hook
the old man, and as if against his will he spread out his other hand
likewise, his two hands lying between those of the Dark Master. Then
there fell a terrible and awestruck silence on the hall.

The stillness was perfect, and continued for a long while. Slowly
occurred a weird and strange thing, for, although no blast whimpered
down the chimney, the ashes fell away from the embers, which began to
glow more redly and set out the forms of the Dark Master and the blind
harper in a ruddy light. Suddenly a man pointed to the feet of the Dark
Master, and would have cried out but that another man struck him back.

For the ashes had drifted out from the fireplace, flake after flake, and
were settling about the feet of the Dark Master beneath the table. They
rose slowly into a little gray pile; then one of the men shrieked in
horror at the sight, and the Dark Master threw out his head.

"Slay him," he said quietly and drew in his head once more, staring at
the table.

There was a thudding blow and a groan, then the stillness of death. The
ashes were quiet; the fire glowed ruddily. After a little there came a
soft whirl of soot down the chimney, blackening the embers. The soot
rose and fell, rose and fell, again and again; it was as if an eddying
draft of wind were trying to raise it. Finally it was lifted, but it
only whirled about and about over the embers, like a shape drawn
together by some uncanny force.

The Dark Master raised his head as a clash of steel and the voice of the
watcher came from the outer doorway.

"Master, the blast thickens with black fog!"

"Remain on watch," said O'Donnell, and his head fell.

But through the hall men's hands went out to one another in the
darkness. For storm-driven fog was not a thing that many men had seen
even on the west coast, and when it did happen men said that a warlock
was at work. There was not far to seek for the warlock in this case,
muttered the O'Donnells.

Now the Dark Master looked into the fireplace and that whirling figure
of soot raised itself anew and began its unearthly dance over the
embers. After no long time men saw that the pile of gray ashes under the
table was lifting also, lifting and whirling as though the wind spun it;
but there was no wind.

"There is a man to be blinded," said the Dark Master. "Let him be
blinded with fog and snow, and the men with him, and let the wind come
out of the east and drive him to this place."

Slowly, so slowl