Part 19 (2/2)

The light began to dawn in my mind at last. But the Colonel--who had never heard the term before, and was besides feeling considerably worked up for a plain man with all this mystery he knew not how to grapple with--the Colonel stood, with the most dumfoundered look ever seen on a human countenance, and continued to roar, and stammer, and stare.

”And why,” he began, savage with the desire to find something visible he could fight--”why, in the name of all the blazes--?” and then stopped as John Silence moved up and took his arm.

”There, my dear Colonel Wragge,” he said gently, ”you touch the heart of the whole thing. You ask 'Why.' That is precisely our problem.” He held the soldier's eyes firmly with his own. ”And that, too, I think, we shall soon know. Come and let us talk over a plan of action--that room with the double doors, perhaps.”

The word ”action” calmed him a little, and he led the way, without further speech, back into the house, and down the long stone pa.s.sage to the room where we had heard his stories on the night of our arrival. I understood from the doctor's glance that my presence would not make the interview easier for our host, and I went upstairs to my own room--shaking.

But in the solitude of my room the vivid memories of the last hour revived so mercilessly that I began to feel I should never in my whole life lose the dreadful picture of Miss Wragge running--that dreadful human climax after all the non-human mystery in the wood--and I was not sorry when a servant knocked at my door and said that Colonel Wragge would be glad if I would join them in the little smoking-room.

”I think it is better you should be present,” was all Colonel Wragge said as I entered the room. I took the chair with my back to the window.

There was still an hour before lunch, though I imagine that the usual divisions of the day hardly found a place in the thoughts of any one of us.

The atmosphere of the room was what I might call electric. The Colonel was positively bristling; he stood with his back to the fire, fingering an unlit black cigar, his face flushed, his being obviously roused and ready for action. He hated this mystery. It was poisonous to his nature, and he longed to meet something face to face--something he could gauge and fight. Dr. Silence, I noticed at once, was sitting before the map of the estate which was spread upon a table. I knew by his expression the state of his mind. He was in the thick of it all, knew it, delighted in it, and was working at high pressure. He recognised my presence with a lifted eyelid, and the flash of the eye, contrasted with his stillness and composure, told me volumes.

”I was about to explain to our host briefly what seems to me afoot in all this business,” he said without looking up, ”when he asked that you should join us so that we can all work together.” And, while signifying my a.s.sent, I caught myself wondering what quality it was in the calm speech of this undemonstrative man that was so full of power, so charged with the strange, virile personality behind it and that seemed to inspire us with his own confidence as by a process of radiation.

”Mr. Hubbard,” he went on gravely, turning to the soldier, ”knows something of my methods, and in more than one--er--interesting situation has proved of a.s.sistance. What we want now”--and here he suddenly got up and took his place on the mat beside the Colonel, and looked hard at him--”is men who have self-control, who are sure of themselves, whose minds at the critical moment will emit positive forces, instead of the wavering and uncertain currents due to negative feelings--due, for instance, to fear.”

He looked at us each in turn. Colonel Wragge moved his feet farther apart, and squared his shoulders; and I felt guilty but said nothing, conscious that my latent store of courage was being deliberately hauled to the front. He was winding me up like a clock.

”So that, in what is yet to come,” continued our leader, ”each of us will contribute his share of power, and ensure success for my plan.”

”I'm not afraid of anything I can _see_,” said the Colonel bluntly.

”I'm ready,” I heard myself say, as it were automatically, ”for anything,” and then added, feeling the declaration was lamely insufficient, ”and everything.”

Dr. Silence left the mat and began walking to and fro about the room, both hands plunged deep into the pockets of his shooting-jacket.

Tremendous vitality streamed from him. I never took my eyes off the small, moving figure; small yes,--and yet somehow making me think of a giant plotting the destruction of worlds. And his manner was gentle, as always, soothing almost, and his words uttered quietly without emphasis or emotion. Most of what he said was addressed, though not too obviously, to the Colonel.

”The violence of this sudden attack,” he said softly, pacing to and fro beneath the bookcase at the end of the room, ”is due, of course, partly to the fact that tonight the moon is at the full”--here he glanced at me for a moment--”and partly to the fact that we have all been so deliberately concentrating upon the matter. Our thinking, our investigation, has stirred it into unusual activity. I mean that the intelligent force behind these manifestations has realised that some one is busied about its destruction. And it is now on the defensive: more, it is aggressive.”

”But 'it'--what is 'it'?” began the soldier, fuming. ”What, in the name of all that's dreadful, _is_ a fire-elemental?”

”I cannot give you at this moment,” replied Dr. Silence, turning to him, but undisturbed by the interruption, ”a lecture on the nature and history of magic, but can only say that an Elemental is the active force behind the elements,--whether earth, air, water, _or fire_,--it is impersonal in its essential nature, but can be focused, personified, ensouled, so to say, by those who know how--by magicians, if you will--for certain purposes of their own, much in the same way that steam and electricity can be harnessed by the practical man of this century.

”Alone, these blind elemental energies can accomplish little, but governed and directed by the trained will of a powerful manipulator they may become potent activities for good or evil. They are the basis of all magic, and it is the motive behind them that const.i.tutes the magic 'black' or 'white'; they can be the vehicles of curses or of blessings, for a curse is nothing more than the thought of a violent will perpetuated. And in such cases--cases like this--the conscious, directing will of the mind that is using the elemental stands always behind the phenomena--”

”You think that my brother--!” broke in the Colonel, aghast.

”Has nothing whatever to do with it--directly. The fire-elemental that has here been tormenting you and your household was sent upon its mission long before you, or your family, or your ancestors, or even the nation you belong to--unless I am much mistaken--was even in existence.

We will come to that a little later; after the experiment I propose to make we shall be more positive. At present I can only say we have to deal now, not only with the phenomenon of Attacking Fire merely, but with the vindictive and enraged intelligence that is directing it from behind the scenes--vindictive and enraged,”--he repeated the words.

”That explains--” began Colonel Wragge, seeking furiously for words he could not find quickly enough.

”Much,” said John Silence, with a gesture to restrain him.

He stopped a moment in the middle of his walk, and a deep silence came down over the little room. Through the windows the sunlight seemed less bright, the long line of dark hills less friendly, making me think of a vast wave towering to heaven and about to break and overwhelm us.

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