He had been waylaid,
after the lapse of centuries—caught, and conquered. Dimly he realised this, and sought to make plans for his escape. But,
for the moment at any rate, he was powerless to manage his thoughts or
will, for the sweet, fantastic madness of the whole adventure mounted
to his brain like a spell, and he gloried in the feeling that he was
utterly enchanted and moving in a world so much larger and wilder than
the one he had ever been accustomed to. The moon, pale and enormous, was just rising over the sea-like plain,
when at last he rose to go. Her slanting rays drew all the houses into
new perspective, so that their roofs, already glistening with dew,
seemed to stretch much higher into the sky than usual, and their gables
and quaint old towers lay far away in its purple reaches. The cathedral appeared unreal in a silver mist. He moved softly,
keeping to the shadows; but the streets were all deserted and very
silent; the doors were closed, the shutters fastened. Not a soul was
astir. The hush of night lay over everything; it was like a town of the
dead, a churchyard with gigantic and grotesque tombstones. Wondering where all the busy life of the day had so utterly disappeared
to, he made his way to a back door that entered the inn by means of the
stables, thinking thus to reach his room unobserved. He reached the
courtyard safely and crossed it by keeping close to the shadow of the
wall. He sidled down it, mincing along on tiptoe, just as the old men
did when they entered the _salle à manger_. He was horrified to find
himself doing this instinctively. A strange impulse came to him,
catching him somehow in the centre of his body—an impulse to drop upon
all fours and run swiftly and silently. He glanced upwards and the idea
came to him to leap up upon his window-sill overhead instead of going
round by the stairs. This occurred to him as the easiest, and most
natural way. It was like the beginning of some horrible transformation
of himself into something else. He was fearfully strung up. The moon was higher now, and the shadows very dark along the side of
the street where he moved. He kept among the deepest of them, and
reached the porch with the glass doors. But here there was light; the inmates, unfortunately, were still about. Hoping to slip across the hall unobserved and reach the stairs, he
opened the door carefully and stole in. Then he saw that the hall was
not empty. A large dark thing lay against the wall on his left. At
first he thought it must be household articles. Then it moved, and he
thought it was an immense cat, distorted in some way by the play of
light and shadow. Then it rose straight up before him and he saw that
it was the proprietress. What she had been doing in this position he could only venture a
dreadful guess, but the moment she stood up and faced him he was aware
of some terrible dignity clothing her about that instantly recalled the
girl’s strange saying that she was a queen. Huge and sinister she stood
there under the little oil lamp; alone with him in the empty hall. Awe
stirred in his heart, and the roots of some ancient fear. He felt that
he must bow to her and make some kind of obeisance. The impulse was
fierce and irresistible, as of long habit. He glanced quickly about
him. There was no one there. Then he deliberately inclined his head
toward her. He bowed. “Enfin! M’sieur s’est donc décidé. C’est bien alors. J’en suis
contente.”

Her words came to him sonorously as through a great open space. Then the great figure came suddenly across the flagged hall at him and
seized his trembling hands. Some overpowering force moved with her and
caught him. “On pourrait faire un p’tit tour ensemble, n’est-ce pas? Nous y allons
cette nuit et il faut s’exercer un peu d’avance pour cela. Ilsé, Ilsé,
viens donc ici. Viens vite!”

And she whirled him round in the opening steps of some dance that
seemed oddly and horribly familiar. They made no sound on the stones,
this strangely assorted couple. It was all soft and stealthy. And
presently, when the air seemed to thicken like smoke, and a red glare
as of flame shot through it, he was aware that some one else had joined
them and that his hand the mother had released was now tightly held by
the daughter. Ilsé had come in answer to the call, and he saw her with
leaves of vervain twined in her dark hair, clothed in tattered vestiges
of some curious garment, beautiful as the night, and horribly,
odiously, loathsomely seductive. “To the Sabbath! to the Sabbath!” they cried. “On to the Witches’
Sabbath!”

Up and down that narrow hall they danced, the women on each side of
him, to the wildest measure he had ever imagined, yet which he dimly,
dreadfully remembered, till the lamp on the wall flickered and went
out, and they were left in total darkness. And the devil woke in his
heart with a thousand vile suggestions and made him afraid. Suddenly they released his hands and he heard the voice of the mother
cry that it was time, and they must go. Which way they went he did not
pause to see. He only realised that he was free, and he blundered
through the darkness till he found the stairs and then tore up them to
his room as though all hell was at his heels. He flung himself on the sofa, with his face in his hands, and groaned. Swiftly reviewing a dozen ways of immediate escape, all equally
impossible, he finally decided that the only thing to do for the moment
was to sit quiet and wait. He must see what was going to happen. At
least in the privacy of his own bedroom he would be fairly safe. The
door was locked. He crossed over and softly opened the window which
gave upon the courtyard and also permitted a partial view of the hall
through the glass doors. As he did so the hum and murmur of a great activity reached his ears
from the streets beyond—the sound of footsteps and voices muffled by
distance. He leaned out cautiously and listened. The moonlight was
clear and strong now, but his own window was in shadow, the silver disc
being still behind the house. It came to him irresistibly that the
inhabitants of the town, who a little while before had all been
invisible behind closed doors, were now issuing forth, busy upon some
secret and unholy errand. He listened intently. At first everything about him was silent, but soon he became aware of
movements going on in the house itself. Rustlings and cheepings came to
him across that still, moonlit yard. A concourse of living beings sent
the hum of their activity into the night. Things were on the move
everywhere. A biting, pungent odour rose through the air, coming he
knew not whence. Presently his eyes became glued to the windows of the
opposite wall where the moonshine fell in a soft blaze. The roof
overhead, and behind him, was reflected clearly in the panes of glass,
and he saw the outlines of dark bodies moving with long footsteps over
the tiles and along the coping.