of the anointed bodies stifled him, exciting him to the
old madness of the Sabbath, the dance of the witches and sorcerers doing
honour to the personified Evil of the world.

"Anoint and away! Anoint and away!" they cried in wild chorus about him.
"To the Dance that never dies! To the sweet and fearful fantasy of
evil!"

Another moment and he would have yielded and gone, for his will turned
soft and the flood of passionate memory all but overwhelmed him,
when--so can a small thing after the whole course of an adventure--he
caught his foot upon a loose stone in the edge of the wall, and then
fell with a sudden crash on to the ground below. But he fell towards the
houses, in the open space of dust and cobblestones, and fortunately not
into the gaping depth of the valley on the farther side.

And they, too, came in a tumbling heap about him, like flies upon a
piece of food, but as they fell he was released for a moment from the
power of their touch, and in that brief instant of freedom there flashed
into his mind the sudden intuition that saved him. Before he could
regain his feet he saw them scrabbling awkwardly back upon the wall, as
though bat-like they could only fly by dropping from a height, and had
no hold upon him in the open. Then, seeing them perched there in a row
like cats upon a roof, all dark and singularly shapeless, their eyes
like lamps, the sudden memory came back to him of Ilse's terror at the
sight of fire.

Quick as a flash he found his matches and lit the dead leaves that lay
under the wall.

Dry and withered, they caught fire at once, and the wind carried the
flame in a long line down the length of the wall, licking upwards as it
ran; and with shrieks and wailings, the crowded row of forms upon the
top melted away into the air on the other side, and were gone with a
great rush and whirring of their bodies down into the heart of the
haunted valley, leaving Vezin breathless and shaken in the middle of the
deserted ground.

"Ilse!" he called feebly; "Ilse!" for his heart ached to think that she
was really gone to the great Dance without him, and that he had lost the
opportunity of its fearful joy. Yet at the same time his relief was so
great, and he was so dazed and troubled in mind with the whole thing,
that he hardly knew what he was saying, and only cried aloud in the
fierce storm of his emotion....

The fire under the wall ran its course, and the moonlight came out
again, soft and clear, f