at glinted with changing colors--hues
foreign to nature on Earth. His was a superhuman perfection of
muscular development, and there was an indescribable mingling of
gentleness and sternness in his demeanor. With a start, Bert noted
that his fingers were webbed, as were his toes.

"Sa-ay," Bert exclaimed, "who are you, anyway?"

The stranger permitted himself the merest ghost of a smile. "You may
call me Wanderer," he said. "I am the Wanderer of Infinity."

"Infinity! You are not of my world?"

"But no."

"You speak my language."

"It is one of many with which I am familiar."

"I--I don't understand." Bert Redmond was like a man in a trance,
completely under the spell of his amazing host's personality.

"It is given to few men, to understand." The Wanderer fell silent, his
arms folded across his broad chest. And his great shoulders bowed as
under the weight of centuries of mankind's cares. "Yet I would have
you understand, O Man-Called-Bert, for the tale is a strange one and
is heavy upon me."

It was uncanny that this Wanderer should address him by name. Bert
thrilled to a new sense of awe.

"But," he objected, "my friends are in the hands of the spider men.
You said we'd go to them. Good Lord, man, I've got to do it!"

"You forget that time means nothing here. We will go to them in
precise synchronism with the proper time as existent in that plane."

* * * * *

The Wanderer's intense gaze held Bert speechless, hypnotized. A swift
dimming of the sphere's diffused illumination came immediately, and
darkness swept down like a blanket, thick and stifling. This was no
ordinary darkness, but utter absence of light--the total obscurity of
Erebus. And the hidden motors throbbed with sudden new vigor.

"Behold!" At the Wanderer's exclamation the enclosing sphere became
transparent and they were in the midst of a dizzying maelstrom of
flashing color. Brilliant geometric shapes, there were, whirling off
into the vastness of space; as Bert had seen them in Tom Parker's
instrument. A gigantic arc of rushing light-forms spanning the black
gulf of an unknown cosmos. And in the foreground directly under the
sphere was a blue-white disk, horizontally fixed--a substantial and
familiar object, with hazy surroundings likewise familiar.

"Isn't that the metal platform in my friend's laboratory?" asked Bert,
marveling.

"It is indeed." The mellow voice of the Wanderer was grave, and he
la