sh and thunder of it
was really terrific.

"That's him, s'help me the good Gawd!" came from Hank in a whispering
cry half choked, his hand going automatically toward the hunting knife
in his belt. "And he's coming! He's coming!" he added, with an
irrational laugh of horror, as the sounds of heavy footsteps crunching
over the snow became distinctly audible, approaching through the
blackness towards the circle of light.

And while the steps, with their stumbling motion, moved nearer and
nearer upon them, the three men stood round that fire, motionless and
dumb. Dr. Cathcart had the appearance of a man suddenly withered; even
his eyes did not move. Hank, suffering shockingly, seemed on the verge
again of violent action; yet did nothing. He, too, was hewn of stone.
Like stricken children they seemed. The picture was hideous. And,
meanwhile, their owner still invisible, the footsteps came closer,
crunching the frozen snow. It was endless--too prolonged to be quite
real--this measured and pitiless approach. It was accursed.

VIII

Then at length the darkness, having thus laboriously conceived, brought
forth--a figure. It drew forward into the zone of uncertain light where
fire and shadows mingled, not ten feet away; then halted, staring at
them fixedly. The same instant it started forward again with the
spasmodic motion as of a thing moved by wires, and coming up closer to
them, full into the glare of the fire, they perceived then that--it was
a man; and apparently that this man was--Defago.

Something like a skin of horror almost perceptibly drew down in that
moment over every face, and three pairs of eyes shone through it as
though they saw across the frontiers of normal vision into the Unknown.

Defago advanced, his tread faltering and uncertain; he made his way
straight up to them as a group first, then turned sharply and peered
close into the face of Simpson. The sound of a voice issued from his
lips--

"Here I am, Boss Simpson. I heered someone calling me." It was a faint,
dried up voice, made wheezy and breathless as by immense exertion. "I'm
havin' a reg'lar hellfire kind of a trip, I am." And he laughed,
thrusting his head forward into the other's face.

But that laugh started the machinery of the group of waxwork figures
with the wax-white skins. Hank immediately sprang forward with a stream
of oaths so farfetched that Simpson did not recognize them as English at
all, but thought he had lapsed into