na--on the floor.

I struck a fresh match, and found myself in a narrow rear hallway.
Behind me was the door by which I must have come; with a keen desire
to get back to the place I had started from, I opened the door and
attempted to cross the room. I thought I had kept my sense of direction,
but I crashed without warning into what, from the resulting jangle, was
the dining-table, probably laid for dinner. I cursed my stupidity in
getting into such a situation, and I cursed my nerves for making my hand
shake when I tried to strike a match. The groan had not been repeated.

I braced myself against the table and struck the match sharply against
the sole of my shoe. It flickered faintly and went out. And then,
without the slightest warning, another dish went off the table. It fell
with a thousand splinterings; the very air seemed broken into crashing
waves of sound. I stood still, braced against the table, holding the red
end of the dying match, and listened. I had not long to wait; the groan
came again, and I recognized it, the cry of a dog in straits. I breathed
again.

"Come, old fellow," I said. "Come on, old man. Let's have a look at
you."

I could hear the thud of his tail on the floor, but he did not move. He
only whimpered. There is something companionable in the presence of a
dog, and I fancied this dog in trouble. Slowly I began to work my way
around the table toward him.

"Good boy," I said, as he whimpered. "We'll find the light, which ought
to be somewhere or other around here, and then--"

I stumbled over something, and I drew back my foot almost instantly.
"Did I step on you, old man?" I exclaimed, and bent to pat him. I
remember straightening suddenly and hearing the dog pad softly toward
me around the table. I recall even that I had put the matches down and
could not find them. Then, with a bursting horror of the room and its
contents, of the gibbering dark around me, I turned and made for the
door by which I had entered.

I could not find it. I felt along the endless wainscoting, past miles of
wall. The dog was beside me, I think, but he was part and parcel now, to
my excited mind, with the Thing under the table. And when, after aeons
of search, I found a knob and stumbled into the reception hall, I was as
nearly in a panic as any man could be.

I was myself again in a second, and by the light from the hall I led
the way back to the tragedy I had stumbled on. Bronson still sat at the
table, his