Something was coming down the narrow incline bridge at the foot of which Martt and Zee were standing frozen, transfixed with horror. Something . . . in all the dark murk of fog Martt could not make it out. An animal? It seemed oblong, the size of a large dog. He could see its moving legs--eight or ten legs, moving as it walked. He felt Zee stir beside him; he withstood his impulse to run. That would make too much noise; the thing would bound after them--catch them. . . . There was a rotting post beside Zee. She and Martt crouched there and watched with a horrified fascination the thing as it came padding down the incline. It was vaguely green-white; it seemed luminous. As it approached, Martt saw it was a sleek body, moving lithe like a panther. A green-white thing. And then he saw that it was headless. A blunt end, with a gaping, dripping mouth and a shining green eye on a protruding stalk. It stopped, turned the eye to look upward and back. Martt's breath was stopped. In the silence he seemed to hear his own tumultuously beating heart, and Zee's. The thing was coming on again. Now Martt could hear sounds from it. A whining; a babbling. And from the houses, up there at the end of the incline, came another sound. A great, heavy breathing. A giant was up there asleep! This thing--like nothing of Zee's world--belonged to the giants! Martt's heart, for all his horror, leaped with exultation. A giant, asleep! A giant smaller in size now, if he were up in those houses. He would have the drugs; they could steal the drugs from him while he slept. The thing on the incline was quite close. It glowed with its own light, greenly phosphorescent, like the ghost of something in a dream, leprous with its missing head. Another moment. It was passing close beside Martt. A luminous liquid dripping from the gaping slit of its mouth. Its eye on the stalk peered ahead. Its voice was clearly audible. A whine; and babbling sounds like words. Revulsion, even more than fear, swept Martt. This thing was muttering words! Animal, or human--it was talking, babbling to itself. Strange words of an unknown tongue--but human words. Babbling them as though with reason unhinged. Gruesome! This leprous thing--leprous of body; and leprous of mind! It passed within an arm's length of Martt as he crouched. And suddenly, without conscious thought, he struck at it with his naked knife. Horrible! The knife sank, but the thing was scarce ponderable! Martt's hand with the knife went down and through the luminous green body, with a feeling of warmth and a wet stickiness, but no more. The force of the blow, unresisted, threw Martt off his balance. He fell forward, but still clutched the knife. The thing, with a sharp, horrible cry of pain, lurched backward. Then stood with its eye quivering, poised for its attack. _CHAPTER 4_ THE WILD NIGHT RIDE