no uncertain accents. He found his voice in this overwhelming moment to
some purpose; though the words he actually used, and whether they were
in German or English, he could never remember. Their effect,
nevertheless, was instantaneous. The Brothers understood, and that grey
Figure of evil understood.

For a second the confusion was terrific. There came a great shattering
sound. It seemed that the very earth trembled. But all Harris remembered
afterwards was that voices rose about him in the clamour of terrified
alarm--

"A man of power is among us! A man of God!"

The vast sound was repeated--the rushing through space as of huge
projectiles--and he sank to the floor of the room, unconscious. The
entire scene had vanished, vanished like smoke over the roof of a
cottage when the wind blows.

And, by his side, sat down a slight un-German figure,--the figure of the
stranger at the inn,--the man who had the "rather wonderful eyes."

* * * * *

When Harris came to himself he felt cold. He was lying under the open
sky, and the cool air of field and forest was blowing upon his face. He
sat up and looked about him. The memory of the late scene was still
horribly in his mind, but no vestige of it remained. No walls or ceiling
enclosed him; he was no longer in a room at all. There were no lamps
turned low, no cigar smoke, no black forms of sinister worshippers, no
tremendous grey Figure hovering beyond the windows.