his
companions; so far as I was able to judge expressions, they were amazed
to find that we had knowledge of the heavenly bodies. The beetle took
Jim's pencil in one of its hands and, after examining it carefully, made
a cross on the circle which Jim had drawn to represent the planet
Mercury.

* * * * *

"They come from Mercury," exclaimed Jim in surprise as he showed me the
sketch. "That accounts for a good many things; why they are so
lethargic, for one thing. Mercury is much smaller than the earth and the
gravity is much less. According to Mercurian standards, they must weigh
a ton each. It is quite a tribute to their muscular development that
they can move and support their weight against our gravity. They can
understand a drawing all right, so we have a means of communicating with
them, although a pretty slow one and dependent entirely on my limited
skill as a cartoonist. I wonder if we are free to move about?"

"The only way to find out is to try," I replied and stood erect. The
beetles offered no objection and Jim stood up beside me. We walked, or
rather edged, our way toward the side of the ship. The insects watched
us when we started to move and then evidently decided that we were
harmless. They turned from us to the working of the ship. One of them
manipulated some dials on the instrument board. One of the rods which
held our flyer released its grip, came in toward the Mercurian ship and
coiled itself up on the floor, or the place where the floor should have
been. The insect touched another dial. Jim threw caution to the winds,
raced across the floor and grasped the beetle by the arm.

The insect looked at him questioningly; Jim produced the notebook and
drew a sketch representing our flyer falling. On the level be had used
to represent the ground he made another sketch of it lying in ruins. The
beetle nodded comprehendingly and turned to another dial; the ship sank
slowly toward the ground.

* * * * *

We sank until we hung only a few feet from the ground when our flyer was
gently lowered down. When it rested on the ground, the wire which had
held it uncoiled, came aboard and coiled itself up beside the others. As
the Mercurian ship rose I noticed idly that the door which had been torn
from our ship and dropped lay within a few yards of the ship itself. The
Mercurian ship rose to an elevation of a hundred feet, drifting gently
over the city.