hen I was quiet for I was so ashamed for
the man. You can understand, can't you? And he was opening his eyes. And
you know, I had grown so to like him.

"And then, you know, just as Parsket was getting back his wits and
looking from one to the other of us and beginning to remember, there
happened a strange and incredible thing. For from the end of the
corridor there sounded suddenly, the clumping of a great hoof. I looked
that way and then instantly at Parsket and saw a horrible fear in his
face and eyes. He wrenched himself 'round, weakly, and stared in mad
terror up the corridor to where the sound had been, and the rest of us
stared, in a frozen group. I remember vaguely half sobs and whispers
from Miss Hisgins's bedroom, all the while that I stared frightenedly up
the corridor.

"The silence lasted several seconds and then, abruptly there came again
the clumping of the great hoof, away at the end of the corridor. And
immediately afterward the clungk, clunk--clungk, clunk of mighty hoofs
coming down the passage toward us.

"Even then, you know, most of us thought it was some mechanism of
Parsket's still at work and we were in the queerest mixture of fright and
doubt. I think everyone looked at Parsket. And suddenly the Captain
shouted out:

"'Stop this damned fooling at once. Haven't you done enough?'

"For my part, I was now frightened for I had a _sense_ that there was
something horrible and wrong. And then Parsket managed to gasp out:

"'It's not me! My God! It's not me! My God! It's not me.'

"And then, you know, it seemed to come home to everyone in an instant
that there was really some dreadful thing coming down the passage. There
was a mad rush to get away and even old Captain Hisgins gave back with
the butler and the footmen. Beaumont fainted outright, as I found
afterward, for he had been badly mauled. I just flattened back against
the wall, kneeling as I was, too stupid and dazed even to run. And almost
in the same instant the ponderous hoof falls sounded close to me and
seeming to shake the solid floor as they passed. Abruptly the great
sounds ceased and I knew in a sort of sick fashion that the thing had
halted opposite to the door of the girl's bedroom. And then I was aware
that Parsket was standing rocking in the doorway with his arms spread
across, so as to fill the doorway with his body. Parsket was
extraordinarily pale and the blood was running down his face from the
wound in his forehead; and