"Olaf," I said, "what you have called the sparkling devil has taken ones dear to me. I, too, was following it when we found you. You shall go with me to its home, and there we will try to take from it your wife and your child and my friends as well. But now that you may be strong for what is before us, you must sleep again." Olaf Huldricksson looked upon me and in his eyes was that something which souls must see in the eyes of Him the old Egyptians called the Searcher of Hearts in the Judgment Hall of Osiris. "You speak truth!" he said at last slowly. "I will do what you say!" He stretched out an arm at my bidding. I gave him a second injection. He lay back and soon he was sleeping. I turned toward Da Costa. His face was livid and sweating, and he was trembling pitiably. O'Keefe stirred. "You did that mighty well, Dr. Goodwin," he said. "So well that I almost believed you myself." "What did you think of his story, Mr. O'Keefe?" I asked. His answer was almost painfully brief and colloquial. "Nuts!" he said. I was a little shocked, I admit. "I think he's crazy, Dr. Goodwin," he corrected himself, quickly. "What else could I think?" I turned to the little Portuguese without answering. "There's no need for any anxiety tonight, Captain," I said. "Take my word for it. You need some rest yourself. Shall I give you a sleeping draft?" "I do wish you would, Dr. Goodwin, sair," he answered gratefully. "Tomorrow, when I feel bettair--I would have a talk with you." I nodded. He did know something then! I mixed him an opiate of considerable strength. He took it and went to his own cabin. I locked the door behind him and then, sitting beside the sleeping Norseman, I told O'Keefe my story from end to end. He asked few questions as I spoke. But after I had finished he cross-examined me rather minutely upon my recollections of the radiant phases upon each appearance, checking these with Throckmartin's observations of the same phenomena in the Chamber of the Moon Pool. "And now what do you think of it all?" I asked. He sat silent for a while, looking at Huldricksson. "Not what you seem to think, Dr. Goodwin," he answered at last, gravely. "Let me sleep over it. One thing of course is certain--you and your friend Throckmartin and this man here saw--something. But--" he was silent again and then continued with a kindness that I found vaguely irritating--"but I've noticed that when a scientist gets superstitious it--er--takes very hard! "Here's a few things I can tell you now though," he went on while I struggled to speak--"I pray in my heart that we'll meet neither the Dolphin nor anything with wireless on board going up. Because, Dr. Goodwin, I'd dearly love to take a crack at your Dweller. "And another thing," said O'Keefe. "After this--cut out the trimmings, Doc, and call me plain Larry, for whether I think you're crazy or whether I don't, you're there with the nerve, Professor, and I'm for _you_.