He faced a long, greenish-gloomy corridor of marble. With hardly a pause he continued along it. Tall imposing doors, tightly closed, were on either side of him, but he gave little heed to them. The corridor turned sharply once, and then again, and then it seemed to lead a little downward. Jim could not be sure. He only knew that he was being led _somewhere_, that he was to face something. A cold fear caught his brain, but he could only go on. Now the corridor walls seemed to waver, seemed to swim beneath a sort of radiance. But it was a glaucous radiance, ineffably green as the light beneath the waters of a shallow sea. It increased in intensity, however, as he went on. It became almost tangible, it beat against him, it seemed to pluck with evil intentness at the fibers of his mind. Jim laughed once, laughed wildly, but did not pause in his stride. The corridor made one more turn and then he was walking into a light so blinding that it staggered him momentarily. It flared up once in a great greenish effulgence, then died down into a steady pulsation. Now, Jim knew, he must be approaching the very source of that all-pervading light which had so puzzled him since his arrival at M'Tonak. But now he had a vaguely uncomfortable feeling. It was as though a million eyes were watching him, observing every move. It was as though a million tiny fingers were tearing away the shreds of his mind with secret, silent amusement. Jim did not look about him as he walked on, for he knew no one was there. It had something to do with this light, that much he knew. Now he could see the end of the corridor through the pulsing greenish haze. Something seemed to be there, something towering and opalescent--and waiting. He came very near before he saw what it was, a huge circular glass-enclosed well that towered up to the ceiling fifty feet above. It was from this well that the light came. Jim could see the gentle pulsing of it, with streamers of a darker color flashing through it vertically. Those millions of eyes now were very near. Those millions of fingers probed into his brain unbearably. Jim pressed his hands to his throbbing temples, but the pain continued to expand within his skull. He could not turn and flee, for something held him there. He tried to cry out against it, but his throat seemed to contract and no sound would emerge. He had no knowledge whether it was minutes or hours that he stood there; but when at last he felt his legs giving way beneath him, and glimpsed the blur of the floor rushing up, it was with a profound sense of gratitude for the oblivion that would be his. * * * * *