occupied with a thousand bewildering thoughts. What had become of
Perry? Would I ever see him again? What were the intentions of
these half-human things into whose hands I had fallen? Were they
inhabitants of the same world into which I had been born? No! It
could not be. But yet where else? I had not left that earth--of
that I was sure. Still neither could I reconcile the things which
I had seen to a belief that I was still in the world of my birth.
With a sigh I gave it up.



III

A CHANGE OF MASTERS


WE MUST HAVE TRAVELED SEVERAL MILES THROUGH the dark and dismal
wood when we came suddenly upon a dense village built high among
the branches of the trees. As we approached it my escort broke
into wild shouting which was immediately answered from within, and
a moment later a swarm of creatures of the same strange race as
those who had captured me poured out to meet us. Again I was the
center of a wildly chattering horde. I was pulled this way and
that. Pinched, pounded, and thumped until I was black and blue,
yet I do not think that their treatment was dictated by either
cruelty or malice--I was a curiosity, a freak, a new plaything,
and their childish minds required the added evidence of all their
senses to back up the testimony of their eyes.

Presently they dragged me within the village, which consisted of