rushed downwards into the midst of one of the groups, skimming through
the midst, and as suddenly again soaring aloft. Thereon, three forms,
in one of which I thought to recognise my host's daughter, detached
themselves from the rest, and followed him as a bird sportively follows
a bird. My eyes, dazzled with the lights and bewildered by the throngs,
ceased to distinguish the gyrations and evolutions of these winged
playmates, till presently my host re-emerged from the crowd and alighted
at my side.

The strangeness of all I had seen began now to operate fast on my
senses; my mind itself began to wander. Though not inclined to be
superstitious, nor hitherto believing that man could be brought into
bodily communication with demons, I felt the terror and the wild
excitement with which, in the Gothic ages, a traveller might have
persuaded himself that he witnessed a 'sabbat' of fiends and witches.
I have a vague recollection of having attempted with vehement
gesticulation, and forms of exorcism, and loud incoherent words, to
repel my courteous and indulgent host; of his mild endeavors to calm and
soothe me; of his intelligent conjecture that my fright and bewilderment
were occasioned by the difference of form and movement between us which
the wings that had excited my marvelling curiosity had, in exercise,
made still more strongly perceptible; of the gentle smile with which he
had sought to dispel my alarm by dropping the wings to the ground and
endeavouring to show me that they were but a mechanical contrivance.
That sudden transformation did but increase my horror, and as extreme
fright often shows itself by extreme daring, I sprang at his throat like
a wild beast. On an instant I was felled to the ground as by an electric
shock, and the last confused images floating before my sight ere I
became wholly insensible, were the form of my host kneeling beside
me with one hand on my forehead, and the beautiful calm face of his