so close to the House, as to be able to
distinguish many of the details about it. The longer I looked, the more
was I confirmed in my long-ago impressions of its entire similitude to
this strange house. Save in its enormous size, I could find
nothing unlike.

Suddenly, as I stared, a great feeling of amazement filled me. I had
come opposite to that part, where the outer door, leading into the
study, is situated. There, lying right across the threshold, lay a great
length of coping stone, identical--save in size and color--with the
piece I had dislodged in my fight with the Pit-creatures.

I floated nearer, and my astonishment increased, as I noted that the
door was broken partly from its hinges, precisely in the manner that my
study door had been forced inward, by the assaults of the Swine-things.
The sight started a train of thoughts, and I began to trace, dimly,
that the attack on this house, might have a far deeper significance than
I had, hitherto, imagined. I remembered how, long ago, in the old
earth-days, I had half suspected that, in some unexplainable manner,
this house, in which I live, was _en rapport_--to use a recognized
term--with that other tremendous structure, away in the midst of that
incomparable Plain.

Now, however, it began to be borne upon me, that I had but vaguely
conceived what the realization of my suspicion meant. I began to
understand, with a more than human clearness, that the attack I had
repelled, was, in some extraordinary manner, connected with an attack
upon that strange edifice.

With a curious inconsequence, my thoughts abruptly left the matter; to
dwell, wonderingly, upon the peculiar material, out of which the House
was constructed. It was--as I have mentioned, earlier--of a deep, green
color. Yet, now that I had come so close to it, I perceived that it
fluctuated at times, though slightly--glowing and fading, much as do the
fumes of phosphorus, when rubbed upon the hand, in the dark.

Presently, my attention was distracted from this, by coming to the
great entrance. Here, for the first time, I was afraid; for, all in a
moment, the huge doors swung back, and I drifted in between them,
helplessly. Inside, all was blackness, impalpable. In an instant, I had
crossed the threshold, and the great doors closed, silently, shutting me
in that lightless place.

For a while, I seemed to hang, motionless; suspended amid the darkness.
Then, I became conscious that I was moving again; wh