“Well, go on,” said the other, irritably.
“I went in while it was perfectly dark. I took a position on the stairs because I had been told the—the thing—had been seen from the stairs, and I thought that where it had been seen once it would be seen again. I had presumed it was some trick of a shadow, or moonlight, or something of the kind. So I sat waiting calmly. I am not a nervous man—that is, I never have been until now.
“I took no light of any kind with me. It seemed an interminable time that I waited, staring into the reception-room in the general direction of the library. At last, as I gazed into the darkness, I heard a noise. It startled me a bit, but it didn’t frighten me, for I put it down to a rat running across the floor.
“But after awhile I heard the most awful cry a human bei
