in a low
voice, not to move outside of the Barriers, _whatever happened_; not even
though the house should seem to be rocking and about to tumble on to
them; for well I knew what some of the great Forces are capable of doing.
Yet, unless it should prove to be one of the cases of the more terrible
Saiitii Manifestation, we were almost certain of safety, so long as we
kept to our order within the Pentacle.

"Perhaps an hour and a half passed, quietly, except when, once in a way,
the dogs would whine distressfully. Presently, however, they ceased even
from this, and I could see them lying on the floor with their paws over
their noses, in a most peculiar fashion, and shivering visibly. The
sight made me feel more serious, as you can understand.

"Suddenly, the candle in the corner furthest from the main door, went
out. An instant later, Wentworth jerked my arm, and I saw that the candle
before one of the sealed doors had been put out. I held my camera ready.
Then, one after another, every candle about the hall was put out, and
with such speed and irregularity, that I could never catch one in the
actual act of being extinguished. Yet, for all that, I took a flashlight
of the hall in general.

"There was a time in which I sat half-blinded by the great glare of the
flash, and I blamed myself for not having remembered to bring a pair of
smoked goggles, which I have sometimes used at these times. I had felt
the men jump, at the sudden light, and I called out loud to them to sit
quiet, and to keep their feet exactly to their proper places. My voice,
as you can imagine, sounded rather horrid and frightening in the great
room, and altogether it was a beastly moment.

"Then, I was able to see again, and I stared here and there about the
hall; but there was nothing showing unusual; only, of course, it was dark
now over in the corners.

"Suddenly, I saw that the great fire was blackening. It was going out
visibly, as I looked. If I said that some monstrous, invisible,
impossible creature sucked the life from it, I could best explain the
way the light and flame went out of it. It was most extraordinary to
watch. In the time that I watched it, every vestige of fire was gone
from it, and there was no light outside of the ring of candles around
the Pentacle.

"The deliberateness of the thing troubled me more than I can make clear
to you. It conveyed to me such a sense of a calm Deliberate Force present
in the hall: The steadfast in