nous colour came and went, just as though his internal
light were breathing. Then he grew suddenly calm, by a supreme exertion
of his will.

"You know this kills me?"

"Haven't you been doing your best this last hour to make me ripe for
Sullenbode? Well then, cheer up, and join the pleasure party!"

"You say it as a joke, but it is the miserable truth."

Haunte's jeering malevolence had completely vanished. He looked a sick
man--yet somehow his face had become nobler.

"I would be very sorry for you, Haunte, if it did not entail my being
also very sorry for myself. We are now all three together on the same
errand--which doesn't appear to have struck you yet."

"But why this errand at all?" asked Corpang quietly. "Can't you men
exercise self-control till you have arrived out of danger?"

Haunte fixed him with wild eyes. "No. The phantoms come trooping in on
me already."

He sat down moodily, but the next minute was up again.

"And I cannot wait.... the game is started."

Soon afterward, by silent consent, they began to walk the ledge, Haunte
in front. It was narrow, ascending, and slippery, so that extreme
caution was demanded. The way was lighted by the self-luminous snow and
rocks.

When they had covered about half a mile, Maskull, who went second of the
party, staggered, caught the cliff, and finally sat down.

"The drink works. My old sensations are returning, but worse."

Haunte turned back. "Then you are a doomed man."

Maskull, though fully conscious of his companions and situation,
imagined that he was being oppressed by a black, shapeless, supernatural
being, who was trying to clasp him. He was filled with horror, trembled
violently, yet could not move a limb. Sweat tumbled off his face in
great drops. The waking nightmare lasted a long time, but during that
space it kept coming and going. At one moment the vision seemed on the
point of departing; the next it almost took shape--which he knew would
be his death. Suddenly it vanished altogether--he was free. A fresh
spring breeze fanned his face; he heard the slow, solitary singing of a
sweet bird; and it seemed to him as if a poem had shot together in his
soul. Such flashing, heartbreaking joy he had never experienced before
in all his life! Almost immediately that too vanished.

Sitting up, he passed his hand across his eyes and swayed quietly, like
one who has been visited by an angel.

"Your colour changed to white," said Corpang. "What happ