Part 7 (1/2)

”Babes! Only babes!” It was Ruth--”BABES!”

”Bits of ht mine, held it--”and they looked for each other, they worked with each other--THINKINGLY, CONSCIOUSLY--they were deliberate, purposeful--little things--and with the force of a score of dyna, THINKING--”

”Don't!” Ruth laid white hands over his eyes ”Don't--don't YOU be frightened!”

”Frightened?” he echoed ”I'M not afraid--yes, I AM afraid--”

He arose, stiffly--and stumbled toward me

Afraid? Drake afraid Well--so was I Bitterly, TERRIBLY afraid

For e had beheld in the dusk of that dragoned, ruined chae or drea Not even that, beinghtfully, deliberately

They were s with--MINDS!

That--that was the incredible, the terrifying thing That--and their power

Thor cos incarnate in

The inert, the i

Metal with a brain!

CHAPTER V THE SMITING THING

Silently we looked at each other, and silently we passed out of the courtyard The dread was heavy uponupon the close-clustered peaks Another hour, and their amethyst-and-purple laciers sparkle out in irised beauty; nightfall

As I gazed upon the immensities the little ht be, of their kind? And these hidden hordes--of what shapes were they? Of what powers? Small like these, or--or--

Quick on the screen of my mind flashed two pictures, side by side--the little four-rayed print in the great dust of the cru ruin and its colossal twin on the breast of the poppied valley

I turned aside, crept through the shattered portal and looked over the haunted hollow

Unbelieving, I rubbed my eyes; then leaped to the very brim of the bowl

A lark had risen from the roof of one of the shattered heaps and had flown caroling up into the shadowy sky

A flock of the little arblers flung the; a hare sat upright in the middle of the ancient roadway