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 day. I am reduced to the necessity of acknowledging it or quarrelling with you, George Wylde, and under the existing  circumstances that would be a decided mistake.”

I said no more, but followed the Doctor through the chamber in which we now found ourselves, into a larger one where a fire burned and Ah Schow was steeping tea in  an old earthern pot. Upon a huge fragment of rock cups, saucers and plates were laid and several lamas sat around  devouring rice with their chopsticks. Walla bent over the fire near our cook, busily stirring the contents of a huge,  smoke-begrimed vessel; the glow of the fire alone shed  light upon the scene.

Such was my situation now after the lapse of many weary days—days lengthened into weeks until, as I have  said, a month had passed.

Who can wonder if I own to an inward longing for a second inhalation from that golden tube; if I sometimes wish my life cord might have been severed; that I was back again  with Maurice and Mr. Mirrikh in Mars?

But enough of this.

We were now in a vast cavern opening back into the side of a mountain, but just where on the face of God’s footstool this cavern was located, we did not know.

With us—by us I mean the Doctor and myself—were Padma and all his lamas save the one whom I had seen put the  body of the old priest into the shute. That Walla and Ah Schow were likewise with us I have already said.

My return from Mars was to this cave. I opened my eyes to find the Doctor bending over me, using every effort  to resuscitate what, as he assured me afterward, he fully believed to be a corpse; but he could scarcely have been more  surprised when I rose up and spoke than I was to see him,  for I had counted the Doctor as already dead.

His story was briefly told.

The Doctor boarded the car, and acting upon the information furnished him by Padma, started alone on his perilous journey. Of course I was immensely curious to learn how he had fared, but his description of the trip from the  lamasery to the cavern was singularly vague.

“Upon my word, I can’t tell you much about it, George,” he said, when I came to question him. “I just held on to the rope and seemed to go with a rush. It was pitch dark, but there was plenty of air and the motion of the car