It was eerie, nerve-racking. I tried to shake it off--this something, following me always. Ahead, another half block up Broadway, there was a sudden, tumultuous movement in the crowd. Something unusual. I could see the people rushing along one of the middle levels; voices rose in shouts. The excitement communicated everywhere. In one of the moving pavement halts a thousand people suddenly leaped off to join the running throng. The stream of vehicles down at the bottom of the street was disorganized; the director down there was frantically roaring, but his orders were lost--the vehicles, fully half of them, were turning into the inclines to come up. I gripped a hurrying man. “What is it?” “Announcement. Government--official. To the public, at twelve ten.” “It’s twelve five now. Where is it to be?” “Park Circle 80. Government mirror there. Let go of me, you grounder! What’s the matter with you?” I had been clinging to him; unreasoningly trembling. What, indeed, was the matter with me? I did not know. I tried to steady myself. I smiled. “I’ll go with--” But the man jerked from me and hurried away. Park Circle 80 was only a few blocks north. The crowd was all converging there. I followed, mingling with it. There must have been ten thousand people thronging that upper circle. They jammed all its tiers; around its outer diameter the vehicles stood parked in rows. I was a few minutes late. The overhead lights had dimmed. A silence had fallen. The fifty-foot pyramid mirror, with its hexagon sides to face every portion of the circle, was luminous. Moving black letters were on it, for all to read. Government official, midnight, August 15. Atlantic Coast, average tide at low, off five-sixths fathom-- I stood gaping, reading. Tide bulletins! A series of statements of the low tides of the day at different points along the North American sea coasts. The crowd grew restless; a director’s broadcasted voice roared: “Silence! It means that the oceans are going down--faster than last year.” The crowd swayed, shouted, and then grew still; awed, frightened into silence. All over the city, at all the circles, I knew that scenes like this were transpiring. The menace has come again! Stand by for government orders to the public-- The menace had come again! CHAPTER IX. OUT OF THE SEA. There must have been a dozen near panics in New York that night, and in all the other great cities. Throughout all the rural districts, on every distant farm, the agriculturists were being aroused from sleep by the call of the official newscasters. It may have been a rational policy--I am not one to judge. I stood there in the throng at Park Circle 80, watching, listening, with pounding heart. It had, this news, so much greater meaning to me! I knew what the menace could be; of all these people, I had actually seen the enemy.