is astounding shoulders, fully a yard across,
merged into and supported an enormous head. The being possessed
recognizable nose, ears, and mouth; and the great domed forehead and
huge cranium bespoke an immense and a highly developed brain.

But it was the eyes of this strange creature that fixed and held the
attention. Large they were, and black--the dull, opaque, lusterless
black of platinum sponge. The pupils were a brighter black, and in them
flamed ruby lights: pitiless, mocking, cold. Plainly to be read in those
sinister depths were the untold wisdom of unthinkable age, sheer
ruthlessness, mighty power, and ferocity unrelieved. His baleful gaze
swept from one member of the party to another, and to meet the glare of
those eyes was to receive a tangible physical blow--it was actually
ponderable force; that of embodied hardness and of ruthlessness
incarnate, generated in that merciless brain and hurled forth through
those flame-shot, Stygian orbs.

"If you don't need us for anything, Dick, I think Peggy and I will go
upstairs," Dorothy broke the long silence.

"Good idea, Dot. This isn't going to be pretty to watch--or to do,
either, for that matter."

"If I stay here another minute I'll see that thing as long as I live;
and I might be very ill. Goodbye," and heartless and bloodthirsty
Osnomian though she was, Sitar had gone to join the two Terrestrial
women.

"I didn't want to say much before the girls, but I want to check a
couple of ideas with you two. Don't you think it's a safe bet that this
bird reported back to his headquarters?"

"I have been thinking that very thing," Crane spoke gravely, and Dunark
nodded agreement. "Any race capable of developing such a vessel as this
would almost certainly have developed systems of communication in
proportion."

"That's the way I doped it out--and that's why I'm going to read his
mind, if I have to burn out his brain to do it. We've got to know how
far away from home he is, whether he has turned in any report about us,
and all about it. Also, I'm going to get the plans, power, and armament
of their most modern ships, if he knows them, so that your gang, Dunark,
can build us one like them; because the next boat that tackles us will
be warned and we won't be able to take it by surprise. We won't stand a
chance in the _Skylark_. With a ship like theirs, however, we can
run--or we can fight, if we have to. Any other ideas, fellows?"

* * * *