Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 10.djvu/71

Rh They swung their clubs at Don, who stood in their path, but he jumped higher than their heads, his sword stabbing out at their throats.

"Onto the roof," Don said, "before more of these things come."

He went to the window, but the zekolo knew a better way. Reaching up, it knocked a hole in the ceiling. Soon it had lifted all the prisoners onto the roof.

"We should be able to escape now," the big Martian said. "If only our bracelets were off we would be quite happy."

"I am afraid I can't manage that," Don said.

"But your zekolo can."

And Don discovered, to his surprise, that the tough pincers of the zekolo could even cut through the metal chains, with some effort. Soon the prisoners had their arms free.

The party went down into another house in the same block, and, watching their chance, slipped across the street into a house opposite. The city was nearly empty of ape-men by now, and those left were hurrying from house to house, setting them on fire.

"I must be off to find the Princess," Don said. "I have lost too much time."

In a moment he returned.

"I forgot to ask you. Can zekolos swim?"

"Like fish," he was told.

"And what is the word of command to tell a zekolo to take to the water?"

"Hoddors."

"Thanks."

He went away again.

E would have to get wet. The deathray would get a soaking, too.

The metal cover of the box looked watertight, and he decided to take it with him, useless though it was at the moment.

The sea was as smooth as a mirror. He found a motorboat tied at a deserted quay, and the silent atomic engine carried him swiftly out into the darkness of the deep water.

Some of the ships in the docks were moving, gliding out to sea. He wondered if Wimpolo was on board any of them. There was no way of knowing. Most of the civilians from the city who lived had been taken aboard the submarines; that much was certain. He could only take a chance that Wimpolo was on the biggest of them.

Don was no sailor. A great liner surged past, a long way off, and the wake, which he had not thought about, swamped his boat. He found himself swimming.

"Hoddors," he said, needlessly, for the zekolo had to swim or drown.

As the Martians had said, the creature was quite at home in the water. It swam with graceful, undulating motions of its many arms. The water was warm. Don was lifted out of the water by one of the zekolo's arms and placed on its back.

They began a dangerous swim among the shipping. Cranes and trucks were busy loading the ships. Loot from the city, he supposed. Many boats were sinking at their moorings, and he realized that little of any value and hardly anybody alive would be left by the time the ape-men and their mysterious masters had left the city.

Brute beasts were in possession here, and the uniformed men in charge seemed unable to do much to restrain them, even if they had wished to.

The submarine was of enormous size. It had a superstructure that carried the curious mechanism of the