ed his imagination. He
closed his eyes and sought to relax his muscles and his nerves; but
when he looked again, he knew that he had not been mistaken--the thing
had moved; now it lay in a slightly altered form and farther from the
wall. It was nearer him.

With renewed strength Bradley strained at his bonds, his fascinated
gaze still glued upon the shapeless bundle. No longer was there any
doubt that it moved--he saw it rise in the center several inches and
then creep closer to him. It sank and arose again--a headless,
hideous, monstrous thing of menace. Its very silence rendered it the
more terrible.

Bradley was a brave man; ordinarily his nerves were of steel; but to be
at the mercy of some unknown and nameless horror, to be unable to
defend himself--it was these things that almost unstrung him, for at
best he was only human. To stand in the open, even with the odds all
against him; to be able to use his fists, to put up some sort of
defense, to inflict punishment upon his adversary--then he could face
death with a smile. It was not death that he feared now--it was that
horror of the unknown that is part of the fiber of every son of woman.

Closer and closer came the shapeless mass. Bradley lay motionless and
listened. What was that he heard! Breathing? He could not be
mistaken--and then from out of the bundle of rags issued a hollow
groan. Bradley felt his hair rise upon his head. He struggled with
the slowly parting strands that held him. The thing beside him rose up
higher than before and the Englishman could have sworn that he saw a
single eye peering at him from among the tumbled cloth. For a moment
the bundle remained motionless--only the sound of breathing issued from
it, then there broke from it a maniacal laugh.

Cold sweat stood upon Bradley's brow as he tugged for liberation. He
saw the rags rise higher and higher above him until at last they
tumbled upon the floor from the body of a naked man--a thin, a bony, a
hideous caricature of man, that mouthed and mummed and, wabbling upon
its weak and shaking legs, crumpled to the floor again, still
laughing--laughing horribly.

It crawled toward Bradley. "Food! Food!" it screamed. "There is a
way out! There is a way out!"

Dragging itself to his side the creature slumped upon the Englishman's
breast. "Food!" it shrilled as with its bony fingers and its teeth, it
sought the man's bare throat.

"Food! There is a way out!" Bradley fel