"'I've waited a long time, Allie,' Sands put in, holding Allie's shoulder and looking into her eyes lovingly.
"'Then I will marry you at once, Robert,' she said, her eyes shining with happy tears. 'Father can perform the ceremony.'
"Fascinated, I watched the procedure that followed, forgetting my duty as guard in whose hands must rest the lives of the happy three. With my eyes and attention on Allie as she whispered 'I do,' I failed to notice that Abaris had suddenly come to the entrance of the chamber and was standing there silently regarding the trio. Lane was saying 'I now pronounce you man and wife,' when I beheld Abaris' towering form as he stood menacingly just inside the room. The tubes of his forehead stuck out rigidly, his tentacle-like arms twitching in anger, and his owlish eyes opened and closed rapidly. I shrank back into the darkness of the tunnel, fearful, lest I be discovered. From my hiding place, however, I could see the entire chamber.
"As though struck by some terrific force, Sands and Lane at once spun around and faced Abaris. Allie emitted a fearful little cry and shrank back against the wall. Abaris' tubes were pointed at them menacingly and I knew that he was speaking to them in his peculiar mental telepathy. What words flew between them I was not able to catch for I had learned that I could not receive the wave vibrations unless the tubes were pointing directly at me.
"Suddenly I heard Sands' words as he angrily informed Abaris that Allie had just become his wife and that it was no man's business what he was doing in the chamber with her. His features twitched with growing anger as he spoke, his hands were clenched.
"'You, frog-face!' I heard him shout, 'I've searched for Allie Lane for forty years! Now that I have found her and she has become my wife, you nor anyone else can take her away from me alive!'
"'Eloli is the bride of Jupiter, Man of the Earth!' I caught the thunderous vibrations from Abaris' tubes which now waved spasmodically in all directions. His thoughts were so powerful that they carried to me where I crouched.
"'Allie Lane is my wife!' cried Sands, hotly. 'We die before she goes with you to your planet of crazy freaks!'
"'Yes, O Abaris,' Lane put in, weakly, shaking as one palsied. 'Allie is this man's wife. You cannot take her away from him. It is the law of humanity!'
"Abaris' frog-like beak opened and then closed with a resounding snap. I expected him momentarily to bring into play his terrible, invisible ray of death. His skinny, tube-like legs held up his barrel-shaped body admirably, I thought, as I watched him from my hiding place. They seemed like stilts, unjointed except at the hips, around which was draped a narrow breech cloth of gold-edged purple. His body glistened oilily and around his bald, misshapen head rested a thin metal band, glowing luminously green. His antennae tubes waved angrily.