"You know as well as I." Now, Will Chester, bluff, bluff!
"Yes," he said, "ever since we entered your world, centuries ago, we've been afraid that one day the secret of vision-tuning might be stumbled upon by some clever member of your species. The trick of it is, after all, ridiculously simple."
I snapped my fingers to show how simple it was, as I thought grimly of that antique Tower musket blasting across my eyes. But through my brain the ideas were tumbling. There was an easy way to change one's sight, to peer into the silver land. That made my bluff much more feasible!
"Yet it has been found too late, sirrah. We are ready to invade your plane by the millions, through every new birth that takes place on your globe. Can you, a handful of seers, wipe out so many? I think not!"
"You fool," I said coldly, "do you think I risked our whole band in this slaughter? There are men all over England now, performing that simple operation on others. There are hundreds, yes, thousands of us already. We're wise to you, my boy; we've got an underground as efficient as your own. Already we're spreading to other countries. In a short time the entire world will be on guard against you—and men will be assassinating you in the dark." I let out my chest and roared it at him. I was suddenly an inspired Henry V before Agincourt, an impassioned Emile Zola addressing the jury of Dreyfus, a thundering Caesar in the Senate. Marion said later that my eyes flashed lambent flame and she thought the roof of my mouth would split. I had a great sense of my own power; I felt my frame filling with the elation of a true savior, a liberator, an emancipator. I curved my hands like talons and shook them above my head, intoxicated with a belief in my own wholly untrue words.
"Don't you see how useless it will be for you to be born into a world where you will be seen and immediately slain? From now on, the bestowing of double vision will be as much a part of a man's life as his—his education, baptism, and what-have-you. Forevermore we'll be on guard against you. I tell you now: go home, go back to your silver-lined wastes, and never try to trouble us again. Give up your infiltrating, your bestial usurping of bodies that ought to have had the chance to live and see and feel and think for themselves. Go home, God damn you all, go home! Your sole weapon, invisibility, is gone. You don't enjoy death any more than we do—I've felt your fear! I feel it now! Be sensible; you made a good try, but you've lost. Go home!"
The mouldy-looking thing that was Sir Lawrence began to colloque silently with his countrymen, after their fashion. I looked beyond them to the army of thugs. Most of them, giving up their attempt to understand what the toffs were talking about, were engaged in looting the dead. I wondered what to do with them after this was over, if my bluff worked. Pay them off and send them home, I supposed. They would never talk about this pogrom—they'd be hanged! I'd have to see that they helped us bury all these corpses, alien robots and dead rogues alike, before they left. About twenty of the thugs had been killed. Who would miss them? And an event was coming—I devoutly hoped!—which would engulf any such minor event as the disappearance of some three hundred men from all walks of life....
At last Sir Lawrence Hockling turned back to me. All his companions, too, faced my way.