“The Ragged Men,” said Tommy very quietly. “They sneaked up on the Tube. They flung blazing thermit, or something like it, with a weapon captured from the Golden City. That explosion was the grenades going off. I’m afraid the Tube’s blown up, Evelyn.”
She caught her breath, looking mutely up at him.
“Here’s a pistol,” he said briefly, “and shells. There’s no use our going to the Tube to-night. It would be dangerous. We’ll do our investigating at dawn.”
He found a crevice where tree-fern trunks grew close together and closed in three sides of a sort of roofless cave. He seated himself grimly at the opening to wait for daybreak. He was not easy in his mind. There had been two Tubes to the Fifth-Dimension world. One had been made by Jacaro for his gunmen. That was now held by the men of the Golden City, as was proved by carnivorous lizards and the Death Mist that had come down it. The other was now blown up or, worse, in the hands of the Ragged Men. In any case Tommy and Evelyn were isolated upon a strange planet in a strange universe. To fall into the hands of the Ragged Men was to die horribly, and the Golden City would not now welcome inhabitants of the world Jacaro and his men had come from. To the civilized men of this world, Jacaro’s raids would seem invasion. They would seem acts of war on the part of the people of Earth. And the people of Earth, all of them, would seem enemies. Jacaro would never be identified as an unauthorized invader. He would seem to be a scout, an advance guard, a spy, for hordes of other invaders yet to come.
As the long night wore away, Tommy’s grim hopelessness intensified. The Ragged Men would hunt them for sport and out of hatred for all sane human beings. The men of the Golden City would be merciless to compatriots of Jacaro’s gunmen. And Tommy had Evelyn to look out for.
When dawn came, his face was drawn and lined. Evelyn woke with a little gasp, staring affrightedly about her. Then she tried gamely to smile.
“Morning, Tommy,” she said shakily. She added in a brave attempt at levity: “Where do we go from here?”
“We look at the Tube,” said Tommy heavily. “There’s a bare chance….”