I stiffened with a jerk. "It's all right, Tony. I must have left the stone out of the box. That's all it is."
Two hundred and four–two hundred and five–two Couldn't he keep his foot still?
"Mac! There's someone in the room! By the table! Mac!"
I felt it, too, then, as a blind man must feel the presence of an alien beside him. I strained my eyes toward the table. Two hundred and twenty-six–two hundred and twenty-seven–two The blur of green-blue light merged into the blackness as though a human hand had covered it. Then it appeared again, but this time faintly, for above it were two large mists of light, blue-green, but brighter and more translucent.
"Mac!" Two hundred and forty–two hundred and forty-one–two hundred and forty-two "Mac!" They wavered, steadied, then gradually took shape. Black fingers like liquid jet, blue-green nails, lighted by a word veil of mist.
And still I counted, rhythmically, mechanically, with no will of my own. Two hundred and sixty-nine–two hundred and seventy–two hundred and seventy-one
"Mac!" They were moving forward slowly, regularly, as though held out by some living man. They were moving toward where Tony Henderson sat in the pitch blackness of the curtained room. Two hundred and eighty-four–two hundred and
"Mac!"
"Tony, I'm coming! It's all right, Tony!"
I was coming, I told myself fiercely. I had to come, had to get up from my chair and cross the room to Tony. I had to! Two hundred and ninety-three.
I struggled. I put all my strength into that struggle, all my nerve, all my will, but I was bound fast. And it was not by fear but by another's strength pitted against mine.
"I'm coming, Tony!" Nothing could hold roe. Two hundred and ninety-eight
They were there at the far wall, two glowing hands that suddenly moved together.
"My God! Mac!"
Tony's foot had stopped marking the minutes, and the silence seemed more terrible by contrast. I waited in a trance. There was a terrible shriek, and then silence again. The hands of the priest of Nyi had gone.
I was free; I could move. I felt limp as though leather thongs had pressed blood from my veins.
"Tony!" I touched the switch by the door. The room was as it had been. Tony sat against the farther wall, just as when I had last seen him, except that his head was dropped forward as a man's asleep.
"Tony, nothing happened. Nothing could have happened. I tried to come. Damn you, you've got to speak!"
I don't know how long I knelt there trying to awake him, or rather, how long I knelt there telling myself he was alive while knowing beyond all doubt that he was dead.
There were loud and repeated bangs and cries at the door. I had to get help, I told myself. I grabbed the key from the center table. The Eye-stone was not there, I noticed, and the cover was well down on the jeweler's box. Frantically I clawed the cotton from the keyhole. The door was pushed forward from the other side.
There were a great many people at the door. Some held my arms; others rushed inside to Tony.
