Beyond the Vanishing Point | Page 9

they and the pile of ingots, instead of being close to me,
were more distant than I had thought.
Alan was trying to signal me. The tiny girl was again at his ear,
whispering to him. And then she came to me.
"I have a knife. See?" She backed away. I caught the pinpoint gleam of
what might have been a knife in her hand. "I will get a little larger. I am
too small to cut your ropes. You lie still, even after I have cut them."
I nodded. The movement frightened her so that she leaped backward;
but she came again, smiling. The three men were talking earnestly by
the ingots. No one else was near us.
Glora's tiny voice was louder, so that we both could hear it at once.
"When I free you, do not move or they may see that you are loose. I get
larger now--a little larger--and return."
She darted away and vanished. Alan and I lay listening to the voices of
the three men. Two were talking in a strange tongue. One called to the
man at the microscope, and he responded. The third man said suddenly:

"Say, talk English. You know damn well I can't understand that lingo."
"We say, McGuire, the two prisoners soon wake up."
"What we oughta do is kill 'em. Polter's a fool."
"The doctor say, wait for him return. Not long, what you call three, four
hours."
"And have the Quebec police up here lookin' for 'em? An' that damn
girl he stole off the Terrace. What did he call her, Barbara Kent?"
"These two who are drugged, their bodies can be thrown in a gully
down behind St. Anne. That what the doctor plan to do, I think. Then
the police find them--days maybe from now--and their smashed airship
with them."
Gruesome suggestion!
The man at the microscope called, "They are almost gone I can hardly
see them any more." He left the platform and joined the others. And I
saw that he was much smaller than they--about my own size possibly.
There seemed six men here altogether. Four now, by the ingots, and
two others far across the room where I saw the dark entrance of the
corridor-tunnel which led to Polter's castle.
Again I felt a warning hand touch my face, and saw the figure of Glora
standing by my head. She was larger now--about a foot tall. She moved
past my eyes; stood by my mouth; bent down over my gag. I felt the
cautious slide of a tiny knife-blade inserted under the fabric of the gag.
She hacked, tugged at it, and in a moment ripped it through.
She stood panting from the effort. My heart was pounding with fear
that she would be seen; but the man had turned the central light off
when he left the microscope, and it was far darker here now than
before.
I moistened my dry mouth. My tongue was thick, but I could talk.

"Thank you, Glora."
"Quiet!"
I felt her hacking at the ropes around my wrists. And then at my ankles.
It took her a long time, but at last I was free! I rubbed my arms and legs;
felt the returning circulation in them.
And presently Alan was free. "George, what--" he began.
"Wait," I whispered. "Easy! Let her tell us what to do."
We were unarmed. Two, against these six, three of whom were giants.
Glora whispered, "Do not move! I have the drugs. But I can not give
them to you when I am still so small. I have not enough. I will
hide--there." Her little arm gestured to where, near us, half a dozen
boxes were piled. "When I am large as you, I come back. Be ready,
quickly to act. I may be seen. I give you then the drug."
"But wait," Alan whispered. "Tell us--"
"The drug to make you large. Large enough to fight these men. I had
planned to do that myself, until I saw you held captive. That girl of
your world the doctor just now steal, she is friend of yours?"
"Yes! But--" A thousand questions were springing in my mind, but this
was no time to ask them. I amended, "Go on! Hurry! Give us the drug
when you can."
The little figure moved away from us and disappeared. Alan and I lay
as we had before. But now we could whisper. We tried to anticipate
what would happen; tried to plan, but that was futile. The thing was too
strange, too astoundingly fantastic.
How long Glora was gone I don't know. I think, not over three or four
minutes. She came from her hiding place, crouching this time, and
joined us. She was, probably, of normal Earth size--a small,
frail-looking girl something