Page:The Quest Volume 13 (1921-22).djvu/121

 the idol so that the glimmering wick could now flare out as a flame. I know not. I only remember that suddenly a dazzling light burst upon my senses. Again I heard my name being called, and then something heavy fell to the ground with a dull thud.

It must have been my own body; for when I opened my eyes for a moment before losing consciousness, I saw myself lying on the ground with the full-moon shining overhead. But the room seemed empty and table and gentlemen had disappeared.

For many weeks I lay in a deep stupor. When at length I had slowly recovered consciousness I learned—from whom, I have forgotten—that the Rev. Magister Wirtzigh had meanwhile died and appointed me heir to all his property.

But as I have probably to lie in bed for a considerable time still, I have full leisure to think over what has happened and to write down everything.

Only at times during the night a strange feeling overcomes me, as if there was an empty abyss in my breast, infinite to east, south, west and north, and high in the centre the moon floating, waxing to a brilliant disk, then waning, then becoming black, and then again recurring as a thin sickle. And every time her phases are the faces of the four gentlemen, as they sat last round the round stone table.

When morning dawns, the old housekeeper Petronella will often come to my bedside and say: "Well, how are you, Reverend Sir, Reverend Magister Wirtzigh?" For she wants to persuade me that there never was a Count du Ghazal, since that family became extinct in 1430, as the pastor knows for certain. I am said to have been a somnambule who