tale of horror that can be faintly pictured only by the imagination. Think of a holocaust so terrible that one hundred million human creatures are thereby swept into death in the narrow compass of forty days! The records that have been brought down to us by the few survivors indicate the continual wails of horror rending the sky while the volcanic disturbances continued. Thousands and millions ran from place to place to find shelter from the storm of fire. At one place the surface would open and at another the lava would run. Fate, with a merciless hand, was dragging each one into one or another of the inevitable pits."

"How many were saved?" I asked with deepening interest.

"Parts of only eight families aggregating nineteen human beings."

"And how many people are on the Moon now?"

"Almost forty million."

"How do you account for this slow growth?" I asked after I had explained that on our globe a much larger number of inhabitants sprang from a smaller number than nineteen in a shorter period of time.

This allusion cost me much explanation, and, after I had selfishly brushed his rising questions aside, I learned that large companies of the Moonites had been swept into death by frequent volcanic outbursts all along the line of the centuries.

No one can estimate my interest as I continued the conversation. But finally I decided to stroll through certain parts of the city and, thinking it advisable to give no notice of my departure, I suddenly vanished from his sight. However, before leaving the room, I observed that my bewildered auditor conjectured for a long time and reached his former conclusion that he had been in touch with an apparition.

Again I resumed my visible form and walked along one of the principal streets of the city. What novel sights greeted my eyes on every side! One cannot well imagine what excitement I aroused. Citizens who first saw me lifted their flabby arms in terror and ran to the city Bizen, a place where every inhabitant, under oath, is obliged to carry special news before communicating it elsewhere.