“I was about to explain to our host briefly what seems to me afoot in all this business,” he said without looking up, “when he asked that you should join us so that we can all work together.”  And, while signifying my assent, I caught myself wondering what quality it was in the calm speech of this undemonstrative man that was so full of power, so charged with the strange, virile personality behind it and that seemed to inspire us with his own confidence as by a process of radiation.

“Mr. Hubbard,” he went on gravely, turning to the soldier, “knows something of my methods, and in more than one—­er—­interesting situation has proved of assistance.  What we want now”—­and here he suddenly got up and took his place on the mat beside the Colonel, and looked hard at him—­“is men who have self-control, who are sure of themselves, whose minds at the critical moment will emit positive forces, instead of the wavering and uncertain currents due to negative feelings—­due, for instance, to fear.”

He looked at us each in turn.  Colonel Wragge moved his feet farther apart, and squared his shoulders; and I felt guilty but said nothing, conscious that my latent store of courage was being deliberately hauled to the front.  He was winding me up like a clock.

“So that, in what is yet to come,” continued our leader, “each of us will contribute his share of power, and ensure success for my plan.”

“I’m not afraid of anything I can see,” said the Colonel bluntly.

“I’m ready,” I heard myself say, as it were automatically, “for anything,” and then added, feeling the declaration was lamely insufficient, “and everything.”

Dr. Silence left the mat and began walking to and fro about the room, both hands plunged deep into the pockets of his shooting-jacket.  Tremendous vitality streamed from him.  I never took my eyes off the small, moving figure; small yes,—­and yet somehow making me think of a giant plotting the destruction of worlds.  And his manner was gentle, as always, soothing almost, and his words uttered quietly without emphasis or emotion.  Most of what he said was addressed, though not too obviously, to the Colonel.

“The violence of this sudden attack,” he said softly, pacing to and fro beneath the bookcase at the end of the room, “is due, of course, partly to the fact that tonight the moon is at the full”—­here he glanced at me for a moment—­“and partly to the fact that we have all been so deliberately concentrating upon the matter.  Our thinking, our investigation, has stirred it into unusual activity.  I mean that the intelligent force behind these manifestations has realised that some one is busied about its destruction.  And it is now on the defensive:  more, it is aggressive.”

“But ’it’—­what is ’it’?” began the soldier, fuming.  “What, in the name of all that’s dreadful, is a fire-elemental?”