ould not at the
moment think of anything I could do that would show them quite clearly
that I saw them. They went on looking at me quietly enough, and then I
heard a deep low bell, seemingly very far off, toll five times. They
heard it too, turned sharply round and walked off to the houses. Soon
after that the lights in the windows died down and everything became
very still. I looked at my watch. It was ten o'clock.

I waited for a while to see if anything would happen, but there was
nothing; so I got some books out (which took a few minutes) and before I
settled down to them I thought I would just take one more look out of
the window. Where were all the little houses? At the first glance I
thought they had vanished, but it was not exactly so. I found I could
still see the chimneys above the grass, but as I looked they too
disappeared. It was done very neatly: there was no hole, the turf closed
in upon the roofs as they sank down, just as if it was of india-rubber.
There was not a trace left of houses or roads or playgrounds or
anything.

I was strongly tempted to go out and walk over the site of the village,
but I did not. For one thing I was afraid I might disturb the people of
the house, and besides there was a mist coming up over the meadows which
sloped away outside the garden. So I stopped where I was.

But what a very odd mist, I began to think. It was not coming in all in
one piece as it should. It was more in patches or even pillars of a
smoky grey which moved at different rates, some of them occasionally
standing still, others even seeming to go to and fro. And now I began to
hear something like a hollow whispering coming from their direction. It
was not conversation, for it went on quite continuously in the same
tone: it sounded more as if something was being recited. I did not like
it.

Then I saw what I liked less. Seven of these pillars of mist, each
about the size of a man, were standing in a row just outside the garden
fence, and in each I thought I saw two dull red eyes; and the hollow
whispering grew louder.

Just then I heard a noise behind me in the room, as if the fire-irons
had suddenly fallen down. So they had: and the reason why they had was
that an old horseshoe which was on the mantelpiece had, for no reason
that I could see, tumbled over and knocked them. Something I had heard
came into my mind. I took the horseshoe and laid it on the window-sill.
The pillars of mist swayed and quivered