d, to my horror, a
black something crawling on the floor. Nearer and nearer it came, until
it reached the side of the bed, when I immediately recognized the evil,
smirking face of my hostess. In one hand she held a lamp and in the
other a horn-handled knife. Setting the lamp on the floor, she coolly
undid the collar of the sleeping man, and I saw a stud, the counterpart
of the one on the dressing-table, fall on the bare boards with a sharp
tap, and disappear in the surrounding darkness. Then the woman felt the
edge of the knife with her repulsive thumb, and calmly cut the helpless
man's throat. I screamed--and the murderess and her victim instantly
vanished--and I realized I was alone in the room and very much awake.
Whether all that had occurred was a dream, I cannot say with certainty,
though I am inclined to think not.

"For some minutes my heart pulsated painfully, and then as the sound of
its throbbing grew fainter and fainter, I heard a curious noise outside
my room--someone was ascending the stairs. I endeavoured to rise, but
could not--fear, an awful, ungovernable fear, held me spellbound. The
steps paused outside the door, the handle of which was gently turned.
Then there was a suggestive silence, then whispering, then another
turning of the handle, and then--my state of coma abruptly ended, and I
stepped noiselessly out of bed and crept to the window. I was heard.
'Stop him,' the woman cried out, 'he's trying to escape. Use the gun.'
She hurled herself against the door as she spoke, whilst the man tore
downstairs.

"It was now a matter of seconds, the slightest accident, a hesitation,
and I was lost. Swinging open the window, I scrambled on the ledge, and
without the slightest idea of the distance--dropped! There was a brief
rushing through air and I alighted--safe and sound--on the snow.
Blessed snow! Had it not been for the snow I should in all probability
have hurt myself! I alighted not an instant too soon, for hardly had I
touched the ground before my gigantic host came tearing round the angle
of the wall with a lantern in one hand and gun in the other. I
immediately dashed away, and, thanks to the intense darkness of the
morning--for it must have been two o'clock--had no difficulty in evading
my pursuer, who fired twice in rapid succession.

"On and on I went, sometimes falling up to my armpits in the snowdrift,
and sometimes stunning myself against a low-hanging branch of a tree.
With the first rays