"Over the head of the misty body there sprang suddenly out seven little lights. Each was the colour of the beam beneath which it rested. I knew now that the Dweller was--complete! "I heard a scream. It was Edith's voice. It came to me that she had heard the shots and followed me. I felt every faculty concentrate into a mighty effort. I wrenched myself free from the gripping tentacle and it swept back. I turned to catch Edith, and as I did so slipped--fell. "The radiant shape above the Pool leaped swiftly--and straight into it raced Edith, arms outstretched to shield me from it! God! "She threw herself squarely within its splendour," he whispered. "It wrapped its shining self around her. The crystal tinklings burst forth jubilantly. The light filled her, ran through and around her as it had with Stanton; and dropped down upon her face--the look! "But her rush had taken her to the very verge of the Moon Pool. She tottered; she fell--with the radiance still holding her, still swirling and winding around and through her--into the Moon Pool! She sank, and with her went--the Dweller! "I dragged myself to the brink. Far down was a shining, many-coloured nebulous cloud descending; out of it peered Edith's face, disappearing; her eyes stared up at me--and she vanished! "'Edith!' I cried again. 'Edith, come back to me!' "And then a darkness fell upon me. I remember running back through the shimmering corridors and out into the courtyard. Reason had left me. When it returned I was far out at sea in our boat wholly estranged from civilization. A day later I was picked up by the schooner in which I came to Port Moresby. "I have formed a plan; you must hear it, Goodwin--" He fell upon his berth. I bent over him. Exhaustion and the relief of telling his story had been too much for him. He slept like the dead. All that night I watched over him. When dawn broke I went to my room to get a little sleep myself. But my slumber was haunted. The next day the storm was unabated. Throckmartin came to me at lunch. He had regained much of his old alertness. "Come to my cabin," he said. There, he stripped his shirt from him. "Something is happening," he said. "The mark is smaller." It was as he said. "I'm escaping," he whispered jubilantly, "Just let me get to Melbourne safely, and then we'll see who'll win! For, Walter, I'm not at all sure that Edith is dead--as we know death--nor that the others are. There is something outside experience there--some great mystery." And all that day he talked to me of his plans.