nd meaning--even as suspicion
grew to certainty, I heard Godby draw a gasping breath, saw him reach a
stealthy, fumbling hand behind him and open the door, and then, leaping
backwards, he was swallowed in the dark, and with a hurry of stumbling
feet, was gone.

But I scarcely heeded his going or the manner of it, so stunned was I
by the sudden realisation of the terror that had haunted my ghastly
slumbers and evil wakings, a terror that (if my dreadful speculations
were true) was very real after all, a peril deadly and imminent.

The truth of which I now (and feverishly) set myself to prove beyond
all doubt, and reached for the lanthorn. Now in so doing my foot
caught in the doublet lying where Godby had dropped it, and I picked it
up out of the way; but as I lifted it into the light I let it fall
again (even as Godby had done): and now, staring down at it, felt my
flesh suddenly a-creep for, as it lay there at my feet, I saw upon one
sleeve a great, dark stain that smeared it up from wrist to elbow--the
hideous stain of new-spilt blood.

CHAPTER XVIII

CONCERNING THE MARK OF A BLOODY HAND AND HOW I LAY IN THE BILBOES ON
SUSPICION OF MURDER

It was with an effort at last that I dragged my gaze from the hateful
thing at my feet, only to meet the wide stare of that great eye my
knife had wrought and (albeit no human eye now glittered there) yet it
seemed none the less to watch my every move so persistently that I
snatched off my neckerchief and pinning it against the bulkhead with my
knife, hid the thing from sight. Which done, I spurned my
blood-stained doublet into a corner and getting to hands and knees with
the light beside me, began my search.

My bunk was formed of boards supported by four up-ended casks and
stretched the whole length of my small chamber. Upon these boards was
a pallet covered by a great blanket that hung down to the very
flooring; lifting this, I advanced the lanthorn and so began to examine
very narrowly this space beneath my bed. And first I noticed that the
flooring hereabouts was free of dust as it had been new-swept, and
presently in the far corner espied a blurred mark that, as I looked,
took grim form and semblance; stooping nearer I stared at this in the
full glare of the lanthorn, then, shrank back (as well I might) for now
I saw this mark was indeed the print of a great, bloody hand, open at
full stretch. Crouching thus, I felt again all the horror I had known
in my drea