I was angry at being treated in this way, for I am not an hysterical subject either outwardly or inwardly; but as the procession drew nearer I realised that he was right to give me a sharp warning. They advanced slowly, as I said, keeping time to the air which they sang and which I now recognised as being something like one of the old nursery lullabies I heard when I was a child. It had the knack of penetrating far into one’s subconsciousness and bringing up into the light all sorts of forgotten childish fancies which had long slipped from my waking thoughts. There was no regularity in the dancing, except that the whole procession kept time to the air: each individual danced as he chose, provided that he kept his hands upon the shoulders before him so that the line remained intact. Men and women were intermingled without any order in the company. Their faces were rapt, as though in some ecstasy; and a strange, compelling magnetism seemed to emanate from the whole scene.
“Here we go ... dancing ... under the ... Moon,
Lifting our ... feet to the ... time of the ... tune.
Come, brother, ... Come, sister, ... join in our ... line;
Join with us ... now in this ... dancing divine.”
So they came up toward us, while that strange magnetic attraction grew ever stronger upon me. For some reason which I could not fathom, I felt a profound desire to join in the procession. A kind of hallucinatory craving came over me, though I fought it down. At last Glendyne’s voice broke the spell.
“Fine example of choreomania, isn’t it? Perfectly well-recognised type. The old Dancing Mania of the fourteenth century. Bound to arise under conditions like the present.”
The phrases fell on my ear and by their matter-of-factness seemed to come between me and the fascination which the lullaby and the rhythmical motion had begun to exercise upon my mind. Almost without any feeling whatever, I watched the Dancers approaching.
“Here we go ... dancing ... under the ... Moon.
Join in our ... chain, it will ... break all too ... soon.