he was beautiful! There must be some way of getting her out of
this mess. Dantor, perhaps, might show the way. He ought to be sending
that message soon--a mental one, Tiedus said. Poor kid, Tiedus; gone to
the happy hunting grounds now, no question of that. And he intended to
advise Dantor from the spirit world. As simple as that, it was. They
were game, these Rulans. Fatalists, though, and resigned to the
inevitable; hopeless. But a wonderful people in a rotten world.

Soon he felt his head droop and in a moment he began to doze.

When he awoke it was to the touch of Ulana's soft fingers on his arm.
"We are alone?" she asked.

"Lord!" he exclaimed, rising stiffly and rubbing the sleep from his
eyes. "How long have I napped? I shouldn't have."

A swift look around the small clearing disclosed the fact that Tommy
was missing. He shouldn't have let him go. A sudden panic gripped him.

"Tommy! Tommy!" he called out.

* * * * *

There was not even an echo in reply. Only the whispering of the jungle
overhead and all around them. His friend was gone.

"Ulana," he said, his voice trembling, "we _are_ alone. Farley is lost;
swallowed up in this terrible forest."

And then, suddenly, she was in his arms. Those wondrous blue eyes,
swimming in tears, looked into his own. Soft red lips, upturned, met
his lips; clung there.

"I am sorry, my Carson," she said softly, when he had released her:
"sorry that your good friend is lost. But perhaps," more brightly--"he
has but strayed away. When the mental message comes you will be
reunited. He will hear it as well as you."

Blaine shook his head. In his own heart he knew he would never see
Tommy again. He had wandered too close to the Tritu Anu and had been
overpowered by the green-bronze guards. Their ray pistols--he shuddered
at the thought.

"I have _you_ now, my Carson," the girl was saying. "Only you."

In a daze of pain and happiness intermingled, he knew he was holding
her close, drawing her fiercely to him. And then, raising dull eyes to
stare over the precious head and into the jungle that hid his friend,
he froze with horror.

A flat serpent head with wide slavering mouth and beady eyes swayed
there directly behind her. Pendant, it was, on a scaly and slimy length
of undulating body that coiled high above in the matted growths of the
jungle. As he watched, rooted to the spot, the great head drew back and
poised, vibrating,