We started. The two hundred fighters in a triple file came after us. Brutar had ordered the mob of men and women to wait where they were. We advanced slowly, and I saw with sinking heart that we were going southward. Upper New York City soon lay close ahead.
It was a strange, soundless march. The slopes of the Borderland carried us sometimes above, and sometimes below the ground of Earth. But generally we were below it. Up there over our heads the shadowy landscape was silently slipping backward. It was all too familiar now. We were under upper Broadway. Huge apartment houses loomed high up there, with the Hudson almost at our level to the right.
Our advance was followed up above. From every window people were peering fearsomely down at us. The cross streets were jammed. But ahead of us policemen were clearing them. And down empty Broadway, and down each of the North and South Avenues troops of the State Militia were marching, keeping as nearly as possible directly over us.
"Brutar," I said, "you cannot fight this world. Look at them there. They're ready—waiting."
Machine guns were posted at most of the street corners now; and as we passed beneath them they were moved swiftly forward to other streets ahead of us. The boat traffic of the river was being cleared. Police boats, armed and ready, were paralleling our march. A war-vessel lay anchored ahead, off Grant's Tomb. Its funnels were smoking, and as we neared it, very slowly it steamed along with us.
And over in Jersey and on Long Island I had no doubt they were ready with watching troops and every precaution. Let one of us who now were mere ghosts dare to materialize further, and at once we would be killed. What could Brutar do?
He laughed at my thoughts. "You shall see, Rob, when we get among the great houses and I lay my weapons."
I could not fathom what he meant, but the sure confidence of his tone had an ominous ring to it. Weapons? I saw none. We were empty-handed, Brutar and I. And the twelve sub-leaders were empty-handed as well. But of Brutar's attacking force marching behind us, I had noticed that each man was carrying a single article. I could not call them weapons; I did not know what they were. They seemed more like grey, ghostly bricks, each man carrying one.
What were they? I could no more than guess. Some material, doubtless of Brutar's creation, brought into this Borderland state. Would these ghosts, each with a simple brick like these—would they dare to materialize—dare to enter our Earth-state upon an equality of being with the armed, massed troops awaiting them? It seemed incredible. Two hundred ghosts marching in spectral array beneath the city, with soldiers above; and machine guns, and war-vessels alert to destroy them.