IN THE TWILIGHT COUNTRY. Mercer sat on the rear end of the platform and waved good-by vigorously as he was carried swiftly up and out over the water. Under him was a pile of blankets and a coat, and beside him a box of baked dough-like bread--the food he was to turn over to Tao's emissaries when he set them free. Anina flew at his side, at intervals smiling up at him reassuringly. Before him on the platform his captives huddled. Although all of them were trussed up securely, he menacingly kept his little wooden revolver pointed at them from the level of his knee. He chuckled as he thought of the fight at the bayou. Everything was working out all right; it was surprising what one could do with his physical strength here on Mercury. The girls had carried the platform up some five hundred feet above the sea. Mercer turned and looked back. The shore had already dropped almost to the rim of the close-encircling horizon. He leaned over toward Anina, resting one hand on the bamboo handle she was holding. "How long will it take us to get there, Anina?" He knew the girl would understand his words, but he did not realize she had little basis for comparing time in his language. "Long time," she answered, smiling. "But we go quickly now." He sat back again and waited. It seemed like hours--it _was_ hours probably, three or four--and still they swept onward straight as an arrow. After another interminable interval Anina raised one hand and pointed ahead. "Twilight Country--there," she said. Mercer saw, coming up over the horizon, the dim outlines of a rocky land sparsely covered with trees. It spread out rapidly before him as he watched, fascinated. It seemed a desolate land, a line of low, barren hills off to one side, and a forest of stunted, naked-looking trees in front. The platform swept on over the shore line, a rocky beach on which the calm sea rolled up in tiny white lines of breakers. Then in a great curve the girls circled to one side. "Where are we going?" Mercer asked. "A trail--near us somewhere. A trail to the Lone City. There we land." Mercer saw the trail in a moment. It came out of the woods and struck the shore by a little bight where boats could land. The girls swooped downward, and in a moment more the platform was lying motionless on the beach. Mercer looked around. It was light enough to see objects in the immediate foreground--a gray twilight. The forest came almost to the water's edge. He saw now the trees might have been firs, but with small, twisted trunks, few branches except near the top, and very few leaves. They seemed somehow very naked and starved--indeed, it surprised him that they could grow at all in such a rocky waste. The end of the trail was close before him. It appeared merely an opening in the trees with the fallen logs and underbrush cleared away.