was raging which I
can ever recollect in England. I felt that it was positively useless to
go to bed, nor could I concentrate my mind sufficiently to read a book. I
turned my lamp half down to moderate the glare, and leaning back in my
chair, I gave myself up to reverie. I must have lost all perception of
time, for I have no recollection how long I sat there on the borderland
betwixt thought and slumber. At last, about 3 or possibly 4 o'clock, I
came to myself with a start--not only came to myself, but with every
sense and nerve upon the strain. Looking round my chamber in the dim
light, I could not see anything to justify my sudden trepidation. The
homely room, the rain-blurred window and the rude wooden door were all as
they had been. I had begun to persuade myself that some half-formed
dream had sent that vague thrill through my nerves, when in a moment I
became conscious of what it was. It was a sound--the sound of a human
step outside my solitary cottage.

Amid the thunder and the rain and the wind I could hear it--a dull,
stealthy footfall, now on the grass, now on the stones--occasionally
stopping entirely, then resumed, and ever drawing nearer. I sat
breathlessly, listening to the eerie sound. It had stopped now at my
very door, and was replaced by a panting and gasping, as of one who has
travelled fast and far.

By the flickering light of the expiring lamp I could see that the latch
of my door was twitching, as though a gentle pressure was exerted on it
from without. Slowly, slowly, it rose, until it was free of the catch,
and then there was a pause of a quarter minute or more, while I still eat
silent with dilated eyes and drawn sabre. Then, very slowly, the door
began to revolve upon its hinges, and the keen air of the night came
whistling through the slit. Very cautiously it was pushed open, so that
never a sound came from the rusty hinges. As the aperture enlarged, I
became aware of a dark, shadowy figure upon my threshold, and of a pale
face that looked in at me. The features were human, but the eyes were
not. They seemed to burn through the darkness with a greenish brilliancy
of their own; and in their baleful, shifty glare I was conscious of the
very spirit of murder. Springing from my chair, I had raised my naked
sword, when, with a wild shouting, a second figure dashed up to my door.
At its approach my shadowy visitant uttered a shrill cry, and fled away
across the fells, yelping lik