h.

This object was not unlike a bladder, and the very incongruity of
its appearance served to revive all my apprehensions. Taking up
my grip, as though I had noticed nothing of an alarming nature, I
pursued my way up the slope, leaving a trail of tobacco smoke in my
wake; and having my revolver secreted up my right coat-sleeve.

Successfully resisting a temptation to glance behind, I entered the
cover of the coppice, and, now invisible to any one who might be
dogging me, stood and looked back upon the moon-bright road.

There was no living thing in sight, the road was empty as far as the
eye could see. The coppice now remained to be negotiated, and then,
if the station-master's directions were not at fault, "Uplands"
should be visible beyond. Taking, therefore, what I had designed to
be a final glance back down the hillside, I was preparing to resume
my way when I saw something--something that arrested me.

It was a long way behind--so far that, had the moon been less
bright, I could never have discerned it. What it was I could not
even conjecture; but it had the appearance of a vague gray patch,
moving--not along the road, but through the undergrowth--in my
direction.

For a second my eye rested upon it. Then I saw a second patch--a
third--a fourth!

Six!

There were six gray patches creeping up the slope toward me!

The sight was unnerving. What were these things that approached,
silently, stealthily--like snakes in the grass?

A fear, unlike anything I had known before the quest of the Prophet's
slipper had brought fantastic horror into my life, came upon me.
Revolver in hand I ran--ran for my life toward the gap in the trees
that marked the coppice end. And as I went something hummed through
the darkness beside my head, some projectile, some venomous thing that
missed its mark by a bare inch!

Painfully conversant with the uncanny weapons employed by the
Hashishin, I knew now, beyond any possibility of doubt, that death
was behind me.

A pattering like naked feet sounded on the road, and, without
pausing in my headlong career, I sent a random shot into the
blackness.

The crack of the Smith and Wesson reassured me. I pulled up short,
turned, and looked back toward the trees.

Nothing--no one!

Breathing heavily, I crammed my extinguished briar into my
pocket--re-charged the empty chamber of the revolver--and started to
run again toward a light that showed over the treetops to my left.