he wire lay like a snake across the
floor and terminated in a small metal cylinder in the room corner.

"Turn front," he ordered vehemently. "One more backward look
and--Careful! Here he comes!"

* * * * *

Strange tableau in this burned forest! We were on the space of New
York City in 762 A. D. There was no life in the scene. Birds, animals
and insects shunned this fire-denuded area. And the humans of the
forest--were there none of them here?

Abruptly I saw a group of men at the edge of the glade. They had come
silently creeping forward, hiding behind the blackened tree-trunks.
They were all behind Migul. I saw them like dark shadows darting from
the shelter of one tree-trunk to the next, a group of perhaps twenty
savages.

Migul did not see them, nor, in the heavy silence, did he seem to hear
them. They came, gazing at our shining cage like animals fascinated,
wondering what manner of thing it was.

They were the ancestors of our American Indians. One fellow stopped in
a patch of sunlight and I saw him clearly. His half-naked body had an
animal skin draped over it, and, incongruously, around his forehead
was a band of cloth holding a feather. He carried a stone ax. I saw
his face; the flat, heavy features showed his Asiatic origin.

Someone behind this leader impulsively shot an arrow across the glade.
It went over Migul's head and fell short of our cage. Migul turned,
and a rain of arrows thudded harmlessly against its metal body. I
heard the Robot's contemptuous laugh. It made no answering attack, but
stood motionless. And suddenly, thinking it a god whom now they must
placate, the savages fell prostrate before him.

Strange tableau! I saw a ball of white mist across the glade near
Migul. Something was materializing; an imponderable ghost of something
was taking form. In an instant it was the wraith of a cage; then,
where nothing had been, stood a cage. It was solid and substantial--a
metal cage-room, gleaming white in the sunlight.

* * * * *

The tableau broke into sound and action. The savages howled. One
scrambled to his feet; then others. The Robot pretended to attack
them. An eery roar came from it as it turned toward the savages, and
in a panic of agonized terror they fled. In a moment they had
disappeared among the distant trees, with Migul's huge figure tramping
noisily after them.

From the doorway of the cage across the glade, a