that music!” muttered Backhouse, tottering from his chair and facing the party. Faull touched the bell. A few more bars sounded, and then total silence ensued.
“Anyone who wants to may approach the couch,” said Backhouse with difficulty.
Lang at once advanced, and stared awestruck at the supernatural youth.
“You are at liberty to touch,” said the medium.
But Lang did not venture to, nor did any of the others, who one by one stole up to the couch—until it came to Faull’s turn. He looked straight at Mrs. Trent, who seemed frightened and disgusted at the spectacle before her, and then not only touched the apparition but suddenly grasped the drooping hand in his own and gave it a powerful squeeze. Mrs. Trent gave a low scream. The ghostly visitor opened his eyes, looked at Faull strangely, and sat up on the couch. A cryptic smile started playing over his mouth. Faull looked at his hand; a feeling of intense pleasure passed through his body.
Maskull caught Mrs. Jameson in his arms; she was attacked by another spell of faintness. Mrs. Trent ran forward, and led her out of the room. Neither of them returned.
The phantom body now stood upright, looking about him, still with his peculiar smile. Prior suddenly felt sick, and went out. The other men more or less hung together, for the sake of human society, but Nightspore paced up and down, like a man weary and impatient, while Maskull attempted to interrogate the youth. The apparition watched him with a baffling expression, but did not answer. Backhouse was sitting apart, his face buried in his hands.
It was at this moment that the door was burst open violently, and a stranger, unannounced, half leaped, half strode a few yards into the room, and then stopped. None of Faull’s friends had ever seen him before. He was a thick, shortish man, with surprising muscular development and a head far too large in proportion to his body. His beardless yellow face indicated, as a first impression, a mixture of sagacity, brutality, and humour.
“Aha-i, gentlemen!” he called out loudly. His voice was piercing, and oddly disagreeable to the ear. “So we have a little visitor here.”
Nightspore turned his back, but everyone else stared at the intruder in astonishment. He took another few steps forward, which brought him to the edge of the theatre.
“May I ask, sir, how I come to have the honour of being your host?” asked Faull sullenly. He thought that the evening was not proceeding as smoothly as he had anticipated.
The newcomer looked at him for a second, and then broke into a great, roaring guffaw. He thumped Faull on the back playfully—but the play was rather rough, for the victim was sent staggering against the wall before he could recover his balance.
“Good evening, my host!”
“And good evening to you too, my lad!” he went on, addressing the supernatural youth, who was now beginning to wander about the room, in apparent unconsciousness of his surroundings. “I have seen someone very like you before, I think.”
There was no response.
The intruder thrust his head almost up to the phantom’s face. “You have no right here, as you know.”
The shape looked back at him with a smile full of significance, which, however, no one could understand.
“Be careful what you are doing,” said Backhouse quickly.
“What’s the matter, spirit usher?”
“I don’t know who you are, but if you use physical violence toward that, as you seem inclined to do, the consequences may prove very unpleasant.”
“And without pleasure our evening would be spoiled, wouldn’t it, my little mercenary friend?”
Humour vanished from his face, like sunlight from a landscape, leaving it hard and rocky. Before anyone realised what he was doing, he encircled the soft, white neck of the materialised shape with his hairy hands and, with a double turn, twisted it completely round. A faint, unearthly shriek sounded, and the body fell in a heap to the floor. Its face was uppermost. The guests were unutterably shocked to observe that its expression had changed from the mysterious but fascinating smile to a vulgar, sordid, bestial grin, which cast a cold shadow of moral nastiness into every heart. The transformation was accompanied by a sickening stench of the graveyard.
The features faded rapidly away, the body lost its consistence, passing from the solid to the shadowy condition, and, before two minutes had elapsed, the spirit-form had entirely disappeared.
The short stranger turned and confronted the party, with a long, loud laugh, like nothing in nature.
The professor talked excitedly to Kent-Smith in low tones. Faull beckoned Backhouse behind a wing of scenery, and handed him his check without a word. The medium put it in his pocket, buttoned his coat, and walked out of the room. Lang followed him, in order to get a drink.
The stranger poked his face up into Maskull’s.
“Well, giant, what do you think of it all? Wouldn’t you like to see the land where this sort of fruit grows wild?”
“What sort of fruit?”
“That specimen goblin.”
Maskull waved him away with his huge hand. “Who are you, and how did you come here?”
“Call up your friend. Perhaps he may recognise me.” Nightspore had moved a chair to the fire, and was watching the embers with a set, fanatical expression.
“Let Krag come to me, if he wants me,” he said, in his strange voice.
“You see, he does know me,” uttered Krag, with a humorous look. Walking over to Nightspore, he put a hand on the back of his chair.
“Still the same old gnawing hunger?”
“What is doing these days?” demanded Nightspore disdainfully, without altering his attitude.
“Surtur has gone, and we are to follow him.”
“How do you two come to know each other, and of whom are you speaking?” asked Maskull, looking from one to the other in perplexity.
“Krag has something for us. Let us go outside,” replied Nightspore. He got up, and glanced over his shoulder. Maskull, following the direction of his eye, observed that the few remaining men were watching their little group attentively.
Chapter 2. IN THE STREET
The three men gathered in the street outside the house. The night was slightly frosty, but particularly clear, with an east wind blowing. The multitude of blazing stars caused the sky to appear like a vast scroll of hieroglyphic symbols. Maskull felt oddly excited; he had a sense that something extraordinary was about to happen. “What brought you to this house tonight, Krag, and what made you do what you did? How are we understand that apparition?”
“That must have been Crystalman’s
