At this moment the Brothers, still prostrate upon the floor, began again
their mournful, yet impassioned chanting, and as they did so a strange
thing happened. For, apparently without moving or altering its position,
the huge Figure seemed, at once and suddenly, to be inside the room,
almost beside him, and to fill the space around him to the exclusion of
all else.
He was now beyond all ordinary sensations of fear, only a drab feeling
as of death--the death of the soul--stirred in his heart. His thoughts
no longer even beat vainly for escape. The end was near, and he knew it.
The dreadfully chanting voices rose about him in a wave: "We worship! We
adore! We offer!" The sounds filled his ears and hammered, almost
meaningless, upon his brain.
Then the majestic grey face turned slowly downwards upon him, and his
very soul passed outwards and seemed to become absorbed in the sea of
those anguished eyes. At the same moment a dozen hands forced him to his
knees, and in the air before him he saw the arm of Kalkmann upraised,
and felt the pressure about his throat grow strong.
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