What manner of thing was upon me I did not
know, but that it was large and heavy and many-
legged I could feel. My hands were at its throat
before the fangs had a chance to bury themselves
in my neck, and slowly I forced the hairy face
from me and closed my fingers, vise-like, upon its
windpipe.

Without sound we lay there, the beast exerting
every effort to reach me with those awful fangs,
and I straining to maintain my grip and choke the
life from it as I kept it from my throat. Slowly
my arms gave to the unequal struggle, and inch by
inch the burning eyes and gleaming tusks of my
antagonist crept toward me, until, as the hairy face
touched mine again, I realized that all was over.
And then a living mass of destruction sprang from
the surrounding darkness full upon the creature
that held me pinioned to the ground. The two
rolled growling upon the moss, tearing and rend-
ing one another in a frightful manner, but it was
soon over and my preserver stood with lowered
head above the throat of the dead thing which
would have killed me.

The nearer moon, hurtling suddenly above
the horizon and lighting up the Barsoomian
scene, showed me that my preserver was Woola,

-220-