She looked across at Dr. Cairn as if fearful to proceed, but presently continued: "Suddenly, I saw a frightful shape appear on the far side of the circle; that is to say, the table was between me and this shape. It was just like a grey cloud having the vague outlines of a man, but with two eyes of red fire glaring out from it--horribly--oh! horribly! It extended its shadowy arms as if saluting Antony. He turned and seemed to question it. Then with a look of ferocious anger--oh! it was frightful! he dismissed the shape, and began to walk up and down beside the table, but never beyond the lighted circle, shaking his fists in the air, and, to judge by the movements of his lips, uttering most awful imprecations. He looked gaunt and ill. I dreamt no more, but awoke conscious of a sensation as though some dead weight, which had been pressing upon me had been suddenly removed." Dr. Cairn glanced across at his son significantly, but the subject was not renewed throughout breakfast. Breakfast concluded: "Come into the library, Rob," said Dr. Cairn, "I have half-an-hour to spare, and there are some matters to be discussed." He led the way into the library with its orderly rows of obscure works, its store of forgotten wisdom, and pointed to the red leathern armchair. As Robert Cairn seated himself and looked across at his father, who sat at the big writing-table, that scene reminded him of many dangers met and overcome in the past; for the library at Half-Moon Street was associated in his mind with some of the blackest pages in the history of Antony Ferrara. "Do you understand the position, Rob?" asked the doctor, abruptly. "I think so, sir. This I take it is his last card; this outrageous, ungodly Thing which he has loosed upon us." Dr. Cairn nodded grimly. "The exact frontier," he said, "dividing what we may term hypnotism from what we know as sorcery, has yet to be determined; and to which territory the doctrine of Elemental Spirits belongs, it would be purposeless at the moment to discuss. We may note, however, remembering with whom we are dealing, that the one-hundred-and-eighth chapter of the Ancient Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, is entitled 'The Chapter of Knowing the Spirits of the West.' Forgetting, _pro tem._, that we dwell in the twentieth century, and looking at the situation from the point of view, say, of Eliphas Levi, Cornelius Agrippa, or the Abbe de Villars--the man whom we know as Antony Ferrara, is directing against this house, and those within it, a type of elemental spirit, known as a Salamander!" Robert Cairn smiled slightly. "Ah!" said the doctor, with an answering smile in which there was little mirth, "we are accustomed to laugh at this mediaeval terminology; but by what other can we speak of the activities of Ferrara?" "Sometimes I think that we are the victims of a common madness," said his son, raising his hand to his head in a manner almost pathetic.