Somehow he reached the opening and saw all the glory of the radiant night, the jewelled heavens above and the quiet sea below. He stood and gazed, supremely happy, marvelling at all these things as a man might do who had seen none of them before and would see none of them again. “Oh, God!” said the Saint in a breathless whisper. Then he sagged limply against the wall and slid down to the ground in a dead faint. It was three hours before he opened his eyes again, though this the Saint did not know. He had fallen in the entrance of the cave, and he was awakened by the light of the rising moon shining across his face. Slowly he opened his eyes and gazed unwinkingly into the round white luminous disc that was heaving itself out of the sea. A memory of the nightmare of blindness through which he had passed seethed horribly across his half-consciousness, and he sprang up with a cry. The movement roused him completely, and he found himself leaning against the wall with his heart thudding like a trip-hammer and his breath coming in short gasps. He smiled crookedly, collecting himself. He must have had it badly! Never before had he passed out like that. He waited, gathering his wits and trampling the aftermath of the nightmare. It was then that he looked at his watch and found that it was half-past eleven. The rest had revived him—the crazy muzziness had gone from his head, and he felt his strength welling back in great refreshing waves. Elbows and knees were grazed and sore, his knuckles were skinned, tender bumps were coming up all over his skull, and his entire body throbbed like one big bruise, but this was where his strenuous training stood him in good stead: so great were the recuperative powers of his matchless constitution that already he was stretching his limbs experimentally to see whether he could honestly certify himself fit and tuned up for the next round. And gradually the awareness of a singular noise began to percolate his brain, and that noise was the faint, clanking, chugging noise of machinery. He stiffened, and turned his head. The sound faded away into silence, and he wondered if his ears were playing him tricks and he was hearing nothing but the singing of his own battered cranium. Then that gentle rattling started up again—only the muffled phantom of a bated whisper of a noise, but quite unmistakable to the Saint. He looked out, and blinked incredulously.