XLVI. — OUT OF THE OCCULT
“HOW DID IT HAPPEN?”
“I scarcely know. We went up to play with the dog. It was unwilling to leave the place, and Aradna teasingly tried to push her off on to the steps. She succeeded, but—well, it was all over that quick. The Aradna was gone!”
But the Spot had by this time lost a good deal of its terror. Knowing what was on the other side, and who, made a great difference. As the doctor said later in a private consultation with Chick and Harry:
“It's not so bad. That is, if Hobart Fenton is at work there. I think he is. Really, I only regret that we didn't know of this beforehand; we could have sent a message through to him.”
And the professor went on to explain what he meant. At the time he spoke, it was twenty-four hours after the Aradna's going; another twenty-four hours would see the evening of the Last Day—the sixteenth of the sacred Days of Life—what the Rhamdas alluded to as “the Day of Judgment.” And the Mahovisal was a seething mass of humanity, all bent upon seeing the fulfillment of their highest hopes.
“Bear in mind that if the Spot should not open at the last moment, you and I are done for. We will be self-condemned 'False Ones'; our lives will not last one minute after midnight tomorrow night if we fail to get through!
“That Prophecy means EVERYTHING to the Thomahlians. There was a time when they accepted it on faith; now it is an intellectual conviction with every last one of them. And one and all look forward to a new and glorious life beyond the Spot—in the occult world—our world!