tured
beyond description--stood and gazed in open-mouthed ecstasy.

Then his eyes fell on the children and he noiselessly slipped back under
cover of a tree.

Hand in hand the boy and girl advanced to the water's edge, and
kneeling, commenced to recite some strange incantation, which Van Hielen
tried in vain to interpret. Sometimes their voices reached a high,
plaintive key; sometimes they sank to a low murmur, strangely musical,
and strangely suggestive of the babbling of brook water over stones and
pebbles. When they had finished their incantation, they got up, and
running to some bushes, returned in a few seconds with their arms full
of flowers, which they threw with great dexterity on to the leaves of
the giant lily. With their faces still turned to the water they remained
standing, side by side, whilst a silence--deep and impressive, and
shared, so it appeared to Van Hielen, by all nature--fell upon them.

A cold current of air, rising apparently from the pool, blew across the
opening, and sweeping past Van Hielen, set all the leaves in motion. It
rustled on till its echoes gradually ceased, and all was still again. It
now seemed to Van Hielen that the character of everything around
underwent a subtle change; and the feeling that every object around him
was indulging in a hearty laugh at his expense intensified with every
breath he drew. For the first time Van Hielen was afraid. He could not
define the cause of his fear--but that only made his fear the more
acute. He was frightened of the wind and darkness, and of something more
than the wind and darkness--something concealed in--something cloaked by
the wind and darkness. Even the atmosphere had altered--it, too, was
making game of him. It distorted his vision. The things he saw around
him were no longer stationary--they moved. They twirled and twisted
themselves into all sorts of grotesque and fanciful attitudes; grew
large, then small; nearer and then more distant. The plot of ground in
front of which the children knelt played all manner of pranks--pranks
Van Hielen did not at all like. It moved round and round--faster and
faster, until it eventually became a whirlpool; which suddenly reversed
and assumed the appearance of a pyramid revolving on its apex. Quicker
and quicker it spun round--closer and closer it drew; until, without
warning, it suddenly stopped and disappeared; whilst its place was taken
by an oddly shaped bulge in the ground, which, swaying bac