ions seen in
moving water, and unquestionably obeying in some way the pitch and volume
of the sound that continued to pour its resonant tide about the room. The
sound manipulated the shape; the connection between the two was evident.
That, at least, he grasped. Somebody hidden elsewhere in the house--Mr.
Skale probably, of course, in one of his secret chambers--was
experimenting with the "true names" of these two "common objects,"
altering their normal forms by inserting the vibrations of sound between
their ultimate molecules.

Only, this simple statement that his clearing mind made to itself in no
way accounted for the fascination of horror that accompanied the
manifestation. For he recognized it as the joy of horror and not alone
the torment. His blood ran swiftly to the rhythm of these humming
vibrations that filled the space about him; and his terror, his
bewilderment, his curious sense of elation seemed to him as messengers of
far more terrific sensations that communicated to him dimly the rushing
wonder of some aspect of the Unknown in its ultimate nature essentially
beautiful.

This, however, only dawned upon him later, when the experiment was
complete and he had time to reflect upon it all next day; for, meanwhile,
to see the proportions he had known since childhood alter thus before his
eyes was unbelievably dreadful. To see your friend sufficiently himself
still to be recognizable, yet in essentials, at the same time,
grotesquely altered, would doubtless touch a climax of distress and
horror for you. The changing of these two things, so homely and
well-known in themselves, into something that was not themselves,
involved an idea of destruction that was worse than even death, for it
meant that the idea in the mind no longer corresponded to the visible
object there before the eyes. The correspondence was no longer a true
one. The result was a lie.

To describe the actual forms assumed by these shifting and wavering
bodies is not possible, for when Spinrobin gives the details one simply
fails to recognize either cupboard or curtain. To say that the dark,
lumbering cupboard, standing normally against the wall down there in the
shadows, loomed suddenly forward and upward, bent, twisted, and stretched
out the whole of one side towards him like a misshapen arm, can convey
nothing of the world of new sensations that the little secretary felt
while actually watching it in progress in that haunted chamber of Skale's