p. Back--for in my breath you die!"

The air my lungs drew in was foul and poisonous. With more and more
difficulty my heart labored. Confused memories came to me of men found
dead in their beds in haunted rooms. Would morning find me so? Better
that way than to yield to the Thing! Better----

I struggled erect; or fancied so.

Now I saw myself as one who stood with folded arms fronting a breach in
a colossal wall. Huge, immeasurably huge that cliff reared itself beyond
the sight and ranged away on either side into unknown distances, dully
glistening like gray ice, unbroken save in this place. The gray strand
on which I stood was a narrow strip following the foot of the wall.
Behind me lay a vast, unmoving ocean banked over with an all-concealing
mist. Not a ripple stirred along that weird beach, or a ray changed the
fixed gray twilight. And I was afraid, for my danger was not of the
common dangers of mankind, but that which freezes the blood of man when
he draws near the supernatural; the ancient fear.

I stood there, while sweat poured painfully from me, and fronted my
enemy who pressed me hard.

The Thing was at the breach, couched in the great cleft that split the
Barrier, darkness within darkness. Unseen, I felt the glare of Its hate
beat upon me. From It emanated deathly cold, like the nearness of an
iceberg in the night, with an odor of damp and mold.

"Puny earth-dweller, lost here," Its menace breathed, "what keeps you
from destruction? For you the circle has not been traced nor the
pentagram fixed, for you no law has been thrust down. Trespass is death.
Die, then."

Only my will held It from me, and I felt that will reel in sickened
bewilderment. I had no strength to answer, only the steadfast instinct
to oppose.

The Thing did not pass. There in the breach It ravened for me, thrust
Itself toward me, pressed against the thin veil of separation between
us. I saw nothing, yet knew where It raised Itself, gigantic in
formlessness more dreadful than any shape. Its whispered threats broke
against me like an evil surf.

"Man, the prey is mine. Would you challenge me? The woman is mine by the
pact of centuries. Save yourself. Escape."

The woman? Startled wonder filled me. Was I then fighting for Desire
Michell?

Out of the air I was answered as if her voice had spoken; certainty came
to grip me as if with her small hands. She had no help but in me. If I
fell, she fell. If I stood firm----? Exultant res