e the agonizingly slow plastic creep of metal under great
pressure, the gorilla-faced giant was yielding. His dark skin became
mottled. His breath came gaspingly. His rope-knotted arms slipped a
little.

But it was not in him to surrender, which might still have saved his
life. With a vicious twisting motion of his head he tried to drag his
fangs through the thick muscles of Tolto's shoulder. The wound began
to bleed more freely, choking the savage at each labored breath.

Now Tolto began to walk forward. Always his antagonist had to yield a
little, unwillingly, grudgingly, just enough to keep the paralyzing
pressure on his spine from becoming unbearable. And slowly,
inexorably, Tolto followed. His arms tightened. His leg slipped
suddenly between the ape-faced man's supports. Tolto grunted. The
sound seemed to labor upward from his innermost being, his body's
protest as he called upon it for its last reserve of strength.

Like an echo, there was a dull crack, a brief, agonized moan from the
ape-faced one; and the savage, unknown giant slumped to the pavement,
dead with a broken back. Tolto staggered to the wall, breathing
deeply.

"Man, what a fight! What a _fight_!" The young Martian captain passed
a shaking hand over his face. The battle had stirred him more deeply
than he wanted to admit. But in a few seconds he came out of his
mental maze.

"Attention! All right, men, you're under arrest. As for the girl--"

"As for the girl," came a clear feminine voice, as Sira stepped out
from the shelter of a buttress some dozen feet away, "--the girl took
advantage of your preoccupation to relieve you of your neuros. As you
see I have two of them in my hand. The rest of them are over by that
wall. No! Don't try to rush! You are welcome to your swords, but they
are useless here."

CHAPTER XII

"_He Must Be a Man of Earth_"

Friend and foe looked stupefied. But they were used to the give and
take of battle. That this girl should disarm a detachment of soldiers
while they and their own men were absorbed in such a common thing as a
fight struck them as humorous. They laughed.

"This is a better break then we deserve," Sime said, grinning with a
trace of sheepishness. "Captain, you take your men across the street
and hold 'em there. We're going to borrow your car. No funny stuff!"
Civilians were flooding into the streets. There would soon be a mob.

"We will not," replied the captain, "try any funny stuff. Some