I halted, and for an instant stood powerless to move. How he had entered I
could not guess, nor did I ever discover. Sufficient was the awful fact
that he was in.
I was ice-cold from head to foot. Then I was all on fire and groping
forward once more whilst those footsteps, sinister and menacing as the very
steps of Doom, came higher and nearer.
At last I found the door and wrenched it open. I stayed to close it after
me, and already at the end of the passage beat the reflection of the light
Fifanti carried. A second I stood there hesitating which way to turn. My
first thought was to gain my own chamber. But to attempt it were assuredly
to run into his arms. So I turned, and went as swiftly and stealthily as
possible towards the library.
I was all but in when he turned the corner of the passage, and so caught
sight of me before I had closed the door.
I stood in the library, where the lamp still burned, sweating, panting, and
trembling. For even as he had had a glimpse of me, so had I had a glimpse
of him, and the sight was terrifying to one in my situation.
I had seen, his tall, gaunt figure bending forward in his eager, angry
haste. In one hand he carried a lanthorn; a naked sword in the other. His
face was malign and ghastly, and his bald, egg-like head shone yellow.
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