ordinary dwelling-room. I could see no chair, only
a coarse deal table, a straw mattress, and a kind of trough. An air of
irredeemable gloom and horror hung over and pervaded everything. As I
stood there, I felt I was waiting for something--something that was
concealed in the corner of the room I dreaded. I tried to reason with
myself, to assure myself that there was nothing there that could hurt
me, nothing that could even terrify me, but my efforts were in
vain--my fears grew. Had I had some definite knowledge as to the cause
of my alarm I should not have suffered so much, but it was my
ignorance of what was there, of what I feared, that made my terror so
poignant. Each second saw the agony of my suspense increase. I dared
not move. I hardly dare breathe, and I dreaded lest the violent
pulsation of my heart should attract the attention of the Unknown
Presence and precipitate its coming out. Yet despite the perturbation
of my mind, I caught myself analysing my feelings. It was not danger I
abhorred so much, as its absolute effect--fright. I shuddered at the
bare thought of what result the most trivial incident--the creaking of
a board, ticking of a beetle, or hooting of an owl--might have on the
intolerable agitation of my soul.

In this unnerved and pitiable condition I felt that the period was
bound to come, sooner or later, when I should have to abandon life and
reason together in the most desperate of struggles with--fear.

At length, something moved. An icy chill ran through my frame, and the
horror of my anticipations immediately reached its culminating point.
The Presence was about to reveal itself.

The gentle rubbing of a soft body on the floor, the crack of a bony
joint, breathing, another crack, and then--was it my own excited
imagination--or the disturbing influence of the atmosphere--or the
uncertain twilight of the chamber that produced before me, in the
stygian darkness of the recess, the vacillating and indistinct outline
of something luminous, and horrid? I would gladly have risked futurity
to have looked elsewhere--I could not. My eyes were fixed--I was
compelled to gaze steadily in front of me.

Slowly, very slowly, the thing, whatever it was, took shape.
Legs--crooked, misshapen, human legs. A body--tawny and hunched.
Arms--long and spidery, with crooked, knotted fingers. A head--large
and bestial, and covered with a tangled mass of grey hair that hung
around its protruding forehead and pointed