’Well, I ’m sugared!’ exclaimed Tom, or words to that effect. ’If that don’t take the cake! Never so much as a "good-bye," or "thank yer kindly," or—— Well!’ He gave a great gasp, words altogether failing to explain his feelings. ’You forget, Tom, that they probably don’t know our language, and we shouldn’t understand theirs,’ said Gerald. ’You must remember that they are foreigners—er—that is—h’m!—strangers, you know, from another’—— He hesitated, and broke off. For what could he say? Strangers these people certainly were; but foreigners? Well, that depended upon the point of view—travellers from where? Another world? The suggestion seemed monstrous—preposterous! Yet where else could they have come from? If it seemed impossible—incredible—to think of them as travellers from another sphere, it was certainly no less impossible to regard them as inhabitants of the Earth. No mortal upon our globe had yet succeeded in manufacturing an affair like this ’meteorite,’ and travelling about in it; that much was certain. To conceive it possible was to imagine a miracle quite as wonderful as to suppose that this extraordinary flying-machine—for something of that sort Gerald now felt certain it must be—had come from another planet. However, Gerald realised that he was not in a state of mind to be able to think clearly or logically about the matter at all. His brain, like honest Tom’s, was in a whirl; and he tried in vain to collect and marshal his thoughts. The whole affair was too puzzling, too extraordinary for sober thought. ’Tom, row me ashore,’ he said abruptly. ’This is too much for me. I’m going to bed.’ ’Ay, ay, sir; I can unnerstan’,’ said Clinch, wagging his head helplessly. ’I feels jest the same, Mr Gerald. Lawks! To think as I should ever ’a lived to see this day!’ Gerald went ashore, but was far too excited in mind to really go to bed. He passed the remaining two or three hours of darkness in restless pacing up and down between the dwelling-house and the bluff, whence he could keep observation upon the cause of his wonderment, as it lay placidly in the water below. Great was the astonishment of his friends when, in the morning, he related to them the adventures of the night. It is scarcely to be wondered at that they were—Jack certainly was—disposed at first to regard it all as an extraordinary hallucination which had seized upon the relater. But there was Clinch’s confirmation; and in the end they saw that there was no room left for doubt. ’Then it comes to this,’ said Jack, ’we have to face the fact that we have here, close by us, some people who are paying us a visit from another planet! Phew! What a wake-up for our scientists! What a snub for those wiseacres who have declared that the planets could not possibly be inhabited! But why have our visitors shut themselves up again? It’s rather churlish after your saving that johnny from drowning! What do they mean by it? And what was the matter with him?’