At present I can only say we have to
deal now, not only with the phenomenon of Attacking Fire merely, but
with the vindictive and enraged intelligence that is directing it from
behind the scenes—vindictive and enraged,”—he repeated the words. “That explains—” began Colonel Wragge, seeking furiously for words he
could not find quickly enough. “Much,” said John Silence, with a gesture to restrain him. He stopped a moment in the middle of his walk, and a deep silence came
down over the little room. Through the windows the sunlight seemed less
bright, the long line of dark hills less friendly, making me think of a
vast wave towering to heaven and about to break and overwhelm us. Something formidable had crept into the world about us. For,
undoubtedly, there was a disquieting thought, holding terror as well as
awe, in the picture his words conjured up: the conception of a human
will reaching its deathless hand, spiteful and destructive, down
through the ages, to strike the living and afflict the innocent. “But what is its object?” burst out the soldier, unable to restrain
himself longer in the silence. “Why does it come from that plantation? And why should it attack us, or any one in particular?” Questions began
to pour from him in a stream. “All in good time,” the doctor answered quietly, having let him run on
for several minutes. “But I must first discover positively what, or
who, it is that directs this particular fire-elemental. And, to do
that, we must first”—he spoke with slow deliberation—“seek to
capture—to confine by visibility—to limit its sphere in a concrete
form.”

“Good heavens almighty!” exclaimed the soldier, mixing his words in his
unfeigned surprise. “Quite so,” pursued the other calmly; “for in so doing I think we can
release it from the purpose that binds it, restore it to its normal
condition of latent fire, and also”—he lowered his voice perceptibly
—“also discover the face and form of the Being that ensouls it.”

“The man behind the gun!” cried the Colonel, beginning to understand
something, and leaning forward so as not to miss a single syllable. “I mean that in the last resort, before it returns to the womb of
potential fire, it will probably assume the face and figure of its
Director, of the man of magical knowledge who originally bound it with
his incantations and sent it forth upon its mission of centuries.”

The soldier sat down and gasped openly in his face, breathing hard; but
it was a very subdued voice that framed the question. “And how do you propose to make it visible? How capture and confine it? What d’ye mean, Dr. John Silence?”

“By furnishing it with the materials for a form. By the process of
materialisation simply. Once limited by dimensions, it will become
slow, heavy, visible. We can then dissipate it. Invisible fire, you
see, is dangerous and incalculable; locked up in a form we can perhaps
manage it. We must betray it—to its death.”

“And this material?” we asked in the same breath, although I think I
had already guessed. “Not pleasant, but effective,” came the quiet reply; “the exhalations
of freshly spilled blood.”

“Not human blood!” cried Colonel Wragge, starting up from his chair
with a voice like an explosion. I thought his eyes would start from
their sockets. The face of Dr. Silence relaxed in spite of himself, and his
spontaneous little laugh brought a welcome though momentary relief. “The days of human sacrifice, I hope, will never come again,” he
explained. “Animal blood will answer the purpose, and we can make the
experiment as pleasant as possible. Only, the blood must be freshly
spilled and strong with the vital emanations that attract this peculiar
class of elemental creature. Perhaps—perhaps if some pig on the estate
is ready for the market—”

He turned to hide a smile; but the passing touch of comedy found no
echo in the mind of our host, who did not understand how to change
quickly from one emotion to another. Clearly he was debating many
things laboriously in his honest brain. But, in the end, the
earnestness and scientific disinterestedness of the doctor, whose
influence over him was already very great, won the day, and he
presently looked up more calmly, and observed shortly that he thought
perhaps the matter could be arranged. “There are other and pleasanter methods,” Dr. Silence went on to
explain, “but they require time and preparation, and things have gone
much too far, in my opinion, to admit of delay. And the process need
cause you no distress: we sit round the bowl and await results. Nothing
more. The emanations of blood—which, as Levi says, is the first
incarnation of the universal fluid—furnish the materials out of which
the creatures of discarnate life, spirits if you prefer, can fashion
themselves a temporary appearance. The process is old, and lies at the
root of all blood sacrifice. It was known to the priests of Baal, and
it is known to the modern ecstasy dancers who cut themselves to produce
objective phantoms who dance with them. And the least gifted
clairvoyant could tell you that the forms to be seen in the vicinity of
slaughter-houses, or hovering above the deserted battlefields,
are—well, simply beyond all description. I do not mean,” he added,
noticing the uneasy fidgeting of his host, “that anything in our
laundry-experiment need appear to terrify us, for this case seems a
comparatively simple one, and it is only the vindictive character of
the intelligence directing this fire-elemental that causes anxiety and
makes for personal danger.”

“It is curious,” said the Colonel, with a sudden rush of words, drawing
a deep breath, and as though speaking of things distasteful to him,
“that during my years among the Hill Tribes of Northern India I came
across—personally came across—instances of the sacrifices of blood to
certain deities being stopped suddenly, and all manner of disasters
happening until they were resumed. Fires broke out in the huts, and
even on the clothes, of the natives—and—and I admit I have read, in the
course of my studies,”—he made a gesture toward his books and heavily
laden table,—“of the Yezidis of Syria evoking phantoms by means of
cutting their bodies with knives during their whirling dances—enormous
globes of fire which turned into monstrous and terrible forms—and I
remember an account somewhere, too, how the emaciated forms and pallid
countenances of the spectres, that appeared to the Emperor Julian,
claimed to be the true Immortals, and told him to renew the sacrifices
of blood ‘for the fumes of which, since the establishment of
Christianity, they had been pining’—that these were in reality the
phantoms evoked by the rites of blood.”

Both Dr. Silence and myself listened in amazement, for this sudden
speech was so unexpected, and betrayed so much more knowledge than we
had either of us suspected in the old soldier.