Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/265

 his power, I watched him. He bent over the strips of hide and examined them with care, straightening up at last and  looking toward me.

“Wylde,” he called, “I am very sorry, but I find that it is going to take more force than I supposed to accomplish my purpose. My dear friend, I had intended that you should witness what I am about to do, but I must ask you  to look the other way.”

Then before I could reply, some influence more powerful than my own will forced me to turn my head.

It seemed but a moment, and in that moment a strange rush of sound swept past me.

“Look, Mr. Wylde! It is done!”

I turned.

The bridge was stretched across the rift and Mirrikh stood at my side.

“The way lies open before you,” he said. “Save yourself, save your friends. Be faithful in the use God has given you to perform. I shall ever think of you with kindly remembrance. Farewell!”

He extended his hand; I grasped it warmly. As I did so his feet and limbs seemed to dissolve and he began slowly  sinking down—I was forced to stoop low in order to retain  my hold upon the hand.

In another instant the body was gone, the head and the hand I grasped alone remaining.

“Farewell!” the familiar voice exclaimed, and then the head vanished also.

I looked at my hand, for I still felt the grasp of his.

Delusion!

My hand was empty.

My friend Mirrikh had disappeared.

“! Maurice! Wake up!”

“What's the row?” muttered Maurice. “ ’Taint time for the breakfast bell yet, mother. Do leave a fellow alone.”

As space had been obliterated when my friend Mr.