Their snake-like heads were fitted with only two teeth in each jaw, yet those were four inches long and thick as a man's thumb at the base, tapering to needle points. One zanph, propelled by all the vigor of its six legs, rose like a rocketing pheasant and clamped its jaws across his left arm. It overshot, and two teeth missed; but the others dug down into the flesh and grated on the ulna bone. He gave it a jab of the handle of his pickax between its cold pupilless eyes, and it swung limp, losing consciousness but anchored to his arm by the frightful teeth. He cracked the neck of another zanph with his foot, spitted a third, and then Rack and Jerran were slaying the others. John appeared and lifted the first one's body so that Revel could disengage the teeth from his bloody arm. "What a beastie," marveled the Ancient Kingdom man. "How I'd love to dissect one!" Revel, puzzling over the word "dissect," went into the mine. "Jerran, come along. You others remain, and keep off any intruders." There were but three levels in this mine, and he covered them rapidly, Jerran at his heels. He slew seven more spheres, with four zanphs. His blood was up and his tongue lolled with excitement. To his banner, which was a dead god on Jerran's pick, there came forty-three miners. Four others declined, and were allowed to stay at their posts, true to their false gods and the service of the gentry. Coming out of this mine, he led a small army, and felt like a conquering general already. In two hours he had invaded every shaft in the valley, and six hundred men less a score or so were at his back. "How's this for a start?" he asked Nirea, meeting her walking her roan on the grass. She glanced at the mass of men, all those in the van carrying dead globes. "Not bad ... but have you seen the sky, Mink?" He looked upward. From horizon to horizon the sky was ablaze with circles of light, red and green and violet, pure terrible white and flickering yellow. _The buttons_, murmured his men behind him. _The buttons are awake!_ [Illustration] "You couldn't expect to do it in secret, Revel," said John. The old man was as spry and eager as a boy, thought the Mink. "Now let's not waste time. I'm banking that the invaders, I mean the globes, won't blast this valley except as a last resort; if they read my mind, or if their science has gone far enough for 'em to recognize an anti-force-screen thrower when they see one, then we're practically atom soup now." Revel, having understood at least one portion of the speech--"Let's not waste time"--waved his miners forward. They filled the shaft and the tunnel, they thronged into the cave; when the Mink had shown them the machine to be moved, they fought one another for the honor of being first to touch it. * * * * *