midnight
Had he been a little more civilised , with his power of evil trained by education and cynical reflection to defy the attacks of those spasms of unreasoning spiritual terror and unrestrainable passion that have their natural dwelling-place in the raw strong mind of uncultivated man , Frank Muller might have broken upon the world as a Napoleon . Had he been a little more savage , a little farther removed from the unconscious but present influence of a progressive race , he might have ground his fellows down and ruthlessly destroyed them in the madness of his rage and lust , like an Attila or a T'Chaka . As it was he was buffeted between two forces he did not realise , even when they swayed him , and thus at every step in his path towards a supremacy of evil an unseen power made stumbling-blocks of weaknesses which , if that path had been laid along a little higher or a little lower level in the scale of circumstances , would themselves have been deadly weapons of overmastering force . See him as , with his dark heart filled up with fears , he thunders along from that scene of midnight death and murder which his brain had not feared to plan and his hand to execute . Onward his black horse strides , companioned by the storm , like a dark thought travelling on the wings of Night . He does not believe in any God , and yet the terrible fears that spring up in his soul , born fungus-like from a few drops of blood , take shape and form , and seem to cry aloud , `` _ We are the messengers of the avenging God _ . '' He glances up .