"That is what I have been studying," he said finally. "But, first, let us consider how this unholy thing chanced to come to us. There must be a reason. What caused it to break through the veil?" The schoolmaster's hands trembled like those of a man with the ague. "Explain!" he said hoarsely. "Alone and unassisted, these primal forces cannot come to us," Lamontaine told him. "They must be aided by someone who is already here--someone who has the vitality to support them for the nonce. It must be one with mediumistic powers. Now do you understand?" The little schoolmaster crossed himself again. "It is unbelievable, horrible!" he said. Then, leaning forward, his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper: "I would willingly give my life, doctaire, in order to save the woman I love. You, who know everything, perhaps can show me the way." Lamontaine combed his long beard with his fingers, reflectively. "My books have already told me that much," he said after a brief pause. "If you ... care to take ... the chance." The other nodded, a hectic spot appearing in each cheek. "Proceed!" he commanded hoarsely. Lamontaine rose and, walking to the little medicine cabinet, filled a hypodermic with clear, colorless liquid. "An injection of this liquid will lower your vitality to a point where you will be an easy victim," he said quietly; "far easier than Evelyn, who is strong and healthy and able to resist it. Why? Because you are already a sick man. I have a plan to trap this thing--it must be a secret between us--if you are willing to trust me and take the only way out." For an instant there was silence. Then the little schoolmaster bared his frail arm to the needle. _2. The Thing_ Rum-guzzler though he was, a soldier of fortune--a wild, barbaric throw-back, born a hundred years too late--Doctor Hugo Lamontaine was yet an occultist of international reputation and a physician of extraordinary ability. Possessed of a fortune which made him independent of his fellow-men, he followed the dictates of his own conscience, caring not a whit for the conventions. To him the esoteric practises of voodoo, obeah and demonology were open books; to study them he had followed his beard to the end of the world. Tall and broad-shouldered, his hair as red as the blood that he had shed on a dozen foreign fields, possessing the whiskers of a Viking, slovenly in his attire, constantly spoiling for a fight or a frolic, he was a man to be reckoned with under any conditions.