Three raps followed in a startling volley.
"Get the chairs," motioned Malcourt; and when all were seated clear of the table but touching lightly the surface with their finger-tips:
"A B C D E F"—began Malcourt, slowly reciting the alphabet; and, as the raps rang out, sig-nalling some letter, he began again in a monotonous voice: "A B C D E F G"—pausing as soon as the raps arrested him at a certain letter, only to begin again.
"Get a pad and pencil," whispered Lady Tressilvain to Shiela.
So Shiela left the table, found a pad and pencil, and seated herself near a candle by the window; and as each letter was rapped out by the table, she put it down in order.
The recitation seemed endless; Malcourt's voice grew hoarse with the repetition; letter after letter was added to the apparently meaningless sequence on Shiela's pad.
"Is there any sense in it so far?" asked Lady Tressilvain.
"I cannot find any," said Shiela, striving with her pencil point to divide the string of letters into intelligible words.
And still Malcourt's monotonous voice droned on, and still the raps sounded from the table. Portlaw hung over it as though hypnotized; Tressilvain had fallen to moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue, stealthy eyes always roaming about the candle-lit room as though searching for something uncanny lurking in the shadows.
Shiela shivered, wide-eyed, as she sat watching the table which was now snapping and cracking and heaving under her gaze. A slow fear of the thing crept over her—of this senseless, lifeless mass of wood, fashioned by human hands. The people around it, the room, the house were becoming horrible to her; she loathed them and what they were doing.