f air such as they
knew, but of an indescribable something that rendered the act of
breathing wholly unnecessary, and that all around them was no ground,
no scenery, but only--space!

They had barely finished remarking on these facts, when there suddenly
glided across their vision, forms--of every conceivable shape, _i.e._,
those resembling corpses of human beings and animals, with bloodless
faces, glassy eyes and stiff limbs--some apparently just dead and
others in an advanced state of decomposition, all possessed and
propelled by Impersonating Elementals; phantoms of actual earthbound
people--misers, murderers, etc., several of whom approached the trio
and tried to peer into their faces.

"For heaven's sake keep off!" Kelson shrieked, as the vibrating form
of an epileptic imbecile, with protruding blue eyes and pimply cheeks,
came up to him, and thrust its face into his.

"This is a bit thick," Hamar said, vainly attempting to elude the
phantom of a short, stout woman with a big head and purple face, who,
putting out a large black, swollen tongue, leered at him.

"Curse you! d--n you!" Curtis screamed, throwing out his hands in a
vain endeavour to beat off the phantoms of two idiot boys, who were
trying to bite him with their loose, dribbling mouths. "A little more
of this, and I shall go mad!"

Seeing a tall, grey phantom with a man's body and wolf's head bounding
up to them, Kelson would have run away, had not Hamar, whose presence
of mind never quite deserted him, gripped him by the arm. "If you
leave us, Matt," he said, "we are lost. I feel our safety depends on
our keeping together. If I'm not mistaken this is a cunning dodge on
the part of the Unknown to separate us. If that happens, I feel we may
never get back to our bodies--and the compact will then be broken. We
must hang on to each other at all costs." So saying, he slipped his
free arm through that of Curtis, and the three stood linked together.

Hamar clung on to the other two, until his hands grew numb, and
the sweat stood on his chest and forehead in great beads. As figure
after figure stealthily and noiselessly approached them, Kelson and
Curtis writhed and shrieked; and, at times, it seemed as if the
chain must be broken. But alarming as were these harrowing types of
Vice-Elementals--_i.e._, nude things with heads of beasts and bodies of
men and women; grotesque heads; malevolent eyes; mal-shaped hands;
headless beasts, etc.; none had so danger