My companion answered, still doubtfully, “I don’t think it likely that she brought the book simply to return it, for why then should she not have given it the information where it was, without bringing it here at all? But it may be so. It is all guesses. It shall be as you will.”
Before we commenced our vigil, however, I made a further venture into the lighted room, for I had seen that both water and food (the bread-like cake which I had found when first I ventured below the surface) were among the articles that stood against the left-hand wall, and the chance was too good to lose.
I have wondered since, in the light of these experiences, how far the furtive lives of those creatures who exist behind the skirting-boards of our houses, are to be either pitied or envied. I feed, as a mouse feeds, venturing audaciously for bedside crumbs while a light still burns, and the fear, real enough, and with sufficient cause, which came as I watched the huge form that might rise at any moment and chase me with a monstrous hand outstretched, must be offset by the satisfaction that the meal gave to the alertness of my physical being, and to the joyous sense of a hazard won with which I rejoined my companion in the outer darkness.
For (have I not said already?) the darkness in the passage was absolute. Even immediately in front of the open doorway, the darkness fell like a curtain.
Here arises an issue on which I am in two minds continually. In this strange world we were constantly surrounded by phenomena which were not explicable by any knowledge I possessed, nor consistent with any previous experiences. So was it here. I was accustomed to light that invaded darkness and gradually died as its source was distanced, but here was light which was sharply defined in its area—which ended evenly and abruptly. To explain this is necessary for my narrative. But that necessity is incidental. We were surrounded by phenomena which were equally new, but which were entirely irrelevant. Sometimes I was able to imagine an explanation: sometimes not. Sometimes the cause became clear subsequently, or was told to me. I should like to tell of all these things, but I have a tale to tell also. I am of one mind to turn aside, and of another mind to go forward. But I see that if I would reach the conclusion at which I aim, I must restrain my desire to wander.
We sat for some time in the darkness against the opposite wall watching the form of the Dweller, who did not move, and was still apparently sleeping. There was no means of judging the passage of time, but it was long since I had slept, and after the meal I had to confess to an increasing drowsiness, on which my companion suggested that I should use the time in sleep, which I required at shorter intervals than herself, while she would watch for us both.
X
Visions
I do not know how long I slept, but suppose it to have been for many hours. I waked to find that nothing had changed.
Invigorated by rest, I was quite willing to agree that we should wait no longer, but proceed upon our own investigations.
Rising with this purpose, our eyes were first attracted to the wall behind us in which was depicted one of those living scenes with which we had already become familiar.
Strange and wonderful as they then seemed, I have since realised that there were many simpler-seeming things around me which are less easily explicable.
Knowing, as we do, that sight travels through space, bearing the vision of that which was, to the infinite distances, and that we ourselves can behold the stars of earlier millenniums in positions which they have long ceased to occupy, it is not difficult to understand that the Dwellers must have discovered a process by which such visions could be deflected or reflected back to the earth from which they originated, and that it was the past history of the earth which was unfolded through the walls of these dark and (as we subsequently realised) seemingly unending corridors.
The substance of the walls on or through which these scenes were displayed excited but did not gratify my curiosity. The effect was as though looking through a dark mirror which gave a moving scene on a large scale. The impression was not as is that of a moving picture, but of great actual distances opening before us. Or, in another place, the view might be blocked immediately by rising ground, by trees, or by buildings. There did not appear to be any selection either of place or time. They were not scenes of dramatic moment, or of selected beauty: they were not seen from any position of special advantage. They appeared to develop at the same rate that they had done in original fact, so that, if you should wish to know what would happen next month you must watch or return at that interval, to observe it.
I tried to place my hand on the wall, expecting to encounter some substance of a glassy smoothness, but I felt no physical contact whatever.—Only an inability to move my hand farther forward.
My companion, more sensitive than myself to any neighbouring substance, could only tell me that she had an impression as of a transparent solidity, but of a substance which she had never previously encountered.
It was another point of interest, for which I have no explanation, that these scenes, or pictures, were not continuous, nor were they divided sharply from one another, but the outlines would become faint and blurred, till they were no more than
