Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/273

 figures were moving about him, and he could see as his eyes grew stronger, that a vast multitude of naked persons were sliding forward like pale lava from a volcano down a steep precipitous slope.

As they moved there came from them a shuddering cry like the tremor of the ground beneath his feet.

"Not there! Not there!" Harkness cried, and Saturnus answered, "Not yet! You have not been judged."

Almost instantly judgment followed—judgment in a narrow dark passage that rocked backward and forward like the motion of a boat at sea. The passage was dark, but on either side of its shaking walls were cries and shouts and groans and piteous wails, and clouds of smoke poured through, as into a tunnel, blinding the eyes and filling the nostrils with a horrible stench.

No figure could be seen, but a voice, strong and menacing, could be heard, and Harkness knew that it was himself the voice was addressing. His naked body, slippery with sweat, the acrid smoke blinding him, the voices deafening him, the rocking of the floor bewildering him, he felt desperately that he must clear his mind to answer the charges brought against him.

The voice was clear and calm: "On February 2, 1905, your friend Richard Hentley was accused in the company of many people during his absence,