out how to stop.

Yet there was Parrish still fumbling with the controls, and the boat
was still vibrating at a terrific rate of speed. It is impossible to
dream of leaping out, for there was no solidity, no continuity in the
scenery outside.

It was not like attempting to leap from a moving train, for instance.
In that case one knows that there is solid earth beneath, however hard
one lands. Here everything was distorted, a sort of mirror reflection.
And Jim noticed a strange thing that had never occurred to him before.
Everything was reversed, as in a mirror picture. That clump of trees,
for instance, which should have been on the right, was on the left.

Parrish looked up. "There's some means of stopping her, of course," he
said. "There must be a lever--but I don't know where to look for it in
all this mess." He pointed to the revolving wheels. No, it might be a
matter of days of experimenting in order to discover the elusive
switch.

"It may be a combination of switches," said Parrish. "I don't know
what we're going to do."

"Suppose I jumped and chanced it," Jim suggested.

Lucille caught his arm with a little cry. Parrish shook his head.

"That devil--Listen: there was a Drilgo he disliked. He threw him out
of the boat just before she landed at the cave. Everything was in
plain sight, plainer than things are here. But he was never seen
again. For God's sake, lad, sit still. I'll try--"

* * * * *

Hours later Parrish was still trying. And gradually Jim and Lucille
had ceased to hope.

Side by side they had sat, watching that glimmering scene about them.
Sometimes everything receded into a blur, across which sunlight and
shadow, and then moonlight raced, at others the surroundings were so
clear that it almost seemed as if, by steadying the boat, they could
leap ashore. And once there happened something that sent a thrill of
cold fear through both of them.

For where the pool had been there appeared suddenly a hut--and Tode,
standing in the doorway, looking about him, a malicious sneer curving
his lips.

Jim leaped to his feet, and old Parrish, who had seen Tode too, sprang
up in wild excitement.

"Sit down, lad," he shouted. "It's nothing. I--I turned the micrometer
screw a trifle hard. I got us back to five years ago, when we were
living here with Tode. That's just a picture--out of the past, Jim!"

Jim understood, but he sank down again with cold sweat bathing his