nnis on the court next door. Scarcely
had she seated herself when a great copper-plated ball alighted upon the
lawn in front of her. A heavy steel door snapped open and a powerful
figure clad in aviator's leather, the face completely covered by the
hood, leaped out. She jumped to her feet with a cry of joyful surprise,
thinking it was Seaton--a cry which died suddenly as she realized that
Seaton had just left her and that this vessel was far too small to be
the Skylark. She turned in flight, but the stranger caught her in three
strides. She found herself helpless in a pair of arms equal in strength
to Seaton's own. Picking her up lightly as a baby, DuQuesne carried her
over to the space-car. Shriek after shriek rang out as she found that
her utmost struggles were of no avail against the giant strength of her
captor, that her fiercely-driven nails glanced harmlessly off the heavy
glass and leather of his hood, and that her teeth were equally
ineffective against his suit.

With the girl in his arms DuQuesne stepped into the vessel, and as the
door clanged shut behind them Dorothy caught a glimpse of another woman,
tied hand and foot in one of the side seats of the car.

"Tie her feet, Perkins," DuQuesne ordered brusquely, holding her around
the body so that her feet extended straight out in front of him. "She's
a wildcat."

As Perkins threw one end of a small rope around her ankles Dorothy
doubled up her knees, drawing her feet as far away from him as possible.
As he incautiously approached, she kicked out viciously, with all the
force of her muscular young body behind her heavy riding-boots.

The sharp heel of one small boot struck Perkins squarely in the pit of
the stomach--a true "solar-plexus" blow--and completely knocked out, he
staggered back against the instrument-board. His out-flung arm pushed
the speed lever clear out to its last notch, throwing the entire current
of the batteries through the bar, which was pointed straight up, as it
had been when they made their landing, and closing the switch which
threw on the power of the repelling outer coating. There was a creak of
the mighty steel fabric, stressed almost to its limit as the vessel
darted upward with its stupendous velocity, and only the
carefully-planned spring-and-cushion floor saved their lives as they
were thrown flat and held there by the awful force of their acceleration
as the space-car tore through the thin layer of the earth's atmosphere.
So t