I carried the strange implement beneath the hole in the roof and laid it on the bench, intending to examine it more carefully as soon as the sun appeared. Meanwhile, this being the time for my daily exercise, I mounted the bench and tried to pull myself up. I failed; yet I detected a considerable improvement in my muscular power, and, becoming exhausted, I prepared to descend. Inadvertently, but without anticipating any serious result, I placed my foot against the truncheon in such a way as to elevate the guard. I heard it click as it rose into position, and, in setting down my foot again, depressed the push-button. The truncheon tipped to the ground, pointing upward. I saw a ray of blinding light, of intense whiteness tipped with mauve, shoot from the head, and, with a crash, a shower of stones fell on me, bearing me to the ground and enveloping me in a cloud of dust. I must have lain half stunned for some minutes. I was aroused by feeling the sunlight on my eyelids. I started to my feet. The hole in the roof was nearly twice the former size, and a heap of fallen stones and pieces of brick afforded me a perfect stepway. I was scratched by the falling debris, but happily the explosion, as I deemed it, seemed to have been in an upward direction. In a moment I was scrambling up the stones. I slipped and clutched and struggled; I got my head and shoulders in the air and pulled my body after me; I trod upon leaves; I looked about me. I was standing in the midst of what appeared to be an ancient forest of oak and beech trees, whose bare boughs, covered with snow, shook under a gray sky above a carpet of withered, snow-spread leaves, and under these were endless heaps of disintegrating bricks. In vain I looked about me for the Institute. There was no sign of it, nor of Sir Spofforth’s house. Nowhere was anything to be seen but the same forest growth, the dead leaves scurrying before the chill wind, and the vast brick piles. I had emerged from the cellar into a trackless wilderness. And now at last my final doubt, which had bred hope, was gone. I ran through the forest, on and on, shouting like a madman and beating my breast, stumbling over the brick heaps that lay everywhere, plunging through thorny undergrowth, heedless of any course. I must have been running for ten minutes when my strength failed me, and I collapsed beside an ancient road, overgrown with shrubs and saplings, yet discernible in its course between the tall trees that bordered it. Before me, far away through the vista line, I saw a white bank against the gray horizon. I flung myself upon my face and prayed, with all my will, to die. CHAPTER IV THE ROAD TO LONDON A shadow swept over me, and, looking up, I saw an airplane gliding noiselessly above; it stopped, hung poised and motionless, and then dropped slowly and almost vertically into the road, coming to ground within a dozen yards of where I lay.