very-day aspect, a sinister look. The door of Gentilis' room was
shut; probably he was asleep. That at the foot of the staircase was also
shut. Claude stood a moment, frowning; then he crossed the floor
towards the staircase door. But though his mind was fixed, the spell of
the other's excitement told on him: the flicker of the rushlight made
him start; and half-way across the room a sound at his elbow brought him
up as if he had been stabbed. He turned his head, expecting to find the
big man's eyes bent on him from some corner. He found instead the
Syndic, who had stolen in after him, and with a dark anxious face was
standing like a shadow of guilt between him and the door.

The young man resented the alarm which the other had caused him. "If you
are going, go," he muttered. "And if you will do it yourself, Messer
Syndic, so much the better." He pointed to the door of the staircase.

The Syndic recoiled, his beard wagging senilely. "No, no," he babbled.
"No, I will go back."

It was no longer the formal magistrate, but a frightened man who stood
at Claude's elbow. And this was so clear that superstition, which is of
all things the most infectious, began to shake the young man's
resolution. Desperately he threw it off, and went to open the door. Then
he reflected that it would be dark upstairs, he must have a light; and
re-crossing the floor he brought the rushlight from the hearth. Holding
it aloft he opened the creaking door and began to ascend the stairs.

With every step the awe of the other world grew on him; while the
shadow, which he had found at his elbow below, followed him upwards.
When he paused at the head of the flight the Syndic's face was on a
level with his knee, the Syndic's eyes were fixed on his.

Claude did not understand this; but the man's company was welcome now;
and the sight of Basterga's door, not three paces from the place where
he stood, diverted his thoughts. He had not been above stairs since the
day of his arrival, but he knew that Basterga's room was the nearest to
the stairs. That was the door then; behind that door the Italian wrought
his devilish spells!

His light, smoky and wavering, cast black shadows on the walls of the
passage as he moved. The air seemed heavy, laden with some strange drug;
the house was still, with the stillness which precedes horror. Not many
men of his time, suspecting what he suspected, would have opened that
door, or at that hour of the night would have