speedy a return to
his own world. "Let's get going," he suggested quickly. "It sounds a
cinch."

They started away in a few minutes more, leaving the body of Targo lying
where it had fallen across the river. In half an hour of walking they
located without difficulty the huge incline down which the Chemist had
fallen when first he came into the ring. Following along the bottom of
the incline they reached his landing place--a mass of small rocks and
pebbles of a different metallic-looking stone than the ground around
marking it plainly. These were the rocks and boulders that had been
brought down with him in his fall.

"From here," said the Chemist, as they came to a halt, "we can go up
into the valley by growth alone. It is several hours, but we need move
very little from this position."

"How about eating?" suggested the Very Young Man.

They sat down at the base of the incline and ate another meal--rather a
more lavish one this time, for the rest they had taken, and the prospect
of a shorter journey ahead of them than they had anticipated made the
Doctor less strict. Then, the meal over, they took the amount of the
drug the Chemist specified. He measured it carefully--more than ten of
the pills.

"We have a long wait," the Chemist said, when the first sickness from
this tremendous dose had left them.

The time passed quickly. They spoke seldom, for the extraordinary
rapidity with which the aspect of the landscape was changing, and the
remarkable sensations they experienced, absorbed all their attention.

In about two hours after taking the drug the curving, luminous line that
was the upper edge of the incline came into view, faint and blurred, but
still distinct against the blackness of the sky. The incline now was
noticeably steeper; each moment they saw its top coming down towards
them out of the heights above, and its surface smoothing out and
becoming more nearly perpendicular.

They were all standing up now. The ground beneath them seemed in rapid
motion, coming towards them from all directions, and dwindling away
beneath their feet. The incline too--now in form a vertical concave
wall--kept shoving itself forward, and they had to step backwards
continually to avoid its thrust.

Within another hour a similar concave wall appeared behind them which
they could follow with their eyes entirely around the circumference of
the great pit in which they now found themselves. The sides of this pit
soon became c