s of the ante-chamber quite unobserved. The
watchman was half a block away, sitting by the only street entrance kept
open at night.

Simpkins took off his shoes and found his sandals without striking a
light, and then felt his way to the door leading into the hall. The knob
rattled a little under his hand. All that evening he had been nerving
himself to go in there alone and in the dark, but now he could have
turned and run like a country boy passing a graveyard at night.

The hall was not utterly black, as he had expected. Light from the
electric lamps without flickered through the stained-glass windows.
Ghastly rays of yellow played over the painted faces on the walls and
lit up the gilded features of the mummy by Mrs. Athelstone's desk. There
were crimson spots, like blotches of blood, on the veil of Isis. And all
about were moving shadows, creeping forward stealthily, falling back
slowly, as the light without flared up or died down.

Step by step Simpkins advanced on the black altar, his muscles rigid,
his nerves quivering, his eyes staring straight ahead, as a child stares
into the dark for some awful shape which it fears to see, yet dares not
leave unseen. Once past that altar he would be safe at the door of the
storeroom.

How his heart was beating! He was almost at it. Steady! A few steps now
and he would gain the storeroom. Good God! What was that!

In the blackness behind the altar two eyes flamed.

Simpkins stopped; he was helpless to turn or to advance. Perhaps if he
did not move, it would not. A moment he stood there, tense with terror,
then--straight from the altar the thing flew at his throat. But quick as
it was: the involuntary jerk of his arm upward was quicker, and it
received the blow. Snarling, the thing fell to the floor, and leaped
back into the darkness. It was Mrs. Athelstone's cat.

So strong was Simpkins' revulsion of feeling, so great his relief, that
he forgot the real cause of his terror, and sank down on the very steps
of the altar, weakly exclaiming over and over again: "Only the cat! Only
the cat! Great Scott! how it frightened me!"

He had been sitting there for a few minutes when he heard a soft click,
click, just to his right. Some one was turning a key in the door leading
from Mrs. Athelstone's apartments. As he jumped to his feet, he heard a
hand grasp the doorknob. He looked around for a hiding-place, ran a few
steps from the altar, doubled like a baited rat, and dove into