In the yard I heard him
sending the frightened servants about their business in an excellently
matter-of-fact voice, scolding some one roundly for making such a big
fire and letting the flues get over-heated, and paying no heed to the
stammering reply that no fire had been lit there for several days. Then
he dispatched a groom on horseback for the local doctor. Then Dr. Silence turned and looked at me. The absolute control he
possessed, not only over the outward expression of emotion by gesture,
change of colour, light in the eyes, and so forth, but also, as I well
knew, over its very birth in his heart, the mask-like face of the dead
he could assume at will, made it extremely difficult to know at any
given moment what was at work in his inner consciousness. But now, when
he turned and looked at me, there was no sphinx-expression there, but
rather the keen, triumphant face of a man who had solved a dangerous
and complicated problem, and saw his way to a clean victory. “_Now_ do you guess?” he asked quietly, as though it were the simplest
matter in the world, and ignorance were impossible. I could only stare stupidly and remain silent. He glanced down at the
charred cauldron-lids, and traced a figure in the air with his finger. But I was too excited, or too mortified, or still too dazed, perhaps,
to see what it was he outlined, or what it was he meant to convey. I
could only go on staring and shaking my puzzled head. “A fire-elemental,” he cried, “a fire-elemental of the most powerful
and malignant kind----”

“A what?” thundered the voice of Colonel Wragge behind us, having
returned suddenly and overheard. “It’s a fire-elemental,” repeated Dr. Silence more calmly, but
with a note of triumph in his voice he could not keep out, “and a
fire-elemental enraged.”

The light began to dawn in my mind at last. But the Colonel--who had
never heard the term before, and was besides feeling considerably
worked-up for a plain man with all this mystery he knew not how to
grapple with--the Colonel stood, with the most dumfoundered look ever
seen on a human countenance, and continued to roar, and stammer, and
stare. “And why,” he began, savage with the desire to find something visible
he could fight--“why, in the name of all the blazes----?” and then
stopped as John Silence moved up and took his arm. “There, my dear Colonel Wragge,” he said gently, “you touch the heart
of the whole thing. You ask ‘Why.’ That is precisely our problem.” He
held the soldier’s eyes firmly with his own. “And that, too, I think,
we shall soon know. Come and let us talk over a plan of action--that
room with the double doors, perhaps.”

The word “action” calmed him a little, and he led the way, without
further speech, back into the house, and down the long stone passage to
the room where we had heard his stories on the night of our arrival. I understood from the doctor’s glance that my presence would not make
the interview easier for our host, and I went upstairs to my own
room--shaking. But in the solitude of my room the vivid memories of the last hour
revived so mercilessly that I began to feel I should never in my whole
life lose the dreadful picture of Miss Wragge running--that dreadful
human climax after all the non-human mystery in the wood--and I was not
sorry when a servant knocked at my door and said that Colonel Wragge
would be glad if I would join them in the little smoking-room. “I think it is better you should be present,” was all Colonel Wragge
said as I entered the room. I took the chair with my back to the
window. There was still an hour before lunch, though I imagine that
the usual divisions of the day hardly found a place in the thoughts of
any one of us. The atmosphere of the room was what I might call electric. The Colonel
was positively bristling; he stood with his back to the fire, fingering
an unlit black cigar, his face flushed, his being obviously roused
and ready for action. He hated this mystery. It was poisonous to his
nature, and he longed to meet something face to face--something he
could gauge and fight. Dr. Silence, I noticed at once, was sitting
before the map of the estate which was spread upon a table. I knew
by his expression the state of his mind. He was in the thick of it
all, knew it, delighted in it, and was working at high pressure. He
recognised my presence with a lifted eyelid, and the flash of the eye,
contrasted with his stillness and composure, told me volumes. “I was about to explain to our host briefly what seems to me afoot in
all this business,” he said without looking up, “when he asked that you
should join us so that we can all work together.” And, while signifying
my assent, I caught myself wondering what quality it was in the calm
speech of this undemonstrative man that was so full of power, so
charged with the strange, virile personality behind it, and that seemed
to inspire us with his own confidence as by a process of radiation. “Mr. Hubbard,” he went on gravely, turning to the soldier, “knows
something of my methods, and in more than one--er--interesting
situation has proved of assistance. What we want now”--and here he
suddenly got up and took his place on the mat beside the Colonel, and
looked hard at him--“is men who have self-control, who are sure of
themselves, whose minds at the critical moment will emit positive
forces, instead of the wavering and uncertain currents due to negative
feelings--due, for instance, to fear.”

He looked at us each in turn. Colonel Wragge moved his feet farther
apart, and squared his shoulders; and I felt guilty but said nothing,
conscious that my latent store of courage was being deliberately hauled
to the front. He was winding me up like a clock. “So that, in what is yet to come,” continued our leader, “each of us
will contribute his share of power, and ensure success for my plan.”

“I’m not afraid of anything I can _see_,” said the Colonel bluntly. “I’m ready,” I heard myself say, as it were automatically, “for
anything,” and then added, feeling the declaration was lamely
insufficient, “and everything.”

Dr. Silence left the mat and began walking to and fro about the room,
both hands plunged deep into the pockets of his shooting-jacket. Tremendous vitality streamed from him. I never took my eyes off the
small, moving figure; small, yes,--and yet somehow making me think of
a giant plotting the destruction of worlds. And his manner was gentle,
as always, soothing almost, and his words uttered quietly without
emphasis or emotion. Most of what he said was addressed, though not too
obviously, to the Colonel. “The violence of this sudden attack,” he said softly, pacing to and
fro beneath the bookcase at the end of the room, “is due, of course,
partly to the fact that to-night the moon is at the full”--here he
glanced at me for a moment--“and partly to the fact that we have all
been so deliberately concentrating upon the matter. Our thinking, our
investigation, has stirred it into unusual activity.