"The laboratory!" he answered, in a puzzled tone, and put his hand to
his forehead. "I _was_ in the laboratory--till that flash came, but
I'm hanged if I'm there now. What ship is that?"

"There's no ship," said I. "Do be sensible, old chap."

"No ship!" he repeated, and seemed to forget my denial forthwith. "I
suppose," said he, slowly, "we're both dead. But the rummy part is I
feel just as though I still had a body. Don't get used to it all at
once, I suppose. The old shop was struck by lightning, I suppose.
Jolly quick thing, Bellows--eigh?"

"Don't talk nonsense. You're very much alive. You are in the
laboratory, blundering about. You've just smashed a new electrometer.
I don't envy you when Boyce arrives."

He stared away from me towards the diagrams of cryohydrates. "I must
be deaf," said he. "They've fired a gun, for there goes the puff of
smoke, and I never heard a sound."

I put my hand on his arm again, and this time he was less alarmed. "We
seem to have a sort of invisible bodies," said he. "By Jove! there's a
boat coming round the headland. It's very much like the old life after
all--in a different climate."

I shook his arm. "Davidson," I cried, "wake up!"


II.