he fast whirling
planets about the sun--as though the governing quality of time had been
held in abeyance, and the Machine of a Universe allowed to run down an
eternity, in a few moments or hours. The memory passed, along with a,
but partially comprehended, suggestion that I had been permitted a
glimpse into further time spaces. I stared out again, seemingly, at the
quake of the sun-stream. The speed seemed to increase, even as I looked.
Several lifetimes came and went, as I watched.

Suddenly, it struck me, with a sort of grotesque seriousness, that I
was still alive. I thought of Pepper, and wondered how it was that I had
not followed his fate. He had reached the time of his dying, and had
passed, probably through sheer length of years. And here was I, alive,
hundreds of thousands of centuries after my rightful period of years.

For, a time, I mused, absently. 'Yesterday--' I stopped, suddenly.
Yesterday! There was no yesterday. The yesterday of which I spoke had
been swallowed up in the abyss of years, ages gone. I grew dazed with
much thinking.

Presently, I turned from the window, and glanced 'round the room. It
seemed different--strangely, utterly different. Then, I knew what it was
that made it appear so strange. It was bare: there was not a piece of
furniture in the room; not even a solitary fitting of any sort.
Gradually, my amazement went, as I remembered, that this was but the
inevitable end of that process of decay, which I had witnessed
commencing, before my sleep. Thousands of years! Millions of years!

Over the floor was spread a deep layer of dust, that reached half way
up to the window-seat. It had grown immeasurably, whilst I slept; and
represented the dust of untold ages. Undoubtedly, atoms of the old,
decayed furniture helped to swell its bulk; and, somewhere among it all,
mouldered the long-ago-dead Pepper.

All at once, it occurred to me, that I had no recollection of wading
knee-deep through all that dust, after I awoke. True, an incredible age
of years had passed, since I approached the window; but that was
evidently as nothing, compared with the countless spaces of time that, I
conceived, had vanished whilst I was sleeping. I remembered now, that I
had fallen asleep, sitting in my old chair. Had it gone ...? I glanced
toward where it had stood. Of course, there was no chair to be seen. I
could not satisfy myself, whether it had disappeared, after my waking,
or before. If it had mouldered un