among the swimmers, who struggled to reach it. I saw one person,
evidently a girl, grasp it and drag herself upon it. It swept on past
the few others still struggling.

The wrecked boat with the girl upon it seemed coming swiftly toward
our blue-rimmed window. In a few minutes I saw something familiar
about her.

"It's Virginia!" Charlie cried. "God! We've got to save her, somehow!"

The long rollers drove the over-turned boat swiftly along. Virginia
Randall clung desperately to it, deluged in foam, whipped with flying
spray, the wild wind tearing at her.

About us, the clear still night was deepening. The air was warm and
still; the hot stars shone steadily. Quiet lighted houses were in
sight above the beach. It was very strange to look through the
fire-rimmed circle, to see a girl struggling for life, clinging to a
wrecked boat in a stormy sea.

Charlie watched in an apathy of grief and horror, trembling and
speechless doing nothing except move the controls to keep the floating
girl in our sight.

* * * * *

Hours went by as we watched. Then Charlie cried out in sudden hope.
"There's a chance! I might do it! I might be able to save her!"

"Might do what?"

"We are able to see what we do because the field of the meteor bends
light through the four-dimensional continuum. The world line of a ray
of light is a geodesic in the continuum. The field I have built
distorts the continuum, so we see rays that originated at a distant
point. Is that clear?"

"Clear as mud!"

"Well, anyhow, if the field were strong enough, we could bring
physical objects through space-time, instead of mere visual images. We
could pick Virginia up and bring her right here to the crater! I'm
sure of it!"

"You mean you could move a girl through some four or five thousand
miles of space!"

"You don't understand. She wouldn't come through space at all, but
through space-time, through the continuum, which is a very different
thing. She is four thousand miles away in our three-dimensional space,
but in space-time, as you see, she is only a few yards away. She is
only a few yards from us in the fourth dimension. If I can increase
the field a little, she will be drawn right through!"

"You're a wizard if you can do it!"

"I've got to do it! She's a fine swimmer--that's the only reason she's
still alive--but she'll never live to reach the shore. Not in a sea
like that!"

Charlie fell to work at once, mo