aware that he had scattered the girls and had seized Nereid, holding her slim form against his huge bulk.

And one of the other girls screamed: "Tollgamo!"

Tollgamo! My first sight of him. And like Allen, for just a second I stood numbed, awed by the power, the dominance that radiated from him. He was quietly smiling. His hand went up to wave the girls away.

"Tollgamo! Tollgamo!" The name went like a wave, back from the shore, so that the merrymakers gasped, stood stricken. For that second it was a tableau, with only the smiling Tollgamo in movement. Slowly he was backing, drawing the fighting, struggling Nereid with him. Backing toward the thick clump of palms.

Then I was aware that I was dashing forward, shouting. It was only fifty feet. From one of Tollgamo's hands, a spit of tiny blue light hissed at me. Missed. Then Venta and two of the other girls had cast off their white robes. Slim little creatures, like Nereid, greenly clad. Soon Tollgamo was struggling with all four of them. He flung them off, still trying to hold Nereid.

It was only a second or two as I plunged at them. Then in a group they went over the little promontory and hit the water with a splash. Almost simultaneously I dove. The green opalescent water closed over me. Somewhere near at hand I could see the blurr of the struggling figures. But I could not reach them. With all my strength I swam, but then I had to come up for air. I dove again. Accursedly helpless. Then on another try I met a girl coming up, then another and another—all four of them bobbing to the surface with me. All panting; unhurt, but angry that they had not captured Tollgamo!

Then Venta and the other two girls swam away on their errand. Nereid drew me forward as we swam, to avoid the commotion of gathered people on the bank. Tollgamo was gone. His plan had been, quite evidently, to dive into the water with Nereid here. Some twenty feet down, as the girls attacked him, he had tried to shove Nereid through a rock-rift, which obviously opened again to some cave where air was trapped.

"I got away from him," Nereid was saying. "A man, even Tollgamo, is so clumsy in the water, so quick to smother. I could have followed him but he blocked the little passage with a rock."

"And maybe he's trapped down there?"

She shook her head. "There are so many passages, and all lead out to the sea. Of course he 

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