ere could be
no mistake this time. And following her eyes he saw a form, black and
shapeless, steal along to the nearest post.

Revolver in hand, he leaped up and back, upsetting his chair. The thing
remained hidden. He cleared the partitioning sarcophagus at a bound,
and, sliding and backing, reached the centre of the hall, never for one
instant taking his eyes from that post or lowering his revolver. Step by
step, back between the pillars, he retreated, stumbling toward the door
and safety.

Half-way, he heard the woman hiss: "Stop him! Don't let him escape!" And
he saw the thing dart from behind the post. In the uncontrollable
madness of his fear he hurled, instead of firing, his revolver at it,
and turned and ran.

Tapping lightly on the flags behind, he heard swift feet. It was coming,
it was gaining, but he was at the door, through it and had slammed it
safely behind him. A leap, a bound, and he was through the ante-chamber,
and, as the door behind him opened, he was slipping out into the
passageway. He went down the stairs in great jumps. Thank God! he had
left the street door unlocked. But already the sound of pursuit had
stopped, and he reached the open air safely.

Down the deserted street to Broadway he ran. There he hailed a cab and
directed the driver to the telegraph office. Then he leaned back and
looked at the garish lights, the passing cabs, the theatre crowds
hurrying along home, laughing and chatting as if the world held no such
horror as that which he had just escaped. That madwoman's words rang
through his brain, drowning out the voices of the street; the tapping of
those flying feet sounded in his ears above the rattle of the cab. That
or this must be unreal; yet how far off both seemed!

Gradually the rough jolting of the cab shook him back to a sense of his
surroundings and their safety. He began to regain his nerve, and to busy
himself knotting the strands of the story into a connected narrative.
And when, a few minutes later, he handed a message to the manager of the
telegraph office and demanded a clear wire into the _Banner_
office, he was quite the old breezy Simpkins.

Then, coat off, a cigar between his teeth, he sat down beside the
operator and began to write his story, his flying fingers keeping time
with the clicking instrument. He made no mention of the fears that had
beset him in the hall and the manner of his exit from it. But there was
enough and to spare of the dramatic in w