"A full moon!" exclaimed Lanark. "There is a full moon tonight," said Jager. _11. Return of the Sacrifice_ Through the cross-hatching of new-leafed branches the full moon shone down from its zenith. Lanark and Enid Mandifer walked gingerly through the night-filled timber in the gulley beyond which, they knew, lay the ruins of the house where so much repellent mystery had been born. "It's just eleven o'clock," whispered Lanark, looking at his big silver watch. He was dressed in white shirt and dark trousers, without coat, hat or gloves. His revolver rode in the front of his waistband, and as he limped along, the sheath of Jager's old cavalry saber thumped and rasped his left boot-top. "We must be almost there." "We are there," replied Enid. "Here's the clearing, and the little brook of water." She was right. They had come to the open space where first they had met. The moonlight made the ground and its new grass pallid, and struck frosty-gold lights from the runlet in the very center of the clearing. Beyond, to the west, lay menacing shadows. Enid stooped and laid upon the ground the hand-mirror she carried, "Stand to one side," she said, "and please don't look." Lanark obeyed, and the girl began to undress. The young man felt dew at his mustache, and a chill in his heart that was not from dew. He stared into the trees beyond the clearing, trying to have faith in Jager's plan. "We must make the devils come forth and face us," the sergeant-preacher had argued. "Miss Mandifer shall be our decoy, to draw them out where we can get at them. All is very strange, but this much we know--the unholy worship did go on; Miss Mandifer was to be sacrificed as part of it; and, when the sacrifice was not completed, all these evil things happened. We have the hauntings, the blue fire of the house, the creature that attacked Mr. Lanark, and a host of other mysteries to credit to these causes. Let us profit by what little we have found out, and put an end to the Devil's rule in this country." It had all sounded logical, but Lanark, listening, had been hesitant until Enid herself agreed. Then it was that Jager, strengthening his self-assumed position of leadership, had made the assignments. Enid would make the journey, as before, from her house to the gulley, there strip and say the words with which her stepfather had charged her four springs ago. Lanark, armed, would accompany her as guard. Jager himself would circle far to the east and approach the ruins from the opposite direction, observing, and, if need be, attacking. These preparations Lanark reviewed mentally, while he heard Enid's bare feet splashing timidly in the water. It came to him, a bit too late, that the arms he bore might not avail against supernatural enemies. Yet Jager had seemed confident.... Enid was speaking, apparently repeating the ritual that was supposed to summon the unnamed god-demon of Persil Mandifer: