In the intermittent flashes of lightning Basil saw the shapeless form cowering before him in the dusk of the gallery, barring the way. But again it mingled quickly with the darkness. "Of whom?" Basil queried. There was another pause. "Of the Presence!" "That craven hound Maraglia has upset the light," muttered Basil. "I cannot see you." "Can you not feel my presence?" came the gibbering reply. "Even so!" "Know you what high powers of night control your life--what dark-winged messengers of evil fly about you?" "Your words make my soul flash like a thunder cloud." "And yet does your power stand firm?" "It rests on deep dug dungeons, where the light of heaven does not intrude. I spread such fear in men's white hearts as the craven have never known." A faint chuckle came in reply. "Only last night I saw you in the magic crystal sphere in which I read the dire secrets of Fate. Above your head flew evil angels. Beneath your horse's hoofs a corpse-strewn path." "The time is not yet ripe." "Time does not wait for him who waits to dare." An evil light flashed from Basil's eyes. "What can you do?" Response came as from the depths of a grave. "I shall conjure such shapes from the black caves of fear as have not ventured forth since madness first began to prowl among the human race, when the torturing dusk drowns every helpless thing in livid waves of shadow. It is the spirit of your sire that draws the evil legions to you." Basil straightened in surprise. "What know you of him?" he exclaimed. "Dull prayers and fasts and penances, not such freaks as this, were the only things he thought of." From the cowled form came a hiss. "Fool! Not that grunting and omnivorous swine who took the cowl, begat you! Your veins run with fiery evil direct from its fountainhead. No, no,--not he!" "Not he?" shrieked the Grand Chamberlain. "If I am not his progeny, then whose?" "Some mighty lord's." "The Duke of Beneventum?" "One greater yet." "King Berengar?" "One adored by him as his liege." "Ha! I guess it now! It was Otto the Great, he whose fury gored the heart of the Romans." "One greater still." "Earth hath no greater lord." "Is there not heaven above and hell below? Your sire rules the millions who have donned fear's stole forever. He is lord of lords, where all the lips implore and none reply." A flash of lightning gleamed through the gallery. A shadow passed over Basil's countenance, like a swift sailing cloud. Darkness supervened, impenetrable, sepulchral. "Well may you cower," gibbered the shape in its inexorable monotone. "For you came into this life among the death-fed mushrooms that grow where murder rots. The moon-struck wolves howled for three nights, and ill-omened birds flapped for three days around the tower where she who gave you life breathed her last."