THE TERROR _A MYSTERY_ BY ARTHUR MACHEN AUTHOR OF "THE BOWMEN" NEW YORK ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & COMPANY UNION SQUARE, NORTH 1917 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. The Coming of the Terror CHAPTER II. Death in the Village CHAPTER III. The Doctor’s Theory CHAPTER IV. The Spread of the Terror CHAPTER V. The Incident of the Unknown Tree CHAPTER VI. Mr. Remnant’s Z Ray CHAPTER VII. The Case of the Hidden Germans CHAPTER VIII. What Mr. Merritt Found CHAPTER IX. The Light on the Water CHAPTER X. The Child and the Moth CHAPTER XI. At Treff Loyne Farm CHAPTER XII. The Letter of Wrath CHAPTER XIII. The Last Words of Mr. Secretan CHAPTER XIV. The End of the Terror CHAPTER I. The Coming of the Terror After two years we are turning once more to the morning’s news with a sense of appetite and glad expectation. There were thrills at the beginning of the war; the thrill of horror and of a doom that seemed at once incredible and certain; this was when Namur fell and the German host swelled like a flood over the French fields, and drew very near to the walls of Paris. Then we felt the thrill of exultation when the good news came that the awful tide had been turned back, that Paris and the world were safe; for awhile at all events. Then for days we hoped for more news as good as this or better. Has Von Kluck been surrounded? Not to-day, but perhaps he will be surrounded to-morrow. But the days became weeks, the weeks drew out to months; the battle in the West seemed frozen. Now and again things were done that seemed hopeful, with promise of events still better. But Neuve Chapelle and Loos dwindled into disappointments as their tale was told fully; the lines in the West remained, for all practical purposes of victory, immobile. Nothing seemed to happen; there was nothing to read save the record of operations that were clearly trifling and insignificant. People speculated as to the reason of this inaction; the hopeful said that Joffre had a plan, that he was “nibbling,” others declared that we were short of munitions, others again that the new levies were not yet ripe for battle. So the months went by, and almost two years of war had been completed before the motionless English line began to stir and quiver as if it awoke from a long sleep, and began to roll onward, overwhelming the enemy.