And I--I was filled with a terrible sense of overwhelming horror and
fear and repugnance; yet, spite of these, I wondered exceedingly. Was
there then, after all, something in the old heathen worship, something
more than the mere deifying of men, animals, and elements? The thought
gripped me--was there?
Later, a question repeated itself. What were they, those Beast-gods,
and the others? At first, they had appeared to me just sculptured
Monsters placed indiscriminately among the inaccessible peaks and
precipices of the surrounding mountains. Now, as I scrutinized them with
greater intentness, my mind began to reach out to fresh conclusions.
There was something about them, an indescribable sort of silent vitality
that suggested, to my broadening consciousness, a state of
life-in-death--a something that was by no means life, as we understand
it; but rather an inhuman form of existence, that well might be likened
to a deathless trance--a condition in which it was possible to imagine
their continuing, eternally.
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