bad even if we were living in the middle ages. Then at least, I could seek sanctuary in some convent where the nuns would understand and the priests who were learned in such matters, exert them selves to protect me. But in these days of modern scepticism there is no one I can turn to; police and clergymen and doctors would all think me insane. I only have you and after last night I'm frightened, Rex, frightened.' A sudden flush mounted to her cheeks again. 'I know, I know,' Rex soothed her gently. 'But you must try all you know not to be. I've a feeling that you're scaring your self more than is really necessary. I'll agree that Mocata might hypnotise you if he got you on your own again, and maybe use you in some way to get poor Simon back into his net, but what could he actually do to you beyond that? He's not going to take a chance on murdering anybody, so that the police could take a hand, even if he had sufficient motive to want to try." 'I am afraid you don't understand, dearest,' she murmured gently. 'A Satanist who is as far along the Path as Mocata does not need a motive to do murder, unless you can call malicious pleasure in the deed a motive in itself, and my having left him in the lurch at such a critical time is quite sufficient to anger him into bringing about my death.' 'I tell you, sweet, he'll never risk doing murder. In this country it is far too dangerous a game.' 'But his murders are not like ordinary murders. He can kill from a distance if he likes.' 'What-by sticking pins in a little wax figure with your name scratched on it, or letting it melt away before the fire until you pine and die?' That is one way, but he is more likely to use the blood of white mice.' 'How in the world do you mean?' 'I don't know very much about it except what I have picked up from Madame D’Urfe and a few other people. They say that when a very advanced adept wishes to kill someone, he feeds a white mouse on some of the holy wafers that they compel people to steal from churches for them. The sacrilegious aspect of the thing is very important, you see. Then they perform the Catholic ceremony of baptism over the mouse, christening it with the same name as that of their intended victim. That creates an affinity between the mouse and the person far stronger than carving their name on any image.' Then they kill the mouse, eh?' 'No, I don't think so. They draw off some of its blood, impregnate that with their malefic will, vaporise it, and call up an elemental to feed upon its essence. Then they perform a mystic transfusion in their victim's veins causing the elemental to poison them. But, Rex--' 'Yes, my sweet.' 'It is not that I am afraid to die. In any case, as I have told you, there is no hope of my living out the year, but that has not troubled me for a long time now. It is what may come after that terrifies me so.' 'Surely he can't harm anybody once they're dead,' Rex pro tested. 'But he can,' Tanith burst out with a little cry of distress and fear,; 'If he kills me that way, he can make me dead to the world, but I shall live on as an undead, and that would be horrible.' Rex passed his hand wearily across his eyes. 'Don't speak in riddles, treasure. What is this thing you're frightened of? Just tell me now in ordinary, plain English.' 'All right. I suppose you have heard of a vampire.' 'Why, yes. I've read of them in fiction. They're supposed to come out of their graves every night and drink the blood of human beings, aren't they? Until they're found out, then their graves are opened up for a priest to cut off their head and drive stakes through their hearts. Is that what you call an undead?' Tanith nodded slowly. 'Yes, that is an undead-a foul, re volting thing, a living corpse that creeps through the night like a great white slug, and a body bloated from drinking people's blood. But have you never read of them in other books beside nightmare fiction?' 'No, I wouldn't exactly say I have as far as I can remember. The Duke would know all about them for a certainty -and Richard Eaton too, I expect-because they're both great readers. But I'm just an ordinary chap who's content to take his reading from the popular novelists who can turn out a good, interesting story. Do you mean to tell me seriously that such creatures have ever existed outside the thriller writer's imagination?' 'I do. In the Carpathians, where I come from, the whole countryside is riddled with vampire stories from real life. You hear of them in Poland and Hungary and Roumania, too. All through Middle Europe and right down into the Balkan countries there have been endless cases of such revolting Satanic manifestations. Anyone there will tell you that time and again, when graves have been opened on suspicion, the corpses of vampires have been found, months after burial, without the slightest sign of decay, their flesh pink and flushed, their eyes wide-open, bright and staring. The only difference to their previous appearance is the way in which their canine teeth have grown long and pointed. Often, even, they have been found with fresh blood trickling out of the sides of then-mouths.' 'Say, that sounds pretty grim,' Rex exclaimed with a little shudder.' I reckon De Richleau would explain that by saying that the person was possessed before he died and that after, although the actual soul passed on, the evil spirit continued to make a doss-house of its borrowed body. But I can't think that anything so awful would ever happen to you,' 'It might, my dear. That is what scares me so. And if Mocata did get hold of me again he would not need to perform those ghastly rites with impregnated blood. He could just throw me into the hypnotic state and, after he had made me do all he wished, allow some terrible thing to take possession of me at once. The elemental would still remain in my body when he killed me, and I should become one of those loathsome creatures-the undead, if that happened, this very night.' 'Stop! I can't bear to think of it,' Rex drew her quickly-to him again. 'But he shan't get hold of you. We'll fight him till all's blue, and I'm going to marry you to-morrow so that I can be with you constantly. We'll apply for a special licence first thing in the morning. She nodded, and a new light of hope came into her eyes. 'If you wish it, Rex,' she whispered, 'and I do believe that by your love and strength, you can save me. But you mustn't leave me for a single second tonight, and we mustn't sleep a wink. Listen!' She paused a moment as the bell in the village steeple chimed the twelve strokes of midnight, which came to them clearly in the stillness of the quiet room. 'It is the second of May now -my fatal day.' He smiled indulgently. 'Sure, I won't leave you, and we won't sleep either. One of us might drop off if we were all alone, but together we'll prod each other into keeping awake. Though I just can't think that'll be necessary, with all the million things I've got to tell you about your sweet self.' She stood up then, raising her arms to smooth back her hair, and making a graceful, slender silhouette against the flickering flames of the heaped-up fire. 'No. The night will slip away before we know it,' she agreed more cheerfully. 'Because I've got a thousand things to tell you too. I must just slip upstairs to powder my nose now, and when I come back, we'll settle down in earnest to make a night of it together.' A quick frown crossed his face. 'I thought you said I wasn't to let you leave me even for a second. I don't like your going upstairs alone at all.' 'But, my dear!' Tanith gave a little laugh. 'I can hardly take you with me, and I shan't be more than a few moments.' Rex nodded, reassured as he saw her standing there, smiling down at him in the firelight so happy and normal in every way. He felt certain that he would know at once if Mocata was trying to exert his power on her from a distance, by that strange far- away look which had come into her eyes and the fanatical note that had raised the pitch of her voice each time she had spoken of the imperative necessity of her reaching the meeting-place for the Sabbat on the previous day. There was not the faintest suggestion of that other will, imposed upon her own, in her face or voice now, and obviously it would have been childish to attempt to prevent her carrying out so sensible a suggestion before settling down. The best part of six hours must elapse before daylight began to filter greyly through the old-fashioned bow window at the far end of the room. 'All right,' he laughed. Til give you five minutes by that clock-but no more, remember, and if you're not down then, I'll come up and get you.' 'Dear lover!' she stooped suddenly and kissed him, then slipped out of the room closing the door softly behind her. Rex lay back, spreading his great limbs now in the comfortable corner of the inglenook, and stretching out his long legs to the glow of the log fire. He wasn't sleepy, which amazed him when he thought how little sleep he had had since he woke in his state- room on the giant Cunarder the morning of the day that he dined with De Richleau. That seemed ages ago now, weeks, months, years. So many things had happened, so many new and staggering thoughts come to seethe and ferment in his brain, yet Simon's party had been held only a bare two nights before. His hand moved lazily to his hip pocket to get a cigarette, but half way to it he abandoned the attempt as too much trouble, wriggling down instead more comfortably about the cushions. He wasn't sleepy-not a bit. His brain had never been more active and his thoughts turned for a moment to his friends at Cardinals Folly. They, too, would be wide awake, braced, no doubt, under De Richleau's determined leadership, to face an attack from the powers of evil. De Richleau must be feeling pretty sleepy he thought. Neither of them had had more than three hours that morning after their exhausting night. They hadn't got to bed much before dawn the night before either, and the Duke had been up, according to Max, at seven in order to be at the British Museum directly it opened. Say six hours in sixty. That wasn't much, but De Richleau was an old campaigner and he would stick it all right, Rex had no doubt. He glanced at the clock, thinking it almost time that Tanith should rejoin him, but saw that the slow-moving hand had only advanced two minutes. 'Amazing how time drags when one is watching it,' he thought, and his mind wandered on to the reflection that he had been mighty wise not to drink anything but that one glass of sherry and the burgundy for dinner. He would probably have been horribly drowsy by now if he had been fool enough to fall for the cocktails or the port. But he wasn't sleepy-not a bit. His mind began to form little mental pictures of some of those strange episodes which he had lived through in the last two days-old Madame D’Urfe smoking her cigar and then Tanith; Max arranging the cushions in De Richleau's electric canoe at Pangbourne, and then Tanith again. That plausible old humbug Wilkes serving the Clos de Vougoet with meticulous care-a mighty fine thing he made out of this pub no doubt -and then Tanith once more, sitting opposite him at table, with the soft glow of the shaded electric lamp lighting her oval face and throwing strange shadows in the silken web of her golden hair. He glanced at the clock again-another minute had crawled by, and then he pictured Tanith as he had seen her only a few moments before, bending to kiss him, her face warm and flushed by the firelight, and those strange, deep, age-old eyes of hers smiling tenderly into his beneath their heavy half-lowered lids. It must be this strange wonderful love for her, he thought, which kept him so alive and alert, for ordinarily his healthy body demanded its fair share of sleep and he would have been nodding his head off by this time. He could still see those glorious golden eyes of hers smiling into his. The face above them was indistinct and vague, but they remained clear and shining in the shadows on the far side of the fireplace. The eyes were changing now a little-losing their colour and fading from gold to grey and then to a palish blue. Yet their bright ness seemed to increase and they grew bigger as he held them with his mental gaze. He thought for a second of glancing at the clock again. It seemed that Tanith had left him ages ago now, but judging by the time it had taken for that long hand to crawl through three minutes' space he felt that it could hardly yet have covered the other two. Besides, he did not want to lose the focus of those strange, bright eyes which he could see so plainly when he half closed his own. Rex wasn't sleepy-not a bit. But time is an illusion, and Rex never afterwards knew how long he sat awake there in the semi- darkness. Perhaps during the first portion of his watch some strange power deluded his vision and the clock had in reality moved on while he only thought that the minutes dragged so heavily. In any case, those eyes that watched him from the shadows were his last conscious thought, and next moment Rex was sound asleep. 27 Within the Pentacle While Rex slumbered evenly and peacefully before the dying fire in the lounge of the 'Pride of Peacocks,' Richard, Marie Lou, the Duke and Simon waited in the pentacle, on the floor of the library at Cardinals Folly, for the dreary hours of night to drag their way to morning. They lay with their heads towards the centre of the circle and their feet towards the rim, forming a human cross, but although they did not speak for a long time after they had settled down, none of them managed to drop off to sleep. The layer of clean sheets and blankets beneath them was pleasant enough to rest on for a while, but the hard, unyielding floorboards under it soon began to cause them discomfort. The bright flames of the burning candles and the steady glow of the electric light showed pink through their closed eyelids, making repose difficult, and they were all keyed up to varying degrees of anxious expectancy. Marie Lou was restless and miserable. Nothing but her fondness for Simon, and the Duke's plea that the presence of Richard and herself would help enormously in his protection, would have induced her to play any part in such proceedings. Her firm belief in the supernatural filled her with grim forebodings, and she tried in vain to shut out her fears by sleep. Every little noise that broke the brooding stillness, the creaking of a beam as the old house eased itself upon its foundations, or the whisper of the breeze as it rustled the leaves of the trees hi the garden, caused her to start-wide awake again, her muscles taut with alarm and apprehension. Richard did not attempt to sleep. He lay revolving a number of problems in his mind. Fleur d'amour's birthday was in a couple of weeks' tune. The child was easy, but a present for Marie Lou was a different question. It must be something that she wanted and yet a surprise. A difficult matter when she already had everything with which his fine fortune could endow her, and jewellery was not only banal but absurd. The sale of the lesser stones among the Shulimoff treasure, which they had brought out of Russia, had realised enough to provide her with a handsome independent income and her retention of the finer gems alone equipped her magnificently in that direction. He toyed with the idea of buying her a two-year-old. He was not a racing man but she was fond of horses and it would be fun for her to see her own run at the lesser meetings. After a while he turned restlessly on to his tummy, and began to ponder this wretched muddle into which Simon had got himself. The more he thought about it the less he could subscribe to the Duke's obvious beliefs. That so-called Black Magic was still practised in most of the Continental capitals and many of the great cities in America, he knew. He had even met a man, a few years before, who had told him that he had attended a celebration of the Black Mass at a house in the Earls Court district of London, yet he could not credit that it had been anything more than a flimsy excuse for a crowd of intellectual decadents to get disgustingly drunk and participate in a wholesale sexual orgy. Simon was not that sort, or a fool either, so it was certainly queer that he should have got himself mixed up with such beastliness. Richard turned over again, yawned, glanced at his friend whom, he decided, he had never seen look more normal, and wondered if, out of courtesy to the Duke, he could possibly continue to play his part in this tedious farce until morning. The banishing rituals which De Richleau had performed upon Simon the previous night at Stonehenge had certainly proved successful, and he had had a good sleep that afternoon. His brain was now quick and clear as it had been in the old days and, although Mocata's threats were principally directed against himself, he was by far the most cheerful of the party. Despite his recent experiences, his natural humour bubbling up very nearly caused him to laugh at the thought of them all lying on that hard floor because he had made an idiot of himself, and Richard's obvious disgust at the discomforts imposed by the Duke caused him much amusement. Nevertheless, he recognised that his desire to laugh was mainly due to nervous tension, and accepted with full understanding the necessity for these extreme precautions. To think, for only a second, of how narrow his escape had been was enough to sober instantly any tendency to mirth and send a quick shudder through his limbs. He was only anxious now, having dragged his friends into this horrible affair, to cause them as little further trouble as possible by following the Duke's leadership without question. With resolute determination he kept his thoughts away from any of his dealings with Mocata and set himself to endure his comfortless couch with philosophic patience. To outward appearances De Richleau slept. He lay perfectly still on his back breathing evenly and almost imperceptibly, but he had always been able to do with very little sleep. Actually he was recruiting his forces in a manner that was not possible to the others. That gentle rhythmic breathing, perfectly but unconsciously timed from long practice, was the way of the Raja Yoga which he had learnt when young, and all the time he visualised himself, the others, the whole room as blue-blue-blue, the colour vibration which gives love and sympathy and spiritual attainment. Yet he was conscious of every tiny movement made by the others; the gentle sighing of the breeze outside, and the occasional plop of burning logs as they fell into the embers. For over two hours he barely moved a muscle but all his senses remained watchful and alert. The night seemed never-ending. Outside the wind dropped and a steady rain began to fall, dripping with monotonous regularity from the eaves on to the terrace. Richard became more and more sore from the hard floor. He was tired now and bored by this apparently senseless vigil. He thought that it must be about half past one, and daylight would not come to release them from their voluntary prison before half past five or six. That meant another four hours of this acute and momentarily increasing discomfort. As he tossed and turned it grew upon him with ever- increasing force how stupid and futile this whole affair seemed to be. De Richleau was so obviously the victim of a gang of clever tricksters, and his wide reading on obscure subjects had caused his imagination to run away with him. To pander to such folly any longer simply was not good enough. With these thoughts now dominating his mind Richard suddenly sat up. 'Look here,' he said. 'I'm sick of this. A joke's a joke, but we've had no lunch and precious little dinner, and I haven't had a drink all day. Some of you have got far too lively an imagination, and we are making utter fools of ourselves. We had better go upstairs. If you're really frightened of anything happening to Simon we could easily shift four beds into one room and all sleep within a hand's reach of each other. Nobody will be able to get at him then. But frankly, at the moment, I think we're behaving like a lot of lunatics.' De Richleau rose with a jerk and gave him a sharp look from beneath his grey slanting devil's eyebrows. 'Something's beginning to happen,' he told himself swiftly. 'They're working upon Richard, because he's the most sceptical amongst us, to try and make him break up the pentacle.' Aloud he said quietly: 'So you're still unconvinced that Simon is in real danger, Richard?' 'Yes, I am.' Richard's voice held an angry aggressive note quite foreign to his normal manner. 'I regard this Black Magic business as stupid nonsense. If you could cite me a single case where so-called magicians have actually done their stuff before sane people it would be different. But they're charlatans- every one of them. Take Cagliostro-he was supposed to make gold but nobody ever saw any of it, and when the Inquisition got hold of him they bunged him in a dungeon in Rome and he died there in abject misery. His Black Magic couldn't even procure him a hunk of bread. Look at Catherine de Medici. She was a witch on the grand scale if ever there was one- built a special tower at Vincennes for Cosimo Ruggeri, an Italian sorcerer. They used to slit up babies and practise all sorts of abominations there together night after night to ensure the death of Henry of Navarre and the birth of children to her own sons. But it didn't do her a ha'porth of good. All four died childless so that at last, despite all her bloody sacrifices, the House of Valois was extinct, and Henry, the hated Bear-nais, became King of France after all. Come nearer home if you like. Take that absurd fool Elipas Levi who was supposed to be the Grand High Whatnot in Victorian times. Did you ever read his book, The Doctrine and Ritual of Magic! In his introduction he professes that he is going to tell you all about the game and that he's written a really practical book, by the aid of which anybody who likes can raise the devil, and perform all sorts of monkey tricks. He drools on for hundreds of pages about fiery swords and tetragrams and the terrible aqua poffana, but does he tell you anything? Not a blessed thing. Once it comes to a showdown he hedges like the crook he was and tells you that such mysteries are far too terrible and dangerous to be entrusted to the profane. Mysterious balderdash my friend. I'm going to have a good strong nightcap and go to bed.' Marie Lou looked at him in amazement. Never before had she heard Richard denounce any subject with such passion and venom. Ordinarily, he possessed an extremely open mind and, if he doubted any statement, confined himself to a kindly but slightly cynical expression of disbelief. It was extraordinary that he should suddenly forget even his admirable manners and be downright rude to one of his greatest friends. De Richleau studied his face with quiet understanding and as Richard stood up he stood up too, laying his hand upon the younger man's shoulder. 'Richard,' he said. 'You think I'm a superstitious fool, don't you?' 'No.' Richard shrugged uncomfortably. 'OnIy that you've been through a pretty difficult time and, quite frankly, that your imagination is a bit overstrained at the moment.' The Duke smiled. 'All right, perhaps you are correct, but we have been friends for a long time now and this business tonight has not interfered with our friendship in any way, has it?' 'Why, of course not. You know that.' 'Then, if I begged of you to do something for my sake, just because of that friendship, you would do it, wouldn't you?' 'Certainly I would,' Richard's hesitation was hardly percep tible and the Duke cut in quickly, taking him at his word. 'Good! Then we will agree that Black Magic may be nothing but a childish superstition. Yet I happen to be frightened of it, so I ask you, my friend, who is not bothered with such stupid fears, to stay with me tonight-and not move outside this pentacle.' Richard shrugged again, and then smiled ruefully. . . . 'You've caught me properly now so I must make the best of it; quite obviously if you say that, it is impossible for me to refuse.' Thank you,' De Richleau murmured as they both sat down again, and to himself he thought: 'That's the first move in the game to me.' Then as a fresh silence fell upon the party, he began to ruminate upon the strangeness of the fact that elemen-tals and malicious spirits may be very powerful, but their nature is so low and their intelligence so limited that they can nearly always be trapped by the divine spark of reason which is the salvation of mankind. The snare was such an obvious one and yet Richard's true nature had reasserted itself so rapidly that the force, which had moved him to try and break up their circle for its benefit, had been scotched almost before it had had a chance to operate. They settled down again but in some subtle way the atmosphere had changed. The fire glowed red on its great pile of ashes, the candles burned unflickeringly in the five points of the star, and the electric globes above the cornices still lit every comer of the room with a soft diffused radiance, yet the four friends made no further pretence of trying to sleep. Instead they sat back to back, while the moments passed, creeping with leaden feet towards the dawn. Marie Lou was perplexed and worried by Richard's outburst, De Richleau tense with a new expectancy, now he felt that psychic forces were actually moving within the room. Stealthy -invisible-but powerful; he knew them to be feeling their way from bay to bay of the pentacle, seeking for any imperfection in the barrier he had erected, just as a strong current swirls and eddies about the jagged fissures of a reef searching for an entrance into a lagoon. Simon sat crouched, his hands clasped round has knees, staring, apparently with unseeing eyes, at the long lines of books. It seemed that he was listening intently and the Duke watched him with special care, knowing that he was the weak spot of their defence. Presently, his voice a little hoarse, Simon spoke: 'I'm awfully thirsty. I wish we'd got a drink.' De Richleau smiled, a little grimly. Another of the minor manifestations-the evil was working upon Simon now but only to give another instance of its brutish stupidity. It overlooked the fact that he had provided for such an emergency with that big carafe of water in the centre of the pentacle. The fact that it had caused Simon to forget its presence was of little moment. 'Here you are, my friend,' he said, pouring out a glass. This will quench your thirst.' Simon sipped it and put it aside with a shake of his narrow head. 'Do you use well-water, Richard?' he asked jerkily. This stuff tastes beastly to me-brackish and stale.' 'Ah!' thought De Richleau. 'That's the line they are trying, is it? Well, I can defeat them there,' and taking Simon's glass he poured the contents back into the carafe. Then he picked up his bottle of Lourdes water. There was very little in it now for the bulk of it had been used to fill the five cups which stood in the vales of the pentagram-but enough-and he sprinkled a few drops into the water in the carafe. Richard was speaking-instinctively now in a lowered voice -assuring Simon that they always used Burrows Malvern for drinking purposes, when the Duke filled the glass again and handed it back to Simon. 'Now try that.' Simon sipped again and nodded quickly. 'Urn, that seems quite different. I think it must have been my imagination before,' and he drank off the contents of the glass. Again for a long period no one spoke. Only the scraping of a mouse behind the wainscot, sounding abnormally loud, jarred upon the stillness. That frantic insistent gnawing frayed Marie Lou's nerves to such a pitch that she wanted to scream, but after a while that, too, ceased and the heavy silence, pregnant with suspense, enveloped them once more. Even the gentle patter on the window-panes was no longer there to remind them of healthy, normal things, for the rain had stopped, and in that soundless room the only movement was the soft flicker of the logs, piled high in the wide fireplace. It seemed that they had been crouching in that pentacle for nights on end and that their frugal dinner lay days away. Their discomfort had been dulled into a miserable apathy and they were drowsy now after these hours of strained uneventful watching. Richard lay down again to try and snatch a little sleep. The Duke alone remained alert. He knew that this long interval of inactivity on the part of the malefic powers was only a snare designed to give a false sense of security before the renewal of the attack. At length he shifted his position slightly and as he did so he chanced to glance upwards at the ceiling. Suddenly it seemed to him that the Lights were not quite so bright as they had been. It might be his imagination, due to the fact that he was anticipating trouble, but somehow he felt certain that the ceiling had been brighter when he had looked at it before. In quick alarm he roused the others. Simon nodded, realising why De Richleau had touched him on the shoulder and confirming his suspicion. Then with straining eyes, they all watched the cornice, where the concealed lights ran round the wall above the top of the bookshelves. The action was so slow, that each of them felt their eyes must be deceiving them, and yet an inner conviction told them that it was true. Shadows had appeared where no shadows were before. Slowly but surely the current was failing and the lights dimming as they watched. There was something strangely terrifying now about that quiet room. It was orderly and peaceful, just as Richard knew it day by day, except for the abseace of the furniture. No nebulous ghost-like figure had risen up to confront them, but there, as the minutes passed, they were faced with an unaccountable phenomenon-those bright electric globes hidden from their sight were gradually but unquestionably being dimmed. The shadows from the bookcases lengthened. The centre of me ceiling became a dusky patch. Gradually, gradually, as with caught breath they watched, the room was being plunged in darkness. Soundless and stealthy, that black shadow upon the ceiling grew in size and the binding of the books became obscure where they had before been bright until, after what seemed an eternity of time, no light remained save only the faintest line just above the rim of the top bookshelf, the five candles burning steadily in the points of the five-starred pentagram, and the dying fire. Richard shuddered suddenly. 'My God! It's cold,' he exclaimed, drawing Marie Lou towards him. The Duke nodded, silent and watchful. He felt that sinister chill draught beginning to flow upon the back of his neck, and his scalp prickled as he swung round with a sudden jerk to face it. There was nothing to be seen-only the vague outline of the bookcases rising high and stark towards the ceiling where the dull ribbon of light still glowed. The flames of the candles were bent now at an angle under the increasing strength of the cold invisible air current that pressed steadily upon them. De Richleau began to intone a prayer. The wind ceased as suddenly as it had begun, but a moment later it began to play upon them again-this time from a different quarter. The Duke resumed his prayer-the wind checked-and then came with renewed force from another angle. He swung to meet it but it was at his back again. A faint, low moaning became perceptible as the unholy blast began to circle round the pentacle. Round and round it swirled with ever-increasing strength and violence, beating up out of the shadows in sudden wild gusts of arctic iciness, and tearing at them with chill, invisible, clutching fingers, so that it seemed as if they were standing in the very vortex of a cyclone. The candles flickered wildly-and went out. Richard, his scepticism badly shaken, quickly pushed Marie Lou to one side and whipped out his matches. He struck one, and got the nearest candle alight again but, as he turned to the next, that cold damp evil wind came once more, chilling the perspiration that had broken out upon his forehead, snuffing the candle that he had re-lit and the half-burnt match which he still held between his fingers, He lit another and it spluttered out almost before the wood had caught-another-and another, but they would not burn. He glimpsed Simon's face for an instant, white, set, ghastly, the eyeballs protruding unnaturally as he knelt staring out into the shadows-then the whole centre of the room was plunged in blackness. 'We must hold hands,' whispered the Duke. 'Quick, it will strengthen our resistance,' and in the murk they fumbled for each other's fingers, all standing up now, until they formed a little ring in the very centre of the pentagram, hand clasped in hand and bodies back to back. The whirling hurricane ceased as suddenly as it had begun. A unnatural stillness descended on the room again. Then without warning, an uncontrollable fit of trembling took possession of Marie Lou. 'Steady, my sweet,' breathed Richard, gripping her 'hand more tightly, 'you'll be all right in a minute.' He thought that she was suffering from the effect of that awful cold which had penetrated the thin garments of them all, but she was standing facing the grate and her knees shook under her as she stammered out: 'But look-the fire.' Simon was behind her but the Duke and Richard, who were on either side, turned their heads and saw the thing that had caused her such excess of terror. The piled-up logs had flared into fresh life as that strange rushing wind had circled round the room, but now the flames had died down and, as their eyes rested upon it, they saw that the red hot embers were turning black. It was as though some monstrous invisible hand was dabbing at it, then almost in a second, every spark of light in that great, glowing fire was quenched. 'Pray,' urged the Duke, 'for God's sake, pray.' After a little their eyes grew accustomed to this new dark ness. The electric globes hidden behind the cornice were not quite dead. They flickered and seemed about to fail entirely every few moments, yet always the power exerted against them seemed just not quite enough, for their area of light would increase again, so that the shadows across the ceiling and below the books were driven back. The four friends waited with pounding hearts as they watched that silent struggle between light and darkness and the swaying of the shadows backwards and forwards, that ringed them in. For what seemed an immeasurable time they stood in silent apprehension, praying that the last gleam of light would hold out, then, shattering that eerie silence like the sound of guns there came three swift, loud knocks upon the window-pane. 'What's that?' snapped Richard. 'Stay still,' hissed the Duke. A voice came suddenly from outside in the garden. It was clear and unmistakable. Each one of them recognised it instantly as that of Rex. 'Say, I saw your light burning. Come on and let me in.' With a little sigh of relief at the breaking of the tension, Richard let go Marie Lou's hand and took a step forward. But the Duke grabbed his shoulder and jerked him back: 'Don't be a fool,' he rasped. 'It's a trap.' 'Come on now. What in heck is keeping you?' the voice demanded. 'It's mighty cold out here, let me in quick.' Richard alone remained momentarily unconvinced that it was a superhuman agency at work. The others felt a shiver of horror run through their limbs at the perfect imitation of Rex's voice, which they were convinced was a manifestation of some terrible entity endeavouring to trick them into leaving their carefully constructed defence. 'Richard,' the voice came again, angrily now. 'It's Rex I tell you-Rex. Stop all this fooling and get this door undone.' But the four figures in the pentacle now remained tense, silent and unresponsive. The voice spoke no more and once again there was a long interval of silence. De Richleau feared that the Adversary was gathering his forces for a direct attack and it was that, above all other things, which filled him with dread. He was reasonably confident that his own intelligence would serve to sense out and avoid any fresh pitfalls which might be set, providing the others would obey his bidding and remain steadfast in their determination not to leave the pentacle, but he had failed in his attempt to secure the holy wafers of the Blessed Sacrament that afternoon, the lights were all but overcome, the sacred candles had been snuffed out. The holy water, horseshoes, garlic and the pentacle itself might only prove a partial defence if the dark entities which were about them made an open and determined assault, 'What's that!' exclaimed Simon, and they swung round to face the new danger. The shadows were massing into deeper blackness in one corner of the room. Something was moving there. A dim phosphorescent blob began to glow in the darkness; shimmering and spreading into a great hummock, its outline gradually became clearer. It was not a man form nor yet an animal, but heaved there on the floor like some monstrous living sack. It had no eyes or face but from it there radiated a terrible malefic intelligence. Suddenly there ceased to be anything ghostlike about it. The Thing had a whitish pimply skin, leprous and unclean, like some huge silver slug. Waves of satanic power rippled through its spineless body, causing it to throb and work continually like a great mass of new-made dough. A horrible stench of decay and corruption filled the room; for as it writhed it exuded a slimy poisonous moisture which trickled in little rivulets across the polished floor. It was solid, terribly real, a living thing. They could even see long, single, golden hairs, separated from each other by ulcerous patches of skin, quivering and waving as they rose on end from its flabby body-and suddenly it began to laugh at them, a low, horrid, chuckling laugh. Marie Lou reeled against Richard, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth and biting into it to prevent a scream. His eyes were staring, a cold perspiration broke out upon his face. De Richleau knew that it was a Saiitii manifestation of the most powerful and dangerous kind. His nails bit into the palms of his hands as he watched that shapeless mass, silver white and putrescent, heave and ferment. Suddenly it moved, with the rapidity of a cat, yet they heard the squelching sound as it leapt along the floor, leaving a wet slimy trail in its wake, that poisoned the air like foul gases given off by animal remains. They spun round to face it, then it laughed again, mocking them with that quiet, diabolical chuckle that had the power to fill them with such utter dread. It lay for a moment near the window pulsating with demoniac energy like some enormous livid heart. Then it leapt again back to the place where it had been before. Shudderi