I burst through them; but, like birds, they were at me again. One I lifted bodily and hurled a dozen feet. Another I caught by his legs, whirling him, a thirty-pound bludgeon to knock the others away. I had almost reached Zetta. I shouted to her--I do not know what. She answered; but it was a scream of warning. I turned too late. Some one from behind crashed a block of metal stone on my head. I went down into soundless, empty darkness. * * * * * When I recovered consciousness I was lying on the platform. It was in mid-air; I could feel it sway, feel the rush of the wind past me on that thirty-foot square, railed platform. Some fifteen men crowded near its center, where in a small pit, its anti-gravity, lifting mechanism was installed. It was this pit--a white glow there--which first I saw when I opened my eyes. The glow shone upward upon the faces and figures of the seated men. Brauns. I sat up unsteadily. One of my captors was beside me. He murmured an unintelligible command; but when he saw I only intended to sit up, he relaxed. The platform was sailing through the purple moonlight. I was too far from the rail to see over it to the ground, but in the distance I could make out a line of the metal mountains--naked crags glistening under the stars. From behind a platform a yellow fire streamed out, like a vessel's wake; we were being propelled forward by the impulse of its thrust against the air. Vertical and horizontal rudders were back there. In front also, and to the sides, were small lateral wing-rudders. A gentle hand touched my shoulder. Zetta was seated beside me. Unharmed, her face lighting with relief that I, too, seemed uninjured. My head was roaring from the blow; blood, now drying, matted my hair. But it seemed only a scalp wound. The man guarding us called to his fellows; two of them came and looked me over, and then went back. The guard moved to seat himself between us and the rail. Zetta and I were left free to talk. She had been seated beside me in the Stadium; when the panic began she had turned to see our two insect guards vanishing under a tiny red beam. She had leaped up, unnoticed in the confusion, and had seen me fall. Hulda was nearest her. She called, but a hand over her mouth stifled it. She was carried off. Her captor had crouched hidden near the gate, with his cloak over them, waiting his chance to get unobserved down the little street. At the forest entrance, when they were about to take her on the platform, I had burst upon them. This was not the platform upon which Graff and his men had escaped from the amphitheater. "That is much larger," said Zetta. "It is ahead of us now." "They're taking us to the Braun city?" "Yes. It is not so much farther. Oh, Peter, you have been lying here like death so ver' long time!" Zetta's account of her abduction, it suddenly struck me, did not ring wholly true. I eyed her.