"No," I protested, "not if we get very small, hiding here first."

She was smiling, but urgently fearful of this delay. "Should we get that
small, then it would be, from here"--she gestured toward the
microscope--"to there, a journey of very many miles. Don't you
understand?"

This thing so strange!

Alan was plucking at me. "Ready, George?"

"Yes."

I put the pellet on my tongue. It tasted slightly sweet, but seemed to
melt quickly and I swallowed it hastily. My heart, was pounding, but
that was apprehension, not the drug. A thrill of heat ran through my
veins as though my blood were on fire.

Alan was clinging to me as we sat together. Glora again had vanished. In
the background of my whirling consciousness the sudden thought hovered
that she had tricked us; done to us something diabolical. But the
thought was swept away in the confused flood of impressions upon me.

I turned dizzily. "You all right, Alan?"

"Yes, I--I guess so."

My ears were roaring, the room seemed whirling, but in a moment that
passed. I felt a sudden growing sense of lightness. A humming was within
me--a soundless tingle. The drug had gone to every tiny microscopic cell
in my body. The myriad pores of my skin seemed thrilling with activity.
I know now that it was the exuding volatile gas of this disintegrating
drug. Like an aura it enveloped me, acted upon my garments.

I learned later much of the principles of this and its companion drug
but I had no thought for such things now. The huge dimly illumined room
under the dome was swaying. Then abruptly it steadied. The strange
sensations within me were lessening, or I forgot them, and I became
aware of externals.

The room was shrinking! As I stared, not with horror now, but with
amazement and a coming triumph, I saw everywhere a slow, steady,
crawling movement. The whole place was dwindling. The platform, the
microscope, were nearer than before, and smaller. The pile of ingots,
and men near there, were shifting toward me.

"George! My God--this is weird!"

I saw Alan's white face as I turned toward him. He was growing at the
same rate as myself evidently, for in all the scene he only was
unchanged.

We could feel the movement. The floor under us was shifting, crawling
slowly. From all directions it contracted as though it was being
squeezed beneath us. In reality our expanding bodies were pushing
outward.

The pile of boxes which had been a few feet away, were thrusting
themse