o me unconsciously, "The
Acherontia Atropos of the Sphinges, what you call the 'Death's-head
Moth'?"

The patient went on without stopping, "Then he began to whisper. 'Rats,
rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them, and every one a
life. And dogs to eat them, and cats too. All lives! All red blood,
with years of life in it, and not merely buzzing flies!' I laughed at
him, for I wanted to see what he could do. Then the dogs howled, away
beyond the dark trees in His house. He beckoned me to the window. I
got up and looked out, and He raised his hands, and seemed to call out
without using any words. A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on
like the shape of a flame of fire. And then He moved the mist to the
right and left, and I could see that there were thousands of rats with
their eyes blazing red, like His only smaller. He held up his hand,
and they all stopped, and I thought he seemed to be saying, 'All these
lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through
countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!' And then a red
cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close over my eyes, and
before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and
saying to Him, 'Come in, Lord and Master!' The rats were all gone, but
He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an
inch wide, just as the Moon herself has often come in through the
tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and splendour."

His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again,
and he continued, but it seemed as though his memory had gone on
working in the interval for his story was further advanced. I was
about to call him back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me,
"Let him go on. Do not interrupt him. He cannot go back, and maybe
could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread of his thought."

He proceeded, "All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send
me anything, not even a blowfly, and when the moon got up I was pretty
angry with him. When he did slide in through the window, though it
was shut, and did not even knock, I got mad with him. He sneered at
me, and his white face looked out of the mist with his red eyes
gleaming, and he went on as though he owned the whole place, and I was
no one. He didn't even smell the same as he went by me. I couldn't
hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs. Harker had come into the
room."