"'We have succeeded!' the plump one was shouting excitedly. 'We've brought someone through at last!'
"'They will never believe it,' the other replied. 'They'll say it was faked.'
"'Nonsense!' cried the first. 'We can do it again, Rastin; we can show them before their own eyes!'
"They bent toward me, seeing me staring at them.
"'Where are you from?' shouted the plump-faced one. 'What time—what year—what century?'
"'He doesn't understand, Thicourt,' muttered the white-bearded one. 'What year is this now, my friend?' he asked me.
"I found voice to answer. 'Surely, sirs, whoever you be, you know that this is the year fourteen hundred and forty-four,' I said.
"That set them off again into a babble of excited talk, of which I could make out only a word here and there. They lifted me up, seeing how sick and weak I felt, and seated me in a strange, but very comfortable chair. I felt dazed. The two were still talking excitedly, but finally the white-bearded one, Rastin, turned to me. He spoke to me, very slowly, so that I understood him clearly, and he asked me my name. I told him.
"'Henri Lothiere,' he repeated. 'Well, Henri, you must try to understand. You are not now in the year 1444. You are five hundred years in the future, or what would seem to you the future. This is the year 1944.'
"'And Rastin and I have jerked you out of your own time across five solid centuries,' said the other, grinning.