waterfall flowed on as a reminder of
that fact.

The sound was not repeated. The dusk outside the windows offered nothing
unusual to be seen. I finished my unpacking and sat down at my
writing-table.

I am not accustomed to heed time. There never has been anyone to care
what hours I kept, and I work best at night. Midnight was long past when
I thought of rest.

I declare that I thought of nothing more; not even recalling the vague
unease felt on entering the room. A day spent in the fresh air, followed
by an evening of hard work and journeyings between the piano and table,
had left me utterly weary. When I lay down, it was to sleep at once.

CHAPTER VI

"I have made a story that hath not been heard;
A great feat of arms that hath not been seen!"
--AMENEMHE'ET.

I woke slowly. It seemed that I struggled to wakefulness as a spent
swimmer struggles toward shore. Up, up through deep poles of sleep I
dragged myself, driven by some dimly sensed necessity. Peril had stolen
upon me in my unconsciousness, a stalking beast. I knew that with
nightmare certainty. It was as if my soul stood affrighted beside my
brain, wailing upon its ally to arouse and stand with it against the
menace. And my brain answered, but with infinite difficulty; like a
drugged warrior who hears the clang of battle and forces numbed limbs to
stir, arise and grasp the sword.

I was awake. Suddenly; the swimmer reaching the surface!

How shall I describe Fear incarnate? The Horror was at the open window
opposite the foot of my bed, staring in upon me with slavering
covetousness of the prey It watched. I lay there, and felt It seek for
me across the darkness with tentacles of evil that groped for some part
of me upon which It might lay hold.

The room was still. Between the draperies, the window showed nothing to
the eye except a dark square faintly tinged with the night luminance of
the sky. There was nothing to see; nothing to hear. But gradually I
became aware of a hideous odor of mould and mildew, of must and damp
decay that loaded the air with disgust.

I lay there, and opposed the approach of the Thing with all the will of
resistance in me. The sweat poured from my whole body, so that I lay as
in water and the drenched linen of my sleeping-suit clung coldly to me.

It could not pass the defense of my will. I felt the malevolent fury of
Its striving. Like the antennae of some monstro