“Then perhaps you have read, too,” said the doctor, “how the Cosmic
Deities of savage races, elemental in their nature, have been kept
alive through many ages by these blood rites?”

“No,” he answered; “that is new to me.”

“In any case,” Dr. Silence added, “I am glad you are not wholly
unfamiliar with the subject, for you will now bring more sympathy, and
therefore more help, to our experiment. For, of course, in this case,
we only want the blood to tempt the creature from its lair and enclose
it in a form—”

“I quite understand. And I only hesitated just now,” he went on, his
words coming much more slowly, as though he felt he had already said
too much, “because I wished to be quite sure it was no mere curiosity,
but an actual sense of necessity that dictated this horrible
experiment.”

“It is your safety, and that of your household, and of your sister,
that is at stake,” replied the doctor. “Once I have _seen_, I hope to
discover whence this elemental comes, and what its real purpose is.”

Colonel Wragge signified his assent with a bow. “And the moon will help us,” the other said, “for it will be full in
the early hours of the morning, and this kind of elemental-being is
always most active at the period of full moon. Hence, you see, the clue
furnished by your diary.”

So it was finally settled. Colonel Wragge would provide the materials
for the experiment, and we were to meet at midnight. How he would
contrive at that hour—but that was his business. I only know we both
realised that he would keep his word, and whether a pig died at
midnight, or at noon, was after all perhaps only a question of the
sleep and personal comfort of the executioner. “Tonight, then, in the laundry,” said Dr. Silence finally, to clinch
the plan; “we three alone—and at midnight, when the household is asleep
and we shall be free from disturbance.”

He exchanged significant glances with our host, who, at that moment,
was called away by the announcement that the family doctor had arrived,
and was ready to see him in his sister’s room. For the remainder of the afternoon John Silence disappeared. I had my
suspicions that he made a secret visit to the plantation and also to
the laundry building; but, in any case, we saw nothing of him, and he
kept strictly to himself. He was preparing for the night, I felt sure,
but the nature of his preparations I could only guess. There was
movement in his room, I heard, and an odour like incense hung about the
door, and knowing that he regarded rites as the vehicles of energies,
my guesses were probably not far wrong. Colonel Wragge, too, remained absent the greater part of the afternoon,
and, deeply afflicted, had scarcely left his sister’s bedside, but in
response to my inquiry when we met for a moment at tea-time, he told me
that although she had moments of attempted speech, her talk was quite
incoherent and hysterical, and she was still quite unable to explain
the nature of what she had seen. The doctor, he said, feared she had
recovered the use of her limbs, only to lose that of her memory, and
perhaps even of her mind. “Then the recovery of her legs, I trust, may be permanent, at any
rate,” I ventured, finding it difficult to know what sympathy to offer. And he replied with a curious short laugh, “Oh yes; about that there
can be no doubt whatever.”

And it was due merely to the chance of my overhearing a fragment of
conversation—unwillingly, of course—that a little further light was
thrown upon the state in which the old lady actually lay. For, as I
came out of my room, it happened that Colonel Wragge and the doctor
were going downstairs together, and their words floated up to my ears
before I could make my presence known by so much as a cough. “Then you must find a way,” the doctor was saying with decision; “for I
cannot insist too strongly upon that—and at all costs she must be kept
quiet. These attempts to go out must be prevented—if necessary, by
force. This desire to visit some wood or other she keeps talking about
is, of course, hysterical in nature. It cannot be permitted for a
moment.”

“It shall not be permitted,” I heard the soldier reply, as they reached
the hall below. “It has impressed her mind for some reason—” the doctor went on, by way
evidently of soothing explanation, and then the distance made it
impossible for me to hear more. At dinner Dr. Silence was still absent, on the public plea of a
headache, and though food was sent to his room, I am inclined to
believe he did not touch it, but spent the entire time fasting. We retired early, desiring that the household should do likewise, and I
must confess that at ten o’clock when I bid my host a temporary
good-night, and sought my room to make what mental preparation I could,
I realised in no very pleasant fashion that it was a singular and
formidable assignation, this midnight meeting in the laundry building,
and that there were moments in every adventure of life when a wise man,
and one who knew his own limitations, owed it to his dignity to
withdraw discreetly. And, but for the character of our leader, I
probably should have then and there offered the best excuse I could
think of, and have allowed myself quietly to fall asleep and wait for
an exciting story in the morning of what had happened. But with a man
like John Silence, such a lapse was out of the question, and I sat
before my fire counting the minutes and doing everything I could think
of to fortify my resolution and fasten my will at the point where I
could be reasonably sure that my self-control would hold against all
attacks of men, devils, or elementals. III

At a quarter before midnight, clad in a heavy ulster, and with
slippered feet, I crept cautiously from my room and stole down the
passage to the top of the stairs. Outside the doctor’s door I waited a
moment to listen. All was still; the house in utter darkness; no gleam
of light beneath any door; only, down the length of the corridor, from
the direction of the sick-room, came faint sounds of laughter and
incoherent talk that were not things to reassure a mind already half
a-tremble, and I made haste to reach the hall and let myself out
through the front door into the night. The air was keen and frosty, perfumed with night smells, and
exquisitely fresh; all the million candles of the sky were alight, and
a faint breeze rose and fell with far-away sighings in the tops of the
pine trees. My blood leaped for a moment in the spaciousness of the
night, for the splendid stars brought courage; but the next instant, as
I turned the corner of the house, moving stealthily down the gravel
drive, my spirits sank again ominously. For, yonder, over the funereal
plumes of the Twelve Acre Plantation, I saw the broken, yellow disc of
the half-moon just rising in the east, staring down like some vast
Being come to watch upon the progress of our doom.