fact that we
were squatting on a hard floor did not help matters, for the floor
seemed to be falling too and to be turning around bewilderingly, just as
the whorls of colored light had done. The gray-beard's voice boomed
again; whereat there was more music, and light in tune to it.

This time, of all unexpected things, Beethoven's Overture to Leonore
began to take visible form in the night, and I would rather be able to
set down what we saw than write Homer's Iliad! It must be that we knew
then all that Beethoven did. It was not just wind music, or mere
strings, but a whole, full-volumed orchestra--where or whence there was
no guessing; the music came at you from everywhere at once, and with it
light, interpreting the music.

To me that has always been the most wonderful overture in the world
anyhow, for it seems to describe creation when the worlds took form in
the void; but with that light, each tone and semi-tone and chord and
harmony expressed in the absolutely pure color that belonged to it, it
was utterly beyond the scope of words. It was a new unearthly language,
more like a glimpse of the next world than anything in this.

The combination of color and music was having a highly desirable effect
on me. Nothing could have done more to counteract the effects of the
godless din that bowled me over in the other cavern.

But King was having a rotten time. He was heaving now as he tried to
master himself. I heard him exclaiming--

"Oh my God!" as if the physical torture were unbearable.

The Gray Mahatma was not troubling about King. He had shifted his
position so as to watch me, and he seemed to expect me to collapse. So I
showed as little as possible of my real feelings, and shut my eyes at
intervals as if bewildered. Then he cried out just as the gray-beard on
the ledge had done.

The overture to Leonore ceased. The colors gave place to the restful
golden light. King had not collapsed yet, and his usual Spartan
self-mastery prevented him then from betraying much in the way of
symptoms. So I clutched my head and tried to look all-in, which gave me
a chance to whisper to King under my arm.

"Can you hang on?"

"Dunno. How are you doing?"

"Fine."

The Gray Mahatma seemed to think that I was appealing to King for help.
He looked delighted. Between my fingers I could see him signaling to the
gray-beard on the ledge. The golden light vanished again. And now once
more they gave us Eastern music, awful stuff,