I marveled at these cryptic utterances. They shadowed a modern Black Art, of which I had had no conception—a recrudescence in other language of the age-old dualism of good and evil. It was a sort of mental malpractice.
“Over and over again,” he went on speaking to her, “the same thought is to be repeated against an enemy. ‘You know you are going to die! You know you are going to die!’ Do it an hour, two hours, at a time. Others can help you, all thinking in unison the same thought.”
What was this, I asked myself breathlessly—a new transcendental toxicology?
Slowly, a strange mephitic vapor seemed to exhale into the room—or was it my heightened imagination?
CHAPTER XXIII
THE PSYCHIC CURSE
There came a sudden noise—nameless—striking terror, low, rattling. I stood rooted to the spot. What was it that held me? Was it an atavistic joy in the horrible or was it merely a blasphemous curiosity?
I scarcely dared to look.
At last I raised my eyes. There was a live snake, upraised, his fangs striking out viciously—a rattler!
I would have drawn back and fled, but Craig caught my arm.
“Caged,” he whispered monosyllabically.