ure of the atmosphere. The increased warmth
had a painful effect, not alone on Colonel Wragge, but upon all of us.
It was oppressive and unnatural. We gasped figuratively as well as
actually.

"You are the first to feel it," said Dr. Silence in low tones, looking
across at him. "You are in more intimate touch, of course--"

The Colonel was trembling, and appeared to be in considerable distress.
His knees shook, so that the shuffling of his slippered feet became
audible. He inclined his head to show that he had heard, but made no
other reply. I think, even then, he was sore put to it to keep himself
in hand. I knew what he was struggling against. As Dr. Silence had
warned me, he was about to be obsessed, and was savagely, though vainly,
resisting.

But, meanwhile, a curious and whirling sense of exhilaration began to
come over me. The increasing heat was delightful, bringing a sensation
of intense activity, of thoughts pouring through the mind at high speed,
of vivid pictures in the brain, of fierce desires and lightning energies
alive in every part of the body. I was conscious of no physical
distress, such as the Colonel felt, but only of a vague feeling that it
might all grow suddenly too intense--that I might be consumed--that my
personality as well as my body, might become resolved into the flame of
pure spirit. I began to live at a speed too intense to last. It was as
if a thousand ecstasies besieged me--

"Steady!" whispered the voice of John Silence in my ear, and I looked up
with a start to see that the Colonel had risen from his chair. The
doctor rose too. I followed suit, and for the first time saw down into
the bowl. To my amazement and horror I saw that the contents were
troubled. The blood was astir with movement.

The rest of the experiment was witnessed by us standing. It came, too,
with a curious suddenness. There was no more dreaming, for me at any
rate.

I shall never forget the figure of Colonel Wragge standing there beside
me, upright and unshaken, squarely planted on his feet, looking about
him, puzzled beyond belief, yet full of a fighting anger. Framed by the
white walls, the red glow of the lamps upon his streaming cheeks, his
eyes glowing against the deathly pallor of his skin, breathing hard and
making convulsive efforts of hands and body to keep himself under
control, his whole being roused to the point of savage fighting, yet
with nothing visible to get at anywhere--he stood there, immo