"Graff knew Zetta was on earth," said father. "He came to get her--I was up, and Hulda was awake. The man Graff sent captured all three of us. We went back in the vehicle Zetta had arrived in. Our captor's name was Kean--that same young fellow who spoke to us last night--he's coming here shortly now to see me." "Then he was a spy--not really one of Graff's men?" Freddie suggested. "No. He was in Graff's service. But a very decent fellow. He had been convicted of a crime here in Garla. A theft. Convicted unjustly, he says, for he still maintains his innocence. They're trying him again now--at his request--even though he has recently been pardoned and reinstated in Garla. He was exiled, and, in his resentment, he joined Graff. He captured us in the Cain plantation house. He was supposed to take us to the Brauns. But he didn't. He brought us here." "Why?" asked Dan. Father was smiling at Hulda. "Well, Dan, I think you'd better ask Hulda that. But don't be angry with her. She is--" A woman's scream brought us all to our feet. My blood chilled; a wave of ice seemed sweeping up to grip my heart. A scream from within the house below us! A scream of terror! Zetta! CHAPTER XIII "EMPEROR OF THE EARTH!" In the flat light of dawn we must have looked ashen as we stood there on the roof top with Zetta's scream ringing in our horrified ears. I remember standing transfixed just an instant. Father made a leap toward the stairway that led down into the house, but a cry from Hulda checked him. "Look! The guards--look there!" [Illustration: The Braun with the knife sprang at Zetta, and she called on her insect guards for help.] We were at a corner of the roof where it projected and gave a side view of the building. In the twilight I could see the ground--a garden path between flowering shrubs; the burnished side wall of the house; the lower windows, with shutters slanting out; and an upper window, diagonally beneath us, Zetta's room! It seemed so. It was opened; another scream from Zetta came through it. I recall that my confusion was mingled with a sense of relief--this cry seemed to hold not so much terror as anger and words of command. It all happened in no more than an instant, while we hung over the roof parapet, watching. From the ground a figure leaped upward--a great brown thing with spindly legs, shining shell of jointed body and a head with thin waving arms beside it. From within the room a commotion now sounded, a struggle--the scratching of giant insect legs, the pad of human feet. The thing on the ground outside came sailing up with its leap; it clutched the casement, went scuttling in the window.