"The alien," Henry replied. "I think we arrived here, in the first place, by accident and without his knowledge. As a time-traveler, he was no doubt gone from this world for long stretches of time. Perhaps a gap of several thousands of years means nothing to him. But somewhere along that alternate time he returned. He probably proceeded at once to trace down the sources of New Bretania and Texania. This could have led him not only back to Lady Dewitt and the Texans but forward, again, to this present time, to the moment when they were about to go into the time machine in the first place. Taking them prisoner thus prevented that alternate time from occurring. So it was all a lost interlude and Weston went right on talking at the meeting as though nothing had happened. Yet all the while the alien was now aware of our presence, and so he came to take us into custody."
"That is the most astounding tale I have ever listened to," said Uncle Andy. "Now tell me, Henry, why is it that only you and Martia remember that alternate time experience and we do not?"
Again—that strange, knowing look between Henry and Martia.
"Look!" cried Peggy, pointing toward the beach.
When they all turned and looked they saw the same, eternal sea as before, its lazy surf glistening in the forever light of the sky. But there was one, subtle difference. Weston lay there no longer. The whole beach was a scene of desolation—deceivingly peaceful, ominously deserted.
"Cone on!" said Uncle Andy, with sudden sternness. "We can talk about all this later. Just now we'd better try to keep one step ahead of Weston."
They took all of the available weapons with them....
The trail of the captives led them gradually upward toward the summit of the low range of hills. They soon discovered that the nature of the jungle near the seashore was much less spectacular than the aspect of it inland. It began to appear as though Nature had dumped all her experiments into one bottle and mixed them together.
They passed through "groves" of trees that were mostly roots, all intertwined like some giant vine. Their bark was like shaggy hair and their fine, web-like branches sprouted foliage that looked like feathers. Among these feathered branches crawled brilliant orange and red land crabs, some of them as much as two feet in diameter.