Alwyn flushed hotly with anger.  “Trickster!” he thought.  “He feels he has no power over me, and he fears to run the risk of failure!”

“Did I hear you aright?” he said aloud in cold determined accents.  “You cannot? you will not? ...  By Heaven!”—­and his voice rose, “I say you shall!” As he uttered these words a rush of indescribable sensations overcame him,—­he seemed all at once invested with some mysterious, invincible, supreme authority,—­he felt twice a man and more than half a god, and moved by an irresistible impulse which he could neither explain nor control, he made two or three hasty steps forward,—­when Heliobas, swiftly retreating, waved him off with an eloquent gesture of mingled appeal and menace.

“Back! back!” he cried warningly.  “If you come one inch nearer to me I cannot answer for your safety—­back, I say!  Good God! you do not know your own power!”

Alwyn scarcely heeded him,—­some fatal attraction drew him on, and he still advanced, when all suddenly he paused, trembling violently.  His nerves began to throb acutely,—­the blood in his veins was like fire,—­there was a curious strangling tightness in his throat that interrupted and oppressed his breathing,—­he stared straight before him with large, luminous, impassioned eyes.  What—­what was that dazzling something in the air that flashed and whirled and shone like glittering wheels of golden flame?  His lips parted ... he stretched out his hands in the uncertain manner of a blind man feeling his way ...  “Oh God! ...  God!” ... he muttered as though stricken by some sudden amazement,—­then, with a smothered, gasping cry, he staggered and fell heavily forward on the floor—­insensible!

At the self-same instant the window blew open, with a loud crash—­ it swung backward and forward on its hinges, and a torrent of rain poured through it slantwise into the room.  A remarkable change had taken place in the aspect and bearing of Heliobas,—­he stood as though rooted to the spot, trembling from head to foot,—­he had lost all his usual composure,—­he was deathly pale, and breathed with difficulty.  Presently recovering himself a little he strove to shut the swinging casement, but the wind was so boisterous, that he had to pause a moment to gain strength for the effort, and instinctively he glanced out at the tempestuous night.  The clouds were scurrying over the sky like great black vessels on a foaming sea,—­the lightning flashed incessantly, and the thunder reverberated Over the mountains in tremendous volleys as of besieging cannon.  Stinging drops of icy sleet dashed his face and the front of his white garb as he inhaled the stormy freshness of the strong, upward-sweeping blast for a few seconds—­and then, with the air of one gathering together all his scattered forces, he shut to the window firmly and barred it across.  Turning now to the unconscious Alwyn, he lifted him from the floor to a low couch near at hand, and there laid him gently down.  This done, he stood looking at him with an expression of the deepest anxiety, but made no attempt to rouse him from his death-like swoon.  His own habitual serenity was completely broken through,—­he had all the appearance of having received some unexpected and overwhelming shock,—­his very lips were blanched and quivered nervously.