From behind the pavilion came a scream. The scream of a girl. Familiar. . . . The blood drained from Brett's face. "Leela!" And then I heard Frannie screaming from there also. We ran. The two girls were standing there clinging to each other. They seemed unharmed. But they were trembling, shuddering, arms gripping one another. "Leela! What is it?" Brett held her off, regarding her. "You're not hurt, are you? What is it?" We four seemed alone here beside the arcade. Lantern-flowers were over us; a thicket was near by. Frannie's arms were around me. "Frank--oh----" She choked; she seemed struggling to tell me something. I held her close. "You're not hurt, Frannie. Just frightened. What became of Martt?" Oh, horrible! What gruesome, horrible thing was this! Within my arms I could feel her sensibly shrinking! Her shoulders within my encircling arm, melting . . . palpably dwindling. Horrible! And there was a great cry from Brett. "Leela! My God, Leela----" At the horror of it, Brett and I stood dumbly staring; and again the girls clung together. They seemed dizzy; they swayed, almost fell, then steadied themselves. Visibly smaller now, like beautifully formed little children, clinging together, no taller than my waist. Dwindling! Then Frannie pointed to the thicket. Two small human figures stood there--a foot high, no more. A grinning gnomelike man, with black matted hair on his naked chest; and a woman--a woman thick and shapeless. A foot in height. But they were shrinking very fast. And beside them were four small animals with horns--grotesque like a dream mingling dog and horse and moose. The animals, too, were dwindling. Brett saw them; but neither he nor I made a move. At our feet Frannie and Leela, no higher than our ankles now, were gazing up at us, with tiny upraised arms, pleading. "Leela! Frannie!" We knelt by them. Then Brett in an agony of terror lifted Leela in his hand. "Leela! Don't--don't get any smaller!" Then he put her down. She ran, half fell the distance of my foot to reach Frannie. And I heard Frannie's tiny voice calling up to us in gasps, "We're going! He--that man there with the woman--caught us. Forced--down our throats--a drug. We--going----" Smaller than my finger. Then so small we knelt to see them. They were huddled against the side of a pebble. Then they seemed struggling toward the pebble. Behind it. Under it. Under its curve. . . . Brett cried, "Don't move, Frank! My God, we might trample on them! Don't move!" The figures in the thicket had vanished. By the pebble which Brett guarded so carefully I thought I saw Leela and Frannie. Saw a movement, as though an ant were there, hiding under the pebble. Then--they were not visible. We did not dare look too closely. They were gone! Still there within a foot of our straining eyes--but so immeasurably distant! Lost! Gone! Stolen into smallness! _CHAPTER 3_ THE THING IN THE FOG