He drew himself erect. As though I were dreaming--or thinking of the act--I felt myself standing erect. Then walking--vaguely I could feel the substance of the slope beneath my feet--walking with a lightness, a lack of effort weird but pleasant. And I clung physically to Will, and saw Bee on his other side clinging to him also--as though a breath of wind might blow us all away. The thought was whimsical. There could be no wind. Wind was moving air. I had the sense that I was still breathing, of course. But how could there be air? Air itself was infinitely more solid than these, our bodies. Yet I was breathing something. Call it air. The word of itself means nothing--and there are no words with which to clothe the realities of any unthought realm.... We were walking through the phantom room which had been the reality of Will's home--through its wall--out through its garden. Our slope was rolling, uneven. The shadowy ground of the garden was above us, then below us; then, for a moment, we seemed standing exactly on its level. I remembered. This was the place Will had mentioned to which we could safely return. We spoke seldom; Will did not seem to care to talk. I realized he knew where he was going--had some definite purpose in his mind. Alert now with every mental faculty, I wondered what it was, yet would not question him. We stalked onward. The shadowy village lay about us, above us now. Soundless, colorless phantoms, these streets, trees and houses. I saw the railway station--the ghost of a train stood off there and then moved forward soundlessly. I was touched with a faint amusement to see it--a luminous ghost sliding along its narrow enslaving rails. It could not go up or down, or sidewise. And it seemed so imponderable I would fearlessly have walked into it. This Borderland, full of these shadows of our other world, yet seemed empty. Nothing of its own reality was visible. In every direction I could look into seemingly infinite distance; and overhead was a vast darkness--the emptiness of infinite space. Was nothing here with us in this Borderland? Those other spectres--those beings coming out from their world as we were coming in from ours?... A thrill of quite normal excitement swept me at the thought. We had come in to encounter those spectres. And now they would be spectres no longer. Ponderable beings upon an equality with ourselves; and we were here to thwart them of their purpose.... I heard Bee give a faint, alarmed cry. Ahead of us a shape had appeared! It became visible and I felt that perhaps it had been hiding behind some unseen obstacle. It stood, solid and grey, with the shadow of a barn, a haystack above and behind it. Stood directly in our path, as though waiting for us. I pulled at Will, but he ignored me. Hastened his pace. We stalked forward with that waiting thing standing immobile in our path! CHAPTER VII THE STRUGGLE AT THE BORDERLAND