Would this dream vanish in the realization of fact? I saw his face fall, as if he had come to understand his position at last. “Where is it?” he said presently. He spoke slowly, and in a bewildered manner, as if he were still struggling with his dreams. I took him by the arm and led him to the elevator entrance. “It is a little room under the roof,” I said. “The elevator passes it, but it is hardly more than a hole in the wall. One would not look for you there.” I pressed the button, but of course the elevator did not ascend, since the solar power was cut off. Sanson withdrew his arm from mine. I saw him assume a listening attitude. “Arnold!” he cried weakly, “they are coming! Listen!” As I relaxed my guard, he dealt me a buffet that sent me flying down the empty shaft. I had a confused consciousness of falling through space, of clutching at the shaft walls; and then I was upon my knees, bruised and staring up at the light overhead. Fortunately the elevator had stopped a few feet from the top. Still dazed, I sprang to my feet and began scrambling up the ironwork. At last I staggered out upon the roof once more. I saw a dozen Sansons, each of whom carried Esther in his arms. I tried to force reality into these visions, to snatch the living Sanson from among that crowd of ghosts. But they had sprung into the dozen airplanes that lay upon the swaying roof top. A touch of the starting lever, a half turn of the wheel, and as my power of vision came back to me I saw Sanson rise with Esther into the air. He held her on the seat against him, the arm that encircled her controlling the wheel, and he was gone into the heart of the giant moon that was just rising in the east, blood-red behind her veil of clouds. I stared after him. The airplane was rapidly diminishing in size. He had outwitted me at the last, by one of those clumsy tricks he loved, such as a schoolboy plays. I staggered toward the edge. I was minded to fling myself down on the stones below. One more victim of the day’s work would mean nothing, and doubtless David and Elizabeth believed that I had died long ago. I tottered upon the brink; but then a shadow glided toward me, and a small airplane stopped at my side. It was unshielded, and at the prow was a pair of the elongated jaws. Air-Admiral Hancock leaned out of it toward me. “Where is Sanson?” he asked quietly. “He was here. He was seen here.” I pointed into the west, where the parallelogram of light was diminishing to an irregular star. I leaped into the plane beside him. “Take me with you!” I cried. “He has stolen Esther—the goddess of the cylinder.” Hancock said nothing but touched the lever. Instantly we shot upward and raced like a swallow across the void, skimming and dipping as the wind caught us and the heavy prow plunged through the unequal air-banks.