ked
him as the captain, hung for a short time directly in front of the
scanner-port.

He shook his head violently, back and forth, back and forth. _No_, he
screamed in his mind, wishing insanely that his radio were constructed
so that it could be heard in the ship. _No_, he shook, _no, no_!

Then his precarious grip on the smooth side slid off, and Captain
Pinkham fell lightly but finally to the asteroid.

He lay there unresisting. He had done his best, absolutely his damned
best. Let it blow. Let it blow.

After a while he looked at his glove watch. It was two minutes past the
time for explosion.

He had saved the _Elephant's Child_.

He turned and looked across the plain and saw, beyond the great trap
into which giant-smoke was settling, two figures come running toward him
with unearthly strides. One of them halted and gathered Jerry into its
arms. The other reached Pink and knelt beside him and hugged him
tightly. Pink laughed, a passionate sound of relief. Circe said, "You
made it, darling. You made it!"

The air-lock began to open.

CHAPTER XXIV

The djinni on the floor said, "I concede this battle to you, Captain. I
have seen the ending on the screen. But there are others out there, on
Oasis and in the void. We'll win to Earth some day in spite of this
victory."

Pink, snugly ensconced in a foam-chair with his sprained ankle propped
up, his surviving officers seated around him, and Circe on the arm of
the deep chair, took another drink of lemonade. He made a face, almost
asked for brandy, and remembered. He said, "Maybe the same way you came
to these asteroids?"

"No, not that. That way went only in one direction, through the fourth
dimension, I think. The people of the continent you call Atlantis built
that way for our use, though much against our desire; and the machine
they made was so fearful that its use sank their whole land into the
sea. They were a great, scientific people, and we have not their skill."

"Atlantis too," Jerry said. "Now we've heard everything, all but the
Little People and Pan."

The djinni did not seem to hear him. Its eyes, like dead coals now in
the yellow face, rested on Pink. "It was clever of you to recognize us
from history."

"You go into bottles, speak Arabic, fly and are humanoid in form. I
should have guessed your race hours before."

"We are not humanoid. You are djinnoid. We came before you in
evolution."

"How do you know?" asked Daley.

"Our