s intuition that caused me to pause at the threshold before
following the others through. Something about the suddenness with which
the light had ceased in the passage the moment the Mahatma's back was
past the door, added to curiosity, made me stop and consider that plane
where the light left off. Having no other instrument available, I took
off my turban and flapped it to and fro, to see whether I could produce
any effect on that astonishing dividing line, and for about the ten
thousandth time in a somewhat strenuous career it was intuition and
curiosity that saved me.

The instant the end of the turban touched the plane between light and
darkness it caught fire; or rather, I should say fire caught it, and the
fire was so intense and swift that it burned off that part of the turban
without damaging the rest. In other words, there was a plane of
unimaginably active heat between me and the rest of the party--of such
extraordinary heat that it functioned only on that plane (for I could
not feel it with my hand from an inch away); and I being in pitch
darkness while they were in golden light, the others could not see me.

They could hear, however, and I called to King. I told him what
happened, and then showed him, by throwing what was left of the turban
toward him. It got exactly as far as the plane between light and
darkness, and then vanished in a silent flash so swiftly and completely
as to leave no visible charred fragment.

I could see all three men standing in line facing in my direction,
hardly ten feet away, and it was difficult to remember that they could
not see me at all--or at any rate that King could not; the others may
have had some trained sixth sense that made it possible.

"Come forward!" said the Gray Mahatma. "We three came by. Why should it
harm you?"

King sized up the situation instantly. If they intended to kill me and
keep him alive, that would not be with his permission or connivance, and
he stepped forward suddenly toward me.

"Stop!" commanded the Mahatma, showing the first trace of excitement
that he had yet betrayed, but King kept on, and I suppose that the man
who was acting showman did something, because King crossed the line
without anything happening and then stood with one foot on each side of
the threshold while I crossed.

"There are two of us in this!" he said to the Gray Mahatma then. "You
can't kill one and take the other."

We were in a chamber roughly fifty feet square, w