Some six hours later, in the early morning, I arrived. Father and Drake
had not been to bed. They described the mysterious midnight visitor. I
could make little of it, save that Dianne was alive. Had this fellow
abducted her? Was he holding her? Had he come to sound out whether
father would pay a ransom?
Father waved away my theories. He was visibly shaken. There was one
thing upon which he and Drake were agreed. The visitor had been wholly
strange. Something about him almost uncanny.
Father said slowly: "We don't know what it means. That fellow last
night--he came, we think, just to find out if Dianne were with us.
Something he said, or the way he said it, gave us that impression. It
seems possible that he knew Dianne is trying to rejoin us. It may be
that he is an enemy of Dianne's. I think--wherever Dianne is--she may
be trying to get to us. We must help her do that."
"But how?" I demanded.
Drake said: "She might try to get back to our place, up there in Maine.
We feel we should be there now, Frank. That fellow last night--damn
fool!--thought he could keep us from going there by warning us away!"
"But who was he?" I insisted. My mind was groping with vague
ideas--like father's and Drake's perhaps; ideas too fantastic for
discussion. "What has your visitor got to do with us? Or Dianne? Or
these giants? I don't see the connection, but there is one, that's
obvious."
Father said very slowly: "You, Frank, seemed to think that giant you
saw last night was changing size--dwindling. Perhaps while he was under
the water he grew so small that when he came up you did not see him.
Don't ask us what it means! We don't know. But I really think that
fellow who called upon Drake and me last night was one of the giants!"
We left New York that same morning in an official plane which dropped
us in the afternoon near our home in Maine. What father told the
authorities I do not know. He said he told them as little as possible.
Whatever our connection with this affair, for Dianne's sake it seemed
best not to make it public. But father got me leave of absence from my
flying duties, and secured us an official plane, and a permit for us
to live in our Maine home, within the threatened area which now was
completely under military rule.
It was mid-afternoon when by automobile we reached our house. We had
been stopped half a dozen times by State troops patrolling all the
roads leading to the coast. One officer chanced to know father.
"It's risky, Dr. Ferrule. You know what you're doing, of course. But
down there--your isolated house right on the shore--"
"We know what we're doing," said father.
I put in: "Shucks, there's no danger. Might never have another giant
appear."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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