SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN. Abraham Merritt

      The blue eyes scorched; about him in his chair seemed to grow a shadow, enveloping him. From him emanated something diabolic, something that gripped my throat and checked the very pulse of my heart.

      “I, Satan, tell you so!” he repeated.

      There was a little pause in which I strove to regain my badly shaken poise.

      Again the bell sounded.

      “It is time,” said Consardine. But I noticed that he had paled, knew my own face was white.

      “It happens,” the organ-like voice was calm again, “it happens that you have an opportunity to see what becomes of those who try to thwart me. I will ask you to excuse certain precautions which it will be necessary to take. You will not be harmed. Only it is essential that you remain silent and motionless and that none read your face while you see—what you are going to see.”

      Consardine arose, I followed him. The man who called himself Satan lifted himself from his chair. Huge I had guessed him to be, but I was unprepared for the giant that he was. I am all of six feet and he towered over me a full twelve inches.

      Involuntarily I looked at his feet.

      “Ah,” he said, suavely. “You are looking for my cloven hoof. Come, you are about to see it.”

      He touched the wall. A panel slipped away revealing a wide corridor, not long, and windowless and doorless. He leading, Consardine behind me, Satan walked a few yards and pressed against the wainscoting. It slid back, soundlessly. He stepped through.

      I walked after him and halted, staring blankly, into one of the most singular—rooms, chambers, no, temple is the only word that its size and character deserve to describe it—I stood staring, I repeat, into one of the most singular temples that probably man’s eyes had ever looked upon.