Suddenly there was an exclamation from Larry.
"Seven little lights are beginning to glow on this stone!" he cried.
But I had already seen those beneath my lens begin to gleam out with a silvery lustre.

Swiftly the rays within the condenser began to thicken and increase, and as they did so the seven small circles waxed like stars growing out of the dusk, and with a queer--curdled is the best word I can find to define it--radiance entirely strange to me.
Beneath me I heard a faint, sighing murmur and then the voice of Huldricksson: "It opens--the stone turns--" I began to climb down the ladder.

Again came Olaf's voice: "The stone--it is open--" And then a shriek, a wail of blended anguish and pity, of rage and despair--and the sound of swift footsteps racing through the wall beneath me! I dropped to the ground.

The moon door was wide open, and through it I caught a glimpse of a corridor filled with a faint, pearly vaporous light like earliest misty dawn.

But of Olaf I could see--nothing! And even as I stood, gaping, from behind me came the sharp crack of a rifle; the glass of the condenser at Larry's side flew into fragments; he dropped swiftly to the ground, the automatic in his hand flashed once, twice, into the darkness.
And the moon door began to pivot slowly, slowly back into its place! I rushed toward the turning stone with the wild idea of holding it open.