The ages of the giants! Huge, heavy-armored things--armored so that the battle for existence might be won and life go on. Tremendous swimming, walking and flying reptiles, peopling the sea, the land and the air. Evolving through one-celled to many-celled organisms; to sea-squirts and sluggish giant sea-worms; and, millions of years still farther, to the vertebrates, and then the giant mammals. Nature struggling for size in the individual. The ages of the giants! As restless as the changing life was the changing environment. I saw the mountains rise and drop; and the sea surge in and back again; an instant when for ten thousand centuries there must have been great heat here--and then a sweep of ice. Throughout it all, life struggled, adapting itself, patiently trying new forms; driven away from here by hostile nature--but coming back again. Struggling. * * * * * An hour or two must have passed as I sat there engrossed. Turber had been talking steadily to Nanette. I heard him say: "We are entering now the last million years before the Time of Christ." 1,000,000 B.C.! Out of the thousand such intervals, only one was left! There had been no attempt by Turber to stop our flight in any of these centuries. I wondered why he had made this trip. He had said to Nanette: "I have really done this to show it to you." But I doubted that. He had told me, with a grin, that he might stop for an ivory tusk of some prehistoric monster. But I did not believe it; especially since he had made no effort to stop. I got the answer now; his real reason. The fellow Jonas came into the control room. He stood by Turber. They talked for a moment, softly, but I could hear them. "You think, Jonas, that we have shaken off that cursed Time-vision?" "Yes, I think so." "Lentz would do his best to fool them." This meant nothing to me. Had Alan been here, how well he would have understood it! "Yes. But Lea and San are persistent. You should have laid plans, master, to capture that tower." Turber smiled wryly. "I suppose so. But I've been busy, Jonas. If Lentz had any sense he would have wrecked the tower for me." "And left himself stranded? You expect too much, Master. Lentz wants to join us." I could only partially understand. But it was clear that Turber wanted to shake off pursuit. He was planning to stop in 1664. He wanted no interference there. If I had known that presently Alan would be speeding there in the tower to help me! There was just a moment when Nanette and I were left alone. Turber went out of the room with Jonas. Bluntnose, the Indian, sat at his dials. But he was some distance away and his back was toward us. I moved to Nanette. I touched her. I whispered: "Nanette." "Edward?" "We're alone. Only the Indian--his back is turned." "Edward, be careful of yourself." Her dear hand clung to me. "Careful!"