It seemed--as the idea came to me from some dim recess of that other mind which had been mine--it seemed an aimless struggle. I was clutched by a dozen groping hands--pressed by half as many bodies. I saw them--indistinguishable as they rocked against me; and felt them dimly. I fought back, clutched at emptiness; or caught something solid. Pushed it violently away, to see it float off, and feel myself drift backward from the recoil of my blow, the physical futilely struggling with its own tangibility. A whirling gray shape, definitely outlined in the fashion of a burly man, bore down upon me. It halted, gathered its poise and confronted me. A length away, with empty space between us, it stood motionless. Brutar! Recognition came to me; and I knew then that this was the shape they had termed the first of the ghosts--that spectre we had seen on the bank of the little creek in Vermont. Brutar--he who was leader of these invaders we had come to check. The desire shot through me to attack him now; to kill him. I plunged; but as though I had leaped into some unseen entangling veil I was halted; pushed backward until again I found myself facing him. He had not moved. With folded arms he stood regarding me. I stared into his eyes. They were glowing, smouldering torches. A wave of something almost tangible was coming from them; and abruptly I knew that it was his thoughts in a wave so ponderable I could not force my body against it. I could feel it, this wave; feel these thoughts, malevolent, commanding, compelling, as they beat against me. He spoke. "You need not try to move. You cannot, except as I would have you move." The words seemed inherent to all the space about me; it was almost as though the words themselves were ponderable; but it was the thought of them--his thought of them--which like a net had me entangled. I struggled, if not to advance, then to retreat. I could do neither. The wave had coiled about me. Matter of a tangibility almost equal to that of my own body, it held me enmeshed. Yielding as I fought with it, but holding me as a delicate net will hold a struggling fish. He spoke again. "Be still--both of you." Both of us! I became aware that Bee was beside me. Floundering, swept inward toward me, to grip me at last and cling. "Bee! Bee, dear." "Rob! It's you! I'm so glad. I tried--I can't get away. I'm entangled--it's all around me. Both of us--we can't get away." I had no coherent thought remaining, save relief that Bee was with me. I tried to think that I must escape--must kill this Brutar. Like an echo, as though I had shouted them aloud, the thoughts rebounded to beat against my brain with a pain almost physical. I could not think them again. A wall was around me reflecting them back--distorted, agonized echoes, impotent to pass the barrier. And I thought, "I must kill--I--I am glad Bee is with me. Everything is all right--Bee is with me." And yielded, to stand there helplessly clinging to her.