w Evelyn excitedly what it was that he had found. A
spent and battered bullet, but indubitably a bullet from the world of
his own ken. He began to stare about him, hopeful yet incredulous.

Tommy took his eye from the dimensoscope just long enough to light the
fuse of the smoke-bomb.

"Here it goes, Smithers!"

He flung the switch. The missile with its thickly smoking fuse leaped
upward as the concentric rings flickered and whirled bewilderingly.
The missile hurt the eyes that watched it. It vanished. The solenoid
dropped to the floor from the broken small contrivance.

Then Tommy's heart stood still as he gazed through the eye-piece
again. He could see nothing but an opaque milkiness. But it drifted
away, and he realised that it was smoke. More, Denham was staring at
it. More yet, he was moving cautiously towards its source, one of the
strange golden weapons held ready....

Denham was investigating.

* * * * *

The generator at the back of the laboratory slowed down. Smithers was
obeying orders. Tommy hung close by the vision instrument, his hands
moving vaguely and helplessly, as one makes gestures without volition
when anxious for someone else to duplicate the movements for which he
sets the example.

He saw Denham, very near, inspecting the smoking thing on the ground
suspiciously. The smoke-fuse ceased to burn. Denham stared. After an
age-long delay, he picked up the missile Tommy had prepared. And Tommy
saw that there was a cord attached to it. He had fastened that cord
when planning to try to communicate with the men of the Golden City,
when he had expected them to be victorious.

But he saw Denham's face light up with pathetic hope. He called to
Evelyn. He hobbled excitedly to her, babbling....

Tommy watched, and his heart pounded suddenly as Evelyn turned and
smiled in the direction in which she knew the dimensoscope must be. A
huge butterfly, its wings a full yard across, fluttered past her head.
Denham talked excitedly to her. A clumsy batlike thing swooped by
overhead. Its shadow blanketed her face for an instant. A running
animal, small and long, ran swiftly in full view from one side of the
dimensoscope's field of vision to the other. Then a snake, curiously
horned, went writhing past....

Denham talked excitedly. He turned and made gestures as of writing,
toward the spot where he had picked up Tommy's message. He began to
search for a charred stick where the R