"Aye," stated the doctor. "I am he; I am the Jarados!"

It was a stagger for both young men. Neither could reconcile the great professor of his schooldays with this strange, philosophic prophet of the occult Thomahlians. What was the connection? What was the fate that was leading, urging, compelling it all?

"Professor, you will pardon our eagerness. Both Harry and I have had adventures, without understanding what it was all about. Can't you explain? Where are we? And--why?" And then:

"Your lecture on the Blind Spot! You promised it to us--can you deliver it now?"

The professor smiled his acknowledgement.

"Part of it," he said; "enough to answer your questions to some extent.

Had I stayed in Berkeley I could have delivered it all, but"--and he laughed--"I know a whole lot more, now; and, paradoxically, I know far less! First let me speak to the Geos." He learned that the struggle outside had terminated successfully for the Rhamda and his men. All was quiet. The Senestro had made his escape in safety back to the Mahovisal.

The doctor ordered that he was not to be molested.

The Geos and the others left the room, escorting the Aradna, who was too exhausted for further experiences. There remained with the doctor, Chick, Harry, and the Nervina.

"I will reduce that lecture to synopsis form," began the professor. "I shall tell you all that I know, up to this moment. First, however, let me show you something."

He indicated the table from which he had risen. Chief among the objects on its top were fragments of minerals, some familiar, some strange.

Above and on all sides were the crystal globes or, at least, what Chick named as such--erected upon as many tripods. One of these the professor moved toward the table.

Simultaneously a tiny dot appeared on a small metal plate in the centre of the table. At first almost invisible, it grew, after a minute or so, to a definite bit of matter.

The professor moved the tripod away. Nearby crystals, inside of which some dull lights had leaped into momentary being, subsided into quiescence. And the three observers looked again and again at the solid fragment of material that had grown before their eyes on that table.

Something had been made out of nothing!

The doctor picked it up and held it unconcernedly in his fingers.

"Can anybody tell me," asked he, "what this is?"

There was no answer. The professor tossed the thing back on the table.

It gave forth a sharp, metallic sound.

"You are looking at ether," spoke he. "It is the ether itself--nothing else. You call it matter; others would call it iron; but those are merely names. I call it ether in motion--materialised force-coherent vibration.

"Like everything else in the universe it answers to a law. It has its reason--there is no such thing as chance. Do you follow? That fragment is simply a principle, allowed to manifest itself through a natural law!

"Try to follow me. All is out of the ether--all! Variety in matter is simply a question of varying degrees of electronic activity, depending upon a number of ratios. Life itself, as well as materiality and force, comes out of the all-pervading ether.

"This object here," touching the crystal, "is merely a conductor. It picks up the ether and sends it through a set degree of vibrational activity. Result? It makes iron!

"If you wish you may go back to our twentieth century for a parallel--by which I mean, electricity. It is gathered crudely; but the time will come when it will be picked up out of the air in precisely the same manner that men pick hydrocarbons out of petroleum, or as I sift the desired quality of ether through that globe.

"This, I am convinced, is one of the fundamental secrets of the Blind Spot. Is there any question?"

Wendel managed to put one.

"You said, 'back in the twentieth century.' Is it a question of time displacement, sir?"

"Suppose we forgo that point at present. You will note, however, that the Thomahlian world is certainly far in advance of our own."

"Professor," asked Watson, "is it the occult?"

"Ah," brightening; "now we are getting back to the old point. However, what is the occult?" He paused; then--"Did it ever occur to you, that the occult might prove to be the real world, proving that life we have known to be merely a shadow?"

Silence greeted this. The professor went on:

"Let me ask you: Are you living in a real world now, or an unreal one?"

There was no response. "It is, of course, a reality; just as truly as if you were in San Francisco. So," very distinctly, "perhaps it is merely a question of viewpoint, as to which is the occult!"

"Just what we want to know," from Harry.

"And that," tossing up his hands, "is exactly what I cannot tell you.

I have found out many things, but I cannot be sure. I left certainty in Berkeley.

"Today I feel that there is some great fate, some unknown force that defies analysis, defies all attempts at resolution--a force that is driving me through the role of the Jarados. We are all a part of the Prophecy!

"We must wait for the last day for our answer. That Prophecy must and will be fulfilled. And on that day we shall have the key to the Blind Spot--we shall know the where of the occult."

He took a sip from a tumbler of the familiar green fluid.

"Now that I have told you this much, I am going back to the beginning.

I, too, have had adventures.

"How did I come to discover the Blind Spot?

"It was about one year prior to my last lecture at the university. At the time I had been doing much psychic-research work, all of which you know. And out of it I had adduced some peculiar theories. For example:

"Undoubtedly there is such a thing as a spirit world. If all the mediums but one were dishonest, and that one produced the results that couldn't be explained away by psychology, then we must admit the existence of another world.

"But reason tells us that there is nothing but reality; that if there were a spirit world it must be just as real, just as substantial as our own. Moreover--somewhere, somehow, here must be a definite point of contact!

"That was approximately my theory. Of course I had no idea how close I had come to a great truth. To some extent it was pure guesswork.

"Then, one day Budge Kennedy brought me the blue stone. He told me its history, and he maintained that it was lighter than air, which of course I disbelieved until I took it out of the ring and saw for myself.

"I went at once to the house at 288 Chatterton Place. There I found an old lady who had lived in the house for some time. I asked to see the cellar where the stone had been unearthed. Understand, I had no idea of the great discovery I was about to make; I merely wanted to see. And I found something almost as impossible as the blue stone itself-a green one, heavier than any known mineral, answering to no known classification but of an entirely new element. It was no larger than a pea, but of incredible weight.

"Coming upstairs I found the old lady a bit perturbed. I had told her my name; she had recognised me as well.

"'Come with me,' she said.

"With that she opened a door. She was very old and very uncertain; yet she was scarcely afraid.

"'In there," she said, and pointed through the door.

"I entered an ordinary room, furnished as a parlour. There was a sofa, a table, a few chairs; little else.