to the side, going twenty feet or more with the press of his
Earth muscles against the reduced gravity. The creature rushed on
toward the professor. That game little man crouched and awaited its
onslaught. But Joyce had sprung back again before the two could clash.

He raised the long horn and plunged it into the smooth, purplish back.
Again and again he drove it home, as the monster writhed under him. It
had enormous vitality. Gashed and dripping, it yet struggled on,
attempting to encircle Joyce with its stubby arms. Once it succeeded,
and he felt his ribs crack as it contracted its powerful body. But a
final stroke finished the savage fight. He got up and, with an
incoherent cry to Wichter, raced toward the opening on which they
pinned their hopes of reaching the upper air.

Hissing cries and the thudding of many feet came to them just as they
reached the arched mouth of the passage. But the cries, and the
constant pandemonium of the paralysed animals died behind them as they
bounded along the tunnel.

* * * * *

They emerged at last into the sunlight they had never expected to see
again, beside one of the great lavender trees. They paused an instant
to try to get their bearings.

"This way," panted Joyce as he saw, on a hard-packed path ahead of
them, one of the trail-marks he had blazed.

Down the trail they raced, toward their space shell. Fortunately they
met none of the tremendous animals that infested the jungles; and
their journey to the clearing in which the shell was lying was
accomplished without accident.

"We're safe now," gasped Wichter, as they came in sight of the bare
lava patch. "We can outrun them five feet to their one!"

They burst into the clearing--and halted abruptly. Surrounding the
shell, stumping curiously about it and touching it with their
shapeless hands, were dozens of the Zeudians.

"My God!" groaned Joyce. "There must be at least a hundred of them!
We're lost for certain now!"

They stared with hopeless longing at the vehicle that, if only they
could reach it, could carry them back to Earth. Then they turned to
each other and clasped hands, without a word. The same thought was in
the mind of each--to rush at the swarming monsters and fight till they
were killed. There was absolutely no chance of winning through to the
shell, but it was infinitely better to die fighting than be swallowed
alive.

* * * * *

So