wanted evidently to approach his head, but didn't
dare. When for an instant he was quiet, she ran forward, but at once
scampered back.

From the group by the ingots, one of the men rose and came toward us.
Alan held still, watching. And the girl, Glora, seized the opportunity
to come nearer. We both heard her tiny voice:

"Do not move! Close your eyes! Make him think you are still
unconscious."

Then she was gone, like a mouse hiding in the shadows near us.

Amazement swept Alan's face; he twisted, mouthed at his gag. But he saw
my eager nod and took his cue from me.

I closed my eyes and lay stiff, breathing slowly. Footsteps approached.
A man bent over Alan and me.

"Are you no conscious yet?" It was the voice of a foreigner, with a
queer, indescribable intonation. A foot prodded us. "Wake up!"

Then the footsteps retreated, and when I dared to look, the man was
rejoining his fellows. It was a strange looking trio. They were
heavy-set men in leather jackets and short, wide knee-length trousers.
One wore tight, high boots, and the others a sort of white buckskin,
with ankle straps. All were bare-headed--round, bullet heads of
close-clipped black hair.

I suddenly had another startling realization. These men were not of
normal size as I had assumed! They were eight or ten feet tall at the
very least! And they and the pile of ingots, instead of being close to
me, were more distant than I had thought.

Alan was trying to signal me. The tiny girl was again at his ear,
whispering to him. And then she came to me.

"I have a knife. See?" She backed away. I caught the pinpoint gleam of
what might have been a knife in her hand. "I will get a little larger. I
am too small to cut your ropes. You lie still, even after I have cut
them."

I nodded. The movement frightened her so that she leaped backward; but
she came again, smiling. The three men were talking earnestly by the
ingots. No one else was near us.

Glora's tiny voice was louder, so that we both could hear it at once.

"When I free you, do not move or they may see that you are loose. I get
larger now--a little larger--and return."

She darted away and vanished. Alan and I lay listening to the voices of
the three men. Two were talking in a strange tongue. One called to the
man at the microscope, and he responded. The third man said suddenly:

"Say, talk English. You know damn well I can't understand that lingo."

"We say, McGuire, the two prisoners soon