us far back on thighs held rigid by the
magnetic grip.

The pony spread its legs, dropped its head; through the hurricane
roaring its screaming pierced thinly, that agonizing, terrible
lamentation which is of the horse and the horse alone when the limit of
its endurance is reached.

Ventnor crouched lower and lower, eyes shielded behind arms folded over
his brows, straining for a glimpse of Ruth; Drake crouched beside him,
bracing him, supporting him against the tempest.

Our line of flight became less abrupt, but the speed increased, the
wind-pressure became almost insupportable. I twisted, dropped upon my
right arm, thrust my head against my shoulder, stared backward. When
first I had looked upon the place I had sensed its immensity; now I
began to realize how vast it must really be--for already the gateway
through which we had come glimmered far away on high, shrunk to a hoop
of incandescent brass and dwindling fast.

Nor was it a cavern; I saw the stars, traced with deep relief the
familiar Northern constellations. Pit it might be, but whatever terror,
whatever ordeals were before us, we would not have to face them buried
deep within earth. There was a curious comfort to me in the thought.

Suddenly stars and sky were blotted out.

We had plunged beneath the surface of the radiant sea.

Lying in the position in which I was, I was sensible of a diminution
of the cyclonic force; the blast streamed up and over the front of the
cube. To me drifted only the wailings of our flight and the whimpering
terror of the pony.

I turned my head cautiously. Upon the very edge of the flying blocks
squatted Drake and Ventnor, grotesquely frog-like. I crawled toward
them--crawled, literally, like a caterpillar; for wherever my body
touched the surface of the cubes the attracting force held it, allowed a
creeping movement only, surface sliding upon surface--and weirdly enough
like a human measuring-worm I looped myself over to them.

As my bare palms clung to the Things I realized with finality that
whatever their activation, their life, they WERE metal.

There was no mistaking now the testimony of touch. Metal they were, with
a hint upon contact of highly polished platinum, or at the least of a
metal as finely grained as it.

Also they had temperature, a curiously pleasant warmth--the surfaces
were, I judged, around ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. I looked deep
down into the little sparkling points that were, I knew, org