oming into his eyes. "I've been a little
preoccupied with my own internal sensations. I remark an extraordinary
brightness about things. Is that it?"

"That's part of it. And a queer feeling, a clear-headedness------"

He surveyed me and meditated gravely. "I woke up," he said, feeling
his way in his memory.

"And I."

"I lost my way--I forget quite how. There was a curious green fog."
He stared at his foot, remembering. "Something to do with a comet.
I was by a hedge in the darkness. Tried to run. . . . Then I
must have pitched into this lane. Look!" He pointed with his head.
"There's a wooden rail new broken there. I must have stumbled over
that out of the field above." He scrutinized this and concluded.
"Yes. . . ."

"It was dark," I said, "and a sort of green gas came out of nothing
everywhere. That is the last I remember."

"And then you woke up? So did I. . . . In a state of great bewilderment.
Certainly there's something odd in the air. I was--I was rushing
along a road in a motor-car, very much excited and preoccupied. I
got down----" He held out a triumphant finger. "Ironclads!"

"NOW I've got it! We'd strung our fleet from here to Texel. We'd
got right across them and the Elbe mined. We'd lost the Lord Warden.
By Jove, yes. The Lord Warden! A battleship that cost two million
pounds--and that fool Rigby said it didn't matter! Eleven hundred
men went down. . . . I remember now. We were sweeping up the North
Sea like a net, with the North Atlantic fleet waiting at the Faroes
for 'em--and not one of 'em had three days' coal! Now, was that a
dream? No! I told a lot of people as much--a meeting was it?--to
reassure them. They were warlike but extremely frightened. Queer
people--paunchy and bald like gnomes, most of them. Where? Of
course! We had it all over--a big dinner--oysters!--Colchester.
I'd been there, just to show all this raid scare was nonsense. And
I was coming back here. . . . But it doesn't seem as though that
was--recent. I suppose it was. Yes, of course!--it was. I got out
of my car at the bottom of the rise with the idea of walking along
the cliff path, because every one said one of their battleships was
being chased along the shore. That's clear! I heard their guns------"

He reflected. "Queer I should have forgotten! Did YOU hear any
guns?"

I said I had heard them.

"Was it last night?"

"Late last night. One or two in the morning."

He leant back on his hand and looked at me, smi