y loopholes), so that one is
perpetually going round angles and might come upon anyone, or anyone
upon you, without any sort of preparation. I can quite understand
assassins coming down on their victim, or up on their victim, or up and
down, simultaneously, on their victim, in one of these old places.
Assassins in the olden time. I wonder if it's true about the White Lady?
The old woman's husband was not a bit frightened of her, so she says.
Perhaps he had come home rather tipsy, and mistook some shadow in the
moonlight for a ghost.

My eyes are fast becoming accustomed to this obscurity.

_Happy Thought._--There are no such things as ghosts.

On the whole, I'd rather meet a ghost, than a rat, or a blackbeetle, or
a burglar.

The diminishing scale, of what I would rather _not_ meet in a narrow
staircase at night, is, the burglar, rat, blackbeetle, ghost.

I hear something moving... below or above...

I look cautiously back round the last corner...

Nothing.

_Happy Thought._--To shout out, "Hi! you fellows!" Shouting would
frighten a burglar, or a rat, but would have no effect on a blackbeetle,
or a ghost.

No answer. I descend a few more steps. Something seems to be coming down
behind me. Almost in my footsteps, and at my pace. Ah! of course, echo.
But why wasn't there an echo when I shouted?... I will go on quicker.
I'm not a bit nervous, only the sooner I'm out of this, the better. At
last a door. Thick, solid, iron-barred, and nail-studded door. Where's
the handle? None. Yes, an iron knob. It won't be turned. It won't be
twisted. It's locked; or, if not, fastened somehow. No; a faint light is
admitted through the keyhole, and by putting my eye to it, I can see a
stone passage on the other side. Perhaps the old woman has locked this
by accident. And perhaps they are not far off. I shake it. A deep, low
savage growl follows this, and I hear within two inches of my toes, a
series of jerky and inquisitive sniffs. The sniffs say, as it were,
"There's no doubt about it, I know you're there;" the growl adds, "Show
yourself, and I pin you."

_Happy Thought._--Go upstairs again and return by the other door.

Hope nobody, while I am mounting the steps again, will open the door and
let the dog up here for a run, or to "see who it is," in a professional
way.

No. Up--up--up. Excelsior. I seem to be climbing double the number of
steps, in going up, to what I did in coming down. My eyes too, after the
keyhole, hav