V
At first I felt giddy, and instinctively I closed my eyes. . . . A minute later I opened them again. We were floating as before; but the forest was now nowhere to be seen. Under us stretched a plain, spotted here and there with dark patches. With horror I felt that we had risen to a fearful height.
'I am lost; I am in the power of Satan,' flashed through me like lightning. Till that instant the idea of a temptation of the evil one, of the possibility of perdition, had never entered my head. We still whirled on, and seemed to be mounting higher and higher.
'Where will you take me?' I moaned at last.
'Where you like,' my companion answered. She clung close to me; her face was almost resting upon my face. But I was scarcely conscious of her touch.
'Let me sink down to the earth, I am giddy at this height.'
'Very well; only shut your eyes and hold your breath.'
I obeyed, and at once felt that I was falling like a stone flung from the hand . . . the air whistled in my ears. When I could think
112
