Three John Silence Stories

ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

To M. L. W. The Original of John Silence

and

My Companion in Many Adventures

Contents

Case I: A Psychical Invasion

Case II: Ancient Sorceries

Case III: The Nemesis of Fire

CASE I: A PSYCHICAL INVASION

I

"And what is it makes you think I could be of use in this particularcase?" asked Dr. John Silence, looking across somewhat sceptically atthe Swedish lady in the chair facing him. 

"Your sympathetic heart and your knowledge of occultism--"

"Oh, please--that dreadful word!" he interrupted, holding up a fingerwith a gesture of impatience. 

"Well, then, " she laughed, "your wonderful clairvoyant gift and yourtrained psychic knowledge of the processes by which a personality may bedisintegrated and destroyed--these strange studies you've beenexperimenting with all these years--"

"If it's only a case of multiple personality I must really cry off, "interrupted the doctor again hastily, a bored expression in his eyes. 

"It's not that; now, please, be serious, for I want your help, " shesaid; "and if I choose my words poorly you must be patient with myignorance. The case I know will interest you, and no one else could dealwith it so well. In fact, no ordinary professional man could deal withit at all, for I know of no treatment nor medicine that can restore alost sense of humour!"

"You begin to interest me with your 'case, '" he replied, and madehimself comfortable to listen. 

Mrs. Sivendson drew a sigh of contentment as she watched him go to thetube and heard him tell the servant he was not to be disturbed. 

"I believe you have read my thoughts already, " she said; "your intuitiveknowledge of what goes on in other people's minds is positivelyuncanny. "

Her friend shook his head and smiled as he drew his chair up to aconvenient position and prepared to listen attentively to what she hadto say. He closed his eyes, as he always did when he wished to absorbthe real meaning of a recital that might be inadequately expressed, forby this method he found it easier to set himself in tune with the livingthoughts that lay behind the broken words. 

By his friends John Silence was regarded as an eccentric, because he wasrich by accident, and by choice--a doctor. That a man of independentmeans should devote his time to doctoring, chiefly doctoring folk whocould not pay, passed their comprehension entirely. The native nobilityof a soul whose first desire was to help those who could not helpthemselves, puzzled them. After that, it irritated them, and, greatly tohis own satisfaction, they left him to his own devices. 

Dr. Silence was a free-lance, though, among doctors, having neitherconsulting-room, bookkeeper, nor professional manner. He took no fees, being at heart a genuine philanthropist, yet at the same time did noharm to his fellow-practitioners, because he only acceptedunremunerative cases, and cases that interested him for some veryspecial reason. He argued that the rich could pay, and the very poorcould avail themselves of organised charity, but that a very large classof ill-paid, self-respecting workers, often followers of the arts, couldnot afford the price of a week's comforts merely to be told to travel. And it was these he desired to help: cases often requiring special andpatient study--things no doctor can give for a guinea, and that no onewould dream of expecting him to give. 

But there was another side to his personality and practice, and one withwhich we are now more directly concerned; for the cases that especiallyappealed to him were of no ordinary kind, but rather of that intangible, elusive, and difficult nature best described as psychical afflictions;and, though he would have been the last person himself to approve of thetitle, it was beyond question that he was known more or less generallyas the "Psychic Doctor. "

In order to grapple with cases of this peculiar kind, he had submittedhimself to a long and severe training, at once physical, mental, andspiritual. What precisely this training had been, or where undergone, noone seemed to know, --for he never spoke of it, as, indeed, he betrayedno single other characteristic of the charlatan, --but the fact that ithad involved a total disappearance from the world for five years, andthat after he returned and began his singular practice no one everdreamed of applying to him the so easily acquired epithet of quack, spoke much for the seriousness of his strange quest and also for thegenuineness of his attainments. 

For the modern psychical researcher he felt the calm tolerance of the"man who knows. " There was a trace of pity in his voice--contempt henever showed--when he spoke of their methods. 

"This classification of results is uninspired work at best, " he saidonce to me, when I had been his confidential assistant for some years. "It leads nowhere, and after a hundred years will lead nowhere. It isplaying with the wrong end of a rather dangerous toy. Far better, itwould be, to examine the causes, and then the results would so easilyslip into place and explain themselves. For the sources are accessible, and open to all who have the courage to lead the life that alone makespractical investigation safe and possible. "

And towards the question of clairvoyance, too, his attitude wassignificantly sane, for he knew how extremely rare the genuine powerwas, and that what is commonly called clairvoyance is nothing more thana keen power of visualising. 

"It connotes a slightly increased sensibility, nothing more, " he wouldsay. "The true clairvoyant deplores his power, recognising that it addsa new horror to life, and is in the nature of an affliction. And youwill find this always to be the real test. "

Thus it was that John Silence, this singularly developed doctor, wasable to select his cases with a clear knowledge of the differencebetween mere hysterical delusion and the kind of psychical afflictionthat claimed his special powers. It was never necessary for him toresort to the cheap mysteries of divination; for, as I have heard himobserve, after the solution of some peculiarly intricate problem--

"Systems of divination, from geomancy down to reading by tea-leaves, aremerely so many methods of obscuring the outer vision, in order that theinner vision may become open. Once the method is mastered, no system isnecessary at all. "

And the words were significant of the methods of this remarkable man, the keynote of whose power lay, perhaps, more than anything else, in theknowledge, first, that thought can act at a distance, and, secondly, that thought is dynamic and can accomplish material results. 

"Learn how to _think_, " he would have expressed it, "and you havelearned to tap power at its source. "

To look at--he was now past forty--he was sparely built, with speakingbrown eyes in which shone the light of knowledge and self-confidence, while at the same time they made one think of that wondrous gentlenessseen most often in the eyes of animals. A close beard concealed themouth without disguising the grim determination of lips and jaw, and theface somehow conveyed an impression of transparency, almost of light, sodelicately were the features refined away. On the fine forehead was thatindefinable touch of peace that comes from identifying the mind withwhat is permanent in the soul, and letting the impermanent slip bywithout power to wound or distress; while, from his manner, --so gentle, quiet, sympathetic, --few could have guessed the strength of purpose thatburned within like a great flame. 

"I think I should describe it as a psychical case, " continued theSwedish lady, obviously trying to explain herself very intelligently, "and just the kind you like. I mean a case where the cause is hiddendeep down in some spiritual distress, and--"

"But the symptoms first, please, my dear Svenska, " he interrupted, witha strangely compelling seriousness of manner, "and your deductionsafterwards. "

She turned round sharply on the edge of her chair and looked him in theface, lowering her voice to prevent her emotion betraying itself tooobviously. 

"In my opinion there's only one symptom, " she half whispered, as thoughtelling something disagreeable--"fear--simply fear. "

"Physical fear?"

"I think not; though how can I say? I think it's a horror in thepsychical region. It's no ordinary delusion; the man is quite sane; buthe lives in mortal terror of something--"

"I don't know what you mean by his 'psychical region, '" said the doctor, with a smile; "though I suppose you wish me to understand that hisspiritual, and not his mental, processes are affected. Anyhow, try andtell me briefly and pointedly what you know about the man, his symptoms, his need for help, my peculiar help, that is, and all that seems vitalin the case. I promise to listen devotedly. "

"I am trying, " she continued earnestly, "but must do so in my own wordsand trust to your intelligence to disentangle as I go along. He is ayoung author, and lives in a tiny house off Putney Heath somewhere. Hewrites humorous stories--quite a genre of his own: Pender--you must haveheard the name--Felix Pender? Oh, the man had a great gift, and marriedon the strength of it; his future seemed assured. I say 'had, ' for quitesuddenly his talent utterly failed him. Worse, it became transformedinto its opposite. He can no longer write a line in the old way that wasbringing him success--"

Dr. Silence opened his eyes for a second and looked at her. 

"He still writes, then? The force has not gone?" he asked briefly, andthen closed his eyes again to listen. 

"He works like a fury, " she went on, "but produces nothing"--shehesitated a moment--"nothing that he can use or sell. His earnings havepractically ceased, and he makes a precarious living by book-reviewingand odd jobs--very odd, some of them. Yet, I am certain his talent hasnot really deserted him finally, but is merely--"

Again Mrs. Sivendson hesitated for the appropriate word. 

"In abeyance, " he suggested, without opening his eyes. 

"Obliterated, " she went on, after a moment to weigh the word, "merelyobliterated by something else--"

"By some one else?"

"I wish I knew. All I can say is that he is haunted, and temporarily hissense of humour is shrouded--gone--replaced by something dreadful thatwrites other things. Unless something competent is done, he will simplystarve to death. Yet he is afraid to go to a doctor for fear of beingpronounced insane; and, anyhow, a man can hardly ask a doctor to take aguinea to restore a vanished sense of humour, can he?"

"Has he tried any one at all--?"

"Not doctors yet. He tried some clergymen and religious people; but theyknow so little and have so little intelligent sympathy. And most of themare so busy balancing on their own little pedestals--"

John Silence stopped her tirade with a gesture. 

"And how is it that you know so much about him?" he asked gently. 

"I know Mrs. Pender well--I knew her before she married him--"

"And is she a cause, perhaps?"

"Not in the least. She is devoted; a woman very well educated, thoughwithout being really intelligent, and with so little sense of humourherself that she always laughs at the wrong places. But she has nothingto do with the cause of his distress; and, indeed, has chiefly guessedit from observing him, rather than from what little he has told her. Andhe, you know, is a really lovable fellow, hard-working, patient--altogether worth saving. "

Dr. Silence opened his eyes and went over to ring for tea. He did notknow very much more about the case of the humorist than when he firstsat down to listen; but he realised that no amount of words from hisSwedish friend would help to reveal the real facts. A personal interviewwith the author himself could alone do that. 

"All humorists are worth saving, " he said with a smile, as she pouredout tea. "We can't afford to lose a single one in these strenuous days. I will go and see your friend at the first opportunity. "

She thanked him elaborately, effusively, with many words, and he, withmuch difficulty, kept the conversation thenceforward strictly to theteapot. 

And, as a result of this conversation, and a little more he had gatheredby means best known to himself and his secretary, he was whizzing in hismotor-car one afternoon a few days later up the Putney Hill to have hisfirst interview with Felix Pender, the humorous writer who was thevictim of some mysterious malady in his "psychical region" that hadobliterated his sense of the comic and threatened to wreck his life anddestroy his talent. And his desire to help was probably of equalstrength with his desire to know and to investigate. 

The motor stopped with a deep purring sound, as though a great blackpanther lay concealed within its hood, and the doctor--the "psychicdoctor, " as he was sometimes called--stepped out through the gatheringfog, and walked across the tiny garden that held a blackened fir treeand a stunted laurel shrubbery. The house was very small, and it wassome time before any one answered the bell. Then, suddenly, a lightappeared in the hall, and he saw a pretty little woman standing on thetop step begging him to come in. She was dressed in grey, and thegaslight fell on a mass of deliberately brushed light hair. Stuffed, dusty birds, and a shabby array of African spears, hung on the wallbehind her. A hat-rack, with a bronze plate full of very large cards, led his eye swiftly to a dark staircase beyond. Mrs. Pender had roundeyes like a child's, and she greeted him with an effusiveness thatbarely concealed her emotion, yet strove to appear naturally cordial. Evidently she had been looking out for his arrival, and had outrun theservant girl. She was a little breathless. 

"I hope you've not been kept waiting--I think it's _most_ good of you tocome--" she began, and then stopped sharp when she saw his face in thegaslight. There was something in Dr. Silence's look that did notencourage mere talk. He was in earnest now, if ever man was. 

"Good evening, Mrs. Pender, " he said, with a quiet smile that wonconfidence, yet deprecated unnecessary words, "the fog delayed me alittle. I am glad to see you. "

They went into a dingy sitting-room at the back of the house, neatlyfurnished but depressing. Books stood in a row upon the mantelpiece. Thefire had evidently just been lit. It smoked in great puffs into theroom. 

"Mrs. Sivendson said she thought you might be able to come, " venturedthe little woman again, looking up engagingly into his face andbetraying anxiety and eagerness in every gesture. "But I hardly dared tobelieve it. I think it is really too good of you. My husband's case isso peculiar that--well, you know, I am quite sure any _ordinary_ doctorwould say at once the asylum--"

"Isn't he in, then?" asked Dr. Silence gently. 

"In the asylum?" she gasped. "Oh dear, no--not yet!"

"In the house, I meant, " he laughed. 

She gave a great sigh. 

"He'll be back any minute now, " she replied, obviously relieved to seehim laugh; "but the fact is, we didn't expect you so early--I mean, myhusband hardly thought you would come at all. "

"I am always delighted to come--when I am really wanted, and can be ofhelp, " he said quickly; "and, perhaps, it's all for the best that yourhusband is out, for now that we are alone you can tell me somethingabout his difficulties. So far, you know, I have heard very little. "

Her voice trembled as she thanked him, and when he came and took a chairclose beside her she actually had difficulty in finding words with whichto begin. 

"In the first place, " she began timidly, and then continuing with anervous incoherent rush of words, "he will be simply delighted thatyou've really come, because he said you were the only person he wouldconsent to see at all--the only doctor, I mean. But, of course, hedoesn't know how frightened I am, or how much I have noticed. Hepretends with me that it's just a nervous breakdown, and I'm sure hedoesn't realise all the odd things I've noticed him doing. But the mainthing, I suppose--"

"Yes, the main thing, Mrs. Pender, " he said, encouragingly, noticing herhesitation. 

"--is that he thinks we are not alone in the house. That's the chiefthing. "

"Tell me more facts--just facts. "

"It began last summer when I came back from Ireland; he had been herealone for six weeks, and I thought him looking tired and queer--raggedand scattered about the face, if you know what I mean, and his mannerworn out. He said he had been writing hard, but his inspiration hadsomehow failed him, and he was dissatisfied with his work. His sense ofhumour was leaving him, or changing into something else, he said. Therewas something in the house, he declared, that"--she emphasised thewords--"prevented his feeling funny. "

"Something in the house that prevented his feeling funny, " repeated thedoctor. "Ah, now we're getting to the heart of it!"

"Yes, " she resumed vaguely, "that's what he kept saying. "

"And what was it he _did_ that you thought strange?" he askedsympathetically. "Be brief, or he may be here before you finish. "

"Very small things, but significant it seemed to me. He changed hisworkroom from the library, as we call it, to the sitting-room. He saidall his characters became wrong and terrible in the library; theyaltered, so that he felt like writing tragedies--vile, debasedtragedies, the tragedies of broken souls. But now he says the same ofthe sitting-room, and he's gone back to the library. "

"Ah!"

"You see, there's so little I can tell you, " she went on, withincreasing speed and countless gestures. "I mean it's only very smallthings he does and says that are queer. What frightens me is that heassumes there is some one else in the house all the time--some one Inever see. He does not actually say so, but on the stairs I've seen himstanding aside to let some one pass; I've seen him open a door to letsome one in or out; and often in our bedrooms he puts chairs about asthough for some one else to sit in. Oh--oh yes, and once or twice, " shecried--"once or twice--"

She paused, and looked about her with a startled air. 

"Yes?"

"Once or twice, " she resumed hurriedly, as though she heard a sound thatalarmed her, "I've heard him running--coming in and out of the roomsbreathless as if something were after him--"

The door opened while she was still speaking, cutting her words off inthe middle, and a man came into the room. He was dark and clean-shaven, sallow rather, with the eyes of imagination, and dark hair growingscantily about the temples. He was dressed in a shabby tweed suit, andwore an untidy flannel collar at the neck. The dominant expression ofhis face was startled--hunted; an expression that might any moment leapinto the dreadful stare of terror and announce a total loss ofself-control. 

The moment he saw his visitor a smile spread over his worn features, andhe advanced to shake hands. 

"I hoped you would come; Mrs. Sivendson said you might be able to findtime, " he said simply. His voice was thin and needy. "I am very glad tosee you, Dr. Silence. It is 'Doctor, ' is it not?"

"Well, I am entitled to the description, " laughed the other, "but Irarely get it. You know, I do not practise as a regular thing; that is, I only take cases that specially interest me, or--"

He did not finish the sentence, for the men exchanged a glance ofsympathy that rendered it unnecessary. 

"I have heard of your great kindness. "

"It's my hobby, " said the other quickly, "and my privilege. "

"I trust you will still think so when you have heard what I have to tellyou, " continued the author, a little wearily. He led the way across thehall into the little smoking-room where they could talk freely andundisturbed. 

In the smoking-room, the door shut and privacy about them, Fender'sattitude changed somewhat, and his manner became very grave. The doctorsat opposite, where he could watch his face. Already, he saw, it lookedmore haggard. Evidently it cost him much to refer to his trouble at all. 

"What I have is, in my belief, a profound spiritual affliction, " hebegan quite bluntly, looking straight into the other's eyes. 

"I saw that at once, " Dr. Silence said. 

"Yes, you saw that, of course; my atmosphere must convey that much toany one with psychic perceptions. Besides which, I feel sure from allI've heard, that you are really a soul-doctor, are you not, more than ahealer merely of the body?"

"You think of me too highly, " returned the other; "though I prefercases, as you know, in which the spirit is disturbed first, the bodyafterwards. "

"I understand, yes. Well, I have experienced a curious disturbancein--not in my physical region primarily. I mean my nerves are all right, and my body is all right. I have no delusions exactly, but my spirit istortured by a calamitous fear which first came upon me in a strangemanner. "

John Silence leaned forward a moment and took the speaker's hand andheld it in his own for a few brief seconds, closing his eyes as he didso. He was not feeling his pulse, or doing any of the things thatdoctors ordinarily do; he was merely absorbing into himself the mainnote of the man's mental condition, so as to get completely his ownpoint of view, and thus be able to treat his case with true sympathy. Avery close observer might perhaps have noticed that a slight tremor ranthrough his frame after he had held the hand for a few seconds. 

"Tell me quite frankly, Mr. Pender, " he said soothingly, releasing thehand, and with deep attention in his manner, "tell me all the steps thatled to the beginning of this invasion. I mean tell me what theparticular drug was, and why you took it, and how it affected you--"

"Then you know it began with a drug!" cried the author, with undisguisedastonishment. 

"I only know from what I observe in you, and in its effect upon myself. You are in a surprising psychical condition. Certain portions of youratmosphere are vibrating at a far greater rate than others. This is theeffect of a drug, but of no ordinary drug. Allow me to finish, please. If the higher rate of vibration spreads all over, you will become, ofcourse, permanently cognisant of a much larger world than the one youknow normally. If, on the other hand, the rapid portion sinks back tothe usual rate, you will lose these occasional increased perceptions younow have. "

"You amaze me!" exclaimed the author; "for your words exactly describewhat I have been feeling--"

"I mention this only in passing, and to give you confidence before youapproach the account of your real affliction, " continued the doctor. "All perception, as you know, is the result of vibrations; andclairvoyance simply means becoming sensitive to an increased scale ofvibrations. The awakening of the inner senses we hear so much aboutmeans no more than that. Your partial clairvoyance is easily explained. The only thing that puzzles me is how you managed to procure the drug, for it is not easy to get in pure form, and no adulterated tincturecould have given you the terrific impetus I see you have acquired. But, please proceed now and tell me your story in your own way. "

"This _Cannabis indica_, " the author went on, "came into my possessionlast autumn while my wife was away. I need not explain how I got it, forthat has no importance; but it was the genuine fluid extract, and I couldnot resist the temptation to make an experiment. One of its effects, asyou know, is to induce torrential laughter--"

"Yes: sometimes. "

"--I am a writer of humorous tales, and I wished to increase my ownsense of laughter--to see the ludicrous from an abnormal point of view. I wished to study it a bit, if possible, and--"

"Tell me!"

"I took an experimental dose. I starved for six hours to hasten theeffect, locked myself into this room, and gave orders not to bedisturbed. Then I swallowed the stuff and waited. "

"And the effect?"

"I waited one hour, two, three, four, five hours. Nothing happened. Nolaughter came, but only a great weariness instead. Nothing in the roomor in my thoughts came within a hundred miles of a humorous aspect. "

"Always a most uncertain drug, " interrupted the doctor. "We make verysmall use of it on that account. "

"At two o'clock in the morning I felt so hungry and tired that I decidedto give up the experiment and wait no longer. I drank some milk and wentupstairs to bed. I felt flat and disappointed. I fell asleep at once andmust have slept for about an hour, when I awoke suddenly with a greatnoise in my ears. It was the noise of my own laughter! I was simplyshaking with merriment. At first I was bewildered and thought I had beenlaughing in dreams, but a moment later I remembered the drug, and wasdelighted to think that after all I had got an effect. It had beenworking all along, only I had miscalculated the time. The onlyunpleasant thing _then_ was an odd feeling that I had not wakednaturally, but had been wakened by some one else--deliberately. Thiscame to me as a certainty in the middle of my noisy laughter anddistressed me. "

"Any impression who it could have been?" asked the doctor, now listeningwith close attention to every word, very much on the alert. 

Pender hesitated and tried to smile. He brushed his hair from hisforehead with a nervous gesture. 

"You must tell me all your impressions, even your fancies; they arequite as important as your certainties. "

"I had a vague idea that it was some one connected with my forgottendream, some one who had been at me in my sleep, some one of greatstrength and great ability--of great force--quite an unusualpersonality--and, I was certain, too--a woman. "

"A good woman?" asked John Silence quietly. 

Pender started a little at the question and his sallow face flushed; itseemed to surprise him. But he shook his head quickly with anindefinable look of horror. 

"Evil, " he answered briefly, "appallingly evil, and yet mingled with thesheer wickedness of it was also a certain perverseness--the perversityof the unbalanced mind. "

He hesitated a moment and looked up sharply at his interlocutor. A shadeof suspicion showed itself in his eyes. 

"No, " laughed the doctor, "you need not fear that I'm merely humouringyou, or think you mad. Far from it. Your story interests me exceedinglyand you furnish me unconsciously with a number of clues as you tell it. You see, I possess some knowledge of my own as to these psychic byways. "

"I was shaking with such violent laughter, " continued the narrator, reassured in a moment, "though with no clear idea what was amusing me, that I had the greatest difficulty in getting up for the matches, andwas afraid I should frighten the servants overhead with my explosions. When the gas was lit I found the room empty, of course, and the doorlocked as usual. Then I half dressed and went out on to the landing, myhilarity better under control, and proceeded to go downstairs. I wishedto record my sensations. I stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth so asnot to scream aloud and communicate my hysterics to the entirehousehold. "

"And the presence of this--this--?"

"It was hanging about me all the time, " said Pender, "but for the momentit seemed to have withdrawn. Probably, too, my laughter killed all otheremotions. "

"And how long did you take getting downstairs?"

"I was just coming to that. I see you know all my 'symptoms' in advance, as it were; for, of course, I thought I should never get to the bottom. Each step seemed to take five minutes, and crossing the narrow hall atthe foot of the stairs--well, I could have sworn it was half an hour'sjourney had not my watch certified that it was a few seconds. Yet Iwalked fast and tried to push on. It was no good. I walked apparentlywithout advancing, and at that rate it would have taken me a week to getdown Putney Hill. "

"An experimental dose radically alters the scale of time and spacesometimes--"

"But, when at last I got into my study and lit the gas, the change camehorridly, and sudden as a flash of lightning. It was like a douche oficy water, and in the middle of this storm of laughter--"

"Yes; what?" asked the doctor, leaning forward and peering into hiseyes. 

"--I was overwhelmed with terror, " said Pender, lowering his reedyvoice at the mere recollection of it. 

He paused a moment and mopped his forehead. The scared, hunted look inhis eyes now dominated the whole face. Yet, all the time, the corners ofhis mouth hinted of possible laughter as though the recollection of thatmerriment still amused him. The combination of fear and laughter in hisface was very curious, and lent great conviction to his story; it alsolent a bizarre expression of horror to his gestures. 

"Terror, was it?" repeated the doctor soothingly. 

"Yes, terror; for, though the Thing that woke me seemed to have gone, the memory of it still frightened me, and I collapsed into a chair. ThenI locked the door and tried to reason with myself, but the drug made mymovements so prolonged that it took me five minutes to reach the door, and another five to get back to the chair again. The laughter, too, keptbubbling up inside me--great wholesome laughter that shook me like gustsof wind--so that even my terror almost made me laugh. Oh, but I may tellyou, Dr. Silence, it was altogether vile, that mixture of fear andlaughter, altogether vile!

"Then, all at once, the things in the room again presented their funnyside to me and set me off laughing more furiously than ever. Thebookcase was ludicrous, the arm-chair a perfect clown, the way the clocklooked at me on the mantelpiece too comic for words; the arrangement ofpapers and inkstand on the desk tickled me till I roared and shook andheld my sides and the tears streamed down my cheeks. And that footstool!Oh, that absurd footstool!"

He lay back in his chair, laughing to himself and holding up his handsat the thought of it, and at the sight of him Dr. Silence laughed, too. 

"Go on, please, " he said, "I quite understand. I know something myselfof the hashish laughter. "

The author pulled himself together and resumed, his face growing quicklygrave again. 

"So, you see, side by side with this extravagant, apparently causelessmerriment, there was also an extravagant, apparently causeless terror. The drug produced the laughter, I knew; but what brought in the terror Icould not imagine. Everywhere behind the fun lay the fear. It was terrormasked by cap and bells; and I became the playground for two opposingemotions, armed and fighting to the death. Gradually, then, theimpression grew in me that this fear was caused by the invasion--so youcalled it just now--of the 'person' who had wakened me: she was utterlyevil; inimical to my soul, or at least to all in me that wished forgood. There I stood, sweating and trembling, laughing at everything inthe room, yet all the while with this white terror mastering my heart. And this creature was putting--putting her--"

He hesitated again, using his handkerchief freely. 

"Putting what?"

"--putting ideas into my mind, " he went on glancing nervously about theroom. "Actually tapping my thought-stream so as to switch off the usualcurrent and inject her own. How mad that sounds! I know it, but it'strue. It's the only way I can express it. Moreover, while the operationterrified me, the skill with which it was accomplished filled me afreshwith laughter at the clumsiness of men by comparison. Our ignorant, bungling methods of teaching the minds of others, of inculcating ideas, and so on, overwhelmed me with laughter when I understood this superiorand diabolical method. Yet my laughter seemed hollow and ghastly, andideas of evil and tragedy trod close upon the heels of the comic. Oh, doctor, I tell you again, it was unnerving!"

John Silence sat with his head thrust forward to catch every word of thestory which the other continued to pour out in nervous, jerky sentencesand lowered voice. 

"You saw nothing--no one--all this time?" he asked. 

"Not with my eyes. There was no visual hallucination. But in my mindthere began to grow the vivid picture of a woman--large, dark-skinned, with white teeth and masculine features, and one eye--the left--sodrooping as to appear almost closed. Oh, such a face--!"

"A face you would recognise again?"

Pender laughed dreadfully. 

"I wish I could forget it, " he whispered, "I only wish I could forgetit!" Then he sat forward in his chair suddenly, and grasped the doctor'shand with an emotional gesture. 

"I _must_ tell you how grateful I am for your patience and sympathy, " hecried, with a tremor in his voice, "and--that you do not think me mad. Ihave told no one else a quarter of all this, and the mere freedom ofspeech--the relief of sharing my affliction with another--has helped mealready more than I can possibly say. "

Dr. Silence pressed his hand and looked steadily into the frightenedeyes. His voice was very gentle when he replied. 

"Your case, you know, is very singular, but of absorbing interest tome, " he said, "for it threatens, not your physical existence but thetemple of your psychical existence--the inner life. Your mind wouldnot be permanently affected here and now, in this world; but in theexistence after the body is left behind, you might wake up with yourspirit so twisted, so distorted, so befouled, that you would be_spiritually insane_--a far more radical condition than merely beinginsane here. "

There came a strange hush over the room, and between the two men sittingthere facing one another. 

"Do you really mean--Good Lord!" stammered the author as soon as hecould find his tongue. 

"What I mean in detail will keep till a little later, and I need onlysay now that I should not have spoken in this way unless I were quitepositive of being able to help you. Oh, there's no doubt as to that, believe me. In the first place, I am very familiar with the workings ofthis extraordinary drug, this drug which has had the chance effect ofopening you up to the forces of another region; and, in the second, Ihave a firm belief in the reality of supersensuous occurrences as wellas considerable knowledge of psychic processes acquired by long andpainful experiment. The rest is, or should be, merely sympathetictreatment and practical application. The hashish has partially openedanother world to you by increasing your rate of psychical vibration, andthus rendering you abnormally sensitive. Ancient forces attached to thishouse have attacked you. For the moment I am only puzzled as to theirprecise nature; for were they of an ordinary character, I should myselfbe psychic enough to feel them. Yet I am conscious of feeling nothing asyet. But now, please continue, Mr. Pender, and tell me the rest of yourwonderful story; and when you have finished, I will talk about the meansof cure. "

Pender shifted his chair a little closer to the friendly doctor and thenwent on in the same nervous voice with his narrative. 

"After making some notes of my impressions I finally got upstairs againto bed. It was four o'clock in the morning. I laughed all the way up--atthe grotesque banisters, the droll physiognomy of the staircase window, the burlesque grouping of the furniture, and the memory of thatoutrageous footstool in the room below; but nothing more happened toalarm or disturb me, and I woke late in the morning after a dreamlesssleep, none the worse for my experiment except for a slight headache anda coldness of the extremities due to lowered circulation. "

"Fear gone, too?" asked the doctor. 

"I seemed to have forgotten it, or at least ascribed it to merenervousness. Its reality had gone, anyhow for the time, and all that dayI wrote and wrote and wrote. My sense of laughter seemed wonderfullyquickened and my characters acted without effort out of the heart oftrue humour. I was exceedingly pleased with this result of myexperiment. But when the stenographer had taken her departure and I cameto read over the pages she had typed out, I recalled her sudden glancesof surprise and the odd way she had looked up at me while I wasdictating. I was amazed at what I read and could hardly believe I haduttered it. "

"And why?"

"It was so distorted. The words, indeed, were mine so far as I couldremember, but the meanings seemed strange. It frightened me. The sensewas so altered. At the very places where my characters were intended totickle the ribs, only curious emotions of sinister amusement resulted. Dreadful innuendoes had managed to creep into the phrases. There waslaughter of a kind, but it was bizarre, horrible, distressing; and myattempt at analysis only increased my dismay. The story, as it readthen, made me shudder, for by virtue of these slight changes it had comesomehow to hold the soul of horror, of horror disguised as merriment. The framework of humour was there, if you understand me, but thecharacters had turned sinister, and their laughter was evil. "

"Can you show me this writing?"

The author shook his head. 

"I destroyed it, " he whispered. "But, in the end, though of course muchperturbed about it, I persuaded myself that it was due to someafter-effect of the drug, a sort of reaction that gave a twist to mymind and made me read macabre interpretations into words and situationsthat did not properly hold them. "

"And, meanwhile, did the presence of this person leave you?"

"No; that stayed more or less. When my mind was actively employed Iforgot it, but when idle, dreaming, or doing nothing in particular, there she was beside me, influencing my mind horribly--"

"In what way, precisely?" interrupted the doctor. 

"Evil, scheming thoughts came to me, visions of crime, hateful picturesof wickedness, and the kind of bad imagination that so far has beenforeign, indeed impossible, to my normal nature--"

"The pressure of the Dark Powers upon the personality, " murmured thedoctor, making a quick note. 

"Eh? I didn't quite catch--"

"Pray, go on. I am merely making notes; you shall know their purportfully later. "

"Even when my wife returned I was still aware of this Presence in thehouse; it associated itself with my inner personality in most intimatefashion; and outwardly I always felt oddly constrained to be polite andrespectful towards it--to open doors, provide chairs and hold myselfcarefully deferential when it was about. It became very compelling atlast, and, if I failed in any little particular, I seemed to know thatit pursued me about the house, from one room to another, haunting myvery soul in its inmost abode. It certainly came before my wife so faras my attentions were concerned. 

"But, let me first finish the story of my experimental dose, for I tookit again the third night, and underwent a very similar experience, delayed like the first in coming, and then carrying me off my feet whenit did come with a rush of this false demon-laughter. This time, however, there was a reversal of the changed scale of space and time; itshortened instead of lengthened, so that I dressed and got downstairs inabout twenty seconds, and the couple of hours I stayed and worked in thestudy passed literally like a period of ten minutes. "

"That is often true of an overdose, " interjected the doctor, "and youmay go a mile in a few minutes, or a few yards in a quarter of an hour. It is quite incomprehensible to those who have never experienced it, andis a curious proof that time and space are merely forms of thought. "

"This time, " Pender went on, talking more and more rapidly in hisexcitement, "another extraordinary effect came to me, and I experienceda curious changing of the senses, so that I perceived external thingsthrough one large main sense-channel instead of through the fivedivisions known as sight, smell, touch, and so forth. You will, I know, understand me when I tell you that I _heard_ sights and _saw_ sounds. Nolanguage can make this comprehensible, of course, and I can only say, for instance, that the striking of the clock I saw as a visible picturein the air before me. I saw the sounds of the tinkling bell. And inprecisely the same way I heard the colours in the room, especially thecolours of those books in the shelf behind you. Those red bindings Iheard in deep sounds, and the yellow covers of the French bindings nextto them made a shrill, piercing note not unlike the chattering ofstarlings. That brown bookcase muttered, and those green curtainsopposite kept up a constant sort of rippling sound like the lower notesof a wood-horn. But I only was conscious of these sounds when I lookedsteadily at the different objects, and thought about them. The room, youunderstand, was not full of a chorus of notes; but when I concentratedmy mind upon a colour, I heard, as well as saw, it. "

"That is a known, though rarely obtained, effect of _Cannabis indica_, "observed the doctor. "And it provoked laughter again, did it?"

"Only the muttering of the cupboard-bookcase made me laugh. It was solike a great animal trying to get itself noticed, and made me think of aperforming bear--which is full of a kind of pathetic humour, you know. But this mingling of the senses produced no confusion in my brain. Onthe contrary, I was unusually clear-headed and experienced anintensification of consciousness, and felt marvellously alive andkeen-minded. 

"Moreover, when I took up a pencil in obedience to an impulse tosketch--a talent not normally mine--I found that I could draw nothingbut heads, nothing, in fact, but one head--always the same--the head ofa dark-skinned woman, with huge and terrible features and a verydrooping left eye; and so well drawn, too, that I was amazed, as you mayimagine--"

"And the expression of the face--?"

Pender hesitated a moment for words, casting about with his hands in theair and hunching his shoulders. A perceptible shudder ran over him. 

"What I can only describe as--_blackness_, " he replied in a low tone;"the face of a dark and evil soul. "

"You destroyed that, too?" queried the doctor sharply. 

"No; I have kept the drawings, " he said, with a laugh, and rose to getthem from a drawer in the writing-desk behind him. 

"Here is all that remains of the pictures, you see, " he added, pushing anumber of loose sheets under the doctor's eyes; "nothing but a fewscrawly lines. That's all I found the next morning. I had really drawnno heads at all--nothing but those lines and blots and wriggles. Thepictures were entirely subjective, and existed only in my mind whichconstructed them out of a few wild strokes of the pen. Like the alteredscale of space and time it was a complete delusion. These all passed, ofcourse, with the passing of the drug's effects. But the other thing didnot pass. I mean, the presence of that Dark Soul remained with me. It ishere still. It is real. I don't know how I can escape from it. "

"It is attached to the house, not to you personally. You must leave thehouse. "

"Yes. Only I cannot afford to leave the house, for my work is my solemeans of support, and--well, you see, since this change I cannot evenwrite. They are horrible, these mirthless tales I now write, with theirmockery of laughter, their diabolical suggestion. Horrible? I shall gomad if this continues. "

He screwed his face up and looked about the room as though he expectedto see some haunting shape. 

"This influence in this house induced by my experiment, has killed in aflash, in a sudden stroke, the sources of my humour, and though I stillgo on writing funny tales--I have a certain name you know--myinspiration has dried up, and much of what I write I have to burn--yes, doctor, to burn, before any one sees it. "

"As utterly alien to your own mind and personality?"

"Utterly! As though some one else had written it--"

"Ah!"

"And shocking!" He passed his hand over his eyes a moment and let thebreath escape softly through his teeth. "Yet most damnably clever in theconsummate way the vile suggestions are insinuated under cover of a kindof high drollery. My stenographer left me of course--and I've beenafraid to take another--"

John Silence got up and began to walk about the room leisurely withoutspeaking; he appeared to be examining the pictures on the wall andreading the names of the books lying about. Presently he paused on thehearthrug, with his back to the fire, and turned to look his patientquietly in the eyes. Pender's face was grey and drawn; the huntedexpression dominated it; the long recital had told upon him. 

"Thank you, Mr. Pender, " he said, a curious glow showing about his fine, quiet face; "thank you for the sincerity and frankness of your account. But I think now there is nothing further I need ask you. " He indulged ina long scrutiny of the author's haggard features drawing purposely theman's eyes to his own and then meeting them with a look of power andconfidence calculated to inspire even the feeblest soul with courage. "And, to begin with, " he added, smiling pleasantly, "let me assure youwithout delay that you need have no alarm, for you are no more insane ordeluded than I myself am--"

Pender heaved a deep sigh and tried to return the smile. 

"--and this is simply a case, so far as I can judge at present, of avery singular psychical invasion, and a very sinister one, too, if youperhaps understand what I mean--"

"It's an odd expression; you used it before, you know, " said the authorwearily, yet eagerly listening to every word of the diagnosis, anddeeply touched by the intelligent sympathy which did not at onceindicate the lunatic asylum. 

"Possibly, " returned the other, "and an odd affliction, too, you'llallow, yet one not unknown to the nations of antiquity, nor to thosemoderns, perhaps, who recognise the freedom of action under certainpathogenic conditions between this world and another. "

"And you think, " asked Pender hastily, "that it is all primarily due tothe _Cannabis_? There is nothing radically amiss with myself--nothingincurable, or--?"

"Due entirely to the overdose, " Dr. Silence replied emphatically, "tothe drug's direct action upon your psychical being. It rendered youultra-sensitive and made you respond to an increased rate of vibration. And, let me tell you, Mr. Pender, that your experiment might have hadresults far more dire. It has brought you into touch with a somewhatsingular class of Invisible, but of one, I think, chiefly human incharacter. You might, however, just as easily have been drawn out ofhuman range altogether, and the results of such a contingency would havebeen exceedingly terrible. Indeed, you would not now be here to tell thetale. I need not alarm you on that score, but mention it as a warningyou will not misunderstand or underrate after what you have beenthrough. 

"You look puzzled. You do not quite gather what I am driving at; and itis not to be expected that you should, for you, I suppose, are thenominal Christian with the nominal Christian's lofty standard of ethics, and his utter ignorance of spiritual possibilities. Beyond a somewhatchildish understanding of 'spiritual wickedness in high places, ' youprobably have no conception of what is possible once you break-down theslender gulf that is mercifully fixed between you and that Outer World. But my studies and training have taken me far outside these orthodoxtrips, and I have made experiments that I could scarcely speak to youabout in language that would be intelligible to you. "

He paused a moment to note the breathless interest of Pender's face andmanner. Every word he uttered was calculated; he knew exactly the valueand effect of the emotions he desired to waken in the heart of theafflicted being before him. 

"And from certain knowledge I have gained through various experiences, "he continued calmly, "I can diagnose your case as I said before to beone of psychical invasion. "

"And the nature of this--er--invasion?" stammered the bewildered writerof humorous tales. 

"There is no reason why I should not say at once that I do not yet quiteknow, " replied Dr. Silence. "I may first have to make one or twoexperiments--"

"On me?" gasped Pender, catching his breath. 

"Not exactly, " the doctor said, with a grave smile, "but with yourassistance, perhaps. I shall want to test the conditions of thehouse--to ascertain, impossible, the character of the forces, of thisstrange personality that has been haunting you--"

"At present you have no idea exactly who--what--why--" asked theother in a wild flurry of interest, dread and amazement. 

"I have a very good idea, but no proof rather, " returned the doctor. "The effects of the drug in altering the scale of time and space, andmerging the senses have nothing primarily to do with the invasion. Theycome to any one who is fool enough to take an experimental dose. It isthe other features of your case that are unusual. You see, you are nowin touch with certain violent emotions, desires, purposes, still activein this house, that were produced in the past by some powerful and evilpersonality that lived here. How long ago, or why they still persist soforcibly, I cannot positively say. But I should judge that they aremerely forces acting automatically with the momentum of their terrificoriginal impetus. "

"Not directed by a living being, a conscious will, you mean?"

"Possibly not--but none the less dangerous on that account, and moredifficult to deal with. I cannot explain to you in a few minutes thenature of such things, for you have not made the studies that wouldenable you to follow me; but I have reason to believe that on thedissolution at death of a human being, its forces may still persist andcontinue to act in a blind, unconscious fashion. As a rule they speedilydissipate themselves, but in the case of a very powerful personalitythey may last a long time. And, in some cases--of which I incline tothink this is one--these forces may coalesce with certain non-humanentities who thus continue their life indefinitely and increase theirstrength to an unbelievable degree. If the original personality wasevil, the beings attracted to the left-over forces will also be evil. Inthis case, I think there has been an unusual and dreadful aggrandisementof the thoughts and purposes left behind long ago by a woman ofconsummate wickedness and great personal power of character andintellect. Now, do you begin to see what I am driving at a little?"

Pender stared fixedly at his companion, plain horror showing in hiseyes. But he found nothing to say, and the doctor continued--

"In your case, predisposed by the action of the drug, you haveexperienced the rush of these forces in undiluted strength. They whollyobliterate in you the sense of humour, fancy, imagination, --all thatmakes for cheerfulness and hope. They seek, though perhaps automaticallyonly, to oust your own thoughts and establish themselves in their place. You are the victim of a psychical invasion. At the same time, you havebecome clairvoyant in the true sense. You are also a clairvoyantvictim. "

Pender mopped his face and sighed. He left his chair and went over tothe fireplace to warm himself. 

"You must think me a quack to talk like this, or a madman, " laughed Dr. Silence. "But never mind that. I have come to help you, and I can helpyou if you will do what I tell you. It is very simple: you must leavethis house at once. Oh, never mind the difficulties; we will deal withthose together. I can place another house at your disposal, or I wouldtake the lease here off your hands, and later have it pulled down. Yourcase interests me greatly, and I mean to see you through, so that youhave no anxiety, and can drop back into your old groove of worktomorrow! The drug has provided you, and therefore me, with a shortcutto a very interesting experience. I am grateful to you. "

The author poked the fire vigorously, emotion rising in him like atide. He glanced towards the door nervously. 

"There is no need to alarm your wife or to tell her the details of ourconversation, " pursued the other quietly. "Let her know that you willsoon be in possession again of your sense of humour and your health, andexplain that I am lending you another house for six months. Meanwhile Imay have the right to use this house for a night or two for myexperiment. Is that understood between us?"

"I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart, " stammered Pender, unable to find words to express his gratitude. 

Then he hesitated for a moment, searching the doctor's face anxiously. 

"And your experiment with the house?" he said at length. 

"Of the simplest character, my dear Mr. Pender. Although I am myself anartificially trained psychic, and consequently aware of the presence ofdiscarnate entities as a rule, I have so far felt nothing here at all. This makes me sure that the forces acting here are of an unusualdescription. What I propose to do is to make an experiment with a viewof drawing out this evil, coaxing it from its lair, so to speak, inorder that it may _exhaust itself through me_ and become dissipated forever. I have already been inoculated, " he added; "I consider myself tobe immune. "

"Heavens above!" gasped the author, collapsing on to a chair. 

"Hell beneath! might be a more appropriate exclamation, " the doctorlaughed. "But, seriously, Mr. Pender, this is what I propose to do--withyour permission. "

"Of course, of course, " cried the other, "you have my permission and mybest wishes for success. I can see no possible objection, but--"

"But what?"

"I pray to Heaven you will not undertake this experiment alone, willyou?"

"Oh, dear, no; not alone. "

"You will take a companion with good nerves, and reliable in case ofdisaster, won't you?"

"I shall bring two companions, " the doctor said. 

"Ah, that's better. I feel easier. I am sure you must have among youracquaintances men who--"

"I shall not think of bringing men, Mr. Pender. "

The other looked up sharply. 

"No, or women either; or children. "

"I don't understand. Who will you bring, then?"

"Animals, " explained the doctor, unable to prevent a smile at hiscompanion's expression of surprise--"two animals, a cat and a dog. "

Pender stared as if his eyes would drop out upon the floor, and thenled the way without another word into the adjoining room where his wifewas awaiting them for tea. 

II

A few days later the humorist and his wife, with minds greatly relieved, moved into a small furnished house placed at their free disposal inanother part of London; and John Silence, intent upon his approachingexperiment, made ready to spend a night in the empty house on the top ofPutney Hill. Only two rooms were prepared for occupation: the study onthe ground floor and the bedroom immediately above it; all other doorswere to be locked, and no servant was to be left in the house. The motorhad orders to call for him at nine o'clock the following morning. 

And, meanwhile, his secretary had instructions to look up the pasthistory and associations of the place, and learn everything he couldconcerning the character of former occupants, recent or remote. 

The animals, by whose sensitiveness he intended to test any unusualconditions in the atmosphere of the building, Dr. Silence selected withcare and judgment. He believed (and had already made curious experimentsto prove it) that animals were more often, and more truly, clairvoyantthan human beings. Many of them, he felt convinced, possessed powers ofperception far superior to that mere keenness of the senses common toall dwellers in the wilds where the senses grow specially alert; theyhad what he termed "animal clairvoyance, " and from his experiments withhorses, dogs, cats, and even birds, he had drawn certain deductions, which, however, need not be referred to in detail here. 

Cats, in particular, he believed, were almost continuously conscious ofa larger field of vision, too detailed even for a photographic camera, and quite beyond the reach of normal human organs. He had, further, observed that while dogs were usually terrified in the presence of suchphenomena, cats on the other hand were soothed and satisfied. Theywelcomed manifestations as something belonging peculiarly to their ownregion. 

He selected his animals, therefore, with wisdom so that they mightafford a differing test, each in its own way, and that one should notmerely communicate its own excitement to the other. He took a dog and acat. 

The cat he chose, now full grown, had lived with him since kittenhood, akittenhood of perplexing sweetness and audacious mischief. Wayward itwas and fanciful, ever playing its own mysterious games in the cornersof the room, jumping at invisible nothings, leaping sideways into theair and falling with tiny moccasined feet on to another part of thecarpet, yet with an air of dignified earnestness which showed that theperformance was necessary to its own well-being, and not done merely toimpress a stupid human audience. In the middle of elaborate washing itwould look up, startled, as though to stare at the approach of someInvisible, cocking its little head sideways and putting out a velvet padto inspect cautiously. Then it would get absent-minded, and stare withequal intentness in another direction (just to confuse the onlookers), and suddenly go on furiously washing its body again, but in quite a newplace. Except for a white patch on its breast it was coal black. And itsname was--Smoke. 

"Smoke" described its temperament as well as its appearance. Itsmovements, its individuality, its posing as a little furry mass ofconcealed mysteries, its elfin-like elusiveness, all combined to justifyits name; and a subtle painter might have pictured it as a wisp offloating smoke, the fire below betraying itself at two points only--theglowing eyes. 

All its forces ran to intelligence--secret intelligence, the wordlessincalculable intuition of the Cat. It was, indeed, _the_ cat for thebusiness in hand. 

The selection of the dog was not so simple, for the doctor owned many;but after much deliberation he chose a collie, called Flame from hisyellow coat. True, it was a trifle old, and stiff in the joints, andeven beginning to grow deaf, but, on the other hand, it was a veryparticular friend of Smoke's, and had fathered it from kittenhoodupwards so that a subtle understanding existed between them. It was thisthat turned the balance in its favour, this and its courage. Moreover, though good-tempered, it was a terrible fighter, and its anger whenprovoked by a righteous cause was a fury of fire, and irresistible. 

It had come to him quite young, straight from the shepherd, with the airof the hills yet in its nostrils, and was then little more than skin andbones and teeth. For a collie it was sturdily built, its nose blunterthan most, its yellow hair stiff rather than silky, and it had fulleyes, unlike the slit eyes of its breed. Only its master could touch it, for it ignored strangers, and despised their partings--when any dared topat it. There was something patriarchal about the old beast. He was inearnest, and went through life with tremendous energy and big things inview, as though he had the reputation of his whole race to uphold. Andto watch him fighting against odds was to understand why he wasterrible. 

In his relations with Smoke he was always absurdly gentle; also he wasfatherly; and at the same time betrayed a certain diffidence or shyness. He recognised that Smoke called for strong yet respectful management. The cat's circuitous methods puzzled him, and his elaborate pretencesperhaps shocked the dog's liking for direct, undisguised action. Yet, while he failed to comprehend these tortuous feline mysteries, he wasnever contemptuous or condescending; and he presided over the safety ofhis furry black friend somewhat as a father, loving, but intuitive, might superintend the vagaries of a wayward and talented child. And, inreturn, Smoke rewarded him with exhibitions of fascinating and audaciousmischief. 

And these brief descriptions of their characters are necessary for theproper understanding of what subsequently took place. 

With Smoke sleeping in the folds of his fur coat, and the collie lyingwatchful on the seat opposite, John Silence went down in his motor afterdinner on the night of November 15th. 

And the fog was so dense that they were obliged to travel at quarterspeed the entire way. 

 * * * * *

It was after ten o'clock when he dismissed the motor and entered thedingy little house with the latchkey provided by Pender. He found thehall gas turned low, and a fire in the study. Books and food had alsobeen placed ready by the servant according to instructions. Coils of fogrushed in after him through the open door and filled the hall andpassage with its cold discomfort. 

The first thing Dr. Silence did was to lock up Smoke in the study with asaucer of milk before the fire, and then make a search of the house withFlame. The dog ran cheerfully behind him all the way while he tried thedoors of the other rooms to make sure they were locked. He nosed aboutinto corners and made little excursions on his own account. His mannerwas expectant. He knew there must be something unusual about theproceeding, because it was contrary to the habits of his whole life notto be asleep at this hour on the mat in front of the fire. He keptlooking up into his master's face, as door after door was tried, with anexpression of intelligent sympathy, but at the same time a certain airof disapproval. Yet everything his master did was good in his eyes, andhe betrayed as little impatience as possible with all this unnecessaryjourneying to and fro. If the doctor was pleased to play this sort ofgame at such an hour of the night, it was surely not for him to object. So he played it, too; and was very busy and earnest about it into thebargain. 

After an uneventful search they came down again to the study, and hereDr. Silence discovered Smoke washing his face calmly in front of thefire. The saucer of milk was licked dry and clean; the preliminaryexamination that cats always make in new surroundings had evidentlybeen satisfactorily concluded. He drew an arm-chair up to the fire, stirred the coals into a blaze, arranged the table and lamp to hissatisfaction for reading, and then prepared surreptitiously to watch theanimals. He wished to observe them carefully without their being awareof it. 

Now, in spite of their respective ages, it was the regular custom ofthese two to play together every night before sleep. Smoke always madethe advances, beginning with grave impudence to pat the dog's tail, andFlame played cumbrously, with condescension. It was his duty, ratherthan pleasure; he was glad when it was over, and sometimes he was verydetermined and refused to play at all. 

And this night was one of the occasions on which he was firm. 

The doctor, looking cautiously over the top of his book, watched the catbegin the performance. It started by gazing with an innocent expressionat the dog where he lay with nose on paws and eyes wide open in themiddle of the floor. Then it got up and made as though it meant to walkto the door, going deliberately and very softly. Flame's eyes followedit until it was beyond the range of sight, and then the cat turnedsharply and began patting his tail tentatively with one paw. The tailmoved slightly in reply, and Smoke changed paws and tapped it again. Thedog, however, did not rise to play as was his wont, and the cat fell toparting it briskly with both paws. Flame still lay motionless. 

This puzzled and bored the cat, and it went round and stared hard intoits friend's face to see what was the matter. Perhaps some inarticulatemessage flashed from the dog's eyes into its own little brain, making itunderstand that the programme for the night had better not begin withplay. Perhaps it only realised that its friend was immovable. But, whatever the reason, its usual persistence thenceforward deserted it, and it made no further attempts at persuasion. Smoke yielded at once tothe dog's mood; it sat down where it was and began to wash. 

But the washing, the doctor noted, was by no means its real purpose; itonly used it to mask something else; it stopped at the most busy andfurious moments and began to stare about the room. Its thoughts wanderedabsurdly. It peered intently at the curtains; at the shadowy corners; atempty space above; leaving its body in curiously awkward positions forwhole minutes together. Then it turned sharply and stared with a suddensignal of intelligence at the dog, and Flame at once rose somewhatstiffly to his feet and began to wander aimlessly and restlessly to andfro about the floor. Smoke followed him, padding quietly at his heels. Between them they made what seemed to be a deliberate search of theroom. 

And, here, as he watched them, noting carefully every detail of theperformance over the top of his book, yet making no effort tointerfere, it seemed to the doctor that the first beginnings of a faintdistress betrayed themselves in the collie, and in the cat the stirringsof a vague excitement. 

He observed them closely. The fog was thick in the air, and the tobaccosmoke from his pipe added to its density; the furniture at the far endstood mistily, and where the shadows congregated in hanging clouds underthe ceiling, it was difficult to see clearly at all; the lamplight onlyreached to a level of five feet from the floor, above which came layersof comparative darkness, so that the room appeared twice as lofty as itactually was. By means of the lamp and the fire, however, the carpet waseverywhere clearly visible. 

The animals made their silent tour of the floor, sometimes the dogleading, sometimes the cat; occasionally they looked at one another asthough exchanging signals; and once or twice, in spite of the limitedspace, he lost sight of one or other among the fog and the shadows. Their curiosity, it appeared to him, was something more than theexcitement lurking in the unknown territory of a strange room; yet, sofar, it was impossible to test this, and he purposely kept his mindquietly receptive lest the smallest mental excitement on his part shouldcommunicate itself to the animals and thus destroy the value of theirindependent behaviour. 

They made a very thorough journey, leaving no piece of furnitureunexamined, or unsmelt. Flame led the way, walking slowly with loweredhead, and Smoke followed demurely at his heels, making a transparentpretence of not being interested, yet missing nothing. And, at length, they returned, the old collie first, and came to rest on the mat beforethe fire. Flame rested his muzzle on his master's knee, smilingbeatifically while he patted the yellow head and spoke his name; andSmoke, coming a little later, pretending he came by chance, looked fromthe empty saucer to his face, lapped up the milk when it was given himto the last drop, and then sprang upon his knees and curled round forthe sleep it had fully earned and intended to enjoy. 

Silence descended upon the room. Only the breathing of the dog upon themat came through the deep stillness, like the pulse of time marking theminutes; and the steady drip, drip of the fog outside upon thewindow-ledges dismally testified to the inclemency of the night beyond. And the soft crashings of the coals as the fire settled down into thegrate became less and less audible as the fire sank and the flamesresigned their fierceness. 

It was now well after eleven o'clock, and Dr. Silence devoted himselfagain to his book. He read the words on the printed page and took intheir meaning superficially, yet without starting into life thecorrelations of thought and suggestions that should accompanyinteresting reading. Underneath, all the while, his mental energies wereabsorbed in watching, listening, waiting for what might come. He was notover-sanguine himself, yet he did not wish to be taken by surprise. Moreover, the animals, his sensitive barometers, had incontinently goneto sleep. 

After reading a dozen pages, however, he realised that his mind wasreally occupied in reviewing the features of Pender's extraordinarystory, and that it was no longer necessary to steady his imagination bystudying the dull paragraphs detailed in the pages before him. He laiddown his book accordingly, and allowed his thoughts to dwell upon thefeatures of the Case. Speculations as to the meaning, however, herigorously suppressed, knowing that such thoughts would act upon hisimagination like wind upon the glowing embers of a fire. 

As the night wore on the silence grew deeper and deeper, and only atrare intervals he heard the sound of wheels on the main road a hundredyards away, where the horses went at a walking pace owing to the densityof the fog. The echo of pedestrian footsteps no longer reached him, theclamour of occasional voices no longer came down the side street. Thenight, muffled by fog, shrouded by veils of ultimate mystery, hung aboutthe haunted villa like a doom. Nothing in the house stirred. Stillness, in a thick blanket, lay over the upper storeys. Only the mist in theroom grew more dense, he thought, and the damp cold more penetrating. Certainly, from time to time, he shivered. 

The collie, now deep in slumber, moved occasionally, --grunted, sighed, or twitched his legs in dreams. Smoke lay on his knees, a pool of warm, black fur, only the closest observation detecting the movement of hissleek sides. It was difficult to distinguish exactly where his head andbody joined in that circle of glistening hair; only a black satin noseand a tiny tip of pink tongue betrayed the secret. 

Dr. Silence watched him, and felt comfortable. The collie's breathingwas soothing. The fire was well built, and would burn for another twohours without attention. He was not conscious of the least nervousness. He particularly wished to remain in his ordinary and normal state ofmind, and to force nothing. If sleep came naturally, he would let itcome--and even welcome it. The coldness of the room, when the fire dieddown later, would be sure to wake him again; and it would then be timeenough to carry these sleeping barometers up to bed. From variouspsychic premonitions he knew quite well that the night would not passwithout adventure; but he did not wish to force its arrival; and hewished to remain normal, and let the animals remain normal, so that, when it came, it would be unattended by excitement or by any strainingof the attention. Many experiments had made him wise. And, for the rest, he had no fear. 

Accordingly, after a time, he did fall asleep as he had expected, andthe last thing he remembered, before oblivion slipped up over his eyeslike soft wool, was the picture of Flame stretching all four legs atonce, and sighing noisily as he sought a more comfortable position forhis paws and muzzle upon the mat. 

 * * * * *

It was a good deal later when he became aware that a weight lay upon hischest, and that something was pencilling over his face and mouth. A softtouch on the cheek woke him. Something was patting him. 

He sat up with a jerk, and found himself staring straight into a pair ofbrilliant eyes, half green, half black. Smoke's face lay level with hisown; and the cat had climbed up with its front paws upon his chest. 

The lamp had burned low and the fire was nearly out, yet Dr. Silence sawin a moment that the cat was in an excited state. It kneaded with itsfront paws into his chest, shifting from one to the other. He felt themprodding against him. It lifted a leg very carefully and patted hischeek gingerly. Its fur, he saw, was standing ridgewise upon its back;the ears were flattened back somewhat; the tail was switching sharply. The cat, of course, had wakened him with a purpose, and the instant herealised this, he set it upon the arm of the chair and sprang up with aquick turn to face the empty room behind him. By some curious instinct, his arms of their own accord assumed an attitude of defence in front ofhim, as though to ward off something that threatened his safety. Yetnothing was visible. Only shapes of fog hung about rather heavily in theair, moving slightly to and fro. 

His mind was now fully alert, and the last vestiges of sleep gone. Heturned the lamp higher and peered about him. Two things he became awareof at once: one, that Smoke, while excited, was _pleasurably_ excited;the other, that the collie was no longer visible upon the mat at hisfeet. He had crept away to the corner of the wall farthest from thewindow, and lay watching the room with wide-open eyes, in which lurkedplainly something of alarm. 

Something in the dog's behaviour instantly struck Dr. Silence asunusual, and, calling him by name, he moved across to pat him. Flame gotup, wagged his tail, and came over slowly to the rug, uttering a lowsound that was half growl, half whine. He was evidently perturbed aboutsomething, and his master was proceeding to administer comfort when hisattention was suddenly drawn to the antics of his other four-footedcompanion, the cat. 

And what he saw filled him with something like amazement. 

Smoke had jumped down from the back of the arm-chair and now occupiedthe middle of the carpet, where, with tail erect and legs stiff asramrods, it was steadily pacing backwards and forwards in a narrowspace, uttering, as it did so, those curious little guttural sounds ofpleasure that only an animal of the feline species knows how to makeexpressive of supreme happiness. Its stiffened legs and arched back madeit appear larger than usual, and the black visage wore a smile ofbeatific joy. Its eyes blazed magnificently; it was in an ecstasy. 

At the end of every few paces it turned sharply and stalked back againalong the same line, padding softly, and purring like a roll of littlemuffled drums. It behaved precisely as though it were rubbing againstthe ankles of some one who remained invisible. A thrill ran down thedoctor's spine as he stood and stared. His experiment was growinginteresting at last. 

He called the collie's attention to his friend's performance to seewhether he too was aware of anything standing there upon the carpet, andthe dog's behaviour was significant and corroborative. He came as far ashis master's knees and then stopped dead, refusing to investigateclosely. In vain Dr. Silence urged him; he wagged his tail, whined alittle, and stood in a half-crouching attitude, staring alternately atthe cat and at his master's face. He was, apparently, both puzzled andalarmed, and the whine went deeper and deeper down into his throat tillit changed into an ugly snarl of awakening anger. 

Then the doctor called to him in a tone of command he had never known tobe disregarded; but still the dog, though springing up in response, declined to move nearer. He made tentative motions, pranced a littlelike a dog about to take to water, pretended to bark, and ran to and froon the carpet. So far there was no actual fear in his manner, but he wasuneasy and anxious, and nothing would induce him to go within touchingdistance of the walking cat. Once he made a complete circuit, but alwayscarefully out of reach; and in the end he returned to his master's legsand rubbed vigorously against him. Flame did not like the performance atall: that much was quite clear. 

For several minutes John Silence watched the performance of the cat withprofound attention and without interfering. Then he called to the animalby name. 

"Smoke, you mysterious beastie, what in the world are you about?" hesaid, in a coaxing tone. 

The cat looked up at him for a moment, smiling in its ecstasy, blinkingits eyes, but too happy to pause. He spoke to it again. He called to itseveral times, and each time it turned upon him its blazing eyes, drunkwith inner delight, opening and shutting its lips, its body large andrigid with excitement. Yet it never for one instant paused in its shortjourneys to and fro. 

He noted exactly what it did: it walked, he saw, the same number ofpaces each time, some six or seven steps, and then it turned sharply andretraced them. By the pattern of the great roses in the carpet hemeasured it. It kept to the same direction and the same line. It behavedprecisely as though it were rubbing against something solid. Undoubtedly, there was something standing there on that strip of carpet, something invisible to the doctor, something that alarmed the dog, yetcaused the cat unspeakable pleasure. 

"Smokie!" he called again, "Smokie, you black mystery, what is itexcites you so?"

Again the cat looked up at him for a brief second, and then continuedits sentry-walk, blissfully happy, intensely preoccupied. And, for aninstant, as he watched it, the doctor was aware that a faint uneasinessstirred in the depths of his own being, focusing itself for the momentupon this curious behaviour of the uncanny creature before him. 

There rose in him quite a new realisation of the mystery connected withthe whole feline tribe, but especially with that common member of it, the domestic cat--their hidden lives, their strange aloofness, theirincalculable subtlety. How utterly remote from anything that humanbeings understood lay the sources of their elusive activities. As hewatched the indescribable bearing of the little creature mincing alongthe strip of carpet under his eyes, coquetting with the powers ofdarkness, welcoming, maybe, some fearsome visitor, there stirred in hisheart a feeling strangely akin to awe. Its indifference to human kind, its serene superiority to the obvious, struck him forcibly with freshmeaning; so remote, so inaccessible seemed the secret purposes of itsreal life, so alien to the blundering honesty of other animals. Itsabsolute poise of bearing brought into his mind the opium-eater's wordsthat "no dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally itselfwith the mysterious"; and he became suddenly aware that the presence ofthe dog in this foggy, haunted room on the top of Putney Hill wasuncommonly welcome to him. He was glad to feel that Flame's dependablepersonality was with him. The savage growling at his heels was apleasant sound. He was glad to hear it. That marching cat made himuneasy. 

Finding that Smoke paid no further attention to his words, the doctordecided upon action. Would it rub against his leg, too? He would take itby surprise and see. 

He stepped quickly forward and placed himself upon the exact strip ofcarpet where it walked. 

But no cat is ever taken by surprise! The moment he occupied the spaceof the Intruder, setting his feet on the woven roses midway in the lineof travel, Smoke suddenly stopped purring and sat down. If lifted up itsface with the most innocent stare imaginable of its green eyes. He couldhave sworn it laughed. It was a perfect child again. In a single secondit had resumed its simple, domestic manner; and it gazed at him in sucha way that he almost felt Smoke was the normal being, and _his_ was theeccentric behaviour that was being watched. It was consummate, themanner in which it brought about this change so easily and so quickly. 

"Superb little actor!" he laughed in spite of himself, and stooped tostroke the shining black back. But, in a flash, as he touched its fur, the cat turned and spat at him viciously, striking at his hand with onepaw. Then, with a hurried scutter of feet, it shot like a shadow acrossthe floor and a moment later was calmly sitting over by thewindow-curtains washing its face as though nothing interested it in thewhole world but the cleanness of its cheeks and whiskers. 

John Silence straightened himself up and drew a long breath. He realisedthat the performance was temporarily at an end. The collie, meanwhile, who had watched the whole proceeding with marked disapproval, had nowlain down again upon the mat by the fire, no longer growling. It seemedto the doctor just as though something that had entered the room whilehe slept, alarming the dog, yet bringing happiness to the cat, had nowgone out again, leaving all as it was before. Whatever it was thatexcited its blissful attentions had retreated for the moment. 

He realised this intuitively. Smoke evidently realised it, too, forpresently he deigned to march back to the fireplace and jump upon hismaster's knees. Dr. Silence, patient and determined, settled down oncemore to his book. The animals soon slept; the fire blazed cheerfully;and the cold fog from outside poured into the room through everyavailable chink and crannie. 

For a long time silence and peace reigned in the room and Dr. Silenceavailed himself of the quietness to make careful notes of what hadhappened. He entered for future use in other cases an exhaustiveanalysis of what he had observed, especially with regard to the effectupon the two animals. It is impossible here, nor would it beintelligible to the reader unversed in the knowledge of the region knownto a scientifically trained psychic like Dr. Silence, to detail theseobservations. But to him it was clear, up to a certain point--for therest he must still wait and watch. So far, at least, he realised thatwhile he slept in the chair--that is, while his will was dormant--theroom had suffered intrusion from what he recognised as an intenselyactive Force, and might later be forced to acknowledge as something morethan merely a blind force, namely, a distinct personality. 

So far it had affected himself scarcely at all, but had acted directlyupon the simpler organisms of the animals. It stimulated keenly thecentres of the cat's psychic being, inducing a state of instanthappiness (intensifying its consciousness probably in the same way adrug or stimulant intensifies that of a human being); whereas it alarmedthe less sensitive dog, causing it to feel a vague apprehension anddistress. 

His own sudden action and exhibition of energy had served to disperse ittemporarily, yet he felt convinced--the indications were not lackingeven while he sat there making notes--that it still remained near tohim, conditionally if not spatially, and was, as it were, gatheringforce for a second attack. 

And, further, he intuitively understood that the relations between thetwo animals had undergone a subtle change: that the cat had becomeimmeasurably superior, confident, sure of itself in its own peculiarregion, whereas Flame had been weakened by an attack he could notcomprehend and knew not how to reply to. Though not yet afraid, he wasdefiant--ready to act against a fear that he felt to be approaching. Hewas no longer fatherly and protective towards the cat. Smoke held thekey to the situation; and both he and the cat knew it. 

Thus, as the minutes passed, John Silence sat and waited, keenly on thealert, wondering how soon the attack would be renewed, and at what pointit would be diverted from the animals and directed upon himself. 

The book lay on the floor beside him, his notes were complete. With onehand on the cat's fur, and the dog's front paws resting against hisfeet, the three of them dozed comfortably before the hot fire while thenight wore on and the silence deepened towards midnight. 

It was well after one o'clock in the morning when Dr. Silence turned thelamp out and lighted the candle preparatory to going up to bed. ThenSmoke suddenly woke with a loud sharp purr and sat up. It neitherstretched, washed nor turned: it listened. And the doctor, watching it, realised that a certain indefinable change had come about that verymoment in the room. A swift readjustment of the forces within the fourwalls had taken place--a new disposition of their personal equations. The balance was destroyed, the former harmony gone. Smoke, mostsensitive of barometers, had been the first to feel it, but the dog wasnot slow to follow suit, for on looking down he noted that Flame was nolonger asleep. He was lying with eyes wide open, and that same instanthe sat up on his great haunches and began to growl. 

Dr. Silence was in the act of taking the matches to re-light the lampwhen an audible movement in the room behind him made him pause. Smokeleaped down from his knee and moved forward a few paces across thecarpet. Then it stopped and stared fixedly; and the doctor stood up onthe rug to watch. 

As he rose the sound was repeated, and he discovered that it was not inthe room as he first thought, but outside, and that it came from moredirections than one. There was a rushing, sweeping noise against thewindow-panes, and simultaneously a sound of something brushing againstthe door--out in the hall. Smoke advanced sedately across the carpet, twitching his tail, and sat down within a foot of the door. Theinfluence that had destroyed the harmonious conditions of the room hadapparently moved in advance of its cause. Clearly, something was aboutto happen. 

For the first time that night John Silence hesitated; the thought ofthat dark narrow hall-way, choked with fog, and destitute of humancomfort, was unpleasant. He became aware of a faint creeping of hisflesh. He knew, of course, that the actual opening of the door was notnecessary to the invasion of the room that was about to take place, since neither doors nor windows, nor any other solid barriers couldinterpose an obstacle to what was seeking entrance. Yet the opening ofthe door would be significant and symbolic, and he distinctly shrankfrom it. 

But for a moment only. Smoke, turning with a show of impatience, recalled him to his purpose, and he moved past the sitting, watchingcreature, and deliberately opened the door to its full width. 

What subsequently happened, happened in the feeble and flickering lightof the solitary candle on the mantlepiece. 

Through the opened door he saw the hall, dimly lit and thick with fog. Nothing, of course, was visible--nothing but the hat-stand, the Africanspears in dark lines upon the wall and the high-backed wooden chairstanding grotesquely underneath on the oilcloth floor. For one instantthe fog seemed to move and thicken oddly; but he set that down to thescore of the imagination. The door had opened upon nothing. 

Yet Smoke apparently thought otherwise, and the deep growling of thecollie from the mat at the back of the room seemed to confirm hisjudgment. 

For, proud and self-possessed, the cat had again risen to his feet, andhaving advanced to the door, was now ushering some one slowly into theroom. Nothing could have been more evident. He paced from side to side, bowing his little head with great _empressement_ and holding hisstiffened tail aloft like a flag-staff. He turned this way and that, mincing to and fro, and showing signs of supreme satisfaction. He was inhis element. He welcomed the intrusion, and apparently reckoned that hiscompanions, the doctor and the dog, would welcome it likewise. 

The Intruder had returned for a second attack. 

Dr. Silence moved slowly backwards and took up his position on thehearthrug, keying himself up to a condition of concentrated attention. 

He noted that Flame stood beside him, facing the room, with bodymotionless, and head moving swiftly from side to side with a curiousswaying movement. His eyes were wide open, his back rigid, his neck andjaws thrust forward, his legs tense and ready to leap. Savage, ready forattack or defence, yet dreadfully puzzled and perhaps already a littlecowed, he stood and stared, the hair on his spine and sides positivelybristling outwards as though a wind played through it. In the dimfirelight he looked like a great yellow-haired wolf, silent, eyesshooting dark fire, exceedingly formidable. It was Flame, the terrible. 

Smoke, meanwhile, advanced from the door towards the middle of the room, adopting the very slow pace of an invisible companion. A few feet awayit stopped and began to smile and blink its eyes. There was somethingdeliberately coaxing in its attitude as it stood there undecided on thecarpet, clearly wishing to effect some sort of introduction between theIntruder and its canine friend and ally. It assumed its most winningmanners, purring, smiling, looking persuasively from one to the other, and making quick tentative steps first in one direction and then in theother. There had always existed such perfect understanding between themin everything. Surely Flame would appreciate Smoke's intention now, andacquiesce. 

But the old collie made no advances. He bared his teeth, lifting hislips till the gums showed, and stood stockstill with fixed eyes andheaving sides. The doctor moved a little farther back, watching intentlythe smallest movement, and it was just then he divined suddenly from thecat's behaviour and attitude that it was not only a single companion ithad ushered into the room, but _several_. It kept crossing over from oneto the other, looking up at each in turn. It sought to win over the dogto friendliness with them all. The original Intruder had come back withreinforcements. And at the same time he further realised that theIntruder was something more than a blindly acting force, impersonalthough destructive. It was a Personality, and moreover a greatpersonality. And it was accompanied for the purposes of assistance by ahost of other personalities, minor in degree, but similar in kind. 

He braced himself in the corner against the mantelpiece and waited, hiswhole being roused to defence, for he was now fully aware that theattack had spread to include himself as well as the animals, and hemust be on the alert. He strained his eyes through the foggy atmosphere, trying in vain to see what the cat and dog saw; but the candlelightthrew an uncertain and flickering light across the room and his eyesdiscerned nothing. On the floor Smoke moved softly in front of him likea black shadow, his eyes gleaming as he turned his head, still tryingwith many insinuating gestures and much purring to bring about theintroductions he desired. 

But it was all in vain. Flame stood riveted to one spot, motionless as afigure carved in stone. 

Some minutes passed, during which only the cat moved, and then therecame a sharp change. Flame began to back towards the wall. He moved hishead from side to side as he went, sometimes turning to snap atsomething almost behind him. They were advancing upon him, trying tosurround him. His distress became very marked from now onwards, and itseemed to the doctor that his anger merged into genuine terror andbecame overwhelmed by it. The savage growl sounded perilously like awhine, and more than once he tried to dive past his master's legs, asthough hunting for a way of escape. He was trying to avoid somethingthat everywhere blocked the way. 

This terror of the indomitable fighter impressed the doctor enormously;yet also painfully; stirring his impatience; for he had never beforeseen the dog show signs of giving in, and it distressed him to witnessit. He knew, however, that he was not giving in easily, and understoodthat it was really impossible for him to gauge the animal's sensationsproperly at all. What Flame felt, and saw, must be terrible indeed toturn him all at once into a coward. He faced something that made himafraid of more than his life merely. The doctor spoke a few quick wordsof encouragement to him, and stroked the bristling hair. But withoutmuch success. The collie seemed already beyond the reach of comfort suchas that, and the collapse of the old dog followed indeed very speedilyafter this. 

And Smoke, meanwhile, remained behind, watching the advance, but notjoining in it; sitting, pleased and expectant, considering that all wasgoing well and as it wished. It was kneading on the carpet with itsfront paws--slowly, laboriously, as though its feet were dipped intreacle. The sound its claws made as they caught in the threads wasdistinctly audible. It was still smiling, blinking, purring. 

Suddenly the collie uttered a poignant short bark and leaped heavily toone side. His bared teeth traced a line of whiteness through the gloom. The next instant he dashed past his master's legs, almost upsetting hisbalance, and shot out into the room, where he went blundering wildlyagainst walls and furniture. But that bark was significant; the doctorhad heard it before and knew what it meant: for it was the cry of thefighter against odds and it meant that the old beast had found hiscourage again. Possibly it was only the courage of despair, but at anyrate the fighting would be terrific. And Dr. Silence understood, too, that he dared not interfere. Flame must fight his own enemies in his ownway. 

But the cat, too, had heard that dreadful bark; and it, too, hadunderstood. This was more than it had bargained for. Across the dimshadows of that haunted room there must have passed some secret signalof distress between the animals. Smoke stood up and looked swiftly abouthim. He uttered a piteous meow and trotted smartly away into the greaterdarkness by the windows. What his object was only those endowed with thespirit-like intelligence of cats might know. But, at any rate, he had atlast ranged himself on the side of his friend. And the little beastmeant business. 

At the same moment the collie managed to gain the door. The doctor sawhim rush through into the hall like a flash of yellow light. He shotacross the oilcloth, and tore up the stairs, but in another second heappeared again, flying down the steps and landing at the bottom in atumbling heap, whining, cringing, terrified. The doctor saw him slinkback into the room again and crawl round by the wall towards the cat. Was, then, even the staircase occupied? Did _They_ stand also in thehall? Was the whole house crowded from floor to ceiling?

The thought came to add to the keen distress he felt at the sight of thecollie's discomfiture. And, indeed, his own personal distress hadincreased in a marked degree during the past minutes, and continued toincrease steadily to the climax. He recognised that the drain on his ownvitality grew steadily, and that the attack was now directed againsthimself even more than against the defeated dog, and the too muchdeceived cat. 

It all seemed so rapid and uncalculated after that--the events that tookplace in this little modern room at the top of Putney Hill betweenmidnight and sunrise--that Dr. Silence was hardly able to follow andremember it all. It came about with such uncanny swiftness and terror;the light was so uncertain; the movements of the black cat so difficultto follow on the dark carpet, and the doctor himself so weary and takenby surprise--that he found it almost impossible to observe accurately, or to recall afterwards precisely what it was he had seen or in whatorder the incidents had taken place. He never could understand whatdefect of vision on his part made it seem as though the cat hadduplicated itself at first, and then increased indefinitely, so thatthere were at least a dozen of them darting silently about the floor, leaping softly on to chairs and tables, passing like shadows from theopen door to the end of the room, all black as sin, with brilliant greeneyes flashing fire in all directions. It was like the reflections from ascore of mirrors placed round the walls at different angles. Nor couldhe make out at the time why the size of the room seemed to have altered, grown much larger, and why it extended away behind him where ordinarilythe wall should have been. The snarling of the enraged and terrifiedcollie sounded sometimes so far away; the ceiling seemed to have raiseditself so much higher than before, and much of the furniture had changedin appearance and shifted marvellously. 

It was all so confused and confusing, as though the little room he knewhad become merged and transformed into the dimensions of quite anotherchamber, that came to him, with its host of cats and its strangedistances, in a sort of vision. 

But these changes came about a little later, and at a time when hisattention was so concentrated upon the proceedings of Smoke and thecollie, that he only observed them, as it were, subconsciously. And theexcitement, the flickering candlelight, the distress he felt for thecollie, and the distorting atmosphere of fog were the poorest possibleallies to careful observation. 

At first he was only aware that the dog was repeating his shortdangerous bark from time to time, snapping viciously at the empty air, afoot or so from the ground. Once, indeed, he sprang upwards andforwards, working furiously with teeth and paws, and with a noise likewolves fighting, but only to dash back the next minute against the wallbehind him. Then, after lying still for a bit, he rose to a crouchingposition as though to spring again, snarling horribly and making shorthalf-circles with lowered head. And Smoke all the while meowed piteouslyby the window as though trying to draw the attack upon himself. 

Then it was that the rush of the whole dreadful business seemed to turnaside from the dog and direct itself upon his own person. The collie hadmade another spring and fallen back with a crash into the corner, wherehe made noise enough in his savage rage to waken the dead before he fellto whining and then finally lay still. And directly afterwards thedoctor's own distress became intolerably acute. He had made a halfmovement forward to come to the rescue when a veil that was denser thanmere fog seemed to drop down over the scene, draping room, walls, animals and fire in a mist of darkness and folding also about his ownmind. Other forms moved silently across the field of vision, forms thathe recognised from previous experiments, and welcomed not. Unholythoughts began to crowd into his brain, sinister suggestions of evilpresented themselves seductively. Ice seemed to settle about his heart, and his mind trembled. He began to lose memory--memory of his identity, of where he was, of what he ought to do. The very foundations of hisstrength were shaken. His will seemed paralysed. 

And it was then that the room filled with this horde of cats, all darkas the night, all silent, all with lamping eyes of green fire. Thedimensions of the place altered and shifted. He was in a much largerspace. The whining of the dog sounded far away, and all about him thecats flew busily to and fro, silently playing their tearing, rushinggame of evil, weaving the pattern of their dark purpose upon the floor. He strove hard to collect himself and remember the words of power he hadmade use of before in similar dread positions where his dangerouspractice had sometimes led; but he could recall nothing consecutively; amist lay over his mind and memory; he felt dazed and his forcesscattered. The deeps within were too troubled for healing power to comeout of them. 

It was glamour, of course, he realised afterwards, the strong glamourthrown upon his imagination by some powerful personality behind theveil; but at the time he was not sufficiently aware of this and, as withall true glamour, was unable to grasp where the true ended and the falsebegan. He was caught momentarily in the same vortex that had sought tolure the cat to destruction through its delight, and threatened utterlyto overwhelm the dog through its terror. 

There came a sound in the chimney behind him like wind booming andtearing its way down. The windows rattled. The candle flickered and wentout. The glacial atmosphere closed round him with the cold of death, anda great rushing sound swept by overhead as though the ceiling had liftedto a great height. He heard the door shut. Far away it sounded. He feltlost, shelterless in the depths of his soul. Yet still he held out andresisted while the climax of the fight came nearer and nearer. .. . He hadstepped into the stream of forces awakened by Pender and he knew that hemust withstand them to the end or come to a conclusion that it was notgood for a man to come to. Something from the region of utter cold wasupon him. 

And then quite suddenly, through the confused mists about him, thereslowly rose up the Personality that had been all the time directing thebattle. Some force entered his being that shook him as the tempestshakes a leaf, and close against his eyes--clean level with his face--hefound himself staring into the wreck of a vast dark Countenance, acountenance that was terrible even in its ruin. 

For ruined it was, and terrible it was, and the mark of spiritual evilwas branded everywhere upon its broken features. Eyes, face and hairrose level with his own, and for a space of time he never could properlymeasure, or determine, these two, a man and a woman, looked straightinto each other's visages and down into each other's hearts. 

And John Silence, the soul with the good, unselfish motive, held his ownagainst the dark discarnate woman whose motive was pure evil, and whosesoul was on the side of the Dark Powers. 

It was the climax that touched the depth of power within him and beganto restore him slowly to his own. He was conscious, of course, ofeffort, and yet it seemed no superhuman one, for he had recognised thecharacter of his opponent's power, and he called upon the good withinhim to meet and overcome it. The inner forces stirred and trembled inresponse to his call. They did not at first come readily as was theirhabit, for under the spell of glamour they had already been diabolicallylulled into inactivity, but come they eventually did, rising out of theinner spiritual nature he had learned with so much time and pain toawaken to life. And power and confidence came with them. He began tobreathe deeply and regularly, and at the same time to absorb intohimself the forces opposed to him, and to _turn them to his ownaccount_. By ceasing to resist, and allowing the deadly stream to pourinto him unopposed, he used the very power supplied by his adversary andthus enormously increased his own. 

For this spiritual alchemy he had learned. He understood that forceultimately is everywhere one and the same; it is the motive behind thatmakes it good or evil; and his motive was entirely unselfish. Heknew--provided he was not first robbed of self-control--how vicariouslyto absorb these evil radiations into himself and change them magicallyinto his own good purposes. And, since his motive was pure and his soulfearless, they could not work him harm. 

Thus he stood in the main stream of evil unwittingly attracted byPender, deflecting its course upon himself; and after passing throughthe purifying filter of his own unselfishness these energies could onlyadd to his store of experience, of knowledge, and therefore of power. And, as his self-control returned to him, he gradually accomplished thispurpose, even though trembling while he did so. 

Yet the struggle was severe, and in spite of the freezing chill of theair, the perspiration poured down his face. Then, by slow degrees, thedark and dreadful countenance faded, the glamour passed from his soul, the normal proportions returned to walls and ceiling, the forms meltedback into the fog, and the whirl of rushing shadow-cats disappearedwhence they came. 

And with the return of the consciousness of his own identity JohnSilence was restored to the full control of his own will-power. In adeep, modulated voice he began to utter certain rhythmical sounds thatslowly rolled through the air like a rising sea, filling the room withpowerful vibratory activities that whelmed all irregularities of lesservibrations in its own swelling tone. He made certain sigils, gesturesand movements at the same time. For several minutes he continued toutter these words, until at length the growing volume dominated thewhole room and mastered the manifestation of all that opposed it. Forjust as he understood the spiritual alchemy that can transmute evilforces by raising them into higher channels, so he knew from long studythe occult use of sound, and its direct effect upon the plastic regionwherein the powers of spiritual evil work their fell purposes. Harmonywas restored first of all to his own soul, and thence to the room andall its occupants. 

And, after himself, the first to recognise it was the old dog lying inhis corner. Flame began suddenly uttering sounds of pleasure, that"something" between a growl and a grunt that dogs make upon beingrestored to their master's confidence. Dr. Silence heard the thumping ofthe collie's tail against the floor. And the grunt and the thumpingtouched the depth of affection in the man's heart, and gave him someinkling of what agonies the dumb creature had suffered. 

Next, from the shadows by the window, a somewhat shrill purringannounced the restoration of the cat to its normal state. Smoke wasadvancing across the carpet. He seemed very pleased with himself, andsmiled with an expression of supreme innocence. He was no shadow-cat, but real and full of his usual and perfect self-possession. He marchedalong, picking his way delicately, but with a stately dignity thatsuggested his ancestry with the majesty of Egypt. His eyes no longerglared; they shone steadily before him, they radiated, not excitement, but knowledge. Clearly he was anxious to make amends for the mischief towhich he had unwittingly lent himself owing to his subtle and electricconstitution. 

Still uttering his sharp high purrings he marched up to his master andrubbed vigorously against his legs. Then he stood on his hind feet andpawed his knees and stared beseechingly up into his face. He turned hishead towards the corner where the collie still lay, thumping his tailfeebly and pathetically. 

John Silence understood. He bent down and stroked the creature's livingfur, noting the line of bright blue sparks that followed the motion ofhis hand down its back. And then they advanced together towards thecorner where the dog was. 

Smoke went first and put his nose gently against his friend's muzzle, purring while he rubbed, and uttering little soft sounds of affection inhis throat. The doctor lit the candle and brought it over. He saw thecollie lying on its side against the wall; it was utterly exhausted, andfoam still hung about its jaws. Its tail and eyes responded to the soundof its name, but it was evidently very weak and overcome. Smokecontinued to rub against its cheek and nose and eyes, sometimes evenstanding on its body and kneading into the thick yellow hair. Flamereplied from time to time by little licks of the tongue, most of themcuriously misdirected. 

But Dr. Silence felt intuitively that something disastrous had happened, and his heart was wrung. He stroked the dear body, feeling it over forbruises or broken bones, but finding none. He fed it with what remainedof the sandwiches and milk, but the creature clumsily upset the saucerand lost the sandwiches between its paws, so that the doctor had to feedit with his own hand. And all the while Smoke meowed piteously. 

Then John Silence began to understand. He went across to the fartherside of the room and called aloud to it. 

"Flame, old man! come!"

At any other time the dog would have been upon him in an instant, barking and leaping to the shoulder. And even now he got up, thoughheavily and awkwardly, to his feet. He started to run, wagging his tailmore briskly. He collided first with a chair, and then ran straight intoa table. Smoke trotted close at his side, trying his very best to guidehim. But it was useless. Dr. Silence had to lift him up into his ownarms and carry him like a baby. For he was blind. 

III

It was a week later when John Silence called to see the author in hisnew house, and found him well on the way to recovery and already busyagain with his writing. The haunted look had left his eyes, and heseemed cheerful and confident. 

"Humour restored?" laughed the doctor, as soon as they were comfortablysettled in the room overlooking the Park. 

"I've had no trouble since I left that dreadful place, " returned Pendergratefully; "and thanks to you--"

The doctor stopped him with a gesture. 

"Never mind that, " he said, "we'll discuss your new plans afterwards, and my scheme for relieving you of the house and helping you settleelsewhere. Of course it must be pulled down, for it's not fit for anysensitive person to live in, and any other tenant might be afflicted inthe same way you were. Although, personally, I think the evil hasexhausted itself by now. "

He told the astonished author something of his experiences in it withthe animals. 

"I don't pretend to understand, " Pender said, when the account wasfinished, "but I and my wife are intensely relieved to be free of itall. Only I must say I should like to know something of the formerhistory of the house. When we took it six months ago I heard no wordagainst it. "

Dr. Silence drew a typewritten paper from his pocket. 

"I can satisfy your curiosity to some extent, " he said, running his eyeover the sheets, and then replacing them in his coat; "for by mysecretary's investigations I have been able to check certain informationobtained in the hypnotic trance by a 'sensitive' who helps me in suchcases. The former occupant who haunted you appears to have been a womanof singularly atrocious life and character who finally suffered death byhanging, after a series of crimes that appalled the whole of England andonly came to light by the merest chance. She came to her end in the year1798, for it was not this particular house she lived in, but a muchlarger one that then stood upon the site it now occupies, and was then, of course, not in London, but in the country. She was a person ofintellect, possessed of a powerful, trained will, and of consummateaudacity, and I am convinced availed herself of the resources of thelower magic to attain her ends. This goes far to explain the virulenceof the attack upon yourself, and why she is still able to carry on afterdeath the evil practices that formed her main purpose during life. "

"You think that after death a soul can still consciously direct--"gasped the author. 

"I think, as I told you before, that the forces of a powerfulpersonality may still persist after death in the line of their originalmomentum, " replied the doctor; "and that strong thoughts and purposescan still react upon suitably prepared brains long after theiroriginators have passed away. 

"If you knew anything of magic, " he pursued, "you would know thatthought is dynamic, and that it may call into existence forms andpictures that may well exist for hundreds of years. For, not far removedfrom the region of our human life is another region where float thewaste and drift of all the centuries, the limbo of the shells of thedead; a densely populated region crammed with horror and abomination ofall descriptions, and sometimes galvanised into active life again by thewill of a trained manipulator, a mind versed in the practices of lowermagic. That this woman understood its vile commerce, I am persuaded, and the forces she set going during her life have simply beenaccumulating ever since, and would have continued to do so had they notbeen drawn down upon yourself, and afterwards discharged and satisfiedthrough me. 

"Anything might have brought down the attack, for, besides drugs, thereare certain violent emotions, certain moods of the soul, certainspiritual fevers, if I may so call them, which directly open the innerbeing to a cognisance of this astral region I have mentioned. In yourcase it happened to be a peculiarly potent drug that did it. 

"But now, tell me, " he added, after a pause, handing to the perplexedauthor a pencil drawing he had made of the dark countenance that hadappeared to him during the night on Putney Hill--"tell me if yourecognise this face?"

Pender looked at the drawing closely, greatly astonished. He shuddered alittle as he looked. 

"Undoubtedly, " he said, "it is the face I kept trying to draw--dark, with the great mouth and jaw, and the drooping eye. That is the woman. "

Dr. Silence then produced from his pocket-book an old-fashioned woodcutof the same person which his secretary had unearthed from the records ofthe Newgate Calendar. The woodcut and the pencil drawing were twodifferent aspects of the same dreadful visage. The men compared them forsome moments in silence. 

"It makes me thank God for the limitations of our senses, " said Penderquietly, with a sigh; "continuous clairvoyance must be a soreaffliction. "

"It is indeed, " returned John Silence significantly, "and if all thepeople nowadays who claim to be clairvoyant were really so, thestatistics of suicide and lunacy would be considerably higher than theyare. It is little wonder, " he added, "that your sense of humour wasclouded, with the mind-forces of that dead monster trying to use yourbrain for their dissemination. You have had an interesting adventure, Mr. Felix Pender, and, let me add, a fortunate escape. "

The author was about to renew his thanks when there came a sound ofscratching at the door, and the doctor sprang up quickly. 

"It's time for me to go. I left my dog on the step, but I suppose--"

Before he had time to open the door, it had yielded to the pressurebehind it and flew wide open to admit a great yellow-haired collie. Thedog, wagging his tail and contorting his whole body with delight, toreacross the floor and tried to leap up upon his owner's breast. And therewas laughter and happiness in the old eyes; for they were clear again asthe day. 

CASE II: ANCIENT SORCERIES

I

There are, it would appear, certain wholly unremarkable persons, withnone of the characteristics that invite adventure, who yet once or twicein the course of their smooth lives undergo an experience so strangethat the world catches its breath--and looks the other way! And it wascases of this kind, perhaps, more than any other, that fell into thewide-spread net of John Silence, the psychic doctor, and, appealing tohis deep humanity, to his patience, and to his great qualities ofspiritual sympathy, led often to the revelation of problems of thestrangest complexity, and of the profoundest possible human interest. 

Matters that seemed almost too curious and fantastic for belief he lovedto trace to their hidden sources. To unravel a tangle in the very soulof things--and to release a suffering human soul in the process--waswith him a veritable passion. And the knots he untied were, indeed, after passing strange. 

The world, of course, asks for some plausible basis to which it canattach credence--something it can, at least, pretend to explain. Theadventurous type it can understand: such people carry about with them anadequate explanation of their exciting lives, and their charactersobviously drive them into the circumstances which produce theadventures. It expects nothing else from them, and is satisfied. Butdull, ordinary folk have no right to out-of-the-way experiences, and theworld having been led to expect otherwise, is disappointed with them, not to say shocked. Its complacent judgment has been rudely disturbed. 

"Such a thing happened to _that_ man!" it cries--"a commonplace personlike that! It is too absurd! There must be something wrong!"

Yet there could be no question that something did actually happen tolittle Arthur Vezin, something of the curious nature he described to Dr. Silence. Outwardly or inwardly, it happened beyond a doubt, and in spiteof the jeers of his few friends who heard the tale, and observed wiselythat "such a thing might perhaps have come to Iszard, that crack-brainedIszard, or to that odd fish Minski, but it could never have happened tocommonplace little Vezin, who was fore-ordained to live and dieaccording to scale. "

But, whatever his method of death was, Vezin certainly did not "liveaccording to scale" so far as this particular event in his otherwiseuneventful life was concerned; and to hear him recount it, and watch hispale delicate features change, and hear his voice grow softer and morehushed as he proceeded, was to know the conviction that his haltingwords perhaps failed sometimes to convey. He lived the thing over againeach time he told it. His whole personality became muffled in therecital. It subdued him more than ever, so that the tale became alengthy apology for an experience that he deprecated. He appeared toexcuse himself and ask your pardon for having dared to take part in sofantastic an episode. For little Vezin was a timid, gentle, sensitivesoul, rarely able to assert himself, tender to man and beast, and almostconstitutionally unable to say No, or to claim many things that shouldrightly have been his. His whole scheme of life seemed utterly remotefrom anything more exciting than missing a train or losing an umbrellaon an omnibus. And when this curious event came upon him he was alreadymore years beyond forty than his friends suspected or he cared to admit. 

John Silence, who heard him speak of his experience more than once, saidthat he sometimes left out certain details and put in others; yet theywere all obviously true. The whole scene was unforgettablycinematographed on to his mind. None of the details were imagined orinvented. And when he told the story with them all complete, the effectwas undeniable. His appealing brown eyes shone, and much of the charmingpersonality, usually so carefully repressed, came forward and revealeditself. His modesty was always there, of course, but in the telling heforgot the present and allowed himself to appear almost vividly as helived again in the past of his adventure. 

He was on the way home when it happened, crossing northern France fromsome mountain trip or other where he buried himself solitary-wise everysummer. He had nothing but an unregistered bag in the rack, and thetrain was jammed to suffocation, most of the passengers being unredeemedholiday English. He disliked them, not because they were hisfellow-countrymen, but because they were noisy and obtrusive, obliterating with their big limbs and tweed clothing all the quietertints of the day that brought him satisfaction and enabled him to meltinto insignificance and forget that he was anybody. These Englishclashed about him like a brass band, making him feel vaguely that heought to be more self-assertive and obstreperous, and that he did notclaim insistently enough all kinds of things that he didn't want andthat were really valueless, such as corner seats, windows up or down, and so forth. 

So that he felt uncomfortable in the train, and wished the journey wereover and he was back again living with his unmarried sister in Surbiton. 

And when the train stopped for ten panting minutes at the little stationin northern France, and he got out to stretch his legs on the platform, and saw to his dismay a further batch of the British Isles debouchingfrom another train, it suddenly seemed impossible to him to continue thejourney. Even _his_ flabby soul revolted, and the idea of staying anight in the little town and going on next day by a slower, emptiertrain, flashed into his mind. The guard was already shouting "_envoiture_" and the corridor of his compartment was already packed whenthe thought came to him. And, for once, he acted with decision andrushed to snatch his bag. 

Finding the corridor and steps impassable, he tapped at the window (forhe had a corner seat) and begged the Frenchman who sat opposite to handhis luggage out to him, explaining in his wretched French that heintended to break the journey there. And this elderly Frenchman, hedeclared, gave him a look, half of warning, half of reproach, that tohis dying day he could never forget; handed the bag through the windowof the moving train; and at the same time poured into his ears a longsentence, spoken rapidly and low, of which he was able to comprehendonly the last few words: "_à cause du sommeil et à cause des chats_. "

In reply to Dr. Silence, whose singular psychic acuteness at once seizedupon this Frenchman as a vital point in the adventure, Vezin admittedthat the man had impressed him favourably from the beginning, thoughwithout being able to explain why. They had sat facing one anotherduring the four hours of the journey, and though no conversation hadpassed between them--Vezin was timid about his stuttering French--heconfessed that his eyes were being continually drawn to his face, almost, he felt, to rudeness, and that each, by a dozen nameless littlepolitenesses and attentions, had evinced the desire to be kind. The menliked each other and their personalities did not clash, or would nothave clashed had they chanced to come to terms of acquaintance. TheFrenchman, indeed, seemed to have exercised a silent protectiveinfluence over the insignificant little Englishman, and without words orgestures betrayed that he wished him well and would gladly have been ofservice to him. 

"And this sentence that he hurled at you after the bag?" asked JohnSilence, smiling that peculiarly sympathetic smile that always meltedthe prejudices of his patient, "were you unable to follow it exactly?"

"It was so quick and low and vehement, " explained Vezin, in his smallvoice, "that I missed practically the whole of it. I only caught the fewwords at the very end, because he spoke them so clearly, and his facewas bent down out of the carriage window so near to mine. "

"'_À cause du sommeil et à cause des chats'?_" repeated Dr. Silence, asthough half speaking to himself. 

"That's it exactly, " said Vezin; "which, I take it, means something like'because of sleep and because of the cats, ' doesn't it?"

"Certainly, that's how I should translate it, " the doctor observedshortly, evidently not wishing to interrupt more than necessary. 

"And the rest of the sentence--all the first part I couldn't understand, I mean--was a warning not to do something--not to stop in the town, orat some particular place in the town, perhaps. That was the impressionit made on me. "

Then, of course, the train rushed off, and left Vezin standing on theplatform alone and rather forlorn. 

The little town climbed in straggling fashion up a sharp hill rising outof the plain at the back of the station, and was crowned by the twintowers of the ruined cathedral peeping over the summit. From the stationitself it looked uninteresting and modern, but the fact was that themediaeval position lay out of sight just beyond the crest. And once hereached the top and entered the old streets, he stepped clean out ofmodern life into a bygone century. The noise and bustle of the crowdedtrain seemed days away. The spirit of this silent hill-town, remote fromtourists and motor-cars, dreaming its own quiet life under the autumnsun, rose up and cast its spell upon him. Long before he recognised thisspell he acted under it. He walked softly, almost on tiptoe, down thewinding narrow streets where the gables all but met over his head, andhe entered the doorway of the solitary inn with a deprecating and modestdemeanour that was in itself an apology for intruding upon the place anddisturbing its dream. 

At first, however, Vezin said, he noticed very little of all this. Theattempt at analysis came much later. What struck him then was only thedelightful contrast of the silence and peace after the dust and noisyrattle of the train. He felt soothed and stroked like a cat. 

"Like a cat, you said?" interrupted John Silence, quickly catching himup. 

"Yes. At the very start I felt that. " He laughed apologetically. "I feltas though the warmth and the stillness and the comfort made me purr. Itseemed to be the general mood of the whole place--then. "

The inn, a rambling ancient house, the atmosphere of the old coachingdays still about it, apparently did not welcome him too warmly. He felthe was only tolerated, he said. But it was cheap and comfortable, andthe delicious cup of afternoon tea he ordered at once made him feelreally very pleased with himself for leaving the train in this bold, original way. For to him it had seemed bold and original. He feltsomething of a dog. His room, too, soothed him with its dark panellingand low irregular ceiling, and the long sloping passage that led to itseemed the natural pathway to a real Chamber of Sleep--a little dimcubby hole out of the world where noise could not enter. It looked uponthe courtyard at the back. It was all very charming, and made him thinkof himself as dressed in very soft velvet somehow, and the floors seemedpadded, the walls provided with cushions. The sounds of the streetscould not penetrate there. It was an atmosphere of absolute rest thatsurrounded him. 

On engaging the two-franc room he had interviewed the only person whoseemed to be about that sleepy afternoon, an elderly waiter withDundreary whiskers and a drowsy courtesy, who had ambled lazily towardshim across the stone yard; but on coming downstairs again for a littlepromenade in the town before dinner he encountered the proprietressherself. She was a large woman whose hands, feet, and features seemed toswim towards him out of a sea of person. They emerged, so to speak. Butshe had great dark, vivacious eyes that counteracted the bulk of herbody, and betrayed the fact that in reality she was both vigorous andalert. When he first caught sight of her she was knitting in a low chairagainst the sunlight of the wall, and something at once made him see heras a great tabby cat, dozing, yet awake, heavily sleepy, and yet at thesame time prepared for instantaneous action. A great mouser on the watchoccurred to him. 

She took him in with a single comprehensive glance that was politewithout being cordial. Her neck, he noticed, was extraordinarily supplein spite of its proportions, for it turned so easily to follow him, andthe head it carried bowed so very flexibly. 

"But when she looked at me, you know, " said Vezin, with that littleapologetic smile in his brown eyes, and that faintly deprecating gestureof the shoulders that was characteristic of him, "the odd notion came tome that really she had intended to make quite a different movement, andthat with a single bound she could have leaped at me across the width ofthat stone yard and pounced upon me like some huge cat upon a mouse. "

He laughed a little soft laugh, and Dr. Silence made a note in his bookwithout interrupting, while Vezin proceeded in a tone as though hefeared he had already told too much and more than we could believe. 

"Very soft, yet very active she was, for all her size and mass, and Ifelt she knew what I was doing even after I had passed and was behindher back. She spoke to me, and her voice was smooth and running. Sheasked if I had my luggage, and was comfortable in my room, and thenadded that dinner was at seven o'clock, and that they were very earlypeople in this little country town. Clearly, she intended to convey thatlate hours were not encouraged. "

Evidently, she contrived by voice and manner to give him the impressionthat here he would be "managed, " that everything would be arranged andplanned for him, and that he had nothing to do but fall into the grooveand obey. No decided action or sharp personal effort would be looked forfrom him. It was the very reverse of the train. He walked quietly outinto the street feeling soothed and peaceful. He realised that he was ina _milieu_ that suited him and stroked him the right way. It was so mucheasier to be obedient. He began to purr again, and to feel that all thetown purred with him. 

About the streets of that little town he meandered gently, fallingdeeper and deeper into the spirit of repose that characterised it. Withno special aim he wandered up and down, and to and fro. The Septembersunshine fell slantingly over the roofs. Down winding alleyways, fringedwith tumbling gables and open casements, he caught fairylike glimpses ofthe great plain below, and of the meadows and yellow copses lying like adream-map in the haze. The spell of the past held very potently here, hefelt. 

The streets were full of picturesquely garbed men and women, all busyenough, going their respective ways; but no one took any notice of himor turned to stare at his obviously English appearance. He was even ableto forget that with his tourist appearance he was a false note in acharming picture, and he melted more and more into the scene, feelingdelightfully insignificant and unimportant and unselfconscious. It waslike becoming part of a softly coloured dream which he did not evenrealise to be a dream. 

On the eastern side the hill fell away more sharply, and the plain belowran off rather suddenly into a sea of gathering shadows in which thelittle patches of woodland looked like islands and the stubble fieldslike deep water. Here he strolled along the old ramparts of ancientfortifications that once had been formidable, but now were onlyvision-like with their charming mingling of broken grey walls andwayward vine and ivy. From the broad coping on which he sat for amoment, level with the rounded tops of clipped plane trees, he saw theesplanade far below lying in shadow. Here and there a yellow sunbeamcrept in and lay upon the fallen yellow leaves, and from the height helooked down and saw that the townsfolk were walking to and fro in thecool of the evening. He could just hear the sound of their slowfootfalls, and the murmur of their voices floated up to him through thegaps between the trees. The figures looked like shadows as he caughtglimpses of their quiet movements far below. 

He sat there for some time pondering, bathed in the waves of murmurs andhalf-lost echoes that rose to his ears, muffled by the leaves of theplane trees. The whole town, and the little hill out of which it grew asnaturally as an ancient wood, seemed to him like a being lying therehalf asleep on the plain and crooning to itself as it dozed. 

And, presently, as he sat lazily melting into its dream, a sound ofhorns and strings and wood instruments rose to his ears, and the townband began to play at the far end of the crowded terrace below to theaccompaniment of a very soft, deep-throated drum. Vezin was verysensitive to music, knew about it intelligently, and had even ventured, unknown to his friends, upon the composition of quiet melodies withlow-running chords which he played to himself with the soft pedal whenno one was about. And this music floating up through the trees from aninvisible and doubtless very picturesque band of the townspeople whollycharmed him. He recognised nothing that they played, and it sounded asthough they were simply improvising without a conductor. No definitelymarked time ran through the pieces, which ended and began oddly afterthe fashion of wind through an Aeolian harp. It was part of the placeand scene, just as the dying sunlight and faintly breathing wind werepart of the scene and hour, and the mellow notes of old-fashionedplaintive horns, pierced here and there by the sharper strings, all halfsmothered by the continuous booming of the deep drum, touched his soulwith a curiously potent spell that was almost too engrossing to be quitepleasant. 

There was a certain queer sense of bewitchment in it all. The musicseemed to him oddly unartificial. It made him think of trees swept bythe wind, of night breezes singing among wires and chimney-stacks, or inthe rigging of invisible ships; or--and the simile leaped up in histhoughts with a sudden sharpness of suggestion--a chorus of animals, ofwild creatures, somewhere in desolate places of the world, crying andsinging as animals will, to the moon. He could fancy he heard thewailing, half-human cries of cats upon the tiles at night, rising andfalling with weird intervals of sound, and this music, muffled bydistance and the trees, made him think of a queer company of thesecreatures on some roof far away in the sky, uttering their solemn musicto one another and the moon in chorus. 

It was, he felt at the time, a singular image to occur to him, yet itexpressed his sensation pictorially better than anything else. Theinstruments played such impossibly odd intervals, and the crescendos anddiminuendos were so very suggestive of cat-land on the tiles at night, rising swiftly, dropping without warning to deep notes again, and all insuch strange confusion of discords and accords. But, at the same time aplaintive sweetness resulted on the whole, and the discords of thesehalf-broken instruments were so singular that they did not distress hismusical soul like fiddles out of tune. 

He listened a long time, wholly surrendering himself as his characterwas, and then strolled homewards in the dusk as the air grew chilly. 

"There was nothing to alarm?" put in Dr. Silence briefly. 

"Absolutely nothing, " said Vezin; "but you know it was all sofantastical and charming that my imagination was profoundly impressed. Perhaps, too, " he continued, gently explanatory, "it was this stirringof my imagination that caused other impressions; for, as I walked back, the spell of the place began to steal over me in a dozen ways, thoughall intelligible ways. But there were other things I could not accountfor in the least, even then. "

"Incidents, you mean?"

"Hardly incidents, I think. A lot of vivid sensations crowded themselvesupon my mind and I could trace them to no causes. It was just aftersunset and the tumbled old buildings traced magical outlines against anopalescent sky of gold and red. The dusk was running down the twistedstreets. All round the hill the plain pressed in like a dim sea, itslevel rising with the darkness. The spell of this kind of scene, youknow, can be very moving, and it was so that night. Yet I felt that whatcame to me had nothing directly to do with the mystery and wonder of thescene. "

"Not merely the subtle transformations of the spirit that come withbeauty, " put in the doctor, noticing his hesitation. 

"Exactly, " Vezin went on, duly encouraged and no longer so fearful ofour smiles at his expense. "The impressions came from somewhere else. For instance, down the busy main street where men and women werebustling home from work, shopping at stalls and barrows, idly gossipingin groups, and all the rest of it, I saw that I aroused no interest andthat no one turned to stare at me as a foreigner and stranger. I wasutterly ignored, and my presence among them excited no special interestor attention. 

"And then, quite suddenly, it dawned upon me with conviction that allthe time this indifference and inattention were merely feigned. Everybody as a matter of fact was watching me closely. Every movement Imade was known and observed. Ignoring me was all a pretence--anelaborate pretence. "

He paused a moment and looked at us to see if we were smiling, and thencontinued, reassured--

"It is useless to ask me how I noticed this, because I simply cannotexplain it. But the discovery gave me something of a shock. Before I gotback to the inn, however, another curious thing rose up strongly in mymind and forced my recognition of it as true. And this, too, I may aswell say at once, was equally inexplicable to me. I mean I can only giveyou the fact, as fact it was to me. "

The little man left his chair and stood on the mat before the fire. Hisdiffidence lessened from now onwards, as he lost himself again in themagic of the old adventure. His eyes shone a little already as hetalked. 

"Well, " he went on, his soft voice rising somewhat with his excitement, "I was in a shop when it came to me first--though the idea must havebeen at work for a long time subconsciously to appear in so complete aform all at once. I was buying socks, I think, " he laughed, "andstruggling with my dreadful French, when it struck me that the woman inthe shop did not care two pins whether I bought anything or not. She wasindifferent whether she made a sale or did not make a sale. She was onlypretending to sell. 

"This sounds a very small and fanciful incident to build upon whatfollows. But really it was not small. I mean it was the spark that litthe line of powder and ran along to the big blaze in my mind. 

"For the whole town, I suddenly realised, was something other than I sofar saw it. The real activities and interests of the people wereelsewhere and otherwise than appeared. Their true lives lay somewhereout of sight behind the scenes. Their busy-ness was but the outwardsemblance that masked their actual purposes. They bought and sold, andate and drank, and walked about the streets, yet all the while the mainstream of their existence lay somewhere beyond my ken, underground, insecret places. In the shops and at the stalls they did not care whetherI purchased their articles or not; at the inn, they were indifferent tomy staying or going; their life lay remote from my own, springing fromhidden, mysterious sources, coursing out of sight, unknown. It was all agreat elaborate pretence, assumed possibly for my benefit, or possiblyfor purposes of their own. But the main current of their energies ranelsewhere. I almost felt as an unwelcome foreign substance might beexpected to feel when it has found its way into the human system and thewhole body organises itself to eject it or to absorb it. The town wasdoing this very thing to me. 

"This bizarre notion presented itself forcibly to my mind as I walkedhome to the inn, and I began busily to wonder wherein the true life ofthis town could lie and what were the actual interests and activities ofits hidden life. 

"And, now that my eyes were partly opened, I noticed other things toothat puzzled me, first of which, I think, was the extraordinary silenceof the whole place. Positively, the town was muffled. Although thestreets were paved with cobbles the people moved about silently, softly, with padded feet, like cats. Nothing made noise. All was hushed, subdued, muted. The very voices were quiet, low-pitched like purring. Nothing clamorous, vehement or emphatic seemed able to live in thedrowsy atmosphere of soft dreaming that soothed this little hill-towninto its sleep. It was like the woman at the inn--an outward reposescreening intense inner activity and purpose. 

"Yet there was no sign of lethargy or sluggishness anywhere about it. The people were active and alert. Only a magical and uncanny softnesslay over them all like a spell. "

Vezin passed his hand across his eyes for a moment as though the memoryhad become very vivid. His voice had run off into a whisper so that weheard the last part with difficulty. He was telling a true thingobviously, yet something that he both liked and hated telling. 

"I went back to the inn, " he continued presently in a louder voice, "anddined. I felt a new strange world about me. My old world of realityreceded. Here, whether I liked it or no, was something new andincomprehensible. I regretted having left the train so impulsively. Anadventure was upon me, and I loathed adventures as foreign to my nature. Moreover, this was the beginning apparently of an adventure somewheredeep within me, in a region I could not check or measure, and a feelingof alarm mingled itself with my wonder--alarm for the stability of whatI had for forty years recognised as my 'personality. '

"I went upstairs to bed, my mind teeming with thoughts that were unusualto me, and of rather a haunting description. By way of relief I keptthinking of that nice, prosaic noisy train and all those wholesome, blustering passengers. I almost wished I were with them again. But mydreams took me elsewhere. I dreamed of cats, and soft-moving creatures, and the silence of life in a dim muffled world beyond the senses. "

II

Vezin stayed on from day to day, indefinitely, much longer than he hadintended. He felt in a kind of dazed, somnolent condition. He didnothing in particular, but the place fascinated him and he could notdecide to leave. Decisions were always very difficult for him and hesometimes wondered how he had ever brought himself to the point ofleaving the train. It seemed as though some one else must have arrangedit for him, and once or twice his thoughts ran to the swarthy Frenchmanwho had sat opposite. If only he could have understood that longsentence ending so strangely with "_à cause du sommeil et à cause deschats_. " He wondered what it all meant. 

Meanwhile the hushed softness of the town held him prisoner and hesought in his muddling, gentle way to find out where the mystery lay, and what it was all about. But his limited French and his constitutionalhatred of active investigation made it hard for him to buttonholeanybody and ask questions. He was content to observe, and watch, andremain negative. 

The weather held on calm and hazy, and this just suited him. He wanderedabout the town till he knew every street and alley. The people sufferedhim to come and go without let or hindrance, though it became clearer tohim every day that he was never free himself from observation. The townwatched him as a cat watches a mouse. And he got no nearer to findingout what they were all so busy with or where the main stream of theiractivities lay. This remained hidden. The people were as soft andmysterious as cats. 

But that he was continually under observation became more evident fromday to day. 

For instance, when he strolled to the end of the town and entered alittle green public garden beneath the ramparts and seated himself uponone of the empty benches in the sun, he was quite alone--at first. Notanother seat was occupied; the little park was empty, the pathsdeserted. Yet, within ten minutes of his coming, there must have beenfully twenty persons scattered about him, some strolling aimlessly alongthe gravel walks, staring at the flowers, and others seated on thewooden benches enjoying the sun like himself. None of them appeared totake any notice of him; yet he understood quite well they had all comethere to watch. They kept him under close observation. In the streetthey had seemed busy enough, hurrying upon various errands; yet thesewere suddenly all forgotten and they had nothing to do but loll and lazein the sun, their duties unremembered. Five minutes after he left, thegarden was again deserted, the seats vacant. But in the crowded streetit was the same thing again; he was never alone. He was ever in theirthoughts. 

By degrees, too, he began to see how it was he was so cleverly watched, yet without the appearance of it. The people did nothing _directly_. They behaved _obliquely_. He laughed in his mind as the thought thusclothed itself in words, but the phrase exactly described it. Theylooked at him from angles which naturally should have led their sight inanother direction altogether. Their movements were oblique, too, so faras these concerned himself. The straight, direct thing was not their wayevidently. They did nothing obviously. If he entered a shop to buy, thewoman walked instantly away and busied herself with something at thefarther end of the counter, though answering at once when he spoke, showing that she knew he was there and that this was only her way ofattending to him. It was the fashion of the cat she followed. Even inthe dining-room of the inn, the be-whiskered and courteous waiter, litheand silent in all his movements, never seemed able to come straight tohis table for an order or a dish. He came by zigzags, indirectly, vaguely, so that he appeared to be going to another table altogether, and only turned suddenly at the last moment, and was there beside him. 

Vezin smiled curiously to himself as he described how he began torealize these things. Other tourists there were none in the hostel, buthe recalled the figures of one or two old men, inhabitants, who tooktheir _déjeuner_ and dinner there, and remembered how fantastically theyentered the room in similar fashion. First, they paused in the doorway, peering about the room, and then, after a temporary inspection, theycame in, as it were, sideways, keeping close to the walls so that hewondered which table they were making for, and at the last minute makingalmost a little quick run to their particular seats. And again hethought of the ways and methods of cats. 

Other small incidents, too, impressed him as all part of this queer, soft town with its muffled, indirect life, for the way some of thepeople appeared and disappeared with extraordinary swiftness puzzled himexceedingly. It may have been all perfectly natural, he knew, yet hecould not make it out how the alleys swallowed them up and shot themforth in a second of time when there were no visible doorways oropenings near enough to explain the phenomenon. Once he followed twoelderly women who, he felt, had been particularly examining him fromacross the street--quite near the inn this was--and saw them turn thecorner a few feet only in front of him. Yet when he sharply followed ontheir heels he saw nothing but an utterly deserted alley stretching infront of him with no sign of a living thing. And the only openingthrough which they could have escaped was a porch some fifty yards away, which not the swiftest human runner could have reached in time. 

And in just such sudden fashion people appeared, when he never expectedthem. Once when he heard a great noise of fighting going on behind a lowwall, and hurried up to see what was going on, what should he see but agroup of girls and women engaged in vociferous conversation whichinstantly hushed itself to the normal whispering note of the town whenhis head appeared over the wall. And even then none of them turned tolook at him directly, but slunk off with the most unaccountablerapidity into doors and sheds across the yard. And their voices, hethought, had sounded so like, so strangely like, the angry snarling offighting animals, almost of cats. 

The whole spirit of the town, however, continued to evade him assomething elusive, protean, screened from the outer world, and at thesame time intensely, genuinely vital; and, since he now formed part ofits life, this concealment puzzled and irritated him; more--it beganrather to frighten him. 

Out of the mists that slowly gathered about his ordinary surfacethoughts, there rose again the idea that the inhabitants were waitingfor him to declare himself, to take an attitude, to do this, or to dothat; and that when he had done so they in their turn would at lengthmake some direct response, accepting or rejecting him. Yet the vitalmatter concerning which his decision was awaited came no nearer to him. 

Once or twice he purposely followed little processions or groups of thecitizens in order to find out, if possible, on what purpose they werebent; but they always discovered him in time and dwindled away, eachindividual going his or her own way. It was always the same: he nevercould learn what their main interest was. The cathedral was ever empty, the old church of St. Martin, at the other end of the town, deserted. They shopped because they had to, and not because they wished to. Thebooths stood neglected, the stalls unvisited, the little _cafés_desolate. Yet the streets were always full, the townsfolk ever on thebustle. 

"Can it be, " he thought to himself, yet with a deprecating laugh that heshould have dared to think anything so odd, "can it be that these peopleare people of the twilight, that they live only at night their reallife, and come out honestly only with the dusk? That during the day theymake a sham though brave pretence, and after the sun is down their truelife begins? Have they the souls of night-things, and is the wholeblessed town in the hands of the cats?"

The fancy somehow electrified him with little shocks of shrinking anddismay. Yet, though he affected to laugh, he knew that he was beginningto feel more than uneasy, and that strange forces were tugging with athousand invisible cords at the very centre of his being. Somethingutterly remote from his ordinary life, something that had not waked foryears, began faintly to stir in his soul, sending feelers abroad intohis brain and heart, shaping queer thoughts and penetrating even intocertain of his minor actions. Something exceedingly vital to himself, tohis soul, hung in the balance. 

And, always when he returned to the inn about the hour of sunset, he sawthe figures of the townsfolk stealing through the dusk from their shopdoors, moving sentry-wise to and fro at the corners of the streets, yetalways vanishing silently like shadows at his near approach. And as theinn invariably closed its doors at ten o'clock he had never yet foundthe opportunity he rather half-heartedly sought to see for himself whataccount the town could give of itself at night. 

"--_à cause du sommeil et à cause des chats_"--the words now rang in hisears more and more often, though still as yet without any definitemeaning. 

Moreover, something made him sleep like the dead. 

III

It was, I think, on the fifth day--though in this detail his storysometimes varied--that he made a definite discovery which increased hisalarm and brought him up to a rather sharp climax. Before that he hadalready noticed that a change was going forward and certain subtletransformations being brought about in his character which modifiedseveral of his minor habits. And he had affected to ignore them. Here, however, was something he could no longer ignore; and it startled him. 

At the best of times he was never very positive, always negative rather, compliant and acquiescent; yet, when necessity arose he was capable ofreasonably vigorous action and could take a strongish decision. Thediscovery he now made that brought him up with such a sharp turn wasthat this power had positively dwindled to nothing. He found itimpossible to make up his mind. For, on this fifth day, he realised thathe had stayed long enough in the town and that for reasons he could onlyvaguely define to himself it was wiser _and safer_ that he should leave. 

And he found that he could not leave!

This is difficult to describe in words, and it was more by gesture andthe expression of his face that he conveyed to Dr. Silence the state ofimpotence he had reached. All this spying and watching, he said, had asit were spun a net about his feet so that he was trapped and powerlessto escape; he felt like a fly that had blundered into the intricacies ofa great web; he was caught, imprisoned, and could not get away. It was adistressing sensation. A numbness had crept over his will till it hadbecome almost incapable of decision. The mere thought of vigorousaction--action towards escape--began to terrify him. All the currents ofhis life had turned inwards upon himself, striving to bring to thesurface something that lay buried almost beyond reach, determined toforce his recognition of something he had long forgotten--forgottenyears upon years, centuries almost ago. It seemed as though a windowdeep within his being would presently open and reveal an entirely newworld, yet somehow a world that was not unfamiliar. Beyond that, again, he fancied a great curtain hung; and when that too rolled up he wouldsee still farther into this region and at last understand something ofthe secret life of these extraordinary people. 

"Is this why they wait and watch?" he asked himself with rather ashaking heart, "for the time when I shall join them--or refuse to jointhem? Does the decision rest with me after all, and not with them?"

And it was at this point that the sinister character of the adventurefirst really declared itself, and he became genuinely alarmed. Thestability of his rather fluid little personality was at stake, he felt, and something in his heart turned coward. 

Why otherwise should he have suddenly taken to walking stealthily, silently, making as little sound as possible, for ever looking behindhim? Why else should he have moved almost on tiptoe about the passagesof the practically deserted inn, and when he was abroad have foundhimself deliberately taking advantage of what cover presented itself?And why, if he was not afraid, should the wisdom of staying indoorsafter sundown have suddenly occurred to him as eminently desirable? Why, indeed?

And, when John Silence gently pressed him for an explanation of thesethings, he admitted apologetically that he had none to give. 

"It was simply that I feared something might happen to me unless I kepta sharp look-out. I felt afraid. It was instinctive, " was all he couldsay. "I got the impression that the whole town was after me--wanted mefor something; and that if it got me I should lose myself, or at leastthe Self I knew, in some unfamiliar state of consciousness. But I am nota psychologist, you know, " he added meekly, "and I cannot define itbetter than that. "

It was while lounging in the courtyard half an hour before the eveningmeal that Vezin made this discovery, and he at once went upstairs to hisquiet room at the end of the winding passage to think it over alone. Inthe yard it was empty enough, true, but there was always the possibilitythat the big woman whom he dreaded would come out of some door, with herpretence of knitting, to sit and watch him. This had happened severaltimes, and he could not endure the sight of her. He still remembered hisoriginal fancy, bizarre though it was, that she would spring upon himthe moment his back was turned and land with one single crushing leapupon his neck. Of course it was nonsense, but then it haunted him, andonce an idea begins to do that it ceases to be nonsense. It has clotheditself in reality. 

He went upstairs accordingly. It was dusk, and the oil lamps had notyet been lit in the passages. He stumbled over the uneven surface ofthe ancient flooring, passing the dim outlines of doors along thecorridor--doors that he had never once seen opened--rooms that seemednever occupied. He moved, as his habit now was, stealthily and ontiptoe. 

Half-way down the last passage to his own chamber there was a sharpturn, and it was just here, while groping round the walls withoutstretched hands, that his fingers touched something that was notwall--something that moved. It was soft and warm in texture, indescribably fragrant, and about the height of his shoulder; and heimmediately thought of a furry, sweet-smelling kitten. The next minutehe knew it was something quite different. 

Instead of investigating, however, --his nerves must have been toooverwrought for that, he said, --he shrank back as closely as possibleagainst the wall on the other side. The thing, whatever it was, slippedpast him with a sound of rustling and, retreating with light footstepsdown the passage behind him, was gone. A breath of warm, scented air waswafted to his nostrils. 

Vezin caught his breath for an instant and paused, stockstill, halfleaning against the wall--and then almost ran down the remainingdistance and entered his room with a rush, locking the door hurriedlybehind him. Yet it was not fear that made him run: it was excitement, pleasurable excitement. His nerves were tingling, and a delicious glowmade itself felt all over his body. In a flash it came to him that thiswas just what he had felt twenty-five years ago as a boy when he was inlove for the first time. Warm currents of life ran all over him andmounted to his brain in a whirl of soft delight. His mood was suddenlybecome tender, melting, loving. 

The room was quite dark, and he collapsed upon the sofa by the window, wondering what had happened to him and what it all meant. But the onlything he understood clearly in that instant was that something in himhad swiftly, magically changed: he no longer wished to leave, or toargue with himself about leaving. The encounter in the passage-way hadchanged all that. The strange perfume of it still hung about him, bemusing his heart and mind. For he knew that it was a girl who hadpassed him, a girl's face that his fingers had brushed in the darkness, and he felt in some extraordinary way as though he had been actuallykissed by her, kissed full upon the lips. 

Trembling, he sat upon the sofa by the window and struggled to collecthis thoughts. He was utterly unable to understand how the mere passingof a girl in the darkness of a narrow passage-way could communicate soelectric a thrill to his whole being that he still shook with thesweetness of it. Yet, there it was! And he found it as useless to denyas to attempt analysis. Some ancient fire had entered his veins, andnow ran coursing through his blood; and that he was forty-five insteadof twenty did not matter one little jot. Out of all the inner turmoiland confusion emerged the one salient fact that the mere atmosphere, themerest casual touch, of this girl, unseen, unknown in the darkness, hadbeen sufficient to stir dormant fires in the centre of his heart, androuse his whole being from a state of feeble sluggishness to one oftearing and tumultuous excitement. 

After a time, however, the number of Vezin's years began to assert theircumulative power; he grew calmer, and when a knock came at length uponhis door and he heard the waiter's voice suggesting that dinner wasnearly over, he pulled himself together and slowly made his waydownstairs into the dining-room. 

Every one looked up as he entered, for he was very late, but he took hiscustomary seat in the far corner and began to eat. The trepidation wasstill in his nerves, but the fact that he had passed through thecourtyard and hall without catching sight of a petticoat served to calmhim a little. He ate so fast that he had almost caught up with thecurrent stage of the table d'hôte, when a slight commotion in the roomdrew his attention. 

His chair was so placed that the door and the greater portion of thelong _salle à manger_ were behind him, yet it was not necessary to turnround to know that the same person he had passed in the dark passage hadnow come into the room. He felt the presence long before he heard or sawany one. Then he became aware that the old men, the only other guests, were rising one by one in their places, and exchanging greetings withsome one who passed among them from table to table. And when at lengthhe turned with his heart beating furiously to ascertain for himself, hesaw the form of a young girl, lithe and slim, moving down the centre ofthe room and making straight for his own table in the corner. She movedwonderfully, with sinuous grace, like a young panther, and her approachfilled him with such delicious bewilderment that he was utterly unableto tell at first what her face was like, or discover what it was aboutthe whole presentment of the creature that filled him anew withtrepidation and delight. 

"Ah, Ma'mselle est de retour!" he heard the old waiter murmur at hisside, and he was just able to take in that she was the daughter of theproprietress, when she was upon him, and he heard her voice. She wasaddressing him. Something of red lips he saw and laughing white teeth, and stray wisps of fine dark hair about the temples; but all the restwas a dream in which his own emotion rose like a thick cloud before hiseyes and prevented his seeing accurately, or knowing exactly what hedid. He was aware that she greeted him with a charming little bow; thather beautiful large eyes looked searchingly into his own; that theperfume he had noticed in the dark passage again assailed his nostrils, and that she was bending a little towards him and leaning with one handon the table at this side. She was quite close to him--that was thechief thing he knew--explaining that she had been asking after thecomfort of her mother's guests, and now was introducing herself to thelatest arrival--himself. 

"M'sieur has already been here a few days, " he heard the waiter say; andthen her own voice, sweet as singing, replied--

"Ah, but M'sieur is not going to leave us just yet, I hope. My mother istoo old to look after the comfort of our guests properly, but now I amhere I will remedy all that. " She laughed deliciously. "M'sieur shall bewell looked after. "

Vezin, struggling with his emotion and desire to be polite, half rose toacknowledge the pretty speech, and to stammer some sort of reply, but ashe did so his hand by chance touched her own that was resting upon thetable, and a shock that was for all the world like a shock ofelectricity, passed from her skin into his body. His soul wavered andshook deep within him. He caught her eyes fixed upon his own with a lookof most curious intentness, and the next moment he knew that he had satdown wordless again on his chair, that the girl was already half-wayacross the room, and that he was trying to eat his salad with adessert-spoon and a knife. 

Longing for her return, and yet dreading it, he gulped down theremainder of his dinner, and then went at once to his bedroom to bealone with his thoughts. This time the passages were lighted, and hesuffered no exciting contretemps; yet the winding corridor was dim withshadows, and the last portion, from the bend of the walls onwards, seemed longer than he had ever known it. It ran downhill like thepathway on a mountain side, and as he tiptoed softly down it he feltthat by rights it ought to have led him clean out of the house into theheart of a great forest. The world was singing with him. Strange fanciesfilled his brain, and once in the room, with the door securely locked, he did not light the candles, but sat by the open window thinking long, long thoughts that came unbidden in troops to his mind. 

IV

This part of the story he told to Dr. Silence, without special coaxing, it is true, yet with much stammering embarrassment. He could not in theleast understand, he said, how the girl had managed to affect him soprofoundly, and even before he had set eyes upon her. For her mereproximity in the darkness had been sufficient to set him on fire. Heknew nothing of enchantments, and for years had been a stranger toanything approaching tender relations with any member of the oppositesex, for he was encased in shyness, and realised his overwhelmingdefects only too well. Yet this bewitching young creature came to himdeliberately. Her manner was unmistakable, and she sought him out onevery possible occasion. Chaste and sweet she was undoubtedly, yetfrankly inviting; and she won him utterly with the first glance of hershining eyes, even if she had not already done so in the dark merely bythe magic of her invisible presence. 

"You felt she was altogether wholesome and good!" queried the doctor. "You had no reaction of any sort--for instance, of alarm?"

Vezin looked up sharply with one of his inimitable little apologeticsmiles. It was some time before he replied. The mere memory of theadventure had suffused his shy face with blushes, and his brown eyessought the floor again before he answered. 

"I don't think I can quite say that, " he explained presently. "Iacknowledged certain qualms, sitting up in my room afterwards. Aconviction grew upon me that there was something about her--how shall Iexpress it?--well, something unholy. It is not impurity in any sense, physical or mental, that I mean, but something quite indefinable thatgave me a vague sensation of the creeps. She drew me, and at the sametime repelled me, more than--than--"

He hesitated, blushing furiously, and unable to finish the sentence. 

"Nothing like it has ever come to me before or since, " he concluded, with lame confusion. "I suppose it was, as you suggested just now, something of an enchantment. At any rate, it was strong enough to makeme feel that I would stay in that awful little haunted town for years ifonly I could see her every day, hear her voice, watch her wonderfulmovements, and sometimes, perhaps, touch her hand. "

"Can you explain to me what you felt was the source of her power?" JohnSilence asked, looking purposely anywhere but at the narrator. 

"I am surprised that you should ask me such a question, " answered Vezin, with the nearest approach to dignity he could manage. "I think no mancan describe to another convincingly wherein lies the magic of the womanwho ensnares him. I certainly cannot. I can only say this slip of a girlbewitched me, and the mere knowledge that she was living and sleeping inthe same house filled me with an extraordinary sense of delight. 

"But there's one thing I can tell you, " he went on earnestly, his eyesaglow, "namely, that she seemed to sum up and synthesise in herself allthe strange hidden forces that operated so mysteriously in the town andits inhabitants. She had the silken movements of the panther, goingsmoothly, silently to and fro, and the same indirect, oblique methods asthe townsfolk, screening, like them, secret purposes of herown--purposes that I was sure had _me_ for their objective. She kept me, to my terror and delight, ceaselessly under observation, yet socarelessly, so consummately, that another man less sensitive, if I maysay so"--he made a deprecating gesture--"or less prepared by what hadgone before, would never have noticed it at all. She was always still, always reposeful, yet she seemed to be everywhere at once, so that Inever could escape from her. I was continually meeting the stare andlaughter of her great eyes, in the corners of the rooms, in thepassages, calmly looking at me through the windows, or in the busiestparts of the public streets. "

Their intimacy, it seems, grew very rapidly after this first encounterwhich had so violently disturbed the little man's equilibrium. He wasnaturally very prim, and prim folk live mostly in so small a world thatanything violently unusual may shake them clean out of it, and theytherefore instinctively distrust originality. But Vezin began to forgethis primness after awhile. The girl was always modestly behaved, and asher mother's representative she naturally had to do with the guests inthe hotel. It was not out of the way that a spirit of camaraderie shouldspring up. Besides, she was young, she was charmingly pretty, she wasFrench, and--she obviously liked him. 

At the same time, there was something indescribable--a certainindefinable atmosphere of other places, other times--that made him tryhard to remain on his guard, and sometimes made him catch his breathwith a sudden start. It was all rather like a delirious dream, halfdelight, half dread, he confided in a whisper to Dr. Silence; and morethan once he hardly knew quite what he was doing or saying, as though hewere driven forward by impulses he scarcely recognised as his own. 

And though the thought of leaving presented itself again and again tohis mind, it was each time with less insistence, so that he stayed onfrom day to day, becoming more and more a part of the sleepy life ofthis dreamy mediaeval town, losing more and more of his recognisablepersonality. Soon, he felt, the Curtain within would roll up with anawful rush, and he would find himself suddenly admitted into the secretpurposes of the hidden life that lay behind it all. Only, by that time, he would have become transformed into an entirely different being. 

And, meanwhile, he noticed various little signs of the intention tomake his stay attractive to him: flowers in his bedroom, a morecomfortable arm-chair in the corner, and even special little extradishes on his private table in the dining-room. Conversations, too, with"Mademoiselle Ilsé" became more and more frequent and pleasant, andalthough they seldom travelled beyond the weather, or the details of thetown, the girl, he noticed, was never in a hurry to bring them to anend, and often contrived to interject little odd sentences that he neverproperly understood, yet felt to be significant. 

And it was these stray remarks, full of a meaning that evaded him, thatpointed to some hidden purpose of her own and made him feel uneasy. Theyall had to do, he felt sure, with reasons for his staying on in the townindefinitely. 

"And has M'sieur not even yet come to a decision?" she said softly inhis ear, sitting beside him in the sunny yard before _déjeuner_, theacquaintance having progressed with significant rapidity. "Because, ifit's so difficult, we must all try together to help him!"

The question startled him, following upon his own thoughts. It wasspoken with a pretty laugh, and a stray bit of hair across one eye, asshe turned and peered at him half roguishly. Possibly he did not quiteunderstand the French of it, for her near presence always confused hissmall knowledge of the language distressingly. Yet the words, and hermanner, and something else that lay behind it all in her mind, frightened him. It gave such point to his feeling that the town waswaiting for him to make his mind up on some important matter. 

At the same time, her voice, and the fact that she was there so closebeside him in her soft dark dress, thrilled him inexpressibly. 

"It is true I find it difficult to leave, " he stammered, losing his waydeliciously in the depths of her eyes, "and especially now thatMademoiselle Ilsé has come. "

He was surprised at the success of his sentence, and quite delightedwith the little gallantry of it. But at the same time he could havebitten his tongue off for having said it. 

"Then after all you like our little town, or you would not be pleased tostay on, " she said, ignoring the compliment. 

"I am enchanted with it, and enchanted with you, " he cried, feeling thathis tongue was somehow slipping beyond the control of his brain. And hewas on the verge of saying all manner of other things of the wildestdescription, when the girl sprang lightly up from her chair beside him, and made to go. 

"It is _soupe à l'onion_ to-day!" she cried, laughing back at himthrough the sunlight, "and I must go and see about it. Otherwise, youknow, M'sieur will not enjoy his dinner, and then, perhaps, he willleave us!"

He watched her cross the courtyard, moving with all the grace andlightness of the feline race, and her simple black dress clothed her, hethought, exactly like the fur of the same supple species. She turnedonce to laugh at him from the porch with the glass door, and thenstopped a moment to speak to her mother, who sat knitting as usual inher corner seat just inside the hall-way. 

But how was it, then, that the moment his eye fell upon this ungainlywoman, the pair of them appeared suddenly as other than they were?Whence came that transforming dignity and sense of power that envelopedthem both as by magic? What was it about that massive woman that madeher appear instantly regal, and set her on a throne in some dark anddreadful scenery, wielding a sceptre over the red glare of sometempestuous orgy? And why did this slender stripling of a girl, gracefulas a willow, lithe as a young leopard, assume suddenly an air ofsinister majesty, and move with flame and smoke about her head, and thedarkness of night beneath her feet?

Vezin caught his breath and sat there transfixed. Then, almostsimultaneously with its appearance, the queer notion vanished again, andthe sunlight of day caught them both, and he heard her laughing to hermother about the _soupe à l'onion_, and saw her glancing back at himover her dear little shoulder with a smile that made him think of adew-kissed rose bending lightly before summer airs. 

And, indeed, the onion soup was particularly excellent that day, becausehe saw another cover laid at his small table, and, with flutteringheart, heard the waiter murmur by way of explanation that "Ma'mselleIlsé would honour M'sieur to-day at _déjeuner_, as her custom sometimesis with her mother's guests. "

So actually she sat by him all through that delirious meal, talkingquietly to him in easy French, seeing that he was well looked after, mixing the salad-dressing, and even helping him with her own hand. And, later in the afternoon, while he was smoking in the courtyard, longingfor a sight of her as soon as her duties were done, she came again tohis side, and when he rose to meet her, she stood facing him a moment, full of a perplexing sweet shyness before she spoke--

"My mother thinks you ought to know more of the beauties of our littletown, and _I_ think so too! Would M'sieur like me to be his guide, perhaps? I can show him everything, for our family has lived here formany generations. "

She had him by the hand, indeed, before he could find a single word toexpress his pleasure, and led him, all unresisting, out into the street, yet in such a way that it seemed perfectly natural she should do so, andwithout the faintest suggestion of boldness or immodesty. Her faceglowed with the pleasure and interest of it, and with her short dressand tumbled hair she looked every bit the charming child of seventeenthat she was, innocent and playful, proud of her native town, and alivebeyond her years to the sense of its ancient beauty. 

So they went over the town together, and she showed him what sheconsidered its chief interest: the tumble-down old house where herforebears had lived; the sombre, aristocratic-looking mansion where hermother's family dwelt for centuries, and the ancient market-place whereseveral hundred years before the witches had been burnt by the score. She kept up a lively running stream of talk about it all, of which heunderstood not a fiftieth part as he trudged along by her side, cursinghis forty-five years and feeling all the yearnings of his early manhoodrevive and jeer at him. And, as she talked, England and Surbiton seemedvery far away indeed, almost in another age of the world's history. Hervoice touched something immeasurably old in him, something that sleptdeep. It lulled the surface parts of his consciousness to sleep, allowing what was far more ancient to awaken. Like the town, with itselaborate pretence of modern active life, the upper layers of his beingbecame dulled, soothed, muffled, and what lay underneath began to stirin its sleep. That big Curtain swayed a little to and fro. Presently itmight lift altogether. .. . 

He began to understand a little better at last. The mood of the town wasreproducing itself in him. In proportion as his ordinary external selfbecame muffled, that inner secret life, that was far more real andvital, asserted itself. And this girl was surely the high-priestess ofit all, the chief instrument of its accomplishment. New thoughts, withnew interpretations, flooded his mind as she walked beside him throughthe winding streets, while the picturesque old gabled town, softlycoloured in the sunset, had never appeared to him so wholly wonderfuland seductive. 

And only one curious incident came to disturb and puzzle him, slight initself, but utterly inexplicable, bringing white terror into the child'sface and a scream to her laughing lips. He had merely pointed to acolumn of blue smoke that rose from the burning autumn leaves and made apicture against the red roofs, and had then run to the wall and calledher to his side to watch the flames shooting here and there through theheap of rubbish. Yet, at the sight of it, as though taken by surprise, her face had altered dreadfully, and she had turned and run like thewind, calling out wild sentences to him as she ran, of which he had notunderstood a single word, except that the fire apparently frightenedher, and she wanted to get quickly away from it, and to get him awaytoo. 

Yet five minutes later she was as calm and happy again as thoughnothing had happened to alarm or waken troubled thoughts in her, andthey had both forgotten the incident. 

They were leaning over the ruined ramparts together listening to theweird music of the band as he had heard it the first day of his arrival. It moved him again profoundly as it had done before, and somehow hemanaged to find his tongue and his best French. The girl leaned acrossthe stones close beside him. No one was about. Driven by someremorseless engine within he began to stammer something--he hardly knewwhat--of his strange admiration for her. Almost at the first word shesprang lightly off the wall and came up smiling in front of him, justtouching his knees as he sat there. She was hatless as usual, and thesun caught her hair and one side of her cheek and throat. 

"Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried, clapping her little hands softly in hisface, "so very glad, because that means that if you like me you mustalso like what I do, and what I belong to. "

Already he regretted bitterly having lost control of himself. Somethingin the phrasing of her sentence chilled him. He knew the fear ofembarking upon an unknown and dangerous sea. 

"You will take part in our real life, I mean, " she added softly, with anindescribable coaxing of manner, as though she noticed his shrinking. "You will come back to us. "

Already this slip of a child seemed to dominate him; he felt her powercoming over him more and more; something emanated from her that stoleover his senses and made him aware that her personality, for all itssimple grace, held forces that were stately, imposing, august. He sawher again moving through smoke and flame amid broken and tempestuousscenery, alarmingly strong, her terrible mother by her side. Dimly thisshone through her smile and appearance of charming innocence. 

"You will, I know, " she repeated, holding him with her eyes. 

They were quite alone up there on the ramparts, and the sensation thatshe was overmastering him stirred a wild sensuousness in his blood. Themingled abandon and reserve in her attracted him furiously, and all ofhim that was man rose up and resisted the creeping influence, at thesame time acclaiming it with the full delight of his forgotten youth. Anirresistible desire came to him to question her, to summon what stillremained to him of his own little personality in an effort to retain theright to his normal self. 

The girl had grown quiet again, and was now leaning on the broad wallclose beside him, gazing out across the darkening plain, her elbows onthe coping, motionless as a figure carved in stone. He took his couragein both hands. 

"Tell me, Ilsé, " he said, unconsciously imitating her own purringsoftness of voice, yet aware that he was utterly in earnest, "what isthe meaning of this town, and what is this real life you speak of? Andwhy is it that the people watch me from morning to night? Tell me whatit all means? And, tell me, " he added more quickly with passion in hisvoice, "what you really are--yourself?"

She turned her head and looked at him through half-closed eyelids, hergrowing inner excitement betraying itself by the faint colour that ranlike a shadow across her face. 

"It seems to me, "--he faltered oddly under her gaze--"that I have someright to know--"

Suddenly she opened her eyes to the full. "You love me, then?" she askedsoftly. 

"I swear, " he cried impetuously, moved as by the force of a rising tide, "I never felt before--I have never known any other girl who--"

"Then you _have_ the right to know, " she calmly interrupted his confusedconfession, "for love shares all secrets. "

She paused, and a thrill like fire ran swiftly through him. Her wordslifted him off the earth, and he felt a radiant happiness, followedalmost the same instant in horrible contrast by the thought of death. Hebecame aware that she had turned her eyes upon his own and was speakingagain. 

"The real life I speak of, " she whispered, "is the old, old life within, the life of long ago, the life to which you, too, once belonged, and towhich you still belong. "

A faint wave of memory troubled the deeps of his soul as her low voicesank into him. What she was saying he knew instinctively to be true, even though he could not as yet understand its full purport. His presentlife seemed slipping from him as he listened, merging his personality inone that was far older and greater. It was this loss of his present selfthat brought to him the thought of death. 

"You came here, " she went on, "with the purpose of seeking it, and thepeople felt your presence and are waiting to know what you decide, whether you will leave them without having found it, or whether--"

Her eyes remained fixed upon his own, but her face began to change, growing larger and darker with an expression of age. 

"It is their thoughts constantly playing about your soul that makes youfeel they watch you. They do not watch you with their eyes. The purposesof their inner life are calling to you, seeking to claim you. You wereall part of the same life long, long ago, and now they want you backagain among them. "

Vezin's timid heart sank with dread as he listened; but the girl's eyesheld him with a net of joy so that he had no wish to escape. Shefascinated him, as it were, clean out of his normal self. 

"Alone, however, the people could never have caught and held you, " sheresumed. "The motive force was not strong enough; it has faded throughall these years. But I"--she paused a moment and looked at him withcomplete confidence in her splendid eyes--"I possess the spell toconquer you and hold you: the spell of old love. I can win you backagain and make you live the old life with me, for the force of theancient tie between us, if I choose to use it, is irresistible. And I dochoose to use it. I still want you. And you, dear soul of my dimpast"--she pressed closer to him so that her breath passed across hiseyes, and her voice positively sang--"I mean to have you, for you loveme and are utterly at my mercy. "

Vezin heard, and yet did not hear; understood, yet did not understand. He had passed into a condition of exaltation. The world was beneath hisfeet, made of music and flowers, and he was flying somewhere far aboveit through the sunshine of pure delight. He was breathless and giddywith the wonder of her words. They intoxicated him. And, still, theterror of it all, the dreadful thought of death, pressed ever behind hersentences. For flames shot through her voice out of black smoke andlicked at his soul. 

And they communicated with one another, it seemed to him, by a processof swift telepathy, for his French could never have compassed all hesaid to her. Yet she understood perfectly, and what she said to him waslike the recital of verses long since known. And the mingled pain andsweetness of it as he listened were almost more than his little soulcould hold. 

"Yet I came here wholly by chance--" he heard himself saying. 

"No, " she cried with passion, "you came here because I called to you. Ihave called to you for years, and you came with the whole force of thepast behind you. You had to come, for I own you, and I claim you. "

She rose again and moved closer, looking at him with a certain insolencein the face--the insolence of power. 

The sun had set behind the towers of the old cathedral and the darknessrose up from the plain and enveloped them. The music of the band hadceased. The leaves of the plane trees hung motionless, but the chill ofthe autumn evening rose about them and made Vezin shiver. There was nosound but the sound of their voices and the occasional soft rustle ofthe girl's dress. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears. Hescarcely realised where he was or what he was doing. Some terrible magicof the imagination drew him deeply down into the tombs of his own being, telling him in no unfaltering voice that her words shadowed forth thetruth. And this simple little French maid, speaking beside him with sostrange authority, he saw curiously alter into quite another being. Ashe stared into her eyes, the picture in his mind grew and lived, dressing itself vividly to his inner vision with a degree of reality hewas compelled to acknowledge. As once before, he saw her tall andstately, moving through wild and broken scenery of forests and mountaincaverns, the glare of flames behind her head and clouds of shiftingsmoke about her feet. Dark leaves encircled her hair, flying loosely inthe wind, and her limbs shone through the merest rags of clothing. Others were about her, too, and ardent eyes on all sides cast deliriousglances upon her, but her own eyes were always for One only, one whomshe held by the hand. For she was leading the dance in some tempestuousorgy to the music of chanting voices, and the dance she led circledabout a great and awful Figure on a throne, brooding over the scenethrough lurid vapours, while innumerable other wild faces and formscrowded furiously about her in the dance. But the one she held by thehand he knew to be himself, and the monstrous shape upon the throne heknew to be her mother. 

The vision rose within him, rushing to him down the long years of buriedtime, crying aloud to him with the voice of memory reawakened. .. . Andthen the scene faded away and he saw the clear circle of the girl's eyesgazing steadfastly into his own, and she became once more the prettylittle daughter of the innkeeper, and he found his voice again. 

"And you, " he whispered tremblingly--"you child of visions andenchantment, how is it that you so bewitch me that I loved you evenbefore I saw?"

She drew herself up beside him with an air of rare dignity. 

"The call of the Past, " she said; "and besides, " she added proudly, "inthe real life I am a princess--"

"A princess!" he cried. 

"--and my mother is a queen!"

At this, little Vezin utterly lost his head. Delight tore at his heartand swept him into sheer ecstasy. To hear that sweet singing voice, andto see those adorable little lips utter such things, upset his balancebeyond all hope of control. He took her in his arms and covered herunresisting face with kisses. 

But even while he did so, and while the hot passion swept him, he feltthat she was soft and loathsome, and that her answering kisses stainedhis very soul. .. . And when, presently, she had freed herself andvanished into the darkness, he stood there, leaning against the wall ina state of collapse, creeping with horror from the touch of her yieldingbody, and inwardly raging at the weakness that he already dimlyrealised must prove his undoing. 

And from the shadows of the old buildings into which she disappearedthere rose in the stillness of the night a singular, long-drawn cry, which at first he took for laughter, but which later he was sure herecognised as the almost human wailing of a cat. 

V

For a long time Vezin leant there against the wall, alone with hissurging thoughts and emotions. He understood at length that he had donethe one thing necessary to call down upon him the whole force of thisancient Past. For in those passionate kisses he had acknowledged the tieof olden days, and had revived it. And the memory of that softimpalpable caress in the darkness of the inn corridor came back to himwith a shudder. The girl had first mastered him, and then led him to theone act that was necessary for her purpose. He had been waylaid, afterthe lapse of centuries--caught, and conquered. 

Dimly he realised this, and sought to make plans for his escape. But, for the moment at any rate, he was powerless to manage his thoughts orwill, for the sweet, fantastic madness of the whole adventure mounted tohis brain like a spell, and he gloried in the feeling that he wasutterly enchanted and moving in a world so much larger and wilder thanthe one he had ever been accustomed to. 

The moon, pale and enormous, was just rising over the sea-like plain, when at last he rose to go. Her slanting rays drew all the houses intonew perspective, so that their roofs, already glistening with dew, seemed to stretch much higher into the sky than usual, and their gablesand quaint old towers lay far away in its purple reaches. 

The cathedral appeared unreal in a silver mist. He moved softly, keepingto the shadows; but the streets were all deserted and very silent; thedoors were closed, the shutters fastened. Not a soul was astir. The hushof night lay over everything; it was like a town of the dead, achurchyard with gigantic and grotesque tombstones. 

Wondering where all the busy life of the day had so utterly disappearedto, he made his way to a back door that entered the inn by means of thestables, thinking thus to reach his room unobserved. He reached thecourtyard safely and crossed it by keeping close to the shadow of thewall. He sidled down it, mincing along on tiptoe, just as the old mendid when they entered the _salle à manger_. He was horrified to findhimself doing this instinctively. A strange impulse came to him, catching him somehow in the centre of his body--an impulse to drop uponall fours and run swiftly and silently. He glanced upwards and the ideacame to him to leap up upon his window-sill overhead instead of goinground by the stairs. This occurred to him as the easiest, and mostnatural way. It was like the beginning of some horrible transformationof himself into something else. He was fearfully strung up. 

The moon was higher now, and the shadows very dark along the side of thestreet where he moved. He kept among the deepest of them, and reachedthe porch with the glass doors. 

But here there was light; the inmates, unfortunately, were still about. Hoping to slip across the hall unobserved and reach the stairs, heopened the door carefully and stole in. Then he saw that the hall wasnot empty. A large dark thing lay against the wall on his left. At firsthe thought it must be household articles. Then it moved, and he thoughtit was an immense cat, distorted in some way by the play of light andshadow. Then it rose straight up before him and he saw that it was theproprietress. 

What she had been doing in this position he could only venture adreadful guess, but the moment she stood up and faced him he was awareof some terrible dignity clothing her about that instantly recalled thegirl's strange saying that she was a queen. Huge and sinister she stoodthere under the little oil lamp; alone with him in the empty hall. Awestirred in his heart, and the roots of some ancient fear. He felt thathe must bow to her and make some kind of obeisance. The impulse wasfierce and irresistible, as of long habit. He glanced quickly about him. There was no one there. Then he deliberately inclined his head towardher. He bowed. 

"Enfin! M'sieur s'est donc décidé. C'est bien alors. J'en suiscontente. "

Her words came to him sonorously as through a great open space. 

Then the great figure came suddenly across the flagged hall at him andseized his trembling hands. Some overpowering force moved with her andcaught him. 

"On pourrait faire un p'tit tour ensemble, n'est-ce pas? Nous y allonscette nuit et il faut s'exercer un peu d'avance pour cela. Ilsé, Ilsé, viens donc ici. Viens vite!"

And she whirled him round in the opening steps of some dance that seemedoddly and horribly familiar. They made no sound on the stones, thisstrangely assorted couple. It was all soft and stealthy. And presently, when the air seemed to thicken like smoke, and a red glare as of flameshot through it, he was aware that some one else had joined them andthat his hand the mother had released was now tightly held by thedaughter. Ilsé had come in answer to the call, and he saw her withleaves of vervain twined in her dark hair, clothed in tattered vestigesof some curious garment, beautiful as the night, and horribly, odiously, loathsomely seductive. 

"To the Sabbath! to the Sabbath!" they cried. "On to the Witches'Sabbath!"

Up and down that narrow hall they danced, the women on each side of him, to the wildest measure he had ever imagined, yet which he dimly, dreadfully remembered, till the lamp on the wall flickered and went out, and they were left in total darkness. And the devil woke in his heartwith a thousand vile suggestions and made him afraid. 

Suddenly they released his hands and he heard the voice of the mothercry that it was time, and they must go. Which way they went he did notpause to see. He only realised that he was free, and he blunderedthrough the darkness till he found the stairs and then tore up them tohis room as though all hell was at his heels. 

He flung himself on the sofa, with his face in his hands, and groaned. Swiftly reviewing a dozen ways of immediate escape, all equallyimpossible, he finally decided that the only thing to do for the momentwas to sit quiet and wait. He must see what was going to happen. Atleast in the privacy of his own bedroom he would be fairly safe. Thedoor was locked. He crossed over and softly opened the window which gaveupon the courtyard and also permitted a partial view of the hall throughthe glass doors. 

As he did so the hum and murmur of a great activity reached his earsfrom the streets beyond--the sound of footsteps and voices muffled bydistance. He leaned out cautiously and listened. The moonlight was clearand strong now, but his own window was in shadow, the silver disc beingstill behind the house. It came to him irresistibly that the inhabitantsof the town, who a little while before had all been invisible behindclosed doors, were now issuing forth, busy upon some secret and unholyerrand. He listened intently. 

At first everything about him was silent, but soon he became aware ofmovements going on in the house itself. Rustlings and cheepings came tohim across that still, moonlit yard. A concourse of living beings sentthe hum of their activity into the night. Things were on the moveeverywhere. A biting, pungent odour rose through the air, coming he knewnot whence. Presently his eyes became glued to the windows of theopposite wall where the moonshine fell in a soft blaze. The roofoverhead, and behind him, was reflected clearly in the panes of glass, and he saw the outlines of dark bodies moving with long footsteps overthe tiles and along the coping. They passed swiftly and silently, shapedlike immense cats, in an endless procession across the pictured glass, and then appeared to leap down to a lower level where he lost sight ofthem. He just caught the soft thudding of their leaps. Sometimes theirshadows fell upon the white wall opposite, and then he could not makeout whether they were the shadows of human beings or of cats. Theyseemed to change swiftly from one to the other. The transformationlooked horribly real, for they leaped like human beings, yet changedswiftly in the air immediately afterwards, and dropped like animals. 

The yard, too, beneath him, was now alive with the creeping movements ofdark forms all stealthily drawing towards the porch with the glassdoors. They kept so closely to the wall that he could not determinetheir actual shape, but when he saw that they passed on to the greatcongregation that was gathering in the hall, he understood that thesewere the creatures whose leaping shadows he had first seen reflected inthe windowpanes opposite. They were coming from all parts of the town, reaching the appointed meeting-place across the roofs and tiles, andspringing from level to level till they came to the yard. 

Then a new sound caught his ear, and he saw that the windows all abouthim were being softly opened, and that to each window came a face. Amoment later figures began dropping hurriedly down into the yard. Andthese figures, as they lowered themselves down from the windows, werehuman, he saw; but once safely in the yard they fell upon all fours andchanged in the swiftest possible second into--cats--huge, silent cats. They ran in streams to join the main body in the hall beyond. 

So, after all, the rooms in the house had not been empty and unoccupied. 

Moreover, what he saw no longer filled him with amazement. For heremembered it all. It was familiar. It had all happened before just so, hundreds of times, and he himself had taken part in it and known thewild madness of it all. The outline of the old building changed, theyard grew larger, and he seemed to be staring down upon it from a muchgreater height through smoky vapours. And, as he looked, halfremembering, the old pains of long ago, fierce and sweet, furiouslyassailed him, and the blood stirred horribly as he heard the Call of theDance again in his heart and tasted the ancient magic of Ilsé whirlingby his side. 

Suddenly he started back. A great lithe cat had leaped softly up fromthe shadows below on to the sill close to his face, and was staringfixedly at him with the eyes of a human. "Come, " it seemed to say, "comewith us to the Dance! Change as of old! Transform yourself swiftly andcome!" Only too well he understood the creature's soundless call. 

It was gone again in a flash with scarcely a sound of its padded feeton the stones, and then others dropped by the score down the side ofthe house, past his very eyes, all changing as they fell and dartingaway rapidly, softly, towards the gathering point. And again he felt thedreadful desire to do likewise; to murmur the old incantation, and thendrop upon hands and knees and run swiftly for the great flying leap intothe air. Oh, how the passion of it rose within him like a flood, twisting his very entrails, sending his heart's desire flaming forthinto the night for the old, old Dance of the Sorcerers at the Witches'Sabbath! The whirl of the stars was about him; once more he met themagic of the moon. The power of the wind, rushing from precipice andforest, leaping from cliff to cliff across the valleys, tore himaway. .. . He heard the cries of the dancers and their wild laughter, andwith this savage girl in his embrace he danced furiously about the dimThrone where sat the Figure with the sceptre of majesty. .. . 

Then, suddenly, all became hushed and still, and the fever died down alittle in his heart. The calm moonlight flooded a courtyard empty anddeserted. They had started. The procession was off into the sky. And hewas left behind--alone. 

Vezin tiptoed softly across the room and unlocked the door. The murmurfrom the streets, growing momentarily as he advanced, met his ears. Hemade his way with the utmost caution down the corridor. At the head ofthe stairs he paused and listened. Below him, the hall where they hadgathered was dark and still, but through opened doors and windows on thefar side of the building came the sound of a great throng moving fartherand farther into the distance. 

He made his way down the creaking wooden stairs, dreading yet longing tomeet some straggler who should point the way, but finding no one; acrossthe dark hall, so lately thronged with living, moving things, and outthrough the opened front doors into the street. He could not believethat he was really left behind, really forgotten, that he had beenpurposely permitted to escape. It perplexed him. 

Nervously he peered about him, and up and down the street; then, seeingnothing, advanced slowly down the pavement. 

The whole town, as he went, showed itself empty and deserted, as thougha great wind had blown everything alive out of it. The doors and windowsof the houses stood open to the night; nothing stirred; moonlight andsilence lay over all. The night lay about him like a cloak. The air, soft and cool, caressed his cheek like the touch of a great furry paw. He gained confidence and began to walk quickly, though still keeping tothe shadowed side. Nowhere could he discover the faintest sign of thegreat unholy exodus he knew had just taken place. The moon sailed highover all in a sky cloudless and serene. 

Hardly realising where he was going, he crossed the open market-placeand so came to the ramparts, whence he knew a pathway descended to thehigh road and along which he could make good his escape to one of theother little towns that lay to the northward, and so to the railway. 

But first he paused and gazed out over the scene at his feet where thegreat plain lay like a silver map of some dream country. The stillbeauty of it entered his heart, increasing his sense of bewilderment andunreality. No air stirred, the leaves of the plane trees stoodmotionless, the near details were defined with the sharpness of dayagainst dark shadows, and in the distance the fields and woods meltedaway into haze and shimmering mistiness. 

But the breath caught in his throat and he stood stockstill as thoughtransfixed when his gaze passed from the horizon and fell upon the nearprospect in the depth of the valley at his feet. The whole lower slopesof the hill, that lay hid from the brightness of the moon, were aglow, and through the glare he saw countless moving forms, shifting thick andfast between the openings of the trees; while overhead, like leavesdriven by the wind, he discerned flying shapes that hovered darkly onemoment against the sky and then settled down with cries and weirdsinging through the branches into the region that was aflame. 

Spellbound, he stood and stared for a time that he could not measure. And then, moved by one of the terrible impulses that seemed to controlthe whole adventure, he climbed swiftly upon the top of the broadcoping, and balanced a moment where the valley gaped at his feet. But inthat very instant, as he stood hovering, a sudden movement among theshadows of the houses caught his eye, and he turned to see the outlineof a large animal dart swiftly across the open space behind him, andland with a flying leap upon the top of the wall a little lower down. Itran like the wind to his feet and then rose up beside him upon theramparts. A shiver seemed to run through the moonlight, and his sighttrembled for a second. His heart pulsed fearfully. Ilsé stood besidehim, peering into his face. 

Some dark substance, he saw, stained the girl's face and skin, shiningin the moonlight as she stretched her hands towards him; she was dressedin wretched tattered garments that yet became her mightily; rue andvervain twined about her temples; her eyes glittered with unholy light. He only just controlled the wild impulse to take her in his arms andleap with her from their giddy perch into the valley below. 

"See!" she cried, pointing with an arm on which the rags fluttered inthe rising wind towards the forest aglow in the distance. "See wherethey await us! The woods are alive! Already the Great Ones are there, and the dance will soon begin! The salve is here! Anoint yourself andcome!"

Though a moment before the sky was clear and cloudless, yet even whileshe spoke the face of the moon grew dark and the wind began to toss inthe crests of the plane trees at his feet. Stray gusts brought thesounds of hoarse singing and crying from the lower slopes of the hill, and the pungent odour he had already noticed about the courtyard of theinn rose about him in the air. 

"Transform, transform!" she cried again, her voice rising like a song. "Rub well your skin before you fly. Come! Come with me to the Sabbath, to the madness of its furious delight, to the sweet abandonment of itsevil worship! See! the Great Ones are there, and the terrible Sacramentsprepared. The Throne is occupied. Anoint and come! Anoint and come!"

She grew to the height of a tree beside him, leaping upon the wall withflaming eyes and hair strewn upon the night. He too began to changeswiftly. Her hands touched the skin of his face and neck, streaking himwith the burning salve that sent the old magic into his blood with thepower before which fades all that is good. 

A wild roar came up to his ears from the heart of the wood, and thegirl, when she heard it, leaped upon the wall in the frenzy of herwicked joy. 

"Satan is there!" she screamed, rushing upon him and striving to drawhim with her to the edge of the wall. "Satan has come. The Sacramentscall us! Come, with your dear apostate soul, and we will worship anddance till the moon dies and the world is forgotten!"

Just saving himself from the dreadful plunge, Vezin struggled to releasehimself from her grasp, while the passion tore at his reins and all butmastered him. He shrieked aloud, not knowing what he said, and then heshrieked again. It was the old impulses, the old awful habitsinstinctively finding voice; for though it seemed to him that he merelyshrieked nonsense, the words he uttered really had meaning in them, andwere intelligible. It was the ancient call. And it was heard below. Itwas answered. 

The wind whistled at the skirts of his coat as the air round himdarkened with many flying forms crowding upwards out of the valley. Thecrying of hoarse voices smote upon his ears, coming closer. Strokes ofwind buffeted him, tearing him this way and that along the crumbling topof the stone wall; and Ilsé clung to him with her long shining arms, smooth and bare, holding him fast about the neck. But not Ilsé alone, for a dozen of them surrounded him, dropping out of the air. Thepungent odour of the anointed bodies stifled him, exciting him to theold madness of the Sabbath, the dance of the witches and sorcerers doinghonour to the personified Evil of the world. 

"Anoint and away! Anoint and away!" they cried in wild chorus about him. "To the Dance that never dies! To the sweet and fearful fantasy ofevil!"

Another moment and he would have yielded and gone, for his will turnedsoft and the flood of passionate memory all but overwhelmed him, when--so can a small thing after the whole course of an adventure--hecaught his foot upon a loose stone in the edge of the wall, and thenfell with a sudden crash on to the ground below. But he fell towards thehouses, in the open space of dust and cobblestones, and fortunately notinto the gaping depth of the valley on the farther side. 

And they, too, came in a tumbling heap about him, like flies upon apiece of food, but as they fell he was released for a moment from thepower of their touch, and in that brief instant of freedom there flashedinto his mind the sudden intuition that saved him. Before he couldregain his feet he saw them scrabbling awkwardly back upon the wall, asthough bat-like they could only fly by dropping from a height, and hadno hold upon him in the open. Then, seeing them perched there in a rowlike cats upon a roof, all dark and singularly shapeless, their eyeslike lamps, the sudden memory came back to him of Ilsé's terror at thesight of fire. 

Quick as a flash he found his matches and lit the dead leaves that layunder the wall. 

Dry and withered, they caught fire at once, and the wind carried theflame in a long line down the length of the wall, licking upwards as itran; and with shrieks and wailings, the crowded row of forms upon thetop melted away into the air on the other side, and were gone with agreat rush and whirring of their bodies down into the heart of thehaunted valley, leaving Vezin breathless and shaken in the middle of thedeserted ground. 

"Ilsé!" he called feebly; "Ilsé!" for his heart ached to think that shewas really gone to the great Dance without him, and that he had lost theopportunity of its fearful joy. Yet at the same time his relief was sogreat, and he was so dazed and troubled in mind with the whole thing, that he hardly knew what he was saying, and only cried aloud in thefierce storm of his emotion. .. . 

The fire under the wall ran its course, and the moonlight came outagain, soft and clear, from its temporary eclipse. With one lastshuddering look at the ruined ramparts, and a feeling of horrid wonderfor the haunted valley beyond, where the shapes still crowded and flew, he turned his face towards the town and slowly made his way in thedirection of the hotel. 

And as he went, a great wailing of cries, and a sound of howling, followed him from the gleaming forest below, growing fainter and fainterwith the bursts of wind as he disappeared between the houses. 

VI

"It may seem rather abrupt to you, this sudden tame ending, " said ArthurVezin, glancing with flushed face and timid eyes at Dr. Silence sittingthere with his notebook, "but the fact is--er--from that moment mymemory seems to have failed rather. I have no distinct recollection ofhow I got home or what precisely I did. 

"It appears I never went back to the inn at all. I only dimly recollectracing down a long white road in the moonlight, past woods and villages, still and deserted, and then the dawn came up, and I saw the towers of abiggish town and so came to a station. 

"But, long before that, I remember pausing somewhere on the road andlooking back to where the hill-town of my adventure stood up in themoonlight, and thinking how exactly like a great monstrous cat it laythere upon the plain, its huge front paws lying down the two mainstreets, and the twin and broken towers of the cathedral marking itstorn ears against the sky. That picture stays in my mind with the utmostvividness to this day. 

"Another thing remains in my mind from that escape--namely, the suddensharp reminder that I had not paid my bill, and the decision I made, standing there on the dusty highroad, that the small baggage I had leftbehind would more than settle for my indebtedness. 

"For the rest, I can only tell you that I got coffee and bread at a caféon the outskirts of this town I had come to, and soon after found my wayto the station and caught a train later in the day. That same evening Ireached London. "

"And how long altogether, " asked John Silence quietly, "do you think youstayed in the town of the adventure?"

Vezin looked up sheepishly. 

"I was coming to that, " he resumed, with apologetic wrigglings of hisbody. "In London I found that I was a whole week out in my reckoning oftime. I had stayed over a week in the town, and it ought to have beenSeptember 15th, --instead of which it was only September 10th!"

"So that, in reality, you had only stayed a night or two in the inn?"queried the doctor. 

Vezin hesitated before replying. He shuffled upon the mat. 

"I must have gained time somewhere, " he said at length--"somewhere orsomehow. I certainly had a week to my credit. I can't explain it. I canonly give you the fact. "

"And this happened to you last year, since when you have never been backto the place?"

"Last autumn, yes, " murmured Vezin; "and I have never dared to go back. I think I never want to. "

"And, tell me, " asked Dr. Silence at length, when he saw that the littleman had evidently come to the end of his words and had nothing more tosay, "had you ever read up the subject of the old witchcraft practicesduring the Middle Ages, or been at all interested in the subject?"

"Never!" declared Vezin emphatically. "I had never given a thought tosuch matters so far as I know--"

"Or to the question of reincarnation, perhaps?"

"Never--before my adventure; but I have since, " he repliedsignificantly. 

There was, however, something still on the man's mind that he wished torelieve himself of by confession, yet could only with difficulty bringhimself to mention; and it was only after the sympathetic tactfulness ofthe doctor had provided numerous openings that he at length availedhimself of one of them, and stammered that he would like to show him themarks he still had on his neck where, he said, the girl had touched himwith her anointed hands. 

He took off his collar after infinite fumbling hesitation, and loweredhis shirt a little for the doctor to see. And there, on the surface ofthe skin, lay a faint reddish line across the shoulder and extending alittle way down the back towards the spine. It certainly indicatedexactly the position an arm might have taken in the act of embracing. And on the other side of the neck, slightly higher up, was a similarmark, though not quite so clearly defined. 

"That was where she held me that night on the ramparts, " he whispered, astrange light coming and going in his eyes. 

 * * * * *

It was some weeks later when I again found occasion to consult JohnSilence concerning another extraordinary case that had come under mynotice, and we fell to discussing Vezin's story. Since hearing it, thedoctor had made investigations on his own account, and one of hissecretaries had discovered that Vezin's ancestors had actually lived forgenerations in the very town where the adventure came to him. Two ofthem, both women, had been tried and convicted as witches, and had beenburned alive at the stake. Moreover, it had not been difficult to provethat the very inn where Vezin stayed was built about 1700 upon the spotwhere the funeral pyres stood and the executions took place. The townwas a sort of headquarters for all the sorcerers and witches of theentire region, and after conviction they were burnt there literally byscores. 

"It seems strange, " continued the doctor, "that Vezin should haveremained ignorant of all this; but, on the other hand, it was not thekind of history that successive generations would have been anxious tokeep alive, or to repeat to their children. Therefore I am inclined tothink he still knows nothing about it. 

"The whole adventure seems to have been a very vivid revival of thememories of an earlier life, caused by coming directly into contact withthe living forces still intense enough to hang about the place, and, bya most singular chance, too, with the very souls who had taken part withhim in the events of that particular life. For the mother and daughterwho impressed him so strangely must have been leading actors, withhimself, in the scenes and practices of witchcraft which at that perioddominated the imaginations of the whole country. 

"One has only to read the histories of the times to know that thesewitches claimed the power of transforming themselves into variousanimals, both for the purposes of disguise and also to convey themselvesswiftly to the scenes of their imaginary orgies. Lycanthropy, or thepower to change themselves into wolves, was everywhere believed in, andthe ability to transform themselves into cats by rubbing their bodieswith a special salve or ointment provided by Satan himself, found equalcredence. The witchcraft trials abound in evidences of such universalbeliefs. "

Dr. Silence quoted chapter and verse from many writers on the subject, and showed how every detail of Vezin's adventure had a basis in thepractices of those dark days. 

"But that the entire affair took place subjectively in the man's ownconsciousness, I have no doubt, " he went on, in reply to my questions;"for my secretary who has been to the town to investigate, discoveredhis signature in the visitors' book, and proved by it that he hadarrived on September 8th, and left suddenly without paying his bill. Heleft two days later, and they still were in possession of his dirtybrown bag and some tourist clothes. I paid a few francs in settlement ofhis debt, and have sent his luggage on to him. The daughter was absentfrom home, but the proprietress, a large woman very much as he describedher, told my secretary that he had seemed a very strange, absent-mindedkind of gentleman, and after his disappearance she had feared for a longtime that he had met with a violent end in the neighbouring forest wherehe used to roam about alone. 

"I should like to have obtained a personal interview with the daughterso as to ascertain how much was subjective and how much actually tookplace with her as Vezin told it. For her dread of fire and the sight ofburning must, of course, have been the intuitive memory of her formerpainful death at the stake, and have thus explained why he fancied morethan once that he saw her through smoke and flame. "

"And that mark on his skin, for instance?" I inquired. 

"Merely the marks produced by hysterical brooding, " he replied, "likethe stigmata of the _religieuses_, and the bruises which appear on thebodies of hypnotised subjects who have been told to expect them. This isvery common and easily explained. Only it seems curious that these marksshould have remained so long in Vezin's case. Usually they disappearquickly. "

"Obviously he is still thinking about it all, brooding, and living itall over again, " I ventured. 

"Probably. And this makes me fear that the end of his trouble is notyet. We shall hear of him again. It is a case, alas! I can do little toalleviate. "

Dr. Silence spoke gravely and with sadness in his voice. 

"And what do you make of the Frenchman in the train?" I askedfurther--"the man who warned him against the place, _à cause du sommeilet à cause des chats?_ Surely a very singular incident?"

"A very singular incident indeed, " he made answer slowly, "and one I canonly explain on the basis of a highly improbable coincidence--"

"Namely?"

"That the man was one who had himself stayed in the town and undergonethere a similar experience. I should like to find this man and ask him. But the crystal is useless here, for I have no slightest clue to goupon, and I can only conclude that some singular psychic affinity, someforce still active in his being out of the same past life, drew him thusto the personality of Vezin, and enabled him to fear what might happento him, and thus to warn him as he did. 

"Yes, " he presently continued, half talking to himself, "I suspect inthis case that Vezin was swept into the vortex of forces arising out ofthe intense activities of a past life, and that he lived over again ascene in which he had often played a leading part centuries before. Forstrong actions set up forces that are so slow to exhaust themselves, they may be said in a sense never to die. In this case they were notvital enough to render the illusion complete, so that the little manfound himself caught in a very distressing confusion of the present andthe past; yet he was sufficiently sensitive to recognise that it wastrue, and to fight against the degradation of returning, even inmemory, to a former and lower state of development. 

"Ah yes!" he continued, crossing the floor to gaze at the darkening sky, and seemingly quite oblivious of my presence, "subliminal up-rushes ofmemory like this can be exceedingly painful, and sometimes exceedinglydangerous. I only trust that this gentle soul may soon escape from thisobsession of a passionate and tempestuous past. But I doubt it, I doubtit. "

His voice was hushed with sadness as he spoke, and when he turned backinto the room again there was an expression of profound yearning uponhis face, the yearning of a soul whose desire to help is sometimesgreater than his power. 

CASE III: THE NEMESIS OF FIRE

I

By some means which I never could fathom, John Silence always contrivedto keep the compartment to himself, and as the train had a clear run oftwo hours before the first stop, there was ample time to go over thepreliminary facts of the case. He had telephoned to me that verymorning, and even through the disguise of the miles of wire the thrillof incalculable adventure had sounded in his voice. 

"As if it were an ordinary country visit, " he called, in reply to myquestion; "and don't forgot to bring your gun. "

"With blank cartridges, I suppose?" for I knew his rigid principles withregard to the taking of life, and guessed that the guns were merely forsome obvious purpose of disguise. 

Then he thanked me for coming, mentioned the train, snapped down thereceiver, and left me, vibrating with the excitement of anticipation, todo my packing. For the honour of accompanying Dr. John Silence on one ofhis big cases was what many would have considered an empty honour--andrisky. Certainly the adventure held all manner of possibilities, and Iarrived at Waterloo with the feelings of a man who is about to embark onsome dangerous and peculiar mission in which the dangers he expects torun will not be the ordinary dangers to life and limb, but of somesecret character difficult to name and still more difficult to copewith. 

"The Manor House has a high sound, " he told me, as we sat with our feetup and talked, "but I believe it is little more than an overgrownfarmhouse in the desolate heather country beyond D----, and its owner, Colonel Wragge, a retired soldier with a taste for books, lives therepractically alone, I understand, with an elderly invalid sister. So youneed not look forward to a lively visit, unless the case provides someexcitement of its own. "

"Which is likely?"

By way of reply he handed me a letter marked "Private. " It was dated aweek ago, and signed "Yours faithfully, Horace Wragge. "

"He heard of me, you see, through Captain Anderson, " the doctorexplained modestly, as though his fame were not almost world-wide; "youremember that Indian obsession case--"

I read the letter. Why it should have been marked private was difficultto understand. It was very brief, direct, and to the point. It referredby way of introduction to Captain Anderson, and then stated quite simplythat the writer needed help of a peculiar kind and asked for a personalinterview--a morning interview, since it was impossible for him to beabsent from the house at night. The letter was dignified even to thepoint of abruptness, and it is difficult to explain how it managed toconvey to me the impression of a strong man, shaken and perplexed. Perhaps the restraint of the wording, and the mystery of the affair hadsomething to do with it; and the reference to the Anderson case, thehorror of which lay still vivid in my memory, may have touched the senseof something rather ominous and alarming. But, whatever the cause, therewas no doubt that an impression of serious peril rose somehow out ofthat white paper with the few lines of firm writing, and the spirit of adeep uneasiness ran between the words and reached the mind without anyvisible form of expression. 

"And when you saw him--?" I asked, returning the letter as the trainrushed clattering noisily through Clapham Junction. 

"I have not seen him, " was the reply. "The man's mind was charged to thebrim when he wrote that; full of vivid mental pictures. Notice therestraint of it. For the main character of his case psychometry could bedepended upon, and the scrap of paper his hand has touched is sufficientto give to another mind--a sensitive and sympathetic mind--clear mentalpictures of what is going on. I think I have a very sound general ideaof his problem. "

"So there may be excitement, after all?"

John Silence waited a moment before he replied. 

"Something very serious is amiss there, " he said gravely, at length. "Some one--not himself, I gather, --has been meddling with a ratherdangerous kind of gunpowder. So--yes, there may be excitement, as youput it. "

"And my duties?" I asked, with a decidedly growing interest. "Remember, I am your 'assistant. '"

"Behave like an intelligent confidential secretary. Observe everything, without seeming to. Say nothing--nothing that means anything. Be presentat all interviews. I may ask a good deal of you, for if my impressionsare correct this is--"

He broke off suddenly. 

"But I won't tell you my impressions yet, " he resumed after a moment'sthought. "Just watch and listen as the case proceeds. Form your ownimpressions and cultivate your intuitions. We come as ordinary visitors, of course, " he added, a twinkle showing for an instant in his eye;"hence, the guns. "

Though disappointed not to hear more, I recognised the wisdom of hiswords and knew how valueless my impressions would be once the powerfulsuggestion of having heard his own lay behind them. I likewise reflectedthat intuition joined to a sense of humour was of more use to a man thandouble the quantity of mere "brains, " as such. 

Before putting the letter away, however, he handed it back, telling meto place it against my forehead for a few moments and then describe anypictures that came spontaneously into my mind. 

"Don't deliberately look for anything. Just imagine you see the insideof the eyelid, and wait for pictures that rise against its dark screen. "

I followed his instructions, making my mind as nearly blank as possible. But no visions came. I saw nothing but the lines of light that pass toand fro like the changes of a kaleidoscope across the blackness. Amomentary sensation of warmth came and went curiously. 

"You see--what?" he asked presently. 

"Nothing, " I was obliged to admit disappointedly; "nothing but the usualflashes of light one always sees. Only, perhaps, they are more vividthan usual. "

He said nothing by way of comment or reply. 

"And they group themselves now and then, " I continued, with painfulcandour, for I longed to see the pictures he had spoken of, "groupthemselves into globes and round balls of fire, and the lines that flashabout sometimes look like triangles and crosses--almost like geometricalfigures. Nothing more. "

I opened my eyes again, and gave him back the letter. 

"It makes my head hot, " I said, feeling somehow unworthy for not seeinganything of interest. But the look in his eyes arrested my attention atonce. 

"That sensation of heat is important, " he said significantly. 

"It was certainly real, and rather uncomfortable, " I replied, hoping hewould expand and explain. "There was a distinct feeling ofwarmth--internal warmth somewhere--oppressive in a sense. "

"That is interesting, " he remarked, putting the letter back in hispocket, and settling himself in the corner with newspapers and books. Hevouchsafed nothing more, and I knew the uselessness of trying to makehim talk. Following his example I settled likewise with magazines intomy corner. But when I closed my eyes again to look for the flashinglights and the sensation of heat, I found nothing but the usualphantasmagoria of the day's events--faces, scenes, memories, --and in duecourse I fell asleep and then saw nothing at all of any kind. 

When we left the train, after six hours' travelling, at a littlewayside station standing without trees in a world of sand and heather, the late October shadows had already dropped their sombre veil upon thelandscape, and the sun dipped almost out of sight behind the moorlandhills. In a high dogcart, behind a fast horse, we were soon rattlingacross the undulating stretches of an open and bleak country, the keenair stinging our cheeks and the scents of pine and bracken strong aboutus. Bare hills were faintly visible against the horizon, and thecoachman pointed to a bank of distant shadows on our left where he toldus the sea lay. Occasional stone farmhouses, standing back from the roadamong straggling fir trees, and large black barns that seemed to shiftpast us with a movement of their own in the gloom, were the only signsof humanity and civilisation that we saw, until at the end of a bracingfive miles the lights of the lodge gates flared before us and we plungedinto a thick grove of pine trees that concealed the Manor House up tothe moment of actual arrival. 

Colonel Wragge himself met us in the hall. He was the typical armyofficer who had seen service, real service, and found himself in theprocess. He was tall and well built, broad in the shoulders, but lean asa greyhound, with grave eyes, rather stern, and a moustache turninggrey. I judged him to be about sixty years of age, but his movementsshowed a suppleness of strength and agility that contradicted the years. The face was full of character and resolution, the face of a man to bedepended upon, and the straight grey eyes, it seemed to me, wore a veilof perplexed anxiety that he made no attempt to disguise. The wholeappearance of the man at once clothed the adventure with gravity andimportance. A matter that gave such a man cause for serious alarm, Ifelt, must be something real and of genuine moment. 

His speech and manner, as he welcomed us, were like his letter, simpleand sincere. He had a nature as direct and undeviating as a bullet. Thus, he showed plainly his surprise that Dr. Silence had not comealone. 

"My confidential secretary, Mr. Hubbard, " the doctor said, introducingme, and the steady gaze and powerful shake of the hand I then receivedwere well calculated, I remember thinking, to drive home the impressionthat here was a man who was not to be trifled with, and whose perplexitymust spring from some very real and tangible cause. And, quiteobviously, he was relieved that we had come. His welcome wasunmistakably genuine. 

He led us at once into a room, half library, half smoking-room, thatopened out of the low-ceilinged hall. The Manor House gave theimpression of a rambling and glorified farmhouse, solid, ancient, comfortable, and wholly unpretentious. And so it was. Only the heat ofthe place struck me as unnatural. This room with the blazing fire mayhave seemed uncomfortably warm after the long drive through the nightair; yet it seemed to me that the hall itself, and the whole atmosphereof the house, breathed a warmth that hardly belonged to well-filledgrates or the pipes of hot air and water. It was not the heat of thegreenhouse; it was an oppressive heat that somehow got into the head andmind. It stirred a curious sense of uneasiness in me, and I caughtmyself thinking of the sensation of warmth that had emanated from theletter in the train. 

I heard him thanking Dr. Silence for having come; there was no preamble, and the exchange of civilities was of the briefest description. Evidently here was a man who, like my companion, loved action ratherthan talk. His manner was straightforward and direct. I saw him in aflash: puzzled, worried, harassed into a state of alarm by something hecould not comprehend; forced to deal with things he would have preferredto despise, yet facing it all with dogged seriousness and making noattempt to conceal that he felt secretly ashamed of his incompetence. 

"So I cannot offer you much entertainment beyond that of my own company, and the queer business that has been going on here, and is still goingon, " he said, with a slight inclination of the head towards me by way ofincluding me in his confidence. 

"I think, Colonel Wragge, " replied John Silence impressively, "that weshall none of us find the time hangs heavy. I gather we shall have ourhands full. "

The two men looked at one another for the space of some seconds, andthere was an indefinable quality in their silence which for the firsttime made me admit a swift question into my mind; and I wondered alittle at my rashness in coming with so little reflection into a bigcase of this incalculable doctor. But no answer suggested itself, and towithdraw was, of course, inconceivable. The gates had closed behind menow, and the spirit of the adventure was already besieging my mind withits advance guard of a thousand little hopes and fears. 

Explaining that he would wait till after dinner to discuss anythingserious, as no reference was ever made before his sister, he led the wayupstairs and showed us personally to our rooms; and it was just as I wasfinishing dressing that a knock came at my door and Dr. Silence entered. 

He was always what is called a serious man, so that even in moments ofcomedy you felt he never lost sight of the profound gravity of life, butas he came across the room to me I caught the expression of his faceand understood in a flash that he was now in his most grave and earnestmood. He looked almost troubled. I stopped fumbling with my black tieand stared. 

"It is serious, " he said, speaking in a low voice, "more so even than Iimagined. Colonel Wragge's control over his thoughts concealed a greatdeal in my psychometrising of the letter. I looked in to warn you tokeep yourself well in hand--generally speaking. "

"Haunted house?" I asked, conscious of a distinct shiver down my back. 

But he smiled gravely at the question. 

"Haunted House of Life more likely, " he replied, and a look came intohis eyes which I had only seen there when a human soul was in the toilsand he was thick in the fight of rescue. He was stirred in the deeps. 

"Colonel Wragge--or the sister?" I asked hurriedly, for the gong wassounding. 

"Neither directly, " he said from the door. "Something far older, something very, very remote indeed. This thing has to do with the ages, unless I am mistaken greatly, the ages on which the mists of memory havelong lain undisturbed. "

He came across the floor very quickly with a finger on his lips, lookingat me with a peculiar searchingness of gaze. 

"Are you aware yet of anything--odd here?" he asked in a whisper. "Anything you cannot quite define, for instance. Tell me, Hubbard, for Iwant to know all your impressions. They may help me. "

I shook my head, avoiding his gaze, for there was something in the eyesthat scared me a little. But he was so in earnest that I set my mindkeenly searching. 

"Nothing yet, " I replied truthfully, wishing I could confess to a realemotion; "nothing but the strange heat of the place. "

He gave a little jump forward in my direction. 

"The heat again, that's it!" he exclaimed, as though glad of mycorroboration. "And how would you describe it, perhaps?" he askedquickly, with a hand on the door knob. 

"It doesn't seem like ordinary physical heat, " I said, casting about inmy thoughts for a definition. 

"More a mental heat, " he interrupted, "a glowing of thought and desire, a sort of feverish warmth of the spirit. Isn't that it?"

I admitted that he had exactly described my sensations. 

"Good!" he said, as he opened the door, and with an indescribablegesture that combined a warning to be ready with a sign of praise for mycorrect intuition, he was gone. 

I hurried after him, and found the two men waiting for me in front ofthe fire. 

"I ought to warn you, " our host was saying as I came in, "that mysister, whom you will meet at dinner, is not aware of the real object ofyour visit. She is under the impression that we are interested in thesame line of study--folklore--and that your researches have led to myseeking acquaintance. She comes to dinner in her chair, you know. Itwill be a great pleasure to her to meet you both. We have few visitors. "

So that on entering the dining-room we were prepared to find Miss Wraggealready at her place, seated in a sort of bath-chair. She was avivacious and charming old lady, with smiling expression and brighteyes, and she chatted all through dinner with unfailing spontaneity. Shehad that face, unlined and fresh, that some people carry through lifefrom the cradle to the grave; her smooth plump cheeks were all pink andwhite, and her hair, still dark, was divided into two glossy and sleekhalves on either side of a careful parting. She wore gold-rimmedglasses, and at her throat was a large scarab of green jasper that madea very handsome brooch. 

Her brother and Dr. Silence talked little, so that most of theconversation was carried on between herself and me, and she told me agreat deal about the history of the old house, most of which I fear Ilistened to with but half an ear. 

"And when Cromwell stayed here, " she babbled on, "he occupied the veryrooms upstairs that used to be mine. But my brother thinks it safer forme to sleep on the ground floor now in case of fire. "

And this sentence has stayed in my memory only because of the sudden wayher brother interrupted her and instantly led the conversation on toanother topic. The passing reference to fire seemed to have disturbedhim, and thenceforward he directed the talk himself. 

It was difficult to believe that this lively and animated old lady, sitting beside me and taking so eager an interest in the affairs oflife, was practically, we understood, without the use of her lowerlimbs, and that her whole existence for years had been passed betweenthe sofa, the bed, and the bath-chair in which she chatted so naturallyat the dinner table. She made no allusion to her affliction until thedessert was reached, and then, touching a bell, she made us a wittylittle speech about leaving us "like time, on noiseless feet, " and waswheeled out of the room by the butler and carried off to her apartmentsat the other end of the house. 

And the rest of us were not long in following suit, for Dr. Silence andmyself were quite as eager to learn the nature of our errand as our hostwas to impart it to us. He led us down a long flagged passage to a roomat the very end of the house, a room provided with double doors, andwindows, I saw, heavily shuttered. Books lined the walls on every side, and a large desk in the bow window was piled up with volumes, some open, some shut, some showing scraps of paper stuck between the leaves, andall smothered in a general cataract of untidy foolscap and loose-halfsheets. 

"My study and workroom, " explained Colonel Wragge, with a delightfultouch of innocent pride, as though he were a very serious scholar. Heplaced arm-chairs for us round the fire. "Here, " he added significantly, "we shall be safe from interruption and can talk securely. "

During dinner the manner of the doctor had been all that was natural andspontaneous, though it was impossible for me, knowing him as I did, notto be aware that he was subconsciously very keenly alert and alreadyreceiving upon the ultra-sensitive surface of his mind various and vividimpressions; and there was now something in the gravity of his face, aswell as in the significant tone of Colonel Wragge's speech, andsomething, too, in the fact that we three were shut away in this privatechamber about to listen to things probably strange, and certainlymysterious--something in all this that touched my imagination sharplyand sent an undeniable thrill along my nerves. Taking the chairindicated by my host, I lit my cigar and waited for the opening of theattack, fully conscious that we were now too far gone in the adventureto admit of withdrawal, and wondering a little anxiously where it wasgoing to lead. 

What I expected precisely, it is hard to say. Nothing definite, perhaps. Only the sudden change was dramatic. A few hours before the prosaicatmosphere of Piccadilly was about me, and now I was sitting in a secretchamber of this remote old building waiting to hear an account of thingsthat held possibly the genuine heart of terror. I thought of the drearymoors and hills outside, and the dark pine copses soughing in the windof night; I remembered my companion's singular words up in my bedroombefore dinner; and then I turned and noted carefully the sterncountenance of the Colonel as he faced us and lit his big black cigarbefore speaking. 

The threshold of an adventure, I reflected as I waited for the firstwords, is always the most thrilling moment--until the climax comes. 

But Colonel Wragge hesitated--mentally--a long time before he began. Hetalked briefly of our journey, the weather, the country, and othercomparatively trivial topics, while he sought about in his mind for anappropriate entry into the subject that was uppermost in the thoughts ofall of us. The fact was he found it a difficult matter to speak of atall, and it was Dr. Silence who finally showed him the way over thehedge. 

"Mr. Hubbard will take a few notes when you are ready--you won'tobject, " he suggested; "I can give my undivided attention in this way. "

"By all means, " turning to reach some of the loose sheets on the writingtable, and glancing at me. He still hesitated a little, I thought. "Thefact is, " he said apologetically, "I wondered if it was quite fair totrouble you so soon. The daylight might suit you better to hear what Ihave to tell. Your sleep, I mean, might be less disturbed, perhaps. "

"I appreciate your thoughtfulness, " John Silence replied with his gentlesmile, taking command as it were from that moment, "but really we areboth quite immune. There is nothing, I think, that could prevent eitherof us sleeping, except--an outbreak of fire, or some such very physicaldisturbance. "

Colonel Wragge raised his eyes and looked fixedly at him. This referenceto an outbreak of fire I felt sure was made with a purpose. It certainlyhad the desired effect of removing from our host's manner the last signsof hesitancy. 

"Forgive me, " he said. "Of course, I know nothing of your methods inmatters of this kind--so, perhaps, you would like me to begin at onceand give you an outline of the situation?"

Dr. Silence bowed his agreement. "I can then take my precautionsaccordingly, " he added calmly. 

The soldier looked up for a moment as though he did not quite gather themeaning of these words; but he made no further comment and turned atonce to tackle a subject on which he evidently talked with diffidenceand unwillingness. 

"It's all so utterly out of my line of things, " he began, puffing outclouds of cigar smoke between his words, "and there's so little to tellwith any real evidence behind it, that it's almost impossible to make aconsecutive story for you. It's the total cumulative effect that isso--so disquieting. " He chose his words with care, as though determinednot to travel one hair's breadth beyond the truth. 

"I came into this place twenty years ago when my elder brother died, " hecontinued, "but could not afford to live here then. My sister, whom youmet at dinner, kept house for him till the end, and during all theseyears, while I was seeing service abroad, she had an eye to theplace--for we never got a satisfactory tenant--and saw that it was notallowed to go to ruin. I myself took possession, however, only a yearago. 

"My brother, " he went on, after a perceptible pause, "spent much of histime away, too. He was a great traveller, and filled the house withstuff he brought home from all over the world. The laundry--a smalldetached building beyond the servants' quarters--he turned into aregular little museum. The curios and things I have cleared away--theycollected dust and were always getting broken--but the laundry-house youshall see tomorrow. "

Colonel Wragge spoke with such deliberation and with so many pauses thatthis beginning took him a long time. But at this point he came to a fullstop altogether. Evidently there was something he wished to say thatcost him considerable effort. At length he looked up steadily into mycompanion's face. 

"May I ask you--that is, if you won't think it strange, " he said, and asort of hush came over his voice and manner, "whether you have noticedanything at all unusual--anything queer, since you came into the house?"

Dr. Silence answered without a moment's hesitation. 

"I have, " he said. "There is a curious sensation of heat in the place. "

"Ah!" exclaimed the other, with a slight start. "You _have_ noticed it. This unaccountable heat--"

"But its cause, I gather, is not in the house itself--but outside, " Iwas astonished to hear the doctor add. 

Colonel Wragge rose from his chair and turned to unhook a framed mapthat hung upon the wall. I got the impression that the movement was madewith the deliberate purpose of concealing his face. 

"Your diagnosis, I believe, is amazingly accurate, " he said after amoment, turning round with the map in his hands. "Though, of course, Ican have no idea how you should guess--"

John Silence shrugged his shoulders expressively. "Merely myimpression, " he said. "If you pay attention to impressions, and do notallow them to be confused by deductions of the intellect, you will oftenfind them surprisingly, uncannily, accurate. "

Colonel Wragge resumed his seat and laid the map upon his knees. Hisface was very thoughtful as he plunged abruptly again into his story. 

"On coming into possession, " he said, looking us alternately in theface, "I found a crop of stories of the most extraordinary andimpossible kind I had ever heard--stories which at first I treated withamused indifference, but later was forced to regard seriously, if onlyto keep my servants. These stories I thought I traced to the fact of mybrother's death--and, in a way, I think so still. "

He leant forward and handed the map to Dr. Silence. 

"It's an old plan of the estate, " he explained, "but accurate enough forour purpose, and I wish you would note the position of the plantationsmarked upon it, especially those near the house. That one, " indicatingthe spot with his finger, "is called the Twelve Acre Plantation. It wasjust there, on the side nearest the house, that my brother and the headkeeper met their deaths. "

He spoke as a man forced to recognise facts that he deplored, and wouldhave preferred to leave untouched--things he personally would ratherhave treated with ridicule if possible. It made his words peculiarlydignified and impressive, and I listened with an increasing uneasinessas to the sort of help the doctor would look to me for later. It seemedas though I were a spectator of some drama of mystery in which anymoment I might be summoned to play a part. 

"It was twenty years ago, " continued the Colonel, "but there was muchtalk about it at the time, unfortunately, and you may, perhaps, haveheard of the affair. Stride, the keeper, was a passionate, hot-temperedman but I regret to say, so was my brother, and quarrels between themseem to have been frequent. "

"I do not recall the affair, " said the doctor. "May I ask what was thecause of death?" Something in his voice made me prick up my ears for thereply. 

"The keeper, it was said, from suffocation. And at the inquest thedoctors averred that both men had been dead the same length of time whenfound. "

"And your brother?" asked John Silence, noticing the omission, andlistening intently. 

"Equally mysterious, " said our host, speaking in a low voice witheffort. "But there was one distressing feature I think I ought tomention. For those who saw the face--I did not see it myself--and thoughStride carried a gun its chambers were undischarged--" He stammeredand hesitated with confusion. Again that sense of terror moved betweenhis words. He stuck. 

"Yes, " said the chief listener sympathetically. 

"My brother's face, they said, looked as though it had been scorched. Ithad been swept, as it were, by something that burned--blasted. It was, Iam told, quite dreadful. The bodies were found lying side by side, facesdownwards, both pointing away from the wood, as though they had been inthe act of running, and not more than a dozen yards from its edge. "

Dr. Silence made no comment. He appeared to be studying the mapattentively. 

"I did not see the face myself, " repeated the other, his manner somehowexpressing the sense of awe he contrived to keep out of his voice, "butmy sister unfortunately did, and her present state I believe to beentirely due to the shock it gave to her nerves. She never can bebrought to refer to it, naturally, and I am even inclined to think thatthe memory has mercifully been permitted to vanish from her mind. Butshe spoke of it at the time as a face swept by flame--blasted. "

John Silence looked up from his contemplation of the map, but with theair of one who wished to listen, not to speak, and presently ColonelWragge went on with his account. He stood on the mat, his broadshoulders hiding most of the mantelpiece. 

"They all centred about this particular plantation, these stories. Thatwas to be expected, for the people here are as superstitious as Irishpeasantry, and though I made one or two examples among them to stop thefoolish talk, it had no effect, and new versions came to my ears everyweek. You may imagine how little good dismissals did, when I tell youthat the servants dismissed themselves. It was not the house servants, but the men who worked on the estate outside. The keepers gave noticeone after another, none of them with any reason I could accept; theforesters refused to enter the wood, and the beaters to beat in it. Wordflew all over the countryside that Twelve Acre Plantation was a place tobe avoided, day or night. 

"There came a point, " the Colonel went on, now well in his swing, "whenI felt compelled to make investigations on my own account. I could notkill the thing by ignoring it; so I collected and analysed the storiesat first hand. For this Twelve Acre Wood, you will see by the map, comesrather near home. Its lower end, if you will look, almost touches theend of the back lawn, as I will show you tomorrow, and its dense growthof pines forms the chief protection the house enjoys from the east windsthat blow up from the sea. And in olden days, before my brotherinterfered with it and frightened all the game away, it was one of thebest pheasant coverts on the whole estate. "

"And what form, if I may ask, did this interference take?" asked Dr. Silence. 

"In detail, I cannot tell you, for I do not know--except that Iunderstand it was the subject of his frequent differences with the headkeeper; but during the last two years of his life, when he gave uptravelling and settled down here, he took a special interest in thiswood, and for some unaccountable reason began to build a low stone wallaround it. This wall was never finished, but you shall see the ruinstomorrow in the daylight. "

"And the result of your investigations--these stories, I mean?" thedoctor broke in, anxious to keep him to the main issues. 

"Yes, I'm coming to that, " he said slowly, "but the wood first, for thiswood out of which they grew like mushrooms has nothing in any waypeculiar about it. It is very thickly grown, and rises to a clearer partin the centre, a sort of mound where there is a circle of largeboulders--old Druid stones, I'm told. At another place there's a smallpond. There's nothing distinctive about it that I could mention--just anordinary pine-wood, a very ordinary pine-wood--only the trees are a bittwisted in the trunks, some of 'em, and very dense. Nothing more. 

"And the stories? Well, none of them had anything to do with my poorbrother, or the keeper, as you might have expected; and they were allodd--such odd things, I mean, to invent or imagine. I never could makeout how these people got such notions into their heads. "

He paused a moment to relight his cigar. 

"There's no regular path through it, " he resumed, puffing vigorously, "but the fields round it are constantly used, and one of the gardenerswhose cottage lies over that way declared he often saw moving lights init at night, and luminous shapes like globes of fire over the tops ofthe trees, skimming and floating, and making a soft hissing sound--mostof 'em said that, in fact--and another man saw shapes flitting in andout among the trees, things that were neither men nor animals, and allfaintly luminous. No one ever pretended to see human forms--alwaysqueer, huge things they could not properly describe. Sometimes the wholewood was lit up, and one fellow--he's still here and you shall seehim--has a most circumstantial yarn about having seen great stars lyingon the ground round the edge of the wood at regular intervals--"

"What kind of stars?" put in John Silence sharply, in a sudden way thatmade me start. 

"Oh, I don't know quite; ordinary stars, I think he said, only verylarge, and apparently blazing as though the ground was alight. He wastoo terrified to go close and examine, and he has never seen themsince. "

He stooped and stirred the fire into a welcome blaze--welcome for itsblaze of light rather than for its heat. In the room there was already astrange pervading sensation of warmth that was oppressive in its effectand far from comforting. 

"Of course, " he went on, straightening up again on the mat, "this wasall commonplace enough--this seeing lights and figures at night. Most ofthese fellows drink, and imagination and terror between them may accountfor almost anything. But others saw things in broad daylight. One of thewoodmen, a sober, respectable man, took the shortcut home to his middaymeal, and swore he was followed the whole length of the wood bysomething that never showed itself, but dodged from tree to tree, alwayskeeping out of sight, yet solid enough to make the branches sway and thetwigs snap on the ground. And it made a noise, he declared--butreally"--the speaker stopped and gave a short laugh--"it's tooabsurd--"

"_Please!_" insisted the doctor; "for it is these small details thatgive me the best clues always. "

"--it made a crackling noise, he said, like a bonfire. Those werehis very words: like the crackling of a bonfire, " finished the soldier, with a repetition of his short laugh. 

"Most interesting, " Dr. Silence observed gravely. "Please omit nothing. "

"Yes, " he went on, "and it was soon after that the fires began--thefires in the wood. They started mysteriously burning in the patches ofcoarse white grass that cover the more open parts of the plantation. Noone ever actually saw them start, but many, myself among the number, have seen them burning and smouldering. They are always small andcircular in shape, and for all the world like a picnic fire. The headkeeper has a dozen explanations, from sparks flying out of the housechimneys to the sunlight focusing through a dewdrop, but none of them, Imust admit, convince me as being in the least likely or probable. Theyare most singular, I consider, most singular, these mysterious fires, and I am glad to say that they come only at rather long intervals andnever seem to spread. 

"But the keeper had other queer stories as well, and about things thatare verifiable. He declared that no life ever willingly entered theplantation; more, that no life existed in it at all. No birds nested inthe trees, or flew into their shade. He set countless traps, but nevercaught so much as a rabbit or a weasel. Animals avoided it, and morethan once he had picked up dead creatures round the edges that bore noobvious signs of how they had met their death. 

"Moreover, he told me one extraordinary tale about his retriever chasingsome invisible creature across the field one day when he was out withhis gun. The dog suddenly pointed at something in the field at his feet, and then gave chase, yelping like a mad thing. It followed its imaginaryquarry to the borders of the wood, and then went in--a thing he hadnever known it to do before. The moment it crossed the edge--it isdarkish in there even in daylight--it began fighting in the mostfrenzied and terrific fashion. It made him afraid to interfere, he said. And at last, when the dog came out, hanging its tail down and panting, he found something like white hair stuck to its jaws, and brought it toshow me. I tell you these details because--"

"They are important, believe me, " the doctor stopped him. "And you haveit still, this hair?" he asked. 

"It disappeared in the oddest way, " the Colonel explained. "It wascurious looking stuff, something like asbestos, and I sent it to beanalysed by the local chemist. But either the man got wind of itsorigin, or else he didn't like the look of it for some reason, becausehe returned it to me and said it was neither animal, vegetable, normineral, so far as he could make out, and he didn't wish to haveanything to do with it. I put it away in paper, but a week later, onopening the package--it was gone! Oh, the stories are simply endless. Icould tell you hundreds all on the same lines. "

"And personal experiences of your own, Colonel Wragge?" asked JohnSilence earnestly, his manner showing the greatest possible interest andsympathy. 

The soldier gave an almost imperceptible start. He looked distinctlyuncomfortable. 

"Nothing, I think, " he said slowly, "nothing--er--I should like to relyon. I mean nothing I have the right to speak of, perhaps--yet. "

His mouth closed with a snap. Dr. Silence, after waiting a little to seeif he would add to his reply, did not seek to press him on the point. 

"Well, " he resumed presently, and as though he would speakcontemptuously, yet dared not, "this sort of thing has gone on atintervals ever since. It spreads like wildfire, of course, mysteriouschatter of this kind, and people began trespassing all over the estate, coming to see the wood, and making themselves a general nuisance. Notices of man-traps and spring-guns only seemed to increase theirpersistence; and--think of it, " he snorted, "some local Research Societyactually wrote and asked permission for one of their members to spend anight in the wood! Bolder fools, who didn't write for leave, came andtook away bits of bark from the trees and gave them to clairvoyants, whoinvented in their turn a further batch of tales. There was simply no endto it all. "

"Most distressing and annoying, I can well believe, " interposed thedoctor. 

"Then suddenly, the phenomena ceased as mysteriously as they had begun, and the interest flagged. The tales stopped. People got interested insomething else. It all seemed to die out. This was last July. I can tellyou exactly, for I've kept a diary more or less of what happened. "

"Ah!"

"But now, quite recently, within the past three weeks, it has allrevived again with a rush--with a kind of furious attack, so to speak. It has really become unbearable. You may imagine what it means, and thegeneral state of affairs, when I say that the possibility of leaving hasoccurred to me. "

"Incendiarism?" suggested Dr. Silence, half under his breath, but not solow that Colonel Wragge did not hear him. 

"By Jove, sir, you take the very words out of my mouth!" exclaimed theastonished man, glancing from the doctor to me and from me to thedoctor, and rattling the money in his pocket as though some explanationof my friend's divining powers were to be found that way. 

"It's only that you are thinking very vividly, " the doctor said quietly, "and your thoughts form pictures in my mind before you utter them. It'smerely a little elementary thought-reading. "

His intention, I saw, was not to perplex the good man, but to impresshim with his powers so as to ensure obedience later. 

"Good Lord! I had no idea--" He did not finish the sentence, anddived again abruptly into his narrative. 

"I did not see anything myself, I must admit, but the stories ofindependent eye-witnesses were to the effect that lines of light, likestreams of thin fire, moved through the wood and sometimes were seen toshoot out precisely as flames might shoot out--in the direction of thishouse. There, " he explained, in a louder voice that made me jump, pointing with a thick finger to the map, "where the westerly fringe ofthe plantation comes up to the end of the lower lawn at the back of thehouse--where it links on to those dark patches, which are laurelshrubberies, running right up to the back premises--that's where theselights were seen. They passed from the wood to the shrubberies, and inthis way reached the house itself. Like silent rockets, one mandescribed them, rapid as lightning and exceedingly bright. "

"And this evidence you spoke of?"

"They actually reached the sides of the house. They've left a mark ofscorching on the walls--the walls of the laundry building at the otherend. You shall see 'em tomorrow. " He pointed to the map to indicate thespot, and then straightened himself and glared about the room as thoughhe had said something no one could believe and expected contradiction. 

"Scorched--just as the faces were, " the doctor murmured, lookingsignificantly at me. 

"Scorched--yes, " repeated the Colonel, failing to catch the rest of thesentence in his excitement. 

There was a prolonged silence in the room, in which I heard the gurglingof the oil in the lamp and the click of the coals and the heavybreathing of our host. The most unwelcome sensations were creeping aboutmy spine, and I wondered whether my companion would scorn me utterly ifI asked to sleep on the sofa in his room. It was eleven o'clock, I sawby the clock on the mantelpiece. We had crossed the dividing line andwere now well in the movement of the adventure. The fight between myinterest and my dread became acute. But, even if turning back had beenpossible, I think the interest would have easily gained the day. 

"I have enemies, of course, " I heard the Colonel's rough voice breakinto the pause presently, "and have discharged a number ofservants---"

"It's not that, " put in John Silence briefly. 

"You think not? In a sense I am glad, and yet--there are some thingsthat can be met and dealt with--"

He left the sentence unfinished, and looked down at the floor with anexpression of grim severity that betrayed a momentary glimpse ofcharacter. This fighting man loathed and abhorred the thought of anenemy he could not see and come to grips with. Presently he moved overand sat down in the chair between us. Something like a sigh escaped him. Dr. Silence said nothing. 

"My sister, of course, is kept in ignorance, as far as possible, of allthis, " he said disconnectedly, and as if talking to himself. "But evenif she knew she would find matter-of-fact explanations. I only wish Icould. I'm sure they exist. "

There came then an interval in the conversation that was verysignificant. It did not seem a real pause, or the silence real silence, for both men continued to think so rapidly and strongly that one almostimagined their thoughts clothed themselves in words in the air of theroom. I was more than a little keyed up with the strange excitement ofall I had heard, but what stimulated my nerves more than anything elsewas the obvious fact that the doctor was clearly upon the trail ofdiscovery. In his mind at that moment, I believe, he had already solvedthe nature of this perplexing psychical problem. His face was like amask, and he employed the absolute minimum of gesture and words. All hisenergies were directed inwards, and by those incalculable methods andprocesses he had mastered with such infinite patience and study, I feltsure he was already in touch with the forces behind these singularphenomena and laying his deep plans for bringing them into the open, andthen effectively dealing with them. 

Colonel Wragge meanwhile grew more and more fidgety. From time to timehe turned towards my companion, as though about to speak, yet alwayschanging his mind at the last moment. Once he went over and opened thedoor suddenly, apparently to see if any one were listening at thekeyhole, for he disappeared a moment between the two doors, and I thenheard him open the outer one. He stood there for some seconds and made anoise as though he were sniffing the air like a dog. Then he closed bothdoors cautiously and came back to the fireplace. A strange excitementseemed growing upon him. Evidently he was trying to make up his mind tosay something that he found it difficult to say. And John Silence, as Irightly judged, was waiting patiently for him to choose his ownopportunity and his own way of saying it. At last he turned and facedus, squaring his great shoulders, and stiffening perceptibly. 

Dr. Silence looked up sympathetically. 

"Your own experiences help me most, " he observed quietly. 

"The fact is, " the Colonel said, speaking very low, "this past weekthere have been outbreaks of fire in the house itself. Three separateoutbreaks--and all--in my sister's room. "

"Yes, " the doctor said, as if this was just what he had expected tohear. 

"Utterly unaccountable--all of them, " added the other, and then satdown. I began to understand something of the reason of his excitement. He was realising at last that the "natural" explanation he had held toall along was becoming impossible, and he hated it. It made him angry. 

"Fortunately, " he went on, "she was out each time and does not know. ButI have made her sleep now in a room on the ground floor. "

"A wise precaution, " the doctor said simply. He asked one or twoquestions. The fires had started in the curtains--once by the window andonce by the bed. The third time smoke had been discovered by the maidcoming from the cupboard, and it was found that Miss Wragge's clotheshanging on the hooks were smouldering. The doctor listened attentively, but made no comment. 

"And now can you tell me, " he said presently, "what your own feelingabout it is--your general impression?"

"It sounds foolish to say so, " replied the soldier, after a moment'shesitation, "but I feel exactly as I have often felt on active servicein my Indian campaigns: just as if the house and all in it were in astate of siege; as though a concealed enemy were encamped about us--inambush somewhere. " He uttered a soft nervous laugh. "As if the next signof smoke would precipitate a panic--a dreadful panic. "

The picture came before me of the night shadowing the house, and thetwisted pine trees he had described crowding about it, concealing somepowerful enemy; and, glancing at the resolute face and figure of the oldsoldier, forced at length to his confession, I understood something ofall he had been through before he sought the assistance of John Silence. 

"And tomorrow, unless I am mistaken, is full moon, " said the doctorsuddenly, watching the other's face for the effect of his apparentlycareless words. 

Colonel Wragge gave an uncontrollable start, and his face for the firsttime showed unmistakable pallor. 

"What in the world---?" he began, his lip quivering. 

"Only that I am beginning to see light in this extraordinary affair, "returned the other calmly, "and, if my theory is correct, each monthwhen the moon is at the full should witness an increase in the activityof the phenomena. "

"I don't see the connection, " Colonel Wragge answered almost savagely, "but I am bound to say my diary bears you out. " He wore the most puzzledexpression I have ever seen upon an honest face, but he abhorred thisadditional corroboration of an explanation that perplexed him. 

"I confess, " he repeated, "I cannot see the connection. "

"Why should you?" said the doctor, with his first laugh that evening. Hegot up and hung the map upon the wall again. "But I do--because thesethings are my special study--and let me add that I have yet to comeacross a problem that is not natural, and has not a natural explanation. It's merely a question of how much one knows--and admits. "

Colonel Wragge eyed him with a new and curious respect in his face. Buthis feelings were soothed. Moreover, the doctor's laugh and change ofmanner came as a relief to all, and broke the spell of grave suspensethat had held us so long. We all rose and stretched our limbs, and tooklittle walks about the room. 

"I am glad, Dr. Silence, if you will allow me to say so, that you arehere, " he said simply, "very glad indeed. And now I fear I have kept youboth up very late, " with a glance to include me, "for you must be tired, and ready for your beds. I have told you all there is to tell, " headded, "and tomorrow you must feel perfectly free to take any steps youthink necessary. "

The end was abrupt, yet natural, for there was nothing more to say, andneither of these men talked for mere talking's sake. 

Out in the cold and chilly hall he lit our candles and took us upstairs. The house was at rest and still, every one asleep. We moved softly. Through the windows on the stairs we saw the moonlight falling acrossthe lawn, throwing deep shadows. The nearer pine trees were just visiblein the distance, a wall of impenetrable blackness. 

Our host came for a moment to our rooms to see that we had everything. He pointed to a coil of strong rope lying beside the window, fastened tothe wall by means of an iron ring. Evidently it had been recently putin. 

"I don't think we shall need it, " Dr. Silence said, with a smile. 

"I trust not, " replied our host gravely. "I sleep quite close to youacross the landing, " he whispered, pointing to his door, "and if you--ifyou want anything in the night you will know where to find me. "

He wished us pleasant dreams and disappeared down the passage into hisroom, shading the candle with his big muscular hand from the draughts. 

John Silence stopped me a moment before I went. 

"You know what it is?" I asked, with an excitement that even overcame myweariness. 

"Yes, " he said, "I'm almost sure. And you?"

"Not the smallest notion. "

He looked disappointed, but not half as disappointed as I felt. 

"Egypt, " he whispered, "Egypt!"

II

Nothing happened to disturb me in the night--nothing, that is, except anightmare in which Colonel Wragge chased me amid thin streaks of fire, and his sister always prevented my escape by suddenly rising up out ofthe ground in her chair--dead. The deep baying of dogs woke me once, just before the dawn, it must have been, for I saw the window frameagainst the sky; there was a flash of lightning, too, I thought, as Iturned over in bed. And it was warm, for October oppressively warm. 

It was after eleven o'clock when our host suggested going out with theguns, these, we understood, being a somewhat thin disguise for our truepurpose. Personally, I was glad to be in the open air, for theatmosphere of the house was heavy with presentiment. The sense ofimpending disaster hung over all. Fear stalked the passages, and lurkedin the corners of every room. It was a house haunted, but reallyhaunted; not by some vague shadow of the dead, but by a definite thoughincalculable influence that was actively alive, and dangerous. At theleast smell of smoke the entire household quivered. An odour of burning, I was convinced, would paralyse all the inmates. For the servants, though professedly ignorant by the master's unspoken orders, yet sharedthe common dread; and the hideous uncertainty, joined with this displayof so spiteful and calculated a spirit of malignity, provided a kind ofblack doom that draped not only the walls, but also the minds of thepeople living within them. 

Only the bright and cheerful vision of old Miss Wragge being pushedabout the house in her noiseless chair, chatting and nodding briskly toevery one she met, prevented us from giving way entirely to thedepression which governed the majority. The sight of her was like agleam of sunshine through the depths of some ill-omened wood, and justas we went out I saw her being wheeled along by her attendant into thesunshine of the back lawn, and caught her cheery smile as she turned herhead and wished us good sport. 

The morning was October at its best. Sunshine glistened on thedew-drenched grass and on leaves turned golden-red. The daintymessengers of coming hoar-frost were already in the air, a search forpermanent winter quarters. From the wide moors that everywhere swept upagainst the sky, like a purple sea splashed by the occasional grey ofrocky clefts, there stole down the cool and perfumed wind of the west. And the keen taste of the sea ran through all like a master-flavour, borne over the spaces perhaps by the seagulls that cried and circledhigh in the air. 

But our host took little interest in this sparkling beauty, and had nothought of showing off the scenery of his property. His mind wasotherwise intent, and, for that matter, so were our own. 

"Those bleak moors and hills stretch unbroken for hours, " he said, witha sweep of the hand; "and over there, some four miles, " pointing inanother direction, "lies S---- Bay, a long, swampy inlet of the sea, haunted by myriads of seabirds. On the other side of the house are theplantations and pine-woods. I thought we would get the dogs and go firstto the Twelve Acre Wood I told you about last night. It's quite near. "

We found the dogs in the stable, and I recalled the deep baying of thenight when a fine bloodhound and two great Danes leaped out to greet us. Singular companions for guns, I thought to myself, as we struck outacross the fields and the great creatures bounded and ran beside us, nose to ground. 

The conversation was scanty. John Silence's grave face did not encouragetalk. He wore the expression I knew well--that look of earnestsolicitude which meant that his whole being was deeply absorbed andpreoccupied. Frightened, I had never seen him, but anxious often--italways moved me to witness it--and he was anxious now. 

"On the way back you shall see the laundry building, " Colonel Wraggeobserved shortly, for he, too, found little to say. "We shall attractless attention then. "

Yet not all the crisp beauty of the morning seemed able to dispel thefeelings of uneasy dread that gathered increasingly about our minds aswe went. 

In a very few minutes a clump of pine trees concealed the house fromview, and we found ourselves on the outskirts of a densely grownplantation of conifers. Colonel Wragge stopped abruptly, and, producinga map from his pocket, explained once more very briefly its positionwith regard to the house. He showed how it ran up almost to the wallsof the laundry building--though at the moment beyond our actualview--and pointed to the windows of his sister's bedroom where the fireshad been. The room, now empty, looked straight on to the wood. Then, glancing nervously about him, and calling the dogs to heel, he proposedthat we should enter the plantation and make as thorough examination ofit as we thought worth while. The dogs, he added, might perhaps bepersuaded to accompany us a little way--and he pointed to where theycowered at his feet--but he doubted it. "Neither voice nor whip will getthem very far, I'm afraid, " he said. "I know by experience. "

"If you have no objection, " replied Dr. Silence, with decision, andspeaking almost for the first time, "we will make our examinationalone--Mr. Hubbard and myself. It will be best so. "

His tone was absolutely final, and the Colonel acquiesced so politelythat even a less intuitive man than myself must have seen that he wasgenuinely relieved. 

"You doubtless have good reasons, " he said. 

"Merely that I wish to obtain my impressions uncoloured. This delicateclue I am working on might be so easily blurred by the thought-currentsof another mind with strongly preconceived ideas. "

"Perfectly. I understand, " rejoined the soldier, though with anexpression of countenance that plainly contradicted his words. "Then Iwill wait here with the dogs; and we'll have a look at the laundry onour way home. "

I turned once to look back as we clambered over the low stone wall builtby the late owner, and saw his straight, soldierly figure standing inthe sunlit field watching us with a curiously intent look on his face. There was something to me incongruous, yet distinctly pathetic, in theman's efforts to meet all far-fetched explanations of the mystery withcontempt, and at the same time in his stolid, unswerving investigationof it all. He nodded at me and made a gesture of farewell with his hand. That picture of him, standing in the sunshine with his big dogs, steadily watching us, remains with me to this day. 

Dr. Silence led the way in among the twisted trunks, planted closelytogether in serried ranks, and I followed sharp at his heels. The momentwe were out of sight he turned and put down his gun against the roots ofa big tree, and I did likewise. 

"We shall hardly want these cumbersome weapons of murder, " he observed, with a passing smile. 

"You are sure of your clue, then?" I asked at once, bursting withcuriosity, yet fearing to betray it lest he should think me unworthy. His own methods were so absolutely simple and untheatrical. 

"I am sure of my clue, " he answered gravely. "And I think we have comejust in time. You shall know in due course. For the present--be contentto follow and observe. And think, steadily. The support of your mindwill help me. "

His voice had that quiet mastery in it which leads men to face deathwith a sort of happiness and pride. I would have followed him anywhereat that moment. At the same time his words conveyed a sense of dreadseriousness. I caught the thrill of his confidence; but also, in thisbroad light of day, I felt the measure of alarm that lay behind. 

"You still have no strong impressions?" he asked. "Nothing happened inthe night, for instance? No vivid dreamings?"

He looked closely for my answer, I was aware. 

"I slept almost an unbroken sleep. I was tremendously tired, you know, and, but for the oppressive heat--"

"Good! You still notice the heat, then, " he said to himself, rather thanexpecting an answer. "And the lightning?" he added, "that lightning outof a clear sky--that flashing--did you notice _that_?"

I answered truly that I thought I had seen a flash during a moment ofwakefulness, and he then drew my attention to certain facts beforemoving on. 

"You remember the sensation of warmth when you put the letter to yourforehead in the train; the heat generally in the house last evening, and, as you now mention, in the night. You heard, too, the Colonel'sstories about the appearances of fire in this wood and in the houseitself, and the way his brother and the gamekeeper came to their deathstwenty years ago. "

I nodded, wondering what in the world it all meant. 

"And you get no clue from these facts?" he asked, a trifle surprised. 

I searched every corner of my mind and imagination for some inkling ofhis meaning, but was obliged to admit that I understood nothing so far. 

"Never mind, you will later. And now, " he added, "we will go over thewood and see what we can find. "

His words explained to me something of his method. We were to keep ourminds alert and report to each other the least fancy that crossed thepicture-gallery of our thoughts. Then, just as we started, he turnedagain to me with a final warning. 

"And, for your safety, " he said earnestly, "imagine _now_--and for thatmatter, imagine always until we leave this place--imagine with theutmost keenness, that you are surrounded by a shell that protects you. Picture yourself inside a protective envelope, and build it up with themost intense imagination you can evoke. Pour the whole force of yourthought and will into it. Believe vividly all through this adventurethat such a shell, constructed of your thought, will and imagination, surrounds you completely, and that nothing can pierce it to attack. "

He spoke with dramatic conviction, gazing hard at me as though toenforce his meaning, and then moved forward and began to pick his wayover the rough, tussocky ground into the wood. And meanwhile, knowingthe efficacy of his prescription, I adopted it to the best of myability. 

The trees at once closed about us like the night. Their branches metoverhead in a continuous tangle, their stems crept closer and closer, the brambly undergrowth thickened and multiplied. We tore our trousers, scratched our hands, and our eyes filled with fine dust that made itmost difficult to avoid the clinging, prickly network of branches andcreepers. Coarse white grass that caught our feet like string grew hereand there in patches. It crowned the lumps of peaty growth that stuck uplike human heads, fantastically dressed, thrusting up at us out of theground with crests of dead hair. We stumbled and floundered among them. It was hard going, and I could well conceive it impossible to find a wayat all in the night-time. We jumped, when possible, from tussock totussock, and it seemed as though we were springing among heads on abattlefield, and that this dead white grass concealed eyes that turnedto stare as we passed. 

Here and there the sunlight shot in with vivid spots of white light, dazzling the sight, but only making the surrounding gloom deeper bycontrast. And on two occasions we passed dark circular places in thegrass where fires had eaten their mark and left a ring of ashes. Dr. Silence pointed to them, but without comment and without pausing, andthe sight of them woke in me a singular realisation of the dread thatlay so far only just out of sight in this adventure. 

It was exhausting work, and heavy going. We kept close together. Thewarmth, too, was extraordinary. Yet it did not seem the warmth of thebody due to violent exertion, but rather an inner heat of the mind thatlaid glowing hands of fire upon the heart and set the brain in a kind ofsteady blaze. When my companion found himself too far in advance, hewaited for me to come up. The place had evidently been untouched by handof man, keeper, forester or sportsman, for many a year; and my thoughts, as we advanced painfully, were not unlike the state of the wooditself--dark, confused, full of a haunting wonder and the shadow offear. 

By this time all signs of the open field behind us were hid. No singlegleam penetrated. We might have been groping in the heart of someprimeval forest. Then, suddenly, the brambles and tussocks andstringlike grass came to an end; the trees opened out; and the groundbegan to slope upwards towards a large central mound. We had reached themiddle of the plantation, and before us stood the broken Druid stonesour host had mentioned. We walked easily up the little hill, between thesparser stems, and, resting upon one of the ivy-covered boulders, lookedround upon a comparatively open space, as large, perhaps, as a smallLondon Square. 

Thinking of the ceremonies and sacrifices this rough circle ofprehistoric monoliths might have witnessed, I looked up into mycompanion's face with an unspoken question. But he read my thought andshook his head. 

"Our mystery has nothing to do with these dead symbols, " he said, "butwith something perhaps even more ancient, and of another countryaltogether. "

"Egypt?" I said half under my breath, hopelessly puzzled, but recallinghis words in my bedroom. 

He nodded. Mentally I still floundered, but he seemed intenselypreoccupied and it was no time for asking questions; so while his wordscircled unintelligibly in my mind I looked round at the scene before me, glad of the opportunity to recover breath and some measure of composure. But hardly had I time to notice the twisted and contorted shapes of manyof the pine trees close at hand when Dr. Silence leaned over and touchedme on the shoulder. He pointed down the slope. And the look I saw in hiseyes keyed up every nerve in my body to its utmost pitch. 

A thin, almost imperceptible column of blue smoke was rising among thetrees some twenty yards away at the foot of the mound. It curled up andup, and disappeared from sight among the tangled branches overhead. Itwas scarcely thicker than the smoke from a small brand of burning wood. 

"Protect yourself! Imagine your shell strongly, " whispered the doctorsharply, "and follow me closely. "

He rose at once and moved swiftly down the slope towards the smoke, andI followed, afraid to remain alone. I heard the soft crunching of oursteps on the pine needles. Over his shoulder I watched the thin bluespiral, without once taking my eyes off it. I hardly know how todescribe the peculiar sense of vague horror inspired in me by the sightof that streak of smoke pencilling its way upwards among the dark trees. And the sensation of increasing heat as we approached was phenomenal. Itwas like walking towards a glowing yet invisible fire. 

As we drew nearer his pace slackened. Then he stopped and pointed, and Isaw a small circle of burnt grass upon the ground. The tussocks wereblackened and smouldering, and from the centre rose this line of smoke, pale, blue, steady. Then I noticed a movement of the atmosphere besideus, as if the warm air were rising and the cooler air rushing in to takeits place: a little centre of wind in the stillness. Overhead the boughsstirred and trembled where the smoke disappeared. Otherwise, not a treesighed, not a sound made itself heard. The wood was still as agraveyard. A horrible idea came to me that the course of nature wasabout to change without warning, had changed a little already, that thesky would drop, or the surface of the earth crash inwards like a brokenbubble. Something, certainly, reached up to the citadel of my reason, causing its throne to shake. 

John Silence moved forward again. I could not see his face, but hisattitude was plainly one of resolution, of muscles and mind ready forvigorous action. We were within ten feet of the blackened circle whenthe smoke of a sudden ceased to rise, and vanished. The tail of thecolumn disappeared in the air above, and at the same instant it seemedto me that the sensation of heat passed from my face, and the motion ofthe wind was gone. The calm spirit of the fresh October day resumedcommand. 

Side by side we advanced and examined the place. The grass wassmouldering, the ground still hot. The circle of burned earth was a footto a foot and a half in diameter. It looked like an ordinary picnicfireplace. I bent down cautiously to look, but in a second I sprang backwith an involuntary cry of alarm, for, as the doctor stamped on theashes to prevent them spreading, a sound of hissing rose from the spotas though he had kicked a living creature. This hissing was faintlyaudible in the air. It moved past us, away towards the thicker portionof the wood in the direction of our field, and in a second Dr. Silencehad left the fire and started in pursuit. 

And then began the most extraordinary hunt of invisibility I can everconceive. 

He went fast even at the beginning, and, of course, it was perfectlyobvious that he was following something. To judge by the poise of hishead he kept his eyes steadily at a certain level--just above the heightof a man--and the consequence was he stumbled a good deal over theroughness of the ground. The hissing sound had stopped. There was nosound of any kind, and what he saw to follow was utterly beyond me. Ionly know, that in mortal dread of being left behind, and with a bitingcuriosity to see whatever there was to be seen, I followed as quickly asI could, and even then barely succeeded in keeping up with him. 

And, as we went, the whole mad jumble of the Colonel's stories ranthrough my brain, touching a sense of frightened laughter that was onlyheld in check by the sight of this earnest, hurrying figure before me. For John Silence at work inspired me with a kind of awe. He looked sodiminutive among these giant twisted trees, while yet I knew that hispurpose and his knowledge were so great, and even in hurry he wasdignified. The fancy that we were playing some queer, exaggerated gametogether met the fact that we were two men dancing upon the brink ofsome possible tragedy, and the mingling of the two emotions in my mindwas both grotesque and terrifying. 

He never turned in his mad chase, but pushed rapidly on, while I pantedafter him like a figure in some unreasoning nightmare. And, as I ran, itcame upon me that he had been aware all the time, in his quiet, internalway, of many things that he had kept for his own secret consideration;he had been watching, waiting, planning from the very moment we enteredthe shade of the wood. By some inner, concentrated process of mind, dynamic if not actually magical, he had been in direct contact with thesource of the whole adventure, the very essence of the real mystery. Andnow the forces were moving to a climax. Something was about to happen, something important, something possibly dreadful. Every nerve, everysense, every significant gesture of the plunging figure before meproclaimed the fact just as surely as the skies, the winds, and the faceof the earth tell the birds the time to migrate and warn the animalsthat danger lurks and they must move. 

In a few moments we reached the foot of the mound and entered thetangled undergrowth that lay between us and the sunlight of the field. Here the difficulties of fast travelling increased a hundredfold. Therewere brambles to dodge, low boughs to dive under, and countless treetrunks closing up to make a direct path impossible. Yet Dr. Silencenever seemed to falter or hesitate. He went, diving, jumping, dodging, ducking, but ever in the same main direction, following a clean trail. Twice I tripped and fell, and both times, when I picked myself up again, I saw him ahead of me, still forcing a way like a dog after its quarry. And sometimes, like a dog, he stopped and pointed--human pointing itwas, psychic pointing, and each time he stopped to point I heard thatfaint high hissing in the air beyond us. The instinct of an infallibledowser possessed him, and he made no mistakes. 

At length, abruptly, I caught up with him, and found that we stood atthe edge of the shallow pond Colonel Wragge had mentioned in his accountthe night before. It was long and narrow, filled with dark brown water, in which the trees were dimly reflected. Not a ripple stirred itssurface. 

"Watch!" he cried out, as I came up. "It's going to cross. It's boundto betray itself. The water is its natural enemy, and we shall see thedirection. "

And, even as he spoke, a thin line like the track of a water-spider, shot swiftly across the shiny surface; there was a ghost of steam in theair above; and immediately I became aware of an odour of burning. 

Dr. Silence turned and shot a glance at me that made me think oflightning. I began to shake all over. 

"Quick!" he cried with excitement, "to the trail again! We must runaround. It's going to the house!"

The alarm in his voice quite terrified me. Without a false step I dashedround the slippery banks and dived again at his heels into the sea ofbushes and tree trunks. We were now in the thick of the very dense beltthat ran around the outer edge of the plantation, and the field wasnear; yet so dark was the tangle that it was some time before the firstshafts of white sunlight became visible. The doctor now ran in zigzags. He was following something that dodged and doubled quite wonderfully, yet had begun, I fancied, to move more slowly than before. 

"Quick!" he cried. "In the light we shall lose it!"

I still saw nothing, heard nothing, caught no suggestion of a trail; yetthis man, guided by some interior divining that seemed infallible, madeno false turns, though how he failed to crash headlong into the treeshas remained a mystery to me ever since. And then, with a sudden rush, we found ourselves on the skirts of the wood with the open field lyingin bright sunshine before our eyes. 

"Too late!" I heard him cry, a note of anguish in his voice. "It'sout--and, by God, it's making for the house!"

I saw the Colonel standing in the field with his dogs where we had lefthim. He was bending double, peering into the wood where he heard usrunning, and he straightened up like a bent whip released. John Silencedashed passed, calling him to follow. 

"We shall lose the trail in the light, " I heard him cry as he ran. "Butquick! We may yet get there in time!"

That wild rush across the open field, with the dogs at our heels, leaping and barking, and the elderly Colonel behind us running as thoughfor his life, shall I ever forget it? Though I had only vague ideas ofthe meaning of it all, I put my best foot forward, and, being theyoungest of the three, I reached the house an easy first. I drew up, panting, and turned to wait for the others. But, as I turned, somethingmoving a little distance away caught my eye, and in that moment I swearI experienced the most overwhelming and singular shock of surprise andterror I have ever known, or can conceive as possible. 

For the front door was open, and the waist of the house being narrow, Icould see through the hall into the dining-room beyond, and so out on tothe back lawn, and there I saw no less a sight than the figure of MissWragge--running. Even at that distance it was plain that she had seenme, and was coming fast towards me, running with the frantic gait of aterror-stricken woman. She had recovered the use of her legs. 

Her face was a livid grey, as of death itself, but the generalexpression was one of laughter, for her mouth was gaping, and her eyes, always bright, shone with the light of a wild merriment that seemed themerriment of a child, yet was singularly ghastly. And that very second, as she fled past me into her brother's arms behind, I smelt again mostunmistakably the odour of burning, and to this day the smell of smokeand fire can come very near to turning me sick with the memory of what Ihad seen. 

Fast on her heels, too, came the terrified attendant, more mistress ofherself, and able to speak--which the old lady could not do--but with aface almost, if not quite, as fearful. 

"We were down by the bushes in the sun, "--she gasped and screamed inreply to Colonel Wragge's distracted questionings, --"I was wheeling thechair as usual when she shrieked and leaped--I don't know exactly--I wastoo frightened to see--Oh, my God! she jumped clean out of thechair--_and ran_! There was a blast of hot air from the wood, and shehid her face and jumped. She didn't make a sound--she didn't cry out, ormake a sound. She just ran. "

But the nightmare horror of it all reached the breaking point a fewminutes later, and while I was still standing in the hall temporarilybereft of speech and movement; for while the doctor, the Colonel and theattendant were half-way up the staircase, helping the fainting woman tothe privacy of her room, and all in a confused group of dark figures, there sounded a voice behind me, and I turned to see the butler, hisface dripping with perspiration, his eyes starting out of his head. 

"The laundry's on fire!" he cried; "the laundry building's a-caught!"

I remember his odd expression "a-caught, " and wanting to laugh, butfinding my face rigid and inflexible. 

"The devil's about again, s'help me Gawd!" he cried, in a voice thinwith terror, running about in circles. 

And then the group on the stairs scattered as at the sound of a shot, and the Colonel and Dr. Silence came down three steps at a time, leavingthe afflicted Miss Wragge to the care of her single attendant. 

We were out across the front lawn in a moment and round the corner ofthe house, the Colonel leading, Silence and I at his heels, and theportly butler puffing some distance in the rear, getting more and moremixed in his addresses to God and the devil; and the moment we passedthe stables and came into view of the laundry building, we saw awicked-looking volume of smoke pouring out of the narrow windows, andthe frightened women-servants and grooms running hither and thither, calling aloud as they ran. 

The arrival of the master restored order instantly, and this retiredsoldier, poor thinker perhaps, but capable man of action, had the matterin hand from the start. He issued orders like a martinet, and, almostbefore I could realise it, there were streaming buckets on the scene anda line of men and women formed between the building and the stable pump. 

"Inside, " I heard John Silence cry, and the Colonel followed him throughthe door, while I was just quick enough at their heels to hear him add, "the smoke's the worst part of it. There's no fire yet, I think. "

And, true enough, there was no fire. The interior was thick with smoke, but it speedily cleared and not a single bucket was used upon the flooror walls. The air was stifling, the heat fearful. 

"There's precious little to burn in here; it's all stone, " the Colonelexclaimed, coughing. But the doctor was pointing to the wooden covers ofthe great cauldron in which the clothes were washed, and we saw thatthese were smouldering and charred. And when we sprinkled half a bucketof water on them the surrounding bricks hissed and fizzed and sent upclouds of steam. Through the open door and windows this passed out withthe rest of the smoke, and we three stood there on the brick floorstaring at the spot and wondering, each in our own fashion, how in thename of natural law the place could have caught fire or smoked at all. And each was silent--myself from sheer incapacity and befuddlement, theColonel from the quiet pluck that faces all things yet speaks little, and John Silence from the intense mental grappling with this latestmanifestation of a profound problem that called for concentration ofthought rather than for any words. 

There was really nothing to say. The facts were indisputable. 

Colonel Wragge was the first to utter. 

"My sister, " he said briefly, and moved off. In the yard I heard himsending the frightened servants about their business in an excellentlymatter-of-fact voice, scolding some one roundly for making such a bigfire and letting the flues get over-heated, and paying no heed to thestammering reply that no fire had been lit there for several days. Thenhe dispatched a groom on horseback for the local doctor. 

Then Dr. Silence turned and looked at me. The absolute control hepossessed, not only over the outward expression of emotion by gesture, change of colour, light in the eyes, and so forth, but also, as I wellknew, over its very birth in his heart, the masklike face of the dead hecould assume at will, made it extremely difficult to know at any givenmoment what was at work in his inner consciousness. But now, when heturned and looked at me, there was no sphinx-expression there, butrather the keen triumphant face of a man who had solved a dangerous andcomplicated problem, and saw his way to a clean victory. 

"_Now_ do you guess?" he asked quietly, as though it were the simplestmatter in the world, and ignorance were impossible. 

I could only stare stupidly and remain silent. He glanced down at thecharred cauldron-lids, and traced a figure in the air with his finger. But I was too excited, or too mortified, or still too dazed, perhaps, tosee what it was he outlined, or what it was he meant to convey. I couldonly go on staring and shaking my puzzled head. 

"A fire-elemental, " he cried, "a fire-elemental of the most powerful andmalignant kind--"

"A what?" thundered the voice of Colonel Wragge behind us, havingreturned suddenly and overheard. 

"It's a fire-elemental, " repeated Dr. Silence more calmly, but with anote of triumph in his voice he could not keep out, "and afire-elemental enraged. "

The light began to dawn in my mind at last. But the Colonel--who hadnever heard the term before, and was besides feeling considerably workedup for a plain man with all this mystery he knew not how to grapplewith--the Colonel stood, with the most dumfoundered look ever seen on ahuman countenance, and continued to roar, and stammer, and stare. 

"And why, " he began, savage with the desire to find something visible hecould fight--"why, in the name of all the blazes--?" and then stopped asJohn Silence moved up and took his arm. 

"There, my dear Colonel Wragge, " he said gently, "you touch the heart ofthe whole thing. You ask 'Why. ' That is precisely our problem. " He heldthe soldier's eyes firmly with his own. "And that, too, I think, weshall soon know. Come and let us talk over a plan of action--that roomwith the double doors, perhaps. "

The word "action" calmed him a little, and he led the way, withoutfurther speech, back into the house, and down the long stone passage tothe room where we had heard his stories on the night of our arrival. Iunderstood from the doctor's glance that my presence would not make theinterview easier for our host, and I went upstairs to my ownroom--shaking. 

But in the solitude of my room the vivid memories of the last hourrevived so mercilessly that I began to feel I should never in my wholelife lose the dreadful picture of Miss Wragge running--that dreadfulhuman climax after all the non-human mystery in the wood--and I was notsorry when a servant knocked at my door and said that Colonel Wraggewould be glad if I would join them in the little smoking-room. 

"I think it is better you should be present, " was all Colonel Wraggesaid as I entered the room. I took the chair with my back to the window. There was still an hour before lunch, though I imagine that the usualdivisions of the day hardly found a place in the thoughts of any one ofus. 

The atmosphere of the room was what I might call electric. The Colonelwas positively bristling; he stood with his back to the fire, fingeringan unlit black cigar, his face flushed, his being obviously roused andready for action. He hated this mystery. It was poisonous to his nature, and he longed to meet something face to face--something he could gaugeand fight. Dr. Silence, I noticed at once, was sitting before the map ofthe estate which was spread upon a table. I knew by his expression thestate of his mind. He was in the thick of it all, knew it, delighted init, and was working at high pressure. He recognised my presence with alifted eyelid, and the flash of the eye, contrasted with his stillnessand composure, told me volumes. 

"I was about to explain to our host briefly what seems to me afoot inall this business, " he said without looking up, "when he asked that youshould join us so that we can all work together. " And, while signifyingmy assent, I caught myself wondering what quality it was in the calmspeech of this undemonstrative man that was so full of power, so chargedwith the strange, virile personality behind it and that seemed toinspire us with his own confidence as by a process of radiation. 

"Mr. Hubbard, " he went on gravely, turning to the soldier, "knowssomething of my methods, and in more than one--er--interesting situationhas proved of assistance. What we want now"--and here he suddenly got upand took his place on the mat beside the Colonel, and looked hard athim--"is men who have self-control, who are sure of themselves, whoseminds at the critical moment will emit positive forces, instead of thewavering and uncertain currents due to negative feelings--due, forinstance, to fear. "

He looked at us each in turn. Colonel Wragge moved his feet fartherapart, and squared his shoulders; and I felt guilty but said nothing, conscious that my latent store of courage was being deliberately hauledto the front. He was winding me up like a clock. 

"So that, in what is yet to come, " continued our leader, "each of uswill contribute his share of power, and ensure success for my plan. "

"I'm not afraid of anything I can _see_, " said the Colonel bluntly. 

"I'm ready, " I heard myself say, as it were automatically, "foranything, " and then added, feeling the declaration was lamelyinsufficient, "and everything. "

Dr. Silence left the mat and began walking to and fro about the room, both hands plunged deep into the pockets of his shooting-jacket. Tremendous vitality streamed from him. I never took my eyes off thesmall, moving figure; small yes, --and yet somehow making me think of agiant plotting the destruction of worlds. And his manner was gentle, asalways, soothing almost, and his words uttered quietly without emphasisor emotion. Most of what he said was addressed, though not tooobviously, to the Colonel. 

"The violence of this sudden attack, " he said softly, pacing to and frobeneath the bookcase at the end of the room, "is due, of course, partlyto the fact that tonight the moon is at the full"--here he glanced at mefor a moment--"and partly to the fact that we have all been sodeliberately concentrating upon the matter. Our thinking, ourinvestigation, has stirred it into unusual activity. I mean that theintelligent force behind these manifestations has realised that some oneis busied about its destruction. And it is now on the defensive: more, it is aggressive. "

"But 'it'--what is 'it'?" began the soldier, fuming. "What, in the nameof all that's dreadful, _is_ a fire-elemental?"

"I cannot give you at this moment, " replied Dr. Silence, turning to him, but undisturbed by the interruption, "a lecture on the nature andhistory of magic, but can only say that an Elemental is the active forcebehind the elements, --whether earth, air, water, _or fire_, --it isimpersonal in its essential nature, but can be focused, personified, ensouled, so to say, by those who know how--by magicians, if youwill--for certain purposes of their own, much in the same way that steamand electricity can be harnessed by the practical man of this century. 

"Alone, these blind elemental energies can accomplish little, butgoverned and directed by the trained will of a powerful manipulator theymay become potent activities for good or evil. They are the basis of allmagic, and it is the motive behind them that constitutes the magic'black' or 'white'; they can be the vehicles of curses or of blessings, for a curse is nothing more than the thought of a violent willperpetuated. And in such cases--cases like this--the conscious, directing will of the mind that is using the elemental stands alwaysbehind the phenomena--"

"You think that my brother--!" broke in the Colonel, aghast. 

"Has nothing whatever to do with it--directly. The fire-elemental thathas here been tormenting you and your household was sent upon itsmission long before you, or your family, or your ancestors, or even thenation you belong to--unless I am much mistaken--was even in existence. We will come to that a little later; after the experiment I propose tomake we shall be more positive. At present I can only say we have todeal now, not only with the phenomenon of Attacking Fire merely, butwith the vindictive and enraged intelligence that is directing it frombehind the scenes--vindictive and enraged, "--he repeated the words. 

"That explains--" began Colonel Wragge, seeking furiously for words hecould not find quickly enough. 

"Much, " said John Silence, with a gesture to restrain him. 

He stopped a moment in the middle of his walk, and a deep silence camedown over the little room. Through the windows the sunlight seemed lessbright, the long line of dark hills less friendly, making me think of avast wave towering to heaven and about to break and overwhelm us. Something formidable had crept into the world about us. For, undoubtedly, there was a disquieting thought, holding terror as well asawe, in the picture his words conjured up: the conception of a humanwill reaching its deathless hand, spiteful and destructive, down throughthe ages, to strike the living and afflict the innocent. 

"But what is its object?" burst out the soldier, unable to restrainhimself longer in the silence. "Why does it come from that plantation?And why should it attack us, or any one in particular?" Questions beganto pour from him in a stream. 

"All in good time, " the doctor answered quietly, having let him run onfor several minutes. "But I must first discover positively what, or who, it is that directs this particular fire-elemental. And, to do that, wemust first"--he spoke with slow deliberation--"seek to capture--toconfine by visibility--to limit its sphere in a concrete form. "

"Good heavens almighty!" exclaimed the soldier, mixing his words in hisunfeigned surprise. 

"Quite so, " pursued the other calmly; "for in so doing I think we canrelease it from the purpose that binds it, restore it to its normalcondition of latent fire, and also"--he lowered his voice perceptibly--"also discover the face and form of the Being that ensouls it. "

"The man behind the gun!" cried the Colonel, beginning to understandsomething, and leaning forward so as not to miss a single syllable. 

"I mean that in the last resort, before it returns to the womb ofpotential fire, it will probably assume the face and figure of itsDirector, of the man of magical knowledge who originally bound it withhis incantations and sent it forth upon its mission of centuries. "

The soldier sat down and gasped openly in his face, breathing hard; butit was a very subdued voice that framed the question. 

"And how do you propose to make it visible? How capture and confine it?What d'ye mean, Dr. John Silence?"

"By furnishing it with the materials for a form. By the process ofmaterialisation simply. Once limited by dimensions, it will become slow, heavy, visible. We can then dissipate it. Invisible fire, you see, isdangerous and incalculable; locked up in a form we can perhaps manageit. We must betray it--to its death. "

"And this material?" we asked in the same breath, although I think I hadalready guessed. 

"Not pleasant, but effective, " came the quiet reply; "the exhalations offreshly spilled blood. "

"Not human blood!" cried Colonel Wragge, starting up from his chair witha voice like an explosion. I thought his eyes would start from theirsockets. 

The face of Dr. Silence relaxed in spite of himself, and his spontaneouslittle laugh brought a welcome though momentary relief. 

"The days of human sacrifice, I hope, will never come again, " heexplained. "Animal blood will answer the purpose, and we can make theexperiment as pleasant as possible. Only, the blood must be freshlyspilled and strong with the vital emanations that attract this peculiarclass of elemental creature. Perhaps--perhaps if some pig on the estateis ready for the market--"

He turned to hide a smile; but the passing touch of comedy found no echoin the mind of our host, who did not understand how to change quicklyfrom one emotion to another. Clearly he was debating many thingslaboriously in his honest brain. But, in the end, the earnestness andscientific disinterestedness of the doctor, whose influence over him wasalready very great, won the day, and he presently looked up more calmly, and observed shortly that he thought perhaps the matter could bearranged. 

"There are other and pleasanter methods, " Dr. Silence went on toexplain, "but they require time and preparation, and things have gonemuch too far, in my opinion, to admit of delay. And the process needcause you no distress: we sit round the bowl and await results. Nothingmore. The emanations of blood--which, as Levi says, is the firstincarnation of the universal fluid--furnish the materials out of whichthe creatures of discarnate life, spirits if you prefer, can fashionthemselves a temporary appearance. The process is old, and lies at theroot of all blood sacrifice. It was known to the priests of Baal, and itis known to the modern ecstasy dancers who cut themselves to produceobjective phantoms who dance with them. And the least gifted clairvoyantcould tell you that the forms to be seen in the vicinity ofslaughter-houses, or hovering above the deserted battlefields, are--well, simply beyond all description. I do not mean, " he added, noticing the uneasy fidgeting of his host, "that anything in ourlaundry-experiment need appear to terrify us, for this case seems acomparatively simple one, and it is only the vindictive character of theintelligence directing this fire-elemental that causes anxiety and makesfor personal danger. "

"It is curious, " said the Colonel, with a sudden rush of words, drawinga deep breath, and as though speaking of things distasteful to him, "that during my years among the Hill Tribes of Northern India I cameacross--personally came across--instances of the sacrifices of blood tocertain deities being stopped suddenly, and all manner of disastershappening until they were resumed. Fires broke out in the huts, and evenon the clothes, of the natives--and--and I admit I have read, in thecourse of my studies, "--he made a gesture toward his books and heavilyladen table, --"of the Yezidis of Syria evoking phantoms by means ofcutting their bodies with knives during their whirling dances--enormousglobes of fire which turned into monstrous and terrible forms--and Iremember an account somewhere, too, how the emaciated forms and pallidcountenances of the spectres, that appeared to the Emperor Julian, claimed to be the true Immortals, and told him to renew the sacrificesof blood 'for the fumes of which, since the establishment ofChristianity, they had been pining'--that these were in reality thephantoms evoked by the rites of blood. "

Both Dr. Silence and myself listened in amazement, for this suddenspeech was so unexpected, and betrayed so much more knowledge than wehad either of us suspected in the old soldier. 

"Then perhaps you have read, too, " said the doctor, "how the CosmicDeities of savage races, elemental in their nature, have been kept alivethrough many ages by these blood rites?"

"No, " he answered; "that is new to me. "

"In any case, " Dr. Silence added, "I am glad you are not whollyunfamiliar with the subject, for you will now bring more sympathy, andtherefore more help, to our experiment. For, of course, in this case, weonly want the blood to tempt the creature from its lair and enclose itin a form--"

"I quite understand. And I only hesitated just now, " he went on, hiswords coming much more slowly, as though he felt he had already said toomuch, "because I wished to be quite sure it was no mere curiosity, butan actual sense of necessity that dictated this horrible experiment. "

"It is your safety, and that of your household, and of your sister, thatis at stake, " replied the doctor. "Once I have _seen_, I hope todiscover whence this elemental comes, and what its real purpose is. "

Colonel Wragge signified his assent with a bow. 

"And the moon will help us, " the other said, "for it will be full in theearly hours of the morning, and this kind of elemental-being is alwaysmost active at the period of full moon. Hence, you see, the cluefurnished by your diary. "

So it was finally settled. Colonel Wragge would provide the materialsfor the experiment, and we were to meet at midnight. How he wouldcontrive at that hour--but that was his business. I only know we bothrealised that he would keep his word, and whether a pig died atmidnight, or at noon, was after all perhaps only a question of the sleepand personal comfort of the executioner. 

"Tonight, then, in the laundry, " said Dr. Silence finally, to clinch theplan; "we three alone--and at midnight, when the household is asleep andwe shall be free from disturbance. "

He exchanged significant glances with our host, who, at that moment, wascalled away by the announcement that the family doctor had arrived, andwas ready to see him in his sister's room. 

For the remainder of the afternoon John Silence disappeared. I had mysuspicions that he made a secret visit to the plantation and also to thelaundry building; but, in any case, we saw nothing of him, and he keptstrictly to himself. He was preparing for the night, I felt sure, butthe nature of his preparations I could only guess. There was movement inhis room, I heard, and an odour like incense hung about the door, andknowing that he regarded rites as the vehicles of energies, my guesseswere probably not far wrong. 

Colonel Wragge, too, remained absent the greater part of the afternoon, and, deeply afflicted, had scarcely left his sister's bedside, but inresponse to my inquiry when we met for a moment at tea-time, he told methat although she had moments of attempted speech, her talk was quiteincoherent and hysterical, and she was still quite unable to explain thenature of what she had seen. The doctor, he said, feared she hadrecovered the use of her limbs, only to lose that of her memory, andperhaps even of her mind. 

"Then the recovery of her legs, I trust, may be permanent, at any rate, "I ventured, finding it difficult to know what sympathy to offer. And hereplied with a curious short laugh, "Oh yes; about that there can be nodoubt whatever. "

And it was due merely to the chance of my overhearing a fragment ofconversation--unwillingly, of course--that a little further light wasthrown upon the state in which the old lady actually lay. For, as I cameout of my room, it happened that Colonel Wragge and the doctor weregoing downstairs together, and their words floated up to my ears beforeI could make my presence known by so much as a cough. 

"Then you must find a way, " the doctor was saying with decision; "for Icannot insist too strongly upon that--and at all costs she must be keptquiet. These attempts to go out must be prevented--if necessary, byforce. This desire to visit some wood or other she keeps talking aboutis, of course, hysterical in nature. It cannot be permitted for amoment. "

"It shall not be permitted, " I heard the soldier reply, as they reachedthe hall below. 

"It has impressed her mind for some reason--" the doctor went on, by wayevidently of soothing explanation, and then the distance made itimpossible for me to hear more. 

At dinner Dr. Silence was still absent, on the public plea of aheadache, and though food was sent to his room, I am inclined to believehe did not touch it, but spent the entire time fasting. 

We retired early, desiring that the household should do likewise, and Imust confess that at ten o'clock when I bid my host a temporarygood-night, and sought my room to make what mental preparation I could, I realised in no very pleasant fashion that it was a singular andformidable assignation, this midnight meeting in the laundry building, and that there were moments in every adventure of life when a wise man, and one who knew his own limitations, owed it to his dignity to withdrawdiscreetly. And, but for the character of our leader, I probably shouldhave then and there offered the best excuse I could think of, and haveallowed myself quietly to fall asleep and wait for an exciting story inthe morning of what had happened. But with a man like John Silence, sucha lapse was out of the question, and I sat before my fire counting theminutes and doing everything I could think of to fortify my resolutionand fasten my will at the point where I could be reasonably sure that myself-control would hold against all attacks of men, devils, orelementals. 

III

At a quarter before midnight, clad in a heavy ulster, and with slipperedfeet, I crept cautiously from my room and stole down the passage to thetop of the stairs. Outside the doctor's door I waited a moment tolisten. All was still; the house in utter darkness; no gleam of lightbeneath any door; only, down the length of the corridor, from thedirection of the sick-room, came faint sounds of laughter and incoherenttalk that were not things to reassure a mind already half a-tremble, andI made haste to reach the hall and let myself out through the frontdoor into the night. 

The air was keen and frosty, perfumed with night smells, and exquisitelyfresh; all the million candles of the sky were alight, and a faintbreeze rose and fell with far-away sighings in the tops of the pinetrees. My blood leaped for a moment in the spaciousness of the night, for the splendid stars brought courage; but the next instant, as Iturned the corner of the house, moving stealthily down the gravel drive, my spirits sank again ominously. For, yonder, over the funereal plumesof the Twelve Acre Plantation, I saw the broken, yellow disc of thehalf-moon just rising in the east, staring down like some vast Beingcome to watch upon the progress of our doom. Seen through the distortingvapours of the earth's atmosphere, her face looked weirdly unfamiliar, her usual expression of benignant vacancy somehow a-twist. I slippedalong by the shadows of the wall, keeping my eyes upon the ground. 

The laundry-house, as already described, stood detached from the otheroffices, with laurel shrubberies crowding thickly behind it, and thekitchen-garden so close on the other side that the strong smells of soiland growing things came across almost heavily. The shadows of thehaunted plantation, hugely lengthened by the rising moon behind them, reached to the very walls and covered the stone tiles of the roof with adark pall. So keenly were my senses alert at this moment that I believeI could fill a chapter with the endless small details of the impressionI received--shadows, odour, shapes, sounds--in the space of the fewseconds I stood and waited before the closed wooden door. 

Then I became aware of some one moving towards me through the moonlight, and the figure of John Silence, without overcoat and bareheaded, camequickly and without noise to join me. His eyes, I saw at once, werewonderfully bright, and so marked was the shining pallor of his facethat I could hardly tell when he passed from the moonlight into theshade. 

He passed without a word, beckoning me to follow, and then pushed thedoor open, and went in. 

The chill air of the place met us like that of an underground vault; andthe brick floor and whitewashed walls, streaked with damp and smoke, threw back the cold in our faces. Directly opposite gaped the blackthroat of the huge open fireplace, the ashes of wood fires still piledand scattered about the hearth, and on either side of the projectingchimney-column were the deep recesses holding the big twin cauldrons forboiling clothes. Upon the lids of these cauldrons stood the two littleoil lamps, shaded red, which gave all the light there was, andimmediately in front of the fireplace there was a small circular tablewith three chairs set about it. Overhead, the narrow slit windows, highup the walls, pointed to a dim network of wooden rafters half lost amongthe shadows, and then came the dark vault of the roof. Cheerless andunalluring, for all the red light, it certainly was, reminding me ofsome unused conventicle, bare of pews or pulpit, ugly and severe, and Iwas forcibly struck by the contrast between the normal uses to which theplace was ordinarily put, and the strange and medieval purpose which hadbrought us under its roof tonight. 

Possibly an involuntary shudder ran over me, for my companion turnedwith a confident look to reassure me, and he was so completely master ofhimself that I at once absorbed from his abundance, and felt the chinksof my failing courage beginning to close up. To meet his eye in thepresence of danger was like finding a mental railing that guided andsupported thought along the giddy edges of alarm. 

"I am quite ready, " I whispered, turning to listen for approachingfootsteps. 

He nodded, still keeping his eyes on mine. Our whispers sounded hollowas they echoed overhead among the rafters. 

"I'm glad you are here, " he said. "Not all would have the courage. Keepyour thoughts controlled, and imagine the protective shell roundyou--round your inner being. "

"I'm all right, " I repeated, cursing my chattering teeth. 

He took my hand and shook it, and the contact seemed to shake into mesomething of his supreme confidence. The eyes and hands of a strong mancan touch the soul. I think he guessed my thought, for a passing smileflashed about the corners of his mouth. 

"You will feel more comfortable, " he said, in a low tone, "when thechain is complete. The Colonel we can count on, of course. Remember, though, " he added warningly, "he may perhaps becomecontrolled--possessed--when the thing comes, because he won't know howto resist. And to explain the business to such a man--!" He shruggedhis shoulders expressively. "But it will only be temporary, and I willsee that no harm comes to him. "

He glanced round at the arrangements with approval. 

"Red light, " he said, indicating the shaded lamps, "has the lowest rateof vibration. Materialisations are dissipated by strong light--won'tform, or hold together--in rapid vibrations. "

I was not sure that I approved altogether of this dim light, for incomplete darkness there is something protective--the knowledge that onecannot be seen, probably--which a half-light destroys, but I rememberedthe warning to keep my thoughts steady, and forbore to give themexpression. 

There was a step outside, and the figure of Colonel Wragge stood in thedoorway. Though entering on tiptoe, he made considerable noise andclatter, for his free movements were impeded by the burden he carried, and we saw a large yellowish bowl held out at arms' length from hisbody, the mouth covered with a white cloth. His face, I noted, wasrigidly composed. He, too, was master of himself. And, as I thought ofthis old soldier moving through the long series of alarms, worn withwatching and wearied with assault, unenlightened yet undismayed, evendown to the dreadful shock of his sister's terror, and still showing thedogged pluck that persists in the face of defeat, I understood what Dr. Silence meant when he described him as a man "to be counted on. "

I think there was nothing beyond this rigidity of his stern features, and a certain greyness of the complexion, to betray the turmoil of theemotions that were doubtless going on within; and the quality of thesetwo men, each in his own way, so keyed me up that, by the time the doorwas shut and we had exchanged silent greetings, all the latent courage Ipossessed was well to the fore, and I felt as sure of myself as I knew Iever could feel. 

Colonel Wragge set the bowl carefully in the centre of the table. 

"Midnight, " he said shortly, glancing at his watch, and we all threemoved to our chairs. 

There, in the middle of that cold and silent place, we sat, with thevile bowl before us, and a thin, hardly perceptible steam rising throughthe damp air from the surface of the white cloth and disappearingupwards the moment it passed beyond the zone of red light and enteredthe deep shadows thrown forward by the projecting wall of chimney. 

The doctor had indicated our respective places, and I found myselfseated with my back to the door and opposite the black hearth. TheColonel was on my left, and Dr. Silence on my right, both half facingme, the latter more in shadow than the former. We thus divided thelittle table into even sections, and sitting back in our chairs weawaited events in silence. 

For something like an hour I do not think there was even the faintestsound within those four walls and under the canopy of that vaulted roof. Our slippers made no scratching on the gritty floor, and our breathingwas suppressed almost to nothing; even the rustle of our clothes as weshifted from time to time upon our seats was inaudible. Silencesmothered us absolutely--the silence of night, of listening, the silenceof a haunted expectancy. The very gurgling of the lamps was too soft tobe heard, and if light itself had sound, I do not think we should havenoticed the silvery tread of the moonlight as it entered the high narrowwindows and threw upon the floor the slender traces of its pallidfootsteps. 

Colonel Wragge and the doctor, and myself too for that matter, sat thuslike figures of stone, without speech and without gesture. My eyespassed in ceaseless journeys from the bowl to their faces, and fromtheir faces to the bowl. They might have been masks, however, for allthe signs of life they gave; and the light steaming from the horridcontents beneath the white cloth had long ceased to be visible. 

Then presently, as the moon rose higher, the wind rose with it. Itsighed, like the lightest of passing wings, over the roof; it crept mostsoftly round the walls; it made the brick floor like ice beneath ourfeet. With it I saw mentally the desolate moorland flowing like a seaabout the old house, the treeless expanse of lonely hills, the nearercopses, sombre and mysterious in the night. The plantation, too, inparticular I saw, and imagined I heard the mournful whisperings thatmust now be a-stirring among its tree-tops as the breeze played downbetween the twisted stems. In the depth of the room behind us the shaftsof moonlight met and crossed in a growing network. 

It was after an hour of this wearing and unbroken attention, and Ishould judge about one o'clock in the morning, when the baying of thedogs in the stableyard first began, and I saw John Silence move suddenlyin his chair and sit up in an attitude of attention. Every force in mybeing instantly leaped into the keenest vigilance. Colonel Wragge movedtoo, though slowly, and without raising his eyes from the table beforehim. 

The doctor stretched his arm out and took the white cloth from the bowl. 

It was perhaps imagination that persuaded me the red glare of the lampsgrew fainter and the air over the table before us thickened. I had beenexpecting something for so long that the movement of my companions, andthe lifting of the cloth, may easily have caused the momentary delusionthat something hovered in the air before my face, touching the skin ofmy cheeks with a silken run. But it was certainly not a delusion thatthe Colonel looked up at the same moment and glanced over his shoulder, as though his eyes followed the movements of something to and fro aboutthe room, and that he then buttoned his overcoat more tightly about himand his eyes sought my own face first, and then the doctor's. And it wasno delusion that his face seemed somehow to have turned dark, becomespread as it were with a shadowy blackness. I saw his lips tighten andhis expression grow hard and stern, and it came to me then with a rushthat, of course, this man had told us but a part of the experiences hehad been through in the house, and that there was much more he had neverbeen able to bring himself to reveal at all. I felt sure of it. The wayhe turned and stared about him betrayed a familiarity with other thingsthan those he had described to us. It was not merely a sight of fire helooked for; it was a sight of something alive, intelligent, somethingable to evade his searching; it was _a person_. It was the watch for theancient Being who sought to obsess him. 

And the way in which Dr. Silence answered his look--though it was onlyby a glance of subtlest sympathy--confirmed my impression. 

"We may be ready now, " I heard him say in a whisper, and I understoodthat his words were intended as a steadying warning, and braced myselfmentally to the utmost of my power. 

Yet long before Colonel Wragge had turned to stare about the room, andlong before the doctor had confirmed my impression that things were atlast beginning to stir, I had become aware in most singular fashion thatthe place held more than our three selves. With the rising of the windthis increase to our numbers had first taken place. The baying of thehounds almost seemed to have signalled it. I cannot say how it may bepossible to realise that an empty place has suddenly become--not empty, when the new arrival is nothing that appeals to any one of the senses;for this recognition of an "invisible, " as of the change in the balanceof personal forces in a human group, is indefinable and beyond proof. Yet it is unmistakable. And I knew perfectly well at what given momentthe atmosphere within these four walls became charged with the presenceof other living beings besides ourselves. And, on reflection, I amconvinced that both my companions knew it too. 

"Watch the light, " said the doctor under his breath, and then I knew toothat it was no fancy of my own that had turned the air darker, and theway he turned to examine the face of our host sent an electric thrill ofwonder and expectancy shivering along every nerve in my body. 

Yet it was no kind of terror that I experienced, but rather a sort ofmental dizziness, and a sensation as of being suspended in some remoteand dreadful altitude where things might happen, indeed were about tohappen, that had never before happened within the ken of man. Horror mayhave formed an ingredient, but it was not chiefly horror, and in nosense ghostly horror. 

Uncommon thoughts kept beating on my brain like tiny hammers, soft yetpersistent, seeking admission; their unbidden tide began to wash alongthe far fringes of my mind, the currents of unwonted sensations to riseover the remote frontiers of my consciousness. I was aware of thoughts, and the fantasies of thoughts, that I never knew before existed. Portions of my being stirred that had never stirred before, and thingsancient and inexplicable rose to the surface and beckoned me to follow. I felt as though I were about to fly off, at some immense tangent, intoan outer space hitherto unknown even in dreams. And so singular was theresult produced upon me that I was uncommonly glad to anchor my mind, aswell as my eyes, upon the masterful personality of the doctor at myside, for there, I realised, I could draw always upon the forces ofsanity and safety. 

With a vigorous effort of will I returned to the scene before me, andtried to focus my attention, with steadier thoughts, upon the table, andupon the silent figures seated round it. And then I saw that certainchanges had come about in the place where we sat. 

The patches of moonlight on the floor, I noted, had become curiouslyshaded; the faces of my companions opposite were not so clearly visibleas before; and the forehead and cheeks of Colonel Wragge were glisteningwith perspiration. I realised further, that an extraordinary change hadcome about in the temperature of the atmosphere. The increased warmthhad a painful effect, not alone on Colonel Wragge, but upon all of us. It was oppressive and unnatural. We gasped figuratively as well asactually. 

"You are the first to feel it, " said Dr. Silence in low tones, lookingacross at him. "You are in more intimate touch, of course--"

The Colonel was trembling, and appeared to be in considerable distress. His knees shook, so that the shuffling of his slippered feet becameaudible. He inclined his head to show that he had heard, but made noother reply. I think, even then, he was sore put to it to keep himselfin hand. I knew what he was struggling against. As Dr. Silence hadwarned me, he was about to be obsessed, and was savagely, though vainly, resisting. 

But, meanwhile, a curious and whirling sense of exhilaration began tocome over me. The increasing heat was delightful, bringing a sensationof intense activity, of thoughts pouring through the mind at high speed, of vivid pictures in the brain, of fierce desires and lightning energiesalive in every part of the body. I was conscious of no physicaldistress, such as the Colonel felt, but only of a vague feeling that itmight all grow suddenly too intense--that I might be consumed--that mypersonality as well as my body, might become resolved into the flame ofpure spirit. I began to live at a speed too intense to last. It was asif a thousand ecstasies besieged me--

"Steady!" whispered the voice of John Silence in my ear, and I looked upwith a start to see that the Colonel had risen from his chair. Thedoctor rose too. I followed suit, and for the first time saw down intothe bowl. To my amazement and horror I saw that the contents weretroubled. The blood was astir with movement. 

The rest of the experiment was witnessed by us standing. It came, too, with a curious suddenness. There was no more dreaming, for me at anyrate. 

I shall never forget the figure of Colonel Wragge standing there besideme, upright and unshaken, squarely planted on his feet, looking abouthim, puzzled beyond belief, yet full of a fighting anger. Framed by thewhite walls, the red glow of the lamps upon his streaming cheeks, hiseyes glowing against the deathly pallor of his skin, breathing hard andmaking convulsive efforts of hands and body to keep himself undercontrol, his whole being roused to the point of savage fighting, yetwith nothing visible to get at anywhere--he stood there, immovableagainst odds. And the strange contrast of the pale skin and the burningface I had never seen before, or wish to see again. 

But what has left an even sharper impression on my memory was theblackness that then began crawling over his face, obliterating thefeatures, concealing their human outline, and hiding him inch by inchfrom view. This was my first realisation that the process ofmaterialisation was at work. His visage became shrouded. I moved fromone side to the other to keep him in view, and it was only then Iunderstood that, properly speaking, the blackness was not upon thecountenance of Colonel Wragge, but that something had inserted itselfbetween me and him, thus screening his face with the effect of a darkveil. Something that apparently rose through the floor was passingslowly into the air above the table and above the bowl. The blood in thebowl, moreover, was considerably less than before. 

And, with this change in the air before us, there came at the same timea further change, I thought, in the face of the soldier. One-half wasturned towards the red lamps, while the other caught the paleillumination of the moonlight falling aslant from the high windows, sothat it was difficult to estimate this change with accuracy of detail. But it seemed to me that, while the features--eyes, nose, mouth--remained the same, the life informing them had undergone someprofound transformation. The signature of a new power had crept into theface and left its traces there--an expression dark, and in someunexplained way, terrible. 

Then suddenly he opened his mouth and spoke, and the sound of thischanged voice, deep and musical though it was, made me cold and set myheart beating with uncomfortable rapidity. The Being, as he had dreaded, was already in control of his brain, using his mouth. 

"I see a blackness like the blackness of Egypt before my face, " saidthe tones of this unknown voice that seemed half his own and halfanother's. "And out of this darkness they come, they come. "

I gave a dreadful start. The doctor turned to look at me for an instant, and then turned to centre his attention upon the figure of our host, andI understood in some intuitive fashion that he was there to watch overthe strangest contest man ever saw--to watch over and, if necessary, toprotect. 

"He is being controlled--possessed, " he whispered to me through theshadows. His face wore a wonderful expression, half triumph, halfadmiration. 

Even as Colonel Wragge spoke, it seemed to me that this visible darknessbegan to increase, pouring up thickly out of the ground by the hearth, rising up in sheets and veils, shrouding our eyes and faces. It stole upfrom below--an awful blackness that seemed to drink in all theradiations of light in the building, leaving nothing but the ghost of aradiance in their place. Then, out of this rising sea of shadows, issueda pale and spectral light that gradually spread itself about us, andfrom the heart of this light I saw the shapes of fire crowd and gather. And these were not human shapes, or the shapes of anything I recognisedas alive in the world, but outlines of fire that traced globes, triangles, crosses, and the luminous bodies of various geometricalfigures. They grew bright, faded, and then grew bright again with aneffect almost of pulsation. They passed swiftly to and fro through theair, rising and falling, and particularly in the immediate neighbourhoodof the Colonel, often gathering about his head and shoulders, and evenappearing to settle upon him like giant insects of flame. They wereaccompanied, moreover, by a faint sound of hissing--the same sound wehad heard that afternoon in the plantation. 

"The fire-elementals that precede their master, " the doctor said in anundertone. "Be ready. "

And while this weird display of the shapes of fire alternately flashedand faded, and the hissing echoed faintly among the dim raftersoverhead, we heard the awful voice issue at intervals from the lips ofthe afflicted soldier. It was a voice of power, splendid in some way Icannot describe, and with a certain sense of majesty in its cadences, and, as I listened to it with quickly beating heart, I could fancy itwas some ancient voice of Time itself, echoing down immense corridors ofstone, from the depths of vast temples, from the very heart of mountaintombs. 

"I have seen my divine Father, Osiris, " thundered the great tones. "Ihave scattered the gloom of the night. I have burst through the earth, and am one with the starry Deities!"

Something grand came into the soldier's face. He was staring fixedlybefore him, as though seeing nothing. 

"Watch, " whispered Dr. Silence in my ear, and his whisper seemed to comefrom very far away. 

Again the mouth opened and the awesome voice issued forth. 

"Thoth, " it boomed, "has loosened the bandages of Set which fettered mymouth. I have taken my place in the great winds of heaven. "

I heard the little wind of night, with its mournful voice of ages, sighing round the walls and over the roof. 

"Listen!" came from the doctor at my side, and the thunder of the voicecontinued--

"I have hidden myself with you, O ye stars that never diminish. Iremember my name--in--the--House--of--Fire!"

The voice ceased and the sound died away. Something about the face andfigure of Colonel Wragge relaxed, I thought. The terrible look passedfrom his face. The Being that obsessed him was gone. 

"The great Ritual, " said Dr. Silence aside to me, very low, "the Book ofthe Dead. Now it's leaving him. Soon the blood will fashion it a body. "

Colonel Wragge, who had stood absolutely motionless all this time, suddenly swayed, so that I thought he was going to fall, --and, but forthe quick support of the doctor's arm, he probably would have fallen, for he staggered as in the beginning of collapse. 

"I am drunk with the wine of Osiris, " he cried, --and it was half withhis own voice this time--"but Horus, the Eternal Watcher, is about mypath--for--safety. " The voice dwindled and failed, dying away intosomething almost like a cry of distress. 

"Now, watch closely, " said Dr. Silence, speaking loud, "for after thecry will come the Fire!"

I began to tremble involuntarily; an awful change had come withoutwarning into the air; my legs grew weak as paper beneath my weight and Ihad to support myself by leaning on the table. Colonel Wragge, I saw, was also leaning forward with a kind of droop. The shapes of fire hadvanished all, but his face was lit by the red lamps and the pale, shifting moonlight rose behind him like mist. 

We were both gazing at the bowl, now almost empty; the Colonel stoopedso low I feared every minute he would lose his balance and drop into it;and the shadow, that had so long been in process of forming, now atlength began to assume material outline in the air before us. 

Then John Silence moved forward quickly. He took his place between usand the shadow. Erect, formidable, absolute master of the situation, Isaw him stand there, his face calm and almost smiling, and fire in hiseyes. His protective influence was astounding and incalculable. Even theabhorrent dread I felt at the sight of the creature growing into lifeand substance before us, lessened in some way so that I was able to keepmy eyes fixed on the air above the bowl without too vivid a terror. 

But as it took shape, rising out of nothing as it were, and growingmomentarily more defined in outline, a period of utter and wonderfulsilence settled down upon the building and all it contained. A hush ofages, like the sudden centre of peace at the heart of the travellingcyclone, descended through the night, and out of this hush, as out ofthe emanations of the steaming blood, issued the form of the ancientbeing who had first sent the elemental of fire upon its mission. It grewand darkened and solidified before our eyes. It rose from just beyondthe table so that the lower portions remained invisible, but I saw theoutline limn itself upon the air, as though slowly revealed by therising of a curtain. It apparently had not then quite concentrated tothe normal proportions, but was spread out on all sides into space, huge, though rapidly condensing, for I saw the colossal shoulders, theneck, the lower portion of the dark jaws, the terrible mouth, and thenthe teeth and lips--and, as the veil seemed to lift further upon thetremendous face--I saw the nose and cheek bones. In another moment Ishould have looked straight into the eyes--

But what Dr. Silence did at that moment was so unexpected, and took meso by surprise, that I have never yet properly understood its nature, and he has never yet seen fit to explain in detail to me. He utteredsome sound that had a note of command in it--and, in so doing, steppedforward and intervened between me and the face. The figure, just nearingcompleteness, he therefore hid from my sight--and I have always thoughtpurposely hid from my sight. 

"The fire!" he cried out. "The fire! Beware!"

There was a sudden roar as of flame from the very mouth of the pit, andfor the space of a single second all grew light as day. A blinding flashpassed across my face, and there was heat for an instant that seemed toshrivel skin, and flesh, and bone. Then came steps, and I heard ColonelWragge utter a great cry, wilder than any human cry I have ever known. The heat sucked all the breath out of my lungs with a rush, and theblaze of light, as it vanished, swept my vision with it into envelopingdarkness. 

When I recovered the use of my senses a few moments later I saw thatColonel Wragge with a face of death, its whiteness strangely stained, had moved closer to me. Dr. Silence stood beside him, an expression oftriumph and success in his eyes. The next minute the soldier tried toclutch me with his hand. Then he reeled, staggered, and, unable to savehimself, fell with a great crash upon the brick floor. 

After the sheet of flame, a wind raged round the building as though itwould lift the roof off, but then passed as suddenly as it came. And inthe intense calm that followed I saw that the form had vanished, and thedoctor was stooping over Colonel Wragge upon the floor, trying to lifthim to a sitting position. 

"Light, " he said quietly, "more light. Take the shades off. "

Colonel Wragge sat up and the glare of the unshaded lamps fell upon hisface. It was grey and drawn, still running heat, and there was a look inthe eyes and about the corners of the mouth that seemed in this shortspace of time to have added years to its age. At the same time, theexpression of effort and anxiety had left it. It showed relief. 

"Gone!" he said, looking up at the doctor in a dazed fashion, andstruggling to his feet. "Thank God! it's gone at last. " He stared roundthe laundry as though to find out where he was. "Did it control me--takepossession of me? Did I talk nonsense?" he asked bluntly. "After theheat came, I remember nothing--"

"You'll feel yourself again in a few minutes, " the doctor said. To myinfinite horror I saw that he was surreptitiously wiping sundry darkstains from the face. "Our experiment has been a success and--"

He gave me a swift glance to hide the bowl, standing between me and ourhost while I hurriedly stuffed it down under the lid of the nearestcauldron. 

"--and none of us the worse for it, " he finished. 

"And fires?" he asked, still dazed, "there'll be no more fires?"

"It is dissipated--partly, at any rate, " replied Dr. Silence cautiously. 

"And the man behind the gun, " he went on, only half realising what hewas saying, I think; "have you discovered _that?_"

"A form materialised, " said the doctor briefly. "I know for certain nowwhat the directing intelligence was behind it all. "

Colonel Wragge pulled himself together and got upon his feet. The wordsconveyed no clear meaning to him yet. But his memory was returninggradually, and he was trying to piece together the fragments into aconnected whole. He shivered a little, for the place had grown suddenlychilly. The air was empty again, lifeless. 

"You feel all right again now, " Dr. Silence said, in the tone of a manstating a fact rather than asking a question. 

"Thanks to you--both, yes. " He drew a deep breath, and mopped his face, and even attempted a smile. He made me think of a man coming from thebattlefield with the stains of fighting still upon him, but scornful ofhis wounds. Then he turned gravely towards the doctor with a questionin his eyes. Memory had returned and he was himself again. 

"Precisely what I expected, " the doctor said calmly; "a fire-elementalsent upon its mission in the days of Thebes, centuries before Christ, and tonight, for the first time all these thousands of years, releasedfrom the spell that originally bound it. "

We stared at him in amazement, Colonel Wragge opening his lips for wordsthat refused to shape themselves. 

"And, if we dig, " he continued significantly, pointing to the floorwhere the blackness had poured up, "we shall find some undergroundconnection--a tunnel most likely--leading to the Twelve Acre Wood. Itwas made by--your predecessor. "

"A tunnel made by my brother!" gasped the soldier. "Then my sistershould know--she lived here with him--" He stopped suddenly. 

John Silence inclined his head slowly. "I think so, " he said quietly. "Your brother, no doubt, was as much tormented as you have been, " hecontinued after a pause in which Colonel Wragge seemed deeplypreoccupied with his thoughts, "and tried to find peace by burying it inthe wood, and surrounding the wood then, like a large magic circle, withthe enchantments of the old formulae. So the stars the man sawblazing--"

"But burying what?" asked the soldier faintly, stepping backwardstowards the support of the wall. 

Dr. Silence regarded us both intently for a moment before he replied. Ithink he weighed in his mind whether to tell us now, or when theinvestigation was absolutely complete. 

"The mummy, " he said softly, after a moment; "the mummy that yourbrother took from its resting place of centuries, and broughthome--here. "

Colonel Wragge dropped down upon the nearest chair, hanging breathlesslyon every word. He was far too amazed for speech. 

"The mummy of some important person--a priest most likely--protectedfrom disturbance and desecration by the ceremonial magic of the time. For they understood how to attach to the mummy, to lock up with it inthe tomb, an elemental force that would direct itself even after agesupon any one who dared to molest it. In this case it was an elemental offire. "

Dr. Silence crossed the floor and turned out the lamps one by one. Hehad nothing more to say for the moment. Following his example, I foldedthe table together and took up the chairs, and our host, still dazed andsilent, mechanically obeyed him and moved to the door. 

We removed all traces of the experiment, taking the empty bowl back tothe house concealed beneath an ulster. 

The air was cool and fragrant as we walked to the house, the starsbeginning to fade overhead and a fresh wind of early morning blowing upout of the east where the sky was already hinting of the coming day. Itwas after five o'clock. 

Stealthily we entered the front hall and locked the door, and as we wenton tiptoe upstairs to our rooms, the Colonel, peering at us over hiscandle as he nodded good-night, whispered that if we were ready thedigging should be begun that very day. 

Then I saw him steal along to his sister's room and disappear. 

IV

But not even the mysterious references to the mummy, or the prospect ofa revelation by digging, were able to hinder the reaction that followedthe intense excitement of the past twelve hours, and I slept the sleepof the dead, dreamless and undisturbed. A touch on the shoulder woke me, and I saw Dr. Silence standing beside the bed, dressed to go out. 

"Come, " he said, "it's tea-time. You've slept the best part of a dozenhours. "

I sprang up and made a hurried toilet, while my companion sat andtalked. He looked fresh and rested, and his manner was even quieter thanusual. 

"Colonel Wragge has provided spades and pickaxes. We're going out tounearth this mummy at once, " he said; "and there's no reason we shouldnot get away by the morning train. "

"I'm ready to go tonight, if you are, " I said honestly. 

But Dr. Silence shook his head. 

"I must see this through to the end, " he said gravely, and in a tonethat made me think he still anticipated serious things, perhaps. He wenton talking while I dressed. 

"This case is really typical of all stories of mummy-haunting, and noneof them are cases to trifle with, " he explained, "for the mummies ofimportant people--kings, priests, magicians--were laid away withprofoundly significant ceremonial, and were very effectively protected, as you have seen, against desecration, and especially againstdestruction. 

"The general belief, " he went on, anticipating my questions, "held, ofcourse, that the perpetuity of the mummy guaranteed that of its Ka, --theowner's spirit, --but it is not improbable that the magical embalmingwas also used to retard reincarnation, the preservation of the bodypreventing the return of the spirit to the toil and discipline ofearth-life; and, in any case, they knew how to attach powerfulguardian-forces to keep off trespassers. And any one who dared to removethe mummy, or especially to unwind it--well, " he added, with meaning, "you have seen--and you will see. "

I caught his face in the mirror while I struggled with my collar. It wasdeeply serious. There could be no question that he spoke of what hebelieved and knew. 

"The traveller-brother who brought it here must have been haunted too, "he continued, "for he tried to banish it by burial in the wood, making amagic circle to enclose it. Something of genuine ceremonial he must haveknown, for the stars the man saw were of course the remains of the stillflaming pentagrams he traced at intervals in the circle. Only he did notknow enough, or possibly was ignorant that the mummy's guardian was afire-force. Fire cannot be enclosed by fire, though, as you saw, it canbe released by it. "

"Then that awful figure in the laundry?" I asked, thrilled to find himso communicative. 

"Undoubtedly the actual Ka of the mummy operating always behind itsagent, the elemental, and most likely thousands of years old. "

"And Miss Wragge--?" I ventured once more. 

"Ah, Miss Wragge, " he repeated with increased gravity, "Miss Wragge--"

A knock at the door brought a servant with word that tea was ready, andthe Colonel had sent to ask if we were coming down. The thread wasbroken. Dr. Silence moved to the door and signed to me to follow. Buthis manner told me that in any case no real answer would have beenforthcoming to my question. 

"And the place to dig in, " I asked, unable to restrain my curiosity, "will you find it by some process of divination or--?"

He paused at the door and looked back at me, and with that he left me tofinish my dressing. 

It was growing dark when the three of us silently made our way to theTwelve Acre Plantation; the sky was overcast, and a black wind came outof the east. Gloom hung about the old house and the air seemed full ofsighings. We found the tools ready laid at the edge of the wood, andeach shouldering his piece, we followed our leader at once in among thetrees. He went straight forward for some twenty yards and then stopped. At his feet lay the blackened circle of one of the burned places. It wasjust discernible against the surrounding white grass. 

"There are three of these, " he said, "and they all lie in a line withone another. Any one of them will tap the tunnel that connects thelaundry--the former Museum--with the chamber where the mummy now liesburied. "

He at once cleared away the burnt grass and began to dig; we all beganto dig. While I used the pick, the others shovelled vigorously. No onespoke. Colonel Wragge worked the hardest of the three. The soil waslight and sandy, and there were only a few snake-like roots andoccasional loose stones to delay us. The pick made short work of these. And meanwhile the darkness settled about us and the biting wind sweptroaring through the trees overhead. 

Then, quite suddenly, without a cry, Colonel Wragge disappeared up tohis neck. 

"The tunnel!" cried the doctor, helping to drag him out, red, breathless, and covered with sand and perspiration. "Now, let me leadthe way. " And he slipped down nimbly into the hole, so that a momentlater we heard his voice, muffled by sand and distance, rising up to us. 

"Hubbard, you come next, and then Colonel Wragge--if he wishes, " weheard. 

"I'll follow you, of course, " he said, looking at me as I scrambled in. 

The hole was bigger now, and I got down on all-fours in a channel notmuch bigger than a large sewer-pipe and found myself in total darkness. A minute later a heavy thud, followed by a cataract of loose sand, announced the arrival of the Colonel. 

"Catch hold of my heel, " called Dr. Silence, "and Colonel Wragge cantake yours. "

In this slow, laborious fashion we wormed our way along a tunnel thathad been roughly dug out of the shifting sand, and was shored upclumsily by means of wooden pillars and posts. Any moment, it seemed tome, we might be buried alive. We could not see an inch before our eyes, but had to grope our way feeling the pillars and the walls. It wasdifficult to breathe, and the Colonel behind me made but slow progress, for the cramped position of our bodies was very severe. 

We had travelled in this way for ten minutes, and gone perhaps as muchas ten yards, when I lost my grasp of the doctor's heel. 

"Ah!" I heard his voice, sounding above me somewhere. He was standing upin a clear space, and the next moment I was standing beside him. ColonelWragge came heavily after, and he too rose up and stood. Then Dr. Silence produced his candles and we heard preparations for strikingmatches. 

Yet even before there was light, an indefinable sensation of awe cameover us all. In this hole in the sand, some three feet under ground, westood side by side, cramped and huddled, struck suddenly with an overwhelming apprehension of something ancient, something formidable, something incalculably wonderful, that touched in each one of us a senseof the sublime and the terrible even before we could see an inch beforeour faces. I know not how to express in language this singular emotionthat caught us here in utter darkness, touching no sense directly, itseemed, yet with the recognition that before us in the blackness of thisunderground night there lay something that was mighty with themightiness of long past ages. 

I felt Colonel Wragge press in closely to my side, and I understood thepressure and welcomed it. No human touch, to me at least, has ever beenmore eloquent. 

Then the match flared, a thousand shadows fled on black wings, and I sawJohn Silence fumbling with the candle, his face lit up grotesquely bythe flickering light below it. 

I had dreaded this light, yet when it came there was apparently nothingto explain the profound sensations of dread that preceded it. We stoodin a small vaulted chamber in the sand, the sides and roof shored withbars of wood, and the ground laid roughly with what seemed to be tiles. It was six feet high, so that we could all stand comfortably, and mayhave been ten feet long by eight feet wide. Upon the wooden pillars atthe side I saw that Egyptian hieroglyphics had been rudely traced byburning. 

Dr. Silence lit three candles and handed one to each of us. He placed afourth in the sand against the wall on his right, and another to markthe entrance to the tunnel. We stood and stared about us, instinctivelyholding our breath. 

"Empty, by God!" exclaimed Colonel Wragge. His voice trembled withexcitement. And then, as his eyes rested on the ground, he added, "Andfootsteps--look--footsteps in the sand!"

Dr. Silence said nothing. He stooped down and began to make a search ofthe chamber, and as he moved, my eyes followed his crouching figure andnoted the queer distorted shadows that poured over the walls and ceilingafter him. Here and there thin trickles of loose sand ran fizzing downthe sides. The atmosphere, heavily charged with faint yet pungentodours, lay utterly still, and the flames of the candles might have beenpainted on the air for all the movement they betrayed. 

And, as I watched, it was almost necessary to persuade myself forciblythat I was only standing upright with difficulty in this littlesand-hole of a modern garden in the south of England, for it seemed tome that I stood, as in vision, at the entrance of some vast rock-hewnTemple far, far down the river of Time. The illusion was powerful, andpersisted. Granite columns, that rose to heaven, piled themselves aboutme, majestically uprearing, and a roof like the sky itself spread abovea line of colossal figures that moved in shadowy procession alongendless and stupendous aisles. This huge and splendid fantasy, borne Iknew not whence, possessed me so vividly that I was actually obliged toconcentrate my attention upon the small stooping figure of the doctor, as he groped about the walls, in order to keep the eye of imagination onthe scene before me. 

But the limited space rendered a long search out of the question, andhis footsteps, instead of shuffling through loose sand, presently strucksomething of a different quality that gave forth a hollow and resoundingecho. He stooped to examine more closely. 

He was standing exactly in the centre of the little chamber when thishappened, and he at once began scraping away the sand with his feet. Inless than a minute a smooth surface became visible--the surface of awooden covering. The next thing I saw was that he had raised it and waspeering down into a space below. Instantly, a strong odour of nitre andbitumen, mingled with the strange perfume of unknown and powderedaromatics, rose up from the uncovered space and filled the vault, stinging the throat and making the eyes water and smart. 

"The mummy!" whispered Dr. Silence, looking up into our faces over hiscandle; and as he said the word I felt the soldier lurch against me, andheard his breathing in my very ear. 

"The mummy!" he repeated under his breath, as we pressed forward tolook. 

It is difficult to say exactly why the sight should have stirred in meso prodigious an emotion of wonder and veneration, for I have had not alittle to do with mummies, have unwound scores of them, and evenexperimented magically with not a few. But there was something in thesight of that grey and silent figure, lying in its modern box of leadand wood at the bottom of this sandy grave, swathed in the bandages ofcenturies and wrapped in the perfumed linen that the priests of Egypthad prayed over with their mighty enchantments thousands of yearsbefore--something in the sight of it lying there and breathing its ownspice-laden atmosphere even in the darkness of its exile in this remoteland, something that pierced to the very core of my being and touchedthat root of awe which slumbers in every man near the birth of tears andthe passion of true worship. 

I remember turning quickly from the Colonel, lest he should see myemotion, yet fail to understand its cause, turn and clutch John Silenceby the arm, and then fall trembling to see that he, too, had lowered hishead and was hiding his face in his hands. 

A kind of whirling storm came over me, rising out of I know not whatutter deeps of memory, and in a whiteness of vision I heard the magicalold chauntings from the Book of the Dead, and saw the Gods pass by indim procession, the mighty, immemorial Beings who were yet themselvesonly the personified attributes of the true Gods, the God with the Eyesof Fire, the God with the Face of Smoke. I saw again Anubis, thedog-faced deity, and the children of Horus, eternal watcher of the ages, as they swathed Osiris, the first mummy of the world, in the scented andmystic bands, and I tasted again something of the ecstasy of thejustified soul as it embarked in the golden Boat of Ra, and journeyedonwards to rest in the fields of the blessed. 

And then, as Dr. Silence, with infinite reverence, stooped and touchedthe still face, so dreadfully staring with its painted eyes, there roseagain to our nostrils wave upon wave of this perfume of thousands ofyears, and time fled backwards like a thing of naught, showing me inhaunted panorama the most wonderful dream of the whole world. 

A gentle hissing became audible in the air, and the doctor moved quicklybackwards. It came close to our faces and then seemed to play about thewalls and ceiling. 

"The last of the Fire--still waiting for its full accomplishment, " hemuttered; but I heard both words and hissing as things far away, for Iwas still busy with the journey of the soul through the Seven Halls ofDeath, listening for echoes of the grandest ritual ever known to men. 

The earthen plates covered with hieroglyphics still lay beside themummy, and round it, carefully arranged at the points of the compass, stood the four jars with the heads of the hawk, the jackal, thecynocephalus, and man, the jars in which were placed the hair, the nailparings, the heart, and other special portions of the body. Even theamulets, the mirror, the blue clay statues of the Ka, and the lamp withseven wicks were there. Only the sacred scarabaeus was missing. 

"Not only has it been torn from its ancient resting-place, " I heard Dr. Silence saying in a solemn voice as he looked at Colonel Wragge withfixed gaze, "but it has been partially unwound, "--he pointed to thewrappings of the breast, --"and--the scarabaeus has been removed from thethroat. "

The hissing, that was like the hissing of an invisible flame, hadceased; only from time to time we heard it as though it passed backwardsand forwards in the tunnel; and we stood looking into each other's faceswithout speaking. 

Presently Colonel Wragge made a great effort and braced himself. I heardthe sound catch in his throat before the words actually became audible. 

"My sister, " he said, very low. And then there followed a long pause, broken at length by John Silence. 

"It must be replaced, " he said significantly. 

"I knew nothing, " the soldier said, forcing himself to speak the wordshe hated saying. "Absolutely nothing. "

"It must be returned, " repeated the other, "if it is not now too late. For I fear--I fear--"

Colonel Wragge made a movement of assent with his head. 

"It shall be, " he said. 

The place was still as the grave. 

I do not know what it was then that made us all three turn round with sosudden a start, for there was no sound audible to my ears, at least. 

The doctor was on the point of replacing the lid over the mummy, when hestraightened up as if he had been shot. 

"There's something coming, " said Colonel Wragge under his breath, andthe doctor's eyes, peering down the small opening of the tunnel, showedme the true direction. 

A distant shuffling noise became distinctly audible coming from a pointabout half-way down the tunnel we had so laboriously penetrated. 

"It's the sand falling in, " I said, though I knew it was foolish. 

"No, " said the Colonel calmly, in a voice that seemed to have the ringof iron, "I've heard it for some time past. It is something alive--andit is coming nearer. "

He stared about him with a look of resolution that made his face almostnoble. The horror in his heart was overmastering, yet he stood thereprepared for anything that might come. 

"There's no other way out, " John Silence said. 

He leaned the lid against the sand, and waited. I knew by the masklikeexpression of his face, the pallor, and the steadiness of the eyes, thathe anticipated something that might be very terrible--appalling. 

The Colonel and myself stood on either side of the opening. I still heldmy candle and was ashamed of the way it shook, dripping the grease allover me; but the soldier had set his into the sand just behind his feet. 

Thoughts of being buried alive, of being smothered like rats in a trap, of being caught and done to death by some invisible and merciless forcewe could not grapple with, rushed into my mind. Then I thought offire--of suffocation--of being roasted alive. The perspiration began topour from my face. 

"Steady!" came the voice of Dr. Silence to me through the vault. 

For five minutes, that seemed fifty, we stood waiting, looking fromeach other's faces to the mummy, and from the mummy to the hole, and allthe time the shuffling sound, soft and stealthy, came gradually nearer. The tension, for me at least, was very near the breaking point when atlast the cause of the disturbance reached the edge. It was hidden for amoment just behind the broken rim of soil. A jet of sand, shaken by theclose vibration, trickled down on to the ground; I have never in my lifeseen anything fall with such laborious leisure. The next second, uttering a cry of curious quality, it came into view. 

And it was far more distressingly horrible than anything I hadanticipated. 

For the sight of some Egyptian monster, some god of the tombs, or evenof some demon of fire, I think I was already half prepared; but when, instead, I saw the white visage of Miss Wragge framed in that roundopening of sand, followed by her body crawling on all fours, her eyesbulging and reflecting the yellow glare of the candles, my firstinstinct was to turn and run like a frantic animal seeking a way ofescape. 

But Dr. Silence, who seemed no whit surprised, caught my arm andsteadied me, and we both saw the Colonel then drop upon his knees andcome thus to a level with his sister. For more than a whole minute, asthough struck in stone, the two faces gazed silently at each other:hers, for all the dreadful emotion in it, more like a gargoyle thananything human; and his, white and blank with an expression that wasbeyond either astonishment or alarm. She looked up; he looked down. Itwas a picture in a nightmare, and the candle, stuck in the sand close tothe hole, threw upon it the glare of impromptu footlights. 

Then John Silence moved forward and spoke in a voice that was very low, yet perfectly calm and natural. 

"I am glad you have come, " he said. "You are the one person whosepresence at this moment is most required. And I hope that you may yet bein time to appease the anger of the Fire, and to bring peace again toyour household, and, " he added lower still so that no one heard it butmyself, "_safety to yourself_. "

And while her brother stumbled backwards, crushing a candle into thesand in his awkwardness, the old lady crawled farther into the vaultedchamber and slowly rose upon her feet. 

At the sight of the wrapped figure of the mummy I was fully prepared tosee her scream and faint, but on the contrary, to my complete amazement, she merely bowed her head and dropped quietly upon her knees. Then, after a pause of more than a minute, she raised her eyes to the roof andher lips began to mutter as in prayer. Her right hand, meanwhile, whichhad been fumbling for some time at her throat suddenly came away, andbefore the gaze of all of us she held it out, palm upwards, over thegrey and ancient figure outstretched below. And in it we beheldglistening the green jasper of the stolen scarabaeus. 

Her brother, leaning heavily against the wall behind, uttered a soundthat was half cry, half exclamation, but John Silence, standing directlyin front of her, merely fixed his eyes on her and pointed downwards tothe staring face below. 

"Replace it, " he said sternly, "where it belongs. "

Miss Wragge was kneeling at the feet of the mummy when this happened. Wethree men all had our eyes riveted on what followed. Only the reader whoby some remote chance may have witnessed a line of mummies, freshly laidfrom their tombs upon the sand, slowly stir and bend as the heat of theEgyptian sun warms their ancient bodies into the semblance of life, canform any conception of the ultimate horror we experienced when thesilent figure before us moved in its grave of lead and sand. Slowly, before our eyes, it writhed, and, with a faint rustling of theimmemorial cerements, rose up, and, through sightless and bandaged eyes, stared across the yellow candlelight at the woman who had violated it. 

I tried to move--her brother tried to move--but the sand seemed to holdour feet. I tried to cry--her brother tried to cry--but the sand seemedto fill our lungs and throat. We could only stare--and, even so, thesand seemed to rise like a desert storm and cloud our vision . .. 

And when I managed at length to open my eyes again, the mummy was lyingonce more upon its back, motionless, the shrunken and painted faceupturned towards the ceiling, and the old lady had tumbled forward andwas lying in the semblance of death with her head and arms upon itscrumbling body. 

But upon the wrappings of the throat I saw the green jasper of thesacred scarabaeus shining again like a living eye. 

Colonel Wragge and the doctor recovered themselves long before I did, and I found myself helping them clumsily and unintelligently to raisethe frail body of the old lady, while John Silence carefully replacedthe covering over the grave and scraped back the sand with his foot, while he issued brief directions. 

I heard his voice as in a dream; but the journey back along that crampedtunnel, weighted by a dead woman, blinded with sand, suffocated withheat, was in no sense a dream. It took us the best part of half an hourto reach the open air. And, even then, we had to wait a considerabletime for the appearance of Dr. Silence. We carried her undiscovered intothe house and up to her own room. 

"The mummy will cause no further disturbance, " I heard Dr. Silence sayto our host later that evening as we prepared to drive for the nighttrain, "provided always, " he added significantly, "that you, and yours, cause it no disturbance. "

It was in a dream, too, that we left. 

"You did not see her face, I know, " he said to me as we wrapped our rugsabout us in the empty compartment. And when I shook my head, quiteunable to explain the instinct that had come to me not to look, heturned toward me, his face pale, and genuinely sad. 

"Scorched and blasted, " he whispered.