"'We have succeeded!' the plump one was shouting excitedly. 'We've brought someone through at last!' "'They will never believe it,' the other replied. 'They'll say it was faked.' "'Nonsense!' cried the first. 'We can do it again, Rastin; we can show them before their own eyes!' "They bent toward me, seeing me staring at them. "'Where are you from?' shouted the plump-faced one. 'What time--what year--what century?' "'He doesn't understand, Thicourt,' muttered the white-bearded one. 'What year is this now, my friend?' he asked me. "I found voice to answer. 'Surely, sirs, whoever you be, you know that this is the year fourteen hundred and forty-four,' I said. "That set them off again into a babble of excited talk, of which I could make out only a word here and there. They lifted me up, seeing how sick and weak I felt, and seated me in a strange, but very comfortable chair. I felt dazed. The two were still talking excitedly, but finally the white-bearded one, Rastin, turned to me. He spoke to me, very slowly, so that I understood him clearly, and he asked me my name. I told him. "'Henri Lothiere,' he repeated. 'Well, Henri, you must try to understand. You are not now in the year 1444. You are five hundred years in the future, or what would seem to you the future. This is the year 1944.' "'And Rastin and I have jerked you out of your own time across five solid centuries,' said the other, grinning. "I looked from one to the other. 'Messieurs,' I pleaded, and Rastin shook his head. "'He does not believe,' he said to the other. Then to me, 'Where were you just before you found yourself here, Henri?' he asked. "'In a field at the outskirts of Paris,' I said. "'Well, look from that window and see if you still believe yourself in your 15th-century Paris.' * * * * * "I went to the window. I looked out. Mother of God, what a sight before my eyes! The familiar gray little houses, the open fields behind them, the saunterers in the dirt streets--all these were gone and it was a new and terrible city that lay about me! Its broad streets were of stone and great buildings of many levels rose on either side of them. Great numbers of people, dressed like the two beside me, moved in the streets and also strange vehicles or carriages, undrawn by horse or ox, that rushed to and fro at undreamed-of speed! I staggered back to the chair. "'You believe now, Henri?' asked the whitebeard, Rastin, kindly enough, and I nodded weakly. My brain was whirling. "He pointed to the circle of metal on the floor and the machines around the room. 'Those are what we used to jerk you from your own time to this one,' he said. "'But how, sirs?' I asked. 'For the love of God, how is it that you can take me from one time to another? Have ye become gods or devils?'