iling farther moon of Mars, moving across the steady stars. In some
of these clearings they saw, too, strange great openings burrowed in
the ground as though by some strange animal.

The crashing clamor of the Martians beating the jungle behind was
coming close, ever closer, and as they came to still another misty-lit
clearing, Lanier paused, with face white and tense.

"They're closing in on us!" he said. "They're hunting us down by
beating the jungle with those centipede-machines, and even if we
escape them we're getting farther from the city and the matter-station
each moment!"

Randall's eyes roved desperately around the clearing; and then, as
they fell on a group of the great burrowed openings that seemed
present everywhere about them, he uttered an exclamation.

"These holes! We can hide in one until they've passed over us, and
then steal back to the city!"

Lanier's eyes lit. "It's a chance!"

* * * * *

They sprang toward the openings. They were each of some four feet
diameter, extending indefinitely downward as though the mouths of
tunnels. In a moment Randall was lowering himself into one, Lanier
after him. The tunnel in which they were, they found, curved to one
side a few feet below the surface. They crawled down this curve until
they were out of sight of the opening above. They crouched silent,
then, listening.

There came down to them the dull, distant clamor of the
centipede-machines crashing through the jungle, cutting a way with
rays, their clamor growing ever louder. Then Randall, who was lowest
in the tunnel, turned suddenly as there came to him a strange rustling
sound from _beneath_ him. It was as though some crawling or creeping
thing was moving in the tunnel below them!

He grasped the arm of Lanier, beside and a little above him, to warn
him, but the words he was about to whisper never were uttered. For at
this moment a big shapeless living thing seemed to flash up toward
them through the darkness from beneath, cold ropelike tentacles
gripped both tightly; and then in an instant they were being dragged
irresistibly down into the lightless tunnel's depths!

* * * * *

As they were pulled swiftly downward into the tunnel by the tentacles
that grasped them an involuntary cry of horror came from Randall and
Lanier alike. They twisted frantically in the cold grip that held
them, but found it of the quality of steel. And as Ran