He paused.

"Shall I go on?" he asked.

Andrews, to whose mind, I think, no conception of the doctor's
project had yet penetrated, shuddered, but slowly nodded his
head.

Dr. Kreener glanced across the laboratory at the crouching
figure of Tcheriapin, then, resting his hands upon Andrews's
shoulders, he pushed him back in the chair and stared into his
dull eyes.

"Brace yourself, Colquhoun," he said tersely.

Turning, he crossed to a small mahogany cabinet at the farther
end of the room. Pulling out a glass tray he judicially selected
a pair of dental forceps.




II

"THE BLACK MASS"



Thus far the stranger's appalling story had progressed when that