At once I raced my dolphin upward. And my thoughts were racing also. Again I had lost another opportunity for ambush. Had we reached the forest before the Maagogs began to emerge, we might have surprised them there. The forest was several miles long and a mile broad perhaps, in the horizontal direction from Gahna to Rax. A mile of thick vegetation—tree spires and a tangle of vines and weeds rearing themselves several thousand feet up into the water. The Maagog army was now traversing that mile-width of forest. Perhaps, if I could cut them off in there—attack them piecemeal as they emerged. . . . I was again with my own forces. Nona, Atar and Caan rode their mounts hastily to meet me, and I told them the situation. It took us but a moment to decide. We would maintain this upper open water as our base. I ordered Atar with his light-sleighs and half of our electric fighting men, to follow me down. I would attack these first columns of the enemy as they came out of the forest. Nona, with her girls, was to ride swiftly above the forest, descend on its other side and drive the last of the Maagogs in. We did not want any of them to retreat toward Gahna. I waited, while Nona with the dolphins dashed upward and away. The girls had all been flushed and eager; but as they swept by me in a line I saw that each little face was white, set and grave. They vanished in a swirl of water. I wheeled my dolphin toward Atar. His ten light-sleighs were in a line abreast, with him on his dolphin behind them. He gave a signal. The pods on the sleighs were unshrouded. Green light leaped ahead—a broad, blinding glare; and in the semi-darkness behind it, my electric men were gathered around me. Then I shouted my command, and we started vertically downward—our first attack upon the enemy. CHAPTER XXIX The glare of light showed the water plainly—a brilliant, ghastly green. We reached the sea-bottom, turned and dashed forward. The Maagogs were there. They saw our light coming of course, long before we saw them. A crowd of them, confused, half-blinded, but they were standing their ground nevertheless. Over the line of light-sleighs I saw that we had to deal here with perhaps five hundred Maagog men. They seemed armed with spears. They huddled heavily against the sea-bottom, some half a mile from the edge of the forest. The line of them stretched back there, and more were constantly coming out. When our sleighs were no more than a few hundred yards away, I shouted at Atar. At his relayed signal, the sleighs shrouded their pods and turned upward, out of reach of the enemy. It left the water in semi-darkness—blackness it must have seemed to the Maagogs, with that blinding glare so suddenly extinguished. And then we leaped at them. It was a swirl of confusion, this hand-to-hand warfare. I held my dolphin resolutely above it, taking no part, but watching for every advantage into which I might hurl my men.