e is a great reach of desert and forests.
Insects, but there are no wild beasts--nothing to harm us. Nature is
kind here. The weather is always like this. We were happy--until
Polter came."

"And only a few thousand people," Alan said. "No other cities?"

"What lies off in the great distance we do not know. Our nation is ten
times what is here. A few other cities, though some of our people live
in the forests--"

She broke off. "That boat is coming for Polter. He is in the city, no
doubt of that. The boat will take him and that girl you call Babs to
the giant's island. His castle is there."

* * * * *

If we could get on that boat and go with him to the island--! But in
what size? Very small? But then, if we were very small it would take
us hours to get from here to the boat. Glora pointed out where it
would land--just beyond the village where the houses were set in a
sparse fringe. It would be there, apparently, in ten or fifteen
minutes. Polter was probably there now with Babs, waiting for it.

In our present size we could not get there in time. It was two or
three miles at least. But a trifle larger--the size of one of Polter's
giants--would enable us to make it. We would be seen, but in the pale
starlight, keeping away from the city as much as possible, we might
only be mistaken for Polter's people. And when we got closer we would
diminish our size, creep into the boat, get near Babs and Polter and
then plan what to do.

Futile plans! All of life is so futile, so wind-swept upon the tossing
sea of chance!

We climbed down from the ledge and stood at the base of the towering
cliff which reared its jagged wall against the stars. A field and a
road were near us. The road seemed of normal size. A man was across
the field. He did not seem to notice us. He was apparently about my
height. He presently discarded his work, went away from us and
vanished.

"Hurry, Glora." Alan and I stood beside her while she took pellets
from her vials. It needed a careful adjustment. We wanted our stature
now to be four times what it was. Glora gave us pellets of both drugs,
one of which was slightly more intense than the other.

"Polter made them this way," she said. "The two at once gives just the
growth to take us from this normal size to the stature of the giants."

Alan and I did not touch our own vials. We had used none of our
enlarging drug upon the journey; the supply she had given us of