The hum of the Elton current intensified; a whir, then a faint, very tiny screaming throb. The building was now outlined completely: a luminous white, shot through with a cast of green, and red and yellow sparks snapping about it. From where I sat I could see partially into its opened doorway, as the interior was not dark. It was glowing inside, and now I became aware of a very faint red stream, like light, pouring from the doorway, crossing the room, spreading like a fan. It was the Elton ray, escaping its bonds, its tiny particles plunging outward with the speed of light, or more. The red glow struck the blank, dead white wall of our room, stained the wall with its red sheen. Sparks were snapping in the air around me. To my nostrils came a faint, sulphurous smell. My skin was prickling. “Look,” whispered Alice. The opposite wall where the red ray was striking, now seemed glowing of itself, a blank, opaque wall, stained red by the billions of imponderable particles bombarding it. But it was no longer an opaque wall. Of itself it was now glowing, becoming translucent, transparent! The stars! Through the wall I could see the placid night outside, the dark hillside, the stars! I felt Alice’s hand gripping my arm. From the glowing model on the table, the tiny vehicle was issuing. The dead white thing. It came very slowly, floating out the doorway, as though drawn by the red diverging stream of light. Slowly it passed me, ascending a trifle, no longer dead white, for it was transfigured—alive now, shimmering, its outlines wavy, unreal. It moved a trifle faster, came to the wall of the room, passed through it. “Watch,” breathed Alice. The vehicle—that tiny oblong shape smaller than my hand—was outside over the treetops, plunging onward in the red stream of light. Yet at that distance I could see it plainly, its image as large as when it was a few feet from my face. And suddenly I realized I was staring after a thing gigantic. It showed now far over the hilltop. I could have sworn it was but some great air liner. A patch of stars was blotted out behind it. Another moment; the silver thing off there was far away. Was it as far as the moon? It was larger now than the moon would have seemed, hanging out there! I watched. I could still see it as plainly as when it started. But then suddenly came a change. Its image became fainter, thinner, and rapidly expanding. There was a faint image of it out there in the heavens, an image larger than the hillside. There was an instant when I fancied that the image had expanded over all the sky—a wraith, a dissipating ghost of the projectile. It was gone. The stars gleamed alone in the deep purple of the night. A click sounded. The hum of the Elton ray died into silence. The luminous wall of the room sprang into opaque reality. I sat up, blinking, shivering, to find Dr. Weatherby standing before me. “That, Leonard, is the start. Shall we see the vehicle itself?”