Kem stepped over Estévan’s unconscious form, took her in his arms and murmured, ‘My sweet, I swear I’ll do my damnedest to make you happy.’
When they had kissed, she smiled at him fondly, then gently pushed him from her. ‘We’ll have plenty of time for love-making later on, darling. There are other things we must think of now. What did you intend to do on leaving here?’
‘My luggage is already packed and in my car, and I have my pass for getting through the cordon. I meant to drive into Basavilbaso, then head east for the frontier at Conception. I’ve written a note describing the place in the bush where I left Estévan, but I counted on that not being found till well after eight o’clock—when the servant who calls me had failed to get a reply, so become alarmed and fetched someone to force the door to my room. By then, as it is only about forty-five miles from here to Conception and I had planned to start at a little before dawn, I should have been across the river and safe in Uruguay.’
Carmen nodded. ‘That sounds a good plan; so let’s stick to it. As Basavilbaso is on the road to Buenos Aires they are certain to think that we’ve made for the capital and are trying to get away on a ship. How long can you give me to pack some things?’
‘As matters are now, the sooner we leave the better. But I hadn’t intended to start for another four or five hours, and since you prevented Pedro from rousing the house we need be in no desperate hurry.’
‘Then I’ve time to do something about Estévan’s head. Poor man, it isn’t his fault that we’ve brought all this trouble upon him; and I’d hate to leave him like this.’
‘Yes; he’s certainly had a raw deal,’ Kem agreed, ‘and I can hardly blame him for the horrible things he threatened me with while in a raging temper.’ Between them they hoisted the Colonel’s limp body up on to the bed. Then Carmen fetched hot water and lint from the bathroom, bathed the wound and bandaged up her husband’s head.
When she had done, Kem said, ‘I’m afraid I must tie him up, otherwise he may come to and manage to reach the bell-pull or the telephone before we are safely across the river.’
Carmen made no demur and produced some string, with which he secured Escobar’s wrists and ankles; and to muffle his cries, should he attempt to shout for help, they knotted a towel loosely over the lower part of his face.
They then went out to the hallway and took out from the baggage cupboard there Carmen’s dressing-case and two suitcases, as there was plenty of room in the back of Kem’s car, and she naturally wanted to take with her as many of her personal possessions as she could. While Carmen packed Kem collected things for her, as she directed, from cupboards and drawers. They spoke only in low voices and, in spite of what Kem had said about there being no need for them to hurry unduly, both instinctively worked as though everything depended on their speed.
When Carmen went to get her jewels from the safe, Kem took the opportunity to stuff the brief-case into one of the suitcases under some of her clothes. She had made no mention of that side of the business, so he was still uncertain how she felt about it. As her family had been Liberals he now had a good hope that his little lecture on ‘Making the World Safe for Democracy’ had fallen on fertile soil and excused this theft in her eyes. But it was possible that she might have patriotic scruples about letting him make off with one of her country’s most closely-guarded secrets; so he thought it as well to avoid drawing her attention to the brief-case again, and all its theft implied, while he had the chance.
Within twenty minutes of having rendered Escobar hors de combat the packing was finished. It remained only for them to dress and get away. Kem told Carmen that as soon as he had got his clothes on he meant to climb down out of the window. She could then lower the suitcases to him on two knotted lengths of curtain, which he was making as he spoke. He would carry the cases to the car, then return for her. By that time she should have finished dressing and be ready for him to help her down to the ground.
On her agreeing, he left her and went into the boudoir. As he did so it suddenly struck him how greatly the prospects of his whole life had changed since he had come from it, less than an hour before. Then, he had been looking forward only to a few joyous hours with Carmen, before facing the sadness of having to put her out of his life for good. Now, she was coming with him, and with luck there would be many happy times in store for them.
He wondered about her marriage. As Escobar was a Roman Catholic there could be no question of his divorcing her, but he might secure an annulment. Such matters could usually be arranged in Catholic countries, and the fact that she had had no children should make it easier. If they did get an annulment it was certain that she would expect him to marry her, and that would mean good-bye to his carefree bachelor state. But after all, that was not much to give up for a wife like Carmen. And he was twenty-eight, which was quite a good age to stop indulging in casual affairs and settle down. Besides, there was no longer cause to fear that discontent and bitterness might come between them on account of lack of money. Carmen had said that she had plenty of her own, and Kem, being a practical man, was not such a fool as to harbour any silly notions about its being unmanly to permit a rich wife to provide the luxuries of a joint household. Really, it looked as if those ‘Castles in Spain’, that he had only amused himself by dreaming about, were actually fine solid buildings and soon to become his. Now, he felt that there could no longer be any doubt about it. Overnight he had indeed become one of the darlings of the Gods.
He had just pulled on his trousers when he heard a loud rending noise in the next room. Next second Carmen’s voice came in a low cry fraught with utter fear.
Grabbing up his coat, he dashed into the bedroom. A few feet inside its doorway he halted, rooted to the spot. He could hardly believe his eyes, and his scalp pricked with terror, as he stared at the monstrous thing that had thrust its way through the window.
8
Real Cause for Terror
Carmen’s bedroom was a fine apartment nearly thirty feet in length and twenty wide. It was situated at the corner of the house. Three windows on its longer side, the central one of which consisted of double doors opening on to the balcony, faced south; in its east wall, near which Kem was standing, there was a fourth. At the moment his distended eyes were riveted on the exit to the balcony.
The french window had been smashed open and through it protruded a thing, the like of which he had seen only in the make-believe pictures of nursery-story books. Had it portended any normal danger he would have hurled himself at it in Carmen’s defence; but momentarily petrified by fear of the unknown he stood staring at it, feeling certain that he must be dreaming a hideous nightmare and would shortly wake safe and sound, even if in a bath of perspiration.
The thing, the sight of which had turned his blood to water and paralysed his brain, was a gigantic hand and arm. Kem had seen giants in circuses, but this mighty limb was far larger than any ever recorded as belonging to a human being. It was naked to the shoulder, as thick round the bicep as the haunch of a horse and eight feet in length. A tangle of coarse red hairs partially covered its forearm and the whole of the skin was pasty white, marked here and there with unhealthy-looking bluish pimples. The nails on the huge hand, as big as five shilling pieces, were horny, cracked and broken. Its fingers, a foot long, were thick and clumsy; but, like the tentacles of an octopus, they, and a thumb the size of a rolling-pin, clasped Carmen firmly round the body.
Mercifully, she had fainted. She was slumped forward, with her head dangling down over the giant paw, her dark hair mingling with the red bristles that sprouted from its back. Under Kem’s horrified gaze the hand lifted her off her feet as easily as if she had been a puppet; then, quite slowly, the arm began to withdraw, carrying her towards the window.
The sight of the movement gave Kem back the use of his limbs but failed to restore his wits. Instead of dashing back to the boudoir for his gun, he sprang forward and began to claw wildly at the great fist in a frantic attempt to stop it taking Carm
en from the room.
As he did so he caught a glimpse of the face of the monster to whom the arm belonged. It protruded above the edge of the balcony and was thrust forward over it, just outside the shattered window. The head was completely bald. What could be seen of its nose was flattish and its chin receded. It was wearing some form of breathing apparatus clamped over its nostrils and mouth. The eyes, too, were protected, but by a separate shield that looked like an elongated, transparent celluloid blister. Through it, as through thick lenses, the eyes were magnified, in this case to the size of saucers. They were a pale watery blue and their complete lack of expression gave them a malevolent, soulless quality.
Kem might as well have attempted to check an elephant that was pulling away by hanging on to its trunk, as to halt the steady withdrawal of the huge arm. No sooner had he got a good grip on it than he found himself being hauled forward, too. Suddenly he realised the futility of continuing such an uneven tug-of-war. His brain began to function properly again. The monster was not armoured. If he could get his gun a single shot through the eye should kill it.
Releasing his grip, he turned and dashed towards the boudoir. After two paces his flying feet faltered to a halt as a result of what he saw. While his back had been turned, the wire mosquito blind of the east window had been burst in as though it were made only of paper. Another huge hand was reaching through it and seemed to be searching blindly across the floor. The door of the boudoir was open, but the hand was within a few feet of it and partially blocked the way. Kem’s throat contracted. He gave a gulp, as he realised that to get through he must jump the hideous thing that sprawled across a square yard of carpet.
As he hesitated, at the awful thought that it might grab him, he noticed that it was another right hand. That meant that at least two of the great brutes were attacking the house. He wondered if some of them were at that moment dragging other members of the house-party from their bedrooms. But he had heard no screams or shouts for help. Perhaps they were all too terrified to cry out. He could not recall having shouted in the hope of bringing aid himself, desperately as he needed it. This terrible occurrence had come upon them so totally unexpected, and developed with such swiftness, that he doubted if any utterances he had made during the past few seconds had been more than spontaneous noises engendered by animal fear. In any case, no amount of shouting could now bring help in time to save Carmen. He, with a gun in his hand, stood the only possible chance of doing that.
Cursing himself for a coward, he subdued his fears, ran in and jumped. As he leapt the hand lifted. The toe of his left shoe caught the knuckle of the middle finger. Deflected from his course, he plunged forward head first and came crashing down inside the doorway. The breath was driven from his body and his head hit the wall, knocking him half unconscious.
The hand, having felt the impact of his foot, began to grab about in search of him. Suddenly he felt its finger-tips fall heavy on his legs. More by instinct than through any conscious effort he jerked them away and rolled over towards the bed.
For a few minutes he lay there, panting and still dazed, his head aching intolerably and his body incapable of making any further effort. Vaguely, he heard things being dragged about and sensed rather than saw the huge hands fumbling slowly here and there. Exerting all his will-power, he forced himself to open his eyes and sit up. Sick, bruised and shaken, he stared dully round the room.
In those few minutes it had become a shambles. Carmen had disappeared, her dressing-table had been overturned and the bed dragged from its place to near the french window. Escobar had gone from it and the first monster, now leaning right in, was using both his hands to pile everything within his reach on to the tumbled counterpane.
Again, making a great effort, Kem staggered to his feet, but his head was swimming and he still could not focus his sight properly. He wanted to run, but his feet refused to obey him. Mute and helpless, he could only stand there, swaying drunkenly.
Suddenly he realised that the monster must have seen him get up from the floor, for its goggled eyes were now gazing steadily in his direction. As it reached out a hand to grasp him, he turned and lurched away. But the other one, over whose finger he had tripped, was now halfway through the east window and stretching out to seize him.
Before he could move another yard the huge hand of the first fell like a sack of potatoes on his shoulder. It swung him round and flung him face down on the bed. His nose came sharply in contact with one of Carmen’s suitcases and from the pain of the impact he became thoroughly bemused again.
His ideas about what happened next were extremely vague. Dimly, he guessed that the giant, using the bedding as a big sack, had gathered its corners together with both hands and dragged it out of the window. He felt a nasty bump as the great bundle was hauled over the parapet of the balcony, and another as it reached the ground.
There, the coverings in which he was enveloped fell back, and for a moment he glimpsed the stars overhead. But only for a moment. The silk of a frock that Carmen had slipped on while he was getting into his trousers brushed his cheek as she was thrown in beside him; then Escobar’s heavy body descended with a soft thud across his chest and face, blotting out the stars. Feebly he heaved at it, trying to push it off him, but before he could do so the corners of the bedding had been pulled together, pressing it down on him more firmly than ever.
The journey that followed proved to be a new phase in the nightmare. How long it lasted Kem had no idea. His head was still aching too painfully from the knock it had received for him to think coherently, his mind was further confused by terror, and such efforts as he could muster were given almost entirely to fight for air.
Within a few moments the close, hot darkness became positively stifling and every breath he drew only a prelude to renewed agony. By dragging his arms up and crossing them over his face he managed to form a little cavity in which to gasp more freely, but on every side either the belongings or the limbs of his unconscious fellow captives were wedged tightly against him.
Only a few physical facts penetrated to his brain. There was fur under the nape of his neck, and it must be that of a mink coat that he had got out of a cupboard for Carmen to wear. He could still smell the scent of her hair; so her head must be somewhere near his. Two hard objects were digging into his stomach, and the feel of them told him that they must be the toes of Escobar’s shoes, held together by the string that still tied his ankles. He was, too, quite definitely aware that the great bundle was moving all the time; the constant jolting and bumping to which he was subjected left no doubt that it was being dragged slowly and, apparently, laboriously along the ground.
After a time the pains in his head, in his stomach and in his lungs seemed to merge into a single torture that racked him from top to toe. In semi-delirium, as his degree of suffocation increased, he imagined himself to have been buried alive! Then his suffering was blotted out by oblivion.
When he came to he could again see the stars twinkling brightly in a cloudless sky. A moment later he realised that he was lying on his back on coarse grass, and began to wonder vaguely how he had got there. As he moved his head a little the pain shot through it again, bringing back memory of his recent ordeal in all its fantastic details.
In spite of his aching head; his lips twitched in a smile at the very idea that he should have been the victim of such extraordinary hallucinations. It seemed to him that they could have only one explanation—he must have met with an accident and been operated on; his imagination had run riot while he had been under the anaesthetic. He began to wonder how seriously he was injured; then why he was not in a hospital bed, but lying out in the open.
At that moment there floated into his area of vision a small bright, bluish flame. It was about twenty feet above his head and burned without even the suggestion of a flicker. He watched it dispassionately for a few seconds as it made a graceful swoop and circled twice above him, thinking how pretty it was. Then something clicked in his brain.
That light, moving so purposefully above him, yet apparently attached to nothing and having no apparent means of support—he had never seen such a thing before, but he had read descriptions of it. It was—could only be—one of the Thinking Lights. And they were one type of the inexplicable phenomena which suggested that a people from another world might be about to invade the earth.
People from another world! Those monstrous beings that resembled humans only in form! Surely they could have been only creatures of a nightmare? But no! He had had no accident, but had really been brought there, like a ferret in a bag. In a second, all sense of grace and beauty of the light was swept from his mind. It suddenly became for him a thing of evil fraught with the most potent menace.
Lifting his head a little, he saw that some two hundred yards away the night sky was blacked out by a curving screen of tree-tops, which told him that he must be in a clearing of the bush. With a sharp intake of his breath he lifted his head a few inches higher, now dreading, yet knowing already, the thing that he would next see. And there it was. In the centre of the clearing, only forty feet away from him, reposed a Flying Saucer.
From where he lay it had the appearance of a flattened dome about a hundred feet across and twenty-five feet high, with a thing like a small lighthouse rising a further six feet from its centre. It was made of some white, semi-transparent material, through which there showed a dark band occupying about three-quarters of its width and the middle two-thirds of its height. Above this, except where it joined the central mast, the flattish segment formed by its roof appeared to be empty, as did also the V-shaped segments ending at its rim. A pair of double doors were open in its upper surface and through these two giants were loading the things brought from the estancia.
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