XXI

trees, to where the dogs were barking. I wouldn’t ask him to come in at first, though I knew he wanted to⁠—just as he had wanted all along. Then he began promising me things⁠—not in words but by doing them.” He was interrupted by a word from the Professor:⁠— “How?” “By making them happen; just as he used to send in the flies when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their wings; and big moths, in the night, with skull and crossbones on their backs.” Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously:⁠— “The Acherontia Aitetropos of the Sphinges ⁠—what you call the ‘Death’s-head Moth’?” The patient went on without stopping. “Then he began to whisper: ‘Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them, and everyone a life; and dogs to eat them, and cats too. All lives! all red blood, with years of life in it; and not merely buzzing flies!’ I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house. He beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He raised his hands, and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire; and then He moved the mist to the right and left, and I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red⁠—like His, only smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped; and I thought he seemed to be saying: ‘All these lives will I