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Updated: June 14, 2025
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.
The sound of voices came pleasantly through the door, men's voices talking together. Bruder Kalkmann turned the handle and they entered a room ablaze with light and full of people. "Ah, but your name?" he whispered, bending down to catch the reply; "you have not told me your name yet." "Harris," said the Englishman quickly as they went in.
Then Kalkmann, pale as death, but his face hard as iron, spoke a few low words that he did not catch, and the Brothers standing by the walls at once turned the lamps down so that the room became dim. In the half light he could only just discern their faces and movements. "It is time," he heard Kalkmann's remorseless voice continue just behind him. "The hour of midnight is at hand. Let us prepare.
"In the half light that veils all truth, let us prepare to worship and adore," chanted Schliemann, who had preceded him to the end of the room. "In the mists that protect our faces before the Black Throne, let us make ready the willing victim," echoed Kalkmann in his great bass.
He made a valiant effort to keep his presence of mind and hold his nerves steady. Turning, he saw that Kalkmann's face was a dead white. Kalkmann! He understood that well enough. Kalkmann meant "Man of Chalk": he knew that. But what did "Opfer" mean? That was the real key to the situation.
They all laughed, as though the politeness of their words was but formal, and veiled thinly more and more thinly a very different meaning. "And the hour of midnight draws near," added Bruder Kalkmann with a charming smile, but in a voice that sounded to the Englishman like the grating of iron hinges. Their German seemed to him more and more difficult to understand.
Then the majestic grey face turned slowly downwards upon him, and his very soul passed outwards and seemed to become absorbed in the sea of those anguished eyes. At the same moment a dozen hands forced him to his knees, and in the air before him he saw the arm of Kalkmann upraised, and felt the pressure about his throat grow strong.
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