, or I'll kill _her_!"

The deadly tube was pointing steadily at Lucille's body as Tode
hovered ten feet overhead, perfectly still save for the whirring
wings. The three stopped dead, and Tode, with a shout of triumph,
began calling the Drilgoes, who swarmed forward out of the
undergrowth.

Huge brown bodies, nude save for their skins of jungle-cat or serpent,
they emerged, quickly forming a ring about the three prisoners. Tode
fluttered to the ground.

"Fools, did you think you could escape that way?" he asked. "As for you,
Dent. I'm going to convince you of the reality of four-dimensional space
as you would not be convinced in the old days. Do you know what I'm going
to do with you? I'm going to strip the skin from you with the ray, and
take you into the anatomical room at Columbia University and leave you
there as an exhibit, Dent!"

Tode grinned like a madman. But Jim was looking past him, at something
that had suddenly appeared upon the far horizon.

* * * * *

It was a round disc of bluish white, a disc like the moon, but
slightly smaller, a disc that flickered as if it had an eyelid that
was being winked repeatedly. Simultaneously screams broke from the
throats of all the Drilgoes. They stampeded.

Tode whirled about and saw. With a curse he leaped into the air and
whirred away.

Out of that disc a slender, blue-white beam shot suddenly, driving a
pathway through the fog, and disclosing the dark depths of