lthora hurt! Bound with those cutting metal cords! Althora--in such
beastly hands! He groaned aloud at the thought.

"You should never have come; I should never have let you. I have got
you into this!" He groaned again in an agony of self-reproach, then
lay silent and waited for what must come. And the answer to his
speculations came from the night above, where the lights of a ship
marked the approach of an enemy craft.

* * * * *

The ships of the red race could travel fast, as McGuire knew, but the
air monster whose shining, pointed beak hung above them where they lay
helpless in the torturing bonds of fine wire, was to give him a new
conception of speed.

It shot to the five thousand-foot level, when the captives were safe
aboard, and the dark air shrieked like a tortured animal where the
steel shell tore it to tatters. And the radio, in an adjoining room,
never ceased in its sputtering, changing song.

The destruction of the Earth-bombarding gun! The capture of the two
Earth-men who had dared to fight back! And a captive woman of the
dreaded race of true Venusians! There was excitement and news enough
for one world. And the discordant singing of the radio was sounding in
the ears of the leaders of that world.

They were waiting on the platform in the great hall where Sykes and
McGuire had stood, and their basilisk eyes glared unwinkingly down at
the three who were thrown at their feet.

The leader of them all, Torg himself, arose from his ornate throne and
strode forward for a closer view of the trophies his huntsmen had
brought in. A whistled word from him and the wires that had bound
Althora's slim ankles were cut, while a red-robed warrior dragged her
roughly to her feet to stand trembling and swaying as the blood shot
cruelly through her cramped limbs.

Torg's eyes to McGuire were those of a devil feasting on human flesh,
as he stared appraisingly and gloatingly at the girl who tried vainly
to return the look without flinching. He spoke for a moment in a harsh
tone, and the seated councilors echoed his weird notes approvingly.

"What does he say?" McGuire implored, though he knew there could be
nothing of good in that abominable voice. "What does he say, Althora?"

* * * * *

The face that turned slowly to him was drained of the last vestige of
color. "I--do not--know," she said in a whisper scarcely audible; "but
he thinks--terrible thin