it to me it
passed from me for lack of place to stand upon," she went on,
quaintly. "Something there was of time when earth and sun were but
cold mists in the--the heavens--something of these mists drawing
together, whirling, whirling, faster and faster--drawing as they
whirled more and more of the mists--growing larger, growing
warm--forming at last into the globes they are, with others spinning
around the sun--something of regions within this globe where vast fire
was prisoned and bursting forth tore and rent the young orb--of one
such bursting forth that sent what you call moon flying out to company
us and left behind those spaces whence we now dwell--and of--of life
particles that here and there below grew into the race of the Silent
Ones, and those others--but not the _Akka_ which, like you, they say
came from above--and all this I do not understand--do you, Goodwin?"
she appealed to me.

I nodded--for what she had related so fragmentarily was in reality an
excellent approach to the Chamberlain-Moulton theory of a coalescing
nebula contracting into the sun and its planets.

Astonishing was the recognition of this theory. Even more so was the
reference to the life particles, the idea of Arrhenius, the great
Swede, of life starting on earth through the dropping of minute, life
_spores_, propelled through space by the driving power of light and,
encountering favourable environment here, developing through the vast
ages into man and every other living thing we know.[1]

Nor was it incredible that in the ancient nebula that was the matrix
of our solar system similar, or rather _dissimilar_, particles in all
but the subtle essence we call life, might have become entangled and,
resisting every cataclysm as they had resisted the absolute zero of
outer space, found in these caverned spaces their proper environment
to develop into the race of the Silent Ones and--only _they_ could
tell what else!

"They say," the handmaiden's voice was surer, "they say that in
their--cradle--near earth's heart they grew; grew untroubled by the
turmoil and disorder which flayed the surface of this globe. And they
say it was a place of light and that strength came to them from earth
heart--strength greater than you and those from which you sprang ever
derived from sun.

"At last, ancient, ancient beyond all thought, they say again, was
this time--they began to know, to--to--realize--themselves. And
wisdom came ever more swiftly. Up fr