I heard Bee give a faint, alarmed cry. Ahead of us a shape had appeared! It became visible and I felt that perhaps it had been hiding behind some unseen obstacle. It stood, solid and grey, with the shadow of a barn, a haystack above and behind it. Stood directly in our path, as though waiting for us.
I pulled at Will, but he ignored me. Hastened his pace.
We stalked forward with that waiting thing standing immobile in our path!
CHAPTER VII
THE STRUGGLE AT THE BORDERLAND
The thing stood waiting as Will drew us toward it. Fear swept over me. Yet the very sense of fear brought with it a reassurance, for it was the physical I feared; the vanished sense of my body was not entirely gone, for now I was fearing its welfare.
My voice protested, "Will. Wait. That thing there—"
"It is friendly, Rob."
The fear died. I remembered what now seemed obvious; Will had been leading us somewhere with a set purpose. To meet this friendly thing, of course; this thing which doubtless he had met before. I stared at it as we approached. A dim, opaque grey shape like ourselves but it seemed formless, sexless; neither human nor unhuman—a shape merely—a something poised there of which my mind seemed able to form no conception. Then I heard Will say to Bee:
"A girl, Bee—you understand—Rob, listen. We must cling to the realities of our world. There are no other words—no other conceptions—with which we can think these unthought things. This is a girl——"