But the awakening was at hand. If we doubted Rau's intentions, one look at the cold Mongol faces of the guards was enough to dispel any hope. Baker tried to sum it up.

"No use trying to argue with him. Fact is, we won't even see Rau again. We could, of course, simply call it quits and wait for them, but I'd rather fight it out. Anyone have an idea?"

Martin hopped up on the bench and studied the ventilator. He reached one arm in as far as possible, and reported that there was a bend about a foot in. While he was doing this, Chamberlin made a minute investigation of the door, but found that neither hinges nor lock were accessible. There were no other openings into the chamber save the electric conduit which presumably entered above the electric fixture in the ceiling. Finally Baker spoke.

"Nothing we can do until they come for us. We'd better plan towards that, unless they're going to gas us through the ventilator."

This unpleasant thought had not occurred to the rest of us before. Martin returned to the opening and sniffed, and then with happy inspiration, he rolled up his jacket and stuffed it in. Baker nodded approval.

So the time passed. We listened at the door for footsteps but none came. Presently we became aware of a now familiar sensation. The floor commenced to shake gently and regularly. We counted the steps. There were twelve, and then they stopped. Chamberlin calculated mentally.

"Say, about 250 feet per step. That would be three thousand feet—six tenths of a mile. Wonder where—"

Martin, still near the ventilator, shushed him, and pulled the coat out. Through the small hole we heard a deep sound, a sort of low pitched irregular rumble. Baker suddenly jumped up and listened at the opening. After a bit the sound stopped. Baker became excited.

"It was a voice," he explained. "I think it was his voice. It was speaking Japanese. I couldn't catch many words, but I think he was talking about us."

Now the rumble came again, and louder. A few words, a pause, and then more words, as though he was in conversation with someone whom we could not hear. Baker listened intently, but he could catch only fragments, owing to his small knowledge of Japanese and the extremely low pitched articulation of the giant. Presently the voice rose to a volume which literally made the mountain tremble, and then it stopped.

Baker shook his head. "Couldn't make it out. I think he was inquiring where we were, but it was too idiomatic. I think he became excited or angry at the last."

"Fee, fi, fo, fum," said Chamberlin. "Now wouldn't that be an interesting end?"

Martin laughed. "We wouldn't even be enough to taste."

As no one else seemed anxious to pursue this subject further, we subsided into a sort of lethargy. Even plans for what we should do when the guards came were forgotten. And then, suddenly, the door was opened.

We all sprang to our feet. A priest—in fact, the same one who had brought us here originally—came in. A squad of guards stood outside.

"Good afternoon, how are you? Chief Priest ask me to tell you, Buddha wish to see you. Please you come with me." He politely indicated the door.

With a shrug Baker complied, and the rest of us followed. Down the hall we marched again, through all of the turns of the morning and so at last into the corridor which ended in a window. This time we passed the aluminum door and continued right to the end. The window, we now saw, was really a French door which opened to a small balcony. Our guide opened the door and pushed us out. The balcony, we found, was about four hundred feet above the valley floor, but we did not spend much time enjoying the view.

Scarcely fifty feet in front of us stood the Living Buddha!

For a full minute we stared at each other, and then I began to realize that he was embarrassed! A wrinkle appeared between his eyes and he swallowed a couple of times. Then he spoke.

"Good afternoon, Professor Baker and party. I am happy to meet you."

The voice, and particularly the language, so startled us that for a moment nobody could think of a reply. The voice was a deep pulsing rumble, like the tone of the biggest pipes of an organ, and filled with a variety of glottal wheezings and windy overtones. I think it was through these additional sounds rather than the actual tones that we could understand him at all, for the fundamentals were surely below the ordinary limits of human audibility. What we heard and could translate into articulate words was hardly more than a cavernous whisper. The important thing was that we could understand him, and, more than that, that he was friendly. Baker made reply at last.

"Good afternoon. We also are happy, and most honored. How should we address you?"

"My name is Kazu Takahashi, but I am told that I am also Buddha. This I would like to discuss with you, if you have time."

"We have time for nothing else," said Baker.

Buddha's eyebrows raised slightly. "So I was right. They are going to kill you."

Baker glanced at us meaningfully. This giant was no fool. Suddenly there came over me a little thrill of hope. Maybe—but he was speaking again.

"I have not before had opportunity to talk to men from west. Only from China, Japan, Soviet State. You will tell me of rest of world?"

"With pleasure," said Baker.

I became conscious that the door behind us was opening. I glanced back, and saw Phobat Rau, surrounded by guards and priests. He gestured to us to come in. Baker turned, while Buddha bent his head closer to see also.

Rau came to the door. "Come back," he called urgently. "You are in grave danger. You must come in."

"Please come in. I was hasty this morning. I am sorry. I think now I see a way for you to return safely, if you will come in."

For reply, Baker turned to the giant. He climbed upon the rail of the balcony.

"Take us away from here, if you wish to hear what we have to say. Take us, or they will kill us!"

In answer, Buddha extended one hand, palm up, so that it was level with the balcony. For an instant I hesitated at the sight of that irregular rough surface, big as a city block, and then I heard steps behind us and a click. With one accord we leaped over the parapet just as a scattered volley of pistol shots rang out. We tumbled head over heels down a rough leathery slope into a hollow, and then the platform lifted like a roller coaster. In a second the balcony, the whole hillside vanished and we went rocketing up into the blue sky. A gale of wind blew past, almost carrying us with it, and then a portion of the surface rose and became thirty foot tree trunks which curled incredibly over and around us, forming a small cavern which shut out the wind and held us securely against falling.

Buddha had closed his fist.

For a breathless fifteen seconds we were carried in darkness, and then the great hand unfolded. It was lying flat on an immense smooth area of concrete, which we presently identified as the higher of the two tables. We got to our feet and staggered to the edge of the palm. Here we met another problem, in the form of a rounded ten foot drop-off to the concrete table. As we stood looking down in dismay, the other vast hand came up from below, carrying a heavy sheet of metal. This was carefully placed with one edge on the hand and the other on the table, forming a ramp. Holding onto each other for mutual support, we made our way to the table and there literally collapsed. Chamberlin became violently sick, and none of the rest of us felt much better. The giant carefully withdrew both hands and watched us from a distance of a hundred yards, with only the head and upper part of his body visible.

From our position on the concrete platform I now looked closely at Kazu for the first time. My first impression was not so much one of size, as of an incredible richness of detail. It was like examining a normal human through a powerful microscope, except here the whole was visible at once. Even at a distance of two hundred feet, the hair, the eyelashes, the pores of the skin showed up with a texture and form which I had never noted before, even in my studies as a biologist. The general effect was most confusing, for I would lose and regain the sense of scale, first thinking of him as an ordinary man, and then realizing the proportion. The nearest comparison that I can think of is the sensation when standing very close to a large motion picture screen, but here the image is blurry whereas I saw with a clarity and sharpness that was simply unbelievable.

Buddha seemed to realize our condition, for he smiled sympathetically, and waited until poor Walt had recovered somewhat from his nausea. Baker, as spokesman, renewed the conversation. Walking a few steps toward the front of the enormous desk, he spoke in a loud clear voice.

"You have saved our lives. We thank you."

The great head nodded benignly, and after a thoughtful pause, that strange voice began.

"My teachers have brought others before me to lecture, but always I know that they speak only as they are told to speak. You are different. I am glad that I saw you last night, or I would never know that you had come."

He paused, evidently gathering his thoughts for the next foray into an unfamiliar language. Then he leaned closer.

"Phobat Rau has spoken to you of my birth and life here?"

Baker nodded, and then, realizing that Kazu could not see such a microscopic movement, he replied orally.

"He has told us your story in detail. It is a marvel which we can yet scarcely believe. But the greatest marvel of all is that you speak our language, and comprehend so quickly."

Kazu thought of this for a moment.

"Yes, my teachers have done well, I think. I have studied the writings of many great men, but there is yet much that I do not understand. I think it is important that I understand, because I am so strong. I do not wish to use this strength for evil, and I am not sure that those whom my teachers serve are good. I have studied the words of the great Buddha, but now my teachers say that I am to appear as if I were Buddha. But that is an untruth, and untruth is evil. So now I hope that you will tell me the whole truth."

Kazu stepped back a quarter of a mile, and then reappeared, dragging his four hundred foot chair. Sitting on this, he crouched forward until his face was hardly a hundred feet before us, and his warm humid breath swept over us like wind from some exotic jungle. Baker took a moment to marshal his thoughts, and then came forward, threw out his chest and began speaking as though addressing an outdoor political meeting.

How long Baker spoke I do not know. He began by outlining history, contrasting the ideals of Buddha and other great religious leaders with the dark record of human oppression and cruelty. Kazu's vast face proved most expressive of his feelings as he listened intently. When Baker came to the subject of communism, he leaned over so far backward in his effort to be fair that I feared that he was overdoing it, and would convince the giant in the wrong direction.

"Come," he said, "you shall draw on a piece of glass and the light will make it great that I may see."

We were thereupon transferred the mile distance to the building by a reversal of our previous route: up the ramp to Kazu's ample palm, a series of breathtaking swoops through space, and we were in the vast interior of the leanto.

The furnishings of this study room consisted of a chair, a sloping writing desk and a screen fully two hundred feet square on the wall opposite the chair. Beside the chair was a sort of bracket on the wall which supported the projection room. Kazu placed his hand level with an elevated balcony leading to this and we scrambled off. With Baker in the lead, we opened the door and entered the projection room. It was larger than we had estimated from outside, when we had the immense furniture for comparison. The dimensions were perhaps forty feet on the side, and most of the interior was taken up by shelves on which were stored thousands of films of book pages, maps, photographs and diagrams of all kinds. In the side facing the screen were a number of ports and a battery of movie and still projectors. One of the latter was, we saw, adapted for writing or drawing on the glass slide while it was being projected. We studied this for a moment, located the special marking pencil, and then I called out of the door that we were ready.

"Look also," replied Kazu, "you will find device which magnify voice. My teachers use this always."

A further search disclosed a microphone and the switch for a public address amplifier. Baker settled down to his now illustrated lecture.

After he had talked himself hoarse, Baker asked each of the rest of us to speak briefly on our own specialties. I was the last, and I was practically through when I became aware that we were not alone in the room. I gave Martin a nudge, and turned from the microphone to face eight of the uniformed guards, led by our friendly yellow-robed priest. Only now he wasn't friendly, and he carried a heavy automatic which was carefully aimed right at us.

"Very clever, gentlemen," he said. "You took good advantage of your chance with our simple giant, did you not? Tried your best to ruin the whole work of Pan-Asia just to save your miserable skins. Well, you shall not—"

He was interrupted by the thunder of Kazu's voice.

"Please continue, Mr. Cady. I find it most interesting. Why do you stop?"

I took a step toward the microphone, but a menacing gesture with the gun stopped me. I looked from yellow-robe to Baker. After a moment's hesitation, the latter spoke.

"I'm afraid, my friend, that you have misjudged the situation. I admit that we jumped into Buddha's hand to escape from Phobat Rau, but if you are familiar with the expression, our leap was from the frying pan into the fire. Your giant is holding us prisoner, and even now forces us to tell him things on pain of death."

The priest looked astonished, and the gun barrel dropped slightly.

"No one," continued Baker in a sincere tone, "could have been more welcome than you. But"—his voice dropped and he took a step toward the other—"we must be careful. If he should even suspect that you are here to rescue us, he would crush this room like an egg!"

The priest, now thoroughly alarmed, glanced about nervously, his automatic pointing at the floor. The guards, who knew no English, looked at each other in surprise.

Baker took quick advantage of the confusion.

"We must not allow him to become suspicious. I will continue talking over the microphone while your guards take my friends to safety."

With this he stepped to the microphone and projector. The priest seemed for an instant about to stop him, and then he turned to the guards and gave a series of rapid orders. They advanced and surrounded Martin, Walt and me, and indicated by gesture that we were to go with them to the walk-way which led to the wall of the great room. In panic I looked at Baker, but he was bent over the glass plate of the projector, drawing something and speaking in his precise clipped voice.

"I shall now show you a map of the United States and indicate the principal cities. First, on the Atlantic coast we have New York...."

We were out of the room and on the gallery. For a moment I thought that Kazu might see us, and then I realized that the whole place was dark and that he was concentrating on Baker's silly map. Briefly I wondered what Baker was up to anyway, but this sudden terrible turn of events made any kind of calm reasoning very difficult.

Outside the projection room, Baker's voice came booming over the loudspeakers.

"Chicago is located at the southern end of Lake Michigan, just west of Detroit, while St. Louis—"

A moment later Baker came out onto the bridge. Martin tried to frame a question.

"What—how did he—?"

Baker grinned and pointed silently at the screen. We looked and understood. Where a map of the United States should have been was a scrawled message in English: "Priests here taking us captive."

We returned to our lecturing, but after what had happened neither we nor Kazu felt much like concentrating on geographical or other general facts. We all knew that Rau had not given up. For the moment we were protected by Kazu's immense power, but there were some doubts in our minds as to how long this might last. After all, Rau was his lifelong mentor and protector. For the moment the young giant seemed to have taken a liking to us, but perhaps it was only a passing whim. Presently Rau would assert his authority and Kazu, his curiosity satisfied, would hand us over—in exchange, perhaps, for supper.

After about fifteen minutes more of lecturing, Kazu interrupted.

"Soon will be sunset. Suggest we return to privacy of high table to discuss next move."

The transfer took less than a minute. The afternoon, we saw, was indeed far gone. None of us had realized how long we had been in the projection room. Once we were safely back on the table, Kazu addressed us, using his softest voice, which was a hurricane-like whisper.

"Phobat Rau plans for me to go soon to head armies of Asia in fight against west. My study of history has raised doubts of rightness of such war, and what you say strengthen these. Now I must see for myself, without guidance or interference from Rau. But I need assistance, to direct me how I shall go. I believe you will be fair. Will you help me?"

For a moment the incongruity of that last question prevented our grasping the full implication of Kazu's statement. Then Baker, evidently realizing that this was no time for philosophic quibbling, signified our assent. Kazu proceeded at once to practical plans.

"Tonight I sleep in usual place, where you disturbed me with small rock slide. But you must stay awake by turns to guard against capture. In morning you direct my steps away from Yat to mainland of Asia, where—"

He stopped. Seeing the direction he was looking, we hastened to the edge of the table. Far below, on the ground, was a railroad train surrounded by a small crowd of priests. For a moment we were puzzled, and then we saw that the train was made up entirely of gondola cars such as are used to carry coal and other bulk cargo. But these cars, a dozen in number, contained a white substance which steamed. We did not require more than one guess. The train brought Kazu's supper.

The giant made a slight bow of thanks to the delegation at his feet, and proceeded carefully to empty the cars into his dish. Then, instead of squatting at his low eating table, he brought the dish and other utensils up to our level and dumped a ton or so of steaming rice at our feet. Evidently he wished us to share his supper. We had no tools other than our hands, but since we had not eaten in almost twenty-four hours, we did not stop for the conventions. Scooping up double handfuls of the unseasoned stuff, we fell to even before Kazu had gotten his ponderous spoon into position. Suddenly, Baker yelled at us.

"Hold it!" He turned to Kazu who had a spoonful poised halfway to his mouth. "Kazu, don't eat. This rice is doped!"

I took a mouthful of the rice. There was not much flavor—only a little salt which I guessed came from seawater. I explored the stuff with my tongue, and presently noticed a familiar taste. It took me a moment to place it. Yes, that was it. Barbiturate. The stuff in sleeping pills.

Kazu bent his great face over us. Baker briefly explained. Kazu appeared at first puzzled. He dropped the spoon into the dish and pushed it away from him. His brow wrinkled, and he glanced down at the ground. Walking to the edge, we saw that the group of priests were standing quietly around the engine, as though waiting for something. What they were waiting for evidently struck Kazu and us at the same time. Kazu leaned toward them and spoke in Japanese. His voice was angry. Baker tried to translate.

"He says, 'how dare you poison Buddha'—Look, they're running off—"

The next second things happened too rapidly for translation or even immediate interpretation. Kazu spoke again, his voice rising to an earth shaking roar at the end. The little men below were scattering in all directions, and the train started to back off down its track. Suddenly Kazu turned and picked up his hundred foot steel dish. He swept it across the table and then down in a long curving arc. There was an earth shaking thud and where the running figures and the train had been was now only the upturned bottom of the immense dish. Priests and cars alike were entombed in a thousand tons of hot rice!

Kazu now turned to us. "Come," he said, "Yat is not safe, even for Buddha. Now we must leave here at once."

He extended his hand towards us, and then, with another thought, turned and strode to the leanto. In a moment he returned carrying the projection room, with a tail of structural steel and electric cables hanging below. This he placed on the table and indicated that we were to enter. As soon as we were inside, Kazu clapped on the roof and picked up the stout steel box. We clung to the frame supporting the projectors, while a mass of slides, film cans and other debris battered us with every swooping motion. We could not see what was going on outside, but the giant seemed to be picking up a number of things from the ground and from inside the leanto. Then he commenced a regular stride across the crater floor. Now at last we got to a window, just in time to glimpse the nearby cliff. On the rim, some hundreds of feet above I saw a group of uniformed men clustered about some device. Then we were closer and I saw that it was an antiaircraft gun, which they were trying to direct at us. I think Kazu must have seen it at the same moment, for abruptly he scrambled up the steep hillside and pulverized gun, crew and the whole crater rim with one tremendous blow of his fist.

I got a brief aerial view of the whole island as Kazu balanced momentarily on the rim, and then we were all thrown to the floor as he stumbled and slid down the hillside to the level country outside of the crater.