Another command from the girl, and both dogs stopped; Atal slid on his haunches, checking himself so abruptly that George was flung to the sand. He was unhurt. He picked himself up to find Dee beside him. "Someone is coming," she said sharply. "Someone the dogs know is not a friend." She spoke to the dog, and pulled George to the side of the road where a cluster of banana trees cast an inky shadow. Together they stood there in silence. Atal and Rotan had disappeared. The road was a white ribbon in the moonlight. George listened, but could hear nothing. He tried to question Dee, but she silenced him. Presently there came the thud of running feet; from the direction of Anglese City two running dogs with riders swept into view. The riders were men, black cloaked and wearing masks. Arans, from the festival, George thought. They would have passed without seeing the lurking figures under the banana trees had not Atal and Rotan, in spite of Dee's command, suddenly charged them from the shadows across the road. The two men, shouting in anger and alarm, tumbled from their mounts. The four dogs tangled in a snarling, biting mass. Still George and Dee were unseen in the shadows. One of the men in the road had lost his cloak and mask; the moonlight showed his face. "One of Toroh's brothers," Dee breathed into George's ear. In the dimness he could see she was raising the small, crescent-shaped weapon. Some noise that she or George made must have alarmed the men, who were no more than ten feet away. They looked sharply across the road, and then, evidently seeing nothing, they turned back to where the dogs were still fighting with a deadly fury. Sparks leaped suddenly from Dee's outstretched hand. The men turned. One of them cried out in terror, but they both stood stiff and motionless. "We've got 'em!" George shouted. "Good work, Dee!" He would have leaped forward, but her free hand gripped him. "_Quick! The globe!_" One of the men, supposedly stricken beyond the power to move, was, by some superhuman effort of will, slowly raising his hand; his fingers clutched a tiny black globe. It came up very slowly, as his almost paralyzed muscles struggled with its weight. But George recovered his wits. He snatched his own globe from his pocket, pointed it, pulled the trigger. The night was split by a flash, a tiny, sizzling snap of thunder; the globe recoiled in George's hand. Across the road the bodies of the two men lay motionless on the sand. Dee was leaning against a banana trunk panting. Her face had gone white, but she smiled as George turned to her. "They almost got us," she said. George himself was trembling, but he would not let her see it. "Almost, Dee. Next time I'll be ready. I didn't realize..."