The White Invaders | Page 5

trying to determine what to do about it. Tales of terror in little Bermuda had a bad enough local effect, but to have them spread abroad, to influence adversely the tourist trade upon which Bermuda's very existence depended--that presaged economic catastrophe.
"And the tales are spreading," he told us. "Look here, you young cubs, it's horribly disconcerting to have you of all people telling me a thing like this."
Even now he could not believe us. But he sat staring at us, eyeglasses in hand, with his untouched drink before him.
"We'll have to report it, of course. I've been all evening with the steamship officials. They're having cancellations." He smiled faintly at me. "We can't get along without you Americans, Bob."
I have not mentioned that I am an American. I was on vacation from my job as radio technician in New York. Don Livingston, who is English and three years my senior, was in a similar line of work--at this time he was technician in the small Bermuda broadcasting station located in the nearby town of St. Georges.
* * * * *
We talked until nearly midnight. Then the telephone rang. It was the Police Chief in Hamilton. Ghosts had been seen in that vicinity this evening. There were a dozen complaints of ghostly marauders prowling around homes. This time from both white and colored families.
And there was one outstanding fact, frightening, indeed, though at first we could not believe that it meant very much, or that it had any connection with this weird affair. In the residential suburb of Paget, across the harbor from Hamilton, a young white girl, named Miss Arton, had vanished. Mr. Dorrance turned from the telephone after listening to the details and faced us with white face and trembling hands, his expression more perturbed and solemn than ever before.
"It means nothing, of course. It cannot mean anything."
"What, father?" Jane demanded. "Something about Eunice?"
"Yes. You know her, Bob--you played tennis down there with her last week. Eunice Arton."
I remembered her. A Bermuda girl; a beauty, second to none in the islands, save perhaps Jane herself. Jane and Don had known her for years.
"She's missing," Mr. Dorrance added. He flashed us a queer look and we stared at him blankly. "It means nothing, of course," he added. "She's been gone only an hour."
But we all knew that it did mean something. For myself I recall a chill of inward horror; a revulsion as though around me were pressing unknown things; unseeable, imponderable things menacing us all.
"Eunice missing! But father, how missing?"
He put his arm around Jane. "Don't look so frightened, my dear child."
He held her against him. If only all of us could have anticipated the events of the next few days. If only we could have held Jane, guarded her, as her father was affectionately holding her now!
* * * * *
Don exclaimed, "But the Chief of Police gave you details?"
"There weren't many to give." He lighted a cigarette and smiled at his trembling hands. "I don't know why I should feel this way, but I do. I suppose--well, it's what you have told me to-night. I don't understand it--I can't think it was all your imagination."
"But that girl, Eunice," I protested.
"Nothing--except she isn't at home where she should be. At eleven o'clock she told her parents she was going to retire. Presumably she went to her room. At eleven-thirty her mother passed her door. It was ajar and a bedroom light was lighted. Mrs. Arton opened the door to say good night to Eunice. But the girl was not there."
He stared at us. "That's all. There is so much hysteria in the air now, that Mr. Arton was frightened and called upon the police at once. The Artons have been telephoning to everyone they know. It isn't like Eunice to slip out at night--or is it, Jane?"
"No," said Jane soberly. "And she's gone? They didn't hear any sound from her?" A strange, frightened hush came upon Jane's voice. "She didn't--scream from her bedroom? Anything like that?"
"No, he said not. Jane, dear, you're thinking more horrible things. She'll be found in the morning, visiting some neighbor or something of the kind."
But she was not found. Bermuda is a small place. The islands are so narrow that the ocean on both sides is visible from almost everywhere. It is only some twelve miles from St. Georges to Hamilton, and another twelve miles puts one in remote Somerset. By noon of the next day it was obvious that Eunice Arton was quite definitely missing.
* * * * *
This next day was May 15th--the first of the real terror brought by the White Invaders. But we did not call them that yet; they were still the "ghosts." Bermuda was seething with terror. Every police station was deluged with reports of the ghostly