nd the terrific
blast that screamed and thundered urged this speeding shell to greater
and still greater speed. And then, with the facility that that speed
gave, Chet's careful hands moved a tiny metal ball within its magnetic
cage, and the great ship bellowed from many ports as it followed the
motion of that ball.

Could an eye have seen the wild, twisting flight, it must have seemed as
if pilot and ship had gone suddenly mad. The craft corkscrewed and
whirled; it leaped upward and aside; and, as the glowing mass was thrown
clear of the lookout, Chet's hand moved again to that maximum forward
position, and again the titanic blast from astern drove them on and out.

There were other shapes ahead, glowing lines of fire, luminous masses
like streamers of cloud that looped themselves into contorted forms and
writhed vividly until they straightened into sharp lines of speed that
bore down upon the fleeing craft and the human food that was escaping
these hungry snouts.

Chet saw them dead ahead; he saw the outthrust heads, each ending in a
great suction-cup, the row of disks that were eyes blazing above, and
the gaping maw below. He altered their course not a hair's breadth as he
bore down upon them, while the monsters swelled prodigiously before his
eyes. And the thunderous roar from astern came with never a break, while
the ship itself ceased its trembling protest against the sudden blast
and drove smoothly on and into the waiting beasts.

There was a hardly perceptible thudding jar. They were free! And the
forward lookouts showed only the brilliant fires of distant suns and one
more glorious than the rest that meant a planet.

* * * * *

Chet turned at last to face Schwartzmann and his pilot where they had
clung helplessly to a metal stanchion. Four or five others crept in from
the cabin aft; their blanched faces told of the fear that had gripped
them--fear of the serpents; fear, too, of the terrific plunges into
which the ship had been thrown. Chet Bullard drew the metal control-ball
back into neutral and permitted himself the luxury of a laugh.

"You're a fine bunch of highwaymen," he told Schwartzmann; "you'll steal
a ship you can't fly; then come up here above the R. A. level and get
mixed up with those brutes. What's the idea? Did you think you would
just hop over to the Dark Moon? Some little plan like that in your
mind?"

Again the dark, heavy face of Schwartzmann flushed dee