The White Invaders (Sci-Fi Classic). Ray Cummings

      CHAPTER I.

       A WHITE SHAPE IN THE MOONLIGHT

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      The colored boy gazed at Don and me with a look of terror.

      “But I tell you I seen it!” he insisted. “An’ it’s down there now. A ghost! It’s all white an’ shinin’!”

      “Nonsense, Willie,” Don turned to me. “I say, Bob, what do you make of this?”

      “I seen it, I tell you,” the boy broke in. “It ain’t a mile from here if you want to go look at it.”

      Don gripped the colored boy whose coffee complexion had taken on a greenish cast with his terror.

      “Stop saying that, Willie. That’s absolute rot. There’s no such thing as a ghost.”

      “But I seen—”

      “Where?”

      “Over on the north shore. Not far.”

      “What did you see?” Don shook him. “Tell us exactly.”

      “A man! I seen a man. He was up on a cliff just by the golf course when I first seen him. I was comin’ along the path down by the Fort Beach an’ I looked up an’ there he was, shinin’ all white in the moonlight. An’ then before I could run, he came floatin’ down at me.”

      “Floating?”

      “Yes. He didn’t walk. He came down through the rocks. I could see the rocks of the cliff right through him.”

      Don laughed at that. But neither he nor I could set this down as utter nonsense, for within the past week there had been many wild stories of ghosts among the colored people of Bermuda. The Negroes of Bermuda are not unduly superstitious, and certainly they are more intelligent, better educated than most of their race. But the little islands, this past week, were echoing with whispered tales of strange things seen at night. It had been mostly down at the lower end of the comparatively inaccessible Somerset; but now here it was in our own neighborhood.

      “You’ve got the fever, Willie,” Don laughed. “I say, who told you you saw a man walking through rock?”

      “Nobody told me. I seen him. It ain’t far if you—”

      “You think he’s still there?”

      “Maybe so. Mr. Don, he was standin’ still, with his arms folded. I ran, an’—”

      “Let’s go see if he’s there,” I suggested. “I’d like to have a look at one of these ghosts.”

      But even as I lightly said it, a queer thrill of fear shot through me. No one can contemplate an encounter with the supernatural without a shudder.

      “Right you are,” Don exclaimed. “What’s the use of theory? Can you lead us to where you saw him, Willie?”

      “Ye-es, of course.”

      The sixteen-year-old Willie was shaking again. “W-what’s that for, Mr. Don?”

      Don had picked up a shotgun which was standing in a corner of the room.

      “Ain’t no—no use of that, Mr. Don.”

      “We’ll take it anyway, Willie. Ready, Bob?”

      A step sounded behind us. “Where are you going?”

      It was Jane Dorrance, Don’s cousin. She stood in the doorway. Her long, filmy white summer dress fell nearly to her ankles. Her black hair was coiled on her head. In her bodice was a single red poinsettia blossom. As she stood motionless, her small slight figure framed against the dark background of the hall, she could have been a painting of an English beauty save for the black hair suggesting the tropics. Her blue-eyed gaze went from Don to me, and then to the gun.

      “Where are you going?”

      “Willie saw a ghost.” Don grinned. “They’ve come from Somerset, Jane. I say, one of them seems to be right here.”

      “Where?”

      “Willie saw it down by the Fort Beach.”

      “To-night?”

      “Yes. Just now. So he says, though it’s all rot, of course.”

      “Oh,” said Jane, and she became silent.

      She appeared to be barring our way. It seemed to me, too, that the color had left her face, and I wondered vaguely why she was taking it so seriously. That was not like Jane: she was a level-headed girl, not at all the sort to be frightened by Negroes talking of ghosts.

      She turned suddenly on Willie. The colored boy had been employed in the Dorrance household since childhood. Jane herself was only seventeen, and she had known Willie here in this same big white stone house, almost from infancy.

      “Willie, what you saw, was it a—a man?”

      “Yes,” said the boy eagerly. “A man. A great big man. All white an’ shinin’.”

      “A man with a hood? Or a helmet? Something like a queer-looking hat on his head, Willie?”

      “Jane!” expostulated Don. “What do you mean?”

      “I saw him—saw it,” said Jane nervously.

      “Good Lord!” I exclaimed. “You did? When? Why didn’t you tell us?”