Chapter 51

His voice rose. He raised one gaunt hand in a gesture of defiance. Nayland Smith spoke no word. And I watched this wraith of terror as one watches a creature uncreated, who figures hideously in some disordered dream. His sincerity was unmistakable; his power of intellect enormous. But when I realized _what_ he defended, what he stood for—and that I, Shan Greville, was listening to him in a house somewhere in Regent’s Park, I felt like laughing hysterically. . . . “Your long reign, Sir Denis, is ending. A blacker tr…