Bruce and I had ridden up on my Daisy. I had left her saddled. Bringing her out of the stable at a trot, I heaved Bruce up into the saddle and was about to climb on myself when the gun went off again and I felt a burning pain in my leg.
Bruce dragged me into the saddle and we were off1 half unconscious.
Here I lie now in bed, and should be about again in a couple of days. Fortunately, the shot did not harm any bones.
So you see how the farm is now a place of the damned! Once, I thought it might even become a new Eden, growing the food of the gods for men like gods. Insteadalas! the first meeting between humanity and beings from another world has proved disastrous, and the Eden is become a battleground for a war of worlds. How can our anticipations for the future be anything other than gloomy?
Before I close this over-long account, I must answer a query in your letter and pose another to you, more personal than yours to me.
First, you question if the Aurigans are entirely invisible and sayif I may quote your letter”Any alteration in the refractive index of the eye lenses would make vision impossible, but without such alteration the eyes would be visible as glassy globules. And for vision it is also necessary that there should be visual purple behind the retina and an opaque cornea. How then do your Aurigans manage for vision?” The answer must be that they do without eyesight as we know it, for I think they naturally maintain a complete invisibility. How they “see” I know not, but whatever sense they use, it is effective. How they communicate I know notour fellow made not the slightest sound when I speared his foot!yet it is apparent they must communicate effectively. Perhaps they tried originally to communicate with us through a mysterious sense we do not possess and, on receiving no answer, assumed us to be as dumb as our dumb animals. If so, what a tragedy!
Now to my personal inquiry. I know, sir, that you must grow more busy as you grow more famous; but I feel that what transpires here in this remote corner of East Anglia is of momentous import to the world and the future. Could you not take it upon yourself to pay us a visit here? You would be comfortable at one of our two inns, and the journey here by railway is efficient if tediousyou can easily ‘get a regular wagon from Heigham station here, a distance of only eight miles. You could then view Grendon’s farm for yourself, and perhaps one of these interstellar beings too. I feel you are as much amused as concerned by the accounts you receive from the undersigned, but I swear not one detail is exaggerated. Say you can come!
If you need persuasion, reflect on how much delight it will give to
Your sincere admirer,
Gregory Rolles.
Reading this long letter through, scratching out two superfluous adjectives, Gregory lay back in some satisfaction.
He had the feeling he was still involved in the struggle although temporarily out of action.
But the later afternoon brought him disquieting news.
Tommy, the baker’s boy, had gone out as far as the Grendon farm. Then the ugly legends circulating in the village about the place had risen in his mind, and he had stood wondering whether he should go on. An unnatural babble of animal noise came from the farm, mixed with hammering, and when Tommy crept forward and saw the farmer himself looking as black as a puddle and building a great thing like a gibbet in the yard, he had lost his nerve and rushed back the way he came, the letter to Nancy undelivered.
Gregory lay on the bed worrying about Nancy until Mrs.
Fenn brought up supper on a tray. At least it was clear now why the Aurigans had not entered the farmhouse; they were far too large to do so. She was safe as long as she kept indoorsas far as anyone on that doomed plot was safe.
He fell asleep early that night. In the early hours of the morning, nightmare visited him. He was in a strange city where all the buildings were new and the people wore shining clothes.