Once only they struck, late in the day. A force of field artillery had been ordered down from Glasgow with orders to shell the hill that was evidently the base of the invaders. Men and guns and horses rattled south along the rough road, under the hot afternoon sun. High above them a black speck suddenly appeared in the blue, the shape of a watching disk that swept down to investigate. A few ineffectual rifle shots were fired as the disk sank down toward them, then there was a bolting of men into the neighboring fields and hedges, a plunging of panic-maddened horses as the dark shape loomed above. Then the frosty blue Cold Ray, springing down from the disk, leaping swiftly along the road in a trail of icy death, pursuing and exterminating the running men in the fields. A moment the disk hovered and turned, then swept swiftly back up into the blue.

No man in that battery returned to Glasgow to report its fate, and when three planes were ordered south to investigate, none returned. Thereafter no more such futile attempts were made.

That night there was utter darkness in every city in England, for strict orders were given and enforced that no spark of light should betray a city’s presence to the invaders. But though in all England, Europe, America, anxious people waited through the night for news of another attack, the disks of the invaders still hovered above Kerachan Hill, waiting, waiting.

In southern England masses of aircraft collected, the combined air power of England and France, awaiting the invaders’ return. And through the English roads, meeting and passing the sea-bound masses of refugees, rolled the tanks, the guns, the long brown masses of marching soldiers. Mankind was gathering itself for the struggle, but through all those masses ran an unspoken thought, an unvoiced fear. What avail were rifles and bombs against the smiting ray? Or airplanes and dirigibles against the swift and mighty disks?

On a hilltop, miles away from Kerachan, men lay hidden with powerful telescopes and radio-transmitters, ready to flash word of the invaders’ movements to all the Earth. And all the Earth waited tensely for that word, wondering, hoping, fearing.

The bright morning of that day passed, the second since the first night raid of the invaders. And all through that morning no word came from the hidden watchers. Two hours of the afternoon had passed when a message finally came, short, concise. It said only, “Disks are gathering in immense force above Kerachan Hill and are evidently preparing to move.”