rren. The only sign of vegetation I could
perceive were strange growths that remotely resembled trees--inverted
trees, with wide-spreading branches hungrily nursing the black and
barren soil, and gnarled, brief roots reaching out tortured arms toward
the forbidding sky.

To my left, and some distance away, a vast number of blunt and ugly
towers rose against the sinister skyline, but no form of animal life
seemed in evidence. Wonderingly, my head whirling, whether from my
strange experience or from the shock of finding myself in what was
obviously another world, I do not know, I turned toward the city. And as
I took my first step, there materialized suddenly out of the thin and
ill-smelling air, the figures of perhaps a dozen monstrous creatures.

They were, in effect, men. That is, they had a head, a torso, two arms
and two legs apiece. But they were not human. Those huge round eyes,
unblinking and browless, were not human, nor were their slitted, sunken
mouths. They were not human beings; they were images of despair.

Their thin legs seemed to buckle at the knees, their arms drooped from
their shoulders, their mouths sagged at the corners, even their huge
ears hung down like a hound's. Their round, dark eyes, deeply recessed,
were caverns of despair.

* * * * *

They were clothed in some coarse, black stuff that bristled as though
loosely woven of stiff hair, and yet which was not a true fabric, for it
seemed to move within itself, and scintillate, as though composed of
billions of restless motes. And as the strange creatures closed in
quickly, I saw that theirs was not solid flesh, but, like the clothing
that partially covered them, an attenuated substance that was not quite
real.

Have you ever sat close to the screen in a motion picture theatre, so
that the graininess of the moving film was visible? These creatures were
like such shadows, seen in three dimensions.

I retreated two or three swift steps, jerking the revolver from my
pocket.

"Back!" I warned, hoping they would understand the tone of voice if not
the words. "Back--or I'll pot a couple of you!"

They glanced at each other, swiftly, almost as though they understood.
It seemed to me that their mouths lifted; that they almost smiled. Then
they rushed at me.

I had only one box of cartridges, besides those in the cylinder of my
gun. I didn't know what might be in store for me, and I took no chances.

My first sho