As in a dream I saw that death-bed—the monomaniac lying in darkness, watched by the angel Fear, menaced by the monarch Death, waiting, waiting for such a friend of all the earth! “When he had forgotten all else but his dream and my name, he gave me this. It is the secret of his life. Perhaps you would like to know it.” And Regan unrolled a large scroll. It was yellow with age, mapped and covered with long lines and singular hieroglyphics. “What does it mean?” asked Rondah. We spread the chart upon the table to view it better. “It contains the discovery which is the result of the observation of three generations. A circle of meteoric worlds and fragments is whirling on an elongated orbit about our sun. “Once in thirty-three and a third years it strikes the path of the Earth. Small planets mingled with masses of chaos are brought almost to the tops of our mountains. “Years ago the hermit devised a spiral car, which, by means of subterranean cavities, walled with cement and filled with certain explosives of his own combination, should be shot into the coming meteor. All the machinery of the contrivance is hidden and connected with a secret clock. At the precise second when the worlds strike right the clock will explode the torpedoes and the car will be launched into space! “Twice has Gregg Dempster seen the small star, or world, come close. But he mistook his measurements, as he did not calculate for the swerving of the ball from its true orbit as it passed the giant planets out in space. “This time he would have been successful, but he shared the great hope, which had become the nerve of his life, with another man and from the lessened tension died.” “Right,” said Father Renaudin. “If Gregg Dempster had kept his secret, he had seen his star once more. But only then to die of disappointment. For man to migrate from star to star is an impossibility!” Then Regan replied: “Monarch of Fate is man, above all destiny. Man yet shall chain the stars; shall drive the harnessed worlds!” “It is simply impossible!” repeated the priest. From the darkness where lay the dead man came a voice: “And I will give him the morning star!” Then all was voiceless save the storm. “The dead speak!” cried the pale Rondah, clasping her hands. Isabella had been brave in all the danger. Now she rose and, with the girl as her companion, stood close to the door. That mockery of mystery, a voice from the dead, was more terrible than anything which we were accustomed to account for by natural laws. The rocks on which the hut stood seemed to shake and to reverberate. “The people say the hermit spent his life in tunnelling the rocks and in watching the stars,” said Father Renaudin. “It seems as if the tunnels, if such there be, had made musical pipes of themselves to-night.” Suddenly Regan crossed the room to where the two girls stood. Something was in his face which was terrible.