shouted suddenly,
"There's Babs! Thank God, she's all right."

She was so small that I couldn't see her, or even hear her, though she
must have been calling to them. Alan again screamed up at me with his
little voice:

"She's here, George! You--go on and get Polter! I can't overtake
you--haven't enough of the drug!" His tiny voice was fading away. "Go
and get him, George! This time--get him--"

I swung with a staggering step around to face the open valley. It had by
now shrunk to nearly half a mile in width. Its smooth walls rose some
two or three thousand feet to an upper circular horizon with murky
distance overhead. Polter stood across from me. He had tried to climb
out but could not. He saw me and came lurching. We were a quarter of a
mile from each other. I ran forward through a shifting scene of
shrinking rock walls and crawling, contracting ground. Quarter of a
mile? It seemed hardly more than a score of running strides before
Polter loomed close ahead of me. He was still nearly twice my size. I
stooped, seized a loose boulder, and flung it. I missed his face, but,
as his hand went up carrying a bare knife, by fortunate chance, the
stone struck his wrist. The knife dropped to the rocks. He stooped to
recover it, but I was upon him. As I felt his huge arms go about me,
half lifting me, my foot struck the knife. But in an instant it was
swept down into smallness beneath us as we expanded above it.

Both of us now were unarmed in this combat of size. I was an immature
youth in Polter's first grip upon me. I heard his panting words, grimly
triumphant:

"This--George Randolph, I haf been--waiting for so many years! The
hunchback--takes his revenge--now--"

He lifted me. His great arms were unbelievably powerful, but I could
feel them dwindling. I was enlarging faster. Just a few moments--if I
could last a few moments.... My feet were off the ground, my chest
pressed close against the little cage between us. He had a hand shoving
back my head; his fingers sought my throat. I wound my legs around him,
and then he tried to throw me down and fall upon me. But he had twisted
and my back was against the cliff. The rocks were shoving at us,
insistently pushing with almost a living movement. Polter staggered with
me. His grip on my throat tightened, shutting off my breath. My senses
whirled. His grim sardonic face over me became blurred. I tore futilely
at my throat to break his choking grip. All the world was a roarin