Alan was again on his feet. Turber was carrying Nanette away. Alan dared not fire at them; he swayed on his feet, trying to run after them. He saw the Indian strike me. And then the Indian whirled. Incredibly swift. Alan was hurt. The dim park swayed before him. He saw Lea and the young man from the tower standing together. Both seemed unarmed. They stood horrified, undecided what to do. Alan, reeling dizzily, was no match for the Mohican. He blindly fired his revolver; but he missed. The Indian's tomahawk caught him a glancing blow on the head. He must have recovered consciousness in a moment. Lea and the young man were bending over him. The aero was gone, taking Nanette and me with it. Alan was not badly hurt. He sat up, then he stood. Lea urged him toward the tower. But he resisted her. And then she used force. The youth with her seized Alan. He was too weak and shaken to withstand them. They hurried him to the tower. He saw upon the grass the motionless body of the giant, with a primitive stone ax lying beside it. The tower door closed after him. Lea sat him in a chair; the young man went to a table of instruments. Alan felt a flash, a reeling of all his senses and of all the world. CHAPTER VI FIVE THOUSAND YEARS INTO THE FUTURE Alan did not lose consciousness. But it was a terrible sensation of falling; a soundless, clattering chaos. The room seemed going dim; glowing silver-bright, with every smallest detail sharp and clear--and then fading. There was the sense that his body was suddenly spectral, with a lightness of thistledown, whirling away in all this soundless confusion. The sensations were momentary; the room presently was almost normal again. Alan sat still and gazed around him. A solid, white metal floor; gray-white metal walls; a metal ceiling, windows and doors, all closed. A solid room, unmoving--standing in the bottom of a tower planted solidly upon the ground. It felt like that. Almost normal. But not quite. For under his feet Alan could feel the floor vibrating. A whirring, infinitely tiny, infinitely rapid vibration. It thrilled up into his body like a gentle current; it gave him a sense of lightness, buoyancy. Alan knew that the tower was traveling in Time. Into our Past, or our Future he could not tell which. Across the room at a table of instruments Lea and the young man sat gazing at a bank of whirring dials. They talked together in low tones; words unintelligible to Alan. Lea, glancing over, caught his gaze and smiled. He stood up; stood trembling and dizzy. At once she came and took his arm. "Let me see the dials," he said. He knew she could not understand the words, but he gestured, and she understood and steadied him to a seat by the table. "San," she said, and pointed to her companion.