and little by little my sight came back.

Polter was on his feet, rushing me. His fist came with an upward swing
at my chin, but I ducked my head aside at the last moment.

And suddenly, fighting up there in the open, my mind envisaged how
gigantic we were! This was a great upland plateau, rounded with miles
of distance and a shadowy, dimly radiant abyss beyond its circular
horizon. And I was a thousand feet or more tall! A titan, looming here
in the sky!...

* * * * *

My fist quite unexpectedly caught Polter's jaw. His simultaneous swing
went wild, though I leaped backward from it. He staggered, and his
arms dropped to his sides. I was crouched forward, guarded, watching
him while I gasped for breath. There was the briefest of instants when
an expression of vague surprise swept his face. But I had not knocked
him out.

It was death overtaking him. His heart was yielding, overtaxed from
this strain; and I think there at the last, he realized it. The blood
drained suddenly from his face and lips, leaving them livid. I saw
fear, then a wild horror in his eyes. He stood swaying. Then his knees
gave way and he toppled. He fell from his height in the air where I
stood gazing at him--fell forward on his face, his titanic length
spread all across the top of this rocky landscape!

For a moment I did not move. My head was reeling, my ears roaring.
Blood streamed into my eyes. I wiped it away with a torn sleeve and
stood panting, gazing at the glowing distance around me.

I was a titan, standing there. The body of Polter was shrinking at my
feet. The circular abyss of emptiness came nearer as this rocky
eminence contracted.

Suddenly my attention went to the sky overhead. Vague distant lights
were there. Then a broad flat blur seemed spread over me. Light
everywhere was growing. Beyond the nearby brink of the abyss was a
white reflected radiance from beneath. Abruptly I realized there was a
level, flat white plain running far off there in the distance.

Overhead a radiance contracted into a spot of light. A shape in the
sky moved! I heard a far-away rumble--a human voice!

The body of Polter lay at my feet. It was hardly the length of my
forearm I stood, a titan.

And then, with a shock of realization, I saw how tiny I was! This was
the broken top of that fragment of golden quartz the size of a walnut!
I was standing there, under the lens of the giant microscope in
Polter's dome-room