. Rebecca, with all her directness of
nature and commonplace experience, felt in this unwonted presence that
sense of awed mystery which she would have called a "creepy feeling."

What unknown and incomprehensible forces were locked within that
formless mass? By what manner of race as yet unborn had its elements
been brought together--no, no--_would_ they be brought together? How
assume a comfortable mental attitude toward this creation whose present
existence so long antedated its own origin?

One sentiment, at least, Rebecca could entertain with hearty
consistency. Curiosity asserted its supremacy over every other feeling.

"Can't we get into the thing, an' light a candle or suthin'?" she said.

"Of course we can," said Droop. "That's what I brought ye here fer. Take
holt o' my hand an' lift yer feet, or you'll stumble."

Leading his companion by the hand, Copernicus approached the dark form,
moving with great caution over the clumps of grassy turf. Presently he
reached the side of the machine. Rebecca heard him strike it with his
hand two or three times, as though groping for something. Then she was
drawn forward again, and suddenly found herself entering an invisible
doorway. She stumbled on the threshold and flung out her free hand for
support. She clutched at a hand-rail that seemed to lead spirally
upward.

Droop's voice came out of the blackness.

"Jest wait here a minute," he said. "I'll go up an' turn on the light."

She heard him climbing a short flight of stairs, and a few moments later
a flood of light streamed from a doorway above her head, amply lighting
the little hallway in which Rebecca was standing.

The hand-rail to which she was already clinging skirted the iron stairs
leading to the light, and she started at once up this narrow spiral.

She was met at the door by Copernicus, who was smiling with a proud
complacency.

"Wal, Cousin Rebecca," he said, with a sweeping gesture indicating their
general surroundings, "what d'ye think o' this?"

They were standing at the head of a sort of companion-way in a roomy
antechamber much resembling the general cabin of a luxurious old-time
sailing-packet. The top of the stairs was placed between two windows in
one side wall of the machine, through which there was just then entering
a gentle breeze. Two similar openings faced these in the opposite side
wall, and under each of the four windows there was a long wooden bench
carrying a flat mattress cushi