about me and the ring, for it was already later than I cared to be in
that room 'unprotected.' Also, I had a feeling that there would be a vast
effort made that night to regain the use of the ring. For I had the
strongest conviction that the ring was a necessity to materialization.
You will see whether I was right.

"I completed the barriers in about an hour, and you can imagine something
of the relief I felt when I felt the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle
once more all about me. From then, onward, for about two hours, I sat
quietly, facing the corner from which the wind came. About eleven o'clock
a queer knowledge came that something was near to me; yet nothing
happened for a whole hour after that. Then, suddenly, I felt the cold,
queer wind begin to blow upon me. To my astonishment, it seemed now to
come from behind me, and I whipped 'round, with a hideous quake of fear.
The wind met me in the face. It was blowing up from the floor close to
me. I stared down, in a sickening maze of new frights. What on earth had
I done now! The ring was there, close beside me, where I had put it.
Suddenly, as I stared, bewildered, I was aware that there was something
queer about the ring--funny shadowy movements and convolutions. I looked
at them, stupidly. And then, abruptly, I knew that the wind was blowing
up at me from the ring. A queer indistinct smoke became visible to me,
seeming to pour upward through the ring, and mix with the moving shadows.
Suddenly, I realized that I was in more than any mortal danger; for the
convoluting shadows about the ring were taking shape, and the death-hand
was forming _within_ the Pentacle. My Goodness! do you realize it! I had
brought the 'gateway' into the pentacles, and the brute was coming
through--pouring into the material world, as gas might pour out from the
mouth of a pipe.

"I should think that I knelt for a moment in a sort of stunned fright.