imself to battle as long as he could in that last desperate effort to
keep the hordes at bay.

He noticed idly that the two groups still kept their oddly separated
formation. Behind them the two egg-masses of jelly were now seething in
new activity after a brief lessening of their gruesome shivering. Blake
now saw that there was a direct and unmistakable connection between the
activity of the jelly and the corresponding activity of the ape-things.

Realization of the fact sent a sudden flash of inspiration flaming
through Blake's weary brain, correlating the real significance of a
dozen different things he had been subconsciously noting ever since the
first appearance of the weird beasts.

Those attacking things were not hordes of individual animals. They were
merely two complete organisms, with the members of each organism
controlled by its nucleus through invisible lines of nervous force as
the various individual cells of the human body are linked by nerve
fibers. No wonder the creatures themselves were blind. The egg-mass that
was the nucleus of each of the two groups was eyes, brain, and seat of
life for every ape-thing in the group.

With a swift surge of hope Blake realized the way to conquer the things.
If he could only shatter those flaccid masses of jelly, he would destroy
the swarming dozens of beasts at the same time.

Reaching the jelly ovoids seemed at first consideration to be an
impossible task. They were carefully guarded far in the rear of the
attacking groups. Blake knew that he had scarcely a chance in a hundred
of battering his way through the intervening ape-things.

* * * * *

Then he remembered the gangster's pistol. His searching eyes found it
immediately, there on the ground nearly under the feet of the ape-things
as they again shambled forward to the attack.

Blake staked everything upon a last desperate sortie against the
advancing things. With his club whistling around his head in crashing
blows that wrought murderous havoc in the close-packed hordes, he drove
them back for one breathless moment that gave him time to leap forward
and snatch up the pistol.

The ape-things were already springing back upon him as he swung the
pistol into line with one of the jelly-masses. He barely pressed the
trigger before the charging brutes knocked him from his feet.

As he went down he flung his arms over his head to protect his face from
the expected attack of thos