f the fire appeared a seething, writhing mass of
what looked like white luminous snakes. And in the midst of this mass
sprang up a cylindrical form, which grew and grew until it attained a
height of ten or twelve feet, when it remained stationary and threw
out branches. And the three men now saw it was a tree--a tree with a
sleek, pulpy, semi-transparent, perspiring trunk full of a thick,
white, vibrating, luminous fluid; and that it was laden with a fruit,
in shape resembling an apple, but of the same hue and material as the
trunk. Spread out on the ground around it, were its roots, twitching
and palpitating with repulsive life, and bare with a bareness that
shocked the senses. It was so utterly and inconceivably unlike what
Hamar, Curtis and Kelson had imagined the Unknown--and yet, withal, so
monstrous (not merely in its shape but in its suggestions), and so
vividly real and livid, that they were not merely terrified--they were
stricken with a terror that rendered them dumb and helpless. And as
they looked at it, from out the trunk, shot an enormous thing--white
and glistening, and fashioned like a human tongue. And after pointing
derisively at them, it withdrew; whereupon all the fruit shook, as if
convulsed with unseemly laughter. They then saw between the foremost
branches of the tree a big eye. The white of it was thick and pasty,
the iris spongy in texture, and the pupil bulging with a lurid light.
It stared at them with a steady stare--insolent and quizzical. Hamar
and his friends stared back at it in fascinated horror, and would have
continued staring at it indefinitely, had not Hamar's mercenary
instincts come to their rescue. He recollected that time was pressing,
and that unless he got into communication with the strange thing at
once, according to the book, it would vanish--and he might never be
able to get in touch with it again. Thus egged on, he made a great
effort to regain his courage, and at length succeeded in forcing
himself to speak. Though his voice was weak and shaking he managed to
pronounce the prescribed mode of address, viz.:--"Bara phonen etek
mo," which being interpreted is, "Spirit from the Unknown, give ear to
me." He then explained their earnest desire to pay homage to the
Supernatural, and to be initiated into the mysteries of the Black Art.
When Hamar had concluded his address, the anticipations of the three
as to how it would be answered, or whether it would be answered at
all--were s