s were no longer mentioned by the press, and
consequently, had passed from the public mind. Only the astronomers
remembered, keeping their telescopes trained on Venus night after
night.

Four months passed by during which nothing of an unusual nature came
to the attention of the world. But at the end of that time, it
suddenly dawned upon those nations whose shores touched the Atlantic
ocean, that something extraordinary was happening. It was taking place
so insidiously, so quietly, that it had attracted no great attention.

A series of inexplicable sea disasters had begun. Every ship that had
traveled over a certain, regular steamship route, had disappeared,
leaving no trace. Mysteriously, without warning, they had vanished;
without a single S O S being sent, seven freighters had been lost. The
disappearances had been called to the world's attention by the
shipping companies, alarmed at the gradual loss of their boats.

Then other mysterious vanishings came to the attention of the world.
Ships in all parts of the Atlantic were being lost. When this fact
became known, trans-Atlantic commerce ceased almost over night. With
the exception of a few privately owned yachts and freighters, the
Atlantic became deserted.

And finally, a few days after the world became aware of the strange
disappearances on the Atlantic, the Gray Plague introduced itself to
humanity. Attempts were made to repress the facts: but the tragedy of
the freighter, _Charleston_, in all its ghastliness and horror, became
known in spite of all attempts at secrecy.

On the morning of August 3rd, the _Charleston_ was found, half buried
in the sand of a beach on the coast of Florida, cast there, evidently,
by a passing storm. The freighter had been one of the first boats to
disappear.

When the ship's discoverers boarded her, their eyes were greeted by a
sight whose ghastliness filled them with a numbing horror. Indeed, so
terrifying was the spectacle on the _Charleston_, that the
discoverers, four boys of adolescent age, left in fear-stricken haste.
Nor could they be induced to return to the ship's deck.

* * * * *

Later, a group of men from a nearby town boarded the freighter to
investigate the boys' amazing report. In the group was a newspaper
reporter who chanced to be in the vicinity on a minor story. It was
through the reporter's account that the facts became known as quickly
as they did.

When the men clambere