eating, and just stared. For,
though its ticking indicated most certainly that it was still going, the
hands were pointing to a little _before_ the hour of midnight; whereas
it was, as well I knew, considerably _after_ that time when I had
witnessed the first of the strange happenings I have just described.

For perhaps a moment I was astounded and puzzled. Had the hour been the
same as when I had last seen the clock, I should have concluded that the
hands had stuck in one place, while the internal mechanism went on as
usual; but that would, in no way, account for the hands having traveled
backward. Then, even as I turned the matter over in my wearied brain,
the thought flashed upon me that it was now close upon the morning of
the twenty-second, and that I had been unconscious to the visible world
through the greater portion of the last twenty-four hours. The thought
occupied my attention for a full minute; then I commenced to eat again.
I was still very hungry.

During breakfast, next morning, I inquired casually of my sister
regarding the date, and found my surmise correct. I had, indeed, been
absent--at least in spirit--for nearly a day and a night.

My sister asked me no questions; for it is not by any means the first
time that I have kept to my study for a whole day, and sometimes a
couple of days at a time, when I have been particularly engrossed in my
books or work.

And so the days pass on, and I am still filled with a wonder to know
the meaning of all that I saw on that memorable night. Yet, well I know
that my curiosity is little likely to be satisfied.

_V_

THE THING IN THE PIT

This house is, as I have said before, surrounded by a huge estate, and
wild and uncultivated gardens.

Away at the back, distant some three hundred yards, is a dark, deep
ravine--spoken of as the 'Pit,' by the peasantry. At the bottom runs a
sluggish stream so overhung by trees as scarcely to be seen from above.

In passing, I must explain that this river has a subterranean origin,
emerging suddenly at the East end of the ravine, and disappearing, as
abruptly, beneath the cliffs that form its Western extremity.

It was some months after my vision (if vision it were) of the great
Plain that my attention was particularly attracted to the Pit.

I happened, one day, to be walking along its Southern edge, when,
suddenly, several pieces of rock and shale were dislodged from the face
of the cliff immediately beneath me, an