Then, towards twilight, began again that terrible obsession. It came more swiftly this time, was more intense and, I believe, lasted longer. I will pass over the blinding, staggering horror of those hours. The details, indeed, I but remember vaguely myself; but I will say this much with assurance: the priests of the religions of this world, when they represented eternal punishment as a thing of burning fire and bodily torture, confessed themselves to be folk of a feeble, half-formed imagination; for there are gulfs of spiritual anguish into which humanity can be plunged more terrible by worlds than the materialistic hells of theology. When the first waves of depression swept over me I was taken with a mad desire to rush out into the open and die there--but I found I couldn't make one step towards the door, leave alone break it open. I screamed to the attendant to let me out--but I never heard the scream. When I came to myself I was lying on a couch, and I noticed immediately that not only my robe but the lawn covering of the couch itself was wringing wet--drenched with the cold sweat of terror. The first thing I did on rising was to take off my sandal and with the buckle pin score two deep scratches on the marble wall of the chamber. I did this under a curious impulse to keep tally of the days of my captivity, and it is that record alone which enables me to say how long I was imprisoned; afterwards morning and evening became blurred in my memory in a sort of incoherent jumble of horror. I made several attempts to escape during what I will call the "lucid intervals," but the only escape from that house was by way of death, and that I couldn't bring myself to seek. Behind all the anguish and horror of those days there seemed to gleam a small spark of hope, and though the "lucid intervals" grew shorter and the attacks of mental anguish longer as time went on, I had formed an idea, and clung desperately to it, that there was a mind--or minds--fighting for me. And looking back over the ghastly episode now, I consider this view to be the true one, for on no other supposition can I explain the periodic respites from torment at all. Thus far, I am aware, I shall have severely strained the credence of any reader of this narrative, yet what follows is stranger still. Those who have read what I have written of the strange spiritual power possessed by the people of this valley may find an adequate explanation there; others, having regard to the terrible experiences through which I had passed during the last few days, may prefer to think my overwrought brain was no longer capable of recording sane impressions. I set down my account of the affair not in full confidence that it will be accepted as truth, and I offer no explanation whatever, but write what I solemnly believe to be the bare facts as they presented themselves to my senses.