At which moment, Professor Blackwell staggered toward the curtained doorway. John Cumberland, his face masklike, waved to Barry to assist the Professor. Danbazzar never even glanced aside, as Barry threw a supporting arm around the tottering man and helped him to gain the outer chamber. There: “Air!” he whispered. “I must have air.” The task of getting him along the sloping passage was no easy one; for Professor Blackwell was heavily built. Especially it was difficult at the point where the roof had collapsed, since here he must negotiate an opening only about eighteen inches high. But it was done at last. The Professor sank down in that little artificial cave created by the screen, and shakily produced his flask. “Go back,” he said in a low voice--“go back. You will want to see if----” “I couldn’t think of it,” Barry returned. “Not until you feel better. Was it the heat down there, Professor?” Professor Blackwell returned his flask to his pocket. Some trace of normal colour was showing again in his cheeks. From a hiding place beneath his priest’s robe he produced his spectacles and set them in place. He made a very grotesque picture. Then: “Not entirely,” he replied. “That was not without its effect, of course. But I confess that my threatened collapse was not entirely due to it. Your training, Barry, has not followed the same lines as mine. You are not only a younger man, but you are plastic minded. The sight of a person defying the law of gravity without mechanical aid, for instance, would not appall you?” “It would certainly interest me.” “Quite, quite. There’s the difference. It would horrify _me!_ And to-day I have witnessed a thing that has knocked the keystone out of the structure upon which my professional life rests. Those scientific principles to which, as a sane man, I have adhered unquestioningly throughout my career have been ruthlessly destroyed. Either modern physiology is fit only for the scrap heap or the claims of so-called occultists are worthy of close examination.” “You think she is really alive?” asked Barry eagerly. “Think!” retorted the Professor. “I _know_ she is! Whether the madhouse treatment now being employed by Danbazzar will terminate her miraculous trance or not I cannot say. But, quite definitely, she is alive! Go back, Barry. _I_ dare not!” Eagerly Barry obeyed. He returned to the scene of the poor Professor’s seizure in a quarter of the time it had taken to come out. Softly raising the curtain he entered the chamber, all but intolerable, now, because of the clouds of incense. He found his father and Danbazzar bending over Zalithea, their expressions tense. The slender curves which it had seemed desecration to uncover were hidden beneath a fine Egyptian shawl, but it revealed the delicate lines of her slim, still body.