“The advent of the Unknown,” Hamar murmured, “shall be heralded in by the shrieking of an owl, the groaning of the mandrake—­there is mandrake in the saucepan—­the croaking of a toad—­we haven’t had that yet!”

“Yes, there it is!” Kelson whispered—­and whilst he was speaking there came a dismal croak, croak, and the swaying and crying of an ash—­“Hush!”

They listened—­and all three distinctly heard the swishing of a slender tree trunk as it hissed backwards and forwards.  Then, a cry so horrid, harsh and piercing that even the sceptical, sneering Curtis gave vent to an expression of fear.  Again a hush, and increasing darkness and cold.  Kelson called out—­

“Don’t do that, Leon.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Hamar said testily.  “Pull yourself together.”  A moment later he said to Curtis, “It’s you, Curtis.  Shut up.  This is no time for monkeying.”

“You are both either mad or dreaming,” Curtis replied.  “I haven’t stirred from my seat.  Hulloa!  What’s that?  What’s that, Leon?  There—­over there!  Look!”

As Curtis spoke they all three became conscious of living things around them—­things that moved about, silently and surreptitiously and conveyed the impression of mockery.  The hills, the valley, the trees were full of it—­the whole place teemed with it—­teemed with silent, subtle, stealthy mockery.  The senses of the three men were now keenly alive, but a dead weight hung upon their limbs and rendered them useless.  And as they stared into the gloom, in sickly fear, the firelight flickered and they saw shadows, such as the moon, when low in the heaven, might fashion from the figure of a man; but yet they were shadows neither of man, nor God, nor of any familiar thing.  They were dark, vague, formless and indefinite, and they quivered—­quivered with a quivering that suggested mockery.

Suddenly the shadows disappeared; the flickering of the flames ceased; and in the place of the fire appeared a seething, writhing mass of what looked like white luminous snakes.  And in the midst of this mass sprang up a cylindrical form, which grew and grew until it attained a height of ten or twelve feet, when it remained stationary and threw out branches.  And the three men now saw it was a tree—­a tree with a sleek, pulpy, semi-transparent, perspiring trunk full of a thick, white, vibrating, luminous fluid; and that it was laden with a fruit, in shape resembling an apple, but of the same hue and material as the trunk.  Spread out on the ground around it, were its roots, twitching and palpitating with repulsive life, and bare with a bareness that shocked the senses.  It was so utterly and inconceivably unlike what Hamar, Curtis and Kelson had imagined the Unknown—­and yet, withal, so monstrous (not merely in its shape but in its suggestions), and so vividly real and livid, that they were not merely terrified—­they were stricken with a terror that rendered them dumb and helpless.  And as