the public really understood. For, with a new sentence but half
completed, the picture of the news-gatherer faded blackly off the
screens in a million homes, and his voice was blotted out by a humming
that mounted to a terrific appalling shriek! Some terrible agency, about
which people who knew their radio could only guess, had drowned out the
words of the news-gatherer, leaving the public stunned and bewildered,
almost groping before a feeling of terror which was all the more
unbearable because none could give it a name.

And the public had heard but a fraction of the truth--merely that Kleig
had come back. It had been the intention of the government to deny the
public even this knowledge, and it had; but knowledge of the denial
itself was public property, which filled the hearts of men and women all
through the Western Hemisphere with nameless dread. And over all this
abode of countless millions hovered the shadow of Moyen.

The government tried to correct the impression which the news-gatherer
had given out.

"Prester Kleig is back," said the radio, while the government speaker
tried, for the benefit of those who could see him, to smile
reassuringly. "But there is nothing to cause anyone the slightest
concern. He has seen Moyen, yes, and has heard him speak, but still
there is nothing to distress anyone, and the whole story will be given
to you as soon as possible. Kleig has gone into the Secret Room, yes,
but every operative of the government, when discussing business
connected with diplomatic relations with foreign powers, is received in
the Secret Room. No cause for worry!"

* * * * *

It was so easy to say that, and the speaker realized it, which was why
he could but with difficulty make his smile seem reassuring.

"Tell us the truth, and tell us quickly," might have been the voiceless
cries of those who listened and saw the face and fidgeting form of the
speaker. But the words were not spoken, because the people sensed a
hovering horror, a dread catastrophe beyond the power of words to
express--and so looked at one another in silence, their eyes wide with
dread, their hearts throbbing to suffocation with nameless foreboding.

So eyes were horror-haunted, and men walked, flew, and rode in fear and
trembling--while, down in the Secret Room, Prester Kleig and a dozen old
men, men wise in the ways of science and invention, wise in the ways of
men and of beasts, of Nature and the