Moonchild

15 Chapter OF DR. VESQUIT AND HIS COMPANIONS, HOW THEY FARED IN THEIR WORK OF NECROMANCY; AND OF A COUNCIL OF WAR OF CYRIL GREY AND BROTHER ONOFRIO; WITH CERTAIN OPINIONS OF THE FORMER UPON THE ART OF MAGICK. THE Neapolitan winter had overpassed its common clemency; save for a touch of frost, kindly and wholesome, on a few nights, it had no frown or rigour. Day after day the sun had enkindled the still air, and life had danced with love upon the hills. But on the night of her fullness, the moon was tawny and obscure, with a reddish vapour about her, as if she had wrapped herself in a mantle of anger; and the next dawn broke grey with storm, the wind tearing its way across the mountain spine of Italy, as if some horde of demon bandits were raiding the peasantry of the plains. The Butterfly-Net was sheltered from its rage by the crest of Posilippo; but it was bitter cold in the house, and Iliel bade her maidens pile the brazier with hazel and white sandalwood and birch. Across the ridge, the villa which Dr. Vesquit had taken for the winter was exposed to the senseless madness of the blast; and he too heaped his braziers, but with cypress and bituminous coal. As the day passed the violence of the storm increased; the doctor even began to fear for the safety of his operation when, about an hour after noon, [201] a window of the villa was broken by a torn branch of olive that came hurtling against it. But a little later the speed of the hurricane abated; the sky was visible, through the earth-vapours, as a wrack of wrathful clouds — one might say the flight of Michael before Satan.