rsonal, or
physical--one might call it psychic fear, only that the word explains
nothing.... I looked in at the open door. There seemed to be nothing
there but the moonlight. The room must have been almost as bare as my
own. But over on the far side, beyond the zone of the window, was the
dim whiteness of a bed. I could see nothing clearly--but the Fear was
there. I dragged, actually dragged, my feet across the floor--my sight
growing clearer, until at last--I saw!

I think I shouted, but it was so like a nightmare that I may not have
made a sound.... The dragging weight must have left my feet as I
sprang forward ... but it is all confused! And the whole thing lasted
only a minute.

In that minute I had seen what I would have sworn was not human. Even
while I knew It for the little old man with the umbrella, I had no
sense of its humanness. Something bent above the bed--the old man's
face was there, the thin figure, the white hair, and yet it seemed the
wildest absurdity to call the Fury who wore them by any human name.

The eyes looked at me--eyes without depth or meaning--eyes like bits of
blue steel reflecting the light of Tophet--, incarnate evil, blazing,
peering ... I caught a glimpse of long, thin hands, like claws,
around the folded umbrella, a flash of something bright at the ferrule
... and then the picture dissolved like an image passing from a dimly
lighted screen. Before I could skirt the bed, whatever had been upon
the other side of it had melted into the darkness beyond the moon. I
bent over the bed. Sami was there--Sami, rolled shapelessly in the
concealing bedclothes, his round face hidden in the pillow, his black
hair just a blot of darkness on the white.... It might have been
Desire lying there! ...

I found the door through which the Thing had slipped. But it was
useless to try to follow. There was no one in the house nor in the
moonlit clearing. And Desire and Li Ho were waiting on the trail. I
picked up the still sleeping child and blundered down to them.

It seemed incredible to hear Desire's laugh.

"Good gracious!" she said. "You're carrying him upside down."

She had had no hint of danger. But with Li Ho it was different. He fell
back beside me when Desire had relieved me of the child. I could feel
his inscrutable eyes upon my face.

"You see um," said Li Ho. It was an assertion, not a question.

I nodded.

"No be scare," muttered he. "Missy all safe. Everything all safe now.
Li Ho