The first notes trembled out like the call of a wounded bird— low, desperate, appealing! The player's head drooped, his dark cheek nuzzled the old violin, his face dreaming and absorbed.
Humphrey shivered as the wild melody gathered up all the brooding fear which had pressed so close and heavy upon him all that day. Wilder and wilder the lament rose and swelled, until the room echoed with the terror that beat and surged within its walls.
All the evil that had pursued him since childhood seemed to be clamoring and shrieking, set free by the long fingers of the dark fiddler, who swayed in such passionate abandon before him. Humphrey's face grew white as chalk as he sat chained to his seat, while the music dropped to slow sobbing notes—the anguished voice of one at the last extremity of tor
