regiments and followed.

A low ridge intervenes between the Phutra plain where the city lies,
and the inland sea where the Mahars were wont to disport themselves in
the cool waters. Not until we had topped this ridge did we get a view
of the sea.

Then we beheld a scene that I shall never forget so long as I may live.

Along the beach were lined up the troop of lidi, while a hundred yards
from shore the surface of the water was black with the long snouts and
cold, reptilian eyes of the Mahars. Our savage Mezop riflemen, and the
shorter, squatter, white-skinned Thurian drivers, shading their eyes
with their hands, were gazing seaward beyond the Mahars, whose eyes
were fastened upon the same spot. My heart leaped when I discovered
that which was chaining the attention of them all. Twenty graceful
feluccas were moving smoothly across the waters of the sea toward the
reptilian horde!

The sight must have filled the Mahars with awe and consternation, for
never had they seen the like of these craft before. For a time they
seemed unable to do aught but gaze at the approaching fleet; but when
the Mezops opened on them with their muskets the reptiles swam rapidly
in the direction of the feluccas, evidently thinking that these would
prove the easier to overcome. The commander of the fleet permitted
them to approach within a hundred yards. Then he opened on them with
all the cannon that could be brought to bear, as well as with the small
arms of the sailors.

A great many of the reptiles were killed at the first volley. They
wavered for a moment, then dived; nor did we see them again for a long
time.

But finally they rose far out beyond the fleet, and when the feluccas
came about and pursued them they left the water and flew away toward
the north.

Following the fall of Phutra I visited Anoroc, where I found the people
busy in the shipyards and the factories that Perry had established. I
discovered something, too, that he had not told me of--something that
seemed infinitely more promising than the powder-factory or the
arsenal. It was a young man poring over one of the books I had brought
back from the outer world! He was sitting in the log cabin that Perry
had had built to serve as his sleeping quarters and office. So
absorbed was he that he did not notice our entrance. Perry saw the
look of astonishment in my eyes and smiled.

"I started teaching him the alphabet when we first reached the
prospector, and