With grunts of satisfaction the pigmies rose to their feet, punched them slyly in the ribs with their sharp-pointed spears, and indicated that they must get up and march. It was not to be a very long march.

Hidden away in a deep recess of mountains they saw a large building constructed with a stupendous round tube pointing at the sky where the earth was now shining with soft, refulgent splendor. In front of the building were many stone steps, arranged artistically, and forming a long stairway that led upward to an opening supported by large white pillars, ostentatiously decorated with painting and signs. Surrounded by an armed bodyguard they were marched up these steps, and into a big round chamber.

Their guards marched them up to a large, glittering disk in the center of the chamber, and stopped. Beyond the disk were twenty seats; in front of the seats there was a long, narrow platform. As they came to a stop the disk in front of them began to whirl. At first it was noiseless motion; then there came a slight scratching sound; followed by a voice.

“Glory be!” Billy shouted. “A good old American is talking.”

But when he heard the words his enthusiasm faded.

“This is KFI, Los Angeles, California,” the disk declared. “We will now hear from Professor Ainslee, who will talk to us on the condition of the moon.”

The next second, Epworth’s old college classmate stepped on the disk, looked into the microphone, and began to talk in a perfectly natural tone.

“They’ve got the old earth skinned a city block,” Billy asserted in disgust. “Look at that, will you. They not only hear but they see.”

The disk stopped sharply, Ainslee disappeared. The disk started again and the City of Los Angeles, silent and still flashed on the disk. Again it stopped, and for several seconds they stared at nothing. Then a slight noise on their left attracted their attention. When they glanced around twenty pigmies were filing into the room and seating themselves in the chairs behind the platform.

They were different in appearance to any they had yet seen. While the Taunan soldiers had large heads—entirely too large for their bodies—these men had great round bulbous balls stuck on stringy necks, and slender, ghastly bodies, showing that they were of a different race.

“Sons of the Great Selina,” Moawha whispered in awe. “They are the smartest and greatest men on our sphere. It is said that there are only one hundred of them in their race.”

For some time the twenty bulbous-headed men sat gazing at the Americans in silence. Their gaze was penetrating, far-reaching, cutting.

“You are earth men,” the leader finally remarked in slow, manufactured English. “We saw you coming in the disk, and placed a trap for you. How did you get here?”

“We came in a flying machine,” Epworth answered, determined to put on a bold front in the hope that they had not heard of Toplinsky and would release them. “Who are you?”

The pigmy frowned. It was an ugly, dangerous contraction of a peculiar round face, and it made him look fiendish.

“We compose the council of Lunar,” he said softly, his eyebrows stretching across his moon-shaped face like a rainbow. “We are the brains of this world. We make the laws, we furnish the thought, we are the scientists who visualized the great world out in space and brought its language to our people; we rule through Carza, our queen, who was taught from childhood to obey our slightest command. Just as soon as we capture the Land of the Selinites we shall be complete rulers of the world.”

“You are quite an honorable and distinguished body,” Epworth agreed, bowing courteously, “but I fear that you are not destined to rule this world much longer.”

The leader glanced at him inquiringly, and when he saw that Epworth was not making a military move against him, smiled gently.

“I am afraid that you will have very little to say about it,” he suggested mildly.

“You need not worry about me,” Epworth added with another bow. “Just wait until Toplinsky gets his hooks in.”

“Toplinsky?”

The leader thought over this for some time, and then consulted his companions. Turning to the soldiers he issued a sharp command. The soldiers responded by seizing Epworth, pushing him close to the leader of the council, and dropping a metal cap over his head. This cap they connected by wires with one the leader placed on his own head.

“This little cap,” the councilman explained, “is a thought transferring device. It will keep you from lying, and enable me to read all your thoughts. Now tell me about this Toplinsky.”

“Have you not heard of him? I should think by this time his connection with your queen would be known everywhere in your land. Your queen has made him her king, and together they expect to conquer the Selinites.”

“I had heard that the queen had taken a consort but——”

“A great giant, and a scientist of mighty ability. He is the man who started your world to turning around.”

“Started our world to turn—a man?”

Very calmly Epworth told Toplinsky’s story, permitting his mind to revert back to the camp in the Arctic Circle, and the manner in which Toplinsky had shot water at the moon in a great projectile, and followed it in fifteen minutes with another projectile of liquid air to prevent the immediate evaporation of the water and in order to build up an atmosphere on the moon. The council leader saw it all flashing through the American’s brain, and in turn Epworth saw fear, dread, hate, envy, creep into the bulbous brain in front of him—a fear that this giant scientist from the earth would gain supreme control over the Taunans, and eliminate the council of the Sons of the Great Selina.

“You have reason to fear him,” Epworth remarked quickly. “I do not like Toplinsky, I am constantly at war with him, but I hand it to him as being the biggest thing in the way of science I ever read about. In his scheme to make the moon inhabitable he shot the rarest vegetable and fruit seed from the earth, he planned a rotation of your little planet that would give it a Garden of Eden climate, he timed his projectiles absolutely accurately to prevent the evaporation of the water he sent up, and he sent nitrates and fertilizer to assure the growth of his vegetation. When he was selected by Queen Carza as her consort he boasted to me that he would soon be the absolute monarch of this world.”

The councilman removed his head gear, and motioned to the soldiers to remove the cap over Epworth’s head. Before this was done however Epworth saw the thought flash through the pigmy’s brain that he must do something to rid himself of Toplinsky’s power.

“You will have to act quickly,” the young American said slyly. “Toplinsky is a fast worker.”

“What are your intentions?” the pigmy demanded angrily. “Why are you sneaking around our country?”

Epworth made no effort to disguise the purpose. He realized that it would be useless with the thought exposer again on the councilman’s head.

“I intend to keep him from conquering your world. I am now on the way to help Moawha and her army keep the crickets out of the Land of the Selinites.”

“Just what can you do against this great scientist?”

The pigmy did not attempt to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Epworth shook his head.

“I do not know. I can only hope for the best.”

The cap was removed from the American’s head, and the councilman leaned forward nonchalantly.

“You are a fool—straight out in the open with your thoughts, and I doubt if you get anywhere but we will try to see what your giant friend is doing at this moment, and then compare notes.”

He stood up, drew aside a curtain, and exposed to view a bright silvered sheet of metal about four feet square. In front of this had been placed a peculiar machine with a projecting orifice connecting with the sheet with numerous wires made of glittering copper. With a slight movement of his hand the pigmy pushed a switch and a cylinder began to revolve inside of the machine shooting pictures on the silver square. These pictures were entirely lunar, and showed houses, land, people.

“By this machine,” the pigmy explained, “we discovered that you were approaching our retreat. Now watch for the giant.”

The interior of a large house flashed in front of his eyes. Thousands of pigmies with large heads and small bodies were running to and from working industriously. Among them, towering almost to the roof, was Toplinsky. On his shoulders, with her copper legs locked around his neck, was Queen Carza. She was playing with his coarse red hair and bending over frequently to caress him with her cheek.

As his figure came prominently into view the giant stooped and dropped a soft vegetable fabric into a large vat. Then he called to several pigmies, and instructed him to follow his example. The pigmies hung back timidly for a moment, and the queen shouted at them angrily. They obeyed her quickly.

“She has decided control over them,” Epworth remarked gently, “and Toplinsky, if I mistake not, has complete mastery of the queen. When he desires to be nice that giant can make a post believe he is in love with it.”

The councilman frowned.

“It seems so,” he admitted. “What is the mighty giant doing?”

“He is putting a soft vegetable fabric into a vat full of nitric and sulphuric acid.”

“I can see that, of course. But why?”

“He is making gun cotton—a high explosive that can be used in the place of gun powder. He contemplates blowing up Moawha’s people, and all their cities.”

“With that stuff?”

Toplinsky was removing some of the gun cotton from the vat at the moment.

“Yes, with that stuff he can blow off the side of a mountain.”

Epworth spoke quietly but he was greatly excited. Toplinsky was making rapid strides. It had been only three days since they had escaped from the crickets, and during that time the giant had put enough men to work to make guns and manufacture a goodly supply of gun cotton and powder. If he expected to aid Moawha’s people he would have to hurry. And how could he hurry when he was a prisoner?

The big-headed pigmy shut off the pictures, and turned soberly to the other members of the council, speaking to them rapidly in an unknown tongue. As one man they acquiesced in his conclusions.

“Free them!” the leader commanded, pointing at Epworth and his companions. “We wish to form an alliance with you. We have heard that you destroyed a ramph, and rescued one of our men from his jaws. That was a kind deed, and I am especially grateful because the man rescued was my son. But it is not gratitude that prompts me to this act. We want to see this man Toplinsky defeated in his purposes. We would rather leave things as they are than fall into the power of a mighty monster like this. Hence we are going to free you, and aid you to get across the light gap to the Land of the Selinites.”

He led them to a secret corner of the chamber, pushed aside a large stone, and showed them four cricket shells.

“Get into them,” he commanded. “They have been prepared for disguises, and if you use caution they will hide you from the soldiers. My son, the man you rescued from the ramph, will guide you.”

The four greatly harassed adventurers obeyed, and soon four crickets, guided by a pigmy soldier, left the Observatory of the Sons of the Great Selina, and somewhat clumsily made their way toward the border land, avoiding traffic and observation as much as possible.