"Certainly he has not been killed or captured," the Chemist reasoned, "for we would have other giants to face immediately that happened." "Perhaps he took the girl with him and started off to Orlog to find Loto," suggested the Doctor. "That crazy boy might do anything." "He should be back by now, even if he had," said the Big Business Man. "I don't see how anything could happen to him--having those----" He stopped abruptly. While they had been talking a crowd of little people had gathered in the city beside them--a crowd that thronged the street before the Chemist's house, filled the open space across from it and overflowed down the steps leading to the beach. It was uncanny, standing there, to see these swarming little creatures, like ants whose hill had been desecrated by the foot of some stray passer-by. They were enraged, and with an ant's unreasoning, desperate courage they were ready to fight and to die, against an enemy irresistibly strong. "Good God, look at them," murmured the Big Business Man in awe. The steps leading to the beach were black with them now--a swaying, struggling mass of little human forms, men and women, hardly a finger's length in height, coming down in a steady stream and swarming out upon the beach. In a few moments the sand was black with them, and always more appeared in the city above to take their places. The Big Business Man felt a sharp sting in his foot above the sandal. One of the tiny figures was clinging to its string and sticking a sword into his flesh. Involuntarily he kicked; a hundred of the little creatures were swept aside, and when he put his foot back upon the sand he could feel them smash under his tread. Their faint, shrill, squeaking shrieks had a ghostly semblance to human voices, and he turned suddenly sick and faint. Then he glanced at Lylda's face; it bore an expression of sorrow and of horror that made him shudder. To him at first these had been savage, vicious little insects, annoying, but harmless enough if one kept upon one's feet; but to her, he knew, they were men and women--misguided, frenzied--but human, thinking beings like herself. And he found himself wondering, vaguely, what he should do to repel them. The attack was so unexpected, and came so quickly that the giants had stood motionless, watching it with awe. Before they realized their situation the sand was so crowded with the struggling little figures that none of them could stir without trampling upon scores. Oteo and Eena, standing ankle-deep in the water, were unattacked, and at a word from the Chemist the others joined them, leaving little heaps of mangled human forms upon the beach where they had trod. All except Lylda. She stood her ground--her face bloodless, her eyes filled with tears. Her feet were covered now; her ankles bleeding from a dozen tiny knives hacking at her flesh. The Chemist called her to him, but she only raised her arms with a gesture of appeal.