Manifestly, the car was made of a strongly non-conducting substance; but, even so, he expected the whole fragile affair to collapse instantly. But the speed of their descent, it soon appeared, was greater than they had imagined; in less than five minutes, they grew conscious of vague outlines just beneath. At almost the same moment, there came a violent threshing and bumping, and Gates, stunned and bruised, was aware of vague projections, which he recognized as the limbs of trees. At the same time, he was startled by a loud popping, as of a suddenly deflated balloon. "By the Eleventh Asteroid!" rasped Yellow-Claws. "We're being torn to shreds!" Surely enough, the branches of the tree had slashed through the gelatinous envelope, which was hanging from the foliage in wispy, thinly palpitating bands and tatters. Their car--or, rather, all that was left of it--had lodged in the upper limbs of a huge oak, forty feet above ground! Not that this distance meant anything, so far as Yellow-Claws was concerned. But his protective envelope had been destroyed; and though a red spout of smoke vomited from between his gray-green lips and lunged toward his foe in forked lightnings, he knew that the battle was lost. "Stay where you are, earthling!" he muttered. "They must not find you! By my fifth arm! They will pay dearly for my life!" * * * * * Before these words had died in his ears, Gates knew that Yellow-Claws had sprung down from the tree. The lightnings had become a little more remote, though hardly less terrible. Then a scream shrilled from the distance, and Gates rejoiced to know that one of the enemy had been struck. But almost immediately, closer at hand, there rose an unearthly shriek, followed by a groan as of some being in utmost anguish. "Thur-glut-nu! Thur-glut-nu!" came terribly, in the Saturnian tongue. And then less fiercely, to Gates, "May all the devils of the space-ways curse them! They've hit me! Hit me, earthling, in the middle nerve center!"--by which he referred to a spot beneath the left shoulder, which, Gates had learned, was a Saturnian's one really vulnerable point. Yellow-Claws' next words were rasping and horrible beyond description. "Flee, nignig, flee! I invoke on them the curses of a thousand dead generations! the venom of all black planets! I--I--by my father's claws, I shall never see Saturn again!" The cry trailed off into a confusion of words in the sufferer's native tongue. There came another moan; then a series of terrifying snorts, snarls and bellowings, as of a wolf-pack closing in on its prey. And red and green lightnings flashed, and blue fireballs played among the treetops ... while a pandemonium of thunder drowned out that fiendish chorus.[2] [Footnote 2: On Earth, fireballs can travel along a wire fence, but are grounded instantly they come to a wooden post, provided they are in direct contact. However, these unearthly fireballs seem to have a negative quality.--Ed.]