strode forward
and swept the drapery aside. The rush of perfume was over-powering,
and through the opening came a soft glow of light.

It was a moment before I got my breath; then a mist seemed to fall
from before my eyes and a strange sense of exaltation and well-being
stole through me. I saw Godfrey standing motionless, transfixed, with
one hand holding back the drapery, and his torch hanging unused in the
other, and I crept forward and peered over his shoulder at the
strangest scene I have ever gazed upon.

Just in front of us, poised in the air some three feet from the floor,
hung a sphere of crystal, glowing with a soft radiance which seemed to
wax and wane, to quiver almost to darkness and then to burn more
clearly. It was like a dreamer's pulse, fluttering, pausing, leaping,
in accord with his vision. And as I gazed at the sphere, I fancied I
could see within it strange, elusive shapes, which changed and merged
and faded from moment to moment, and yet grew always clearer and more
suggestive. I bent forward, straining my eyes to see them better, to
fathom their meaning ...

Godfrey, turning to speak to me, saw my attitude and shook me roughly
by the arm.

"Don't do that, Lester!" he growled in my ear. "Take your eyes off
that crystal!"

I tried to move my eyes, but could not, until Godfrey pulled me around
to face him. I stood blinking at him stupidly.

"I was nearly gone, myself, before I realised the danger," he said. "A
sphere like that can hypnotise a man more quickly than anything else
on earth, especially when his resistance is lessened, as it is by this
heavy perfume."

"It was rather pleasant," I said. "I should like to try it some time."

"Well, you can't try it now. You've got something else to do. Besides,
it has two victims already."

"Two victims?"

"Look carefully, but keep your eyes off the sphere," he said, and
swung me around toward the room again.

The room was shrouded in impenetrable darkness, except for the faint
and quivering radiance which the sphere emitted, and as I plunged my
eyes into its depths in an effort to see what lay there, it seemed to
me that I had never seen blackness so black. As I stared into it,
with straining eyes, a vague form grew dimly visible beside the
glowing sphere; and then I recoiled a little, for suddenly it took
shape and I saw it was a man.

I had a queer fancy, as I stood there, that it was really a picture
into which I was gazing--one of Remb