"Now," Granet whispered.

Collins leaned forward. The fuse in his hand touched the dark substance
which he had spread out upon the rock. In a moment a strange, unearthly,
green light seemed to roll back the darkness. The house, the workshop,
the trees, the slowly flowing sea, their own ghastly faces--everything
stood revealed in a blaze of hideous, awful light. For a moment they
forgot themselves, they forgot the miracle they had brought to pass.
Their eyes were rivetted skyward. High above them, something blacker
than the heavens themselves, stupendous, huge, seemed suddenly to assume
to itself shape. The roar of machinery was clearly audible. From the
house came the mingled shouting of many voices. Something dropped
into the sea a hundred yards away with a screech and a hiss, and a
geyser-like fountain leapt so high that the spray reached them. Then
there was a sharper sound as a rifle bullet whistled by.

"My God!" Granet exclaimed. "It's time we were out of this, Collins!"

He seized his scull. Even at that moment there was a terrific explosion.
A stream of lurid fire seemed to leap from the corner of the house,
the wall split and fell outwards. And then there came another sound,
hideous, sickly, a sound Granet had heard before, the sound of a rifle
bullet cutting its way through flesh, followed by an inhuman cry. For a
moment Collins' arms whirled around him. Then, with no other sound
save that one cry, he fell forward and disappeared. For a single second
Granet leaned over the side of the boat as though to dive after him.
Then came another roar. The sand flew up in a blinding storm, the whole
of the creek was suddenly a raging torrent. The boat was swung on a
precipitous mountain of salt water and as quickly capsized. Granet,
breathless for a moment and half stunned, found his way somehow to the
side of the marshland, and from there stumbled his way towards the road.
The house behind him was on fire, the air seemed filled with hoarse
shoutings. He turned and ran for the spot where he had left the car.
Once he fell into a salt water pool and came out wet through to the
waist. In the end, however, he reached the bank, clambered over it and
slipped down into the road. Then a light was flashed into his eyes and
a bayonet was rattled at his feet. There were a couple of soldiers in
charge of his car.

"Hands up!" was the hoarse order.

Granet calmly flashed his own electric torch. There were at least a
dozen sol