flaming liquid, but with dark crystal
water. And on the bottom of that lake, clearly visible from the
elevation upon which we stood, was a city!

* * * * *

A city below the water! The buildings were upright cylinders in groups
of two or three, of dozens, even of hundreds. For miles, the bottom of
the great lake was covered with them. They were all of crystal,
azure-blue, brilliant as cylinders turned from immense sapphires. They
were vividly visible beneath the transparent water. Not one of them
broke the surface.

Through the clear black water we saw moving hundreds, thousands of the
giant crabs. The crawled over the hard, pebbled bottom of the lake, or
swam between the crystal cylinders of the city. They were huge as the
one we had seen, with red shells, great ominous looking stalked eyes,
luminous green tentacular antennae and knobbed claws on forelimbs.

"Looks as if we've run on something to write home about," Ray muttered
in amazement.

"A whole city of them! A whole world! No wonder they could build that
cone-mountain for a lighting plant!"

"When they got to knocking down airplanes with that heat-ray," he
speculated, "they were probably surprised to find that other animals
had developed intelligence."

"Do you suppose those mushroom things are good to eat?"

"We can try and see--if the crabs don't get us first with a heat-ray.
I'm hungry enough to try anything!"

Again we cautiously advanced. The river of light fell over a sheer
precipice, but we found a metal ladder spiked to the rock, with rungs
as inconveniently far apart as those in the shaft. It was five hundred
feet, I suppose, to the bottom; it took us many minutes to descend.

At last we stepped off in a little rocky clearing. The forest of
brilliant mushrooms rose about us, great fleshy stalks of gold and
graceful fringes of black and scarlet about them, with flattened heads
of purple.

We started eagerly across toward the fungoid forest. I had visions of
tearing off great pieces of soft, golden flesh and filling my aching
stomach with it.

We were stopped by a sharp, poignantly eager human cry.

A human being, a girl, darted from among the mushroom stalks and ran
across to us. Sobbing out great incoherent cries, she dropped at Ray's
feet, wrapped her arms about his knees and clung to him, while her
slender body was wracked with sobbing cries.

* * * * *

My first impres