unseen creatures.




CHAPTER 3


It was a long descent, made longer by the blindfold and clumsier by
his inability to move his arms. More than once Lockley stumbled. Twice
he fell. The clawlike hands or handlike claws lifted him and thrust
him on the way that was being chosen for him. There were whistling
squeaks. Presently he realized that some of them were directed at him.
A squeak or whistle in a warning tone told him that he must be
especially careful just here.

He came to accept the warnings. It occurred to him that the squeaks
sounded very much like those button-shaped hollow whistles that
children put in their mouths to make strident sounds of varying pitch.
Gradually, all his senses returned to normal. Even his eyes under the
blindfold ceased to report only glare blindness, and he saw those
peculiar, dissolving grayish patterns that human eyes transmit from
darkness.

More squeakings. A long time later he moved over nearly level grassy
ground. He was led for possibly half a mile. He had not tried to speak
during all his descent. It would have been useless. If he was to be
killed, he would be killed. But trouble had been taken to bring him
down alive from a remaining bit of crumbling crater wall. His captors
had evidently some use for him in mind.