delusion. In fact, nothing occurred to him--he realisednothing--except that he meant to escape--and the quicker the better. Atremendous revulsion of feeling set in and overpowered him.
Accordingly, without further protest for the moment, he ate hispumpernickel and drank his coffee, talking meanwhile as naturally andpleasantly as he could, and when a suitable interval had passed, he roseto his feet and announced once more that he must now take his leave. Hespoke very quietly, but very decidedly. No one hearing him could doubtthat he meant what he said. He had got very close to the door by thistime.
"I regret," he said, using his best German, and speaking to a hushedroom, "that our pleasant evening must come to an end, but it is nowtime for me to wish you all good-night." And then, as no one saidanything, he added, though with a trifle less assurance, "And I thankyou all most sincerely for your hospitality."
"On the contrary," replied Kalkmann instantly, rising from his chair andignoring the hand the Englishman had stretched out to him, "it is we whohave to thank you; and we do so most gratefully and sincerely."
And at the same moment at least half a dozen of the Brothers took uptheir position between himself and the door.
"You are very good to say so," Harris replied as firmly as he couldmanage, noticing this movement out of the corner of his eye, "but reallyI had no conception that--my little chance visit could have afforded youso much pleasure." He moved another step nearer the door, but BruderSchliemann came across the room quickly and stood in front of him. Hisattitude was uncompromising. A dark and terrible expression had comeinto his face.
"But it was _not_ by chance that you came, Bruder Harris," he said sothat all the room could hear; "surely we have not misunderstood yourpresence here?" He raised his black eyebrows.
"No, no," the Englishman hastened to reply, "I was--I am delighted to behere. I told you what pleasure it gave me to find myself among you. Donot misunderstand me, I beg." His voice faltered a little, and he haddifficulty in finding the words. More and more, too, he had difficultyin understanding _their_ words.
"Of course," interposed Bruder Kalkmann in his iron bass, "_we_ have notmisunderstood. You have come back in the spirit of true and unselfishdevotion. You offer yourself freely, and we all appreciate it. It isyour willingness and nobility that have so completely won our venerationand respect." A faint murmur of applause ran round the room. "What weall delight in--what our great Master will especially delight in--is thevalue of your spontaneous and voluntary--"
He used a word Harris did not understand. He said "_Opfer_." Thebewildered Englishman searched his brain for the translation, andsearched in vain. For the life of him he could not remember what itmeant. But the word, for all his inability to translate it, touched hissoul with ice. It was worse, far worse, than anything he had imagined.He felt like a lost, helpless creature, and all power to fight sank outof him from that moment.
"It is magnificent to be such a willing--" added Schliemann, sidlingup to him with a dreadful leer on his face. He made use of the sameword--"_Opfer_."
"God! What could it all mean?" "Offer himself!" "True spirit ofdevotion!" "Willing," "unselfish," "magnificent!" _Opfer, Opfer, Opfer!_What in the name of heaven did it mean, that strange, mysterious wordthat struck such terror into his heart?
He made a valiant effort to keep his presence of mind and hold hisnerves steady. Turning, he saw that Kalkmann's face was a dead white.Kalkmann! He understood that well enough. _Kalkmann_ meant "Man ofChalk": he knew that. But what did "_Opfer_" mean? That was the real keyto the situation. Words poured through his disordered mind in an endlessstream--unusual, rare words he had perhaps heard but once in hislife--while "_Opfer_," a word in common use, entirely escaped him. Whatan extraordinary mockery it all was!
Then Kalkmann, pale as death, but his face hard as iron, spoke a few lowwords that he did not catch, and the Brothers standing by the walls atonce turned the lamps down so that the room became dim. In the halflight he could only just discern their faces and movements.
"It is time," he heard Kalkmann's remorseless voice continue just behindhim. "The hour of midnight is at hand. Let us prepare. He comes! Hecomes; Bruder Asmodelius comes!" His voice rose to a chant.
And the sound of that name, for some extraordinary reason, wasterrible--utterly terrible; so that Harris shook from head to foot as heheard it. Its utterance filled the air like soft thunder, and a hushcame over the whole room. Forces rose all about him, transforming thenormal into the horrible, and the spirit of craven fear ran through allhis being, bringing him to the verge of collapse.
_Asmodelius! Asmodelius!_ The name was appalling. For he understood atlast to whom it referred and the meaning that lay between its greatsyllables. At the same instant, too, he suddenly understood the meaningof that unremembered word. The import of the word "_Opfer_" flashed uponhis soul like a message of death.
He thought of making a wild effort to reach the door, but the weaknessof his trembling knees, and the row of black figures that stood between,dissuaded him at once. He would have screamed for help, but rememberingthe emptiness of the vast building, and the loneliness of the situation,he understood that no help could come that way, and he kept his lipsclosed. He stood still and did nothing. But he knew now what was coming.
Two of the Brothers approached and took him gently by the arm.
"Bruder Asmodelius accepts you," they whispered; "are you ready?"
Then he found his tongue and tried to speak. "But what have I to do withthis Bruder Asm--Asmo--?" he stammered, a desperate rush of wordscrowding vainly behind the halting tongue.
The name refused to pass his lips. He could not pronounce it as theydid. He could not pronounce it at all. His sense of helplessness thenentered the acute stage, for this inability to speak the name produceda fresh sense of quite horrible confusion in his mind, and he becameextraordinarily agitated.
"I came here for a friendly visit," he tried to say with a great effort,but, to his intense dismay, he heard his voice saying something quitedifferent, and actually making use of that very word they had all used:"I came here as a willing _Opfer_," he heard his own voice say, "and _Iam quite ready_."
He was lost beyond all recall now! Not alone his mind, but the verymuscles of his body had passed out of control. He felt that he washovering on the confines of a phantom or demon-world,--a world in whichthe name they had spoken constituted the Master-name, the word ofultimate power.
What followed he heard and saw as in a nightmare.
"In the half light that veils all truth, let us prepare to worship andadore," chanted Schliemann, who had preceded him to the end of the room.
"In the mists that protect our faces before the Black Throne, let usmake ready the willing victim," echoed Kalkmann in his great bass.
They raised their faces, listening expectantly, as a roaring sound, likethe passing of mighty projectiles, filled the air, far, far away, verywonderful, very forbidding. The walls of the room trembled.
"He comes! He comes! He comes!" chanted the Brothers in chorus.
The sound of roaring died away, and an atmosphere of still and uttercold established itself over all. Then Kalkmann, dark and unutterablystern, turned in the dim light and faced the rest.
"Asmodelius, our _Hauptbruder_, is about us," he cried in a voice thateven while it shook was yet a voice of iron; "Asmodelius is about us.Make ready."
There followed a pause in which no one stirred or spoke. A tall Brotherapproached the Englishman; but Kalkmann held up his hand.
"Let the eyes remain uncovered," he said, "in honour of so freely givinghimself." And to his horror Harris then realised for the first time thathis hands were already fastened to his sides.
The Brother retreated again silently, and in the pause that followed allthe figures about him dropped to their knees, leaving him standingalone, and as they dropped, in voices hushed with mingled reverence andawe, they cried, softly, odiously, appallingly, the name of the Beingwhom they momentarily expected to appear.
Then,
at the end of the room, where the windows seemed to havedisappeared so that he saw the stars, there rose into view far upagainst the night sky, grand and terrible, the outline of a man. A kindof grey glory enveloped it so that it resembled a steel-cased statue,immense, imposing, horrific in its distant splendour; while, at the sametime, the face was so spiritually mighty, yet so proudly, so austerelysad, that Harris felt as he stared, that the sight was more than hiseyes could meet, and that in another moment the power of vision wouldfail him altogether, and he must sink into utter nothingness.
So remote and inaccessible hung this figure that it was impossible togauge anything as to its size, yet at the same time so strangely close,that when the grey