Kabanata Kabanata 4 · SECRET WORSHIP

. SECRET WORSHIP

Harris, the silk merchant, was in South Germany on his way home from

a business trip when the idea came to him suddenly that he would take

the mountain railway from Strassbourg and run down to revisit his old

school after an interval of something more than thirty years. And it

was to this chance impulse of the junior partner in Harris Brothers of

St. Paul’s Churchyard that John Silence owed one of the most curious

cases of his whole experience, for at that very moment he happened to

be tramping these same mountains with a holiday knapsack, and from

different points of the compass the two men were actually converging

towards the same inn.

Now, deep down in the heart that for thirty years had been concerned

chiefly with the profitable buying and selling of silk, this school had

left the imprint of its peculiar influence, and, though perhaps unknown

to Harris, had strongly coloured the whole of his subsequent existence.

It belonged to the deeply religious life of a small Protestant

community (which it is unnecessary to specify), and his father had

sent him there at the age of fifteen, partly because he would learn

the German requisite for the conduct of the silk business, and partly

because the discipline was strict, and discipline was what his soul and

body needed just then more than anything else.

The life, indeed, had proved exceedingly severe, and young Harris

benefited accordingly; for though corporal punishment was unknown,

there was a system of mental and spiritual correction which somehow

made the soul stand proudly erect to receive it, while it struck at the

very root of the fault and taught the boy that his character was being

cleaned and strengthened, and that he was not merely being tortured in

a kind of personal revenge.

That was over thirty years ago, when he was a dreamy and impressionable

youth of fifteen; and now, as the train climbed slowly up the winding

mountain gorges, his mind travelled back somewhat lovingly over the

intervening period, and forgotten details rose vividly again before him

out of the shadows. The life there had been very wonderful, it seemed

to him, in that remote mountain village, protected from the tumults

of the world by the love and worship of the devout Brotherhood that

ministered to the needs of some hundred boys from every country in

Europe. Sharply the scenes came back to him. He smelt again the long

stone corridors, the hot pinewood rooms, where the sultry hours of

summer study were passed with bees droning through open windows in the

sunshine, and German characters struggling in the mind with dreams of

English lawns--and then the sudden awful cry of the master in German--

“Harris, stand up! You sleep!”

And he recalled the dreadful standing motionless for an hour, book in

hand, while the knees felt like wax and the head grew heavier than a

cannon-ball.

The very smell of the cooking came back to him--the daily _Sauerkraut_,

the watery chocolate on Sundays, the flavour of the stringy meat

served twice a week at _Mittagessen_; and he smiled to think again of

the half-rations that was the punishment for speaking English. The

very odour of the milk-bowls,--the hot sweet aroma that rose from the

soaking peasant-bread at the six-o’clock breakfast,--came back to him

pungently, and he saw the huge _Speisesaal_ with the hundred boys in

their school uniform, all eating sleepily in silence, gulping down

the coarse bread and scalding milk in terror of the bell that would

presently cut them short--and, at the far end where the masters sat,

he saw the narrow slit windows with the vistas of enticing field and

forest beyond.

And this, in turn, made him think of the great barn-like room on the

top floor where all slept together in wooden cots, and he heard in

memory the clamour of the cruel bell that woke them on winter mornings

at five o’clock and summoned them to the stone-flagged _Waschkammer_,

where boys and masters alike, after scanty and icy washing, dressed in

complete silence.

From this his mind passed swiftly, with vivid picture-thoughts,

to other things, and with a passing shiver he remembered how

the loneliness of never being alone had eaten into him, and how

everything--work, meals, sleep, walks, leisure--was done with his

“division” of twenty other boys and under the eyes of at least two

masters. The only solitude possible was by asking for half an hour’s

practice in the cell-like music rooms, and Harris smiled to himself as

he recalled the zeal of his violin studies.

Then, as the train puffed laboriously through the great pine forests

that cover these mountains with a giant carpet of velvet, he found the

pleasanter layers of memory giving up their dead, and he recalled with

admiration the kindness of the masters, whom all addressed as Brother,

and marvelled afresh at their devotion in burying themselves for years

in such a place, only to leave it, in most cases, for the still rougher

life of missionaries in the wild places of the world.

He thought once more of the still, religious atmosphere that hung

over the little forest community like a veil, barring the distressful

world; of the picturesque ceremonies at Easter, Christmas, and New

Year; of the numerous feast-days and charming little festivals. The

_Beschehr-Fest_, in particular, came back to him,--the feast of gifts

at Christmas,--when the entire community paired off and gave presents,

many of which had taken weeks to make or the savings of many days to

purchase. And then he saw the midnight ceremony in the church at New

Year, with the shining face of the _Prediger_ in the pulpit,--the

village preacher who, on the last night of the old year, saw in the

empty gallery beyond the organ loft the faces of all who were to die

in the ensuing twelve months, and who at last recognised himself among

them, and, in the very middle of his sermon, passed into a state of

rapt ecstasy and burst into a torrent of praise.

Thickly the memories crowded upon him. The picture of the small village

dreaming its unselfish life on the mountain-tops, clean, wholesome,

simple, searching vigorously for its God, and training hundreds of

boys in the grand way, rose up in his mind with all the power of an

obsession. He felt once more the old mystical enthusiasm, deeper than

the sea and more wonderful than the stars; he heard again the winds

sighing from leagues of forest over the red roofs in the moonlight; he

heard the Brothers’ voices talking of the things beyond this life as

though they had actually experienced them in the body; and, as he sat

in the jolting train, a spirit of unutterable longing passed over his

seared and tired soul, stirring in the depths of him a sea of emotions

that he thought had long since frozen into immobility.

And the contrast pained him,--the idealistic dreamer then, the man of

business now,--so that a spirit of unworldly peace and beauty known

only to the soul in meditation laid its feathered finger upon his

heart, moving strangely the surface of the waters.

Harris shivered a little and looked out of the window of his empty

carriage. The train had long passed Hornberg, and far below the streams

tumbled in white foam down the limestone rocks. In front of him, dome

upon dome of wooded mountain stood against the sky. It was October,

and the air was cool and sharp, wood-smoke and damp moss exquisitely

mingled in it with the subtle odours of the pines. Overhead, between

the tips of the highest firs, he saw the first stars peeping, and the

sky was a clean, pale amethyst that seemed exactly the colour all these

memories clothed themselves with in his mind.

He leaned back in his corner and sighed. He was a heavy man, and he had

not known sentiment for years; he was a big man, and it took much to

move him, literally and figuratively; he was a man in whom the dreams

of God that haunt the soul in youth, though overlaid by the scum that

gathers in the fight for money, had not, as with the majority, utterly

died the death.

He came back into this little neglected pocket of the years, where

so much fine gold had collected and lain undisturbed, with all his

semi-spiritual emotions aquiver; and, as he watched the mountain-tops

come nearer, and smelt the forgotten odours of his boyhood, something

melted on the surface of his soul and left him sensitive to a degree he

had not known since, thirty years before, he had lived here with his

dreams, his conflicts, and his youthful suffering.

A thrill ran through him as the train stopped with a jolt at a tiny

station and he saw the name in large black lettering on the grey stone

building, and below it, the number of metres it stood above the level

of the sea.

“The highest point on the line!” he exclaimed. “How well I remember

it--Sommerau--Summer Meadow. The very next station is mine!”

And, as the train ran downhill with brakes on and steam shut off, he

put his head out of the window and one by one saw the old familiar

landmarks in the dusk. They stared at him like dead faces in a dream.

Queer, sharp feelings, half poignant, half sweet, stirred in his heart.

“There’s the hot, white road we walked along so often with the two

Brüder always at our heels,” he thought; “and there, by Jove, is the

turn through the forest to ‘_Die Galgen_,’ the stone gallows where they

hanged the witches in olden days!”

He smiled a little as the train slid past.

“And there’s the copse where the Lilies of the Valley powdered the

ground in spring; and, I swear,”--he put his head out with a sudden

impulse,--“if that’s not the very clearing where Calame, the French

boy, chased the swallow-tail with me, and Bruder Pagel gave us

half-rations for leaving the road without permission, and for shouting

in our mother tongues!” And he laughed again as the memories came back

with a rush, flooding his mind with vivid detail.

The train stopped, and he stood on the grey gravel platform like a man

in a dream. It seemed half a century since he last waited there with

corded wooden boxes, and got into the train for Strassbourg and home

after the two years’ exile. Time dropped from him like an old garment

and he felt a boy again. Only, things looked so much smaller than his

memory of them; shrunk and dwindled they looked, and the distances

seemed on a curiously smaller scale.

He made his way across the road to the little Gasthaus, and, as he

went, faces and figures of former schoolfellows,--German, Swiss,

Italian, French, Russian,--slipped out of the shadowy woods and

silently accompanied him. They flitted by his side, raising their eyes

questioningly, sadly, to his. But their names he had forgotten. Some

of the Brothers, too, came with them, and most of these he remembered

by name--Bruder Röst, Bruder Pagel, Bruder Schliemann, and the bearded

face of the old preacher who had seen himself in the haunted gallery

of those about to die--Bruder Gysin. The dark forest lay all about

him like a sea that any moment might rush with velvet waves upon the

scene and sweep all the faces away. The air was cool and wonderfully

fragrant, but with every perfumed breath came also a pallid memory....

Yet, in spite of the underlying sadness inseparable from such an

experience, it was all very interesting, and held a pleasure peculiarly

its own, so that Harris engaged his room and ordered supper feeling

well pleased with himself, and intending to walk up to the old school

that very evening. It stood in the centre of the community’s village,

some four miles distant through the forest, and he now recollected for

the first time that this little Protestant settlement dwelt isolated

in a section of the country that was otherwise Catholic. Crucifixes

and shrines surrounded the clearing like the sentries of a beleaguring

army. Once beyond the square of the village, with its few acres of

field and orchard, the forest crowded up in solid phalanxes, and beyond

the rim of trees began the country that was ruled by the priests of

another faith. He vaguely remembered, too, that the Catholics had

showed sometimes a certain hostility towards the little Protestant

oasis that flourished so quietly and benignly in their midst. He had

quite forgotten this. How trumpery it all seemed now with his wide

experience of life and his knowledge of other countries and the great

outside world. It was like stepping back, not thirty years, but three

hundred.

There were only two others besides himself at supper. One of them, a

bearded, middle-aged man in tweeds, sat by himself at the far end,

and Harris kept out of his way because he was English. He feared he

might be in business, possibly even in the silk business, and that

he would perhaps talk on the subject. The other traveller, however,

was a Catholic priest. He was a little man who ate his salad with a

knife, yet so gently that it was almost inoffensive, and it was the

sight of “the cloth” that recalled his memory of the old antagonism.

Harris mentioned by way of conversation the object of his sentimental

journey, and the priest looked up sharply at him with raised eyebrows

and an expression of surprise and suspicion that somehow piqued him. He

ascribed it to his difference of belief.

“Yes,” went on the silk merchant, pleased to talk of what his mind was

so full, “and it was a curious experience for an English boy to be

dropped down into a school of a hundred foreigners. I well remember the

loneliness and intolerable Heimweh of it at first.” His German was very

fluent.

The priest opposite looked up from his cold veal and potato salad and

smiled. It was a nice face. He explained quietly that he did not belong

here, but was making a tour of the parishes of Württemberg and Baden.

“It was a strict life,” added Harris. “We English, I remember, used to

call it _Gefängnisleben_--prison life!”

The face of the other, for some unaccountable reason, darkened. After a

slight pause, and more by way of politeness than because he wished to

continue the subject, he said quietly--

“It was a flourishing school in those days, of course. Afterwards,

I have heard----” He shrugged his shoulders slightly, and the odd

look--it almost seemed a look of alarm--came back into his eyes. The

sentence remained unfinished.

Something in the tone of the man seemed to his listener uncalled

for--in a sense reproachful, singular. Harris bridled in spite of

himself.

“It has changed?” he asked. “I can hardly believe----”

“You have not heard, then?” observed the priest gently, making a

gesture as though to cross himself, yet not actually completing it.

“You have not heard what happened there before it was abandoned----?”

It was very childish, of course, and perhaps he was overtired and

overwrought in some way, but the words and manner of the little priest

seemed to him so offensive--so disproportionately offensive--that he

hardly noticed the concluding sentence. He recalled the old bitterness

and the old antagonism, and for a moment he almost lost his temper.

“Nonsense,” he interrupted with a forced laugh, “_Unsinn!_ You must

forgive me, sir, for contradicting you. But I was a pupil there

myself. I was at school there. There was no place like it. I cannot

believe that anything serious could have happened to--to take away its

character. The devotion of the Brothers would be difficult to equal

anywhere----”

He broke off suddenly, realising that his voice had been raised unduly

and that the man at the far end of the table might understand German;

and at the same moment he looked up and saw that this individual’s

eyes were fixed upon his face intently. They were peculiarly bright.

Also they were rather wonderful eyes, and the way they met his own

served in some way he could not understand to convey both a reproach

and a warning. The whole face of the stranger, indeed, made a vivid

impression upon him, for it was a face, he now noticed for the first

time, in whose presence one would not willingly have said or done

anything unworthy. Harris could not explain to himself how it was he

had not become conscious sooner of its presence.

But he could have bitten off his tongue for having so far forgotten

himself. The little priest lapsed into silence. Only once he said,

looking up and speaking in a low voice that was not intended to be

overheard, but that evidently _was_ overheard, “You will find it

different.” Presently he rose and left the table with a polite bow that

included both the others.

And, after him, from the far end rose also the figure in the tweed

suit, leaving Harris by himself.

He sat on for a bit in the darkening room, sipping his coffee and

smoking his fifteen-pfennig cigar, till the girl came in to light the

oil lamps. He felt vexed with himself for his lapse from good manners,

yet hardly able to account for it. Most likely, he reflected, he

had been annoyed because the priest had unintentionally changed the

pleasant character of his dream by introducing a jarring note. Later he

must seek an opportunity to make amends. At present, however, he was

too impatient for his walk to the school, and he took his stick and hat

and passed out into the open air.

And, as he crossed before the Gasthaus, he noticed that the priest

and the man in the tweed suit were engaged already in such deep

conversation that they hardly noticed him as he passed and raised his

hat.

He started off briskly, well remembering the way, and hoping to reach

the village in time to have a word with one of the Brüder. They might

even ask him in for a cup of coffee. He felt sure of his welcome, and

the old memories were in full possession once more. The hour of return

was a matter of no consequence whatever.

It was then just after seven o’clock, and the October evening was

drawing in with chill airs from the recesses of the forest. The road

plunged straight from the railway clearing into its depths, and in a

very few minutes the trees engulfed him and the clack of his boots

fell dead and echoless against the serried stems of a million firs. It

was very black; one trunk was hardly distinguishable from another. He

walked smartly, swinging his holly stick. Once or twice he passed a

peasant on his way to bed, and the guttural “Gruss Got,” unheard for

so long, emphasised the passage of time, while yet making it seem as

nothing. A fresh group of pictures crowded his mind. Again the figures

of former schoolfellows flitted out of the forest and kept pace by his

side, whispering of the doings of long ago. One reverie stepped hard

upon the heels of another. Every turn in the road, every clearing of

the forest, he knew, and each in turn brought forgotten associations to

life. He enjoyed himself thoroughly.

He marched on and on. There was powdered gold in the sky till the moon

rose, and then a wind of faint silver spread silently between the

earth and stars. He saw the tips of the fir trees shimmer, and heard

them whisper as the breeze turned their needles towards the light. The

mountain air was indescribably sweet. The road shone like the foam of a

river through the gloom. White moths flitted here and there like silent

thoughts across his path, and a hundred smells greeted him from the

forest caverns across the years.

Then, when he least expected it, the trees fell away abruptly on both

sides, and he stood on the edge of the village clearing.

He walked faster. There lay the familiar outlines of the houses,

sheeted with silver; there stood the trees in the little central square

with the fountain and small green lawns; there loomed the shape of

the church next to the Gasthof der Brüdergemeinde; and just beyond,

dimly rising into the sky, he saw with a sudden thrill the mass of

the huge school building, blocked castle-like with deep shadows in

the moonlight, standing square and formidable to face him after the

silences of more than a quarter of a century.

He passed quickly down the deserted village street and stopped close

beneath its shadow, staring up at the walls that had once held

him prisoner for two years--two unbroken years of discipline and

homesickness. Memories and emotions surged through his mind; for the

most vivid sensations of his youth had focused about this spot, and

it was here he had first begun to live and learn values. Not a single

footstep broke the silence, though lights glimmered here and there

through cottage windows; but when he looked up at the high walls of

the school, draped now in shadow, he easily imagined that well-known

faces crowded to the windows to greet him--closed windows that really

reflected only moonlight and the gleam of stars.

This, then, was the old school building, standing foursquare to the

world, with its shuttered windows, its lofty, tiled roof, and the

spiked lightning-conductors pointing like black and taloned fingers

from the corners. For a long time he stood and stared. Then,

presently, he came to himself again, and realised to his joy that a

light still shone in the windows of the _Bruderstube_.

He turned from the road and passed through the iron railings; then

climbed the twelve stone steps and stood facing the black wooden door

with the heavy bars of iron, a door he had once loathed and dreaded

with the hatred and passion of an imprisoned soul, but now looked upon

tenderly with a sort of boyish delight.

Almost timorously he pulled the rope and listened with a tremor of

excitement to the clanging of the bell deep within the building. And

the long-forgotten sound brought the past before him with such a

vivid sense of reality that he positively shivered. It was like the

magic bell in the fairy-tale that rolls back the curtain of Time and

summons the figures from the shadows of the dead. He had never felt so

sentimental in his life. It was like being young again. And, at the

same time, he began to bulk rather large in his own eyes with a certain

spurious importance. He was a big man from the world of strife and

action. In this little place of peaceful dreams would he, perhaps, not

cut something of a figure?

“I’ll try once more,” he thought after a long pause, seizing the iron

bell-rope, and was just about to pull it when a step sounded on the

stone passage within, and the huge door slowly swung open.

A tall man with a rather severe cast of countenance stood facing him in

silence.

“I must apologise--it is somewhat late,” he began a trifle pompously,

“but the fact is I am an old pupil. I have only just arrived and really

could not restrain myself.” His German seemed not quite so fluent as

usual. “My interest is so great. I was here in ’70.”

The other opened the door wider and at once bowed him in with a smile

of genuine welcome.

“I am Bruder Kalkmann,” he said quietly in a deep voice. “I myself was

a master here about that time. It is a great pleasure always to welcome

a former pupil.” He looked at him very keenly for a few seconds,

and then added, “I think, too, it is splendid of you to come--very

splendid.”

“It is a very great pleasure,” Harris replied, delighted with his

reception.

The dimly-lighted corridor with its flooring of grey stone, and the

familiar sound of a German voice echoing through it,--with the peculiar

intonation the Brothers always used in speaking,--all combined to lift

him bodily, as it were, into the dream-atmosphere of long-forgotten

days. He stepped gladly into the building and the door shut with the

familiar thunder that completed the reconstruction of the past. He

almost felt the old sense of imprisonment, of aching nostalgia, of

having lost his liberty.

Harris sighed involuntarily and turned towards his host, who returned

his smile faintly and then led the way down the corridor.

“The boys have retired,” he explained, “and, as you remember, we keep

early hours here. But, at least, you will join us for a little while in

the _Bruderstube_ and enjoy a cup of coffee.” This was precisely what

the silk merchant had hoped, and he accepted with an alacrity that he

intended to be tempered by graciousness. “And tomorrow,” continued the

Bruder, “you must come and spend a whole day with us. You may even find

acquaintances, for several pupils of your day have come back here as

masters.”

For one brief second there passed into the man’s eyes a look that

made the visitor start. But it vanished as quickly as it came. It was

impossible to define. Harris convinced himself it was the effect of a

shadow cast by the lamp they had just passed on the wall. He dismissed

it from his mind.

“You are very kind, I’m sure,” he said politely. “It is perhaps a

greater pleasure to me than you can imagine to see the place again.

Ah,”--he stopped short opposite a door with the upper half of glass

and peered in--“surely there is one of the music rooms where I used to

practise the violin. How it comes back to me after all these years!”

Bruder Kalkmann stopped indulgently, smiling, to allow his guest a

moment’s inspection.

“You still have the boys’ orchestra? I remember I used to play ‘_zweite

Geige_’ in it. Bruder Schliemann conducted at the piano. Dear me, I can

see him now with his long black hair and--and----” He stopped abruptly.

Again the odd, dark look passed over the stern face of his companion.

For an instant it seemed curiously familiar.

“We still keep up the pupils’ orchestra,” he said, “but Bruder

Schliemann, I am sorry to say----” he hesitated an instant, and then

added, “Bruder Schliemann is dead.”

“Indeed, indeed,” said Harris quickly. “I am sorry to hear it.” He was

conscious of a faint feeling of distress, but whether it arose from

the news of his old music teacher’s death, or--from something else--he

could not quite determine. He gazed down the corridor that lost itself

among shadows. In the street and village everything had seemed so

much smaller than he remembered, but here, inside the school building,

everything seemed so much bigger. The corridor was loftier and longer,

more spacious and vast, than the mental picture he had preserved. His

thoughts wandered dreamily for an instant.

He glanced up and saw the face of the Bruder watching him with a smile

of patient indulgence.

“Your memories possess you,” he observed gently, and the stern look

passed into something almost pitying.

“You are right,” returned the man of silk, “they do. This was the most

wonderful period of my whole life in a sense. At the time I hated

it----” He hesitated, not wishing to hurt the Brother’s feelings.

“According to English ideas it seemed strict, of course,” the other

said persuasively, so that he went on.

“----Yes, partly that; and partly the ceaseless nostalgia, and the

solitude which came from never being really alone. In English schools

the boys enjoy peculiar freedom, you know.”

Bruder Kalkmann, he saw, was listening intently.

“But it produced one result that I have never wholly lost,” he

continued self-consciously, “and am grateful for.”

“_Ach! Wie so, denn?_”

“The constant inner pain threw me headlong into your religious life, so

that the whole force of my being seemed to project itself towards the

search for a deeper satisfaction--a real resting-place for the soul.

During my two years here I yearned for God in my boyish way as perhaps

I have never yearned for anything since. Moreover, I have never quite

lost that sense of peace and inward joy which accompanied the search. I

can never quite forget this school and the deep things it taught me.”

He paused at the end of his long speech, and a brief silence fell

between them. He feared he had said too much, or expressed himself

clumsily in the foreign language, and when Bruder Kalkmann laid a hand

upon his shoulder, he gave a little involuntary start.

“So that my memories perhaps do possess me rather strongly,” he added

apologetically; “and this long corridor, these rooms, that barred and

gloomy front door, all touch chords that--that----” His German failed

him and he glanced at his companion with an explanatory smile and

gesture. But the brother had removed the hand from his shoulder and was

standing with his back to him, looking down the passage.

“Naturally, naturally so,” he said hastily without turning round. “_Es

ist doch selbstverständlich._ We shall all understand.”

Then he turned suddenly, and Harris saw that his face had turned most

oddly and disagreeably sinister. It may only have been the shadows

again playing their tricks with the wretched oil lamps on the wall,

for the dark expression passed instantly as they retraced their steps

down the corridor, but the Englishman somehow got the impression that

he had said something to give offence, something that was not quite to

the other’s taste. Opposite the door of the _Bruderstube_ they stopped.

Harris realised that it was late and he had possibly stayed talking too

long. He made a tentative effort to leave, but his companion would not

hear of it.

“You must have a cup of coffee with us,” he said firmly as though he

meant it, “and my colleagues will be delighted to see you. Some of them

will remember you, perhaps.”

The sound of voices came pleasantly through the door, men’s voices

talking together. Bruder Kalkmann turned the handle and they entered a

room ablaze with light and full of people.

“Ah,--but your name?” he whispered, bending down to catch the reply;

“you have not told me your name yet.”

“Harris,” said the Englishman quickly as they went in. He felt nervous

as he crossed the threshold, but ascribed the momentary trepidation

to the fact that he was breaking the strictest rule of the whole

establishment, which forbade a boy under severest penalties to come

near this holy of holies where the masters took their brief leisure.

“Ah, yes, of course--Harris,” repeated the other as though he

remembered it “Come in, Herr Harris, come in, please. Your visit will

be immensely appreciated. It is really very fine, very wonderful of you

to have come in this way.”

The door closed behind them and, in the sudden light which made his

sight swim for a moment, the exaggeration of the language escaped his

attention. He heard the voice of Bruder Kalkmann introducing him. He

spoke very loud, indeed, unnecessarily,--absurdly loud, Harris thought.

“Brothers,” he announced, “it is my pleasure and privilege to introduce

to you Herr Harris from England. He has just arrived to make us a

little visit, and I have already expressed to him on behalf of us all

the satisfaction we feel that he is here. He was, as you remember, a

pupil in the year ’70.”

It was a very formal, a very German introduction, but Harris rather

liked it. It made him feel important and he appreciated the tact that

made it almost seem as though he had been expected.

The black forms rose and bowed; Harris bowed; Kalkmann bowed. Every one

was very polite and very courtly. The room swam with moving figures;

the light dazzled him after the gloom of the corridor; there was thick

cigar smoke in the atmosphere. He took the chair that was offered to

him between two of the Brothers, and sat down, feeling vaguely that his

perceptions were not quite as keen and accurate as usual. He felt a

trifle dazed perhaps, and the spell of the past came strongly over him,

confusing the immediate present and making everything dwindle oddly to

the dimensions of long ago. He seemed to pass under the mastery of a

great mood that was a composite reproduction of all the moods of his

forgotten boyhood.

Then he pulled himself together with a sharp effort and entered into

the conversation that had begun again to buzz round him. Moreover,

he entered into it with keen pleasure, for the Brothers--there were

perhaps a dozen of them in the little room--treated him with a charm

of manner that speedily made him feel one of themselves. This, again,

was a very subtle delight to him. He felt that he had stepped out

of the greedy, vulgar, self-seeking world, the world of silk and

markets and profit-making--stepped into the cleaner atmosphere where

spiritual ideals were paramount and life was simple and devoted.

It all charmed him inexpressibly, so that he realised--yes, in a

sense--the degradation of his twenty years’ absorption in business.

This keen atmosphere under the stars where men thought only of their

souls, and of the souls of others, was too rarefied for the world he

was now associated with. He found himself making comparisons to his

own disadvantage,--comparisons with the mystical little dreamer that

had stepped thirty years before from the stern peace of this devout

community, and the man of the world that he had since become,--and

the contrast made him shiver with a keen regret and something like

self-contempt.

He glanced round at the other faces floating towards him through

tobacco smoke--this acrid cigar smoke he remembered so well: how keen

they were, how strong, placid, touched with the nobility of great aims

and unselfish purposes. At one or two he looked particularly. He hardly

knew why. They rather fascinated him. There was something so very stern

and uncompromising about them, and something, too, oddly, subtly,

familiar, that yet just eluded him. But whenever their eyes met his own

they held undeniable welcome in them; and some held more--a kind of

perplexed admiration, he thought, something that was between esteem and

deference. This note of respect in all the faces was very flattering to

his vanity.

Coffee was served presently, made by a black-haired Brother who sat

in the corner by the piano and bore a marked resemblance to Bruder

Schliemann, the musical director of thirty years ago. Harris exchanged

bows with him when he took the cup from his white hands, which he

noticed were like the hands of a woman. He lit a cigar, offered to him

by his neighbour, with whom he was chatting delightfully, and who, in

the glare of the lighted match, reminded him sharply for a moment of

Bruder Pagel, his former room-master.

“_Es ist wirklich merkwürdig_,” he said, “how many resemblances I see,

or imagine. It is really _very_ curious!”

“Yes,” replied the other, peering at him over his coffee cup, “the

spell of the place is wonderfully strong. I can well understand that

the old faces rise before your mind’s eye--almost to the exclusion of

ourselves perhaps.”

They both laughed pleasantly. It was soothing to find his mood

understood and appreciated. And they passed on to talk of the mountain

village, its isolation, its remoteness from worldly life, its peculiar

fitness for meditation and worship, and for spiritual development--of a

certain kind.

“And your coming back in this way, Herr Harris, has pleased us all so

much,” joined in the Bruder on his left. “We esteem you for it most

highly. We honour you for it.”

Harris made a deprecating gesture. “I fear, for my part, it is only a

very selfish pleasure,” he said a trifle unctuously.

“Not all would have had the courage,” added the one who resembled

Bruder Pagel.

“You mean,” said Harris, a little puzzled, “the disturbing

memories----?”

Bruder Pagel looked at him steadily, with unmistakable admiration and

respect. “I mean that most men hold so strongly to life, and can give

up so little for their beliefs,” he said gravely.

The Englishman felt slightly uncomfortable. These worthy men really

made too much of his sentimental journey. Besides, the talk was getting

a little out of his depth. He hardly followed it.

“The worldly life still has _some_ charms for me,” he replied

smilingly, as though to indicate that sainthood was not yet quite

within his grasp.

“All the more, then, must we honour you for so freely coming,” said the

Brother on his left; “so unconditionally!”

A pause followed, and the silk merchant felt relieved when the

conversation took a more general turn, although he noted that it never

travelled very far from the subject of his visit and the wonderful

situation of the lonely village for men who wished to develop their

spiritual powers and practise the rites of a high worship. Others

joined in, complimenting him on his knowledge of the language,

making him feel utterly at his ease, yet at the same time a little

uncomfortable by the excess of their admiration. After all, it was such

a very small thing to do, this sentimental journey.

The time passed along quickly; the coffee was excellent, the cigars

soft and of the nutty flavour he loved. At length, fearing to outstay

his welcome, he rose reluctantly to take his leave. But the others

would not hear of it. It was not often a former pupil returned to visit

them in this simple, unaffected way. The night was young. If necessary

they could even find him a corner in the great _Schlafzimmer_ upstairs.

He was easily persuaded to stay a little longer. Somehow he had become

the centre of the little party. He felt pleased, flattered, honoured.

“And perhaps Bruder Schliemann will play something for us--now.”

It was Kalkmann speaking, and Harris started visibly as he heard the

name, and saw the black-haired man by the piano turn with a smile. For

Schliemann was the name of his old music director, who was dead. Could

this be his son? They were so exactly alike.

“If Bruder Meyer has not put his Amati to bed, I will accompany him,”

said the musician suggestively, looking across at a man whom Harris had

not yet noticed, and who, he now saw, was the very image of a former

master of that name.

Meyer rose and excused himself with a little bow, and the Englishman

quickly observed that he had a peculiar gesture as though his neck had

a false join on to the body just below the collar and feared it might

break. Meyer of old had this trick of movement. He remembered how the

boys used to copy it.

He glanced sharply from face to face, feeling as though some silent,

unseen process were changing everything about him. All the faces seemed

oddly familiar. Pagel, the Brother he had been talking with, was of

course the image of Pagel, his former room-master; and Kalkmann, he now

realised for the first time, was the very twin of another master whose

name he had quite forgotten, but whom he used to dislike intensely in

the old days. And, through the smoke, peering at him from the corners

of the room, he saw that all the Brothers about him had the faces he

had known and lived with long ago--Röst, Fluheim, Meinert, Rigel, Gysin.

He stared hard, suddenly grown more alert, and everywhere saw, or

fancied he saw, strange likenesses, ghostly resemblances,--more, the

identical faces of years ago. There was something queer about it all,

something not quite right, something that made him feel uneasy. He

shook himself, mentally and actually, blowing the smoke from before his

eyes with a long breath, and as he did so he noticed to his dismay that

every one was fixedly staring. They were watching him.

This brought him to his senses. As an Englishman, and a foreigner, he

did not wish to be rude, or to do anything to make himself foolishly

conspicuous and spoil the harmony of the evening. He was a guest, and a

privileged guest at that. Besides, the music had already begun. Bruder

Schliemann’s long white fingers were caressing the keys to some purpose.

He subsided into his chair and smoked with half-closed eyes that yet

saw everything.

But the shudder had established itself in his being, and, whether he

would or not, it kept repeating itself. As a town, far up some inland

river, feels the pressure of the distant sea, so he became aware that

mighty forces from somewhere beyond his ken were urging themselves

up against his soul in this smoky little room. He began to feel

exceedingly ill at ease.

And as the music filled the air his mind began to clear. Like a lifted

veil there rose up something that had hitherto obscured his vision.

The words of the priest at the railway inn flashed across his brain

unbidden: “You will find it different.” And also, though why he

could not tell, he saw mentally the strong, rather wonderful eyes of

that other guest at the supper-table, the man who had overheard his

conversation, and had later got into earnest talk with the priest. He

took out his watch and stole a glance at it. Two hours had slipped by.

It was already eleven o’clock.

Schliemann, meanwhile, utterly absorbed in his music, was playing a

solemn measure. The piano sang marvellously. The power of a great

conviction, the simplicity of great art, the vital spiritual message

of a soul that had found itself--all this, and more, were in the

chords, and yet somehow the music was what can only be described as

impure--atrociously and diabolically impure. And the piece itself,

although Harris did not recognise it as anything familiar, was surely

the music of a Mass--huge, majestic, sombre? It stalked through the

smoky room with slow power, like the passage of something that was

mighty, yet profoundly intimate, and as it went there stirred into each

and every face about him the signature of the enormous forces of which

it was the audible symbol. The countenances round him turned sinister,

but not idly, negatively sinister: they grew dark with purpose. He

suddenly recalled the face of Bruder Kalkmann in the corridor earlier

in the evening. The motives of their secret souls rose to the eyes, and

mouths, and foreheads, and hung there for all to see like the black

banners of an assembly of ill-starred and fallen creatures. Demons--was

the horrible word that flashed through his brain like a sheet of fire.

When this sudden discovery leaped out upon him, for a moment he lost

his self-control. Without waiting to think and weigh his extraordinary

impression, he did a very foolish but a very natural thing. Feeling

himself irresistibly driven by the sudden stress to some kind of

action, he sprang to his feet--and screamed! To his own utter

amazement he stood up and shrieked aloud!

But no one stirred. No one, apparently, took the slightest notice of

his absurdly wild behaviour. It was almost as if no one but himself

had heard the scream at all--as though the music had drowned it and

swallowed it up--as though after all perhaps he had not really screamed

as loudly as he imagined, or had not screamed at all.

Then, as he glanced at the motionless, dark faces before him, something

of utter cold passed into his being, touching his very soul.... All

emotion cooled suddenly, leaving him like a receding tide. He sat down

again, ashamed, mortified, angry with himself for behaving like a fool

and a boy. And the music, meanwhile, continued to issue from the white

and snake-like fingers of Bruder Schliemann, as poisoned wine might

issue from the weirdly-fashioned necks of antique phials.

And, with the rest of them, Harris drank it in.

Forcing himself to believe that he had been the victim of some kind of

illusory perception, he vigorously restrained his feelings. Then the

music presently ceased, and every one applauded and began to talk at

once, laughing, changing seats, complimenting the player, and behaving

naturally and easily as though nothing out of the way had happened.

The faces appeared normal once more. The Brothers crowded round their

visitor, and he joined in their talk and even heard himself thanking

the gifted musician.

But, at the same time, he found himself edging towards the door, nearer

and nearer, changing his chair when possible, and joining the groups

that stood closest to the way of escape.

“I must thank you all _tausendmal_ for my little reception and the

great pleasure--the very great honour you have done me,” he began in

decided tones at length, “but I fear I have trespassed far too long

already on your hospitality. Moreover, I have some distance to walk to

my inn.”

A chorus of voices greeted his words. They would not hear of his

going,--at least not without first partaking of refreshment. They

produced pumpernickel from one cupboard, and rye-bread and sausage from

another, and all began to talk again and eat. More coffee was made,

fresh cigars lighted, and Bruder Meyer took out his violin and began to

tune it softly.

“There is always a bed upstairs if Herr Harris will accept it,” said

one.

“And it is difficult to find the way out now, for all the doors are

locked,” laughed another loudly.

“Let us take our simple pleasures as they come,” cried a third. “Bruder

Harris will understand how we appreciate the honour of this last visit

of his.”

They made a dozen excuses. They all laughed, as though the politeness

of their words was but formal, and veiled thinly--more and more

thinly--a very different meaning.

“And the hour of midnight draws near,” added Bruder Kalkmann with a

charming smile, but in a voice that sounded to the Englishman like the

grating of iron hinges.

Their German seemed to him more and more difficult to understand.

He noted that they called him “Bruder” too, classing him as one of

themselves.

And then suddenly he had a flash of keener perception, and

realised with a creeping of his flesh that he had all along

misinterpreted--grossly misinterpreted all they had been saying. They

had talked about the beauty of the place, its isolation and remoteness

from the world, its peculiar fitness for certain kinds of spiritual

development and worship--yet hardly, he now grasped, in the sense in

which he had taken the words. They had meant something different.

Their spiritual powers, their desire for loneliness, their passion

for worship, were not the powers, the solitude, or the worship that

_he_ meant and understood. He was playing a part in some horrible

masquerade; he was among men who cloaked their lives with religion in

order to follow their real purposes unseen of men.

What did it all mean? How had he blundered into so equivocal a

situation? Had he blundered into it at all? Had he not rather been led

into it, deliberately led? His thoughts grew dreadfully confused, and

his confidence in himself began to fade. And why, he suddenly thought

again, were they so impressed by the mere fact of his coming to revisit

his old school? What was it they so admired and wondered at in his

simple act? Why did they set such store upon his having the courage to

come, to “give himself so freely,” “unconditionally” as one of them had

expressed it with such a mockery of exaggeration?

Fear stirred in his heart most horribly, and he found no answer to any

of his questionings. Only one thing he now understood quite clearly:

it was their purpose to keep him here. They did not intend that he

should go. And from this moment he realised that they were sinister,

formidable and, in some way he had yet to discover, inimical to

himself, inimical to his life. And the phrase one of them had used a

moment ago--“this _last_ visit of his”--rose before his eyes in letters

of flame.

Harris was not a man of action, and had never known in all the course

of his career what it meant to be in a situation of real danger. He

was not necessarily a coward, though, perhaps, a man of untried nerve.

He realised at last plainly that he was in a very awkward predicament

indeed, and that he had to deal with men who were utterly in earnest.

What their intentions were he only vaguely guessed. His mind, indeed,

was too confused for definite ratiocination, and he was only able to

follow blindly the strongest instincts that moved in him. It never

occurred to him that the Brothers might all be mad, or that he himself

might have temporarily lost his senses and be suffering under some

terrible delusion. In fact, nothing occurred to him--he realised

nothing--except that he meant to escape--and the quicker the better. A

tremendous revulsion of feeling set in and overpowered him.

Accordingly, without further protest for the moment, he ate his

pumpernickel and drank his coffee, talking meanwhile as naturally and

pleasantly as he could, and when a suitable interval had passed, he

rose to his feet and announced once more that he must now take his

leave. He spoke very quietly, but very decidedly. No one hearing him

could doubt that he meant what he said. He had got very close to the

door by this time.

“I regret,” he said, using his best German, and speaking to a hushed

room, “that our pleasant evening must come to an end, but it is now

time for me to wish you all good-night.” And then, as no one said

anything, he added, though with a trifle less assurance, “And I thank

you all most sincerely for your hospitality.”

“On the contrary,” replied Kalkmann instantly, rising from his chair

and ignoring the hand the Englishman had stretched out to him, “it is

we who have to thank you; and we do so most gratefully and sincerely.”

And at the same moment at least half a dozen of the Brothers took up

their position between himself and the door.

“You are very good to say so,” Harris replied as firmly as he could

manage, noticing this movement out of the corner of his eye, “but

really I had no conception that--my little chance visit could have

afforded you so much pleasure.” He moved another step nearer the door,

but Bruder Schliemann came across the room quickly and stood in front

of him. His attitude was uncompromising. A dark and terrible expression

had come into his face.

“But it was _not_ by chance that you came, Bruder Harris,” he said so

that all the room could hear; “surely we have not misunderstood your

presence here?” He raised his black eyebrows.

“No, no,” the Englishman hastened to reply. “I was--I am delighted

to be here. I told you what pleasure it gave me to find myself among

you. Do not misunderstand me, I beg.” His voice faltered a little, and

he had difficulty in finding the words. More and more, too, he had

difficulty in understanding _their_ words.

“Of course,” interposed Bruder Kalkmann in his iron bass, “_we_ have

not misunderstood. You have come back in the spirit of true and

unselfish devotion. You offer yourself freely, and we all appreciate

it. It is your willingness and nobility that have so completely won our

veneration and respect.” A faint murmur of applause ran round the room.

“What we all delight in--what our great Master will especially delight

in--is the value of your spontaneous and voluntary----”

He used a word Harris did not understand. He said “_Opfer_.” The

bewildered Englishman searched his brain for the translation, and

searched in vain. For the life of him he could not remember what it

meant. But the word, for all his inability to translate it, touched his

soul with ice. It was worse, far worse, than anything he had imagined.

He felt like a lost, helpless creature, and all power to fight sank out

of him from that moment.

“It is magnificent to be such a willing----” added Schliemann, sidling

up to him with a dreadful leer on his face. He made use of the same

word--“_Opfer_.”

God! What could it all mean? “Offer himself!” “True spirit of

devotion!” “Willing,” “unselfish,” “magnificent!” _Opfer, Opfer,

Opfer!_ What in the name of heaven did it mean, that strange,

mysterious word that struck such terror into his heart?

He made a valiant effort to keep his presence of mind and hold his

nerves steady. Turning, he saw that Kalkmann’s face was a dead white.

Kalkmann! He understood that well enough. _Kalkmann_ meant “Man of

Chalk”; he knew that. But what did “_Opfer_” mean? That was the real

key to the situation. Words poured through his disordered mind in an

endless stream--unusual, rare words he had perhaps heard but once in

his life--while “_Opfer_,” a word in common use, entirely escaped him.

What an extraordinary mockery it all was!

Then Kalkmann, pale as death, but his face hard as iron, spoke a few

low words that he did not catch, and the Brothers standing by the walls

at once turned the lamps down so that the room became dim. In the half

light he could only just discern their faces and movements.

“It is time,” he heard Kalkmann’s remorseless voice continue just

behind him. “The hour of midnight is at hand. Let us prepare. He comes!

He comes; Bruder Asmodelius comes!” His voice rose to a chant.

And the sound of that name, for some extraordinary reason, was

terrible--utterly terrible; so that Harris shook from head to foot as

he heard it. Its utterance filled the air like soft thunder, and a hush

came over the whole room. Forces rose all about him, transforming the

normal into the horrible, and the spirit of craven fear ran through all

his being, bringing him to the verge of collapse.

_Asmodelius! Asmodelius!_ The name was appalling. For he understood at

last to whom it referred and the meaning that lay between its great

syllables. At the same instant, too, he suddenly understood the meaning

of that unremembered word. The import of the word “_Opfer_” flashed

upon his soul like a message of death.

He thought of making a wild effort to reach the door, but the weakness

of his trembling knees, and the row of black figures that stood

between, dissuaded him at once. He would have screamed for help, but

remembering the emptiness of the vast building, and the loneliness of

the situation, he understood that no help could come that way, and he

kept his lips closed. He stood still and did nothing. But he knew now

what was coming.

Two of the brothers approached and took him gently by the arm.

“Bruder Asmodelius accepts you,” they whispered; “are you ready?”

Then he found his tongue and tried to speak. “But what have I to do

with this Bruder Asm--Asmo----?” he stammered, a desperate rush of

words crowding vainly behind the halting tongue.

The name refused to pass his lips. He could not pronounce it as they

did. He could not pronounce it at all. His sense of helplessness then

entered the acute stage, for this inability to speak the name produced

a fresh sense of quite horrible confusion in his mind, and he became

extraordinarily agitated.

“I came here for a friendly visit,” he tried to say with a great

effort, but, to his intense dismay, he heard his voice saying something

quite different, and actually making use of that very word they had all

used: “I came here as a willing _Opfer_,” he heard his own voice say,

“and _I am quite ready_.”

He was lost beyond all recall now! Not alone his mind, but the very

muscles of his body had passed out of control. He felt that he was

hovering on the confines of a phantom or demon-world,--a world in which

the name they had spoken constituted the Master-name, the word of

ultimate power.

What followed he heard and saw as in a nightmare.

“In the half light that veils all truth, let us prepare to worship and

adore,” chanted Schliemann, who had preceded him to the end of the room.

“In the mists that protect our faces before the Black Throne, let us

make ready the willing victim,” echoed Kalkmann in his great bass.

They raised their faces, listening expectantly, as a roaring sound,

like the passing of mighty projectiles, filled the air, far, far away,

very wonderful, very forbidding. The walls of the room trembled.

“He comes! He comes! He comes!” chanted the Brothers in chorus.

The sound of roaring died away, and an atmosphere of still and utter

cold established itself over all. Then Kalkmann, dark and unutterably

stern, turned in the dim light and faced the rest.

“Asmodelius, our _Hauptbruder_, is about us,” he cried in a voice that

even while it shook was yet a voice of iron; “Asmodelius is about us.

Make ready.”

There followed a pause in which no one stirred or spoke. A tall Brother

approached the Englishman; but Kalkmann held up his hand.

“Let the eyes remain uncovered,” he said, “in honour of so freely

giving himself.” And to his horror Harris then realised for the first

time that his hands were already fastened to his sides.

The Brother retreated again silently, and in the pause that followed

all the figures about him dropped to their knees, leaving him standing

alone, and as they dropped, in voices hushed with mingled reverence and

awe, they cried softly, odiously, appallingly, the name of the Being

whom they momentarily expected to appear.

Then, at the end of the room, where the windows seemed to have

disappeared so that he saw the stars, there rose into view far up

against the night sky, grand and terrible, the outline of a man. A

kind of grey glory enveloped it so that it resembled a steel-cased

statue, immense, imposing, horrific in its distant splendour; while,

at the same time, the face was so spiritually mighty, yet so proudly,

so austerely sad, that Harris felt as he stared, that the sight was

more than his eyes could meet, and that in another moment the power

of vision would fail him altogether, and he must sink into utter

nothingness.

So remote and inaccessible hung this figure that it was impossible to

gauge anything as to its size, yet at the same time so strangely close,

that when the grey radiance from its mightily broken visage, august and

mournful, beat down upon his soul, pulsing like some dark star with the

powers of spiritual evil, he felt almost as though he were looking into

a face no farther removed from him in space than the face of any one of

the Brothers who stood by his side.

And then the room filled and trembled with sounds that Harris

understood full well were the failing voices of others who had preceded

him in a long series down the years. There came first a plain, sharp

cry, as of a man in the last anguish, choking for his breath, and

yet, with the very final expiration of it, breathing the name of the

Worship--of the dark Being who rejoiced to hear it. The cries of the

strangled; the short, running gasp of the suffocated; and the smothered

gurgling of the tightened throat, all these, and more, echoed back

and forth between the walls, the very walls in which he now stood a

prisoner, a sacrificial victim. The cries, too, not alone of the broken

bodies, but--far worse--of beaten, broken souls. And as the ghastly

chorus rose and fell, there came also the faces of the lost and unhappy

creatures to whom they belonged, and, against that curtain of pale grey

light, he saw float past him in the air, an array of white and piteous

human countenances that seemed to beckon and gibber at him as though he

were already one of themselves.

Slowly, too, as the voices rose, and the pallid crew sailed past, that

giant form of grey descended from the sky and approached the room that

contained the worshippers and their prisoner. Hands rose and sank about

him in the darkness, and he felt that he was being draped in other

garments than his own; a circlet of ice seemed to run about his head,

while round the waist, enclosing the fastened arms, he felt a girdle

tightly drawn. At last, about his very throat, there ran a soft and

silken touch which, better than if there had been full light, and a

mirror held to his face, he understood to be the cord of sacrifice--and

of death.

At this moment the Brothers, still prostrate upon the floor, began

again their mournful, yet impassioned chanting, and as they did so a

strange thing happened. For, apparently without moving or altering its

position, the huge Figure seemed, at once and suddenly, to be inside

the room, almost beside him, and to fill the space around him to the

exclusion of all else.

He was now beyond all ordinary sensations of fear, only a drab feeling

as of death--the death of the soul--stirred in his heart. His thoughts

no longer even beat vainly for escape. The end was near, and he knew

it.

The dreadfully chanting voices rose about him in a wave: “We worship!

We adore! We offer!” The sounds filled his ears and hammered, almost

meaningless, upon his brain.

Then the majestic grey face turned slowly downwards upon him, and his

very soul passed outwards and seemed to become absorbed in the sea

of those anguished eyes. At the same moment a dozen hands forced him

to his knees, and in the air before him he saw the arm of Kalkmann

upraised, and felt the pressure about his throat grow strong.

It was in this awful moment, when he had given up all hope, and the

help of gods or men seemed beyond question, that a strange thing

happened. For before his fading and terrified vision, there slid, as

in a dream of light,--yet without apparent rhyme or reason--wholly

unbidden and unexplained,--the face of that other man at the supper

table of the railway inn. And the sight, even mentally, of that strong,

wholesome, vigorous English face, inspired him suddenly with a new

courage.

It was but a flash of fading vision before he sank into a dark and

terrible death, yet, in some inexplicable way, the sight of that face

stirred in him unconquerable hope and the certainty of deliverance. It

was a face of power, a face, he now realised, of simple goodness such

as might have been seen by men of old on the shores of Galilee; a face,

by heaven, that could conquer even the devils of outer space.

And, in his despair and abandonment, he called upon it, and called with

no uncertain accents. He found his voice in this overwhelming moment

to some purpose; though the words he actually used, and whether they

were in German or English, he could never remember. Their effect,

nevertheless, was instantaneous. The Brothers understood, and that grey

Figure of evil understood.

For a second the confusion was terrific. There came a great shattering

sound. It seemed that the very earth trembled. But all Harris

remembered afterwards was that voices rose about him in the clamour of

terrified alarm--

“A man of power is among us! A man of God!”

The vast sound was repeated--the rushing through space as of huge

projectiles--and he sank to the floor of the room, unconscious. The

entire scene had vanished, vanished like smoke over the roof of a

cottage when the wind blows.

And, by his side, sat down a slight, un-German figure,--the figure of

the stranger at the inn,--the man who had the “rather wonderful eyes.”

* * * * *

When Harris came to himself he felt cold. He was lying under the open

sky, and the cool air of field and forest was blowing upon his face.

He sat up and looked about him. The memory of the late scene was

still horribly in his mind, but no vestige of it remained. No walls

or ceiling enclosed him; he was no longer in a room at all. There

were no lamps turned low, no cigar smoke, no black forms of sinister

worshippers, no tremendous grey Figure hovering beyond the windows.

Open space was about him, and he was lying on a pile of bricks and

mortar, his clothes soaked with dew, and the kind stars shining

brightly overhead. He was lying, bruised and shaken, among the

heaped-up débris of a ruined building.

He stood up and stared about him. There, in the shadowy distance, lay

the surrounding forest, and here, close at hand, stood the outline of

the village buildings. But, underfoot, beyond question, lay nothing

but the broken heaps of stones that betokened a building long since

crumbled to dust. Then he saw that the stones were blackened, and

that great wooden beams, half burnt, half rotten, made lines through

the general débris. He stood, then, among the ruins of a burnt and

shattered building, the weeds and nettles proving conclusively that it

had lain thus for many years.

The moon had already set behind the encircling forest, but the stars

that spangled the heavens threw enough light to enable him to make

quite sure of what he saw. Harris, the silk merchant, stood among these

broken and burnt stones and shivered.

Then he suddenly became aware that out of the gloom a figure had risen

and stood beside him. Peering at him, he thought he recognised the face

of the stranger at the railway inn.

“Are _you_ real?” he asked in a voice he hardly recognised as his own.

“More than real--I’m friendly,” replied the stranger; “I followed you

up here from the inn.”

Harris stood and stared for several minutes without adding anything.

His teeth chattered. The least sound made him start; but the simple

words in his own language, and the tone in which they were uttered,

comforted him inconceivably.

“You’re English too, thank God,” he said inconsequently. “These German

devils----” He broke off and put a hand to his eyes. “But what’s

become of them all--and the room--and--and----” The hand travelled

down to his throat and moved nervously round his neck. He drew a long,

long breath of relief. “Did I dream everything--everything?” he said

distractedly.

He stared wildly about him, and the stranger moved forward and took his

arm. “Come,” he said soothingly, yet with a trace of command in the

voice, “we will move away from here. The high-road, or even the woods

will be more to your taste, for we are standing now on one of the most

haunted--and most terribly haunted--spots of the whole world.”

He guided his companion’s stumbling footsteps over the broken masonry

until they reached the path, the nettles stinging their hands, and

Harris feeling his way like a man in a dream. Passing through the

twisted iron railing they reached the path, and thence made their way

to the road, shining white in the night. Once safely out of the ruins,

Harris collected himself and turned to look back.

“But, how is it possible?” he exclaimed, his voice still shaking.

“How can it be possible? When I came in here I saw the building in

the moonlight. They opened the door. I saw the figures and heard the

voices and touched, yes touched their very hands, and saw their damned

black faces, saw them far more plainly than I see you now.” He was

deeply bewildered. The glamour was still upon his eyes with a degree

of reality stronger than the reality even of normal life. “Was I so

utterly deluded?”

Then suddenly the words of the stranger, which he had only half heard

or understood, returned to him.

“Haunted?” he asked, looking hard at him; “haunted, did you say?” He

paused in the roadway and stared into the darkness where the building

of the old school had first appeared to him. But the stranger hurried

him forward.

“We shall talk more safely farther on,” he said. “I followed you from

the inn the moment I realised where you had gone. When I found you it

was eleven o’clock----”

“Eleven o’clock,” said Harris, remembering with a shudder.

“----I saw you drop. I watched over you till you recovered

consciousness of your own accord, and now--now I am here to guide you

safely back to the inn. I have broken the spell--the glamour----”

“I owe you a great deal, sir,” interrupted Harris again, beginning

to understand something of the stranger’s kindness, “but I don’t

understand it all. I feel dazed and shaken.” His teeth still chattered,

and spells of violent shivering passed over him from head to foot. He

found that he was clinging to the other’s arm. In this way they passed

beyond the deserted and crumbling village and gained the high-road that

led homewards through the forest.

“That school building has long been in ruins,” said the man at his side

presently; “it was burnt down by order of the Elders of the community

at least ten years ago. The village has been uninhabited ever since.

But the simulacra of certain ghastly events that took place under

that roof in past days still continue. And the ‘shells’ of the chief

participants still enact there the dreadful deeds that led to its final

destruction, and to the desertion of the whole settlement. They were

devil-worshippers!”

Harris listened with beads of perspiration on his forehead that did

not come alone from their leisurely pace through the cool night.

Although he had seen this man but once before in his life, and had

never before exchanged so much as a word with him, he felt a degree of

confidence and a subtle sense of safety and well-being in his presence

that were the most healing influences he could possibly have wished

after the experience he had been through. For all that, he still felt

as if he were walking in a dream, and though he heard every word that

fell from his companion’s lips, it was only the next day that the full

import of all he said became fully clear to him. The presence of this

quiet stranger, the man with the wonderful eyes which he felt now,

rather than saw, applied a soothing anodyne to his shattered spirit

that healed him through and through. And this healing influence,

distilled from the dark figure at his side, satisfied his first

imperative need, so that he almost forgot to realise how strange and

opportune it was that the man should be there at all.

It somehow never occurred to him to ask his name, or to feel any undue

wonder that one passing tourist should take so much trouble on behalf

of another. He just walked by his side, listening to his quiet words,

and allowing himself to enjoy the very wonderful experience after his

recent ordeal, of being helped, strengthened, blessed. Only once,

remembering vaguely something of his reading of years ago, he turned to

the man beside him, after some more than usually remarkable words, and

heard himself, almost involuntarily it seemed, putting the question:

“Then are you a Rosicrucian, sir, perhaps?” But the stranger had

ignored the words, or possibly not heard them, for he continued with

his talk as though unconscious of any interruption, and Harris became

aware that another somewhat unusual picture had taken possession of his

mind, as they walked there side by side through the cool reaches of the

forest, and that he had found his imagination suddenly charged with the

childhood memory of Jacob wrestling with an angel,--wrestling all night

with a being of superior quality whose strength eventually became his

own.

“It was your abrupt conversation with the priest at supper that first

put me upon the track of this remarkable occurrence,” he heard the

man’s quiet voice beside him in the darkness, “and it was from him

I learned after you left the story of the devil-worship that became

secretly established in the heart of this simple and devout little

community.”

“Devil-worship! Here----!” Harris stammered, aghast.

“Yes--here;--conducted secretly for years by a group of Brothers before

unexplained disappearances in the neighbourhood led to its discovery.

For where could they have found a safer place in the whole wide world

for their ghastly traffic and perverted powers than here, in the very

precincts--under cover of the very shadow of saintliness and holy

living?”

“Awful, awful!” whispered the silk merchant, “and when I tell you the

words they used to me----”

“I know it all,” the stranger said quietly. “I saw and heard

everything. My plan first was to wait till the end and then to take

steps for their destruction, but in the interest of your personal

safety,”--he spoke with the utmost gravity and conviction,--“in the

interest of the safety of your soul, I made my presence known when I

did, and before the conclusion had been reached----”

“My safety! The danger, then, was real. They were alive and----” Words

failed him. He stopped in the road and turned towards his companion,

the shining of whose eyes he could just make out in the gloom.

“It was a concourse of the shells of violent men, spiritually-developed

but evil men, seeking after death--the death of the body--to prolong

their vile and unnatural existence. And had they accomplished their

object you, in turn, at the death of your body, would have passed into

their power and helped to swell their dreadful purposes.”

Harris made no reply. He was trying hard to concentrate his mind upon

the sweet and common things of life. He even thought of silk and St.

Paul’s Churchyard and the faces of his partners in business.

“For you came all prepared to be caught,” he heard the other’s

voice like some one talking to him from a distance; “your deeply

introspective mood had already reconstructed the past so vividly, so

intensely, that you were _en rapport_ at once with any forces of those

days that chanced still to be lingering. And they swept you up all

unresistingly.”

Harris tightened his hold upon the stranger’s arm as he heard. At the

moment he had room for one emotion only. It did not seem to him odd

that this stranger should have such intimate knowledge of his mind.

“It is, alas, chiefly the evil emotions that are able to leave their

photographs upon surrounding scenes and objects,” the other added, “and

who ever heard of a place haunted by a noble deed, or of beautiful and

lovely ghosts revisiting the glimpses of the moon? It is unfortunate.

But the wicked passions of men’s hearts alone seem strong enough to

leave pictures that persist; the good are ever too lukewarm.”

The stranger sighed as he spoke. But Harris, exhausted and shaken as

he was to the very core, paced by his side, only half listening. He

moved as in a dream still. It was very wonderful to him, this walk

home under the stars in the early hours of the October morning, the

peaceful forest all about them, mist rising here and there over the

small clearings, and the sound of water from a hundred little invisible

streams filling in the pauses of the talk. In after life he always

looked back to it as something magical and impossible, something that

had seemed too beautiful, too curiously beautiful, to have been quite

true. And, though at the time he heard and understood but a quarter of

what the stranger said, it came back to him afterwards, staying with

him till the end of his days, and always with a curious, haunting sense

of unreality, as though he had enjoyed a wonderful dream of which he

could recall only faint and exquisite portions.

But the horror of the earlier experience was effectually dispelled; and

when they reached the railway inn, somewhere about three o’clock in

the morning, Harris shook the stranger’s hand gratefully, effusively,

meeting the look of those rather wonderful eyes with a full heart, and

went up to his room, thinking in a hazy, dream-like way of the words

with which the stranger had brought their conversation to an end as

they left the confines of the forest--

“And if thought and emotion can persist in this way so long after

the brain that sent them forth has crumbled into dust, how vitally

important it must be to control their very birth in the heart, and

guard them with the keenest possible restraint.”

But Harris, the silk merchant, slept better than might have been

expected, and with a soundness that carried him half-way through the

day. And when he came downstairs and learned that the stranger had

already taken his departure, he realised with keen regret that he had

never once thought of asking his name.

“Yes, he signed in the visitors’ book,” said the girl in reply to his

question.

And he turned over the blotted pages and found there, the last entry,

in a very delicate and individual handwriting--

“_John Silence_, London.”