Yet it was no kind of terror that I experienced, but rather a sort of mental dizziness, and a sensation as of being suspended in some remote and dreadful altitude where things might happen, indeed were about to happen, that had never before happened within the ken of man.  Horror may have formed an ingredient, but it was not chiefly horror, and in no sense ghostly horror.

Uncommon thoughts kept beating on my brain like tiny hammers, soft yet persistent, seeking admission; their unbidden tide began to wash along the far fringes of my mind, the currents of unwonted sensations to rise over the remote frontiers of my consciousness.  I was aware of thoughts, and the fantasies of thoughts, that I never knew before existed.  Portions of my being stirred that had never stirred before, and things ancient and inexplicable rose to the surface and beckoned me to follow.  I felt as though I were about to fly off, at some immense tangent, into an outer space hitherto unknown even in dreams.  And so singular was the result produced upon me that I was uncommonly glad to anchor my mind, as well as my eyes, upon the masterful personality of the doctor at my side, for there, I realised, I could draw always upon the forces of sanity and safety.

With a vigorous effort of will I returned to the scene before me, and tried to focus my attention, with steadier thoughts, upon the table, and upon the silent figures seated round it.  And then I saw that certain changes had come about in the place where we sat.

The patches of moonlight on the floor, I noted, had become curiously shaded; the faces of my companions opposite were not so clearly visible as before; and the forehead and cheeks of Colonel Wragge were glistening with perspiration.  I realised further, that an extraordinary change had come about in the temperature of the atmosphere.  The increased warmth had a painful effect, not alone on Colonel Wragge, but upon all of us.  It was oppressive and unnatural.  We gasped figuratively as well as actually.

“You are the first to feel it,” said Dr. Silence in low tones, looking across at him.  “You are in more intimate touch, of course—­”

The Colonel was trembling, and appeared to be in considerable distress.  His knees shook, so that the shuffling of his slippered feet became audible.  He inclined his head to show that he had heard, but made no other reply.  I think, even then, he was sore put to it to keep himself in hand.  I knew what he was struggling against.  As Dr. Silence had warned me, he was about to be obsessed, and was savagely, though vainly, resisting.

But, meanwhile, a curious and whirling sense of exhilaration began to come over me.  The increasing heat was delightful, bringing a sensation of intense activity, of thoughts pouring through the mind at high speed, of vivid pictures in the brain, of fierce desires and lightning energies alive in every part of the body.  I was conscious of no physical distress, such as the Colonel felt, but only of a vague feeling that it might all grow suddenly too intense—­that I might be consumed—­that my personality as well as my body, might become resolved into the flame of pure spirit.  I began to live at a speed too intense to last.  It was as if a thousand ecstasies besieged me—­