le, upon which the patient lies,
with just sufficient room for two persons inside, and is kept at the
temperature of the body. On its top is a small globe made of the same
material, measuring but a few inches in diameter, which is connected
with the large chamber below by a neck or passage about an inch wide.
The patient is placed inside, and there operated upon. If life leaves
the body, either during the operation or after, the spirit ascends
through the narrow passage into the small globe above and is there
retained, as it cannot pass through the material of which the walls of
this chamber are constructed. The body is then kept continually bathed
in the regenerating rays, which not only preserve it as if life were in
it, but actually carry on the process of healing. This continues until
the body is in a perfectly sound and healthy condition again, and well
able to retain life.

"And now occurs the most wonderful of all. When everything is in
readiness for the spirit to enter the body again, a strong flow of
super-radium is sent through the top globe from an instrument attached.
Passing through the small chamber and down the narrow passage, it
reaches the body, and immediately changes to a return flow. This current
is but momentary; the patient is seen to move, and the body is once more
quickened by the life spark. The flow of super-radium has conveyed the
spirit of the patient from the small chamber above and released it in
the body as it returned, in exactly the same manner as it does with
light-waves or sound-waves."

"Marvelous!" I gasped, though my mind could only slowly comprehend this
almost miraculous achievement. With such vast scientific resources
nothing seemed impossible to Martians.

Almos had stopped abruptly. A change came over him. His face paled and
his lips set in a hard, determined expression. Instantly I felt my every
faculty strain to the utmost, in response to the new character of this
remarkable being.

Speaking slowly and deliberately, his keen eyes holding mine fascinated
by a strange fire that seemed kindled within them, he said:

"A few words more and we have reached that point at which death may
await the inhabitant of Earth who would proceed farther. A death that no
scientific knowledge can avert. I have tried to school your mind, to the
end that you may fully understand the nature of a desperate undertaking,
never before attempted by any human being, which, if you wish to
attempt, yo