aida's palace. Tarrano's grim, sinister
purpose was as yet unknown to her. But she guessed that in it, danger
impended for me--for all of us in the Great City.

_"Jac! Danger! Jac! Danger!"_

Her thoughts instinctively reiterated the two words uppermost in her
mind. And I think that it was just about then when they awakened me.

Leaving the vehicle, Tarrano commanded Elza to follow him; and he began
picking his way through the jungle. A light was in his hand; it
penetrated but a short distance. A quivering beam of yellow light; then
Elza saw that upon occasion, as Tarrano's finger slid a lever, the beam
narrowed, intensified to a bright lavender. And now where it struck, the
vegetation withered. Blackened, sometimes burst into tiny flame, and
parted thus before them as they advanced.

The jungle was silent; yet, as Elza listened, beneath the crackle of the
burning twigs she could hear the tiny myriad voices of insect life.
Startled voices as the heat of Tarrano's beam struck them. Rustling
leaves; breaking twigs; things scurrying and sliding away, unseen in the
darkness.

Once or twice a crashing--some monster disturbed in his rest plunging
away. Again, a slithering bulk of something, undulating its path through
the thickets. All unseen. Save once. Looking upward, Elza caught a gleam
of green eyes overhead. A triangle of three baleful spots of
phosphorescent green. Her murmur of fright caused Tarrano to glance
upward. His lavender, beam, grown suddenly larger, swung there with a
hiss. Falling from above came a pink body. A bloated body, square, with
squat, twisted legs; a thing larger than a man. A grotesque naked
monstrosity almost in human form. A travesty--gruesome mockery of
mankind. A face, three-eyed...

The thing lay writhing in the underbrush, mouthing, mumbling and then
screaming--the shrill scream of death agony. And the horrible smell of
burning flesh as Tarrano's light played upon it...

"Come away, Lady Elza. I'm sorry. I had hoped to avoid an affair such as
this."

Sickened, shuddering, Elza clung close to Tarrano as he led her onward.

An hour or more; and now Elza could see in the distance the lights of
the Great City.

_"Jac! Danger! Jac! Danger!"_

The idea of thought-transference had come to her. With all the power of
her mind she was thinking her warning to me, praying that it might reach
me.

"Single-handed, Lady Elza. You shall see now how, single-handed, I make
impossible any attac