figure perceptible, in a dark colour of mingled black and red. I applied
the flame of the candle to the circle, and immediately it became lambent
with a low steady splendour that rose about an inch from the floor; and
gradually front this light there emanated a soft, gray, transparent mist
and a faint but exquisite odour. I stood in the midst of the circle, and
within the circle also, close by my side, stood the Scin-Laeca,--no longer
reflected on the wall, but apart from it, erect, rounded into more
integral and distinct form, yet impalpable, and from it there breathed an
icy air. Then lifting the wand, the broader end of which rested in the
palm of my hand, the two forefingers closing lightly over it in a line
parallel with the point, I directed it towards the wide aperture before
me, fronting the mausoleum. I repeated aloud some words whispered to me
in a language I knew not: those words I would not trace on this paper,
could I remember them. As they came to a close, I heard a howl from the
watch-dog in the yard,--a dismal, lugubrious howl. Other dogs in the
distant village caught up the sound, and bayed in a dirge-like chorus; and
the howling went on louder and louder. Again strange words were whispered
to me, and I repeated them in mechanical submission; and when they, too,
were ended, I felt the ground tremble beneath me, and as my eyes looked
straight forward down the vista, that, stretching from the casement, was
bounded by the solitary mausoleum, vague formless shadows seemed to pass
across the moonlight,--below, along the sward, above, in the air; and then
suddenly a terror, not before conceived, came upon me.

And a third time words were whispered; but though I knew no more of their
meaning than I did of those that had preceded them, I felt a repugnance to
utter them aloud. Mutely I turned towards the Scin-Laeca, and the
expression of its face was menacing and terrible; my will became yet more
compelled to the control imposed upon it, and my lips commenced the
formula again whispered into my ear, when I heard distinctly a voice of