among certain of the lichenous trees, and once some of these fled before one of the hopping, round-headed Martians.  The latter caught one in its tentacles, and then the picture faded suddenly and left Mr. Cave most tantalisingly in the dark.  On another occasion a vast thing, that Mr. Cave thought at first was some gigantic insect, appeared advancing along the causeway beside the canal with extraordinary rapidity.  As this drew nearer Mr. Cave perceived that it was a mechanism of shining metals and of extraordinary complexity.  And then, when he looked again, it had passed out of sight.

After a time Mr. Wace aspired to attract the attention of the Martians, and the next time that the strange eyes of one of them appeared close to the crystal Mr. Cave cried out and sprang away, and they immediately turned on the light and began to gesticulate in a manner suggestive of signalling.  But when at last Mr. Cave examined the crystal again the Martian had departed.

Thus far these observations had progressed in early November, and then Mr. Cave, feeling that the suspicions of his family about the crystal were allayed, began to take it to and fro with him in order that, as occasion arose in the daytime or night, he might comfort himself with what was fast becoming the most real thing in his existence.

In December Mr. Wace’s work in connection with a forthcoming examination became heavy, the sittings were reluctantly suspended for a week, and for ten or eleven days—­he is not quite sure which—­he saw nothing of Cave.  He then grew anxious to resume these investigations, and, the stress of his seasonal labours being abated, he went down to Seven Dials.  At the corner he noticed a shutter before a bird fancier’s window, and then another at a cobbler’s.  Mr. Cave’s shop was closed.

He rapped and the door was opened by the step-son in black.  He at once called Mrs. Cave, who was, Mr. Wace could not but observe, in cheap but ample widow’s weeds of the most imposing pattern.  Without any very great surprise Mr. Wace learnt that Cave was dead and already buried.  She was in tears, and her voice was a little thick.  She had just returned from Highgate.  Her mind seemed occupied with her own prospects and the honourable details of the obsequies, but Mr. Wace was at last able to learn the particulars of Cave’s death.  He had been found dead in his shop in the early morning, the day after his last visit to Mr. Wace, and the crystal had been clasped in his stone-cold hands.  His face was smiling, said Mrs. Cave, and the velvet cloth from the minerals lay on the floor at his feet.  He must have been dead five or six hours when he was found.

This came as a great shock to Wace, and he began to reproach himself bitterly for having neglected the plain symptoms of the old man’s ill-health.  But his chief thought was of the crystal.  He approached that topic in a gingerly manner, because he knew Mrs. Cave’s peculiarities.  He was dumfounded to learn that it was sold.