Upon every point of vantage, for two or three miles around us, Tako's men were dispersed. To us, they were solid gray blobs in the luminous darkness. The carriers, all arrived now, stood about a mile from us, and save for their guards, the men had all left them. The weapons were being taken out and carried to various points over the mountains and in the valley depths. Small groups of men--some two hundred in a group--were gathered at many different points, assembling their weapons, and waiting for Tako's orders. Messengers toiled on foot between them, climbing, white figures. Signals flashed. Fantastic, barbaric scene--it seemed hardly modern. Mountain defiles were swarming with white invaders, making ready, but not yet attacking. * * * * * We had had as yet no opportunity of talking alone with Jane since we left the carrier. The incident with Tolla was to us wholly inexplicable. But that it was significant of something, we knew--by Jane's tense white face and the furtive glances she gave us. Don and I were ready to seize the first opportunity to question her. Tolla, by the command of Tako, stayed close by Jane, and the two girls were always within sight of us. They were here now, seated on the rocks twenty feet from us. And the two guards, whom Tako had appointed at the carrier, sat near us with alert weapons, watching Jane and us closely.[9] [9] There was a thing which puzzled me before we arrived in the carrier, and surprised me when we left it; and though I did not, and still do not wholly understand it, I think I should mention it here. Traveling in the carrier we were suspended in a condition of matter which might be termed mid way between Tako's realm and our Earth-world. Both, in shadowy form, were visible to us; and to an observer on either world we also were visible. Then, as the carrier landed, it receded from this sort of borderland as I have termed it, contacted with its own realm and landed. At once I saw that the shadowy outlines of New York were gone. And, to New York observers, the carriers as they landed, were invisible. The mountains--all this tumbled barren wilderness of Tako's world--were invisible to observers in New York. But I knew now how very close were the two worlds--a very fraction of visible "distance," one from the other. Then, with wires, disks and helmets--all the transition mechanism worn now by us and all of Tako's forces--we drew ourselves a very small fraction of the way toward the Earth-world state. Enough and no more than to bring it to most tenuous, most wraithlike visibility, so that we could see the shadows of it and know our location in relation to it, which was necessary to Tako's operations.