The Presence took human form: a lordly, satanic visage and a magnificently muscled body that quivered and throbbed to the droning chant. Then, rich and clear as a god calling across the wastes of space, the Presence began declaiming: "_Al Asfarani! Al Asfarani! Al Asfarani!_ I come from the realm of fire to command you! I have come out of the depths! Harken! Harken! Harken! _Al Asfarani!_ Golden One! Step forth from your body and walk into the darkness among those whose bread is dust! Walk among the lonely dead and seek Shirkuh! Call him by his name and take him by the hand! Guide him from the shadows and into the morning!" [Illustration: "_A terrific tension pervaded the tumult. The Presence took human form!_"] The unconscious woman shuddered at the sound of that mighty voice. She made a despairing gesture as if to resist the command that came from the fifth vertex. Then she relaxed. The Presence continued his prodigious chant. Even the brazen reverberation of the gongs was drowned by his awful utterance. A thin streamer, like the thread of smoke rising from an almost-quenched altar flame, rose from Antoinette Delatour's half-parted lips. "_Cordieu!_" shouted the Marquis in Farrell's ear. "They're doing it!" His gestures rather than his voice stirred Farrell to action. They retreated, then charged crashing against the door. It resisted the shock. Farrell drew his simitar and hacked at the tropical hardwood. A carven panel splintered. "Good God! Look!" he yelled in despair. The Presence was now towering toward the ceiling. It was bending over like a monstrous serpent in human form, arching and writhing, reaching as though over some invisible wall, making passes and gestures over the silver-white body of Antoinette. The Initiates in the pentacle were paper-white. They swayed to the cadence of that great voice whose concussion was now making the very vault tremble. The train of smoke-like vapor that emerged from Antoinette's lips was becoming more dense, and hovered over her body like a veil. "Quick!" shouted the Marquis, as they frantically hacked the stout wood. "Hold them, while I exorcise the Presence!" The door was reinforced with iron rods that bound it together. Their blades were nicked and saw-toothed from the fierce assault. "Again!" cried the Marquis as his simitar flashed home. A chunk of the hardwood tore loose from its severed reinforcement. They shouldered through, torn and cut by the splinters and the ragged ends of the rods they had hacked.