tal that causes anxiety and makes
for personal danger."

"It is curious," said the Colonel, with a sudden rush of words, drawing
a deep breath, and as though speaking of things distasteful to him,
"that during my years among the Hill Tribes of Northern India I came
across--personally came across--instances of the sacrifices of blood to
certain deities being stopped suddenly, and all manner of disasters
happening until they were resumed. Fires broke out in the huts, and even
on the clothes, of the natives--and--and I admit I have read, in the
course of my studies,"--he made a gesture toward his books and heavily
laden table,--"of the Yezidis of Syria evoking phantoms by means of
cutting their bodies with knives during their whirling dances--enormous
globes of fire which turned into monstrous and terrible forms--and I
remember an account somewhere, too, how the emaciated forms and pallid
countenances of the spectres, that appeared to the Emperor Julian,
claimed to be the true Immortals, and told him to renew the sacrifices
of blood 'for the fumes of which, since the establishment of
Christianity, they had been pining'--that these were in reality the
phantoms evoked by the rites of blood."

Both Dr. Silence and myself listened in amazement, for this sudden
speech was so unexpected, and betrayed so much more knowledge than we
had either of us suspected in the old soldier.

"Then perhaps you have read, too," said the doctor, "how the Cosmic
Deities of savage races, elemental in their nature, have been kept alive
through many ages by these blood rites?"

"No," he answered; "that is new to me."

"In any case," Dr. Silence added, "I am glad you are not wholly
unfamiliar with the subject, for you will now bring more sympathy, and
therefore more help, to our experiment. For, of course, in this case, we
only want the blood to tempt the creature from its lair and enclose it
in a form--"

"I quite understand. And I only hesitated just now," he went on, his
words coming much more slowly, as though he felt he had already said too
much, "because I wished to be quite sure it was no mere curiosity, but
an actual sense of necessity that dictated this horrible experiment."

"It is your safety, and that of your household, and of your sister, that
is at stake," replied the doctor. "Once I have _seen_, I hope to
discover whence this elemental comes, and what its real purpose is."

Colonel Wragge signified his assent with a bow.

"A