its
motors. As Gerry looked around he could see that it was a crudely
constructed and makeshift craft. Even so, it was more than he would have
expected from men of the apparent mentality of the Scaly Ones.

"This is a funny sort of submarine!" he said to Angus. The big engineer,
who had twisted around to peer at the bulkhead directly behind them,
growled deep in his throat.

"It's funnier than ye think, lad! Look at this!" McTavish nodded toward
one of the sheets of thin steel from which the bulkhead had been built.
On the edge there were stamped a few words. The letters were small, and
in the dim light Gerry had to narrow his eyes for a moment before he
could read them.

U. S. Gov't Steel Works
Atlanta, Ga.

"How in Heaven's name did they get that...?" Gerry's voice trailed off
without finishing the sentence. McTavish shrugged.

"Ye don't need more than one guess. The _Stardust_ must have been
wrecked somewhere near here, and these devils took some of her parts to
build this outlandish craft."

At last, long hours later, the submarine came to a stop. As his captors
led him up on deck, Gerry saw that the ungainly craft had grounded in
the shallows on the shore of a broad river. It was just daylight. A pale
yellow light filtered down through the canopy of clouds, and a flight of
marsh-fowl was winging by just overhead.

"Where are we?" asked Gerry.

"This is the Giri River," Closana said. "Savissa lies on the far shore.
This is the land of the Scaly Ones."

Some of the reptile men hauled the submarine into a cove and began to
cover it over with piles of reeds. Some twenty others formed up in a
column with the three prisoners in the center. Then the officer in
command barked an order and they all moved out along a dirt road that
led away from the river. Olga Stark was walking beside the first rank of
scaly warriors. She had not looked at the prisoners at all.

They tramped steadily onward through the dust in silence except for the
dull slap of the webbed feet of the reptile men and the jingle of their
equipment. After a while the officer in command came back to look at the
prisoners. He was a grizzled veteran with shaggy ridges above his eyes
and the long-healed scars of half a dozen old wounds on his scaly body.
McTavish glared at him for a moment.

"Take a good look, sonny boy!" the big Scot growled. "What's your
name--if you have one?"

"I should tear out your tongue for speaking in that to