d seen in the strange city of the
crab-creatures below the great lake.

Mildred Meriden, the strangely beautiful girl who had known no other
world than this amazing cavern empire where giant crabs reigned,
beckoned us with unconscious queenly grace to enter the arched door in
the blue sapphire wall of her remarkable abode of clustered cylinders.

The crystal of the walls seemed luminous, the lofty cylinders were
filled with a liquid, azure radiance. The high round room we entered
was strangely furnished. There was a silken couch, a bathing pool of
blue crystal filled with sparkling water, a curious chest of drawers
made of bright aluminum with a mirror of polished crystal, its top
bearing odd combs and other articles. The furnishings must have been
done by the giant crabs, under human direction.

Mildred led us quickly across the room, through an arched opening into
another. A round aluminum table stood in the center of the room, with
two curious metal chairs beside it. Odd metal cabinets stood about the
shining blue walls. The girl made us sit down, and put dishes before
us.

She gave us each a bowl of thick, sweetish soup, darkly red; placed
before us a dish piled high with little circular cakes, crisp and
brown, which had a tantalizing fragrance; poured for each of us a
transparent crystal goblet full of clear amber drink.

We fell to with enthusiasm and abandon.

"The Things made this place for father," the girl told us, as she
watched us eat, attentively replenishing the red soup in the great
blue crystal bowl, or the little cakes, or the fragrant amber drink.
"They would give him anything he wanted. But he tried to go away with
mother, and they killed him."

"We must get out of here," Ray declared when at last we had done. "We
must get together a lot of food, and enough clothing for all of us. We
ought to be able to make it to the edge of the ice-pack. We've got to
give these crab-things the slip; we ought to get off before they know
we're here--unless they already do."

Mildred was eagerly attentive: she was so unused to human speech that
it took the best of her efforts to understand us, though it seems that
her mother had given her quite a wide education. She promised that
there would be no difficulty about the food.

"Mother taught me how to fix food," she said. "She always said that
sometime men would come, with weapons of fire and great noise that
would tear and kill the Things. I have food ready,