Page:The Quest Volume 13 (1921-22).djvu/113

 heard my master Count du Ghazal say about an impending catastrophe for mankind; and perhaps this was the reason why I could not get myself to join whole-heartedly in the cursing of the hostile powers by the villagers. Indeed it seemed to me that behind all these events there stood as their real cause the dark influence of certain hateful powers of nature playing with mankind as it were with a marionette.

Magister Wirtzigh remained absolutely unmoved, just like a man who had long foreseen what was to come.

Not till the 4th of September did a slight restlessness come over him. He opened a door, which had till then been closed to me, and led me into a blue vaulted chamber with only one round window in the ceiling. Exactly underneath, so that the light fell directly upon it, stood a round table of black quartz with a bowl-like cavity in the middle. Round it stood carved and gilded chairs.

"This basin here," said the Rev. Magister, "you are to fill this evening before the moon rises with clear cold water from the well. I am expecting visitors from Mauritius. When you hear me call, take the Japanese snake-lamp—I hope the wick will not do more than glimmer," he added half to himself—"and stand over there with it in that niche like holding a torch."

Night had long fallen; the clock struck 11, then 12, and I was still waiting and waiting to be called.

Nobody could have entered the house. I knew for certain I should have noticed it; for the door was shut and it always creaked loudly when being opened. But there had been no sound up to now.

Dead silence lay all round me, so that little by