"Another one," said Spike. He stepped on into the jungle. "Wait!" cried Rusty. They couldn't just leave--without even looking. To what depths had these men sunk? Was there no spark of humanity left? He grabbed a limb, swung up into the matted roof. It was a stifling mass of green. He could see nothing. He probed about, futilely. There was not even a trace where the Venusian's body might have been dragged. Spike was climbing up when he came down. "There's nothing there! I--!" Spike shrugged. "Let's go," he said impassively. He kicked aside the plants, struck off into the vegetation. Rusty tarried, gazing up into the foliage. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing up there. That made _two_. Men had never survived this place. How long before it would be his turn? He followed the three disappearing figures. The heat closed in and the world swam, a green daze, before his eyes. His body moved by sheer will. His mind was far away, a cub reporter on his first assignment. He shook his head savagely as the Tele-news office appeared before him, a wavering hallucination. * * * * * It was several miles before they noticed that the Martian was gone. Rusty looked back and there was only the dark jungle, quiet and ominous, green with a mirage-like beauty of fresh life, but a beauty of silent death. What things watched unseen from those thick masses? Watched their every move, ready to spring upon them? First the Martian killed by a spider. Then the little Venusian. Now another--to what death? God, if a man must die let him die _seeing_, not a swift vanishing to unknown terrors. "Let him go," said Spike. "I never did like Martians." Rusty wearily started to turn back. He tried to persuade the others. Spike and the Uranian laughed at his "girlish" exhortations. Every man for himself--they were probably right. He had a story to tell on Earth, one which he must live to tell. But Earth was far away. They trudged on. This time Rusty saw it happen. Or thought he did. Spike was walking a short distance ahead. A thick, slender _something_ fell slightly over his head. Rusty screamed to him. Long acquainted with danger, the man fell flat. And the rope-like thing whipped back, vanished into the plants above. It had been long and green, a slick, menacing danger of no name. After that, the three walked side by side. And the jungle stopped abruptly. Before them was the purple sea. The tinted ocean lay smooth as glass, not a ripple upon its dull surface. Directly ahead, rising from the vast expanse of still water, was a dim, distant island, mountains gently rolling. "It's the Plain!" cried Spike. It was faint on the horizon, a hazy undulation darker than the mist of distance. "Looks like mountains," said Rusty wearily. He despaired of finding anything right in this irrational world. "It's the Plain," said Spike again. "You can't see it. They're the cliffs behind it."