CHAPTER III

Ten days later they took off the bandages. The doctor had changed them and examined my eyes a number of times, but always in what was to me total darkness; I believe he used some sort of queer light, infra-red or black or what-have-you. I'm not up on these medical and scientific gadgets.

The last layer of gauze came off. Nothing happened. The world to me was all a pinkish-red blurring.

"I can't see," I said. "John! I can't see!"

"Neither can I when my eyes are closed," said Marion, with a nervous choked laugh.

So I opened my eyes.

I saw a tall straight old man, a one-armed chap, a young fellow in dark glasses, a rather stuffy-looking retired colonel, a middle-aged physician with a worried face, and a girl as radiant as a spring morning.

"Greetings," I said unsteadily. "Greetings, little army. Don't look so scared."

Alec Talbot grinned and Marion gulped with relief, Colonel Bedford clapped me hard on the shoulder, muttering something that was probably "Stout fella!" Geoff Exeter said, "You can see, Will? Your eyes are all right?"

"I think so. Yes, there isn't anything but a little fuzziness around the edges."

"That may be the result of the long spell of darkness," said John Baringer, fussing about professionally.

"Well, let's get out and test the old orbs," said I, throwing off the covers. John pushed me back into the pillow.

"Not for a day or two. You've got to regain your strength. Been in bed a long time."

I raged, but it did no good. It was three mornings later when at last I was allowed to leave the old castle—it belonged to Geoff Exeter's family, by the way, Geoff's father being old Lord Joseph Exeter—and go into town, with Colonel Bedford at the wheel of my Jaguar.

We averaged a wild and impetuous thirty-two miles per hour all the way there. The Colonel was a driver of the old, the very old, school, and obviously wished that the sleek little sports car were a two-wheeled tonga. As for me, I fidgeted and mumbled and longed to get behind the wheel myself; I had once clocked the two-seater at a hundred and fourteen m.p.h., and when she was forced to creep along like this, both she and I were unhappy. However, my job was to observe, and so I contained my impatience perforce.

We circled the village and came in from the opposite end. No one knew we were staying at the long-deserted Exeter Castle, and we meant to keep it that way. It was a priceless hideaway, an excellent G.H.Q. for our planned insurgence.

The village of Exeter Parva contained some three hundred souls, if one included eighteen large placid-faced farm horses and ninety-seven dogs more or less. It was market day. The countryside had boiled into town for a hectic time. You might have scraped more citizens out of the pubs of one short London lane, and heard more noise in Westminster Abbey; but for Exeter Parva it was a gala morning.

We drove down the main street—I believe it was the
only
street, but this may be prejudice on my part—and stopped to let a couple of deeply suspicious cows pass by on either side. "Well?" asked the Colonel.

I had nearly forgotten the purpose of the jaunt. I narrowed my eyes and stared keenly about me. I saw farmers in dull blue and faded gray, women in carefully mended finery, children in everything from Sunday bests to Saturday rags. I saw what one might see in any small village on market day. I saw no monsters whatever. I sighed and gave a weak grin. "Just people," I told him. "Just Englishmen."

He attempted to gnaw his short mustache. "Which means either that
they
don't foregather in small towns, or that
they
existed only in Captain Wolfe's brain," said he meditatively. "Which, mind you, young fella, I don't believe for a minute. If there was ever a sane 'un, Wolfe was he. Besides, he'd served in my old stations in India." He pronounced it "Injuh." He edged the Jaguar forward through what Exeter Parva doubtless considered its heavy traffic. "Or else the experiment didn't work. When you think about it, that's the logical explanation. Whatever happened to the Captain's eyes must have been almighty complicated. Don't understand a tenth of it myself, these dimensions and whatnot, but there it is. Frightfully complex changes must ha' been wrought."

I was too dispirited to answer that. "Let's have a drink," I said. "There's a tavern. At least we can have a mug of ale before we go back."

"Right." He parked the Jaguar expertly if rather slowly. We went into the tavern, which was called The Leathern Funnel.

"Well, gents, what'll it be?" inquired the barmaid affably.

"Two ales, miss, if you please," said the Colonel. It was lucky for me that he ordered. I could not have produced anything but a squeak or a howl. The mugs bumped down before us and I picked mine up with both hands and drank it off like a thirst-mad sot after a month of bread-and-water. Then I aimed myself carefully at the door and put on the greatest piece of acting of my career; I walked casually and without a single stumble all the way to the street. The Colonel came after me.

"What the deuce, Chester! You don't allow a chap much time to enjoy his bit of ale," he grumbled.

I got in at the off side of the Jaguar without speaking and put my hands on the wheel. "Ready?" I managed to ask.

"Here, I'm to drive."

"You are like hell. Get in." He did. "Hang on." I nudged the old girl out of the village and when we were hidden by the first hill I trod on her pedals with all my weight and terror behind my feet. We crashed off into a beautiful eighty m.p.h., which I held or surpassed all the way home. Three or four times he tried to bellow something at me. I ignored him.

When we had flown up the long winding drive I put her into the stables, part of which we had fitted up as a garage. Then I sat there in the gloom and shook with what felt like fever.

"Here, what is it, laddie?" he barked. "What's wrong?"

"Describe the barmaid," I said.

"What?"

"Describe the barmaid."

"Fortyish, plain, thickset, red hands, red face, couple of warts. Pleasant expression. Right?"

"Not exactly. You left out a few things."

"What on earth?"

"The green horns, six of 'em, growing out of her face in the middle where the nose should have been. The shifting outlines that looked now like a tree stump and now like an octopus. The pulsing heart of scarlet fire in the belly. The dusky-pink tentacles that pushed the mugs across the bar. The pure
hatred
that throbbed visibly and seemed to feel cold when it got near you. The eyes like bursting orchids full of slimy white worms."

He put his hand on my arm and tightened his grip until his knuckles grew pale. "Merciful God!" he said quietly. "Merciful God!"