A moment more and two score of their craft were shooting sharply upward in hot pursuit of Jhul Din and his fleeing ship. Held tightly by our serpent-captors, we waited with them the return of the pursuing ships. Would they catch the big Spican? Slowly the minutes dragged past, while in the gulf of space above us, we knew, Jhul Din and his three followers were racing, twisting, fighting against that remorseless pursuit that would track him by the space-charts. Then at last, after a wait that seemed eternities in length, the dark, long shapes of the ships that had pursued him drove down from above and landed beside us, their serpent-crews emerging, but without trace of Jhul Din or his ship. Whether he had managed to elude them and drive out between the great space-forts into open space and escape, or whether he had met his end beneath their death-beams, we could not say nor guess. I knew, though, that they would hardly have given up the pursuit unsuccessfully so soon, and it was with doubt and fear in my heart that I rose now in response to the motioned commands of our captors. Guarding us now with a score or more of death-beam tubes they marched us across the circle toward the street that opened from it, and then down that street's length, between the mighty structures of blue force on either side. Half-transparent as were those buildings of pale blue light, we could see in them all the various floors and levels, as though in buildings of blue glass, and on those levels great ranks of half-glimpsed mechanisms tended by moving, writhing throngs of serpent-beings. Other throngs of them moved about us in the narrow street, from building to building, passing and repassing around us as we marched along.