x got some
indication of its real power.

Writhing and twitching, feeling as though pierced by millions of red
hot needles, they went down. A swarm of pipe-like bodies smothered
them, and the fight was over.

CHAPTER III

_The Coming of Greca_

The numbing shock from the tubes left the Earthmen's bodies almost
paralyzed for a time; but their brains were unfogged enough for them
to observe only too clearly all that went on from the point of their
capture.

They were bound hand and foot. At a piping cry from the leader,
several of the gangling figures picked them up in reedy arms and began
to walk across the square, away from the ship. Brand noticed that his
bearers' arms trembled with his weight: and sensed the flabbiness of
the substance that took the place in them of good solid muscle.
Physically these things were soft and ineffectual indeed. They had
only the ominous tubes with which to fight.

The eery procession, with the bound Earthmen carried in the lead,
wound toward a great building fringing the square. In through the high
arched entrance of this building they went, and up a sloping incline
to its tower-top. Here, in a huge bare room, the two were
unceremoniously dumped to the floor.

While three of the things stood guard with the mysterious tubes,
another unbound them. A whole shower of high pitched, piping syllables
was hurled at them, speech which sounded threatening and contemptuous
but was otherwise, of course, entirely unintelligible, and then the
creatures withdrew. The heavy metal door was slammed shut, and they
were alone.

Brand drew a long breath, and began to feel himself all over for
broken bones. He found none; he was still nerve-wracked from that last
terrific shock, but otherwise whole and well.

"Are you hurt, Dex?" he asked solicitously.

"I guess not," replied Dex, getting uncertainly to his feet. "And I'm
wondering why. It seems to me the brutes were uncommonly considerate
of us--and I'm betting the reason is one we won't like!"

Brand shrugged. "I guess we'll find out their intentions soon enough.
Let's see what our surroundings look like."

They walked to the nearest window-aperture, and gazed out on a
startling and marvelous scene.

* * * * *

Beneath their high tower window, extending as far as the eye could
reach, lay the city, lit by the reddish glare of the peculiar metal
with which its streets were paved. For the most part the