getting thoroughly frightened. I turned half 'round, and told them,
quietly but plainly, that they were safe only so long as they stayed
within the Pentacle, in the position in which I had put them. If they
once broke, and went outside of the Barrier, no knowledge of mine could
state the full extent of the dreadfulness of the danger.

"I steadied them up, by this quiet, straight reminder; but if they had
known, as I knew, that there is no certainty in any 'Protection,' they
would have suffered a great deal more, and probably have broken the
'Defense,' and made a mad, foolish run for an impossible safety.

"Another hour passed, after this, in an absolute quietness. I had a sense
of awful strain and oppression, as though I were a little spirit in the
company of some invisible, brooding monster of the unseen world, who, as
yet, was scarcely conscious of us. I leant across to Wentworth, and asked
him in a whisper whether he had a feeling as if something were in the
room. He looked very pale, and his eyes kept always on the move. He
glanced just once at me, and nodded; then stared away 'round the hall
again. And when I came to think, I was doing the same thing.

"Abruptly, as though a hundred unseen hands had snuffed them, every
candle in the Barrier went dead out, and we were left in a darkness that
seemed, for a little, absolute; for the light from the Pentacle was too
weak and pale to penetrate far across the great hall.

"I tell you, for a moment, I just sat there as though I had been frozen
solid. I felt the 'creep' go all over me, and seem to stop in my brain. I
felt all at once to be given a power of hearing that was far beyond the
normal. I could hear my own heart thudding most given a power of hearing
that was far beyond the normal. I could hear my own heart thudding most