“I turned suddenly, and looked at Wentworth.  He was looking at me.

“‘Just as it did before,’ he whispered.

“‘Most extraordinary,’ I said, and he nodded and looked ’round, nervously.

“The policemen were pretty quiet, and I judged that they were feeling rather worse than Wentworth; though, for that matter, you must not think that I was altogether natural; yet I have seen so much that is extraordinary, that I daresay I can keep my nerves steady longer than most people.

“I looked over my shoulder at the men, and cautioned them, in a low voice, not to move outside of the Barriers, whatever happened; not even though the house should seem to be rocking and about to tumble on to them; for well I knew what some of the great Forces are capable of doing.  Yet, unless it should prove to be one of the cases of the more terrible Saiitii Manifestation, we were almost certain of safety, so long as we kept to our order within the Pentacle.

“Perhaps an hour and a half passed, quietly, except when, once in a way, the dogs would whine distressfully.  Presently, however, they ceased even from this, and I could see them lying on the floor with their paws over their noses, in a most peculiar fashion, and shivering visibly.  The sight made me feel more serious, as you can understand.

“Suddenly, the candle in the corner furthest from the main door, went out.  An instant later, Wentworth jerked my arm, and I saw that the candle before one of the sealed doors had been put out.  I held my camera ready.  Then, one after another, every candle about the hall was put out, and with such speed and irregularity, that I could never catch one in the actual act of being extinguished.  Yet, for all that, I took a flashlight of the hall in general.

“There was a time in which I sat half-blinded by the great glare of the flash, and I blamed myself for not having remembered to bring a pair of smoked goggles, which I have sometimes used at these times.  I had felt the men jump, at the sudden light, and I called out loud to them to sit quiet, and to keep their feet exactly to their proper places.  My voice, as you can imagine, sounded rather horrid and frightening in the great room, and altogether it was a beastly moment.

“Then, I was able to see again, and I stared here and there about the hall; but there was nothing showing unusual; only, of course, it was dark now over in the corners.

“Suddenly, I saw that the great fire was blackening.  It was going out visibly, as I looked.  If I said that some monstrous, invisible, impossible creature sucked the life from it, I could best explain the way the light and flame went out of it.  It was most extraordinary to watch.  In the time that I watched it, every vestige of fire was gone from it, and there was no light outside of the ring of candles around the Pentacle.

“The deliberateness of the thing troubled me more than I can make clear to you.  It conveyed to me such a sense of a calm Deliberate Force present in the hall:  The steadfast intention to ‘make a darkness’ was horrible.  The extent of the Power to affect the Material was the steadfast intention to ‘make a darkness’ was horrible.  The extent of the Power to affect the Material was now the one constant, anxious questioning in my brain.  You can understand?