it entered his heart, increasing his sense of bewilderment and
unreality. No air stirred, the leaves of the plane trees stood
motionless, the near details were defined with the sharpness of day
against dark shadows, and in the distance the fields and woods melted
away into haze and shimmering mistiness.

But the breath caught in his throat and he stood stockstill as though
transfixed when his gaze passed from the horizon and fell upon the near
prospect in the depth of the valley at his feet. The whole lower slopes
of the hill, that lay hid from the brightness of the moon, were aglow,
and through the glare he saw countless moving forms, shifting thick and
fast between the openings of the trees; while overhead, like leaves
driven by the wind, he discerned flying shapes that hovered darkly one
moment against the sky and then settled down with cries and weird
singing through the branches into the region that was aflame.

Spellbound, he stood and stared for a time that he could not measure.
And then, moved by one of the terrible impulses that seemed to control
the whole adventure, he climbed swiftly upon the top of the broad
coping, and balanced a moment where the valley gaped at his feet. But in
that very instant, as he stood hovering, a sudden movement among the
shadows of the houses caught his eye, and he turned to see the outline
of a large animal dart swiftly across the open space behind him, and
land with a flying leap upon the top of the wall a little lower down. It
ran like the wind to his feet and then rose up beside him upon the
ramparts. A shiver seemed to run through the moonlight, and his sight
trembled for a second. His heart pulsed fearfully. Ilse stood beside
him, peering into his face.

Some dark substance, he saw, stained the girl's face and skin, shining
in the moonlight as she stretched her hands towards him; she was dressed
in wretched tattered garments that yet became her mightily; rue and
vervain twined about her temples; her eyes glittered with unholy light.
He only just controlled the wild impulse to take her in his arms and
leap with her from their giddy perch into the valley below.

"See!" she cried, pointing with an arm on which the rags fluttered in
the rising wind towards the forest aglow in the distance. "See where
they await us! The woods are alive! Already the Great Ones are there,
and the dance will soon begin! The salve is here! Anoint yourself and
come!"

Though a moment before the sk