And, indeed, as he lay there, his concern for his sanity returning, he realized that for some reason it had lost much of its force. His earlier intuitions had been right. Something was grievously amiss, something deeply mysterious and frightening. It had come on the day that the black clouds had loomed over the land like Judgement Day, and lured Cassraw up towards their heart. He recalled with extraordinary vividness the cold alien presence that had touched him amid the dancing shadows and, too, Cassraw’s condition when he had first emerged from the darkness: the gleam in his eye, the authority of his manner — the arrogance! And then, seemingly, it had all vanished after his strange collapse and equally strange awakening. But had it disappeared? Since then, Cassraw had been like a strained
