southward gain. The hour grew late. Coburn had fled Ardea at sunrise,
but they'd reached Naousa after midday and he drove frantically over
incredible mountain roads until dusk. Despite sheer recklessness,
however, he could not average thirty miles an hour. There were times
when even the half-track had to crawl or it would overturn. The sun set,
and he went on up steep grades and down steeper ones in the twilight.
Night fell and the headlights glared ahead, and the staff car clanked
and clanked and grumbled and roared on through the darkness.

They probably passed through villages--the headlights showed stone
hovels once or twice--but no lights appeared. It was midnight before
they saw a moving yellow spot of brightness with a glare as of fire upon
steam above it. There were other small lights in a row behind it, and
they saw that all the lights moved.

"A railroad!" said Coburn. "We're getting somewhere!"

It was a railroad train on the other side of a valley, but they did not
reach the track. The highway curved away from it.

At two o'clock in the morning they saw electric lights. The highway
became suddenly passable. Presently they ran into the still, silent
streets of a slumbering town--Serrai--an administrative center for this
part of Greece. They threaded its ways while Coburn watched for a proper
place to stop. Once a curiously-hatted policeman stared blankly at them
under an arc lamp as the staff car clanked and rumbled past him. They
saw a great pile of stone which was a church. They saw a railroad
station.

Not far away there was a building in which there were lights. A man in
uniform came out of its door.

Coburn stopped a block away. There were uneasy stirrings, and the
white-bearded passenger from the village said incomprehensible things in
a feeble voice. Coburn got Janice out of the car first. She was stiff
and dizzy when she tried to walk. The Greek was in worse condition
still. He clung to the side of the staff car.

"We tell the truth," said Coburn curtly, "when we talk to the police. We
tell the whole truth--except about Dillon. That sounds too crazy. We
tell it to top-level officials only, after they realize that something
they don't know anything about has really taken place. Talk of Invaders
from space would either get us locked up as lunatics or would create a
panic. This man will tell what happened up there, and they'll
investigate. But we take these so-called cameras to Salonika, and get