Chapter VII

I

And thus the affair moved nearer to its close.  The theory and practice of molding form by means of sound was the next bang at his mind—­delivered in the clergyman’s most convincing manner, and, in view of the proofs that soon followed, an experience that seemed to dislocate the very foundations of his visible world, deemed hitherto secure enough at least to stand on.

Had it all consisted merely of talk on Mr. Skale’s part the secretary would have known better what to think.  It was the interludes of practical proof that sent his judgment so awry.  These definite, sensible results, sandwiched in between all the visionary explanation, left him utterly at sea.  He could not reconcile them altogether with hypnotism.  He could only, as an ordinary man, already with a bias in the mystical direction, come to the one conclusion that this overwhelming and hierophantic man was actually in touch with cisterns of force so terrific as to be dangerous to what he had hitherto understood to be—­life.  It was easy enough for the clergyman, in his optimistic enthusiasm, to talk about their leading to a larger life.  But what if the experiment failed, and these colossal powers ran amok upon the world—­and upon the invokers?

Moreover—­chief anxiety of all—­what was this name to be experimented with?  What was the nature of this force that Skale hoped to invoke—­so mighty that it should make them “as gods,” so terrible that a chord alone could compass even the first of its stupendous syllables?

And, further, he was still haunted with the feeling that other “beings” occupied certain portions of the rambling mansion, and more than once recently he had wakened in the night with an idea, carried over from dreams possibly, that the corridor outside his bedroom was moving and alive with footsteps.  “From dreams possibly,” for when he went and peered shivering through the narrow crack of the half-opened door, he saw nothing unusual.  And another time—­he was awake beyond question at the moment, for he had been reading till two o’clock and had but just extinguished the candle—­he had heard a sound that he found impossible to describe, but that sent all the blood with a swift rush from the region of his heart.  It was not wind; it was not the wood cracking with the frost; it was not snow sliding from the slates outside.  It was something that simultaneously filled the entire building, yet sounded particularly loud just outside his door; and it came with the abrupt suddenness of a report.  It made him think of all the air in the rooms and halls and passages being withdrawn by immense suction, as though a gigantic dome had been dropped over the building in order to produce a vacuum.  And just after it he heard, unmistakably, the long soft stride of Skale going past his door and down the whole length of the corridor—­stealthily, very quickly, with the hurry of anxiety or alarm in his silence and his speed.