“You are taking a card?” were the words he heard in his fit of abstraction. They were uttered by a deep, compelling voice, and seemed almost threatening in tone. Strangely, too, they seemed to him to proceed from the spot behind and above him which had been the goal of the sounds “Tsi-nan-fu.” Then he whispered hesitatingly, “Please!” and at the same instant he seemed to dissociate himself inwardly from this decision, but it was too late. He had drawn a five, and that, added to the cards he held, totalled more than twenty-one and made his hand worthless. The banker’s hand showed a queen and a four, and as he had taken no other card, he had won the round. “The country cousin is losing!” said a woman’s voice. The hasty ejaculation astonished Wenk. He turned round again, trying to penetrate the obscurity; then he grew uneasy, and at the same time he seemed to feel the beating of wings above his eyes. Yes, they were wings, and he himself was in a bird-cage. And now a seven was dealt him. “That’s no good,” something seemed to say to him, although it was almost certain to win. But Wenk resisted the suggestion, and said distinctly, “No other card for me!” It seemed as if it were almost death to him to have to utter these words.... He felt as if lightning-stabs were compelling him to close his eyes. Then in the last struggle of his will against his unnatural weariness he saw the Professor’s hand resting on the cards. It pressed the upper one with a slight trembling movement, in evident desire of giving it him, and it seemed as if a secret and burning stream passed from this hand to him, seeking to _compel_ him to take the card, although he had already declined it. Recognizing this, he was suddenly wide awake. It seemed as if the chains destined to fetter his soul had fallen from before him, and he now faced the Professor fearlessly, seized with an incomprehensible and strangely earnest misgiving with regard to him. He was tempted to spring up and beat the beckoning fingers away from the card. “You are taking a card?” said the deep, stern voice, as if issuing an order. It was the voice he had already heard from behind him. Then Wenk, in an unusually loud tone, said firmly and indignantly, “No, I have already declined!” The large eyes behind the glasses remained fixed, gazing at him for the space of a second, then shrank back like hounds before a more powerful assailant. The old gentleman leaned slightly forward, asked for brandy and water, and shortly afterwards requested to be allowed to give up the bank and leave the game. He felt suddenly indisposed, he said....