Between myself and the _Ertak_ there stood a strange figure. An instant before, I would have sworn that there was no human in sight, save myself and the sentry; now this man stood not twenty feet away, swaying as though ill or terribly weary, barely able to lift his head and turn it toward the sentry. "Friend," he gasped; "friend!" and I think he would have fallen to the ground if I had not clapped an arm around his shoulders and supported him. "Just ... a moment," whispered the stranger. "I'm a bit faint.... I'll be all right...." I stared down at the man, unable to reply. This was a nightmare; no less. I could feel the sentry staring, too. The man was dressed in a style so ancient that I could not remember the period: Twenty-first Century, at least; perhaps earlier. And while he spoke English, which is a language of Earth, he spoke it with a harsh and unpleasant accent that made his words difficult, almost impossible, to understand. Their meaning did not fully sink in until an instant after he had finished speaking. "Shiro!" I said sharply. "Help me take this man inside. He's ill." "Yes, sir!" The guard leaped to obey the order, and together we led him into the _Ertak_, and to my own stateroom. There was some mystery here, and I was eager to get at the root of it. The man with the ancient costume and the strange accent had not come to the spot where we had seen him by any means with which I was familiar; he had materialized out of the thin air. There was no other way to account for his presence. * * * * * We propped the stranger in my most comfortable chair, and I turned to the sentry. He was staring at our weird visitor with wondering, fearful eyes, and when I spoke he started as though stung by an electric shock. "Very well," I said briskly. "That will be all. Resume your post immediately. And--Shiro!" "Yes, sir?" "It will not be necessary for you to make a report of this incident. I will attend to that. Understand?" "Yes, sir!" And I think it is to the man's everlasting credit, and to the credit of the Service which had trained him, that he executed a snappy salute, did an about-face, and left the room without another glance at the man slumped down in my big easy chair. With a feeling of cold, nervous apprehension such as I have seldom experienced in a rather varied and active life, I turned then to my visitor. He had not moved, save to lift his head. He was staring at me, his eyes fixed in his chalky white face. They were dark, long eyes--abnormally long--and they glittered with a strange, uncanny light. "You are feeling better?" I asked. His thin, bloodless lips moved, but for a moment no sound came from them. He tried again. "Water," he said. I drew him a glass from the tank in the wall of my room. He downed it at a gulp, and passed the empty glass back to me.