"As the ship left the ground, he tried to draw back, but he was off balance, and the inertia of his body momentarily incapacitated him, I think. He slipped, clutched at the gangway across the threads which seal the exit, and then, at a height I estimate to be around five hundred feet, he fell. The _Ertak_ shot on up until it was lost to sight, and the stranger crashed to the ground a few feet from where I was standing--on almost exactly the spot where we first saw him, sir. * * * * * "And now, sir, comes the part I guess you'll find hard to believe. When he struck the ground, he was smashed flat; he died instantly. I started to run toward him, and then--and then I stopped. My eyes had not left the spot for a moment, sir, but he--his body, that is--suddenly disappeared. That's the truth, sir, for I saw it with my own eyes. There wasn't a sign of him left." "I see," I replied. I believe that I did. We had gone straight up, and his body, by no great coincidence, had fallen upon the spot close to the exit of the _Ertak_ where we had first found him. And his machine, in operation, had brought him, or rather, his mangled body, back to his own age. "You have not mentioned this affair to anyone, Shiro?" "No, sir. It wasn't anything you'd be likely to tell: nobody would believe you. I went at once to have my arm attended to, and then reported here according to orders." "Very good, Shiro. Keep the entire affair to yourself. I will make all the necessary reports. That is an order--understand?" "Yes, sir." "Then that will be all. Take good care of your arm." He saluted with his good hand and left me. * * * * * Later in the day I wrote in the log-book of the Ertak the report I mentioned at the beginning of this tale: "Just before departure, discovered stowaway, apparently demented, and ejected him." That was a perfectly truthful statement, and it served its purpose. I have given the whole story in detail just to prove what I have so often contended: that these owlish laboratory men whom this age reveres so much are not nearly so wise and omnipotent as they think they are. I am quite sure that they would have discredited, or attempted to discredit, my story, had I told it at the time. They would have resented the idea that someone so much ahead of them had discovered a principle that still baffles this age of ours, and I would have had no evidence to present. Perhaps even now the story will be discredited; if so, I do not care. I am much too old, and too near the portals of that impenetrable mystery, in the shadow of which I have stood so many times, to concern myself with what others may think or say.