and finally the sharp report of a pistol.

Snarling like that of a wild beast came from the creature with the
hairy arms, together with renewed coughing. But the steel grip relaxed
not one iota. I realized two things: the first, that in my terror at
the suddenness of the attack I had omitted to act as prearranged: the
second, that I had discredited the strength of the visitant, whilst
Smith had foreseen it.

Desisting in my vain endeavour to pit my strength against that of the
nameless thing, I sprang back across the room and took up the weapon
which had been left in my charge earlier in the night, but which I had
been unable to believe it would be necessary to employ. This was a
sharp and heavy axe which Nayland Smith, when I had met him in Covent
Garden, had brought with him, to the great amazement of Weymouth and
myself.

As I leapt back to the window and uplifted this primitive weapon, a
second shot sounded from below, and more fierce snarling, coughing,
and guttural mutterings assailed my ears from beyond the pane.

Lifting the heavy blade, I brought it down with all my strength upon
the nearer of those hairy arms where it crossed the window-ledge,
severing muscle, tendon and bone as easily as a knife might cut
cheese....

A shriek--a shriek neither human nor animal, but gruesomely compound
of both--followed ... and merged into a choking cough. Like a flash
the other shaggy arm was withdrawn, and some vaguely seen body went
rolling down the sloping red tiles and crashed on to the ground
beneath.

With a second piercing shriek, louder than that recently uttered by
Burke, wailing through the night from somewhere below, I turned
desperately to the man on the bed, who now was become significantly
silent. A candle with matches, stood upon a table hard by, and, my
fingers far from steady, I set about obtaining a light. This
accomplished, I stood the candle upon the little chest-of-drawers and
returned to Burke's side.

"Merciful God!" I cried.

Of all the pictures which remain in my memory, some of them dark
enough, I can find none more horrible than that which now confronted
me in the dim candle-light. Burke lay crosswise on the bed, his head
thrown back and sagging; one rigid hand he held in the air, and with
the other grasped the hairy forearm which I had severed with the axe;
for, in a death-like grip, the dead fingers were still fastened,
vice-like, at his throat.

His face was nearly black, and his ey