Silence smothered us absolutely—the silence of night, of listening, the
silence of a haunted expectancy. The very gurgling of the lamps was too
soft to be heard, and if light itself had sound, I do not think we
should have noticed the silvery tread of the moonlight as it entered
the high narrow windows and threw upon the floor the slender traces of
its pallid footsteps. Colonel Wragge and the doctor, and myself too for that matter, sat thus
like figures of stone, without speech and without gesture. My eyes
passed in ceaseless journeys from the bowl to their faces, and from
their faces to the bowl. They might have been masks, however, for all
the signs of life they gave; and the light steaming from the horrid
contents beneath the white cloth had long ceased to be visible. Then presently, as the moon rose higher, the wind rose with it. It
sighed, like the lightest of passing wings, over the roof; it crept
most softly round the walls; it made the brick floor like ice beneath
our feet. With it I saw mentally the desolate moorland flowing like a
sea about the old house, the treeless expanse of lonely hills, the
nearer copses, sombre and mysterious in the night. The plantation, too,
in particular I saw, and imagined I heard the mournful whisperings that
must now be a-stirring among its tree-tops as the breeze played down
between the twisted stems. In the depth of the room behind us the
shafts of moonlight met and crossed in a growing network. It was after an hour of this wearing and unbroken attention, and I
should judge about one o’clock in the morning, when the baying of the
dogs in the stableyard first began, and I saw John Silence move
suddenly in his chair and sit up in an attitude of attention. Every
force in my being instantly leaped into the keenest vigilance. Colonel
Wragge moved too, though slowly, and without raising his eyes from the
table before him. The doctor stretched his arm out and took the white cloth from the
bowl. It was perhaps imagination that persuaded me the red glare of the lamps
grew fainter and the air over the table before us thickened. I had been
expecting something for so long that the movement of my companions, and
the lifting of the cloth, may easily have caused the momentary delusion
that something hovered in the air before my face, touching the skin of
my cheeks with a silken run. But it was certainly not a delusion that
the Colonel looked up at the same moment and glanced over his shoulder,
as though his eyes followed the movements of something to and fro about
the room, and that he then buttoned his overcoat more tightly about him
and his eyes sought my own face first, and then the doctor’s. And it
was no delusion that his face seemed somehow to have turned dark,
become spread as it were with a shadowy blackness. I saw his lips
tighten and his expression grow hard and stern, and it came to me then
with a rush that, of course, this man had told us but a part of the
experiences he had been through in the house, and that there was much
more he had never been able to bring himself to reveal at all. I felt
sure of it. The way he turned and stared about him betrayed a
familiarity with other things than those he had described to us. It was
not merely a sight of fire he looked for; it was a sight of something
alive, intelligent, something able to evade his searching; it was _a
person_. It was the watch for the ancient Being who sought to obsess
him. And the way in which Dr. Silence answered his look—though it was only
by a glance of subtlest sympathy—confirmed my impression. “We may be ready now,” I heard him say in a whisper, and I understood
that his words were intended as a steadying warning, and braced myself
mentally to the utmost of my power. Yet long before Colonel Wragge had turned to stare about the room, and
long before the doctor had confirmed my impression that things were at
last beginning to stir, I had become aware in most singular fashion
that the place held more than our three selves. With the rising of the
wind this increase to our numbers had first taken place. The baying of
the hounds almost seemed to have signalled it. I cannot say how it may
be possible to realise that an empty place has suddenly become—not
empty, when the new arrival is nothing that appeals to any one of the
senses; for this recognition of an “invisible,” as of the change in the
balance of personal forces in a human group, is indefinable and beyond
proof. Yet it is unmistakable. And I knew perfectly well at what given
moment the atmosphere within these four walls became charged with the
presence of other living beings besides ourselves. And, on reflection,
I am convinced that both my companions knew it too. “Watch the light,” said the doctor under his breath, and then I knew
too that it was no fancy of my own that had turned the air darker, and
the way he turned to examine the face of our host sent an electric
thrill of wonder and expectancy shivering along every nerve in my body. Yet it was no kind of terror that I experienced, but rather a sort of
mental dizziness, and a sensation as of being suspended in some remote
and dreadful altitude where things might happen, indeed were about to
happen, that had never before happened within the ken of man. Horror
may have formed an ingredient, but it was not chiefly horror, and in no
sense ghostly horror. Uncommon thoughts kept beating on my brain like tiny hammers, soft yet
persistent, seeking admission; their unbidden tide began to wash along
the far fringes of my mind, the currents of unwonted sensations to rise
over the remote frontiers of my consciousness. I was aware of thoughts,
and the fantasies of thoughts, that I never knew before existed. Portions of my being stirred that had never stirred before, and things
ancient and inexplicable rose to the surface and beckoned me to follow. I felt as though I were about to fly off, at some immense tangent, into
an outer space hitherto unknown even in dreams. And so singular was the
result produced upon me that I was uncommonly glad to anchor my mind,
as well as my eyes, upon the masterful personality of the doctor at my
side, for there, I realised, I could draw always upon the forces of
sanity and safety. With a vigorous effort of will I returned to the scene before me, and
tried to focus my attention, with steadier thoughts, upon the table,
and upon the silent figures seated round it. And then I saw that
certain changes had come about in the place where we sat. The patches of moonlight on the floor, I noted, had become curiously
shaded; the faces of my companions opposite were not so clearly visible
as before; and the forehead and cheeks of Colonel Wragge were
glistening with perspiration. I realised further, that an extraordinary
change had come about in the temperature of the atmosphere. The
increased warmth had a painful effect, not alone on Colonel Wragge, but
upon all of us. It was oppressive and unnatural. We gasped figuratively
as well as actually.