When she came to herself again night had descended and a storm was brewing.  She sat up wonderingly and looked around her, indifferent to the rain which had commenced to fall on her uncovered head.  Gradually remembrance came back to her.  She saw that she was lying on the great slab of basalt which overhung the Moon Rock.  She could hear the beat of the sea far beneath her, but she felt no fear.  She was not conscious of her body or limbs—­of nothing but a burning brain, and wide-open eyes which gazed out into the darkness and stillness around her.

As she looked it seemed to her startled imagination that the masses of rocks which littered the edge of the cliff moved closer to each other, starting out of the shadows into monstrous grotesque life, then circling round her in a strange and dizzy whirl.  It was as though the old Cornish giants had come back to life for a corybantic dance with the demirips of their race—­dancing to the music of the sea sucking and gurgling into the caves at the base of the cliffs.  With swimming eyes Sisily watched them careering and pirouetting around her.  Faster and faster they went, advancing, retreating, bending clumsily, then wavering, toppling, reeling, like giants well drunk.  A great stone fell into the sea with a splash, as if dislodged by a giant foot.  As though that signalled the cockcrow of their glee, the dancers stopped in listening attitudes, and sank back into rocks once more.

Sisily turned her eyes weakly from the slumbering rocks to the hills.  The light of a coming moon behind them showed the outline of the granite pillars and stone altars of the Druids, where they had once sought to appease their savage gods, like the Israelites of old.  Sisily had often meditated by these places of sacrifice, trying to picture the scene.  Now, as she looked, it was enacted before her eyes.  A red light brooded on one of the hills, growing brighter and brighter.  Brutish shaggy figures came out of the darkness, dragging a youth to the altar.  Sisily saw him distinctly.  He was naked, with a beautiful face, haggard and white, and was bound with cords.  Suddenly he freed himself, and dashed down the slope into the darkness.  He was pursued and brought back, and the cries of his pursuers mingled with an appalling scream for help which seemed to float down the mountain side to where she lay, filling the silent air with echoes.

This scene, too, faded away, and the beams of the rising moon, now beginning to show over the hill-tops, formed in her mind the mirage of a beautiful day—­one of those exquisite days which Nature produces at long intervals.  Sisily saw a blue sky, sunlight like burnished silver, green fields and clear pools in which everything was reflected ... a slumbrous perfect day, with drowsy cattle knee-deep in grass, bees, and floating butterflies, and the shrill notes of happy birds.

Once more the tangled loom of her fevered brain wove a new picture.  She was back in her bedroom at Flint House, looking down at the graven face of the Moon Rock.  As she looked, a great hand seemed to come out of the sea and beckon to her.  The summons was one she dare not disobey.  She left her bed, crept downstairs in the darkness, out to the edge of the cliff, and looked down.  The face of the Moon Rock was watching her intently.  She thought it called her name.