moving mountains, tiny figures doing the
work of giants; saw them stricken down by fever and disease, saw
others fill the empty files and go on, never wavering. He saw them
complete it and seal the waters in captivity with the dam that lay
below....

And with that vision of stupendous achievement, cold, weariness,
hopelessness passed from Chris Travers and swept clean away. The odds
that had loomed so large fell into insignificance.

The golf course spread out and became dimly visible as the plane
dropped cautiously down. Away to the left there were the few twinkling
lights of Gatun Dam, whitening the crests of the waters that tumbled
through the spillway. Their drone was dully audible. On every other
side dark rolling hills stretched, covered in untamed jungle growth.
The golf course was shrouded by them. Its smooth sward made a perfect
landing place; an ordinary plane might alight there.

Lower, lower, ever so slowly. A bare one hundred feet, now. Chris
scanned the lay of the land. Right close to the spot Kashtanov had
chosen to set the plane down on was a deep sand-trap, put there to
snare unskilful golfers. Chris steadied himself on the cross-bar.

"I'll have to go up over the side and grab him," he planned. "Then
hold on to his throat till I feel him go limp."

The wheels of the plane touched gently, and she settled to rest.

* * * * *

In one furious movement Chris was off and springing up the side of the
fuselage into the single cockpit, his hands clutching for the
invisible man who sat there.

He heard a croak of alarm; then his fingers thumbed into bare flesh
and slid up over a nude shoulder to the throat. They tightened, bored
in, held with terrible pressure. Sprawled over the cockpit, he clung
grimly, to what seemed nothing more than air.

Spattering noises came from somewhere. An unseen body thrashed
frantically. Transparent hands clawed over the American's frame,
worried at him. But he held his grip, tightening it each second. There
was a gasping, choking sound, a desperate writhe, another scratching
of the invisible hands--and then came what Chris had feared, what he
could not guard against since his eyes could not forewarn him. A heavy
monkey-wrench appeared to rise of its own accord from the floor of the
cockpit and come swinging at his head.

He ducked at the last second. But it clipped him; his brain whirled
dizzily. The next moment he slithered off the plane