. . . dropping through unfathomable depths of burning blackness to a screaming emptiness. . . .

As suddenly as it had started, it ended. And the Old Man's voice was croaking in my ear.

“Gad! Sparks, are you all right?”

“Yes, sir,” I faltered. “I think so, sir. What was it? What happened?”

“Lightning. A direct smash, forward. I thought for a moment it had blinded me. And—look!”

He gestured to the eyepiece of the periscope. I looked—and drew back. The sea about us was in flames from the lightning burst igniting the oil. I suddenly remembered Johnny. I said, “The poor old bloke! He must think we've been burned to a crisp.”

“Or,” said the skipper, “that we disappeared in a sea of flame.”

I gaped at him stupidly.

“Look again, Sparks. Beyond the fire. The shore.”

I looked. The flames were gone. The storm-clouds had vanished, and the sky was crystal blue. There was a patrol-ship racing toward us, a bone of froth in its teeth, the Union Jack astern. White, modern buildings rimmed a harbor abristle with docks and quays, the glory of a modern seaport. The city was—Beyrouth!

I said, “But—but I don't understand, sir! How did we get here?”

The Old Man said quietly, “When the patrol arrives, Sparks, I will tell them we had trouble, and drifted off our course. I dare not tell them the truth. They'd never understand. No more than you do—or I do.”

“Understand what, sir?”

“Where we have been,” said the Old Man, “or when. I'm not sure I can explain, Sparks. Perhaps there's a clear and logical explanation. Possibly you were right about the sextant; we misjudged our position off Cyprus. And maybe we were all insensible for a few minutes after that lightning struck the ship. I don't know. Maybe we've been laying off this harbor for an hour.”

“But the village we saw?”

“Dimly, through a brief rift in the fog. There is such a thing as a mirage.”

I said boldly, “You don't really believe that, sir. You're just rationalizing.”

He groped for his pipe and pouch, steadying shaken nerves with old, familiar movements. “Yes, Sparks, I am. Logic rejects what I really believe.”

“And that is, sir?”

“Suppose electricity were somehow connected with time? Then what?”

“With time, sir?”

“The present and the past,” mused the Old Man, “and the future. Days and hours leaping like electrons from one place to another, without ever having passed through intervening space. A bomb scored a near miss on the Grampus, and everything was strangely changed. Lightning struck us—and we have returned to our proper era.”

“You mean we've been in the—”

“The past—yes.” The skipper's pipe was lighted, now, and with its