Before attempting to give a short and, I hope, a tolerably coherent account of my lengthy nocturnal interview with Arrigo d'Aragno, of his amazing statements and proposals, and of my own half-hearted and intermittent struggles against his invading powers of persuasion, I must state first of all that the whole incident rises before me at this moment with crystal clearness. Even now, in these exotic surroundings, I can see with my mind's eye that commonplace hotel parlour with its ugly luxurious furniture and its flamboyant wall-paper of scarlet patterned with a design of raised and gilded vine-leaves. In this room for several hours my host continued to address me with scarcely a pause, except at one or two points when I feebly ventured to stem the torrent of his extraordinary discourse. The open allurements, the veiled warnings, the cynical wisdom, the biting indictments of our own existing conditions of society, together composed a strange medley of arguments, which were intended to convince me of the absolute necessity of my immediate and unconditional submission to his carefully prepared scheme. And this scheme was no less than the complete surrender of myself, mind and body, into his keeping for the purpose of being transported whilst in an unconscious or comatose state and by some hidden means to another planet! I cannot of course recall the whole of that prodigal information, nor all the astonishing things he confided in me; but I do remember vividly throughout the whole of this mental ordeal that I always remained fully aware of my host's sanity. He talked the dreams of madmen, as judged by our conventional standards of science and belief; yet I knew, instinctively knew, all his bizarre statements to be fact and not fiction. Was some irresistible hypnotic force, I wonder, emanating from that will and besieging my own overwrought brain, to compel my full credence in the apparently incredible? In any case, believe I did absolutely. I grew to realise also, dimly at first, but with increasing clarity, that a refusal on my part was now practically unthinkable. Of a truth my choice lay between a swift and certain death on Earth and a new career in another planet; and as the ties that bound me to Earth were neither very strong nor very dear, whilst my curiosity was boundless, I was filled with tense excitement but not with real alarm at the prospect opened before me. With hardly an attempt at opposition, therefore, I allowed myself to become permeated through and through with the psychical current of my companion's will to power, ignoring my shrewd presentiment of intense danger ahead in the event of my seeking to decline that which I most ardently longed for despite a few passing qualms. Beyond a doubt I was completely in the toils, but I experienced no anxiety to escape thence. * * * * *