old pagan spell.

At any rate, here was a place unpolluted by men, kept clean by the winds
from coarsening human influences, a place where spiritual agencies were
within reach and aggressive. Never, before or since, have I been so
attacked by indescribable suggestions of a "beyond region," of another
scheme of life, another revolution not parallel to the human. And in the
end our minds would succumb under the weight of the awful spell, and we
should be drawn across the frontier into their world.

Small things testified to the amazing influence of the place, and now in
the silence round the fire they allowed themselves to be noted by the mind.
The very atmosphere had proved itself a magnifying medium to distort every
indication: the otter rolling in the current, the hurrying boatman making
signs, the shifting willows, one and all had been robbed of its natural
character, and revealed in something of its other aspect--as it existed
across the border to that other region. And this changed aspect I felt was
now not merely to me, but to the race. The whole experience whose verge we
touched was unknown to humanity at all. It was a new order of experience,
and in the true sense of the word unearthly.

"It's the deliberate, calculating purpose that reduces one's courage to
zero," the Swede said suddenly, as if he had been actually following my
thoughts. "Otherwise imagination might count for much. But the paddle, the
canoe, the lessening food--"

"Haven't I explained all that once?" I interrupted viciously.

"You have," he answered dryly; "you have indeed."