n ended in a
blood-red flashing that went finally to merciful darkness....

* * * * *

That darkness still wrapped him thickly about when he regained
consciousness--a darkness saved from utter black only by a faint
luminosity that seemed to penetrate and be part of the air about him.

Still hardly more than half-conscious, lying, it seemed, on a soft bed
where he was weightless, he stirred and flung out one arm. From his
fingertips he saw whirls of violet light sweep out and away, as vortices
might have been set in motion by a swimmer in a more liquid medium.

Fascinated, failing utterly to comprehend where he was, he moved his
hands deliberately, swept one arm from side to side--and a number of
luminous whirlpools went spinning out into space. And then he
remembered.

He remembered the terrific fall that miraculously brought him back to a
place of light like that where his fall had begun. He remembered
beginning the second fall; and, while he still could not know what it
meant, he knew that he must have been unconscious for hours. And, with
that, his thoughts came back to the girl. For the first time he found
leisure to give mental voice to his wonderment.

The mystery of it all!--of her presence here on the Moon! Again he was
overwhelmed with the wonder of his surprising discovery. It was nearly
beyond belief; almost he doubted the reality of what his own eyes had
seen.

* * * * *

But there was no doubting his own presence here in this strange place.
The unreality of it--the strangeness of his own sensations--were borne
in upon him. Where was he? he asked. What was this soft cushion upon
which he rested so lightly? He tried to sit up and found that he merely
twisted his body and set other eddies of light into motion.

Cautiously, he swung one arm out as far as he could reach. There was
nothing there. He moved the arm down; reached with his hand beneath
him--and still there was nothing tangible! Through his mind swept a
gripping fear, a wordless, incoherent terror of something he could not
name. Desperately he wanted to touch something firm and solid; lay his
hands upon something he knew was real; and he flung out arms and legs in
a paroxysm of futile effort.

He seemed hung in nothingness, an utter emptiness where nothing moved;
only the ghostly whirls of light that ran lazily away from his beating
hands until they died silently away into darkn