A horrible cold fright took me
so that it seemed impossible to take a full breath, you know the feeling,
and then I saw we must have been walking backward for we found ourselves
suddenly at the opening of the long passage. "We stopped there and listened. The sounds went on steadily with a
horrible sort of deliberateness, as if the brute were taking a sort of
malicious gusto in walking about all over the room which we had just
occupied. Do you understand just what I mean? "Then there was a pause and a long time of absolute quiet except for an
excited whispering from some of the people down in the big hall. The
sound came plainly up the wide stairway. I fancy they were gathered
'round Miss Hisgins, with some notion of protecting her. "I should think Beaumont and I stood there, at the end of the passage for
about five minutes, listening for any noise in the billiard room. Then I
realized what a horrible funk I was in and I said to him: 'I'm going to
see what's there.' "'So'm I,' he answered. He was pretty white, but he had heaps of pluck. I told him to wait one instant and I made a dash into my bedroom and got
my camera and flashlight. I slipped my revolver into my right-hand pocket
and a knuckle-duster over my left fist, where it was ready and yet would
not stop me from being able to work my flashlight. "Then I ran back to Beaumont. He held out his hand to show me that he had
his pistol and I nodded, but whispered to him not to be too quick to
shoot, as there might be some silly practical joking at work, after all. He had got a lamp from a bracket in the upper hall which he was holding
in the crook of his damaged arm, so that we had a good light. Then we
went down the passage toward the billiard room and you can imagine that
we were a pretty nervous couple. "All this time there had not been a sound, but abruptly when we were
within perhaps a couple of yards of the door we heard the sudden clumping
of a hoof on the solid _parquet_ floor of the billiard room. In the
instant afterward it seemed to me that the whole place shook beneath the
ponderous hoof falls of some huge thing, _coming toward the door_. Both
Beaumont and I gave back a pace or two, and then realized and hung on to
our courage, as you might say, and waited. The great tread came right up
to the door and then stopped and there was an instant of absolute
silence, except that so far as I was concerned, the pulsing in my throat
and temples almost deafened me. "I dare say we waited quite half a minute and then came the further
restless clumping of a great hoof. Immediately afterward the sounds came
right on as if some invisible thing passed through the closed door and
the ponderous tread was upon us. We jumped, each of us, to our side of
the passage and I know that I spread myself stiff against the wall. The
clungk clunck, clungk clunck, of the great hoof falls passed right
between us and slowly and with deadly deliberateness, down the passage. I heard them through a haze of blood beats in my ears and temples and my
body was extraordinarily rigid and pringling and I was horribly
breathless. I stood for a little time like this, my head turned so that I
could see up the passage. I was conscious only that there was a hideous
danger abroad. Do you understand? "And then, suddenly, my pluck came back to me. I was aware that the noise
of the hoof beats sounded near the other end of the passage. I twisted
quickly and got my camera to bear and snapped off the flashlight. Immediately afterward, Beaumont let fly a storm of shots down the passage
and began to run, shouting: 'It's after Mary. Run! Run!' "He rushed down the passage and I after him. We came out on the main
landing and heard the sound of a hoof on the stairs and after that,
nothing. And from thence onward, nothing. "Down below us in the big hall I could see a number of the household
'round Miss Hisgins, who seemed to have fainted and there were several of
the servants clumped together a little way off, staring up at the main
landing and no one saying a single word. And about some twenty steps up
the stairs was the old Captain Hisgins with a drawn sword in his hand
where he had halted, just below the last hoof sound. I think I never saw
anything finer than the old man standing there between his daughter and
that infernal thing. "I daresay you can understand the queer feeling of horror I had at
passing that place on the stairs where the sounds had ceased. It was as
if the monster were still standing there, invisible. And the peculiar
thing was that we never heard another sound of the hoof, either up or
down the stairs. "After they had taken Miss Hisgins to her room I sent word that I should
follow, so soon as they were ready for me. And presently, when a message
came to tell me that I could come any time, I asked her father to give
me a hand with my instrument box and between us we carried it into the
girl's bedroom. I had the bed pulled well out into the middle of the
room, after which I erected the electric pentacle 'round the bed. "Then I directed that lamps should be placed 'round the room, but that on
no account must any light be made within the pentacle; neither must
anyone pass in or out. The girl's mother I had placed within the pentacle
and directed that her maid should sit without, ready to carry any message
so as to make sure that Mrs. Hisgins did not have to leave the pentacle. I suggested also that the girl's father should stay the night in the room
and that he had better be armed. "When I left the bedroom I found Beaumont waiting outside the door in a
miserable state of anxiety. I told him what I had done and explained to
him that Miss Hisgins was probably perfectly safe within the
'protection'; but that in addition to her father remaining the night in
the room, I intended to stand guard at the door. I told him that I should
like him to keep me company, for I knew that he could never sleep,
feeling as he did, and I should not be sorry to have a companion. Also, I
wanted to have him under my own observation, for there was no doubt but
that he was actually in greater danger in some ways than the girl. At
least, that was my opinion and is still, as I think you will agree later. "I asked him whether he would object to my drawing a pentacle 'round him
for the night and got him to agree, but I saw that he did not know
whether to be superstitious about it or to regard it more as a piece of
foolish mumming; but he took it seriously enough when I gave him some
particulars about the Black Veil case, when young Aster died. You
remember, he said it was a piece of silly superstition and stayed
outside. Poor devil! "The night passed quietly enough until a little while before dawn when
we both heard the sounds of a great horse galloping 'round and 'round the
house just as old Captain Hisgins had described it. You can imagine how
queer it made me feel and directly afterward, I heard someone stir within
the bedroom.