he swung close to another body clad like his own and,
like him, enmeshed in a net. And he saw in the light of the luminiferous
air the girl's wide, staring eyes. Then she was gone, and all about was
only the whip of wings and the flashing whirls of light.

He tried to form some picture of this sphere through whose center, empty
but for this gas, he was being swung. That first fall had carried him
down the tube of some volcanic blow-pipe; he had fallen straight for
what seemed like hours. And that had been through the crust of this
great, hollow globe. Then the center!--but of this he dared make no
estimate; he knew only that the huge leather wings were threshing the
dense air in an untiring rhythm and that he was being carried for a
tremendous distance at remarkable speed.

It became soothing, that rushing, swinging sweep of his body through
space. There was death ahead, without doubt--but what of that? He was
sleepy--sleepy--and beyond this nothing mattered. Just to sleep, to
drift off in spirit into a void like this through which he was
swinging....

And so traveled Chet Bullard, one time Master Pilot of Earth, through,
the heart of another world--on and endlessly on, while leather-winged
demons dragged him after, flying straight away from the center of the
Moon toward a place and events unknown.

But Chet Bullard had ceased to note the passing hours or the swirling
gases that came alight at the beating of those wings; he was asleep in a
stupor that was as deep as it was timeless.

* * * * *

He opened his eyes at last; it seemed but a moment that he had slept.
But now there was no rushing hiss of air, nor was he being lifted in a
great net. He lay instead upon a support of some kind, and about him all
was still.

Not at first did he observe the exquisite carving of the yellow bed on
which he lay; that came later. The fact that its massive gold and its
scrollwork of inlaid platinum were worth a fortune meant nothing to him
then. His eyes were held by the immensity of the great room and the
intricate series of arches that made up a vaulted ceiling.

It shone with a light of its own, that carved ceiling; no least lovely
detail was lost. And Chet found his eyes roving from one to another of
angel figures that seemed suspended in air.

The white of purest alabaster was theirs; and their outstretched wings,
too, were white. He realized confusedly that they were like the black
demon