Already they recognized the ruins of Nyack, and beyond them the point in the river behind which, they knew, lay Hope Villa, nestling in its gardens, its little sphere of cultivation hewn from the very heart of the dense wilderness. Allan slackened speed, crossed to the eastern bank, and jockeyed for a safe landing. The point slipped backward and away. There, right ahead, they caught a glimpse of the long white beach where they had fished and bathed and built their boat-house, and whence in their little yawl they had ten months before started on their trip of exploration--a trip destined to end so strangely in the Abyss. "Home! Home!" cried Beta, the quick tears starting to her lids. "Oh, home again!" Already the great plane was swooping downward toward the beach, hardly a mile away, when a harsh shout escaped the man. "Look! Canoes! My God--_what_--" As the drive of the Pauillac opened up the concave of the sand and brought its whole length to view, Stern and the girl suddenly became aware of trouble. There, strung along the beach irregularly, they all at once made out ten, twenty, thirty boats. Still afar, they could see these were the same rough bancas such as they had seen after the battle--bancas in one of which they two had escaped up-river! "Boats! The Horde again!" Even as he shouted a tiny, black, misshapen little figure ran crouching out onto the sand. Another followed and a third, and now a dozen showed there, very distinct and hideous, upon the white crescent. Stern's heart went sick within him A terrible rage welled up--a hate such as he had never believed possible to feel. Wild imprecations struggled to be voiced. He snapped his lips together in a thin line, his eyes narrowed, and his face went gray. "The infernal little beasts!" he gritted. "Tried to trap us in the tower--cut our boat loose afterward--and now invading us! Don't know when they're licked, the swine!" Beatrice had lost her color now. Milk-white her face was; her eyes grew wide with terror; she strove to speak, but could not. Her hand went out in a wild, repelling gesture, as though by the very power of her love for home she could protect it now against the incursion of these foul, distorted, inhuman little monsters. Stern acted quickly. He had been about to cut off power and coast for the beach; but now he veered suddenly to eastward again, rotated the rising-plane, and brought the Pauillac up at a sharp tilt. Banking, he advanced the spark a notch; the engine shrilled a half-tone higher, and with increased speed the aero lifted them bravely in a long and rising swoop. He snatched his automatic from its holster on his hip and as the plane swept past the beach, down-stream, let fly a spatter of steel jacketed souvenirs at the fast-thickening pack on the sand. Far up to the girl and him, half heard through the clatter of the motors, they sensed a thin, defiant, barbarous yell--a yapping chorus, bestial and horrible. Again Stern fired.