It moved slowly through the air like some huge
spider, or odd-shaped bird. He would not acknowledge that there was
anything sinister about it--only something droll--excruciatingly droll. Yet it did not make him laugh. When it had drawn a little nearer, he
tried to diagnose it, to discover its material counterpart in one of
the objects around him; but he was obliged to acknowledge his attempts
were failures--there was nothing in the room in the least degree like
it. A vague feeling of uneasiness gradually crept over him--was the
thing the shadow of something with which he was familiar, but could not
just then recall to mind--something he feared--something that was
sinister? He struggled against the idea, he dismissed it as absurd; but
it returned--returned, and took deeper root as the shadow drew nearer. He wished the house was not quite so silent--that he could hear some
indication of life--anything--anything for companionship, and to rid
him of the oppressive, the very oppressive, sense of loneliness and
isolation. Again a thrill of terror ran through him. "Look here!" he exclaimed aloud, glad to hear the sound of his own
voice. "Look here! if this goes on much longer I shall begin to think
I'm going mad. I have had enough, and more than enough, of magic
mirrors for one night--it's high time I got into bed." He strove to
rise from his chair--to move; he was unable to do either; some
strange, tyrannical force held him a prisoner. A change now took place in the shadow; the blurr dissipated, and the
clearly defined outlines of an object--an object that made Mr. Vance
perfectly sick with apprehension--slowly disclosed themselves. His
suspicions were verified--it was the HAND!--the hand--no longer
skeleton, but covered with green, mouldering flesh--feeling its way
slyly and stealthily towards him--towards the back of his chair! He
noted the murderous twitching of its short, flat finger-tips, the
monstrous muscles of its hideous thumb, and the great, clumsy hollows
of its clammy palm. It closed in upon him; its cold, slimy, detestable
skin touched his coat--his shoulder--his neck--his head! It pressed
him down, squashed, suffocated him! He saw it all in the glass--and
then an extraordinary thing happened. Mr. Vance suddenly became
animated. He got up and peeped furtively round. Chairs, bed, wardrobe,
had all disappeared--so had the bedroom--and he found himself in a
small, bare, comfortless, queerly constructed apartment without a
door, and with only a narrow slit of a window somewhere near the
ceiling. He had in one of his hands a knife with a long, keen blade, and his
whole mind was bent on murder. Creeping stealthily forward, he
approached a corner of the room, where he now saw, for the first
time--a mattress--a mattress on which lay a huddled-up form. What the
Thing was--whether human or animal--Mr. Vance did not know--did not
care--all he felt was that it was there for him to kill--that he
loathed and hated it--hated it with a hatred such as nothing else
could have produced. Tiptoeing gently up to it, he bent down, and,
lifting his knife high above his head, plunged it into the Thing's
body with all the force he could command. *       *       *       *       *

He recrossed the room, and found himself once more in his apartment at
the inn. He looked for the skeleton hand--it was not where he had left
it--it had vanished. Then he glanced at the mirror, and on its
brilliantly polished surface saw--not his own face--but the face of
the gardener, the man who had given him the hand! Features, colour,
hair--all--all were identical--wonderfully, hideously identical--and
as the eyes met his, they smiled--devilishly. *       *       *       *       *

Early the next day, Mr. Vance set out for the spinney and cottage;
they were not to be found--nobody had ever heard of them. He continued
his travels, and some months later, at a loan collection of pictures
in a gallery in Edinburgh, he came to an abrupt--a very abrupt--halt,
before the portrait of a gentleman in ancient costume. The face
seemed strangely familiar--the huge head with thick, red hair--the
hawk-like features--the thin and tightly compressed lips. Then, in a
trice, it all came back to him: the face he looked at was that of the
uncouth gardener--the man who had given him the hand. And to clinch
the matter, the eyes--leered. _Printed by_
            MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED
                _Edinburgh_


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    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
    |                                                           |
    | Page  79: 'made a dash as it' at replaced with            |
    |           'made a dash at it'                             |
    | Page  93: spritualist replaced with spiritualist          |
    | Page 232: degreee replaced with degree                    |
    | Page 258: accompained replaced with accompanied           |
    |                                                           |
    | Further Notes:                                            |
    |                                                           |
    | For those who may wonder about the word 'lolled' on page  |
    | 84, it really is a word! It means: 1. To move, stand, or  |
    | recline in an indolent or relaxed manner. 2. To hang      |
    | or droop laxly. |
    |                                                           |
    | In the original book, each chapter header is on a         |
    | separate page, followed by a blank page and then the      |
    | chapter header again, and then the chapter text. The      |
    | duplicate header has been removed in this document. |
    |                                                           |
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