Page:The Quest Volume 13 (1921-22).djvu/118

 dragon's blood!—who can any longer see a difference between them? It is like a demon-prelude to the Last Day."

"Do not speak of the Last Day," hastily interposed the Count.—I felt an undefined fear vibrate in his voice.—"It sounds like an omen."

The gentlemen rose in astonishment: "An omen?"

"We intended to meet to-day as for a feast," began his lordship, after for some time endeavouring to find the right word. "But my feet have been delayed to the present hour in Mauritius."—I understood vaguely that the word must have a hidden meaning and that the Count could not mean a land.—"I have long been in doubt whether what I perceived in the reflection breathed up from the earth to the moon is true. I fear, yes I fear—and my flesh grows cold with horror when I think of it—that in a short time something untoward may happen and snatch from us the longed-for victory. What is the good of my guessing? There may be a secret reason in the present war, that the World-spirit wants to keep the people asunder, so that they may stand separate as the limbs of a future body? What does it help me if I do not know the last intention? The influences you cannot see are always the most powerful. For I tell you: Something invisible is growing and growing, and I cannot find its root.

"I have interpreted the celestial signs which do not deceive. Yes, even the demons of the deep are preparing to fight; and soon the skin of the earth will twitch like that of a horse tormented with flies. Already the princes of darkness, whose names are inscribed in the Book of Hate, have hurled again a stone—a comet—from the abyss of cosmic space, and this time against