minated the forces that had escaped from their proper sphere, until
at length the room was reduced to silence and perfect order again.

"Judging by the immense relief which also communicated itself to my
nerves I then felt that the crisis was over and Smith was wholly master
of the situation.

"But hardly had I begun to congratulate myself upon this result, and to
gather my scattered senses about me, when, uttering a loud cry, I saw
him leap out of the circle and fling himself into the air--as it seemed
to me, into the empty air. Then, even while holding my breath for dread
of the crash he was bound to come upon the floor, I saw him strike with
a dull thud against a solid body in mid-air, and the next instant he was
wrestling with some ponderous thing that was absolutely invisible to me,
and the room shook with the struggle.

"To and fro _they_ swayed, sometimes lurching in one direction,
sometimes in another, and always in horrible proximity to myself, as I
leaned trembling against the wall and watched the encounter.

"It lasted at most but a short minute or two, ending as suddenly as it
had begun. Smith, with an unexpected movement, threw up his arms with a
cry of relief. At the same instant there was a wild, tearing shriek in
the air beside me and something rushed past us with a noise like the
passage of a flock of big birds. Both windows rattled as if they would
break away from their sashes. Then a sense of emptiness and peace
suddenly came over the room, and I knew that all was over.

"Smith, his face exceedingly white, but otherwise strangely composed,
turned to me at once.

"'God!--if you hadn't come--You deflected the stream; broke it up--' he
whispered. 'You saved me.'"

The doctor made a long pause. Presently he felt for his pipe in the
darkness, groping over the table behind us with both hands. No one spoke
for a bit, but all dreaded the sudden glare that would come when he
struck the match. The fire was nearly out and the great hall was pitch
dark.

But the story-teller did not strike that match. He was merely gaining
time for some hidden reason of his own. And presently he went on with
his tale in a more subdued voice.

"I quite forget," he said, "how I got back to my own room. I only know
that I lay with two lighted candles for the rest of the night, and the
first thing I did in the morning was to let the landlady know I was
leaving her house at the end of the week.

"Smith still has my Rabbini