All at once the advancing sponge-trees were tossed back over the heads of the savage band concealed within. They were warriors--fifty or more of them--with painted naked bodies. They dashed forward in a wide semicircle, swinging crude weapons, bent on slaughter. 3. They were waving short clubs or whips with stones tied to the ends. They charged up the slope, about sixty yards, swinging their weird clubs with a threat of death. Wild disorder suddenly struck the audience. Campbell and I believed we were about to witness a massacre. "Captain--_Jim_! You're not going to let this happen!" Our sympathies had gone to the first groups, the peaceable ones. I had the same impulse as Campbell--to do something--anything! Yet here we sat in our ship, more than half a mile from our thirty-five or forty "friends" in danger. Our friends were panicked. But they didn't take flight. They didn't duck for the holes in the rocky hilltop. Instead, they rallied and packed themselves around their tall leader. They stood, a defiant wall. "Can we shoot a ray, Jim?" I didn't answer. Later I would recall that Split _could_ drop his dignity under excitement--his "Captain Linden" and "sir." Just now he wanted any sort of split-second order. We saw the naked warriors run out in a wide circle. They spun and weaved, they twirled their deadly clubs, they danced grotesquely. They were closing in. Closer and closer. It was all their party. "Jim, can we shoot?" "Hit number sixteen, Campbell." Split touched the number sixteen signal. The ship's siren wailed out over the land. You could tell when the sound struck them. The circle of savage ones suddenly fell apart. The dancing broke into the wildest contortions you ever saw. As if they'd been spanked by a wave of electricity. The siren scream must have sounded like an animal cry from an unknown world. The attackers ran for the sponge-trees. The rootless jungle came to life. It jerked and jumped spasmodically down the slope. And our siren kept right on singing. "Ready for that hike, Campbell? Give me my equipment coat." I got into it. I looked back to the telescope. The tall man of the party had behaved with exceptional calmness. He had turned to stare in our direction from the instant the siren sounded. He could no doubt make out the lines of our silvery ship in the shadows. Slowly, deliberately, he marched over the hilltop toward us. Most of his party now scampered back to the safety of their hiding places in the ground. But a few--the brave ones, perhaps, or the officials of his group--came with him. "He needs a stronger guard than that," Campbell grumbled. Sixteen was still wailing. "Set it for ten minutes and come on," I said. Together we descended from the ship.