I saw the roads between New York and Washington--the great highways for the through auto traffic. Refugees were trudging along them on foot, carrying lights in the darkness. Plunging through the snow; walking blindly southward when they could go no other way. Falling by the roadside; all the traffic lines were littered with frozen bodies, soon hidden by the snow. We were not in Washington long; soon we were ordered to Miami. There was a gray twilight there, which, with the buildings arranged for temporary heating, were at least tolerable. And here we set up our headquarters. The first of March came. Father was in Porto Rico. I knew, by then, what strange things were transpiring there in the Cains' plantation house. I knew, too, what the astronomers--gathered now at Quito, Ecuador, as the best place in the Western World for twilight observation--had discovered. Xenephrene was inhabited! Father was convinced of it the day after that momentous February 10. But the news--and the news from the secluded little plantation house of the Cains--was withheld from the public. But on March 2, everything was disclosed. For our distracted world one culminating blow remained. As though all that had gone before were not enough, fate held one crowning terror. On March 2 it was broadcast that a hostile race of people in human form had come from Xenephrene and landed on the earth! Invaders from this brand new world! Landed two days before, north of New York; and now were moving south upon the city! CHAPTER IV ZETTA That midnight of February 10th, Hulda and Dan stood on the small Porto Rican trail, facing at a brief distance the white girl in the moonlight. She answered Hulda's call; in a queerly small voice her words came to them: "_Zetta! Zetta! Zetta!_" There was a brief silence. Dan murmured, "Let's go nearer." Slowly, carefully, they advanced; fearful of again frightening her. But this time she did not move. She stood watchful, trembling slightly, but held her ground. And presently they were confronting her. She was shorter even than Hulda; very slim and frail. A young girl just reaching maturity. A rose, not yet full-blown. The thought occurred to Dan. But the comparison was wrong. Not a rose, for this was a flower of young womanhood of a species no one of earth could name.