This etext was produced from “Astounding Stories” December1931. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
The White Invaders
A Complete Novelette
Out of their unknown fourthdimensional realm materializes ahorde of White Invaders withpower invincible.
CHAPTER I
A White Shape in the Moonlight
THE colored boy gazed at Don and me with a look of terror.
“But I tell you I seen it!” he insisted. “An’ it’s down there now. Aghost! It’s all white an’ shinin’!”
“Nonsense, Willie,” Don turned to me. “I say, Bob, what do you makeof this?”
“I seen it, I tell you,” the boy broke in. “It ain’t a mile fromhere if you want to go look at it.”
Don gripped the colored boy whose coffee complexion had taken on agreenish cast with his terror.
I fired at an oncoming white figure.
“Stop saying that, Willie. That’s absolute rot. There’s no suchthing as a ghost.”
“But I seen—”
“Where?”
“Over on the north shore. Not far.”
“What did you see?” Don shook him. “Tell us exactly.”
“A man! I seen a man. He was up on a cliff just by the golf coursewhen I first seen him. I was comin’ along the path down by the FortBeach an’ I looked up an’ there he was, shinin’ all white in themoonlight. An’ then before I could run, he came floatin’ down atme.”
“Floating?”
“Yes. He didn’t walk. He came down through the rocks. I could seethe rocks of the cliff right through him.”
Don laughed at that. But neither he nor I could set this down asutter nonsense, for within the past week there had been many wildstories of ghosts among the colored people of Bermuda. The Negroesof Bermuda are not unduly superstitious, and certainly they are moreintelligent, better educated than most of their race. But the littleislands, this past week, were echoing with whispered tales ofstrange things seen at night. It had been mostly down at the lowerend of the comparatively inaccessible Somerset; but now here it wasin our own neighborhood.
“You’ve got the fever, Willie,” Don laughed. “I say, who told youyou saw a man walking through rock?”
“Nobody told me. I seen him. It ain’t far if you—”
“You think he’s still there?”
“Maybe so. Mr. Don, he was standin’ still, with his arms folded. Iran, an’—”
“Let’s go see if he’s there,” I suggested. “I’d like to have a lookat one of these ghosts.”
BUT even as I lightly said it, a queer thrill of fear shot throughme. No one can contemplate an encounter with the supernaturalwithout a shudder.
“Right you are,” Don exclaimed. “What’s the use of theory? Can youlead us to where you saw him, Willie?”
“Ye-es, of course.”
The sixteen-year-old Willie was shaking again. “W-what’s that for,Mr. Don?”
Don had picked up a shotgun which was standing in a corner of theroom.
“Ain’t no—no use of that,