nder the door trickled a
thin stream of red.

Laurence drew his foot away, with a quick catching sob of the breath.
But his hand was already on the door, and at a touch it appeared to
open almost of its own accord. He found himself looking from the dusk
of the outer whitewashed passage into a high, vaulted chapel, wherein
many dim lights glimmered. At the end there was a great altar of iron
standing square and solemn upon the platform on which it was set up,
and behind it, cut indistinctly against a greenish glow of light, and
imagined rather than clearly defined, the vast statue of a man with a
curiously high shaped head. Laurence could not distinguish any
features, so deep was the gloom, but the whole figure seemed to be
bending slightly forward, as if gloating upon that which was laid upon
the altar. But what struck Laurence with a sense of awe and terror was
the fact that as the greenish light behind waxed and waned, he could
see shadowy horns which projected from either side of the forehead,
and lower, short ears, pricked and shaggy like those of a he-goat.

Nearer the door, where he stood in the densest gloom, something moved
to and fro, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness Laurence
could see that it was the bent figure of a woman. He could not
distinguish her face, but it was certainly a woman of great age and
bodily weakness, whose tangled hair hung down her back, and who halted
curiously upon one foot as she walked. She was bending over a low
couch, whereon lay a little shrouded figure, from which proceeded the
low whimpering sound which he had heard from without. But even at that
moment, as he waited trembling at the door, the moaning ceased, and
there ensued a long silence, in which Laurence could clearly
distinguish the beating of his own heart. It sounded loud in his ears
as a drum that beats the alarm in the streets of a city.

The figure of the woman bent low to the couch, and, after a pause,
with a satisfied air she threw a white cloth over the shrouded form
which lay upon it. Then, without looking towards the door where
Laurence stood, she went to the great iron altar at the upper end of
the weird chapel and threw something on the red embers which glowed
upon it.

"_Barran--most mighty Barran-Sathanas, accept this offering, and
reveal thyself to my master!_" she said in a voice like a chant.

A greenish smoke of stifling odour rose and filled all the place, and
through it the huge horne