A
shudder crept up his spine as he tiptoed across the floor directly in
front of the armed guards who would have shot him down without
compunction could they have seen him. He was not yet used to his
invisibility; knowing himself to be substantial, feeling his feet
descend solidly on the floor, he still could hardly credit the fact that
human eyes could not observe him.

* * * * *

He got to the door. He put out his hand to open it, then realized just
in time that he could not do that. A door stealthily opening and closing
again, with no apparent hand to manipulate it? Such a spectacle would
start a riot!

In a frenzy of impatience, he stood beside the door, waiting till
someone else should swing it open. And in a moment it chanced that the
stripling assistant chef came toward him with a tray. The boy pushed the
swinging door with his foot, and walked into the butler's pantry. After
him, treading almost on the lad's heels, came Thorn.

The boy sat the tray down, and turned to reach into an upper shelf. The
space in the pantry was constricted, and he turned abruptly. The result
was that he suddenly drew back as though a hot iron had seared him, and
went white as chalk. Then he dashed back into the kitchen.

"A hand!" Thorn heard him gibbering in Arvanian. "A hand! I touched it
with mine! Something horrible is in there!"

With his heart pounding in his throat, Thorn leaned close to the
swing-door to hear what happened next. Would there be a rush for the
butler's pantry? An investigation? He eyed the farther door--the dining
room door. But he dared not flee through that save as a last resort. In
the dining room sounded voices; and again the sight of a door opening
and closing of itself would lead to uproar.

"A hand?" he heard one of the guards say in the kitchen. "An unseen
hand? Thou art empty in the head, young Gova."

There followed some jeering sentences in colloquial Arvanian that were
too idiomatic for Thorn's knowledge of the language to let him
understand. A general guffaw came from the rest; and, as no move was
made toward the pantry, Thorn decided he was saved for another few
moments.

Gasping, he raised his hand to wipe the perspiration off his forehead,
then realized there was no perspiration there. His film-clogged pores
could exude nothing; he had only the sensation of perspiring.

* * * * *

Now the problem was to get through the n