his mind. He could do nought
but look outwards with his straining eyes, and inwards at his soul; and
the one was now as dark as the other. He thought of me then, my
children, and longed to have me there, but he knew that I was asleep in
my bed and far away. He thought of his mother whom he had loved so much,
but he knew that she was gone to God and had left him alone. And still,
through all, his feet bore him on swiftly without sound or fatigue,
though the terror and the darkness were now black as ink. He felt his
hair rising upon his head, and his skin prickle, and the warmth was
altogether gone from his heart, but he could not stay.

And at the last his feet ceased to move, and he stood still, knowing
that he was come to the place.

Now, I do not understand what he said to me of that place. He told me
that he could see nothing; it was as if his eyes were put out, yet he
knew what it was like.

It was a little round place in the forest, with trees standing about it,
and it was trampled hard with the footsteps of those who had come there
before him. But that was no comfort to him now; for he did not know how
these persons had fared, nor where were their souls.

So he stood in the black darkness, knowing that he could not turn, with
the horror on him so heavy that he sweated as he told me of it, and with
the knowledge that something was approaching under the trees without
sound of step or breathing--he did not know whether it was man or beast
or fiend, he only knew that it was approaching. Yet he could not pray or
cry out.

Then he was aware that it had entered the little space where he stood,
and was even now within a hand's grasp. Yet he could not lift his hands
to ward it off, or to pray to God, or to bless himself.

Then he perceived that the thing--_negotium perambulans in tenebris_
["the Business that walketh about in the dark" (Ps. xc. 6.)]--was
formless, without hands to strike or mouth to bite him with, and that it
was all about him now, closing upon him. If there had been aught to
touch his body, wet lips to kiss his face, or fiery eyes to look into
his own, he would not have feared it with a thousandth part of the fear
that he had. It was that there was no shape or face, and that it sought
not his body but his soul. And when he understood that he gave a loud
cry and awoke, and knew, as in a mystery, that it was no dream, but
that he was indeed come to the place that he had seen, and that this
_negotium