As he pushed into the heart of the swamp, the gathering silence became oppressive. The ordinary night sounds ceased altogether and only his own strained breathing broke the silence. The ewe became more obstinate than ever; all his strength was required to drag it along. It appeared, he imagined, to sense the fate which awaited it. Suddenly, so suddenly that he nearly cried aloud in astonishment, the underbrush ended and he was standing at the base of the unhallowed knoll. It was just as he had remembered it--huge menhirs standing in a rough circle about a central mound upon which lay a large flat slab of a dark hue which did not match the color of the surrounding monoliths. Over all a shadow seemed to fall, and yet when he glanced upward he saw that the full moon stood directly overhead. Shaking off the sense of dread which closed upon him, he started up the lichen-covered slope. But now the ewe sank upon its forelegs and he was obliged to drag it inch by inch toward the circle of megaliths. He rather welcomed the exertion however, for it freed his mind of the nameless fear which the cromlech aroused in him. By the time he had dragged the sheep alongside the ring of boulders, he was nearly exhausted, but he dared not pause to rest, for he knew that delay would be his undoing. He already had a wild desire to leave the ewe and rush back through the toad-infested swamp to the familiar outer world. Quickly slipping off the sheep's tether, he bound its legs firmly together and with a tremendous heave shoved it onto the rust-colored sacrificial slab. Rejecting an almost uncontrollable impulse to flee, he unsheathed the hunting knife which he carried and drew from his pocket the curious bound manuscript book, "True Magik" by Theophilis Wenn. He had no difficulty in locating the strangely sinister seventh incantation, for in the bright moonlight the unusual bluish-grey ink in which the characters were inscribed seemed actually luminous. Holding the book in one hand and the knife ready in the other, he began to repeat the jumble of unintelligible sounds. As he read, the syllables appeared to exert some unearthly influence upon him, so that his voice rose to a savage howl, a high-pitched inhuman ululation which penetrated to the farthest depths of the swamp. At intervals his voice sank to low gutturals or a thin sibilant hiss. And then, at the last enunciation of the oft-repeated word, "Nyogtha", there reached his ears as from a vast distance a sound like the rushing of a mighty wind, although not even a leaf stirred on the surrounding trees. The book suddenly darkened in his hand and he saw that a shadow had fallen across the page. He glanced up--and madness reeled in his brain. Squatting on the edge of the slab was a shape which lived in nightmare, a squamous taloned thing like a monstrous gargoyle or a malformed toad which stared at him out of questing red eyes.