again for indications of eyelids. He saw not one flicker, but noticed a
certain tiny come-and-go, the merest sort of vibration, which indicated
the agent's heart-action. Apparently it beat more than twice as fast as
Smith's.

But it relieved him to know that his agent was at least a genuine living
being. For a moment he had fancied something utterly repellent to him.
Suppose this Sanusian were not any form of natural creature at all, but
some sort of supermachine, capable of functioning like an organism? The
thought made the engineer shudder as no morgue could.

Presently the queer craft approached the water closely enough, and at
such an angle, that Smith looked eagerly for a reflection. However, the
water was exceedingly rough, and only a confused brownish blur could be
made out. Once he caught a queer sound above the noise of the water; a
shrill hiss, with a harsh whine at the end. "Just like some kind of
suction apparatus," as he later described it.

And then, with that peculiar sound fresh in his ears, came the crowning
shock of the whole experience. Floating toward the boulder, but some
distance away, was what looked like a black seed. Next moment the vision
flashed clear, as usual, and the engineer saw that the object was really
a beetle; and in a second it was so near that Smith's own body, back on
the earth, involuntarily shrank back into the recesses of his chair.

For that beetle was an enormity in the most unlimited sense of the word.
It was infinitely larger than any beetle the engineer had ever seen--
infinitely! It was as large as a good-sized horse!

But before Smith could get over his amazement there was a rush and a