eaten it.

He clutched his rifle to him. The barrel was hot, but the feel of it
gave him a sense of companionship. And then, as he lay back on the bed
again, the lamp went out. He groped for it and shook it. There was no
oil.

Now, what had been hot horror turned to fear that passed all
understanding--to the hate that does not reason--to the cold sweat
breaking on the roasted skin. Where the four walls had been there was
blackness of immeasurable space. He could hear the thousand-footed
cannibals of night creep nearer--driven in toward him by the dinning of
the tom-toms. He felt that his bed was up above a scrambling swarm of
black-legged things that fought.

He had no idea how long he lay stock-still, for fear of calling
attention to himself, and hated his servant and Mahommed Gunga and all
India. Once--twice--he thought he heard another sound, almost like the
footfall of a man on the veranda near him. Once he thought that a man
breathed within ten paces of him, and for a moment there was a distinct
sensation of not being alone. He hoped it was true; he could deal with
an assassin. That would be something tangible to hate and hit. Manhood
came to his assistance--the spirit of the soldier that will bow to
nothing that has shape; but it died away again as the creeping silence
once more shut down on him.

And then the thunder of the tom-toms ceased. Then even the venomed
crawlers that he knew were near him faded into nothing that really
mattered, compared to the greater, stealthy horror that he knew was
coming, born of the shuddersome, shut silence that ensued. There
was neither air nor view--no sense of time or space--nothing but
the coal-black pit of terror yawning--cold sweat in the heat, and a
footfall--an undoubted footfall--followed by another one, too heavy for
a man's.

Where heavy feet were there was something tangible. His veins tingled
and the cold sweat dried. Excitement began to reawaken all his soldier
senses, and the wish to challenge seized him--the soldierly intent to
warn the unaware, which is the actual opposite of cowardice.

"Halt! Who comes there?"

He lipped the words, but his dry throat would not voice them. Before he
could clear his throat or wet his lips his eye caught something lighter
than the night--two things--ten--twelve paces off--two things that
glowed or sheened as though there were light inside them--too big and
too far apart to be owl's eyes, but singularly like them. They mov