ess of the passing of Time--which
lasted several hours. Tugh altered his Time-rate and sped more
swiftly. My heart sank, for this showed he was not preparing to stop.
We lost direct sight of the other cage several times as it drew ahead
of us. But it was always visible on the image-mirror.

"I think," Tina said finally, "that we should stay behind it. When he
retards to stop, we will have a better opportunity of landing
simultaneously with him."

We passed 100,000 A.D. The forest went down, and it seemed that only
rocks were here. A barren vista was visible off to the river and the
distant sea. The familiar conformations of the sea and the land were
changed. There was a different shore-line. It was nearer at hand now;
and it was creeping closer.

I stared at that blurred gray surface of water; at the wide,
undulating stretch of rock. We came to 1,000,000 A.D.--a million years
into my future. Ice came briefly, and vanished again. But there were
no trees springing into life on this barren landscape. I could not
fancy that even the transitory habitations of humans were here in this
cold desolation.

Were we headed for the End? I could envisage a dying world, its
internal fires cooling.

Ten million years.... Then a hundred million.... The gray scene,
blended of dark nights and sunshine days, began changing its
monochrome. There were fleeting alternating intervals, now, when it
was darker, and then lighter with a tinge of red. The Earth's rotation
was slowing down. Through thousands of centuries the change had been
proceeding, but only now could I see the lengthening days and nights.
Perhaps now the day was a month long, and the night the same.

* * * * *

A billion years! 1,000,000,000 A.D.! By now the day and the year were
of equal length. And it chanced that this Western Hemisphere faced the
sun. I could see the sun now, motionless above the horizon. The scene
was dull red. The sun painted the rocks and the sullen sea with
blood....

A shout from Larry whirled me round. "George! Good God!"

He was bending over the image-mirror; Tina, ghastly pale, with utter
horror stamped upon her face, sprang for the controls. On the mirror I
caught a fleeting glimpse of Tugh's cage, wrecked and broken--and
instantly gone.

"It stopped!" Larry shouted. "Good God, it stopped all at once! It was
wrecked! Smashed!"

We reeled; I all but lost consciousness with the shock of our own
abrupt reta