o quickly that the giants had
stood motionless, watching it with awe. Before they realized their
situation the sand was so crowded with the struggling little figures
that none of them could stir without trampling upon scores.

Oteo and Eena, standing ankle-deep in the water, were unattacked, and at
a word from the Chemist the others joined them, leaving little heaps of
mangled human forms upon the beach where they had trod.

All except Lylda. She stood her ground--her face bloodless, her eyes
filled with tears. Her feet were covered now; her ankles bleeding from a
dozen tiny knives hacking at her flesh. The Chemist called her to him,
but she only raised her arms with a gesture of appeal.

"Oh, my husband," she cried. "Please, I must. Let me take the drug now
and grow small--like them. Then will they see we mean them no harm. And
I shall tell them we are their friends--and you, the Master, mean only
good----"

The Big Business Man started forward. "They'll kill her. God,
that's----" But the Chemist held them back.

"Not now, Lylda," he said gently. "Not now. Don't you see? There's
nothing you can do; it's too late now." He met her gaze unyielding. For
a moment she stared; then her figure swayed and with a low sob she
dropped in a heap upon the sand.

As Lylda fell, the Chemist leaped forward, the other three men at his
side. A strident cry came up from the swarming multitude, and in an
instant hundreds of them were upon her, climbing over her and thrusting
their swords into her body.

The Chemist and the Big Business Man picked her up and carried her into
the water, brushing off the fighting little figures that still clung to
her. There they laid her down, her head supported by Eena, who knelt in
the water beside her mistress.

The multitude on the sand crowded up to the water's edge; hundreds,
forced forward by the pressure of those behind, plunged in, swam about,
or sank and were rolled back by the surf, lifeless upon the shore. The
beach crawled with their struggling forms, only the spot where Lylda had
fallen was black and still.

"She's all right," said the Doctor after a moment, bending over Lylda. A
cry from Oteo made him straighten up quickly. Out over the horizon,
towards Orlog, there appeared the dim shape of a gigantic human form,
and behind it others, faint and blurred against the stars!

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE RESCUE OF LOTO

The Very Young Man heard the clang of the closing door with sin