rd her tiny voice:

"Do not move! Close your eyes! Make him think you are still
unconscious."

Then she was gone, like a mouse hiding in the shadows near us.

Amazement swept Alan's face; he twisted, mouthed at his gag. But he
saw my eager nod and took his cue from me.

* * * * *

I closed my eyes and lay stiff, breathing slowly. Footsteps
approached. A man bent over Alan and me.

"Are you no conscious yet?" It was the voice of a foreigner, with a
queer, indescribable intonation. A foot prodded us. "Wake up!"

Then the footsteps retreated, and when I dared to look the man was
rejoining his fellows. It was a strange-looking trio. They were
heavy-set men in leather Jackets and short, wide knee-length trousers.
One wore tight, high boots, and the others a sort of white buskin,
with ankle straps. All were bareheaded--round, bullet heads of
close-dipped black hair.

I suddenly had another startling realization. These men were not of
normal size as I had assumed! They were eight or ten feet tall at the
very least! And they and the pile of ingots, instead of being close to
me, were more distant than I had thought.

Alan was trying to signal me. The tiny girl was again at his ear,
whispering to him. And then she came to me.

"I have a knife. See?" She backed away. I caught the pin-point gleam
of what might have been a knife in her hand. "I will get a little
larger. I am too small to cut your ropes. You lie still, even after I
have cut them."

I nodded. The movement frightened her so that she leaped backward; but
she came again, smiling. The three men were talking earnestly by the
ingots. No one else was near us.

Glora's tiny voice was louder, so that we both could hear it at once.

"When I free you, do not move or they may see that you are loose. I
get larger now--a little larger--and return."

* * * * *

She darted away and vanished. Alan and I lay listening to the voices
of the three men. Two were talking in a strange tongue. One called to
the man at the microscope, and he responded. The third man said
suddenly:

"Say, talk English. You know damn well I can't understand that lingo."

"We say, McGuire, the two prisoners soon wake up."

"What we oughta do is kill 'em. Polter's a fool."

"The doctor say, wait for him return. Not long--what you call three,
four hours."

"And have the Quebec police up here lookin' fer 'em? An' that damn
girl