* * * * * Stillness enveloped me, absolute, desolate. Silence contained me. Yet the thought of another scorched against my understanding in a burning communication of intelligence. "Man," It commanded, "I am here. Fear!" And I knew that which was my body did fear to the point of death, but that which was myself stood up in revolt. "Crouch," It bade. "Crouch, pygmy, and beg. Fear! The blood crawls in the veins, the heart checks, the nerves shrink and wither--man, your life wanes thin and faint. Down--shall your race affront mine?" My heart did stagger and beat slow. Life crept a sluggish current. But there was another force that stiffened to resistance, and gathered itself to compact strength within me. "No," my thought refused the dark intelligence. "I am not yours. Command your own, not me." "Weakling, you have touched that which is mine. Into my path you have dared step. Back--for in my breath you die!" The air my lungs drew in was foul and poisonous. With more and more difficulty my heart labored. Confused memories came to me of men found dead in their beds in haunted rooms. Would morning find me so? Better that way than to yield to the Thing! Better---- I struggled erect; or fancied so. Now I saw myself as one who stood with folded arms fronting a breach in a colossal wall. Huge, immeasurably huge that cliff reared itself beyond the sight and ranged away on either side into unknown distances, dully glistening like gray ice, unbroken save in this place. The gray strand on which I stood was a narrow strip following the foot of the wall. Behind me lay a vast, unmoving ocean banked over with an all-concealing mist. Not a ripple stirred along that weird beach, or a ray changed the fixed gray twilight. And I was afraid, for my danger was not of the common dangers of mankind, but that which freezes the blood of man when he draws near the supernatural; the ancient fear. I stood there, while sweat poured painfully from me, and fronted my enemy who pressed me hard. The Thing was at the breach, couched in the great cleft that split the Barrier, darkness within darkness. Unseen, I felt the glare of Its hate beat upon me. From It emanated deathly cold, like the nearness of an iceberg in the night, with an odor of damp and mold. "Puny earth-dweller, lost here," Its menace breathed, "what keeps you from destruction? For you the circle has not been traced nor the pentagram fixed, for you no law has been thrust down. Trespass is death. Die, then." Only my will held It from me, and I felt that will reel in sickened bewilderment. I had no strength to answer, only the steadfast instinct to oppose. The Thing did not pass. There in the breach It ravened for me, thrust Itself toward me, pressed against the thin veil of separation between us. I saw nothing, yet knew where It raised Itself, gigantic in formlessness more dreadful than any shape. Its whispered threats broke against me like an evil surf.