She produced a globe from her robe. Futile little spot of radiance! We held it aloft. An hour or more passed. We sat on the rock, with the light between us. Who could ever see us, tiny figures down in this barren, cloud-swept waste? There was not a sound; a heavy thick silence hung over the Lowlands, with just a sullen murmur floating up from the tumbling water of the lower levels to the north. “Nereid, you’d better go down, I’ll stay here--” “No.” Another hour? We heard nothing. But from over us presently there seemed movement. A blur in the cloud-bank; a blurred, nearing shape, hovering. I leaped to my feet. Something quite close over us, stolen upon us. No earthly airplane! A long, narrow, gray-white shape! Nereid gave a little cry. I gripped her; started to run. But too late. From above a light darted down in a narrow beam. It seized us, held and pulled and sucked us upward. I did not lose consciousness. I clung to Nereid. We were whirled, gasping, through the air. The gray shape magnified, gigantic at our heads. Hands and arms came reaching down; clutched us; the light vanished. [Illustration: _The ray seized them, held them, pulled them relentlessly up into the air._] We were hauled, as swimmers are hauled from the sea, over a low rail and flung to the aëro’s deck, with the tall gray figure of Rhana imperiously surveying us. CHAPTER XXIII. WHITE SHAPES IN THE MOONLIGHT. We were upon that gray-white aëro which, like a ghost, swept at the Zero-level along the edge of the Australian Highlands. We had been upon it, and in the encampment of the Gians, some two weeks. The aëro had only been observed in Australia--the seeds of the new disease were first scattered there and nowhere else. But the aëro had made a far longer voyage--a strange, weird exploration through these vast new Lowlands! It was Rhana’s desire to survey this world she was about to conquer. She avoided the Highlands where an attack upon the aëro might be made. She had wanted, if I were still alive, to capture me in advance of the active warfare she contemplated. She believed I would be with Nereid. The Gian encampment was located within some hundred miles of where the Middge emerged. The Gians were south, across a gradual rise toward the Caroline Mountain chain. Rhana had been alert to receive any possible thoughts from Nereid. It was Rhana whom Nereid had reached--Rhana, quick to simulate Polly--Rhana, laughing ironically and saying she would not come alone. She was triumphant to have me; and pleased to have Nereid, whom later she would use as envoy to the Middge when our surface nations were conquered. And myself--she told me characteristically when first we were drawn aboard the aëro. Its twenty feet of width held small cubbies, like cabins. I was taken from Nereid and thrust into one of them alone. Rhana came presently to see me. She sat beside me. “So we are together again? That is very good, Jeff Grant.”