Of itself, it gave to them new strength and intelligence, made of them more mobile beings. It roused them to fantastic development and stirred to life their latent dreams of green conquest. By complex symbiosis, it bound them to itself, made willing servants and worshippers of them. The forest had become a vast, single, interdependent community. The woman-thing--its voice--had strayed within the precincts of its dread power. She, also, had been lured, overpowered, enslaved. Partially absorbed by the god-being, wholly dependent, the woman had become a nympthon, a temple handmaiden, little more than a decoration, existing solely by its whim. The voice died away. Unconscious of sound, Alston sensed the images fading from his mind. Standing boldly on the pedestal, Alston reached upward to tear and strike at the horror on the veil. Shrieking, he assailed the monstrous thing which was neither plant nor woman, alternating words and blows. Hate seethed in his brain, hate and pain and grief. He cried out and hurled himself savagely, lusting to destroy. It was the last thing he remembered clearly. From the depths below came a throb of fearful power. The pool churned. Lightnings raved about the suspended veil, the netted figure. The woman-thing writhed piteously in the tumult of energy. Alston's upreaching arms carried the current to his body. The shock stunned, paralyzed. Then came momentary impression of vegetation surging toward him in dark billows. Hellish tendrils dragged him down. Great, leathery leaves enfolded him, lifting his numbed body high. He was hurled bodily across the shimmering well, caught up again and juggled with heedless violence. Lashing, steely tentacles played with him and passed him swiftly through dim spaces. Flesh cringed from the cloying contact of the vines. Battered, nauseated, half-unconscious, he felt the touch of abysmal horror. Then, contemptuously, he was flung in a grotesque sprawl of arms and legs, spurned through the gateway of the outer wall. * * * * * Outside the city, lines of battle were drawn up across the valley. On one side, squads of the convict volunteers held back green waves of plant-life with batteries of flame-throwers, heat rays, grenades and poison gas bombs. Ranged against them were the unlimited numbers of the forest folk, plants and animals alike thrusting in a dark salient from the thickly grown slopes. Near the city was a clear space, but ragged knots of combatants were locked in deadly struggle, contending for the approach. Flame-throwers bit deep indentations in the massed plant-things, and an acrid stench of charred greenery rose in choking clouds. The green armies struck back viciously with flights of venomed thorns and a barrage of spore-cases which burst with startling force and showered the humans with corrosive dust. It was deadlock, a determined, murderous see-saw with advantage to neither. A scouting party brought Alston to the ships.