(I
don't know why) I felt vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too
long from him. By half past six I had finished. I went to the door to
ring for Clayton to post my letters, and turned to light up the
candelabra (I forgot to say that it was a fad of my father's all through
his life to use candelabra in preference to electric light or gas), when
I heard, I thought I heard a chuckle behind me--low, faint, but
unmistakably malicious. The fate of poor Price flashed into my mind, and
at the same time, I myself was watching myself fight on that same
chesterfield with something horrible, unclean, intangible. I turned
round instantaneously, feeling that the Albertus Magnus was at his
hellish game again. With sudden horror I saw where the chuckle had come
from. The statue had changed from the bronze-green to a fleshy-green. It
was alive, and the great muscles were twitching and quivering. To my
unutterable horror, I perceived it was not Albertus Magnus.... _It was
Ombos!_ His breath came in horrid little flutters, with seconds between
each one, as if he had just come to life and was not quite used to it. A
dreadful viciousness and vitality shone from his green eyes, and his
demon-like mouth was twisted into a grin of unimaginable evil.

"'Gods don't grow in one night like mushrooms,' he said with a leer.
(There was no mistake about his voice--it was Ombos; the words rang
through my brain as if they had been shouted.) 'You can't expect a
statue to turn into a god in a breath, or to come down and skip about
... it takes time and faith.'

"At that moment I must have gone mad. I snatched the heavy candelabra
and with a howl of rage I hurled it with all my force at his narrow
leering eyes. It struck the solid bronze with a terrific crash and fell
at the base of the pedestal whereon Ombos had stood a moment before.

"Clayton rushed in at this juncture, and we went into the sitting-room.
I saw him wipe his forehead with the back of his hand.

"'He's been here again, sir,' he said. 'I was standing on the gravel
path by the library, a minute ago, when I saw him close by me in the
bushes. He came across the water-meadow, I think. And any way he made
off back that way when I shouted at him. Begad, though, it'll be worth a
trifle to see who this rascal is, sir. I wonder what he's after. Not the
common kind of assassin. What?'

* * * * *

"This was the climax; I felt that another such encounter would