the
very small to the almost indiscernible. They were not green, but he
somehow saw them so. They were all striving in one direction--toward
himself, toward Muspel, but were too feeble and miniature to make any
headway. Their action produced the marching rhythm he had previously
felt, but this rhythm was not intrinsic in the corpuscles themselves,
but was a consequence of the obstruction they met with. And, surrounding
these atoms of life and light, were far larger whirls of white light
that gyrated hither and thither, carrying the green corpuscles with
them wherever they desired. Their whirling motion was accompanied by the
waltzing rhythm. It seemed to Nightspore that the green atoms were
not only being danced about against their will but were suffering
excruciating shame and degradation in consequence. The larger ones were
steadier than the extremely small, a few were even almost stationary,
and one was advancing in the direction it wished to go.

He turned his back to the window, buried his face in his hands, and
searched in the dim recesses of his memory for an explanation of what he
had just seen. Nothing came straight, but horror and wrath began to take
possession of him.

On his way upward to the next window, invisible fingers seemed to him
to be squeezing his heart and twisting it about here and there; but he
never dreamed of turning back. His mood was so grim that he did not once
permit himself to pause. Such was his physical distress by the time that
he had clambered into the recess, that for several minutes he could see
nothing at all--the world seemed to be spinning round him rapidly.

When at last he looked, he saw the same sphere as before, but now all
was changed on it. It was a world of rocks, minerals, water, plants,
animals, and men. He saw the whole world at one view, yet everything was
so magnified that he could distinguish the smallest details of life. In
the interior of every individual, of every aggregate of individuals,
of every chemical atom, he clearly perceived the presence of the green
corpuscles. But, according to the degree of dignity of the life form,
they were fragmentary or comparatively large. In the crystal, for
example, the green, imprisoned life was so minute as to be scarcely
visible; in some men it was hardly bigger; but in other men and women it
was twenty or a hundred times greater. But, great or small, it played
an important part in every individual. It appeared as if the whi