* *

When Jim failed in his first attempt to communicate he looked around for
another method. He noticed my notebook, which had fallen on the floor
when I was set down; he picked it up and drew a pencil from his pocket.
The insects watched his movements carefully, and when he had made a
sketch in the book, the nearest one took it from him and examined it
carefully and then passed it to another one, who also examined it. The
sketch which Jim had drawn showed the outline of the Hadley space flyer
from which he had been taken. When the beetles had examined the sketch,
one of them stepped to an instrument board in the center of the ship and
made an adjustment. Then he pointed with one of his lower arms.

We looked in the direction in which he pointed; to our astonishment, the
walls of the flyer seemed to dissolve, or at least to become perfectly
transparent. The floor of the space ship was composed of some silvery
metal, and from it had risen walls of the same material, but now the
effect was as though we were suspended in mid-air, with nothing either
around us or under us. I gasped and grabbed at the instrument board for
support. Then I felt foolish as I realized that there was no change in
the feel of the floor for all its transparency and that we were not
falling.

* * * * *

A short distance away we could see our flyer suspended in the air, held
up by two long flexible rods or wires similar to those which had lifted
us from our ship into our prison. I saw a dozen more of these rods
coiled up, hanging in the air, evidently, but really on the floor near
the edge of the flyer, ready for use. Jim suddenly grasped me by the
arm.

"Look behind you in a moment," he said, "but don't start!"

He took the notebook in his hand and started to draw a sketch. I looked
behind as he had told me to. Hanging in the air in a position which told
me that they must have been in a different compartment of the flyer,
were five children. They were white as marble, and lay perfectly
motionless.

"Are they dead, Jim?" I asked in a low voice without looking at him.

"I don't know," he replied, "but we'll find out a little later. I am
relieved to find them here, and I doubt if they are harmed."

The sketch which he was making was one of the solar system, and, when he
had finished, he marked the earth with a cross and handed the notebook
to one of the beetles. The insect took it and showed it to