ould no
longer turn.

If the startled Federal and State officials could have foreseen even
the events of the next forty-eight hours they would have wanted New
York City deserted of the population. But that was impossible. Even
if everyone could have been frightened into leaving, the chaos of
itself would have brought death to untold thousands.

As it was, May 17th and 18th showed New York in a growing chaos.
Officials now were wildly trying to stem the panics, trying to keep
organized the great machines of city life.

It is no part of my plan for this narrative to try and detail the
events in New York City as the apparitions advanced upon it. The
crowded bridges and tunnels; the traffic and transportation
accidents; the failure of the lights and telephones and broadcasting
systems; the impending food shortage; the breaking out of disease
from a score of causes; the crushed bodies lying in the streets
where frantic mobs had trampled them and no one was available to
take them away. The scenes beggar description.

* * * * *

And in all this the enemy had played no part save that of causing
terror. Warships gathered in New York harbor were impotent. State
troops massed in New Jersey, across the Hudson from New York, and in
Putnam and Westchester Counties, were powerless to do more than try
and help the escaping people since there was no enemy of tangible
substance to attack. Patrolling airplanes, armed with bombs, were
helpless. The white apparitions were gathering everywhere in the
neighborhood of New York City. But they remained only apparitions,
imponderable wraiths, non-existent save that they could be dimly
seen. And even had they materialized, no warships could shell the
city, for millions of desperate people were still within it trying
to get away.

The news from little Bermuda was submerged, unheeded, in this
greater catastrophe. But on the night of May 17th when the American
warships arrived off Hamilton, the Paget invaders were gone.

The menace in Bermuda was over; it was the great New York City which
was menaced now. The apparitions which had advanced from the south
were suddenly joined by a much more numerous army. On the night of
May 19th it had reached New York. Two or three thousand glowing
white shapes were apparent, with yet other thousands perhaps
hovering just beyond visibility. They made no attack. They stood
encamped on the borderland of the Unknown realm to whi