where on earth are we?" Her voice trembled a
little in spite of her plucky effort to keep it steady.

Blake's bewildered gaze was already roving around them trying to
comprehend the incredible details of their surroundings. "I've no idea
what happened, dear," he answered slowly. "As to where we are now, I'm
very much afraid it's nowhere on Earth!"

"Then where is this hopped-up layout anyway, fellah, if it ain't on
Earth?" broke in a voice with a decided East Side twang. Blake quickly
turned and saw that the gangster had remained with them in that eery
flight in the green net. There was an expression of dumfounded amazement
upon the man's heavy face, and he was obviously anxious to be friendly
with the two who now represented the only link with the familiar world
he had known.

"Gee, for a minute I thought they had me on the spot in some new way,
sure!" he chattered excitedly as he came quickly over to join Helen and
Blake. "There's plenty of guys wantin' to turn the heat on me there in
the Big Town. I'm Gil Mapes, see? But this ain't no frame-up like any I
ever heard of. What happened anyway, fellah?"

* * * * *

For the moment Blake did not answer. The three of them were silent as
they stared about them with eyes that were dazed by the startlingly
unfamiliar aspect of every detail in their surroundings.

From the twin purple suns that blazed down through the tenuous mists
overhead to the barren blue-gray ground underfoot, there was not a
single object familiar to Earthly eyes. The huge enclosure in which the
three of them stood was obviously the work of intelligent beings of some
kind, but its mechanical details were products of a science different
from any known to Blake.

The purpose of the enclosure seemed to be to maintain an area of clear
air in the midst of the swirling purple vapors that pressed in against
it from the top and from every side. In shape it was a great oblong
cell, some fifty feet high, two hundred yards long, and about one
hundred yards wide. The three captives stood near the center.

Fencing in the enclosure at twenty-yard intervals and reaching upward to
the ceiling were slender posts of some lusterless black metal. Between
these posts streamed unbroken, nearly transparent sheets of some unknown
force, the only visible sign of which was the presence of countless
millions of tiny shimmering golden flecks which danced like dust motes
in a ray of sunlight. I