tronger." My nerves centered throbbingly back of my eyes, and I gave
them the whole force of my will.

The thing came closer and the eyes seemed to burn into my very brain.
With a great effort I brought myself back to control, dropping to my
hands and knees and gripping the ground for strength.

"This is nothing, this is nothing," I kept saying to myself
aloud--until I realized suddenly that my voice had risen almost to a
scream, and I locked my teeth tight on my lip.

I no longer returned the gaze from my own power; it held me of itself.
I felt my brain grow curiously numb and every muscle in my body
contracted with a pain almost unbearable. Still the thing came closer
and closer, and it seemed to me, half dazed as I was, that it advanced
much faster than before.

Then suddenly I felt a sensation of cold and moisture on my arms and
legs and a pressure against my body, and I realized, as in a dream,
that I had entered the stream of water!

I was crawling toward the thing on my hands and knees, without having
even been conscious that I had moved.

That brought despair and a last supreme struggle to resist whatever
mysterious power it was that dragged me forward.

Cold beads of sweat rolled from my forehead. Beneath the surface of
the water my hands gripped the rocks as in a vise. My teeth had sunk
deep into my lower lip and covered my chin with blood, though I did not
know that till afterward.

But I was pulled loose from my hold, and forward. I bent the whole
force of my will to the effort not to move, but my hand left the rock
and crept forward. I was fully conscious of what I was doing. I knew
that if I could once draw my eyes away from that compelling gaze the
spell would be broken, but the power to do so was not in me.

The thing had halted on the farther bank of the stream. Still I moved
forward. The water now lapped against my chest; soon it was about my
shoulders.

I was fully conscious of the fact that in another ten feet the surface
would close over my head, and that I had not the strength to swim or
fight the current; but still I went forward. I tried to cry out, but
could force no sound through my lips.

Then suddenly the eyes began to disappear. But that at least was
comprehensible, for I could distinctly see the black and heavy lids
closing over them, like the curtain on a stage. They fell slowly.

The eyes became half moons, then narrowed to a thin slit. I rose,
panting like a ma