legend, that once the men from there came across to Grabritin. They
came upon the water, and under the water, and even in the air. They
came in great numbers, so that they rolled across the land like a great
gray fog. They brought with them thunder and lightning and smoke that
killed, and they fell upon us and slew our people by the thousands and
the hundreds of thousands. But at last we drove them back to the
water's edge, back into the sea, where many were drowned. Some
escaped, and these our people followed--men, women, and even children,
we followed them back. That is all. The legend says our people never
returned. Maybe they were all killed. Maybe they are still there.
But this, also, is in the legend, that as we drove the men back across
the water they swore that they would return, and that when they left
our shores they would leave no human being alive behind them. I was
afraid that you were from there."

"By what name were these men called?" I asked.

"We call them only the 'men from there,'" she replied, pointing toward
the east. "I have never heard that they had another name."

In the light of what I knew of ancient history, it was not difficult
for me to guess the nationality of those she described simply as "the
men from over there." But what utter and appalling devastation the
Great War must have wrought to have erased not only every sign of
civilization from the face of this great land, but even the name of the
enemy from the knowledge and language of the people.

I could only account for it on the hypothesis that the country had been
entirely depopulated except for a few scattered and forgotten children,
who, in some marvelous manner, had been preserved by Providence to
re-populate the land. These children had, doubtless, been too young to
retain in their memories to transmit to their children any but the
vaguest suggestion of the cataclysm which had overwhelmed their parents.

Professor Cortoran, since my return to Pan-America, has suggested
another theory which is not entirely without claim to serious
consideration. He points out that it is quite beyond the pale of human
instinct to desert little children as my theory suggests the ancient
English must have done. He is more inclined to believe that the
expulsion of the foe from England was synchronous with widespread
victories by the allies upon the continent, and that the people of
England merely emigrated from their ruined cities an