nversed beneath my window at such
an hour. I rose quietly and crept across the room, endeavoring to
avoid showing my head in the moonlight. By the exercise of a little
ingenuity I obtained a view of the road before the inn doors.

At first I was unable to make out from whence this muttered
conversation arose, until fixing my attention upon a patch of shadow
underlying a tall tree which stood almost immediately opposite the
window, I presently made out two figures there. Somewhere, a dog was
howling mournfully.

For a long time I failed to distinguish any more than indefinite
outlines, nor, throughout the murmured colloquy, did I once detect
even so much as a phrase. The night remained perfect and the moon
possessed a tropical brilliance, casting deep and sharply defined
shadows, and lending to the whole visible landscape a quality of
hardness which for some obscure reason set me thinking of a painting
by Wiertz.

The low-pitched voices continued in what I thought was a dispute.
Something in the voice of the woman, although I could only hear her
occasionally, piqued yet eluded my memory. But it was the voice of a
young woman, whilst that of the man suggested a foreigner of some sort
and one past youth. Subconsciously pursuing the Wiertz idea, I know
not why, I invested the dimly-visible speakers with distinct
personalities. The man became Asmodeus, master of the revels at the
Black Sabbath, and the young woman I cast for that "young witch"
depicted in one of the canvasses of the weird Belgian genius.

Everything in the black and silver scene seemed to fit the picture.
Here was the unholy tryst, and I pictured the distant woods "peopled
with gray things, the branches burdened with winged creatures arisen
from the pit; the darkness a curtain 'broidered with luminous eyes...."

And it was my recollection of that phrase, from a work on sorcery,
which now set every nerve tingling. Closely I peered into the masking
shadow, telling myself that I was the victim of a subjective
hallucination. If this was indeed the case or if what I saw was
actual, I must leave each who reads to determine for himself; and the
episodes which follow and which I must presently relate will doubtless
aid the decision.

But it seemed to me that for one fleeting moment "luminous eyes"
indeed "'broidered the darkness!'" From out of the shade below the big
tree they regarded me greenly--and I saw them no more.

A while longer I watched, but could