was speaking a language foreign to him, and then and afterwards I
noticed also that he did not use the conversational idiomatic English
of any of those who speak English as their mother tongue.

“We are Englishmen,” I said, “and we come from the eastward. We went
among the blacks and they left us, and we do not know our way. Can you
give us food and clothes, and guide us to the nearest English
settlement?”

“I can give you both food and clothes,” he said; “about guidance we
shall speak farther when you have made up your mind whither your
purpose is to go.”

I was about to thank him when I suddenly noticed the aspect of his
men. They were looking at us eagerly, and it seemed as if they were
waiting for some expected word of command. I could not help thinking
that they were about to spring upon us, and I put my hand
instinctively to the pocket where I kept my pistol.

The leader said shortly, “Never mind that.” Then he turned to his men.
I could not see his face, but I saw that he lifted his hand. Presently
the men were working away at their previous work, and were taking no
more note at all of us.

“Come with me,” said the leader, and he walked down the broad stone
stairway. It was a very broad stairway, with stone balustrades on each
side, light in appearance, but immensely strong. Every step, as well
as the whole of the balustrade, was diversified with a variety of
pictures and devices wrought upon stone by some method which rendered
them proof against the weather. On this occasion I noticed little but
the colours, but I observed them very closely afterwards. They
appeared not only here, but everywhere in the valley, whether under
cover or in the open air, wherever there was any space to receive
them, on walls, floors, ceilings, pillars, and doors.

All these pictures and devices presented one pervading idea; and as
one passed backward and forward over steps and through doors, past
pillars and balustrades, and walls, this idea gradually wrought its
way into one’s mind, until it seemed to dominate, or at least to claim
to dominate everywhere. The idea so presented was that of an unequal
but very determined conflict. Sometimes there was a simple device, a
heavy drawn sword, for one, falling sheer, a cloud hiding the arm that
sped it, and a gauntleted hand raised in resistance. This hand was but
small and slight as compared with the sword, but there was expression
in every sinew of it and in its very poise.

Again, you would see a hand coming out of a cloud and wielding a flash
of lightning, and underneath two smaller hands lifted up as if trying
to catch the extremities of the zigzag line of light. But the eeriest
of all the devices was that of the two eyes: the larger eye was above
and the lesser beneath, and how such expression could be given to an
eye by itself I do not understand, but certainly there it was. Either
eye was looking steadfastly into the other, and in the upper eye you
saw conscious power, harsh, stern, and unrelenting; and in the lower
and lesser one you saw, quite as plainly, the spirit of hopeless but
unquelled resistance. The same idea was repeated in many pictures. In
one of them you saw a great host bearing down upon a few antagonists
of determined if despairing aspect. And in the background a dark mass
of cloud, forest, and rock hid all but the forefront of the mightier
combatants and gave you the notion of unseen and inscrutable power.
Still, the simpler devices, I think, suggested with more awful
certainty the actual presence of desperate and deadly struggle.

As I have said, however, I was conscious of but little of all this as
I walked down the broad stone stair. I was weary, and hungry, and
thirsty, and utterly taken by surprise, and I was quite ready to
attribute to these feelings the sense of eeriness and fear which was
creeping over me.

Our host conducted us down the stair with stately courtesy, and he
gave us briefly to understand that he was about to ask us to refresh
ourselves with food and rest and change of raiment. At the foot of the
stair a very broad roadway led straight on toward the other end of the
valley, but our host beckoned us to the right by a shorter and
narrower way. We entered one of the low buildings which I had seen
from above. These were not very large, but they proved to be
considerably larger than I had supposed. We passed through a little
porch into a fair-sized room, the floor of which was covered with a
stuff of curious texture. It looked like some sort of metal; it felt
beneath the feet like the softest pile. The walls on one side of the
room exhibited a number of drawers with handles. Both drawers and
handles were of strange and irregular shapes, exhibiting,
nevertheless, a sort of regular recurrence in their very
irregularities. In the centre of each of the remaining walls was a
picture wrought upon the surface of the wall and occupying about a
third of the whole wall, and over the rest of the wall there was
inscribed a variety of devices. Both picture and devices were of the
sort which I have already indicated.

There was an elliptical table in the middle of the room, and here and
there on the floor were several chairs and a few couches, all of a
very bizarre pattern, and all—tables, couches, chairs, drawers, and
floorcloth—were covered with devices, some similar in form and all
similar in spirit to those upon the wall. In the wall opposite the
drawers there was a door, and our host, opening this, showed us into a
room of lesser size where there were all sorts of appliances for
bathing and for dressing. Clothes also, like those worn by himself and
his men, hung round on racks. The walls and furniture, here as well as
elsewhere, presented repetitions under various forms of the same
pictured idea.

Before taking us into the bath-room, our host pulled out three
drawers, calling our attention to the numbers marked upon them. Out of
each he took a number of little round cakes or lozenges, each of a
little less than the circumference of a two-shilling piece, but rather
thicker. These he placed on several dishes, a different sort on each
dish, and two spoons, or like spoons, on each dish also. He told us to
take each, after the bath, a few of these, and he told us in what
order we were to take them. Then, with a salutation, he left us to
ourselves.

We bathed quickly, and after our bath we availed ourselves gladly of
the change of raiment which our host had placed at our disposal. We
exchanged a very few words, and those few did not attempt to deal with
the mystery which was thickening about us. Jack’s face expressed a
mixture of surprise and mistrust, each in an extreme degree. My own
face, as Jack told me later on, expressed sheer bewilderment.
Certainly that was my feeling until far into the middle of the next
day. I did not really believe that I was awake and in my senses, and I
kept going back and back in my thoughts trying to find out when and
where I fell asleep or was stunned.

After our bath we returned into the larger room. We were then very
hungry, and we lay down each upon a couch, expecting to be soon
summoned to the evening meal, for by this time the afternoon was well
advanced. The weather was pleasantly warm, and we would have dropped
asleep if we had not been kept awake by hunger. We both remembered at
the same moment the plates of confections which our host had offered
us. We took first one and then another of each kind in the order which
he had indicated, letting them slowly melt in our mouths. The taste of
them, although pleasant, was rather strange, but yet not altogether
unfamiliar. The taste of the first sort faintly resembled the taste of
roast beef; of the second, of pine-apple; of the third, of sweet wine,
specially of muscatel. The effect of them was extraordinary; we felt
that we had partaken of an agreeable and substantial meal; our hunger
and thirst were gone, and we were quite refreshed. And then, as will
happen when one dines well after a laborious and exciting day, we both
fell sound asleep. We slept all through the night and on until a
little after sunrise, and, not to go into details, we rose immediately
and breakfasted as we had dined. We had scarce finished our meal when
we became aware of the tramp of many men at no great distance from us,
and we hurried to the door. We saw then, what neither of us had
noticed the evening before, that the broad road, out of which we had
turned in order to reach our present resting-place, opened out at the
distance of about two hundred yards from the flight of steps into a
large square, formed as the road itself was formed, and planted around
the borders with trees, under the shade of which were several benches.

In the square were some two or three hundred men, undergoing some sort
of review by the leader, with whom we had already become acquainted.
Whatever degree of mistrust either of us felt we thought it as well
not to show it, so we came forward leisurely until we were within a
few score paces of the men, and then we stood and looked. We were not
at once perceived, as neither the leader nor his men were looking
straight in our direction, and we were partly shaded by a tree. The
men were evidently of a much higher stamp intellectually than those
whom we had seen the day before, excepting the leader. The men,
yesterday, seemed to differ from automatic machines in one single
point, namely, that they seemed to have a will of their own, although
they had surrendered it to their leader. They seemed, you would say,
quite incapable of action except as prompted by him, although they
gave themselves up to his prompting, no doubt, because of sympathy and
unity of purpose with him. The men to-day seemed, on the contrary, to
be men of considerable intelligence. You would suppose them to be
quite capable of being leaders themselves, and able to carry out in
full detail instructions which they might receive in the merest
outline. It was evident that they were now receiving instructions.
These were being given, partly by expressions and signs, and partly by
some spoken language. The language, which I heard several times in the
next two days, bore no resemblance at all to any language that I knew.
It seemed to be very artificial and elliptical. The former quality was
suggested by the regular recurrence and gradation of certain sounds,
and the latter quality was suggested by its great brevity. A word or
two seemed to suffice where we should require one or more sentences.

When the leader had given his instructions, one and another, and then
another, of the men stood out from the ranks and spoke to him, and in
each case he replied. The men who spoke I judged to be in some
subordinate command. All the men stood in files now, one man behind
another, facing the leader, and in each case the man who spoke stood
in front of his file. These files formed themselves quite suddenly and
with great precision after the leader had given his first orders and
before the other men spoke. It seemed as if the subordinate leaders
were making suggestions or inquiries respecting the details of the
work about which they had just received instructions in outline.

Then followed what seemed like a numbering of the men, and it soon
became apparent that one file had two men missing, that is to say,
supposing all the files to have been at first equal in number. As the
deficiency became apparent a flash of baffled but furious malignity
passed across the leader’s face. Then I knew that when I had seen the
like expression yesterday I was not dreaming. Jack and I exchanged a
momentary glance. Some words, as I judged of inquiry and
unsatisfactory reply, passed between the leader and one of his
subordinates, and then, in the progress of the drill, the men made a
partial turn by which they brought us into full view. In a moment they
saw us, and in a moment the same eager and threatening look came over
their faces which we had seen in the other men’s faces yesterday. Jack
and I both believed for that moment that our last hour was come.

But the leader withheld them with a word and a sign. What he said or
signified of course I did not really know, but I felt sure,
nevertheless, that it was to this effect, that we should supply the
places of their comrades who had disappeared. The same thought
occurred to Jack. His word was received with a sound like a laugh, but
it was a very horrible and ghastly laugh. One sometimes hears of the
horror of a maniac’s laugh; but the maniac’s laugh is horrible by
reason of its vacancy. This laugh was by no means vacant, it was full
of expression, but it was the expression of relentless malignity.

Then the leader dismissed the men and they moved away towards the
further end of the valley. Then he turned and moved slowly towards us
and we moved slowly to meet him. He met us with the same stately
courtesy as before and we exchanged salutations. He led us to the
square where the men had been and he invited us to sit down. Then he
inquired briefly concerning our personal comfort and we both expressed
briefly our thanks and satisfaction. Then I went on to say,

“My name, sir, is Easterley, and my friend is Mr. Wilbraham, and we
have only now to ask you by what name we are to know our host, and to
ask that he will add to the obligation under which he has placed us,
by giving us a guide to the nearest station or settlement of English
colonists.”

“I have more names than one,” he replied, “among your people, but when
I was last in Italy, which is a country that I know better than most,
I was known as Niccolo Davelli. I was an analytical chemist and
something of an engineer, and I did, well, a little political work
among the country folk.” He said all this with a very easy manner but
with a very unpleasant smile. “Signor Davelli,” I replied, speaking in
Italian, “I am proud to thank you by name on behalf of myself and my
friend, and I trust you will find no difficulty in giving the guidance
we ask.” “Surely not,” he answered in the same language, “but you will
stay here for a little, will you not? I have some curious things to
show you, and you may perhaps meet some old friends among my people,
and my work is so interesting and important that I have some hope that
you will see your way to cast in your lot with us altogether. But,”
said he, “you need not use Italian, for I am not any more skilful in
that than in your own equally famous tongue.” Here again was the
unpleasant smile, and I noticed that although he spoke Italian, as far
as I could judge quite perfectly, he used this language as well as
English with the deliberate and measured enunciation of a foreigner.

“As you will,” I replied, returning to English, “we shall be glad to
see what you have to show us.”

Signor Davelli rose up at the word and invited us to follow him. He
went up the stair by which we had come down the day before, and led us
to the platform on which we had first seen him. He told us briefly
that his sojourn here was in fulfilment of a purpose to which he and
certain others of his fellowship were pledged. That they were all
acting in concert and that certain of them were leaders, and that each
leader had command of a station such as this, of which there were
several in different parts of the world. That it was essential to the
work that it should be carried on from regions far removed from the
haunts of men, at least of civilised men, for they could repel the
interference of savage races without endangering the fulfilment of
their purpose. He went on to tell us that in this station of his he
had two classes of work to do, one class consisting of intellectual
work of a high order, and affecting more directly the fulfilment of
the common purpose, the other class consisting of merely mechanical
work, affecting the routine of life and its conditions here. “The
men,” he went on to say, “who carry out the former are of high and
independent mental faculties and rank accordingly; these men you have
seen to-day. The men who carry out the latter are of a very acute
capacity to receive and execute instructions, but have no originating
power of conception or design. These are they whom you saw yesterday.
Their work is mainly the making of our food and clothes, and the
construction of our means of locomotion, and of the machinery by which
the work is done. That machinery is designed and executed in model at
the other end of the valley by the other men in the intervals of their
more important work. That work, however, you cannot understand until
you become better acquainted with us.”

We had now reached the platform, and we saw the men at work just as we
had seen them the day before. Signor Davelli uttered a single word
which I did not understand, and on hearing it the men turned, and then
followed for a very few minutes the same sort of pantomimic action
which I had already seen and have described. Then they resumed work.

Signor Davelli then took us to the works and invited us to observe the
construction of the various machines in use.

I must not, however, run the risk of tiring you by any minute account
of them here. Let it suffice to say that there was a much higher
degree of mechanical skill exhibited in their construction than I have
ever seen anywhere before or since, and that besides there was much
that suggested the application of chemical and electrical science in
a manner greatly in advance of anything that is commonly known; and
further that there were certain complicated arrangements of prisms and
mirrors which indicated as I thought some use of the agency of light
which was quite new to me and which I did not understand. One set of
machines proved to be used for the manufacture of the compressed food
which we had already found so effective. Another set of much simpler
construction carried it away and stored it when made. Yet another set
was used for the manufacture of that invisible paint, the use of which
had so astonished me. These last were the machines which attracted my
curiosity most of all, and which implied not only a use which I did
not comprehend of agencies which I recognised, but the existence of
other agencies of which I knew nothing at all. I observed, however, as
carefully as possible and I made, later on, very full notes of what I
did observe, and I shall be happy to communicate these to our men of
science in whose hands they can hardly fail to become of much
practical value. I need hardly say that I asked a good many questions
about this last set of machines, but somehow I got very little
information. Whether Signor Davelli was unwilling to explain, or
whether there was something in the process which I was incapable of
understanding, I am not quite sure. All I could get from him was that
there are some rays at either end of the spectrum which are not
visible, and that it is possible to treat some substances so as to
cause them to reflect these rays only, just as other substances
reflect only the yellow or only the red. But from a word or two which
he spoke, I suspect inadvertently, I gathered that the rays he spoke
of, which are invisible to us, were visible to him, and differed as
much from yellow, red, or blue, as these from one another.

We now crossed the platform to the place where the cars were being
painted. I perceived as soon as I came upon the spot that the cars
were built at one level, and then raised by machinery to another level
at which they were painted, and that when painted they were raised to
a third level. Along each of these levels they were moved by rollers
of quite simple construction. Yesterday I had only seen those on the
second level; those on the first were too low to come within the field
of my view, and those on the third were invisible.

On this third level, however, one was to-day visible. As I afterwards
learned, Signor Davelli had caused it to be left unpainted. It was
otherwise finished. He caused it now to be rolled along to the
extremity of the platform, which ended to the southward in a sheer
precipice of some hundreds of feet. There was a ledge to keep it from
rolling over. Signor Davelli led us to this car and invited us to
enter it.

There was plenty of accommodation for two or three people. There were
easy benches and couches, and there were three boxes with distinctive
marks like numbers on the lids. At the end of the car which was
furthest from the ledge, the inside end, there was a great deal of
machinery, but not of such a size as I should have expected
considering the size of the car. This machinery consisted of two
batteries resembling galvanic batteries in many ways, but the stuff
used up in work was not fluid but solid; it consisted of large squares
of matter, which I think was wholly or mainly metallic. The batteries
were connected with a strong round bar, made, as I thought, of some
sort of metal[3] running through the car and supporting a pair of huge
paddles, or wings, one on each side of the car. At each end of the bar
were certain little wheels and cranks, devised not so as to cause the
paddles to revolve, but so as to give them a wing-like motion. At the
forward part of the car were several vessels of a form which suggested
a chemical apparatus for generating gas. And on each side of the car,
constructed and placed with an evident view to balance or trim it,
were two balloons, which seemed absurdly small in view of the size of
the car. These were connected with the chemical apparatus just
mentioned, and were filled by it, when occasion required, with a gas
vastly lighter than hydrogen.

  [Footnote 3: I discovered afterwards that it was not metallic.]

Signor Davelli, Jack, and I entered the car, and the Signor took a
bottle of liquid out of one of the numbered boxes and poured it into
one of the vessels. Then in all the vessels there seemed to be a sound
like boiling, and presently the balloons became inflated and raised
the car very gently and quite evenly. When we had been thus lifted to
a height of about a hundred feet from the platform, he put on a
dark-looking pair of gloves and laid hold of a strong thick wire,
which I had not seen before, which was fastened to the bar which I had
supposed to be of metal on the side further from where I sat. This
wire he connected with the batteries of either end, and immediately
took off the gloves. Presently the paddles began to move with a
wing-like action, driving the car straight forward through the air.
All this time we were still rising slowly, but when we had attained a
high degree of speed Signor Davelli turned the key of a valve which
communicated with both balloons and they presently collapsed, the
action of the paddles being now sufficient both to sustain us and to
urge us forward. The motion was easier than that of any conveyance
that I had ever yet travelled in. The seat on which Signor Davelli sat
was placed so that with one hand he could turn the key of the valve,
and with the other grasp either of two handles, by one of which he
managed the batteries, and by the other of which he changed at need
the direction of the paddles. I perceived, upon looking more closely,
that the key of the valve was fixed at the intersection of two tubes
shaped like a T, one at right angles to the other, the horizontal tube
joining the balloons and the perpendicular tube connected with the
vessels from which the sound of boiling still proceeded.

After we had gone, as I thought, a few miles, Signor Davelli changed
the direction of the paddles and swept round in a longish curve, until
the forward part of the car was turned to our starting point. When we
had travelled about half way back he turned the valve again and
refilled the balloons, and then he stopped the paddles and we lay
floating in the air, rising very slowly and gently. Then he bade me
look to the west and say if I saw anything. I could see nothing at
all, the day was quite cloudless. Then he bade me look downward, but
still to the west. Then I saw a shadow, as I thought, of a great bird,
but I could see no bird to cast the shadow. The sun was now declining
a little, and he bade me turn and look downward again, but now to the
east. Then I saw the shadow of our own car, and although the point of
view was not the same, there was no room to doubt but that the other
shadow was cast by a car like ours. The moment I saw the likeness my
old Welsh experience came with a flash to my mind. These were just the
same queer sort of shadows that I had seen long ago at Penruddock the
day James Redpath had disappeared; yes, and surely the evening before
the day we reached the valley, the evening of the day that we lost
poor Gioro I had seen just the same sort of shadow. And—— Could it be?
Yes, it surely was—the dreadful face that I recognised yesterday was
no other than James Redpath’s own! How it was that I did not identify
him before I do not know, but now I knew very surely that I had seen
himself indeed. Such was the tumult of mixed feelings that now took
possession of me that although we moved rapidly forward again until we
had passed quite over the valley and then wheeled round once more, I
took no notice of our movements until I found that we were descending
to the spot where we had started, the front of the car facing
southward as before. I looked at Signor Davelli, and I read in his
face an expression of gratified pride and a strong sense of power.
There was nothing repulsive in his aspect now, at least nothing
repulsive to me. I felt also that I was being somehow dominated by his
will, and that I was not altogether unwilling that it should be so. I
felt certainly some remnant of the horror with which I had looked
yesterday on his face and the faces of his men, but I was conscious
that my horror was rapidly merging into simple wonder. I felt
something of the sort of awe which the suspected presence of the
supernatural produces in most minds; but the feeling which dominated
for the present all other feelings in me was a devouring curiosity.
Just then the sacred allegory of the Fall passed before my mind rather
as if presented than recalled. In my mind’s eye I saw the very Tree
itself which was to be desired to make one wise, and the legend
written under it—

  “Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum;”

but neither device nor motto seemed to have any other effect upon me
than to stimulate my curiosity.

Just then we touched ground, and I started, as if coming to my
senses, and looked over at Jack. His face was partly turned away, and
I could see little more than his side face. He wore an abstracted air,
such as I had never seen him wear before. There was also a sweetness
and earnestness of expression about him which were certainly not
foreign to his face, but which I had never before seen there in such
intense degree. Strange to say, there came upon me for the moment a
sort of contempt for his understanding which seemed strongly to repel
me from him. This, I have now no doubt, was produced by some evil
influence acting I know not how, for assuredly there was nothing in my
knowledge of him that it could build upon, and all that happened after
justified it, if possible, even less. Just then he turned and looked
upon me, and there was in his eyes so much care and kindness, kindness
to me and care on my account, that my heart was touched and awakened
at once. I cannot analyze or account for the effect which this look
produced on me; I can only say that as I stepped from the car the
tumult of mixed feelings, which so disturbed me, seemed to pass away
like a bad dream that might or might not return.

After a few words of courteous inquiry as to our necessities and
comforts, Signor Davelli made an appointment to meet us next day on
the square where we had met this morning; and then we parted from him
for the night, and Jack and I slowly returned to our place.

“Jack,” said I, as we were going down, “what do you think of it all?”

“We won’t talk of it now,” he replied, “we are too tired, and perhaps
excited; we had better sleep over it. To-morrow we must rise early,
look out a quiet place, and talk the matter all round.”

Nothing more but some words of course passed between us until the
morning.

CHAPTER VIII.

SIGNOR DAVELLI.

Early the next morning Jack and I were ready for a scramble over the
cliff. We wished to have a quiet talk together, and we wished farther,
although we had not yet named the wish one to another, to ascertain as
far as possible whether or not we were in effect prisoners. There was
one fact which told heavily against any such notion. That was the
large quantity of portable provisions which had been deliberately put
in our way. For we could each carry, without inconvenience, enough to
last us for a long time, quite long enough to enable us to push
westward as far as the coast, or to go back eastward as far as the
wire. Nevertheless, I was firmly of opinion that we would not be
permitted to escape, and that if we attempted to our lives would not
be worth much. As I learned afterwards, Jack was of the same opinion.
The events of this morning removed all doubt on the subject.

We found quite a practicable ascent of the cliff on the side of the
stair which was further from the platform. And, after climbing this,
we found a fairly even space of several hundred yards, and then an
easy descent upon the other side. We did not, however, attempt the
descent, but sat down and talked. Jack began—

“Bob,” he said, “we must keep cool, for we are playing for very high
stakes.”

“For life and death, you think.”

“More than that, perhaps. I wonder what selling your soul meant in the
old times?”

“I suppose,” I said, “whatever else it meant, it meant acting
dishonourably or treacherously for the sake of some personal gain.”

“But some fellows have sold their souls who could never be persuaded
to act either treacherously or dishonourably for the sake of any
personal gain.”

“I daresay,” said I, not seeing nor caring what he was driving at.

“Now, Bob, if I were the devil, and if I wanted to get you to sell me
your soul, I know what I should do.”

I was getting a little vexed, but I replied simply—“Well, what would
you do?”

“I would endeavour to pique your curiosity, and then I would show you
that you could gratify it by putting yourself in my power, and then I
would have your body even if you still insisted on keeping your soul.”

“And which do you think it would be?”

“Well, I should have to be satisfied with your body, except in one
event.”

“And, pray, what would that be?”

“I might by the exhibition of some special or unaccounted-for power
gain such influence over you as to get you to put your conscience at
my disposal. Then you would be mine soul and body.”

I was beginning to get vexed, partly because I suppose I saw more
truth in what he said than I liked, so I said shortly—

“What do you mean just now by all this?”

“I think our friend, the signor, is the devil himself. I don’t mean
any fee-faw-fum. I daresay there are a good many other men as much
devils as he is, but he has all the power which great and special
practical knowledge gives a man, and he is as full of malice as an egg
is full of meat, and he is up to some very big villainy and, what is
more to the purpose, he has a design upon you.”

“He has done us no harm that I can see.”

“He has done us a great deal of harm; he is persuading you to trust
yourself to him, and he is worthy of no trust whatever, d—n him.”

Now this from Jack was rather startling; for he was not in the least
prone to use bad language. I never heard “the Englishman’s prayer”
from his lips before or since. But his earnestness irritated me more
than his profanity surprised me.

“Don’t you see,” I said rather sullenly, “that if your hypothesis is
correct your prayer is rather superfluous?”

“Well, yes, it is superfluous,” he said with a harsh laugh quite
unlike him; “he is damned already sure enough.”

“I don’t see much sign of damnation about him,” I said, “not if misery
be an essential part of damnation.”

“Well, yes, the misery that comes of malice, and if ever malice and
misery were written in a man’s face, they were written in his
yesterday when they missed those men. And mark me,” Jack added,
raising his voice, “his damnation has got something to do with the
loss of those men.”

I was now getting very angry, so I rose to my feet and said
hastily—“If we have nothing to talk about, don’t you think that we may
as well go back?”

Jack rose and said, “No, Bob, we’ll not go back yet awhile. Don’t be
vexed with me, old fellow. You are in more danger than I am, but your
danger is mine.” As he said this I saw the same expression on his face
which I had seen yesterday, an expression of kindness and anxiety, and
it had much the same effect on me now.

“Jack,” I said, “forgive me, I declare I believe you are partly right;
I believe there is some devilish influence at work trying to set me
against you. I caught myself yesterday despising you for not being
clever, and there were two devils in that, for you are twice as clever
as I am, and even if you were not you are ten times as good.”

“Ah, Bob, my boy, there is plenty of reason to suspect me of stupidity
without supposing that the devil is in the dance.

  ‘Nec deus (or diabolus) intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus.’

You see I have a stock verse or two to quote at a pinch. But although
I don’t see as far, perhaps, into the game as you, it may be that just
for that reason I see the near points a little more clearly. Now sit
down again and tell me what you think of it all.”

We didn’t sit but kept walking up and down. “I don’t know what to
think,” I said; “I was nearly sure yesterday that I was either mad or
dreaming, but I have given over thinking that. I suppose there is a
desperate and widely spread conspiracy against civilised society, and
that these men are in it. You talk about fee-faw-fum, but I remembered
some things yesterday while we were in that car that made me feel as
if the whole world were nothing but what you call fee-faw-fum.”

“What were they, Bob?”

I told him all that I have written in the first two chapters of this
book. He listened most attentively, and made me repeat two or three
times over parts of the conversation between the two doctors. But when
I wound up my story by telling him that I had recognised James Redpath
among the men on the platform, he stopped suddenly, turned right round
and looked at me. “Good heavens!” he said. And then after a pause, “Do
you think that you saw him carried away that morning from your Welsh
village?”

“I didn’t see him, but I have little doubt that I saw the shadow of
the car in which he was carried away.”

“Do you think that we have stumbled on your friend Dr. Leopold’s
non-human intelligence? and that there is a manufactory of black death
or plague somewhere in the neighbourhood?”

“I have hardly a doubt of these men’s malignity, but there is one
thing I am surer of. Now that I am here I want to know all about the
matter—and I mean to. Mr. Leopold may have stumbled upon half a
truth.”

“Well, my position is just the reverse of yours. I am curious enough
about the matter, but I am so sure of these men’s desperate malignity
that my first wish is that we should make our escape from this place.
And mind,” he went on to say, “if you want to burst them up that is
the way to do it. If you and I get back to civilisation others will
soon be on our track. And once there is a settlement of English
colonists near here these men will be played out, and they know it.
Don’t you remember what the fellow himself said? He said that they
could keep the blacks at a distance, but that it does not suit them to
carry on their work—whatever it is—in the presence of civilised men!”

“I remember,” said I; “but if you are right, depend upon it they have
made up their minds that you and I will never leave this place
alive.”

“Not quite that,” said he, “or they would have murdered us before
now.”

“Well, they were going to do so twice.”

“Yes, but Signor Niccolo restrained them. You see Signor Niccolo has a
design upon you; he wants to make you one of his men. He doesn’t care
much about me, but he is willing to throw me into the bargain. Now if
you and I refuse to join him our lives will be the forfeit.”

“And if we don’t refuse?”

“Why then,” said he, “more than our lives.”

“Well then,” said I, “what in the name of common sense do you think
they are?”

“Well,” he replied, “I don’t altogether agree with Dr. Leopold. I
can’t quite believe in the ‘non-human’ business; these men are flesh
and blood safe enough; though I confess I am startled to see so much
applied science, so much in advance of ours, in the possession of men
of such malignity as these are.” He paused for a moment and then
proceeded. “What you said just now is most likely right. They belong
most likely to some brotherhood of conspirators, some advanced guard
of Nihilists, or the like, who propose to make war upon civilised
society.”

“What do you advise?”

“For all reasons the sooner we get away the better. My proposition is
that we fill our pockets with these cakes of theirs and make a bolt of
it the very first opportunity.”

“Do you think we shall find an opportunity?”

“Well, the event will show. We may have to start in the dark and for a
while to travel by night. But you see these cakes of theirs are meat
and drink, and we can make a bee-line for the wire.”

“Don’t you think they will track us?”

“I doubt if they will be able. Their intelligence is very high, and
their modes of procedure are very artificial; and the best trackers
are men of mere instinct. Still I wish we could get hold of one of
their cars; if we could, a few hours’ start would save us.”

“Look to the right,” I said, “we are watched and followed now.”

By this time the sun had risen a little way, the sky was clear, and
here and there, slowly moving along the face of the cliff below us,
were several shadows of the sort I have already more than once
described. These plainly indicated the presence of several of the cars
at no great distance from the ground, and at a lower level than the
cliff on which we stood. Whether there were any or how many at a
higher level no one could say just yet, and on the left everything
lay still in shadow. We walked in the same direction, quickening our
steps a little, the cliff all the while sloping downward slowly.
Presently the sun was at a higher level than the ground we walked on,
and the number of the shadows greatly increased, and there were very
many now on all sides of us. Just then it seemed as if a cloud were
passing over us quite near. We looked upward quickly, but there was no
cloud, only a great shadow cast, as it would seem, by nothing. In a
few seconds it was gone, and presently after we heard the swish—sh—sh
right over us of the wing-like paddles, and we could even detect the
small regular rattle of the machinery. It was evident that we were
being closely guarded, and perhaps we were overheard.

Silently but with one impulse we turned and walked slowly back to the
rooms that had been assigned to us.

We refreshed ourselves with food and we had an hour’s rest before it
was time to keep our appointment with our host. We agreed meanwhile to
observe everything very closely and to compare notes at night.

“But,” said I, “is it safe for us to separate?”

“Nothing, of course,” Jack answered, “is altogether safe, but for a
little while I think that we are not in any more danger apart than
together.”

“But you know, Jack, you said that you thought he had some special
design on me and that he didn’t want you. So he may have you quietly
put out of the way if you go alone.”

“He is bad enough for anything,” was the answer, “but he knows that to
put me out of the way would so disturb you as to baffle his designs
upon you. Your attention would be entirely diverted from the matters
in which you are now taking so deep an interest, and by means of which
he hopes to secure you. He would have to put you out of the way too,
and he doesn’t want to do that. So he is going, as I have said, to
throw me into the bargain.”

“What course do you suggest then, when we are next left to ourselves?”

“You try to get an interview with—what’s his name?—your old Welsh
friend?”

“James Redpath.”

“Just so, and I will try to pick up some information about the
navigation of the cars.”

At the appointed hour, which was rather early in the afternoon, we
went together to the square, and we had hardly reached it when Signor
Davelli arrived there too. His appearance was decidedly changed: his
robe was ampler and longer, and this as well as his hat and sandals
were apparently made of richer and lighter stuff than those which he
had worn before, also there were various mottoes and devices wrought
upon them. The devices were all of the sort I have before told you of,
and the mottoes, or what I deemed such, were in a variety of
characters, most of them altogether unknown to me. A few of them,
however, were in languages that I knew. There was only one in English,
and strange to say, I cannot remember what it was. On the front of the
hat was an inscription in Hebrew characters, but so oddly formed that
I did not at first recognise them. I am not much skilled in Hebrew but
I have no doubt that the inscription was [Hebrew: kelohim כאלהים][4]
written, however, in a character closely resembling that of the
Palmyra inscriptions. As I came slowly to recognise the meaning of
this inscription, it came to me much more forcibly (and with another
sort of force), than if I had at once recognised it for what it was.
And I would have at once recognised it if it had been in the ordinary
square characters as I have written it here.

  [Footnote 4: “As gods.” Gen. iii. 5.]

Signor Davelli’s manner was, as I thought, very stately and even
majestic, and yet at the same time quite easy and affable. Once or
twice only I observed an air of effort, and even that seemed as of an
effort graciously undertaken even if painful. Once or twice also a
sort of spasm crossed his face as of self-repression of some sort. And
once it seemed as if he were about to spring forward but checked
himself, and his face then reminded me of the faces of his men
yesterday in this very square when they first recognised our presence.

He bade us be seated, and he took a seat himself and began to talk to
us. Our seats faced his and there was a pathway like a garden walk
between us. I remember noticing as he began to speak that the same
strange flowers and shrubs which I had seen outside grew in great
abundance along this pathway.

Signor Davelli led the conversation quickly, but not at all with
violence, to themes of an abstract character, and he presently settled
down to the discussion of no less a subject than free will.

You would not thank me if I were to give you (supposing I could do so)
a full account of all that he said. I will, therefore, not make any
such attempt. I will only say that his remarks were bold and
interesting, although he presented no aspect of the question which was
absolutely new to me, and that he spoke apparently with strong feeling
and fervour, and even sometimes with a bitter air of desperation.
Then he looked at me with an air of inquiry.

After a long pause I said,

“I see, Signor Davelli, that you are not a materialist.”

“Materialist?” he said, with a very unpleasant mixture of smile and
sneer. “No; materialism is very well for a beginning; but one must
face the facts at last if one is to deal with them at all
successfully.”

“But,” said I, “some teach that matter is the very ultimate of all
fact.”

“It is perhaps well,” he said, with a renewal of the same sneer and
smile, “that they should teach so, but you and I know better; matter
is evidence of the fact, but not the fact itself.”

“And free will in your view is real?”

“Yes, it is real, doubtless, although so given as to make it for all
but the very boldest practically unreal.”

“So given, you say; it is a gift then?”

“Yes, it is a gift, if you call that ‘given’ which you use at your
peril.”

“And who gives it?” said I.

“Never mind that,” he said, with a bitter scowl, which recalled for
the moment his malignant expression of the day but one before. “Call
Him the Giver: a cursed way of giving is His. You know that you can
use His gift if you dare, and you know that if you dare use it as you
please He will scald you with what His bond-slaves call ‘the vials of
His wrath’; that I think is the phrase.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “the scalding is one’s own doing: power to use the
gift is power to use it rightly or wrongly: if one choose to use it
wrongly one takes the consequences.”

“Right and wrong,” he said, “what are they?” and he spoke now with
great coolness and without a sign of sneer; “trace back the ideas to
their origin. Right is what I will, and wrong is what I will not. So
it is with the Giver, and why should it not be so with you and me?” I
observed that as he said this some of the mottoes on his dress grew
bright and even flashed. Among them was that in Hebrew letters which I
told you of just now. “But I know there are slaves,” he went on to
say, “slaves (you surely are not one of them) who are afraid of
liberty, and who are jealous of those who are not afraid of it. And
these,” he said, and here the scowl returned, “these make use of such
words as right and wrong to perpetuate the tyrannous rule of Him who
gives with a curse, and who takes again with a fresh curse.”

“Is He,” I said, “the tyrant on whom you are making war?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “for all tyrants hold from Him; they are His hired
bullies whom he pampers and lashes as you might lash and pamper your
dog.”

“You say that He gives and takes, will He take the gift of the freedom
of will from you?”

If I had foreseen the effect which this question would have produced,
I should certainly have been afraid to have asked it. His face became
at once full of deadly fury and frenzy; “Yes,” he said, “curse Him! He
will at last if He can!” And then he sprang up and caught at the air
with both his hands, just like the hands, in the device of which I
have told you, grasping at the forked lightning.

In a moment, however, he resumed the quiet, stately and affable air,
which he had worn before, and he sat down, and began to talk again
quite calmly.

“Yes,” he said, “free will is no doubt real to the bold and desperate
spirit. To all others it is in effect unreal. To make it in effect
real to all, every free being ought to be able to do as he will, not
only without let or hindrance, but also without what you I suppose
would call penal consequences.”

“It seems to me,” I said, “that our little world is too limited for
such freedom as you desire. We should speedily come into collision
with each other if there were no limit of any sort to our freedom.”

“Yes, if your world were the only world.”

I did not notice at the time his use of the pronoun “your” for “our.”
I only replied, “If our world were multiplied a hundred thousand fold,
and I can well believe that there may be a hundred thousand such
worlds, still the limits of habitable space must ultimately be a limit
to freedom so that it cannot be unconditional.”

“There are no limits,” he said, “to habitable space.”

I began to think that he was a very clever madman, and I said nothing.

“For such as you,” he continued, “the limit exists, but not for me,
nor for such as I.”

Now I was sure he was mad, and I still kept silence.

“Nor yet for you,” he added, “either, if you have courage enough to
overleap the limit.”

Now I began to be afraid that the form of mania which affected him was
homicidal, and that he would presently require me, as he said, “to
overleap the limit.” But he rose to his feet with such a collected
air, and looked so full of proud intellect and power that I began to
change my mind and to think that I was going mad myself.

He spoke again, stretching out his hand, “Space is unlimited, and
wherever space is there is a dwelling-place for me. This form in which
I live here is but my dress, which I assume when I come to live among
you. I can put it off and live in space, I can put it on again and
come back to you. See here!”

Both his hands were now stretched upward, and his eyes were fixed on
me with a domineering gaze, and mine on him with a mixture of wonder
and of dread. Then he looked away straight out into the southern sky.

Suppose now a great mass of metal to be so quickly molten and
vaporized that it has no time to fall to the earth as fluid before it
rises into the air as gas. That was how it seemed to happen to the
body of this extraordinary man. As I looked at him I saw no longer his
body, but a great mass of apparently fluid substance, moved with a
continuous ripple all through. Then it increased in volume vastly and
spread upward like the smoke from an immense furnace. And as it spread
it became thinner and finer, and still thinner and finer, until
presently there was not the slightest trace of it any longer
to be distinguished. How long a time it took to complete this
transformation I could not at all guess from my experience of it. As
far as my recollection of that goes, it might have occupied hours, but
I know from external facts such as the shadows of the trees and the
clouds that it could have been little more than five minutes at most,
and on comparing notes afterwards with Jack I became inclined to
believe that although I had certainly observed a succession of changes
the whole transformation and disappearance was practically
instantaneous.

Jack and I said not a word, we were both quite stupefied for the
moment. Partly recovering ourselves we both walked up to the spot
where Signor Davelli had stood, and we saw what seemed to be the
remains of the sandals, hat, and coat, which he had worn. Jack took
them up one after another, looked at them, and handed them to me. The
texture of none of them was in any way destroyed. But they were now
wholly colourless, and not the least trace of any letter or device was
anywhere to be seen on them.

After the lapse of about ten minutes a slight explosion was heard a
little way over our heads, and then a slight vapour appeared in the
air very widely spread. Then I saw the same changes as before, but in
reverse order. The vapour thickened into smoke, the smoke became
condensed into a fluid rapidly rippling throughout. This presently
settled down over the spot where the discarded dress was lying, and
became solidified; and as I looked I saw Signor Davelli with the same
pose and attitude as before his disappearance, and with the same dress
bearing the very same inscriptions and devices.

As before, I am inclined to believe that the reappearance and
transformation, although presented to me as a succession of changes,
were practically instantaneous.

I stood looking at him, transfixed with wonder and horror. He signed
to me to sit down; then he sat down himself, and began to speak again
quite gently and persuasively. Jack stood for a minute or two as if in
hesitation about something; then he, too, sat down and listened.

_Signor Davelli._ Do not be alarmed, there is no occasion for alarm
nor even for surprise. Nothing has been done but what is quite as
fully susceptible of explanation as any simple chemical experiment.

_Easterley._ That can hardly be so. Much even of what we saw yesterday
far exceeded any results of experimental science known to me, but I
could readily believe it all to be explicable upon principles which I
have studied, and which I partly understand. But the experiment which
I have just witnessed (if I may call it an experiment) surely implies
principles which far transcend any with which I am in the slightest
degree acquainted.

_Davelli._ “Transcend” them, yes, but are nevertheless closely related
to them, and are never at variance with them. But I can put you
through an experience quite similar to that which I have myself just
undergone. You shall judge for yourself then.

He came quite near me, and went on to speak in a tone at once
masterful and persuasive.

“You shall experience my power,” he said, “and you shall criticise it.
I will send you hence and back in quite a little time. You will
remember what you see, and you shall compare it with what you know of
your own world, and you shall say then whether it is not worth your
while to come and join us. If you join us you will know nothing of
what you call death, for death cannot touch the dwellers in space.”

As he said these last words I felt a shudder pass through me; it
reminded me of something, I knew not what, but afterwards I
remembered.

“Cannot death touch you?” I said. “Not even when you are dwelling here
with us?”

“No,” he replied; “anything that would kill you would simply drive us
back into space.”

I have a very trustworthy instinct as to the truth or falsehood of
those who speak to me, and I felt now that Signor Davelli was speaking
the truth in this particular, but that he was deceiving me somehow.

“Do you propose,” I said, “to send me among the dwellers in space and
to fetch me back now?”

I detected just the faintest turn of his eye towards Jack, and as he
answered I knew that he was lying, and that if need were he would lie
more.

“You cannot acquire at once,” he said, “the powers of a dweller in
space. But I shall send you out of this world and I will fetch you
back, and your journey will help you to acquire the power to become a
dweller in space by-and-by.”

I distrusted him profoundly and I was not without fear of him. It was
fear, however, that I could not easily define. Certainly it was not
fear of death, for I felt quite sure that he was not going to kill me.
I felt a consuming desire to know all about him, and I was willing to
risk much in order to satisfy my desire. I felt also the influence of
his masterful will. My distrust of him weighed one way, and the
strength of his will the other way, and my lust of knowledge turned
the scale.

So I said, “Send me where you will then.”

The words were scarce out of my mouth when he raised his hand, and in
a moment I lost all power of active motion, and could neither see nor
hear, although my consciousness not only remained but became
abnormally distinct.

Of course I had never experienced exactly such a state, but I remember
once, in my college days, I had mastered a very abstract philosophical
discussion, and I lay down on the hearthrug and thought it over until
my power of thought seemed to merge into something clearer and fuller,
and once later in life I stood on the deck of a ship gazing on the
ocean—

                  “Until the sea and sky
  Seemed one, and I seemed one with them and all
  Seemed one, and there was only one, and time
  And space and thought were one eternity.”[5]

  [Footnote 5: “Nay, then, God be wi’ you, an you talk in blank
   verse.”—J.W.]

On both of these occasions I experienced something not unlike the
intensely vivid consciousness which I experienced now.

It was mainly a consciousness of expectancy. The events of the last
few days seemed to hang before my mind like a semi-transparent veil
which was trembling under the action of the hand that was about to
withdraw it in order to discover something wonderful behind.

Then I seemed to be borne onward, I knew not whither, with an
inconceivably rapid motion. Then again I lay at rest. Then my power of
sight returned, and I think my power of hearing, but there was at
first nothing to hear. I seemed to be lying on a hard bank within the
mouth of a cave not far below the surface of what seemed to be the
earth. A light streamed into the cave, and I could see right opposite
me a tract of mountain, wild and rugged beyond all description. The
light was not diffused except within the cave. The space outside the
cave’s mouth seemed quite dark, and then the rugged mountain side
beyond shone out quite brilliantly. Looking round I saw nothing but
barren rock, and I could hear no sound either around or above, but as
I moved my head from side to side I heard a sound from beneath as of a
dull “thud, thud,” and then a sound strangely like whispering voices.

I had been in a sitting position and I had lain back, and so now I
looked up into the sky, and, notwithstanding the apparent daylight, I
saw the stars quite plainly, and a monstrous moon, a little past the
new phase, nearly overhead, with very distinct markings upon it. I
watched steadily the markings near the edge, and I saw that they were
moving very slowly, like the minute hand of a huge clock. Looking
steadily still, I recognised the markings. I was looking at the earth.
I could even distinguish some of the coasts and seas and islands, as
it seemed to me, quite plainly recognisable. Now I knew where I was
and I started to my feet. I had intended to stand up, but the force
which I had exerted with that purpose in view made me bound several
feet from the ground, so that my head reached beyond the edge of the
cave. I felt as if my breath were suddenly stopped, and I fell back
gasping to the ground again.

Then I gave myself up for lost, but in a moment sight and hearing
again left me, and the strangely vivid consciousness came back. Then I
felt a sense of rapid motion, and presently I found myself sitting on
the bench with Signor Davelli bending over me and Jack standing by.
Immediately I glanced at the shadows round me, and I saw in a moment
that my journey, whatever was its nature, had lasted much longer than
Signor Davelli’s. I knew at once that he had deceived me, that my lust
of knowledge was baulked, and that I had been no nearer to his world
than I was now.

I cried out, “You have shown me the moon, perhaps in trance, perhaps
you have transferred me there. But what of that? You’ve shown me
nothing of the dwellers in space.”

“Be quiet,” he said, lifting his hand, and again using the same tone,
masterful and yet persuasive, “you have done very well for once;” and
then he added in a lower and quite different tone, “and so have I.”

I never could make you understand the mixture of contending feelings
which began to harass me now. No one, I think, could understand it
without undergoing it. I was astonished at what had happened to
myself, and yet I was grievously disappointed.

Even if I had been sure that I had been actually transferred to the
surface of the moon, that would have seemed as nothing to me now. For
what I had looked for was a far greater thing. I had long learned to
regard the ether which pervades the interplanetary spaces as the
hidden storehouse of material out of which the visible worlds are
made, and yet the ether is utterly impalpable to any of the senses,
and we know of its existence only by roundabout processes of
reasoning, and I had been fool enough to believe that I was going to
be put in possession of powers of sense which would enable me to
examine the ether just as one might examine any of the ordinary
material with which we are familiar. I thought I was going to have a
near view of the secret forces which lie behind all mechanical,
chemical, and electrical action. And what, in view of such a prospect,
did I care about seeing the surface of the moon, even if I did really
see it? I knew that on the surface of the moon I should only see,
under different conditions, the same sort of material as that with
which I was already familiar. And I felt sure, or nearly sure,
besides, that I had not seen anything but some picture which this
wonderful and mysterious being contrived to impress upon my mind.

Besides, I felt sure now that he was deliberately deceiving me, and
the sense of horror and repulsion with which he had more or less
affected me from the first were now very greatly increased.

Besides, I felt that his power over me was great and was growing
greater, and I began to doubt if I could ever shake it off.

But, above all—and now for the first time a bitter sense of remorse
filled me on account of my own action in respect of him—I saw that I
had been paltering with my conscience, and playing with right and
wrong, for the sake of mere intellectual attainment. I knew that I had
been doing this ever since this man or devil had first spoken to me.
And I felt that my own words deliberately spoken but a little while
ago had brought my wrong-doing to a crisis. I felt now that when the
words, “Send me where you will, then,” had passed my lips I had put
myself, to what extent I knew not, within the power of one whom I
deeply suspected of some horrible plot against humanity.

I must not say that I was overwhelmed by these feelings, for stronger
than any of them was the resolve I now made, with the whole force of
my being, that I would never again surrender my will to him on any
pretext whatever. And yet I felt very nearly in despair, for I could
not but seriously doubt if I had now the power to keep this resolve. I
feared that I might be like the drunkard who has taken the first
glass.

I suppose there is hardly a man anywhere who has never really prayed.
And so I think every reader will understand me when I say, that I
lifted up my heart to God silently, and on the moment, with far deeper
energy and fervour and self-distrust than ever I thought possible
before.

Just then I became aware that Signor Davelli’s eyes were off me and
that he was talking to Jack: his manner to him was quite courteous and
gracious. He was, as it seemed, apologising to him.

“You must pardon me,” said he; “I am afraid that my interest in your
friend’s conversation has diverted my attention unduly from my other
guest.” Then, after a slight pause, he added, “Now I propose to take
your friend to-morrow on an aerial journey, to see the other extremity
of the valley, and some of the operations there. I can only take one
at a time: you will probably like to come again. But, for to-morrow,
how shall we provide for your amusement? we shall be back early in the
afternoon.”

Jack replied civilly, but with an air of indifference which I thought
was feigned, “_I_ should be glad of an opportunity of examining some
of the curious engines that we have seen yonder.” He pointed as he
spoke in the direction of the platform.

“Very well,” was the reply; “I will see that you have a guide.” As he
spoke he took an odd-looking little instrument from a pocket at his
girdle, and whistled upon it. The resulting sound consisted of a few
recurring notes, with a wild, odd strain of music in them.

In a few moments a man appeared. He came from some place towards the
further end of the valley, and he was no doubt one of those whom we
had seen on this very square the day before. Signor Davelli spoke to
the man. “You will meet this gentleman,” he said, “here, to-morrow;
his name is Mr. Wilbraham. Meet him at whatever hour he pleases, and
show him whatever he wishes to see.” Then he spoke a few words in the
same strange language as before, and accompanied his words with the
same sort of action.

Then he turned to me and said, “Will you meet me here at nine o’clock
to-morrow, and I will take you to see what we are doing at the further
end of the valley?”

I hesitated for a moment, and then I said, “Yes, I will meet you.”

Whether my hesitation, or anything in my tone, indicated that I meant
not to commit myself to more than to meet him, I cannot say, but as I
spoke a scowl passed over his face. It came and went in a moment, and
then he said, “Very well,” rather curtly, to me. And then, addressing
us both in the same gracious manner as before, “And now you are
tired,” he said, “and it is getting late; I hope you find your
quarters convenient and your commissariat sufficient.”

We assured him on both points briefly, made our parting salutation,
and retired. I may here mention that the salutations which passed
between us and him were never anything more than a formal inclination
of the head.

Two more facts must be put on record before I close the account of
this eventful day.

We met near the foot of the great stairway the man whom I supposed to
be James Redpath. He appeared to be engaged in setting right some
detail of the machinery made use of by the workers on the platform. I
could not but think as I looked upon him that he had all the
appearance of being a machine himself, worked by an intellect not his
own. Yet he was evidently working with a will.

I stepped forward and stood before him, having first made a sign to
Jack.

“James Redpath,” I said; “surely it must be James Redpath?”

He started, and looked at me with a surly scowl, but said nothing. The
name (of course I used his real name) seemed to remind him of
something, but there was no recognition in his eyes. “Don’t you
remember Bob Easterley?” I said. He looked at me and then his eyes
wandered. There was a muddled, wicked look about him, such as you
will sometimes see in the eyes of a very bad-tempered man when he is
drunk. “Don’t you remember Penruddock?” I said, again of course using
the real name. He started again, and I thought he brightened, but it
was a queer sort of brightening.

“Penruddock?” he said. “Penruddock and Bob Easterley: curse him and
curse the little beggar!” And then he gave a nasty laugh. His voice
was thick, like the voice of a man half stupefied with drink or
suffering from active brain disease. I thought at first that the name
Penruddock had awakened no recollection in his mind, but that he
mistook it for the name of a man. Since then, however, I have thought
that perhaps “the little beggar” was the boy that he was cruel to, and
that the name of Penruddock had reminded him of the matter. Anyhow he
turned and looked steadily at me and said slowly, “Oh, so the governor
has got you; I wish you joy of the governor.” And then he laughed a
coarse, harsh kind of laugh. It was not loud, and there was not much
expression in it, but what there was was cruel. Then he made as if to
pass us, and we let him pass: there was nothing to be got out of him.
I am not absolutely sure to this day whether he was James Redpath or
not.

That night Jack and I talked long and earnestly. I told him as I have
told you my latest thoughts about the matter, and then we talked of
our engagements for the coming day.

_Wilbraham._ There’s a crisis near, Bob. It is as likely to come
to-morrow as not.

_Easterley._ How do you think it will come?

_Wilbraham._ Well, this way. Davelli, I think, overrates the power
that he has contrived to get over you. The disappointment you speak
of, and your distrust of him and resolve against him have somehow
checked the effect of his action on your will, and he does not know
that. Not knowing it, he will reveal some villainy to you to-morrow.
You will revolt and he will try to kill you. If you are on your guard
you may escape yet. The minute you defy him shoot him through the
body.

_Easterley._ What harm will that do him?

_Wilbraham._ Not much, but some. Did you notice what he said
yesterday?

_Easterley._ Yes, and he was telling the truth. The shot would
probably send him to his own place, but he will be back again
presently.

_Wilbraham._ Yes, but meanwhile you will have got a start, and if you
are in one of the cars and can manage it you may escape.

_Easterley._ Not very likely; but supposing I did, what is to become
of you?

_Wilbraham._ I shall be working for myself all the time. Look here:
this fellow who is to guide me will either try to kill me or to put me
in the way of killing myself. I believe that he has instructions to
that effect. I’ll watch him, and if I see any treachery I’ll send him
to his own place and make off if only I can manage the car. For I
intend that he shall take me into one of the cars. Then I will try to
join you and we shall have perhaps a start of an hour or so before
they get back and make ready to follow us.

I didn’t see much chance of success in his plan. You couldn’t look at
it anywhere, I thought, without finding a flaw in it, and I told him
as much.

“Never mind,” said he, “it is the unlikely thing that happens: let us
be on the watch.”

_Easterley._ On the watch, certainly; but look here, Jack: you and I
are in imminent danger of death, but I am in danger of worse than
death.

_Wilbraham._ Yesterday, perhaps; but not now, Bob.

_Easterley._ In one sense, more now than yesterday. I have given him
power over me to-day; not so much perhaps as he thinks—you may be
right there—but more than I may now be able to withstand. Besides,
mark me, he is not going to bring things to a crisis yet.

_Wilbraham._ Well, if he is not, we shall bring things to a crisis
ourselves, and we shall defy him. Then let him kill us if he can. I
shouldn’t wonder if he couldn’t after all. Anyhow, I shall learn
something to-morrow, and don’t you put yourself in his power any more.

_Easterley._ I have told you that I am not sure if I can escape him
now, but, God helping me, I will do my best.

There our talk ceased for the night, and I may as well say at once
that the crisis did not come next day, and that it was not left either
to Signor Davelli or to ourselves to bring it about. If it had been so
left I do not think this book would ever have been written.

We were now sitting in the inner chamber, from one of the windows of
which you could see the door of the outer chamber. The inner chamber
opened into the outer, and the outer chamber, without any porch or
passage, opened upon the path which led either to the square or the
great stairway. As I sat near the window I saw a bright light shining
upon the outer door, so that no one could go in or out without being
plainly seen. I started up at once and looked for a shadow, for it
occurred to me immediately that this light was thrown from one of the
invisible cars. But there was no moonlight, for the moon was just then
hidden by clouds, and so there was no shadow except such as the light
itself might cause. But presently, by walking backward from the window
and again towards it, and then this way and that way before it, I
discovered a star which appeared and disappeared as I walked. On
further inspection it became evident that when the star disappeared it
was hidden by some object which, though dark itself, was nevertheless
that from which the light before the door proceeded. There could be no
doubt that the light in question was thrown from one of the cars, and
that the car from which it was thrown was not a hundred feet from the
ground.

“Look,” I said, “look! we are closely watched even here.” But Jack was
already fast asleep. I threw myself upon my bed and lay for hours
broad awake.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SEED BEDS.

As I lay awake the events of the last few days passed and repassed
before my mind, and the more I thought over them the less I felt
myself able to give any satisfactory account of them or to see any way
of escape. I could make up my mind to no plan of action, to nothing
except passive but obstinate resistance.

But although I did not see any way of escape I did not feel as if we
were going to die. I suppose that youth and a sanguine temper enabled
me to keep hoping. Anyhow I found myself again and again reckoning
upon a return to civilisation.

But what kept my thoughts busiest was the fact that Jack and I were to
be separated next day, and I asked myself over and over again, what
could be the purpose of such separation. And here, after a while, I
thought I saw my way a little. Such and such at least I felt I could
say is not the purpose. Foul play is no doubt what our host is quite
capable of; but what is to be gained by foul play? Why not kill either
or both of us openly if he wishes? And when I had gotten as far as
that I began to see, clearly enough, part at least of his purpose in
separating us. And the revelation was greatly more flattering to Jack
than to myself. Then I fell asleep and slept quite soundly for some
hours, and I got up quite refreshed.

After we had dressed and refreshed ourselves there still remained an
hour before it would be time to keep our appointments. For Jack had
arranged with the man who had been told off to keep him company to
meet him at nine o’clock, the same hour at which I was to meet Signor
Davelli. And here I may as well mention that these men or whatever
they were, understood our way of reckoning time. But they did not, as
far as I could see, make use of it themselves. They had a method of
reckoning time but I was not able to discover exactly what it was. I
have sometimes thought since then that they were able to measure the
earth’s diurnal motion directly. But they used no clockwork nor (as
far as I could see) any observation of the altitude of sun or stars.

In some of the cars which were fitted for long voyages there was
fixed an instrument about a foot long, and this consisted of a hand
moving along a graduated scale. I made sure (so far as my very brief
opportunity of observation permitted) that this hand did not move by
clockwork, but I was quite unable to discover by what power it did
move.

I told Jack very briefly about the light I had seen last night, and
then we held a brief conference before we parted.

“Jack,” said I, “you thought yesterday that Signor Niccolo had given
his man instructions either to kill you or to put you in the way of
killing yourself?”

“Yes,” he said, “under certain circumstances. If I attempt to make my
escape the fellow is undoubtedly under orders to compass my death. But
not otherwise; certainly not at present. And I need not say that I am
not going to attempt my escape without you. If you and I agree to
force a crisis, good and well; then we shall both run the risk of our
lives. But you seem to think, and I am disposed to agree with you,
that we had better for the present keep on the watch and let things
take their course. Very well, then, I shall not be in any special
danger to-morrow.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Because, as I have said before, this man, or call him what you will,
has got some design upon you. What that design is will probably appear
shortly. And he will not hinder the success of it by allowing anything
to happen to me.”

“And if it succeeds?”

“Then it will depend on circumstances not now evident what will become
of me.”

“And if it fails?”

“Then I think that you and I are certain to be put to death unless we
can manage to make our escape from this place.”

“Which appears hardly to be expected.”

“Yes, hardly to be expected, but the unexpected happens.”

“And now, Jack,” said I, “I agree with you in all that you have said;
but do you know why he is sending you away?”

“Well, no, I don’t.”

“I’ll tell you why: he fears your influence over me. I came to that
conclusion as I lay awake last night. And he means to try on some new
game to-day or to begin to try. But as I thought over all that I
couldn’t but go on to ask, why does he want me and not you, and why is
he shy of you? What do you think?”

“I can’t say, Bob, unless it be that I am not clever enough.”

“Clever! you’re a modest man, Jack, I know, but if I did not know you
to be genuine I should say now that some of the modesty was put on.
Not clever enough? You’ve seen through this fellow sooner and farther
than I. You might better say too clever, but that is not it either.”

“Well, what is it, then?”

“You are too good for him. You have too quick and clear a perception
of what is right, and you are not ready enough to let the lust of
knowledge blind your conscience. But, please God, this fellow will
find that I am not after all quite the sort of man he takes me to be.”

“My dear Bob, I am just as likely as you are to have dust thrown in
the eyes of my conscience, only a different sort of dust. Your turn
has come first, that is all. You’ll baffle him and then my turn
perhaps won’t come at all. Let us both keep our eyes open to-day. If I
can learn how to manage those cars of theirs, and if they give us half
a chance, we will make a run for it.”

“Do you forget the light last night?”

“I forget nothing, but we will give them the slip somehow.”

“Well, perhaps we may, for one thing is clear to me, Jack: those
fellows once they come among us have to work under the same conditions
as we.”

“Did not Dr. Leopold say something of that sort?”

“Yes, and he was right; all that we have seen proves it: everything
that they do is done by some chemical or mechanical or other
contrivance, they have to get round their work just as we have; they
know more of nature than we do, and so they can do more. But if we
knew as much we could do as much as they.”

“Well, all that is so much in our favour.”

We were now at the foot of the stairway, and it was within a few
minutes of nine. So we shook hands and parted. Jack went up the
stairway, and I made my way to the square.

I saw in the centre of the square a car somewhat smaller than that in
which we had travelled previously, but, like it, visible throughout.
It was just alighting as I came up. Signor Davelli was standing in the
square, and the man in the car was the same whom he had assigned
yesterday to Jack, and as he alighted he addressed him with a few
words and signs as before, and the man went away towards the stairway.

Signor Niccolo turned to me, and, after the usual salutation, he said
shortly but civilly, “I have had a car prepared like the other. As we
use them ourselves, you might find them awkward and even dangerous. I
have left the larger car for your friend.”

“Thank you,” I replied. “I daresay we shall both do very well.”

I was glad to know that Jack would have the opportunity that he wished
for, and I felt sure that he would make the most of it. I felt
confident now that we were on the verge of a desperate effort for
freedom. It was likely enough, indeed most likely, that the issue of
such an effort would be immediately fatal to us, but, if not
immediately fatal, then I thought that we might escape. Meanwhile I
was determined to observe as closely as possible every person and
thing that should come under my notice to-day.

There was no difference between this car and the other except in
respect of size. This one was a shade smaller. Also this one was
furnished with some instruments which I had not observed in the other.
There were two good field-glasses and a very powerful microscope.
There were also some instruments whose use I did not recognise, but
they seemed to suggest spectrum analysis. In addition to these there
were some glass instruments that looked like test tubes, and other
chemical apparatus of apparently simple construction, but quite
unfamiliar to me.

We got under way just as formerly, and we moved rapidly towards the
western end of the valley. I reckon that it was two miles, or perhaps
a little more, from the eastern to the western extremity. The valley
was bounded all round by hills. But I seemed to see to-day more than
ever before an air of artificial construction about these. From some
points of view this disappeared altogether, while from other points
the evidence of it was all but conclusive. I made sure sometimes that
I could detect the junction of a great embankment with the hills on
either side, but in each case after I had got another view I was not
quite so sure. Just the same impression, as I have told you, was
produced on me by the view of the hills when I first approached them
from the east; but the appearance or impression of artificial
construction was very much stronger now.

I had on this day a very full view of the arrangement of the valley
from end to end. You remember the large square in which on the second
day we had seen the men drilled, and in which on the day after we had
witnessed our host’s wonderful disappearance and reappearance. You
remember also the broad walk which led from the eastern stairway to
the square. Very well; at the further end of the square that walk was
continued. It was the same breadth all the way through, and it was
planted with trees and with flowering shrubs, mostly of a kind which I
had never seen elsewhere. On each side of it narrower ways branched
off, leading to houses of the same style as those in which Jack and I
were lodged. There was an air of trimness and regularity about the
whole but no beauty. I can imagine one looking at the scene and
pronouncing it stiff and formal and nothing more. But as I looked I
felt that if there was no beauty there was at least an eerie
suggestiveness that took the place of beauty. Seen from above, as we
saw, even trimness and regularity have an odd look. But after all the
trimness and regularity of the scene were its least remarkable
characteristics. The frowning hills with rampart-like ridges between
them that might be walls or that might be natural embankments; the
silence broken only by the whirr of our motion through the air, for
there was no bird in the valley from end to end, and indeed no living
creature of any sort except its human (if they were human)
inhabitants, and I think a few snakes; the uncouth aspect of the
chimneyless and smokeless houses; the absence of every object that
might remind one of the cares and pleasures of life: no garden, or
orchard, or playground, no child or woman;—all this formed altogether
a picture as unearthly and inhuman as the barren surface of the moon.
The odd-looking trees and shrubs which, as I have told you, were
planted along the roadway, made this worse and not better. Their
approach to naturalness made the unnaturalness of all the rest only
the more apparent. Besides, their very presence made you feel that it
was not nature, as on the surface of the moon, which caused the
silence and desolation, but some foul and maleficent influence which
was external to nature. The broad walk and the rows of houses both
ended abruptly, abutting upon a belt of timber artificially planted.
The trees were like the blue gum, they were so close together that no
passage between them was possible, and as far as I could judge the
intervals from tree to tree were quite equal and regular. This
plantation extended a good way up the cliff on both sides, and it was
a hundred yards across, or more. Beyond it was a space of about twenty
feet, and then another row of trees of quite a different kind, and
like nothing that I had ever seen. But as far as I could guess from
such a height the leaves were as thick as the gum leaves, but in other
ways much larger. This row of trees was nearly of the same depth as
the other, and extended like it high up on either side of the cliff. I
have little doubt that all these trees were intended as a defence
against the vapours which were generated by certain works which were
carried on beyond, and of which I must now try to tell you what I saw.

From what I have said it will be clear to you that there was only one
way from the eastern part of the valley to the western, and that was
through the air. No one could pass through either belt of timber. And
as we floated over them I noticed that Signor Niccolo at once raised
the car several hundred feet, and kept well away to the south. Then he
stopped; then he lowered the car a little and asked me what I saw.

I saw several very unequal belts of what seemed to be cultivated
ground. But it was a very queer-looking sort of cultivation. There was
almost no green from end to end of it, and what green there was looked
like the scum that you sometimes see floating upon the surface of a
stagnant pool. And even this was only to be seen at the southern
extremity of the cultivated ground. As you looked north the growth was
more and more foul and offensive, and thick, filthy looking vapours
floated over it here and there. I thought of Shelley’s ruined garden,
where—

  “Agaric and fungi with mildew and mould
   Started like mist from the wet ground cold.”

Only that here certainly it was not lack of care that produced all the
foulness, for there was plenty of evidence of care everywhere. The
beds were divided according to a well-marked plan: they were six in
all. The bed on the southern extremity must have been over two hundred
and fifty feet wide, and it had several narrow pathways through it,
well formed from end to end. Then there was a wide pathway, say about
eight feet in width, separating it from the next bed. The next bed was
only half the width, with about half as many narrow pathways through
it, and then a walk twice as wide as that which separated it from the
first bed. Then the third bed was only half the width of the second,
with a separating walk of about thirty-two feet across. And so on, the
width of the beds decreasing and the width of the walks increasing in
geometrical progression, so that the last bed was only about eight
feet wide, while the walk beyond it was about two hundred and fifty
feet wide.

All the beds and walks were the same length. As I was making these
approximate measurements mentally, with the aid of a powerful
field-glass, I observed another fact that seems worthy of notice. The
foul growths and vapours which, as I have told you, increased from the
southern extremity of the ground northward, came absolutely to an end
with the last bed but one. But the last bed, which was the narrowest,
with the walks on either side of it which were the widest, occupied
more than a third of the whole extent of the cultivated ground. The
true extent of the foul growths and vapours was about this: they
covered rather more than a third of the ground, and the space which
they covered was rather nearer the southern end than the northern end.
I had reason to believe before the close of the day that these vapours
were deadly; but I had reason also to believe that there was something
in the bed to the north beyond them which was deadlier still.

There were many men employed at all the beds, much the greater number
at the first bed, but the work at the sixth bed seemed to be far the
more important; certainly it proceeded, as far as I was able to judge,
with far more care and deliberation. Not, however, that there was
anything slovenly about any of the work or of the workers.

I first turned my attention to the first bed, and there I saw a number
of men at about equal distances on each of the walks, each provided
with an instrument like an elaborate sort of hoe, and having a box
slung round his shoulders, and hanging directly under his face.
Looking along these rows of men to the far edge of the beds, I saw
that the valley ended at the west end with a platform, and on this
platform several men were standing who were evidently working in
concert with the workers at the beds. This platform was not so high as
that at the east end, but, unlike that, it extended the whole width of
the valley. It consisted of two terraces connected by steps, and on
the lower terrace were the men whom I have mentioned who were working
in concert with the workers at the beds. One man stood at the end of
each walk, and handed to the nearest man on the walk a parcel, and
then another and another. He took these parcels out of a little box on
wheels that stood beside him. These parcels were marked and numbered.
At least so I concluded from the manner in which the man on the walk
received each parcel, glanced at it, and passed it on. This
distribution of the marked parcels had commenced before I began to
observe.

Looking to the boxes on wheels, I saw that they were standing on
rails, and were constructed so as to run on the same principle as the
little waggons at the eastern end. Following with my glass the course
of the rails on which they ran, I saw on the upper platform whither
the rails led several machines in general appearance not unlike some
of those at the other end. The glass which I was using was very
powerful, much more powerful than any field-glass I had ever seen.
Still, I could not observe with any such exactness as if I were
standing by the machines. The car that I sat in, although there was
not a breath of wind, was not absolutely still. I should not perhaps
have noticed this if I had sat still and talked, or even read, but the
moment I began to observe closely some object not on the car, I became
conscious of a motion such as would be felt at sea on a calm day if
there were a long but very gentle swell.

I saw with enough exactness, however, to conclude that the processes
which were being carried on here were not mechanical, but most likely
chemical. I could see many jars and retorts and instruments of similar
aspect, and I thought I could make sure that electricity was being
largely applied, and that some strange use was being made of light. It
seemed as if there were some substances in certain small vessels on
which now and then light greatly magnified was being thrown. These
vessels were arranged in order within the machines in such way that
they could be subjected at the will of the worker to the various
light, magnifying, and chemical and electric processes which it seemed
to be the function of the machine to keep in action.

I did not feel sure at first whether the substances in the vessels
were being simply examined, or whether they were being treated with a
view to effect some change in them. But I soon saw that the latter was
the more likely purpose. For I perceived on further observation that
they were subjected to a very severe and exact scrutiny before they
were placed in the vessels. At one end of the row of machines was a
very long table along which, near the middle, a trough ran from end to
end. A man stood at the table who seemed to be examining something in
the trough with a microscope, or at least with some sort of magnifying
apparatus. Then he laid aside the magnifying apparatus, and poured
from a little bottle either some fluid or powder, I could not tell
which, on the objects which he was examining; then he would apply the
magnifier again, and so on. Last of all, from this trough he would
take up something or other with a little shovel or trowel, and place
it in certain tiny waggons or boxes on wheels which communicated,
apparently by automatic means such as I have before described, with
the different machines, emptying their contents into the small
vessels of which I have told you. All the machines appeared to be of
the same sort, and engaged in the same work. I concluded that the man
at the table with the trough in it was examining certain substances,
and that these were being treated by the men at the machines with a
view to some modification of their nature. And I had no doubt that
this work, whatever it was, stood in some direct relation to the work
at the seed beds.

If I had had any such doubt it would have been removed by what I
observed at the other end of the row of machines. There I saw a table
just like an enormous billiard table, only there were no pockets, and
at this table stood four or five men busily at work. This table was
connected with the seed beds by the rails, along which ran the boxes
on wheels. Indeed, it was to it that my look had first been directed
when I followed, with my glass, the course of these boxes. But the
more curious aspect of the machines had attracted my attention, and I
had observed the whole row of them to the other end and the table with
the trough in it which stood there, before observing this end more
particularly. I now saw that the substances which had been examined in
the trough and treated in the machines were carried, still by
automatic machinery, to this enormous table and emptied upon it.
There they were very rapidly sorted and distributed into parcels by
the five or six men at work there. These men must have had great
accuracy of eye and touch, and their way of working reminded me of the
man in the Mint who rings the coin. The parcels which were so made up
were distributed among the workers in the seed beds in the way already
described.

It was clear to me now that some substances, probably germs of one
kind or another, were being examined and treated by scientific
methods, and were being subjected afterwards to some sort of
discriminating culture. I began to guess at the purpose of all this,
and quite suddenly a suspicion broke upon me which almost made me drop
my glass with horror. And I may as well say here at once that
knowledge which I obtained later on confirmed this horrible suspicion.

Recovering myself, I turned my attention to the workers at the seed
beds. The men engaged at the first bed went slowly along the walks
taking every now and then something out of the boxes which were slung
one over the shoulder of each, and planting it in the ground and
covering it over. I saw that they examined also something already
planted, and sometimes took it up and put it into the box. I could not
tell, owing to the distance and the motion, whether or not what they
took up exhibited any visible growth. The substances, whatever they
were, which were thus taken up, were placed in a little waggon which
ran at the eastern end of the bed at right angles to the walks, and
conveyed its contents to the walks which separated the first bed from
the second, and were dealt with by the workers there. If you ask me
how I knew that it was the substances exhumed and not the substances
in the parcels that were thus passed, I can only say that such was my
conclusion from the whole aspect of the movement, for I could not
accurately distinguish small objects at the distance.

The way of working at the next four beds was not so different from
what I have described, as to make it worth while attempting a detailed
account. It will suffice to say that the mode of procedure was to sow
something in each bed, and to take up something which had been down in
order to transfer it to the next bed, and this latter process
evidently involved much careful examination and discrimination. I
should also mention that at the third bed and onward the workers wore
masks, apparently wire masks of some elaborate construction. They wore
them, not continuously, but whenever they stooped to the ground or
examined very closely the substances with which they were dealing. At
other times the masks hung at the girdles. At the fourth bed the
workers wore the masks more frequently, and at the fifth they only
removed them occasionally. The way of working at the sixth bed was
different and will need a fuller description.

But before attempting to describe it I should say that just as I was
beginning to observe the sixth bed, a slight change came in the
weather which made two considerable changes, each in a different
direction, in my opportunities of observation. It had been quite calm
and at the same time cloudy. Now a light breeze began to blow and the
sun shone out. The effect of the breeze was, at first, so to increase
the motion of the car as to make very close observation impossible.
But Signor Davelli presently applied a sort of ballasting machinery,
which had the effect of greatly steadying the car. I was so much
interested in what was going on below that I did not very accurately
observe how this was done. But I think that it was somehow in this
way. He moved, by mechanical contrivance, certain weights in the car,
so as to change the centre of gravity in such manner as to render the
part of it which we occupied subject to less motion than the rest. I
have not much skill in such matters and I hardly know if this is
possible, but so it seemed to me. But even after this was done the car
was not by any means as steady as before.

At the same time, however, the sunshine which now appeared disclosed
some features of the scene which I should otherwise have missed. For
now, at the northern end of the beds, on a platform at right angles
with the western platform, I saw several shadows which indicated to my
now skilled eyesight the presence of several of the invisible cars.
They were standing all still when I first saw them, but presently one
moved, rose quickly from the earth, and passed gradually out of sight
to the northward. I followed its course with my glass for several
minutes, till it was nearly out of sight. I then turned again to the
seed-beds. The men at the sixth bed were very few, only five in all,
and each was working apparently on his own account. But they were all
doing exactly the same kind of work. They were, as I thought, making a
final selection of the germs which had undergone so careful a process
of cultivation. Each of them had three boxes, instead of one, slung in
front of him, and a long instrument in his hand with which he
extracted certain substances from the ground. This instrument was
constructed so as to hold in a little receptacle what was lifted from
the ground. Each of the workers, also, had slung over his shoulder
what looked like a small frame. I selected one of the five at random,
and watched his proceedings more particularly. Now and then he would
unsling the frame and place it on the ground. Then he would give it a
little twist, whereupon it would assume a form very like that of a
lady’s work-table. I saw him do this many times, and each time he took
something out of the closed receptacle which I have just mentioned,
and placed it on the table, and observed it carefully with some kind
of instrument that might have been a kind of microscope. After a more
or less minute observation each time, he placed the substance observed
in one of the boxes at his girdle, which he opened each time and
carefully closed again. By-and-by he seemed to discover some substance
which challenged his attention specially, for after a longer
observation than usual, he took another instrument from his girdle and
observed it more carefully and for a longer time. Then I could see
that he called his neighbour, for he looked, and I almost thought that
I could see his lips moving, and immediately the other looked up and
came towards him. Then the first man handed his observing instrument
to the second, who examined very carefully the substance on the
little table. Some discussion seemed to follow, an animated
conversation as I thought, with certainly a rapid pantomimic
accompaniment.

Then a very strange thing happened. As the first man stooped towards
the table his mask fell off. My glass was so good that I saw it quite
plainly come loose at one side, and I saw the man’s hand lifted up to
catch it. But before he could reach it, it fell off as I have said.
Then in a moment the man’s body became a mass of rapidly seething
fluid, and the fluid became a dark cloud of smoke, which spread into
the air and disappeared. Just so I had seen Signor Davelli’s body
transformed and disappear the day before. The second man at once
caught up the mask and stood apparently waiting. Presently a diffused
vapour appeared. This became denser and denser, until it assumed the
appearance of a seething fluid, as before. This quickly became
consolidated and assumed the form of a body, the body of the man who
had just disappeared. Then the other man, who was standing ready with
the mask in his hand, fitted it again upon the first man, and both men
proceeded to examine the substance before them, and to converse, as if
nothing had happened to interrupt them. All this time (which, however,
was a very short time, although the change was by no means
instantaneous, as the like change seemed to be yesterday) the other
men worked away without, as far as I could see, taking any notice
whatever of what was going on.

I exclaimed slightly and started, and this attracted Signor Davelli’s
attention. He had been, I think, examining and preparing some
instruments. “What do you see?” he said. I answered without taking my
eyes from the glass. “A man over there disappeared and appeared again
just as you did yesterday.”

“Careless wretches!” he said, looking towards the place that I was
observing.

“I suppose,” I said, “that these substances which they are examining
must be very deadly, for his mask fell off just before he disappeared,
and I remember you said yesterday that what would kill us only drove
you back into space.”

“And you infer, I suppose, that if you had been in his place you would
have dropped down dead.”

“That is what I think,” said I.

“Then you see if you become one of us you escape death.” He said this
with a strongly persuasive manner, and as he spoke a slight shudder
seemed to pass over me, and I expected him to say more. But he said no
more, and he returned to the task in which he had been engaged.

I then turned my attention again to my examination of the workers at
the sixth bed.

You will understand that a very broad walk lay between the bed and the
northern platform. This walk was to all appearance formed of some hard
stuff like flags or asphalt, and I now perceived by the aid of the
sunlight that some of the cars had alighted upon this pathway and were
standing there.

I could see that there were five of them, and presently the five
workers went over to the cars, one to each car. There was a man in
each or beside each, I could not say which. For as you will remember I
could only see the shadows of the cars, and the sun was now very high,
and very near the zenith, and the shadows were proportionately small.
The five workers took the boxes, each one from his girdle, one after
another, and handed them, one after another, each worker to one of the
men in or beside each car. Then the workers went back to the bed, and
the cars rose from the ground. I could see that they rose almost
perpendicularly at first for the shadows hardly moved, but became
smaller and smaller; then they lengthened and passed away to the
north-east, and rapidly disappeared. I looked up in the direction
which seemed indicated by the lengthening shadows, and I could see
distinctly for a few minutes something like a queer little cloud, and
another and another until I counted the five. Then I lost sight of
them.

If the north platform was the port of departure for the cars it seemed
as if the south platform was the port of arrival. For now on looking
straight below I saw that many cars were standing there, and some
arrived as I looked. The bright sunshine enabled me to count them as
they stood and to see them coming; and my position in respect of them
enabled me to estimate the size of these cars by their shadows much
more exactly than that of those which I had been just observing at the
other end. A little further observation showed me that the cargo they
were laden with consisted of the same sort of substances as those
which were so carefully treated on the platform, and in the seed beds,
and, finally, in a modified condition exported for use elsewhere. I
had evidence already of the care which was given to the preparation
and final distribution of these, and I now had evidence that the same
kind of care was given to their first selection. Signor Davelli
lowered the car to the platform, alighted, and called a man to his
side. I alighted at the same time. The man came at once, and it was
clear that he knew what he was called for; for he brought with him
something that looked like a little glass case or tray, in which were
a multitude of little matters which proved to be germs of some sort,
part of them of animal and part of vegetable growth, and these, as I
gathered, had been selected from a great number of similar matters
which had just come in, and they were now submitted to Signor Davelli
for his examination and approval. He examined them carefully in some
ways that I understood, and in some ways also that I did not
understand at all. As an instance of the latter I may mention the
following. He extracted one of the germs from the case and placed it
on an elliptical piece of opaque ware which was very slightly
depressed in the middle. The germ was so small that he had to work
with a magnifying-glass of enormous power, and with instruments of
extreme delicacy. He showed me the germ through the glass. It was
egg-shaped and colourless, with a tiny dark spot under a partly
transparent substance. Without the glass it was to me absolutely
invisible. Then he got a little glass tube into which he put something
out of a very small bottle, which he took from a number of others
which lay side by side in a little case which he took out of a pocket
in the side of the car. Whether what he took out of the bottle was
powder or fluid I could not tell, though I was now so near what I was
observing. But I noticed that when poured into the tube it seemed to
change colour. Then Signor Davelli handed the tube to the man who had
come in answer to his call, and this man, who appeared to know exactly
what was expected of him, took the tube and blew through it upon the
germ. I could not see that anything came through the tube, but in a
few seconds a kind of cream-coloured spray began to rise from the
germ, and Signor Davelli observed this, not the germ but the spray,
very carefully through the magnifier. He seemed highly pleased; he
selected a few more germs which he said were of the same sort as this;
he spoke of them as particularly “promising,” and he indicated, as I
thought (for just here he began to speak in a tongue unknown to me),
the treatment which in his judgment they ought to receive.

When I could no longer understand him I looked again to the workers at
the beds. There were now a great many more workers at the first bed,
and the work all through was proceeding in a very rapid and orderly
manner. I followed quickly the whole process from first to last: the
gathering in of the germs, their preliminary examination, the
treatment which they underwent on the platform, the tests to which
they were subjected before and after that treatment, their gradual
passage through the several stages of cultivation, and finally their
dispersion, in their cultivated condition, whither I could not
certainly say, but presumably to the ends of the earth.

One thing especially puzzled me: I could not estimate at all the
amount of time which the process of cultivation consumed in the case
of each germ. There were germs constantly going into cultivation and
frequently coming out; but how long it was from the time that each one
went in until the same one came out again, whether they took different
periods of time or uniform, or nearly uniform periods, I could not at
all guess. The rapidly decreasing size of the beds implied certainly
that the process of cultivation was a process of elimination. It
seemed that not one in a hundred of those which passed through the
first stage could ever have reached the final stage. And I think also
that it might be inferred with much probability from the same fact
that the process of cultivation lasted in most cases for a long time.
For otherwise they might surely have made up for losses during culture
by an increase of the numbers put under cultivation. For what I saw
left me no room to doubt that such an increase in quantity was at
their disposal. Making a rough estimate, I should say that hundreds of
germs cultivated up to the highest pitch were sent away every day,
and that hundreds of thousands went under cultivation.

While I was making these calculations, I became aware of a disturbance
at the first bed. Turning my glass hastily to the spot I saw that one
of the men had fallen down, and it struck me at first that there was
going to be a repetition of the sort of disappearance and reappearance
which I had already witnessed, and which I now understood. But I very
soon saw that this was quite a different matter. There was a panic,
and the men ran in all directions away from the man who had fallen. I
followed for a moment with my glass the course of some of the
fugitives. Turning the glass back towards the spot where the man had
fallen, I could perceive nothing at all. Every trace of his body was
lost. Then I heard a long and loud whistle, and in almost as little
time as it takes me to tell it the panic had ceased and the men were
working away just as before. Just then I heard what seemed like a deep
and desperate curse from Signor Davelli, and looking towards him I saw
him standing with his arm half way up, holding the glass. He seemed to
have just taken it away from his eyes, and a scowl was passing over
his face, made up as it seemed to me of malignity, ferocity, and
fear. It reminded me at once of the expression which had passed over
his countenance on the second day when the men were gathered in the
square and when one or two of them proved to be missing, and I
remembered also Jack’s words, “Depend upon it his damnation has got
something or other to do with the loss of these men.”

To conceal my horror I turned my glass again to the workers, but I
really observed nothing more, and presently at a signal from Signor
Davelli I resumed my place in the car. He raised the car just as
before, made a curve to the south, and then turned the prow of the car
towards the east end of the valley. We alighted at the same point
whence we had started, and then he spoke—

“Mr. Easterley, you know something of my power now.”

I looked at him, I suppose, interrogatively, for he went on to say—

“Among your kings who is the most powerful? Is it not he who possesses
the deadliest weapons and can use them with the most facility and
precision?”

I said nothing for a moment, for I knew he was misleading me, or
perhaps I should not say I knew, but I felt so, not indeed because of
any opinion that I had formed about the purpose of the cultivated
germs, but because of the profound distrust with which he had inspired
me. Then, as he seemed to be waiting for my reply I said briefly, “I
have no doubt at all of your power.”

“Very well,” he said; “we shall see to-morrow if you are worthy to
share it.”

I said nothing. The words that formed themselves in my mind were, “I
hope that I am not sufficiently unworthy,” but for obvious reasons I
kept silence.

Then he said, “We meet here to-morrow two hours before noon, and now
you can return to your friend; I can see him coming towards us on the
stair.”

I could not see, for I had left the glass in the car; but I exchanged
a parting salute with my companion, walked slowly to the stair and
began to ascend it. Before beginning the ascent I had seen Jack
standing half way up the stair, looking towards me.

After a hearty grip of the hand we turned back and walked slowly
towards the pathway that we had taken on the second morning of our
stay here. We spoke almost in whispers. I gave Jack a brief account of
what I had seen. He said that it indicated something of which we could
hardly guess the whole import, but he agreed with me that such import
was probably as bad as it could be.

“We must try to escape,” he said, “as soon as possible. I know now
exactly how to work and steer the cars, and I know, too, how to lay my
hands on a second battery.”

“What do we want with a second battery?” said I.

“Well,” said he, “I don’t know what these batteries are made of; they
are of solid stuff, not fluid, and yet they all waste very quickly. I
doubt if any one of them will carry us as far as we may want to go;
indeed, I am not sure that any two of them will be enough.”

“But how are we to get away,” said I; “we are so closely watched?”

“I’ll tell you what I propose,” he said. “We shall not retire to-night
until an hour after dark, nor the next night, then we may hope that
they will take it as a matter of course that we shall not retire on
the third night until the same hour. But on the third night,
immediately after dark, we shall make a bolt of it, and so we may hope
for an hour’s start.”

“In the car?”

“Well, so I propose. I am aware that there is much to be said in
favour of an attempt to escape on foot. These lozenges of theirs are
meat and drink. We have had nothing else for several days, and we want
nothing else, and we know now how many of them we should require, and
it is certain that we could easily carry enough to last us three weeks
or more. And if we make a bee-line for the wire we ought to reach it
within three weeks or less. Besides, if we escape on foot they will
not know where to look for us. We shall have cover among the trees,
whereas in the air we shall have no cover.”

“Not even if we escape in an invisible car?”

“There is none of the cars invisible to them.”

“Ah! so I was beginning to think.”

“I am quite sure of it.”

“Well, go on.”

“Still, three weeks may not be enough. We may not be able to make a
bee-line. Probably we shall meet with some impassable scrub, or other
obstacle, and so our food may run out, and we may die miserably after
all. But if we escape in one of the cars the whole risk will be over,
and our fate will be decided one way or another within twenty-four
hours.”

“Very well,” said I, “we shall try it the night after next.”

Then I told him of my appointment next day with Signor Davelli.

He looked very grave. “That’s the biggest risk of all,” he said. “If
you give in to him we’re both done for.”

“I won’t give in to him.”

“Good; but if he knows for certain that you are resisting him, he may
take immediate action, and then also we shall be done for.”

“He will give me more than one trial.”

“I think he will, but, any way, we are not likely to have as much time
as we thought. I would say, let us try to-night, but we are watched so
closely, that it is not possible. We had better say to-morrow night.”

“So be it,” said I.

Then we went to our quarters and had some food and a little rest. Then
we walked backward and forward on the same path again. About an hour
after dark we retired for the night, and when we had passed into the
inner room we could see the bright light already shining before the
doors. The watch upon us was close and constant.

CHAPTER X.

LEÄFAR.

That night we lay both of us in the outer chamber, partly for company,
and partly because neither of us wished to be within sight of the
light which lay all night before the door, and which could be seen
from the window of the inner chamber. There was nothing, indeed,
strange or ugly about the light itself; it was very bright, and, under
other circumstances, might have been pleasant. But to us, guessing
whence it was and what was its purpose, it had come to have a weird
look of doom about it.

We lay still, scarcely speaking. Only from time to time a word or two
passed between us, either suggestive of preparation, or of some topic
of encouragement. By and by we lapsed into silence, and thence into an
imperfect sleep. There was no artificial light in our chamber, we had
no occasion for any, although day and night were nearly of equal
length. Sometime in the evening before dusk we used to take a second
bath (if one may use the consuetudinal for so short a period), and
then to throw off our hats and sandals and to exchange the long robe,
which was our only other garment, for another of the same sort, was
the whole of our preparation for the night.

I do not know how long I had been sleeping, but it could not have been
very long, when I woke up with a start. Surely there was a light in
the room? Yes, there was, and it was growing slowly brighter. I looked
over to the couch where Jack lay; it was very near my own, but not
near enough to permit me to touch him without rising.

I sat up and put on my sandals. The light had now become so much
brighter that I could see Jack plainly. He was awake and watching as I
was. The light was now increasing much more quickly, and in a few
minutes the room was quite brilliantly illuminated, and there was a
sort of core of brightness beginning to appear in the centre of the
light. This presently assumed a wavering aspect, and by-and-by became
a bubbling fluid. I was prepared to expect the appearance of a form of
human similitude, for I had witnessed as you will remember, the same
thing twice already. The same, and yet not the same, for the dark
vapour which I had seen in the former cases was replaced in this case
by a bright rose-coloured light. I suppose it was partly because of
this obvious difference that I felt now no fear, but hope. I began to
think that help was coming, and that we were not going to be left to
fight out a desperate battle alone.

As I looked, the bubbling fluid became consolidated and assumed, as I
had expected, a human form. A man of, it might be middle age, stood
before us. I should have said much under middle age only that his
expression indicated, as I thought, a ripeness of experience and a
calm wisdom seldom seen in very young men. There was a stately beauty
and benignity in his features and demeanour, a mingled tone of love
and command and entreaty; all the direct reverse of what we had seen
in Signor Davelli and his men. He wore a flowing robe of much the same
pattern as ours, but it was of a very bright, indeed of a luminous
material, and it had somehow a strange air of being part of his body.
His head was uncovered; his hair was brown, short, and slightly
curled, and his eyes were blue.

We both started to our feet, and made, almost involuntarily, a
profound salutation.

“Friends,” he said, “you are in urgent danger, and I come to inform
and counsel and help you.” He spoke the English language with a very
sweet and firm intonation, and yet his accent was in some way
suggestive of an outland or foreign origin. “I am a friend,” he said,
“and in some sort a guide of men. It was my mission long ages ago to
warn your first father of the designs of an enemy of the same order as
this one of yours, but far mightier than he. Later on in the plains of
Assyria, under the name and form of a man, I baffled the designs of
another of the same evil race. And many times in more modern days I
have rendered help of which no record remains to man and to the
friends of man. Speak to me freely; you may call me Leäfar.”

I was meditating whether or not I should begin with a confession of my
own faults, when Jack stepped forward, prevented me, and spoke.

“Sir Leäfar,” he said, “tell us first of all who these men are into
whose power we seem to have fallen, and from whom we desire to
escape.”

“Yes,” answered he who called himself Leäfar, “it is best that you
should have information first; counsel and help will follow.

“These men and I have one thing in common. We are inhabitants not of
earth, but of ether; as they have themselves told you, we are dwellers
in space. But they are not, as they would have you think, a fair
sample of the race which inhabits the ether, for although very many as
compared with the inhabitants of earth, they are very few in
comparison of those who hold with me.”

“How is it possible,” said I, “that you and they, although dwellers in
space, or inhabitants of the ether, can assume as you do the form of
men, and at least in some measure their nature?”

“I cannot,” he replied, “unfold the matter to you in full detail, for
you have not the faculties needful to enable you so to apprehend it;
but if you will attend I will try to show you by analogies how it is
possible for us to pass from our world to yours. But sit down,” he
said; “you will be weary, for I have much to say, and there is no time
to lose.”

Hereupon he sat down, having first indicated to us with a gracious air
where we were to sit. We both sat in front of him, but each one a
little to one side. Then he began. “The material,” he said, “of your
world and of such worlds as yours is limited. The material of our
world envelops and pervades it all, and extends to immeasurable
distances, as I believe to infinity, but the knowledge of infinity is
reserved to the Infinite One Himself.

“The material of our world is the basis of the material of yours. The
latter is made out of the former by a simple process of agglomeration.
All the material of worlds like yours is resolvable ultimately into
extremely minute particles, each of which is just a little twist of
the ether. You may compare these particles to knots that you make upon
a cord. Just as the parts of the cord in the knot act upon one another
in a way in which they could not act if they remained in one
continuous line, so the knotted or twisted ether becomes capable of a
great variety of interactions which are not possible to it in its
original state, and as the knots increase in complexity these possible
interactions are multiplied. The motion by which the first
agglomeration of ether is formed generates the various processes which
are known to you as heat, magnetism, electricity, and the different
chemical affinities, and so the matter of your world is built up. The
bodies of the dwellers in ether are composed of ether in the simple
state, and by a process which is simple enough although not fully
explicable to you, we can transform them into the material of which
your bodies are made and retransform them again.

“Two analogies, one mechanical and one chemical, may help you, if not
to understand the process at least to see how it is possible. Suppose
a string of immense length so thin as to be quite invisible; and
suppose it to be knitted and woven and re-woven until it be formed
into a piece of cloth, compact but very small. Suppose the process of
knitting or weaving to be performed very quickly, and then suppose the
web so formed to be as rapidly unravelled again. In that case the
piece of cloth would appear and disappear just as you have seen our
bodies do.

“Or suppose two vast masses of oxygen and hydrogen in the proportions
in which they exist together as water. Suppose them to be brought
together and subjected to the chemical process which is needed in
order to make them combine: what happens? A small quantity of water
suddenly appears. Reverse the process and it disappears.

“By means roughly analogous to these we are able to assume terrestrial
bodies and to pass into the ether again. But while our bodies are in
terrestrial form they are subject to the same laws as yours; we need
food and sleep, and we are subject to the various accidents and
conditions of humanity.”

Here he paused for a moment and Jack spoke.

“But you are not subject to death as we are. Any cause that would kill
us only resolves your material bodies into their ethereal form.”

“That is the case,” he said; “but the difference is not such as you
suppose. All the material of your bodies is ultimately resolved into
ethereal matter, but not all of it is essential to your being, and
that which is essential is resolved by a much speedier process.

“But to speak of ourselves: while we remain in our own world we have
instruments of sensation fitted to our condition and analogous to
yours, just as hearing is analogous to seeing. But I cannot explain to
you any more exactly our means of sensation, just as you could not
explain sight to a man born blind.

“But our sensations are throughout strictly analogous to yours and
pass into yours when we assume terrestrial bodies.”

Here he paused again, and I asked, “Can you see our worlds from
yours?”

“No,” he replied. “The ether as far as we know pervades the universe
and passes freely through worlds like yours, and we, while dwelling in
the ether, have no more cognisance of your world than you of ours.

“But there are certain links,” he added, “which bind both worlds
together, and two of these are known to you as _light_ and _gravity_.
Our world is for ever in motion; motion is of the essence of its
being, and it communicates its motion to all that is formed out of it
and continued by it as your worlds are. Such motion is communicated in
exact proportion to the vastly varied complexities of the matter of
your worlds, and out of this proportionate communication arise the
movements and the laws of movement of all the stars and planets, all
of which movements and laws of movement are amenable to calculation.
Much of this is already known to you, and the day will probably come
when your men of science will be able to calculate the proper motion
of the remotest star that your instruments can discover with as much
precision as they now calculate the motions of your moon.

“Light is another link between your worlds and ours. And light is the
one means which we have of detecting from our world the presence of
yours. Not that we see light as you see it. The sort of perception
that you have by means of light we have in our world by analogous but
higher means. The presence of light is known to us when in our own
world only by a slight shuddering motion of the ether. Just as you
perceive a difference in the mode of motion when you travel on land
and on the water or in the air; just so we perceive an analogous
difference when we pass to the regions of light from the regions
where light is not. A shuddering motion of the material of our world
warns that we are where your worlds are. And just as for you sometimes
the motion of the air or water passes into a hurricane or a whirlpool,
so to us a vastly increased movement of the ether (not the regular
movement which is the cause of gravity, but a quivering movement)
indicates the presence of one of the secular outbursts of
conflagration which form part of the process by which your worlds
become fitted for your occupation.”

“But how,” inquired I, “can you come into our world without having any
direct sensation of its whereabouts?”

“Once we have been here,” he said, “it is a matter of easy calculation
to us to fix the locality; and we can communicate the elements of the
calculation to others who have not been here.”

Here he paused, and rose to his feet, and as we were about to rise he
signed to us to keep sitting.

“Now,” he said, “hearken carefully while I tell you of those into
whose power you are fallen.” And as he spoke it seemed to me that his
attention was directed more especially to myself.

He went on—“The Infinite One, ages before your worlds were formed,
called the ethereal host into being. And at first they were like your
brute creatures, only with vastly greater powers and intelligence;
yet, like them, for their vast powers were not under the control of
any will of their own, for there was no such thing then as will,
except the will of the Infinite One.

“But it pleased the Infinite One at last to give His creatures will.
That which is His own prerogative He communicated to them in order
that He might give manifold scope to the eternal love which is His
essence. That will of theirs it was His will that they should exercise
in conformity with that eternal love. But being free it might oppose
that eternal love, not indeed to eternity, but for incalculable cycles
of time.

“A few, a very few, as compared to the whole number, opposed
themselves to Him, and as the ages passed these grew ever more evil,
and ever more full of hatred of Him and of all who hold with Him. A
very few they were as compared with those who held with Him, but a
great many when compared with all the men who inhabit this little
world of yours, or who ever have inhabited it.”

Here he paused again, and there was dead silence for a space, and then
Jack spoke, and his voice was like that of a man hurried and somewhat
overawed.

“But how did the will to resist the will of the Infinite One ever come
into being at all?”

“It was a possibility from the moment when the first free being was
created, and it became actual by the gradual and undue admixture of
things in themselves good. The desire to do great things is good, and
the joy to be able to do great things is good. But if these two good
things are suffered to govern the whole being, they become the
possible germs, inert as yet, of self-assertion and pride. And then
when the call for self-sacrifice comes, as it must, to the finite in
the presence of the Infinite, the will, the spark of divine life which
the Creator has committed to the creature, rises up against the
sacrifice, and by its action fertilises the germs of self-assertion
and pride.

“So began the deadly war of the finite with the Infinite. That had its
origin in ‘worlds before the man,’ and it speedily passed over into
man’s world, and would long ago have destroyed it had not the Infinite
One Himself become human in order to teach men by His own example and
in His own Person the divine lesson of self-sacrifice.”

Here Leäfar paused again and sat down, and seemed to wait for some
question from us. I was quite powerless to speak. I felt quite