ey meant to conquer the earth. The slim, khaki-clad
figure of Lieutenant McGuire quivered with the strength of his refusal
to accept the truth of what he saw. He shook his head to clear it of
these thought wraiths.

"Not--in--a--million--years!" he said, and he put behind his words all
the mental force at his command. "Try that, old top, and they'll give
you the fight of your life--" He checked his words as he saw plainly
that the thin cruel face that stared and stared was getting nothing from
his reply.

"Now what do you think about that?" he demanded of Professor Sykes. "He
got an idea across to me--some form of telepathy. I saw his mind, or I
saw what he wanted me to see of it. It's taps, he says, for us, and then
they think they're going across and annex the world."

He glanced upward again and laughed loudly for the benefit of those who
were watching him so closely. "Fine chance!" he said; "a fat chance!"
But in the deeper recesses of his mind he was shaken.

For themselves there was no hope. Well, that was all in a lifetime. But
the other--the conquest of the earth--he had to try with all his power
of will to keep from his mind the pictures of destruction these beastly
things could bring about.

* * * * *

The chief of this strange council made a gesture of contempt with the
grotesque hands that were so translucent yet ashy-pale against his
scarlet robe, and the down-drawn thin lips reflected the thoughts that
prompted it. The open opposition of Lieutenant McGuire failed to impress
him, it seemed. At a word the one who had brought them sprang forward.

He addressed himself to the circle of men, and he harangued them
mightily in harsh discordance. He pointed one lean hand at the two
captives, then beat it upon his own chest. "They are mine," he was
saying, as the men knew plainly. And they realized as if the weird talk
came like words to their ears that this monster was demanding that the
captives be given him.

An exchange of dismayed glances, and "Not so good!" said McGuire under
his breath; "Simon Legree is asking for his slaves. Mean, ugly devil,
that boy!"

The lean figures on the platform were bending forward, an expression of
mirth--distorted, animal smiles--upon their flabby lips. They
represented to the humans, so helpless before them, a race of thinking
things in whom no last vestige of kindness or decency remained. But was
there an exception? One of the circle wa