It seemed that the very earth trembled. But all Harris
remembered afterwards was that voices rose about him in the clamour of
terrified alarm--

“A man of power is among us! A man of God!”

The vast sound was repeated--the rushing through space as of huge
projectiles--and he sank to the floor of the room, unconscious. The
entire scene had vanished, vanished like smoke over the roof of a
cottage when the wind blows. And, by his side, sat down a slight, un-German figure,--the figure of
the stranger at the inn,--the man who had the “rather wonderful eyes.”

       *       *       *       *       *

When Harris came to himself he felt cold. He was lying under the open
sky, and the cool air of field and forest was blowing upon his face. He sat up and looked about him. The memory of the late scene was
still horribly in his mind, but no vestige of it remained. No walls
or ceiling enclosed him; he was no longer in a room at all. There
were no lamps turned low, no cigar smoke, no black forms of sinister
worshippers, no tremendous grey Figure hovering beyond the windows. Open space was about him, and he was lying on a pile of bricks and
mortar, his clothes soaked with dew, and the kind stars shining
brightly overhead. He was lying, bruised and shaken, among the
heaped-up débris of a ruined building. He stood up and stared about him. There, in the shadowy distance, lay
the surrounding forest, and here, close at hand, stood the outline of
the village buildings. But, underfoot, beyond question, lay nothing
but the broken heaps of stones that betokened a building long since
crumbled to dust. Then he saw that the stones were blackened, and
that great wooden beams, half burnt, half rotten, made lines through
the general débris. He stood, then, among the ruins of a burnt and
shattered building, the weeds and nettles proving conclusively that it
had lain thus for many years. The moon had already set behind the encircling forest, but the stars
that spangled the heavens threw enough light to enable him to make
quite sure of what he saw. Harris, the silk merchant, stood among these
broken and burnt stones and shivered. Then he suddenly became aware that out of the gloom a figure had risen
and stood beside him. Peering at him, he thought he recognised the face
of the stranger at the railway inn. “Are _you_ real?” he asked in a voice he hardly recognised as his own. “More than real--I’m friendly,” replied the stranger; “I followed you
up here from the inn.”

Harris stood and stared for several minutes without adding anything. His teeth chattered. The least sound made him start; but the simple
words in his own language, and the tone in which they were uttered,
comforted him inconceivably. “You’re English too, thank God,” he said inconsequently. “These German
devils----” He broke off and put a hand to his eyes. “But what’s
become of them all--and the room--and--and----” The hand travelled
down to his throat and moved nervously round his neck. He drew a long,
long breath of relief. “Did I dream everything--everything?” he said
distractedly. He stared wildly about him, and the stranger moved forward and took his
arm. “Come,” he said soothingly, yet with a trace of command in the
voice, “we will move away from here. The high-road, or even the woods
will be more to your taste, for we are standing now on one of the most
haunted--and most terribly haunted--spots of the whole world.”

He guided his companion’s stumbling footsteps over the broken masonry
until they reached the path, the nettles stinging their hands, and
Harris feeling his way like a man in a dream. Passing through the
twisted iron railing they reached the path, and thence made their way
to the road, shining white in the night. Once safely out of the ruins,
Harris collected himself and turned to look back. “But, how is it possible?” he exclaimed, his voice still shaking. “How can it be possible? When I came in here I saw the building in
the moonlight. They opened the door. I saw the figures and heard the
voices and touched, yes touched their very hands, and saw their damned
black faces, saw them far more plainly than I see you now.” He was
deeply bewildered. The glamour was still upon his eyes with a degree
of reality stronger than the reality even of normal life. “Was I so
utterly deluded?”

Then suddenly the words of the stranger, which he had only half heard
or understood, returned to him. “Haunted?” he asked, looking hard at him; “haunted, did you say?” He
paused in the roadway and stared into the darkness where the building
of the old school had first appeared to him. But the stranger hurried
him forward. “We shall talk more safely farther on,” he said. “I followed you from
the inn the moment I realised where you had gone. When I found you it
was eleven o’clock----”

“Eleven o’clock,” said Harris, remembering with a shudder. “----I saw you drop. I watched over you till you recovered
consciousness of your own accord, and now--now I am here to guide you
safely back to the inn. I have broken the spell--the glamour----”

“I owe you a great deal, sir,” interrupted Harris again, beginning
to understand something of the stranger’s kindness, “but I don’t
understand it all. I feel dazed and shaken.” His teeth still chattered,
and spells of violent shivering passed over him from head to foot. He
found that he was clinging to the other’s arm. In this way they passed
beyond the deserted and crumbling village and gained the high-road that
led homewards through the forest. “That school building has long been in ruins,” said the man at his side
presently; “it was burnt down by order of the Elders of the community
at least ten years ago. The village has been uninhabited ever since. But the simulacra of certain ghastly events that took place under
that roof in past days still continue. And the ‘shells’ of the chief
participants still enact there the dreadful deeds that led to its final
destruction, and to the desertion of the whole settlement. They were
devil-worshippers!”

Harris listened with beads of perspiration on his forehead that did
not come alone from their leisurely pace through the cool night. Although he had seen this man but once before in his life, and had
never before exchanged so much as a word with him, he felt a degree of
confidence and a subtle sense of safety and well-being in his presence
that were the most healing influences he could possibly have wished
after the experience he had been through. For all that, he still felt
as if he were walking in a dream, and though he heard every word that
fell from his companion’s lips, it was only the next day that the full
import of all he said became fully clear to him. The presence of this
quiet stranger, the man with the wonderful eyes which he felt now,
rather than saw, applied a soothing anodyne to his shattered spirit
that healed him through and through.