‘She poured out wine for him, and he drank it with feverish haste, still looking at her and holding her hand. I noticed, though, that he shuddered when she first touched him, as if her hands were icy-cold; but he felt that no longer; he was just mad-like and stupid, as a bird is with a snake. He could only watch her with wild eyes that never left her face.
‘The men and women who came in with this awful, beautiful creature were dark mostly, and reminded me of the gipsies I used to see when I was a boy at home in England. One of the girls, dressed in outlandish clothes, embroidered in scarlet and gold, came up and offered me some wine—even held it to my lips—and the scent of it made me mad to taste. The girl’s arm was close round my neck, and her wicked eyes, dry and bright as a toad’s, were looking into mine with a mocking smile, as she sang a soft, strange song, like laughing and crying all in one. But I shut my teeth hard, and turning away my head, closed my eyes, determined to resist her with all the strength of my will so long as I was conscious. Even in that dreamy, bewildered state, I felt afraid of entirely losing my senses, and something seemed to tell me I was lost if I yielded for an instant. My tempter laughed then, a loud hideous laugh, and flung down the silver cup she had offered me. The wine was spilt, and I fancied it turned to liquid flame as it touched the floor.
‘Still I had no power to speak or move from my place, but I watched Vermudyn more eagerly than ever. The supper-table was pushed on one side; and the room was now filled with dancers, dancing fiercely and madly to a wild tune, like the song of the gipsy when she leant over me with the poisoned wine. The tune rose louder and higher, and the dancers moved faster to keep time with the unearthly music—unearthly and wild, but so beautiful that I could have listened for ever, I thought. At times it sounded like the wind sighing through the aspens at night; then it rose to a roar like waves breaking on the beach in a storm. Yet, with all the changing sound, the roar of a storm, and the wailing of the wind—tears and laughter and pain—the music still kept time and tune, and the mad dance went on without a pause.
‘Foremost amongst them all was Vermudyn, and the woman in white with the glittering eyes and hair. He was holding her fast in his arms as they flew round; her head lay on his shoulder, and his face was bent down over hers. But I could see, as I watched him, that he had grown almost as white as the girl he held; and now her great eyes blazed with such awful light, I shuddered to look at them; while, as she danced and clasped Vermudyn, I fancied a tinge of colour came into her white lips, and her cheeks were a shade less deathly.
‘Still they danced, and still she grew brighter and warmer, but not like a living woman yet. And Vermudyn, like a mere straw drifting round and round in a whirlpool, became weaker and fainter every minute, and his face now was something ghastly to see; but his eyes were still fixed on the girl, and he could see nothing and feel nothing beside. Her shining hair had got loosened in the dance, and seemed to be flying round them like thin golden flames as they moved.
‘It was she, now, who held Vermudyn up and forced him still to dance. His arms were round her yet; but her strength alone sustained the fainting man. She flew round as easily as ever; her feet scarcely touching the ground. The noise grew furious and deafening—music and laughter, shouts and screams that made my blood run cold, with snatches of old songs between, were all mingled together in one hideous mighty roar.
‘The faces of the men, or the demons who took their shape, got more fiendish as they danced; when suddenly the dancers swept out of the room in a wild crowd, just as they had entered it, and in their midst Vermudyn, lying dead, or senseless, on the floor. I tried to move—to reach him somehow at that desperate pass; but I couldn’t stir a finger. I struggled to shout aloud—to call his name. I might have been dead, for all the help I could give him. I had no power to speak or move.
‘Directly that demoniacal crew left the room, the lights seemed to fade and the fire grow dim. Thick darkness fell over everything, and I could not see a ray of light from where I now lay like a helpless log.
‘I remembered nothing more until I opened my eyes in broad daylight, stiff, and shivering with cold. I was lying at the entrance of a little cave among the rocks, wrapped in my blanket, and close to the embers of a dying fire. My horse, I saw, was picketed not far from me.
‘I was still in the Devil’s Panniken, sure enough. I saw the road by which we had come last night; but the place was strange to me; these were not the rocks I had seen before, which surrounded the place where we had spent the night.