Page:Magician 1908.djvu/265

 seen no longer. They stood but a little way one from the other, but each might have stood alone. Susie strained her eyes, but she could see nothing. She looked up quickly; the stars were gone out, and she could see no further over her head than round about. The darkness was terrifying. And from it the voice that spoke slowly had a ghastly effect. It seemed to come, wonderfully changed, from the void of bottomless chaos. Susie clenched her hands so that she might not faint.

All at once she started, for the old man’s voice was cut by a sudden gust of wind. A moment before the utter silence had been almost intolerable, and now a storm seemed to have fallen upon them. The trees all round them rocked in the wind; they heard the branches creak; and they heard the hissing of the leaves. They were in the midst of a hurricane. And they felt the earth sway as it resisted the straining roots of great trees, which seemed to be dragged up by the force of the furious gale. Whistling and roaring the wind stormed all about them, and the doctor, raising his voice, tried in vain to command it. But the strangest thing of all was that where they stood there was no sign of the raging blast. The air immediately about them was as still as it had been before, and not a hair on Susie’s head was moved. And it was terrible to hear the tumult, and yet to be in a calm that was almost unnatural.

On a sudden, Dr. Porhoët raised his voice, and with a sternness they had never heard in it before, cried out in that unknown language. Then he called upon Margaret. He called her name three times.