In silence we proceeded. I wondered where the inhabitants of the place might be. Then I saw a few. Not walking openly, these few we now encountered; one I saw lurking in the curve between two adjacent globes. A man ... robed darkly ... a dark hood seemingly over his head ... like a shroud enveloping him to mingle his outline with the darkness.... Darkness? Had the twilight turned to night?... Was this the Borderland again?... I seemed to see its darkness.... I strained my vision for the familiar shadows of our own world.... Was that a tree?... A street?... Was that Will's house over there?... Bee's agonized voice reached my consciousness. "Rob! Rob, dear, come back to us!" My mind had wandered, and had drawn with it the tenuous wraith of a body it so easily dominated. I fought myself back. Told myself vehemently I was _not_ in the Borderland; I was with my friends. With Will--Bee; with Ala. * * * * * I saw them, distantly; with Space I know not how much, nor Time, how long--between us. Saw them; saw Bee with horrified arms held out as though to bring me back. And felt myself whirling in Nothingness. "Rob! Rob!" "Yes," I called. "I'm here--coming." And at last again I was with them. "You're careless, Rob." Concern mingled with the relief in Will's tone. "Careless--you must not wander that way." Ala said quietly. "There are many like that. A wandering mind brings evil to the body it tosses about." "But with us now, it is additionally hard," Will said. "Every instinct within us draws us away--as it was with you, Ala, in the Borderland." "Yes," she agreed. "I know that." We continued our passage toward the meeting house. That shrouded shape I had seen was not of my wandering fancy, for now I saw others. Peering at us from dark spaces; eyes that glowed unblinking; or shapes of mantled black skulking furtively along the streets. Avoiding us, yet always watching as we boldly passed. "Brutars," Ala said. "Those who with Brutar would attack your world. They are everywhere now about the city. I am afraid of them." We came upon the meeting house. It was a tremendous globe, in outward aspect no different from the others save that its size was gigantic. As we neared it I saw that upon its luminous grey surface were narrow circular bands of a lighter color--bands both vertical and horizontal. These also I had noticed on most of the other globes; a lighter color in bands, or sometimes in small patches. I questioned Ala; the lighter-colored parts were where one might safely enter, thus not to encounter the occupants, or the furnishings within. We passed through one of the bands of the gigantic globe, and found ourselves in a single great room. A globular amphitheatre; to use earthly measurements it had perhaps a thousand feet of interior diameter. Its entire inner surface was thronged with grey-white shapes of people, save where, like aisles, the space of the outer bands divided them into segments.