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, a
nd 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