"But--which way are we going?" Larry stammered. "Back," said Tina. "The retrograde.... Wait! Do not do that!" Larry had turned toward where the bars, less luminous, showed a dark rectangle like a window. The desire swept him to gaze out at the shining, changing scene. But Tina checked him. "Do not do that! Not yet! It is too great a shock in the retrograde. It was to me." "But where are we?" In answer she gestured toward a series of tiny dials on the table edge. There were at least two score of them, laid in a triple bank. Dials to record the passing minutes, hours, days; the years, the centuries! Larry stared at the small whirring pointers. Some were a blur of swift whirling movement--the hours and days. Tina showed Larry how to read them. The cage was passing through the year 1880. In a few moments of Larry's consciousness it was 1799. Then 1793. The infant American nation was here now. But with the cage retrograding, soon they would be in the Revolutionary War. Tina said. "The other cage may go back to 1777, if Tugh meant ill to Mary Atwood, or wants revenge upon her father, at you said. We shall see." They had reached 1790 when Harl gave a low ejaculation. "You see it?" Tina murmured. "Yes. Very faintly." Larry bent tensely forward. "Will it show on the mirror?" "Yes; presently. We are about ten years from it. If we get closer, the mirror will show it." But the mirror held dark. No--now it was glowing a trifle. A vague luminosity. Tina moved toward the instrument controls nearby. "Watch closely, Harl. I will slow us down." * * * * * It seemed to Larry that the humming with which everything around him was endowed, now began descending in pitch. And his head suddenly was unsteady. A singular, wild, queer feeling was within him. An unrest. A tugging torment of every tiny cell of his body. Tina said. "Hold steady, Larry, for when we stop." "Will it shock me?" "Yes--at first. But the shock will not harm you: it is nearly all mental." The mirror held an image now--the other cage. Larry saw, on the six-inch square mirror surface, a crawling, melting scene of movement. And in the midst of it, the image of the other cage, faint and spectral. In all the mirrored movement, only the apparition of the cage was still. And this marked it; made it visible. Over an interval, while Larry stared, the ghostly image grew plainer. They were approaching its Time-factor! "It is stopping," Harl murmured. Larry was aware that he had left the eyepiece and joined Tina at the controls. "Tina, let us try to get it right this time." "Yes." "In 1777; but which month, would you say?" "It has stopped! See?" * * * * * Larry heard them clicking switches, and setting the controls for a stop. Then he felt Tina gently push him. "Sit here. Standing, you might fall." He found himself on a bench. He could still see the mirror. The ghost of the other cage was now lined more plainly upon it.