"Suicide!" was Kreiss' verdict, and Harkness confirmed his words.
"I saw things that moved up in the trees," he said. "Lord knows what they were; Birds—beasts of some sort! But they were alive till the gas touched them. I saw it drift among the trees when we left, and those things up there came plopping down like ripe apples."
Diane Delacouer looked up at Harkness with wide, serious eyes. "Then," she shrugged, "we are really—"
"Castaways," Harkness told her. "We're on our own—off on a desert island—shipwrecked—all that sort of thing! And you might as well know the worst of it; you, too, Kreiss.
"Our good friend, Schwartzmann, is at large, and he has the pistol and ammunition we brought out from the ship. He is armed, and we are not; he has food, and we have none. And I'll have to admit that I didn't have any breakfast and could use a little right now."
"There are seven shells left in my pistol," said Diane. She held the weapon out to Harkness; he took it carefully.
"Seven," he said; "it is all we have. We must kill some animals for food, my dear, but not with these; we must save these for bigger game."
"But we cannot!" expostulated Kreiss. "To kill game with our bare hands—impossible! We are doomed!"
And now Chet caught Diane's glance brimming with mirth that was undisguised. Truly, Diane Delacouer would have her laugh in the face of death.
"Doomed?" she exclaimed. "Not while Chet and I know how to make bows and arrows!... Do you suppose we can find any of their old spears, Chet? They made gorgeous bows, you remember."