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Then Kalkmann, dark and unutterably stern, turned in the dim light and faced the rest. "Asmodelius, our Hauptbruder, is about us," he cried in a voice that even while it shook was yet a voice of iron; "Asmodelius is about us. Make ready." There followed a pause in which no one stirred or spoke. A tall Brother approached the Englishman; but Kalkmann held up his hand.
He comes! He comes; Bruder Asmodelius comes!" His voice rose to a chant. And the sound of that name, for some extraordinary reason, was terrible utterly terrible; so that Harris shook from head to foot as he heard it. Its utterance filled the air like soft thunder, and a hush came over the whole room.
He would have screamed for help, but remembering the emptiness of the vast building, and the loneliness of the situation, he understood that no help could come that way, and he kept his lips closed. He stood still and did nothing. But he knew now what was coming. Two of the Brothers approached and took him gently by the arm. "Bruder Asmodelius accepts you," they whispered; "are you ready?"
Forces rose all about him, transforming the normal into the horrible, and the spirit of craven fear ran through all his being, bringing him to the verge of collapse. Asmodelius! Asmodelius! The name was appalling. For he understood at last to whom it referred and the meaning that lay between its great syllables.
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