g shelter. I followed
them at first, then began to lag with an odd unwillingness. I had been
only half serious in my objection, but all at once that tree exercised
an odd repulsion on me; an imaginary picture of the electric fluid
coursing through my shriveling nerve-channels grew unpleasantly vivid.

Suddenly I knew I was not going under that tree. I stopped dead,
pulling my hat brim down behind to divert the rivulet coursing down
the back of my neck, calling to the others in a voice rather cracked
from embarrassment. They looked back at me curiously, and Alice began
to twit me, standing in the rain, while Tristan desired to know
whether we thought we were a pair of goldfish; in his estimation, we
might belong to the piscine tribe all right, but not to that
decorative branch thereof. To be frank, he used the term "suckers."
Feeling exceptionally foolish, I planted myself doggedly in the
soaking grass as Alice turned to dash for the tree.

Then the thing happened; the thing which to this hour makes the fabric
of space with its unknown forces seem an insecure and eery garment for
the body of man. Over the slight rise beyond the tree, as the air
crackled, roared and shook under the thunder-blasts, there appeared an
object moving in long, leisurely bounds, drifting before the wind, and
touching the ground lightly each time. It was about eighteen inches in
diameter, globular, glowing with coruscating fires, red, green, and
yellow; a thing of unearthly and wholly sinister beauty.

Alice poised with one foot half raised, and shrieked at Tristan, half
terrified, half elated at the sight. He wheeled quickly, there under
the tree, and slowly backed away as the thing drifted in to keep him
company in his shelter. We could not see his face, but there was a
stiffness to his figure indicating something like fear. Suddenly
things I had read rose into my memory. This was one of those objects
variously called "fire-balls," "globe-lightning," "meteors," and the
like.

I also recalled the deadly explosive potencies said to be sometimes
possessed by such entities, and called out frantically:

"Tristan! Don't touch it! Get away quickly, but don't disturb the
air!"

He heard me and, as the object wavered about in the comparative calm
under the tree, drifting closer to him, started to obey. But it
suddenly approached his face, and seized with a reckless terror, he
snatched off his hat and batted at it as one would at a pestilent bee.