CHAPTER X

WE WATCH TOGETHER

IN spite of my strong desire that Pamela should he quite away from the celebration of the ritual of the Abyss, I could not help feeling glad that I should have a sharer of my watch. As the celebration drew near I filled with a fresh, burning desire to get at the truth of the happenings at the end of the rites; and I hoped that two heads would prove better than one in the matter. I had also a strong hope that the two of us together would mutually fortify one another against the terror.

On the night of the full moon I waited to see Woodfell's assistants arrive; then I went up stairs and helped Pamela over the partition wall and into No. 20. She was excited, elate, and not at all fearful. We took up our post at the window of the empty room.

It was a still, hot night, and the oppressive darkness weighed on us. Moreover, we were too excited and expectant to talk much. Presently the door into the garden opened, the roaring of the bull-roarer rose on the throbbing air, and the celebrants in their strange ritual garb filed down the garden to the lawn, under the mist of smoke from the swinging censers. Pamela's hand stole into mine, and I clasped it firmly.

The ritual began, and as it went on I found that, seeing it for the second time, I could follow it with greater understanding. I could not, indeed, catch the meaning of the bulk of the symbolic gestures, but I caught the meaning of some of them, and I grasped the form of the ritual as a whole.

Woodfell himself was plainly the chief celebrant of the whole of the earlier, formal part, which was conducted in the same mechanical, perfunctory fashion as before. It seemed to me to be of the nature of a general invocation of the lords of the Abyss. In this earlier part the language in which the invocations were uttered changed; when I caught the name of Moloch, Woodfell was using a different language from that he was using when I caught the name of Mithras.

In the second part each of the seven became the chief celebrant in turn. Even if Pamela had not prompted me at the beginning of each, whispering, "The rite of Adonis" or "The rite of Nodens" or "The rite of Shiva," I think that I should have grasped this, but she made it quite plain to me. I observed that the tongues changed, that each celebrant performed his rite in a new tongue, and I was very quick to ob serve the change from the formal and perfunctory celebration of the rite to a growing fervor and intensity. The change came when Woodfell left the general invocation and began to perform the special rite of Pan in a very barbarous Latin.

It was the first of the rites of a particular lord of the Abyss. At the end of it Marks became the chief celebrant, performing the rite of Adonis in an unknown tongue. One after another the rest of them became the celebrant of a rite, and I perceived that in each not only the language but also the ceremonies and the symbolic gestures changed. The voices of the other celebrants were lower and less clear than the voices of Woodfell and Marks —all of them except the voice of the dilettante with the pointed beard, which was shrill and womanish; I gathered that he was performing the rite of Mithras in yet another barbarous Latin.

All the while the fervor of the worshipers was growing more and more intense. They began to give forth the responses with a full-throated vigor, fiercely, with a deep, growling savagery of utterance. My nerves began to tingle sympathetically as their emotion and the ritual worked upon them. Pamela's hand tightened its clasp of mine. I could feel her quivering with eager expectancy or with dread, and I slipped my arm round her.

Then came the pause in the ritual, and in the silence I could hear Pamela's quick, excited panting. Then came the sharp bleat of the slaughtered lamb.

With a gasp Pamela struggled to her feet, drawing me up with her.

"Steady—steady," I muttered, tightening my clasp of her waist.

On my words the united adjuration to the lords of the Abyss broke out, and the names came roaring up to us in a fierce tumultuous outcry, as the rolling clouds of incense veiled the lawn from our eyes.

"Look! Now look! And listen!" I cried sharply, and without thought I shook her to compel her attention.

The fierce tumult changed to a joyous, triumphant shouting, and there came the patter of dancing feet. We looked down, but the dancing forms were very faint and vague in the mist of the incense, quite uncountable, and the veil was thickening. But it seemed to me that under the joyous shouting I heard an undertone of the soft laughter of women.

Pamela was trembling pitifully.

"Oh, who are they? Who are they?" she cried.

"Watch! Watch! Oh, listen!" I cried.

Then once more the odor of the goat floated up to my nostrils. This time it smote me with no panic; but a sudden surge of passion flooded my being. I forgot the rites; I could not see them; I could only see Pamela's pale face and starry, swimming eyes. The world faded; we were alone in the universe.

"I love you, Pamela! Oh, how I love you!" I cried, and I kissed her lips and eyes and hair.

She threw her arms round my neck, straining to me, and we rocked on our feet.

Then, in a flash, I knew the essence of the mystery, and with the knowledge came the revulsion and a fear. I knew that I must get her out of the house at once, on the instant. Through all the confusion of my mind and senses that was clear.

I drew her through the door clinging to me, panting and sobbing softly in an equal vehemence of emotion, into the front room, and through the window. I had to draw her through it, carry her along the gutter, and lift her over the partition wall.

Then, leaning over it, I kissed her and said, "I do love you so. Goodnight. Get to bed at once."

She threw her arms round my neck and kissed me and cried, "Oh, I can't let you go so soon!"

"You must—you must, dear. The morning will soon be here; good night," I said.

"Good night, dear. Good night," she said faintly, and kissed me again, and loosed me, and turned.

"Be careful, oh, be careful how you go," I said anxiously; and, trembling, I watched her faltering passage to her window.

She climbed into it, heavily, looked out and said, "Good night, dear; good night."

"Good night, dear," I said; and turning by the most violent effort of will I have ever compassed, I turned myself and went along the gutter into my window.

I had had enough of the accursed rites; I banged to the door of the back room, and stumbled down the stairs to my study in a raging turmoil of emotion. I dropped into the easy chair before the open window. I lay back in it like a log, keeping myself inert by a strong, straining of my will, straining to get control of my emotions and draw myself from the clutches of the Abyss, while the beads of sweat rolled down my face.

How long I struggled I do not know, but the cool air from the street helped me. I grew quieter; then from quietness, in an extreme reaction, I fell into a drowsy stupor. How long it bound me I do not know; I was roused from it by the sound of voices at the door of No. 19.

Above them came the voice of Woodfell:

"That's all very well as far as it goes," he said. "But next summer we will add the rite of Ashtaroth."

I heard the tramp of footsteps grow fainter down the street, and in the sky was the light of the false dawn.