Voices very dim from the palace overhead; infinitely faint music; the clammy sodden drip of moisture from the tunnel roof. And, permeating everything, the faint hum of machinery. Tina touched him in the gloom. "It's nothing, I guess. Though I thought I heard a man's voice." "Overhead?" "No; down here." * * * * * There was a dark, arched door near at hand. Tina entered it and fumbled for a switch, and in the soft light that came Larry saw an unoccupied apartment very similar to the one he had had upstairs, save that this was much smaller. "Harl's room," said Tina. She prowled along the wall where audible book-cylinders[4] stood in racks, searching for a title. Presently she found a hidden switch, pressed it, and a small section of the case swung out, revealing a concealed compartment. Larry saw her fingers trembling as she drew out a small brass cylinder. [Footnote 4: Cylinder records of books which by machinery gave audible rendition, in similar fashion to the radio-phonograph.] "This must be it, Larry," she said. They took it to a table which held a shaded light. Within the cylinder was a scroll of writing. Tina unrolled it and held it under the light, while Larry stood breathless, watching her. "Is it what you wanted?" Larry murmured. "Yes. Poor Harl!" She read aloud to Larry the gist of it in the few closing paragraphs. "... and so I want to confess to you that I have been taking credit for that which is not mine. I wish I had the courage to tell you personally; someday I think I shall. I did not help Tugh invent our Time-traveling cages. I was in the palace garden one night some years ago when the cage appeared. Tugh is a man from a future Time-world; just what date ahead of now, I do not know, for he has never been willing to tell me. He captured me. I promised him I would say nothing, but help him pretend that we had invented the cage he had brought with him from the future. Tugh told me he invented them. It was later that he brought the other cage here. "I was an obscure young man here a few years ago. I loved you even then, Tina: I think you have guessed that. I yielded to the temptation--and took the credit with Tugh. "I do love you, though I think I shall never have the courage to tell you so. Harl." * * * * * Tina rolled up the paper. "Poor Harl! So all the praise we gave him for his invention was undeserved!" But Larry's thoughts were on Tugh. So the fellow was not of this era at all! He had come from a Time still further in the future! A step sounded in the doorway behind them. They swung around to find Tugh standing there, with his thick misshapen figured huddled in the black cloak. "Tugh!"