und again, breaking so swiftly that it fell
upon the eardrums of Sarka and Jaska like the crack of doom. Out of
the many tunnels, from all directions, came hordes of beings which
would have made the nightmares of Paracelsus--first of the scientists
of Earth--pale to insignificance.

Paracelsus had written and illustrated his nightmares. Had hinted of
strange acts of flesh-grafting--as the grafting of legs on the head of
man. He had spoken, and written about, ghastly operations, from which
men came forth as part men, part spiders; part men, part scorpions,
dogs, cats, crocodiles....

Sarka thought, as his mind went back to those ancient books of his
people in which still remained vestiges of the theories of Paracelsus,
that somehow, in his dreams, Paracelsus must have visited the craters
of the Moon.

These people ... if they could be called people....

They had heads like the heads of Earthlings, broad-domed of brow,
lacking eyelashes or lids, so that their eyes were perpetually
staring. They possessed no bodies at all, and their legs, thin and
attenuated to the size of the wrists of average men, seemed to support
the massive heads with difficulty!

From all directions they came, looking like spiders such as Sarka the
First had described to Sarka, when Sarka had been a mere boy. They
came on the floor, out of the tunnels; they dropped from the walls of
the tunnels, and down from the invisible roofs, landing on the floor
as lightly as feathers--and all converged on Jaska and Sarka.

They seemed to have no fear at all, but only a vast curiosity.

Closer and closer they came.

* * * * *

Jaska's grip tightened on the hand of Sarka, for one of the creatures,
with a spiderish leap, had jumped upon her, fastening its legs in her
tight-fitting costume, where he hung, his face within an inch or two
of hers. His lidless eyes, unblinking, stared deeply into hers.

Others jumped up beside the first, and still others clambered over
Sarka, until both Sarka and Jaska were covered by them like beetles
attacked by ants. But these strange gnomelike creatures, who did not
fear these strangers, apparently meant them no harm.

Then, after a thorough scrutiny, began the strangest talking Sarka had
ever heard. The crater-Gnomes seemed to communicate by making strange
clucking sounds with their tongues, sounds which were unmusical and
discordant, and which, as the Gnomes who stood back from them, be