the nocturnal intruder. Better, far better would it have been
had he given in to the insistent demand of his subconscious
mentor; but his almost fanatical obsession to save ammunition
proved now his undoing, for while his attention was riveted upon
the thing circling before him and while his ears were filled with
the beating of its wings, there swooped silently out of the black
night behind him another weird and ghostly shape. With its huge
wings partly closed for the dive and its white robe fluttering in
its wake, the apparition swooped down upon the Englishman.

So great was the force of the impact when the thing struck
Bradley between the shoulders that the man was half stunned.
His rifle flew from his grasp; he felt clawlike talons of great
strength seize him beneath his arms and sweep him off his feet;
and then the thing rose swiftly with him, so swiftly that his cap
was blown from his head by the rush of air as he was borne
rapidly upward into the inky sky and the cry of warning to his
companions was forced back into his lungs.

The creature wheeled immediately toward the east and was at once
joined by its fellow, who circled them once and then fell in
behind them. Bradley now realized the strategy that the pair
had used to capture him and at once concluded that he was in the
power of reasoning beings closely related to the human race if
not actually of it.

Past experience suggested that the great wings were a part of
some ingenious mechanical device, for the limitations of the
human mind, which is always loath to accept aught beyond its own
little experience, would not permit him to entertain the idea