Suddenly Tydomin gave his hand a powerful squeeze.  He heard someone scream faintly, and then the light leaped up, and he saw everything clearly.

He was lying on a wooden couch, in a strangely decorated room, lighted by electricity.  His hand was being squeezed, not by Tydomin, but by a man dressed in the garments of civilisation, with whose face he was certainly familiar, but under what circumstances he could not recall.  Other people stood in the background—­they too were vaguely known to him.  He sat up and began to smile, without any especial reason; and then stood upright.

Everybody seemed to be watching him with anxiety and emotion—­he wondered why.  Yet he felt that they were all acquaintances.  Two in particular he knew—­the man at the farther end of the room, who paced restlessly backward and forward, his face transfigured by stern, holy grandeur; and that other big, bearded man—­who was himself.  Yes—­he was looking at his own double.  But it was just as if a crime-riddled man of middle age were suddenly confronted with his own photograph as an earnest, idealistic youth.

His other self spoke to him.  He heard the sounds, but did not comprehend the sense.  Then the door was abruptly flung open, and a short, brutish-looking individual leaped in.  He began to behave in an extraordinary manner to everyone around him; and after that came straight up to him—­Maskull.  He spoke some words, but they were incomprehensible.  A terrible expression came over the newcomer’s face, and he grasped his neck with a pair of hairy hands.  Maskull felt his bones bending and breaking, excruciating pains passed through all the nerves of his body, and he experienced a sense of impending death.  He cried out, and sank helplessly on the floor, in a heap.  The chamber and the company vanished—­the light went out.

Once more he found himself in the blackness of the cave.  He was this time lying on the ground, but Tydomin was still with him, holding his hand.  He was in horrible bodily agony, but this was only a setting for the despairing anguish that filled his mind.

Tydomin addressed him in tones of gentle reproach.  “Why are you back so soon?  I’ve not had time yet.  You must return.”

He caught hold of her, and pulled himself up to his feet.  She gave a low scream, as though in pain.  “What does this mean—­what are you doing, Maskull?”

“Krag—­” began Maskull, but the effort to produce his words choked him, so that he was obliged to stop.

“Krag—­what of Krag?  Tell me quickly what has happened.  Free my arm.”

He gripped her arm tighter.

“Yes, I’ve seen Krag.  I’m awake.”

“Oh!  You are awake, awake.”

“And you must die,” said Maskull, in an awful voice.

“But why?  What has happened?...”

“You must die, and I must kill you.  Because I am awake, and for no other reason.  You blood-stained dancing mistress!”