ntaneous rush of terror, that at first he dared not even move to
find the matches again under his pillow.

The pause was dreadful. He longed for brilliant light that should reveal
all parts of the room equally, or else for a thick darkness that should
conceal him from everything in the world. The uncertain flicker of a
single candle playing miserably between the two was the last thing in the
world to appeal to him.

And then events crowded too thick and fast for him to recognize any one
emotion in particular from all the fire of them passing so swiftly in and
out among his hopelessly disorganized thoughts. Terror flashed, but with
it flashed also wonder and delight--the audacity of unreflecting
courage--and more--even a breathless worship of the powers, knowledge and
forces that lifted for him in that little bedroom the vast Transparency
that hides from men the Unknown.

It is soon told. For a moment there was silence, and then he knew that
the invader had effected an entrance. There was barely time to marvel at
the snake-like thinness of the living creature that could avail itself of
so narrow a space, when to his amazement he heard the quick patter of
feet across the space of boarded flooring next the wall, and then the
silence that muffled them as they reached the carpet proper.

Almost at the same second something leaped upon his bed, and there shot
swiftly across him a living thing with light, firm tread--a creature, so
far as he could form any judgment at all, about the size of a rabbit or a
cat. He felt the feet pushing through sheets and blankets upon his body.
They were little feet; how many, at that stage, he could not guess. Then
he heard the thud as it dropped to the floor upon the other side.

The panic terror that in the dark it would run upon his bare exposed face
thus passed; and in that moment of intense relief Spinrobin gripped his
soul, so to speak, with both hands and made the effort of his life.
Whatever happened now he must have a light, be it only the light of a
single miserable candle. In that moment he felt that he would have
sacrificed all his hopes of the hereafter to have turned on a flood of
searching and brilliant sunshine into every corner of the
room--instantaneously. The thought that the creature might jump again
upon the bed and touch him before he could see, gave him energy to act.

With dashes of terror shooting through him like spears of ice, he grabbed
the matchbox, and after a