y feeling it all over, he discovered that it was
a sort of stone slab, or couch, raised a foot or eighteen inches from
the ground. She told him to lie down.

"Has the time come?" asked Maskull.

"Yes."

He lay there waiting in the darkness, ignorant of what was going to
happen. He felt her hand clasping his. Without perceiving any gradation,
he lost all consciousness of his body; he was no longer able to feel his
limbs or internal organs. His mind remained active and alert. Nothing
particular appeared to be taking place.

Then the chamber began to grow light, like very early morning. He could
see nothing, but the retina of his eyes was affected. He fancied that
he heard music, but while he was listening for it, it stopped. The
light grew stronger, the air grew warmer; he heard the confused sound of
distant voices.

Suddenly Tydomin gave his hand a powerful squeeze. He heard someone
scream faintly, and then the light leaped up, and he saw everything
clearly.

He was lying on a wooden couch, in a strangely decorated room, lighted
by electricity. His hand was being squeezed, not by Tydomin, but by
a man dressed in the garments of civilisation, with whose face he was
certainly familiar, but under what circumstances he could not recall.
Other people stood in the background--they too were vaguely known to
him. He sat up and began to smile, without any especial reason; and then
stood upright.

Everybody seemed to be watching him with anxiety and emotion--he
wondered why. Yet he felt that they were all acquaintances. Two in
particular he knew--the man at the farther end of the room, who paced
restlessly backward and forward, his face transfigured by stern, holy
grandeur; and that other big, bearded man--who was himself. Yes--he was
looking at his own double. But it was just as if a crime-riddled man
of middle age were suddenly confronted with his own photograph as an
earnest, idealistic youth.

His other self spoke to him. He heard the sounds, but did not comprehend
the sense. Then the door was abruptly flung open, and a short,
brutish-looking individual leaped in. He began to behave in an
extraordinary manner to everyone around him; and after that came
straight up to him--Maskull. He spoke some words, but they were
incomprehensible. A terrible expression came over the newcomer's face,
and he grasped his neck with a pair of hairy hands. Maskull felt his
bones bending and breaking, excruciating pains passed through al