eternity. But
let me tell precisely what happened that night when at precisely 10:08
in the solitude of my apartment room, I swallowed half an ounce of Relin
and stretched myself out on the bed, well knowing that I was taking
incalculable risks, and that insanity and even death were by no means
remote possibilities of the road ahead. But let that be as it may! In my
opinion, there is no coward more despicable than he who will not face
danger for the sake of knowledge.

My head reeled, and something seemed to buzz inside it as soon as the
bitter half ounce of fluid slipped down my throat. I was barely able to
reach the bed and throw myself upon it when there came a snapping as of
something inside my brain ... then, for a period, blankness ... then a
gradual awakening with that feeling of exhilaration one experiences only
after the most blissful sleep. I opened my eyes, feeling strong and
light of limb and charged with a marvelous vital energy--but, as I
peered about me, my lips drew far apart in astonishment, and I am sure
that I gaped like one who has seen a ghost.

Where were the familiar walls of my two-by-four room, the bureau, the
book-rack, the ancient portrait of Pasteur that hung in its glass frame
just above the foot of the bed? Gone! vanished as utterly as though they
had never been! I was standing on a wide and windy plain, with the gale
beating in my ears, and with rapid sunset-colored clouds scudding
across the blood-stained west. Mingled with the wailing of the blast,
there was a deep sobbing sound that struck me in successive waves, like
the ululations of great multitudes of far-off mourners. And while I was
wondering what this might mean and felt a prickling of horror along my
spine, the first of the portents swept across the sky. I say "portents,"
for I do not know by what other term to describe the apparitions; high
in the heavens, certainly at an altitude of many miles, the flaming
thing swept across my view, comet-shaped and stretching over at least
ten degrees of arc, swift as a meteor, brilliantly flesh-red, sputtering
sparks like an anvil, and leaving behind it a long ruddy trail that only
slowly faded out amid the darkening skies.

It must have been a full minute after its disappearance before the
hissing of its flight came to my ears--a hissing so sharp, so nastily
insistent that it reached me even above the noise of the wind. And more
than another minute had passed before the earth beneath me