"How?"
"By making them happen; just as he used to send in the flies when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their wings; and big moths, in the night, with skull and cross-bones on their backs." Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously:—
"The Acherontia Aitetropos of the Sphinges—what you call the 'Death's-head Moth'?" The patient went on without stopping.
"Then he began to whisper: 'Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds,thousands, millions of them, and every one a life; and dogs to eat them, and cats too. All lives! all red blood,with years of life in it; and not merely buzzing flies!'I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could do.Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house. He beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He raised his hands, and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire; and then He moved the mist to the righ and left, and I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red—like His, onlysmaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped; and I thought he seemed to be saying: 'All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!'And then a red cloud, like the colour of blood,seemed to close over my eyes; and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying to Him: 'Come in, Lord and Master!'The rats were all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an inch wide—just as the Moon herself has often come in through the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and splendour."
