There was a movement across my line of vision. Two figures advanced. I recognized both of them. And I strained at my bonds; mouthed the gag with futile, frenzied effort. I could no more than writhe; and I couldn"t make a sound. I lay, after a moment exhausted, and stared with horror.
The familiar hunched figure of Polter advanced toward the microscope.
And with him, his huge hand holding her wrists, was Babs. They were nearly fifty feet from me, but with the light over them I could see them clearly. Babs" slim figure was clad in a long skirted dress--pale blue, now, with the light on it. Her long black hair had fallen disheveled to her shoulders. I couldn"t see her face. She did not cry out. Polter was half dragging her as she resisted him; and then abruptly she ceased struggling.
I heard his guttural voice. "That iss better."
They mounted the platform. They were very small and seemed to be far away. I blinked. Horror surged over me. Their figures were dwindling as they stood there. Polter was saying something to the man at the microscope. Other men were nearby, watching. All were normal, save Polter and Babs. A moment pa.s.sed. Polter was standing by the chair in which the man at the microscope was sitting. And Polter"s head barely reached its seat! Babs was clinging to him now. Another moment and they were both tiny figures down by the chair-leg. Then they began walking with swaying steps toward the miniature railing of the white slab. The white reflection from the slab plainly illumined them. Polter"s arm was around Babs. I had not realized how small they were until I saw Polter lift the rope of the little four-inch fence, and he and Babs stooped and walked under it. The fragment of quartz lay a foot from them in the center of the white surface. They walked unsteadily toward it. But soon they were running.
My horrified senses whirled. Then abruptly I felt something touch my face! Alan and I were lying in shadow. No one had noticed my writhing movements, and Alan was still in drugged unconsciousness. Something tiny and light and soundless as a b.u.t.terfly wing brushed my face! I jerked my head aside. On the floor, within six inches of my eyes, I saw the tiny figure of a girl an inch high! She stood, with a warning gesture to her lips--a human girl in a filmy flowing robe. Long, pale golden tresses lay on her white shoulders; her face, small as my little fingernail, colorful as a miniature painted on ivory, was so close to my eyes that I could see her expression--warning me not to move.
There was a faint glow of light on the floor where she stood, but in a moment she moved out of it. Then I felt her brush against the back of my head. My ear was near the ground. A tiny warm hand touched my ear lobe; clung to it. A tiny voice sounded in my ear.
"Please do not move your head. You might kill me!"
There was a pause. I held myself rigid. Then the tiny voice came again.
"I am Glora, a friend. I have the drug! I will help you!"
CHAPTER III
It seemed that Alan was stirring. I felt the tiny hand leave my ear. I thought that I could hear faint little footfalls as the girl scampered away, fearful that a sudden movement by Alan would crush her. I turned cautiously after a moment and saw Alan"s eyes upon me. He too had seen, with a blurred returning consciousness, the dwindling figures of Babs and Polter. I followed his gaze. The while slab with the golden quartz under the microscope seemed empty. The several men in this huge circular dome-room were dispersing to their affairs; three of them sat whispering by what I now saw was a pile of gold ingots stacked crosswise. But the fellow at the microscope held his place, his eyes glued to its aperture as he watched the vanishing figures of Polter and Babs on the rock-fragment.
Alan was trying to convey something to me. He could only gaze and jerk his head. I saw behind his head the figures of the tiny girl on the floor behind him. She wanted evidently to approach his head, but didn"t dare. When for an instant he was quiet, she ran forward, but at once scampered back.
From the group by the ingots, one of the men rose and came toward us.
Alan held still, watching. And the girl, Glora, seized the opportunity to come nearer. We both heard her tiny voice:
"Do not move! Close your eyes! Make him think you are still unconscious."
Then she was gone, like a mouse hiding in the shadows near us.
Amazement swept Alan"s face; he twisted, mouthed at his gag. But he saw my eager nod and took his cue from me.
I closed my eyes and lay stiff, breathing slowly. Footsteps approached.
A man bent over Alan and me.
"Are you no conscious yet?" It was the voice of a foreigner, with a queer, indescribable intonation. A foot prodded us. "Wake up!"
Then the footsteps retreated, and when I dared to look, the man was rejoining his fellows. It was a strange looking trio. They were heavy-set men in leather jackets and short, wide knee-length trousers.
One wore tight, high boots, and the others a sort of white buckskin, with ankle straps. All were bare-headed--round, bullet heads of close-clipped black hair.
I suddenly had another startling realization. These men were not of normal size as I had a.s.sumed! They were eight or ten feet tall at the very least! And they and the pile of ingots, instead of being close to me, were more distant than I had thought.
Alan was trying to signal me. The tiny girl was again at his ear, whispering to him. And then she came to me.
"I have a knife. See?" She backed away. I caught the pinpoint gleam of what might have been a knife in her hand. "I will get a little larger. I am too small to cut your ropes. You lie still, even after I have cut them."
I nodded. The movement frightened her so that she leaped backward; but she came again, smiling. The three men were talking earnestly by the ingots. No one else was near us.
Glora"s tiny voice was louder, so that we both could hear it at once.
"When I free you, do not move or they may see that you are loose. I get larger now--a little larger--and return."
She darted away and vanished. Alan and I lay listening to the voices of the three men. Two were talking in a strange tongue. One called to the man at the microscope, and he responded. The third man said suddenly:
"Say, talk English. You know d.a.m.n well I can"t understand that lingo."
"We say, McGuire, the two prisoners soon wake up."
"What we oughta do is kill "em. Polter"s a fool."
"The doctor say, wait for him return. Not long, what you call three, four hours."
"And have the Quebec police up here lookin" for "em? An" that d.a.m.n girl he stole off the Terrace. What did he call her, Barbara Kent?"
"These two who are drugged, their bodies can be thrown in a gully down behind St. Anne. That what the doctor plan to do, I think. Then the police find them--days maybe from now--and their smashed airship with them."
Gruesome suggestion!
The man at the microscope called, "They are almost gone I can hardly see them any more." He left the platform and joined the others. And I saw that he was much smaller than they--about my own size possibly.
There seemed six men here altogether. Four now, by the ingots, and two others far across the room where I saw the dark entrance of the corridor-tunnel which led to Polter"s castle.
Again I felt a warning hand touch my face, and saw the figure of Glora standing by my head. She was larger now--about a foot tall. She moved past my eyes; stood by my mouth; bent down over my gag. I felt the cautious slide of a tiny knife-blade inserted under the fabric of the gag. She hacked, tugged at it, and in a moment ripped it through.
She stood panting from the effort. My heart was pounding with fear that she would be seen; but the man had turned the central light off when he left the microscope, and it was far darker here now than before.
I moistened my dry mouth. My tongue was thick, but I could talk.
"Thank you, Glora."
"Quiet!"
I felt her hacking at the ropes around my wrists. And then at my ankles.
It took her a long time, but at last I was free! I rubbed my arms and legs; felt the returning circulation in them.
And presently Alan was free. "George, what--" he began.
"Wait," I whispered. "Easy! Let her tell us what to do."
We were unarmed. Two, against these six, three of whom were giants.
Glora whispered, "Do not move! I have the drugs. But I can not give them to you when I am still so small. I have not enough. I will hide--there."
Her little arm gestured to where, near us, half a dozen boxes were piled. "When I am large as you, I come back. Be ready, quickly to act. I may be seen. I give you then the drug."