Strange Conflict by Dennis Wheatley Page A

of about twenty. Instead, they selected the period at which they doubtless considered they had reached true maturity, which with the men was usually the middle thirties and with the women somewhere around twenty-eight.
    The Admiral’s wife was moving a little restlessly, not yet asleep, but the Admiral had dropped off, and while nothing at all would have been apparent to anyone awake had they been watching the bed, the Duke could now see a shimmering phosphorescence a little above the outline of the Admiral’s body. After a moment it seemed to solidify and the Admiral’s astral slowly sat up.
    By what might be termed a flick of the will, de Richleau changed his face to that of a boy in his early teens, for although waking mortals cannot see astrals, except in comparatively rare circumstances, astrals can see one another, and he did not want the Admiral to recognise him; but, as there is no privacy on the astral plane unless special steps are taken to ensure it, he remained where he was, knowing that the Admiral would not consider it any more surprising to find a strange astral in his bedroom than, when awake, to pass a strange person in the street.
    The Admiral rose to his full height, gave a friendly nod to the Duke and passed out of the room. He was obviouslyblissfully unaware that he was stark naked, but that fact immediatey informed de Richleau of one of the things he was anxious to know. The Admiral was a young soul and all but the minor mysteries of the Great Beyond still remained veiled to him.
    This simplified matters considerably for the purpose of the investigation, as there are seven planes, or levels of consciousness, of which the Earth is the lowest and the normal sleep plane the next; but to ascend to each of those beyond requires ever greater degrees of power. De Richleau could achieve the fourth and had glimpsed the fifth on very rare occasions, but if the Admiral had been far advanced upon the great journey and had chosen to ascend into the realms of the greater Beatitudes, the Duke could not have followed him. The number of people living on this Earth who are capable of reaching the higher spheres is, however, extremely limited, and comparatively few ever get beyond the third plane in their nightly wanderings; while in the Admiral’s case it was quite clear from his nudity that he was still held very near to Earth even when out of his body.
    As the elderly lady was still turning restlessly, de Richleau compassionately made a sign above her which immediately sent her into peaceful sleep, but he did not wait to witness the materialisation of her astral and, leaving the room, floated gently after her husband.
    The Admiral paused for a little above Orme Square to regard the blitzkrieg which was still in progress. Having muttered some profane things about the Nazis he shrugged his shoulders and turned east, moving at great speed. De Richleau followed with equal swiftness but keeping at some distance, and as they journeyed eastward through the night they passed many other astrals floating in the stratosphere. As their speed further increased these became only little blurs then faint streaks of light, until finally they made no impression at all on the surrounding darkness.
    In less time than it takes to walk down the Haymarket they had left Earth behind, the darkness faded and the Duke saw that they were travelling in a country which he knew to be the astral equivalent of China. With the coming of full light the Admiral entered a rice field outside a town and began to walk along a path towards the nearest houses.De Richleau followed, changing his costume and appearance as he did so to that of a middle-aged Chinaman.
    There was nothing at all in the whole landscape to indicate that they were not actually in China. The ground was hard to the feet, a gentle wind was blowing and the leaves of a grove of bamboos were rustling in it. Only one thing indicated that they were, in fact, upon the astral plane,