“What now?” I asked.

“Do you see that big straight limb running out to your right?”

“Yes,” I said, for my eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness.

“Sit down on it, and hold on to the ladder.”

I did so somewhat gingerly, and in a minute Godfrey was beside me.

“Now,” he said, in a voice low and tense with excitement, “look out, straight ahead.  And remember to hold on to the ladder.”

I could see the hazy mist of the open sky, and from the fitful light along the horizon, I knew that we were looking toward the west.  Below me was a mass of confused shadows, which I took for clumps of shrubbery.

Then I felt Godfrey’s hand close upon my arm.

“Look!” he said.

For an instant, I saw nothing; then my eyes caught what seemed to be a new star in the heavens; a star bright, sharp, steel blue—­

“Why, it’s moving!” I cried.

He answered with a pressure of the fingers.

The star was indeed moving; not rising, not drifting with the breeze, but descending, descending slowly, slowly....  I watched it with parted lips, leaning forward, my eyes straining at that falling light.

“Falling” is not the word; nor is “drifting.”  It did not fall and it did not drift.  It deliberately descended, in a straight line, at a regular speed, calmly and evenly, as though animated by some definite purpose.  Lower and lower it sank; then it seemed to pause, to hover in the air, and the next instant it burst into a shower of sparks and vanished.

And those sparks fell upon the shoulders of two white-robed figures, standing apparently in space, their arms rigidly extended, their faces raised toward the heavens.

CHAPTER II

A STRANGE NEIGHBOUR

Mechanically I followed Godfrey down the ladder, and, guided by the flaring lights, made my way back to the car.  I climbed silently into my seat, while Godfrey started the motor.  Then we rolled slowly up the driveway, and stopped before the door of a house standing deep among the trees.

“Wait for me here a minute,” Godfrey said, and, when I had got out, handed me my suit-case, and then drove the car on past the house, no doubt to its garage.

He was soon back, opened the house-door, switched on the lights, and waved me in.

“Here we are,” he said.  “I’ll show you your room,” and he led the way up the stairs, opening a door in the hall at the top.  “This is it,” he added, and switched on the lights here also.  “The bath-room is right at the end of the hall.  Wash up, if you need to, and then come down, and we will have a good-night smoke.”

It was a pleasant room, with the simplest of furniture.  The night-breeze ruffled the curtains at the windows, and filled the room with the cool odour of the woods—­how different it was from the odour of dirty asphalt!  But I was in no mood to linger there—­I wanted an explanation of that strange light and of those two white-robed figures.  So I paused only to open my grip, change into a lounging-coat, and brush off the dust of the journey.  Then I hastened downstairs.