ry Young Man
gave Aura one of the pellets of the drug and lay down in the bow of the
boat. Without a word the girl took her seat in the stern and steered for
the beach. When they were close inshore Aura signalled her companion and
at the same moment both took the drug. Then she left her seat and lay
down beside the Very Young Man. The boat, from the momentum it had
gained, floated inshore and grounded gently on the beach.

As they lay there, the Very Young Man could see the sides of the boat
growing up steadily above their heads. The gunwale was nearly six feet
above them before he realized a new danger. Scrambling to his feet he
pulled the girl up with him; even when standing upright their heads came
below the sides of the vessel.

"We've got to get out right now," the Very Young Man said in an excited
whisper. "We'd be too small." He led the girl hastily into the bow and
with a running leap clambered up and sat astride the gunwale. Then,
reaching down he pulled Aura up beside him.

In a moment they had dropped overboard up to their shoulders in the
water. High overhead loomed the hull of the boat--a large sailing vessel
it seemed to them now. They started wading towards shore immediately,
but, because they were so rapidly diminishing in size, it was nearly
five minutes before they could get there.

Once on shore they lay prone upon the sand, waiting for the drug to
cease its action. When, by proper administering of both chemicals, they
had reached approximately their predetermined stature, which, in itself,
required considerable calculation on the Very Young Man's part, they
stood up near the water's edge and looked about them.

The beach to them now, with its coarse-grained sand, seemed nearly a
quarter of a mile wide; in length it extended as far as they could see
in both directions. Beyond the beach, directly in front of them on a
hill perhaps a thousand feet above the lake level, and about a mile or
more away, stood Targo's palace. To the Very Young Man it looked far
larger than any building he had ever seen.

The boat in which they had landed lay on the water with its bow on the
beach beside them. It was now a vessel some two hundred and fifty feet
in length, with sides twenty feet high and a mast towering over a
hundred feet in the air.

There was no one in sight from where they stood. "Come on, Aura," said
the Very Young Man, and started off across the beach towards the hill.

It was a long walk throug