Will saw but dimly. Saw shapes floating in there. Dismembered shapes. Others, whole, floating inert. A cauldron, with bubbles of sight and sound, and smell. Shrouded in murk. Unreal.... A wailing ... sobbing ... faint aerial voices wailing like ghosts distraught.... And a stench--the thought of it, no more----but to Will the thought, the knowledge of all this was horrible, fearsome. Singularly fearsome; above everything at that moment he feared this realm, this state of unnatural, tortured existence.... They could still talk to Eo. See him there, laboring, losing his brave fight to come back to them. He seemed very far away; and yet very close, for though his form was down there, engulfed with all the leprous horrors of disease, his voice was very plainly heard. And his face, the image of it, the physical representation of it to Will's thought, seemed again at hand. His eyes were very wistful. He was smiling gently at Bee. "Soon, girl, I will be gone--into death--it is very near now. I can see it--see it, just ahead...." Will saw it, too. Another realm beyond the one they were skirting. The realm of death. It lay close ahead. Dark. Mysterious. Scarce to be seen, but only imagined. Again came Eo's faint voice. "I shall--be there in a moment. It is very--beautiful. I can see it--right here--" And then he suddenly whispered, "I love you, my girl Bee--" And vanished. * * * * * Or did he vanish? The shell of him then seemed lying in Bee's arms. But it was an empty nothing; the shell of a shape of something which once had been, but now was not.... Thone said gravely, "Watch it, Will. The Thought is gone from it. Our own thought-matter is all that is left. You shall see of what permanence that is." The dead shell lay inert. It was dissolving.... Grewsome.... Will turned away; then forced his vision back to see a leprous wraith--a rotting shape which presently, like a melting fog, began to dissipate. Dissolving, until the very last essence of it was gone into nothingness. Ala seemed to sigh. "It is very horrible. Yet I think that we are wrong to consider it so, for it is Nature." Will recovered himself. The realm of disease had withdrawn to a memory. Around him the blackness seemed purified. But ahead he could see--or thought he saw--that other endless realm where dwell what we call the dead. Questions flooded him. Eo was there? Could they not go and see him? Could he--this Entity which had once been Eo--could he not still speak to them from beyond the borders of death? Thone said, "We will approach it if you wish."