“It’s a fire elemental,” repeated Dr. Silence more calmly, but with a note of triumph in his voice he could not keep out, “and a fire elemental enraged.”

The light began to dawn in my mind at last. But the Colonel⁠—who had never heard the term before, and was besides feeling considerably worked up for a plain man with all this mystery he knew not how to grapple with⁠—the Colonel stood, with the most dumbfounded look ever seen on a human countenance, and continued to roar, and stammer, and stare.

“And why,” he began, savage with the desire to find something visible he could fight⁠—“why, in the name of all the blazes⁠—?” and then stopped as John Silence moved up and took his arm.