from—a phrase from the frantic voice he had heard leaped into his mind—from God knows where.
What was their purpose? From the information he had received from that unknown voice it was easy to guess. Attacking . . . attacking everywhere. Those phrases came to his mind.
Were these attacking ships from outer space? From the stars? It was too fantastic to consider, yet there was no other answer to the mysterious, frightening questions his mind was asking.
The captain came up alongside the tense, watching group at the rail then.
"Well," he said, and there was a strange note of anxious hesitation in his voice. "What will our course be? Stand by or continue to make for New York? I've been afloat for forty years but I've never seen anything like this. It's got me worried."
"I think," Dirk said, "we'd better stay on our course. There's nothing to be learned out here. How long will it take us to reach New York?"
"A day, maybe two," the captain answered.
"Is that the closest land?" Dirk asked.
The captain shook his head. "Florida's only six hours away. Maybe we'd better put in there."
"It might be best," Dirk said.
ALL through that lowering, sunless, fog-filled day they made for the jutting finger of land that is Florida, and there was a feeling of gloom and despair on the boat that was as palpable as the enveloping green fog.
At dusk they were sailing blind. Their fog horn was sounding a dismal warning to other ships, but Dirk, standing alone at the rail, had the strange feeling that it was an unnecessary precaution. He had the feeling that they were entirely alone.
He had been standing there for possibly five minutes before he heard the faint sputtering sound. It was close and coming closer, but he couldn't locate its source. Then he realized that the sound was above his head.
He glanced upward and his breath caught painfully in his throat. He wanted to scream out but he couldn't.
For settling toward him, through the swirling waves of phosphorescent fog, was one of the huge, sinister, torpedo-shaped air ships that they had been sighting all through the day.
From its bullet-like nose a beam of light suddenly shot forth bathing him in a white circle of brilliant whiteness.
The light flicked off immediately.
Dirk pitched forward against the rail. The white ray had seared him with angry heat, blinding him, robbing him of breath and strength.
He felt himself falling forward, but he was powerless to prevent it. He struck the water and there was no sensation of cold or wetness. Nothing.
He felt rather than heard a tremendous explosion near him, then mighty waves were rolling over him, tossing him around as a chip in a gale.
A wave flung him high in the air and when he struck water again it was only a few feet deep. With his last conscious act of reason he knew that he was being thrown up on the shore by the sea.
Then a black chasm opened before him and he was falling helplessly. His last sensation was one of infinite pressure closing inexorably on him.
CHAPTER III
Two Men on a Beach
ACROSS the wide expanse of shale and rock there was no sign of life.
