ing, stubborn will. And I turned
my sight from the Shadow--above all, from those strange serpent
eyes--eyes that had now become distinctly visible. For there, though in
nought else round me, I was aware that there was a WILL, and a will of
intense, creative, working evil, which might crush down my own.

The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden as if in the air of
some near conflagration. The larvae grew lurid as things that live in
fire. Again the room vibrated; again were heard the three measured
knocks; and again all things were swallowed up in the darkness of the
dark Shadow, as if out of that darkness all had come, into that darkness
all returned.

As the gloom receded, the Shadow was wholly gone. Slowly as it had been
withdrawn, the flame grew again into the candles on the table, again
into the fuel in the grate. The whole room came once more calmly,
healthfully into sight.

The two doors were still closed, the door communicating with the
servant's room still locked. In the corner of the wall into which he had
so convulsively niched himself, lay the dog. I called to him--no
movement; I approached--the animal was dead; his eyes protruded; his
tongue out of his mouth; the froth gathered round his jaws. I took him
in my arms; I brought him to the fire, I felt acute grief for the loss
of my poor favorite--acute self-reproach; I accused myself of his death;
I imagined he had died of fright. But what was my surprise on finding
that his neck was actually broken. Had this been done in the dark?--must
it not have been by a hand human as mine?--must there not have been
a human agency all the while in that room? Good cause to suspect it.
I cannot tell. I cannot do more than state the fact fairly; the reader
may draw his own inference.

Another surprising circumstance--my watch was restored to the table from
which it had been so mysteriously withdrawn; but it had stopped at the
very moment it was so withdrawn; nor, despite all the skill of the
watchmaker, has it ever gone since--that is, it will go in a strange
erratic way for a few hours, and then come to a dead stop--it is
worthless.

Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night. Nor, indeed, had I long
to wait before the dawn broke. Nor till it was broad daylight did I quit
the haunted house. Before I did so, I revisited the little blind room in
which my servant and myself had been for a time imprisoned. I had a
strong impression--for which I could not ac