‘Eh bien, all progresses well—I make you my compliments on the work you have done—all is now set for the Autumn Festival.’

‘Miss Carnaby—just a moment.’

Mr Cole clutched at Miss Carnaby, his eyes bright and feverish.

‘I have had a Vision—a most remarkable Vision. I really must tell you about it.’

Miss Carnaby sighed. She was rather afraid of Mr Cole and his Visions. There were moments when she was decidedly of the opinion that Mr Cole was mad.

And she found these Visions of his sometimes very embarrassing. They recalled to her certain outspoken passages in that very modern German book on the Subconscious Mind which she had read before coming down to Devon.

Mr Cole, his eyes glistening, his lips twitching, began to talk excitedly.

‘I had been meditating—reflecting on the Fullness of Life, on the Supreme Joy of Oneness—and then, you know, my eyes were opened and I saw—’

Miss Carnaby braced herself and hoped that what Mr Cole had seen would not be what he had seen the last time—which had been, apparently, a Ritual Marriage in ancient Sumeria between a god and goddess.

‘I saw’—Mr Cole leant towards her, breathing hard, his eyes looking (yes, really they did) quite mad—‘the Prophet Elijah descending from Heaven in his fiery chariot.’

Miss Carnaby breathed a sigh of relief. Elijah was much better, she didn’t mind Elijah.

‘Below,’ went on Mr Cole, ‘were the altars of Baal—hundreds and hundreds of them. A Voice cried to me: “Look, write and testify that which you shall see—”’

He stopped and Miss Carnaby murmured politely: ‘Yes?’

‘On the altars were the sacrifices, bound there, helpless, waiting for the knife. Virgins—hundreds of virgins—young beautiful, naked virgins—’

Mr Cole smacked his lips, Miss Carnaby blushed.

‘Then came the ravens, the ravens of Odin, flying from the North. They met the ravens of Elijah—together they circled in the sky—they swooped, they plucked out the eyes of the victims—there was wailing and gnashing of teeth—and the Voice cried: “Behold a Sacrifice—for on this day shall Jehovah and Odin sign blood brotherhood!” Then the Priests fell upon their victims, they raised their knives—they mutilated their victims—’

Desperately Miss Carnaby broke away from her tormentor who was now slavering at the mouth in a kind of sadistic fervour:

‘Excuse me one moment.’

She hastily accosted Lipscomb, the man who occupied the Lodge which gave admission to Green Hills and who providentially happened to be passing.

‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘if you have found a brooch of mine. I must have dropped it somewhere about the grounds.’

Lipscomb, who was a man immune from the general sweetness and light of Green Hills, merely growled that he hadn’t seen any brooch. It wasn’t his work to go about looking for things. He tried to shake off Miss Carnaby but she accompanied him, babbling about her brooch, till she had put a safe distance between herself and the fervour of Mr Cole.

At that moment, the Master himself came out of the Great Fold and, emboldened by his benignant smile, Miss Carnaby ventured to speak her mind to him.