which Haidia had to be their eyes.

* * * * *

Something had happened to the girl's sight in the journey over the
petrol spring. As a matter of fact, the third, or nictitating membrane,
which the humans of Submundia possessed, in common with birds, had been
burned away. Haidia could see as well as ever in the dark, but she could
bear more light than formerly as well. Unobtrusively she assumed command
of the party. She anticipated their wants, dug shrimps in the darkness,
and fed Tommy and Dodd with her own hands.

"God, what a girl!" breathed Dodd to his friend. "I've always had the
reputation of being a woman-hater, Tommy, but once I get that girl to
civilization I'm going to take her to the nearest Little Church Around
the Corner in record time."

"I wish you luck, old man, I'm sure," answered Tommy. Dodd's words did
not seem strange to him. Civilization was growing very remote to him,
and Broadway seemed like a memory of some previous incarnation.

The river was growing narrower again, and swifter, too. On the last day,
or night, of their journey--though they did not know that it was to be
their last--it swirled so fiercely that it threatened every moment to
overset their beetle-shells. Suddenly Tommy began to feel giddy. He
gripped the side of his shell with his hand.

"Tommy, we're going round!" shouted Dodd in front of him.

There was no longer any doubt of it. The shells were revolving in a
vortex of rushing, foaming water.

"Haidia!" they shouted.

The girl's voice came back thickly across the roaring torrent. The
circles grew smaller. Tommy knew that he was being sucked nearer and
nearer to the edge of some terrific whirlpool in that inky blackness.
Now he could no longer hear Dodd's shouts, and the shell was tipping so
that he could feel the water rushing along the edge of it. But for the
exercise of centrifugal force he would have been flung from his perilous
seat, for he was leaning inward at an angle of forty-five degrees.

* * * * *

Then suddenly his progress was arrested. He felt the shell being drawn
to the shore. He leaped out, and Haidia's strong hands dragged the shell
out of the torrent, while Tommy sank down, gasping.

"What's the matter?" he heard Dodd demanding.

"There is no more river," said Haidia calmly. "It goes into a hole in
the ground. So much I have heard from the wise men of my people. They
say that it is near