Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes | Page 9

were bare;
not even the windows were visible. And the room seemed to fill and
empty of these figures as the waves of the sea fill and empty a cavern,
crowding one upon another, yet never occupying more space, or less.
So the coming and going of these men and women always evaded me.
And my terror became simply a terror that the veils of their eyes might
lift, and that they would look at me with their clear, naked sight. I
became horribly aware of their eyes. It was not that I felt them evil, but
that I feared the new depths in me their merciless and terrible insight
would stir into life. My consciousness had expanded quite enough for
one night! I must escape at all costs and claim my own self again,
however limited. I must have sanity, even if with limitations, but sanity
at any price.
But meanwhile, though I tried hard to find my voice again, there came
nothing but a thin piping sound that was like reeds whistling where
winds meet about a corner. My throat was contracted, and I could only
produce the smallest and most ridiculous of noises. The power of
movement, too, was far less than when I first came in, and every
moment it became more difficult to use my muscles, so that I stood

there, stiff and awkward, face to face with this assemblage of shifting,
wonderful people.
"And now," continued the voice of the man who had last spoken, "and
now the safest way for him will be through the other door, where he
shall see that which he may more easily understand."
With a great effort I regained the power of movement, while at the
same time a burst of anger and a determination to be done with it all
and to overcome my dreadful confusion drove me forward.
He saw me coming, of course, and the others indeed opened up and
made a way for me, shifting to one side or the other whenever I came
too near them, and never allowing me to touch them. But at last, when I
was close in front of the man, ready both to speak and act, he was no
longer there. I never saw the actual change--but instead of a man it was
a woman! And when I turned with amazement, I saw that the other
occupants walking like figures in some ancient ceremony, were moving
slowly toward the far end of the room. One by one, as they filed past,
they raised their calm, passionless faces to mine, immensely vital,
proud, austere, and then, without further word or gesture, they opened
the door I had lost and disappeared through it one by one into the
darkness of the night beyond. And as they went it seemed that the mist
swallowed them up and a gust of wind caught them away, and the light
also went with them, leaving me alone with the figure who had last
spoken.
Moreover it was just here that a most disquieting thought flashed
through my brain with unreasoning conviction, shaking my personality,
as it were, to the foundations: viz., that I had hitherto been spending my
life in the pursuit of false knowledge, in the mere classifying and
labelling of effects, the analysis of results, scientific so called; whereas
it was the folk-lorist, and such like, who with their dreams and prayers
were all the time on the path of real knowledge, the trail of causes; that
the one was merely adding to the mechanical comfort and safety of the
body, ultimately degrading the highest part of man, and never
advancing the type, while the other--but then I had never yet believed
in a soul--and now was no time to begin, terror or no terror. Clearly,

my thoughts were wandering.
IV
It was at this moment the sound of the purring first reached me--deep,
guttural purring--that made me think at once of some large concealed
animal. It was precisely what I had heard many a time at the Zoological
Gardens, and I had visions of cows chewing the cud, or horses
munching hay in a stall outside the cottage. It was certainly an animal
sound, and one of pleasure and contentment.
Semi-darkness filled the room. Only a very faint moonlight, struggling
through the mist, came through the window, and I moved back
instinctively toward the support of the wall against my back.
Somewhere, through openings, came the sound of the night driving
over the roof, and far above I had visions of those everlasting winds
streaming by with clouds as large as continents on their wings.
Something in me wanted to sing and shout, but something else in me at
the same time was in a very vivid state of unreasoning terror. I felt