ept tranquilly. He opened the press and took from it
the black robe, and put it round him, so that it covered him from head
to foot, and then gathered up the parchment, and the key of the locked
room, and went softly out, and so came to the door. This he undid with a
kind of secret and awestruck haste, locking it behind him. Once inside
the room, he wrestled awhile with a strong aversion to what was in his
mind to do, and stood for a moment, listening intently, as though he
expected to hear some sound. But the room was still, except for the
faint biting of some small creature in the wainscot.

Then with a swift motion he took up the tinder-box and made a light; he
drew aside the curtain that hid the alcove; he put fire to the powder in
the candlesticks, which at first spluttered, and then swiftly kindling
sent up a thick smoky flame, fragrant with drugs, burning hotly and red.
Then he came back to the altar; cast a swift glance round him to see
that all was ready; put fire to the powder on the altar, and in a low
and inward voice began to recite words from the book, and from the
parchment which he held in his hand; once or twice he glanced fearfully
at the skull, and the hands which gleamed luridly through the smoke; the
figures in the picture wavered in the heat; and now the powders began to
burn clear, and throw up a steady light; and still he read, sometimes
turning a page, until at last he made an end; and drawing something from
a silver box which lay beside the book, he dropped it in the flame, and
looked straight before him to see what might befall. The thing that fell
in the flame burned up brightly, with a little leaping of sparks, but
soon it died down; and there was a long silence, in the room, a
breathless silence, which, to Anthony's disordered mind, was not like
the silence of emptiness, but such silence as may be heard when unseen
things are crowding quietly to a closed door, expecting it to be opened,
and as it were holding each other back.

Suddenly, between him and the picture, appeared for a moment a pale
light, as of moonlight, and then with a horror which words cannot attain
to describe, Anthony saw a face hang in the air a few feet from him,
that looked in his own eyes with a sort of intent fury, as though to
spring upon him if he turned either to the right hand or to the left.
His knees tottered beneath him, and a sweat of icy coldness sprang on
his brow; there followed a sound like no sound that A