CHAPTER XXI

_Riding the Giant_

I must revert now to that moment when I clung to the huge strap which was the back of Togaro's belt and was lifted through the wrecked cabin of our ship. I could see very little: the bulge of Togaro's shirt above me; the strap of his belt, wide as the length of my arm, to which I clung.

There was a rending crash. A dizzying, monstrous sweep of movement; a thump as we struck the ground; then the rhythmic swoops upward and down which marked Togaro's giant leaps as he ran.

The wind tore past me. I could see the blur of the swaying ground; I seemed at least fifty feet above it. Soon I was higher than that, for Togaro's body was constantly growing.

Then we were in the lake, Togaro wading. The water rose to his hips. It surged in white-lashed waves close under me; the spray from it drenched me. Overhead, fifty feet up or more, I could see one of Dianne's white arms clinging to Togaro's neck. He had evidently given her some of the expanding drug, so that she grew proportionately to him.

I remained tiny. His growth and hers were ended by the time we reached the island. I tried to keep my wits. I was to Togaro the size of an insect now. But if he got smaller he would very soon become aware of me. He stood in the water by the island, looking back at the city. Presently I felt his belt dwindling. I quickly took some of the diminishing drug myself.

We all three dwindled, about maintaining our relative size. The island came up and spread around us. Down into smallness we shrank. I need not detail it. I found that presently we were in a forest of immense green stalks, which might have been grass. They grew gigantic up into the sky. Soon I could only see beside us one monstrous green stalk.

There seemed a sort of ravine in the tumbled, uneven ground. Togaro walked into it. There was a valley. An encampment here!

The encampment of the Togarites on the island! Microscopically small, but Togaro dwindled into it now; and upon his belt I still was clinging.

I saw about me a group of huge dwellings. A crowd of giants. A bustle of activity, making ready for departure. And then I saw the space-ship. It was lying hidden here.

I saw that now Dianne was about the same size as Togaro. He placed her upon the ground; her head towered above my lofty perch. I heard the rumble of Togaro's voice over all the clatter of the camp.

"I will take you aboard, Dianne. We start in two hours."

We went through the ship's doorway. Down a passage, gigantic. Into a cabin, gigantic.

"Dianne, you sit here, quietly, and wait for me. Will you do that? Or are you going to cause me trouble?"

She said, "I am not foolish enough to disobey you, Togaro."

"That is right. I will not hurt you."

There was a cushion on the floor. She sat down. I peered around the bulge of Togaro's waist and saw her. She was looking up at him. Smiling, but it was a pale, harassed smile.

"You speak in English, Togaro? Why is that?"

He faced her; the movement of his turning was a wild swoop through the air for me.

He said, "When I am Master of the Earth it will be our language. We will forget Mita, you and I. This is the end of Mita." His chuckle had an ominous implication. "I will be back presently, Dianne."

I saw that there was a man stationed here at the door of the room on guard. My heart was pounding wildly. Togaro was going out. Above everything I must make my presence known to her. But how could I get down from Togaro's belt? I was fifty feet above the ground.

He walked toward the door. I stood recklessly upon the narrow ledge which was the top thickness of his belt. At the door he stopped to speak to the guard--telling him no doubt to watch Dianne carefully. Togaro's back was toward the cabin wall. A window was here, with a portière and a rope thick as my body. I was swung within a few feet of it. I leaped, caught the rope, wound my legs around it.

I slid cautiously down the fifty-foot length of rope to the ground. I found the floor in shadow. The figure of Dianne was a hundred yards away.

I ran over toward the wall and circled toward her.