So astounded were they with our appearance and our supernatural leap across the compartment, that before they could put themselves into a posture of defense, we had struck them, had knocked them to the floor and were grappling with them. In that first moment of contact I had reached for the mouth-opening of the disk-bodied monster at whom I had leaped, had gripped that opening in the top of its disk-body to prevent its outcry and then had striven to lift the thing sidewise, to hurl it against the floor. But great as was my strength against Triton's lesser gravitation, the strength of the Neptunian I held was greater still, and its weight, due to the weight-disks worn by it, was enormous. In an instant its seven great limbs were clutching for me, grasping me, and as I strained there against that great monstrous disk-body's grip, I knew with fatal certainty that never could I match my strength against its own. For even as I struggled desperately with it, Marlin struggling as wildly with the other beside me, the thing was lifting me with its own great limbs from the floor! Upward it drew me with those powerful limbs, its bulging glassy eyes staring from its disk-body's edge straight into my own, as we grappled desperately in the dark compartment with the sleeping Neptunians all about us! I felt myself being overcome, my strength puny beside the strength of that monster, and as I clutched wildly still at the mouth-opening in the top of the disk-body, I thrust my clenched fist down into that small round mouth-opening, half by chance and half by design, closing it thus with my balled fist. Instantly the creature's body turned and twisted frantically, its grip upon me forgotten for the moment, its whole body's mass seeming to heave and twitch as my hand thus cut off the passage of air into that mouth-opening, into its body! I was throttling it, I knew, and hung fiercely to my grip upon it, my clenched hand still within its mouth-opening, while the thing swayed and tore at me with ever-decreasing strength. A moment more and its struggles ceased, it collapsed limply to the floor, and I staggered up again to my feet.