us tread was upon us. We jumped, each of us, to our side of
the passage and I know that I spread myself stiff against the wall. The
clungk clunck, clungk clunck, of the great hoof falls passed right
between us and slowly and with deadly deliberateness, down the passage.
I heard them through a haze of blood beats in my ears and temples and my
body was extraordinarily rigid and pringling and I was horribly
breathless. I stood for a little time like this, my head turned so that I
could see up the passage. I was conscious only that there was a hideous
danger abroad. Do you understand?

"And then, suddenly, my pluck came back to me. I was aware that the noise
of the hoof beats sounded near the other end of the passage. I twisted
quickly and got my camera to bear and snapped off the flashlight.
Immediately afterward, Beaumont let fly a storm of shots down the passage
and began to run, shouting: 'It's after Mary. Run! Run!'

"He rushed down the passage and I after him. We came out on the main
landing and heard the sound of a hoof on the stairs and after that,
nothing. And from thence onward, nothing.

"Down below us in the big hall I could see a number of the household
'round Miss Hisgins, who seemed to have fainted and there were several of
the servants clumped together a little way off, staring up at the main
landing and no one saying a single word. And about some twenty steps up
the stairs was the old Captain Hisgins with a drawn sword in his hand
where he had halted, just below the last hoof sound. I think I never saw
anything finer than the old man standing there between his daughter and
that infernal thing.

"I daresay you can understand the queer feeling of horror I had at
passing that place on the stairs where the sounds had ceased. It was as
if the monster were still standing there, invisible. And the peculiar
thing was that we never heard another sound of the hoof, either up or
down the stairs.

"After they had taken Miss Hisgins to her room I sent word that I should
follow, so soon as they were ready for me. And presently, when a message
came to tell me that I could come any time, I asked her father to give
me a hand with my instrument box and between us we carried it into the
girl's bedroom. I had the bed pulled well out into the middle of the
room, after which I erected the electric pentacle 'round the bed.

"Then I directed that lamps should be placed 'round the room, but that on
no account must any light b