thin lines like insects behind us, we plunged forward to the battle.

V

"There they are!" Jim called.

Five hundred feet below us the forest tree-tops were a fantastic matted mass of vivid vegetation. And suddenly, down in a glade, the line of Curtmann's men was visible. More than I had thought—there seemed a full four hundred of them. In two columns they plodded slowly forward. With them was a great wheeled cart, like a clumsy barge. Evidently Curtmann had built it in Shan. It toiled forward, with the marching men in advance of it and behind it. We could see that it was drawn by harnessed lines of Midges—hundreds of the tiny figures plodding on the ground, bending hunched as they pulled the huge creaking vehicle. The top of the cart was uncovered and a dozen men were riding in it. Groups of them were seated, around a little raised platform on which was mounted what seemed a huge projector.

"Keep the Midges high," I called to Venta who was near me. "Wait until I give the signal."

Our Midges were circling, wildly excited now that the enemy was in sight beneath them. Jim and I had discussed our tactics. In groups of about a hundred we would send the Midges plummeting down. Each would try to stab one of Curtmann's men and then come up again. The enta-poison, Venta had told us, was deadly—sure death if enough of it got into the blood-stream. But it did not act at once; five minutes or more was necessary before the victim would feel its lethal effect.

We made a great sweeping half-circle, plunging down as though to attack and leveling at above two hundred feet. As we passed over the lines of watching men and the cart, two or three bolts stabbed up, fell short. Then a man's voice roared orders to withhold the fire.

Curtmann. As we passed at the lower altitude over the cart I saw him standing on a raised platform near its front. We swept past, and up again.

"We better swoop now," Jim urged. "This is as good a place to attack as any we'll ever get."

That was obvious. The lines of men were in an open glade. A few hundred feet ahead of them, the forest was dense again. It would be far more difficult for our Midges to swoop down and attack amid the enveloping lacery of vegetation.

And Curtmann, even though probably he had not as yet the least fear of us, already was starting to advance again. 

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