Beyond the Vanishing Point

hat was

s. The dome had a great jagged hole halfway up one of its sides, through

e, Glora. The power of

anion drug. I need not detail the strange sensations of

of his men undoubtedly escaped, made off into the blizzard. How m

r the microscope on the white square of stone slab. We had hurried with our last p

microscope. With daylight Polter's wrecked place w

very carefully, to the Royal Canadian Scientific Soc

anew. Here in Polter's weird place I had been living in some strange fantastic realm. But this wa

oughts away. "

es

iabolical beyond human conception. A single giant, a criminal, a madman, by the power of giant size alone, could menace and destroy beyond belief. The drug lost, or carelessly handled, c

this awe inspiring drug! Monsters of the sea, marine organisms, could expand un

ing me. "We're

, let

n there with Polter, beyond the vanishing point in the realm of infinitely small. Th

l with her last directions. There had been no time for her to tell us anything about herself.

own. Plenty o

it take us?"

careful with managing th

eady to start. Sh

hare of the drugs, but then

feel of them was cool and sleek; they seemed to be made of some strange, polished metal. Some of th

" she said. "We take them very caref

one of his, but

to say. First we sit here together. Then you follow

nner was naive; childlike. But I could not mistake her intelligence or the

ion, Alan. You are very young, reckless. You listen. We must not be separated. You understand that, both of yo

upon which we were now

t never find each other. And if we come upon the Doctor Po

laimed. "And we

arger ones were not only larger but of an intensified strength. We took the smallest. It was barely a thousand

they caused no more than a fleeting discomfort. But I

n as it pulled. We were seated together, Alan and I on each side of Glora. My fingers were on her arm. It did not change size, but it slowly

had better start now. The dista

ece. As we stood swaying I saw that the chair was huge, and its seat level with my head. The great barrel-cylinder of the microscope

, steady movement everywhere. Everything was drawing away from us. Eve

Glora was urging

must not st

ab itself was a broad, square surface. The fragment of golden quartz

ward it. Then suddenly I realized that it was receding. Thirty feet away? No, now it was mo

gher than our heads. We ran under it, and cut out upon the white

nce of us, her robe flying in t

or it will be t

ond it and over it was a vast dim distance. We reached the rock, breathless, winded. It

climbed up them. It seemed as if we would never reach the top, but at last we were there. I w

awe upon the top of a rocky hill. Little buttes and strewn boulders lay ever

ht that I could make out a more solid blur which might be the lower lens of the microscope above us. And there were blurred, ve

etched into the distance. I seemed to see where it ended in a murky blur. And far h

ky summit which seemed several hundred feet across to its opposite brink

place where we go down.

Glora led us back from the cliff. As we picked our way among the na

lter's men might have the drug? I me

the drug. He trusts not anyone. I stole it. I will tel

p, and dashed around a rock. He

ight be someone around here. But I guess not." He took Glora's hand and t

er when he came outward. He has made my world and my people, his slav

boyish, rugged features and shock of tousled brown hair. The grimness of adventure was upon him, but in his eyes there was somethin

r the center of the hilltop.

ed. "We de

ne end, forty feet long, with the other end term

t tell just how large it will

r hole extending downward. Alan knelt and shoved

t do

? How de

of us. How far away in size, who knows? Do you wan

dropped.

pit before us, and anot

said

ere the rocks were creeping with a slow inexorable movement, the landscape expanding around us. Th

shift our feet as the expanding ground drew them apart. I becam

We're going dow

as deep. Glora let herself down, peered anxiously beneath her, and dropped. Alan and I

d shuddered. Suppose, in some slightly sma

ar valley. It seemed fully a mile in diameter, with huge encircling walls like a crater rim towe

had been cold when we started. The exertion had kept us fairly comfortable; But now I realized that it was far warmer. This was different air, more humid, and I thought t

as around us. And then I noticed that the light was not altogether coming from overhead. It seeme

realized that it was a case of judgment, as well as physical haste. We had dropped into that six-foot pit. Had we waited a few moments longer, the depth w

ns; we slid down a smooth yellowish slide of rocks, and saw it behind and over us, rising to become a great spreading ramp extending upward into the blue of the sky. Now, up there, lit

aversing, there was a range of hills. Behind and above them were mountains; serrated tiers; higher and more distant. An infinite spread of landscape! And, as we dwindled, still other vas

This was all only an inch of golden quartz

ed at first. We were always far larger than normal in comparison to our environment, and the main distinguishing

We were at the edge of a broad canyon. The wall towered several hundred feet

inous gloom. We could barely see across the canyon to its distant cliff wall. The wall beside us had been smooth, but now it was b

I don't like

of Polter. She listened quietly, se

you now about Polter

minutes. I listened, amaz

"Come on, let's get out of here. That t

A little tunnel. That is our way to tr

it was, we had no time to act upon it. The tunnel-mouth which had caused Alan's apprehension was about a hundred feet away. It was a ten-foot, yawning hol

at he was growing in size! Already he was twenty feet tall compared to us-a thick-set fellow, dressed in leather garments, his legs an

mazement struck him

a roar and