ded from the moonlight, the tinkling music
grew fainter. I tried again to move. The tears were running down now
from my rigid lids and they brought relief to my tortured eyes.

"I have said my gaze was fixed. It was. But from the side,
peripherally, it took in a part of the far wall of the outer
enclosure. Ages seemed to pass and a radiance stole along it. Soon
drifted into sight the figure that was Stanton. Far away he was--on
the gigantic wall. But still I could see the shining spirals whirling
jubilantly around and through him; felt rather than saw his tranced
face beneath the seven moons. A swirl of crystal notes, and he had
passed. And all the time, as though from some opened well of light,
the courtyard gleamed and sent out silver fires that dimmed the
moonrays, yet seemed strangely to be a part of them.

"At last the moon neared the horizon. There came a louder burst of
sound; the second, and last, cry of Stanton, like an echo of his
first! Again the soft sighing from the inner terrace. Then--utter
silence!

"The light faded; the moon was setting and with a rush life and power
to move returned to me. I made a leap for the steps, rushed up them,
through the gateway and straight to the grey rock. It was closed--as I
knew it would be. But did I dream it or did I hear, echoing through it
as though from vast distances a triumphant shouting?

"I ran back to Edith. At my touch she wakened; looked at me
wanderingly; raised herself on a hand.

"'Dave!' she said, 'I slept--after all.' She saw the despair on my
face and leaped to her feet. 'Dave!' she cried. 'What is it? Where's
Charles?'

"I lighted a fire before I spoke. Then I told her. And for the
balance of that night we sat before the flames, arms around each
other--like two frightened children."

Abruptly Throckmartin held his hands out to me appealingly.

"Walter, old friend!" he cried. "Don't look at me as though I were
mad. It's truth, absolute truth. Wait--" I comforted him as well as I
could. After a little time he took up his story.

"Never," he said, "did man welcome the sun as we did that morning. A
soon as it had risen we went back to the courtyard. The walls whereon
I had seen Stanton were black and silent. The terraces were as they
had been. The grey slab was in its place. In the shallow hollow at its
base was--nothing. Nothing--nothing was there anywhere on the islet
of Stanton--not a trace.

"What were we to do? Precisely the same a