s phenomenon, he could scarcely credit
his senses.

Had the magic carpet of Bagdad suddenly materialized before him, he
would not have been more astounded. And indeed, it was in a way a
magic carpet--a great disclike affair, several miles in diameter, its
myriad towers and spires glinting like gold under the noonday sun,
while its vast shadow fell athwart the desert like the pall of an
eclipse.

The lower portion, he noted, was in the main flat, though a number of
wartish protuberances jutted down from it, ejecting a pale violet
emanation. Whatever this was it seemed to have the effect of holding
the thing motionless in the air, for it hovered there quite easily, a
hundred yards or so above the ground.

But what was it? Where was it from? What had brought it?

Those were the questions he wanted answered; and they were to be,
sooner than he knew.

As he stood there speculating, a device like a trap-door opened in the
base of the disc, and creatures resembling human beings began
descending. Began floating down, rather.

Whereupon Kendrick did what any sensible man would have done, under
similar circumstances. He reacted into motion. In short, he ran.

* * * * *

Glancing back over his shoulder after a minute or two, however, he
drew up sheepishly. Of that strange apparition and those who had
descended from it there was not a trace, not a shadow!

But the peculiar humming had recommenced, he realized in the next
breath--and at the same instant he felt himself seized by invisible
hands.

There was a struggle, but it was brief and futile. When it was over
his captors became visible once more. They were singular little beings
about four feet tall, with strange, wise, leathery faces, their heads
grotesquely bald.

The humming had ceased again. The disc, too, was once more visible.

What happened next was something even more astounding, if there could
be any further degrees of wonder possible for the utterly baffled
young scientist. He felt himself lifted up, leaving the desert floor,
whirling away toward that incredible phenomenon hovering there.

Another moment or two and he had been borne up through its trap-door
opening, was standing in a dark space bounded by solid metal walls.
Then he was thrust into a cylinder with several of his tiny guards,
shot swiftly upward.

* * * * *

A door opened as they came to rest, and he was led out into a vast