Only the mist in the room grew more dense, he thought, and the damp
cold more penetrating. Certainly, from time to time, he shivered. The collie, now deep in slumber, moved occasionally,—grunted, sighed,
or twitched his legs in dreams. Smoke lay on his knees, a pool of warm,
black fur, only the closest observation detecting the movement of his
sleek sides. It was difficult to distinguish exactly where his head and
body joined in that circle of glistening hair; only a black satin nose
and a tiny tip of pink tongue betrayed the secret. Dr. Silence watched him, and felt comfortable. The collie’s breathing
was soothing. The fire was well built, and would burn for another two
hours without attention. He was not conscious of the least nervousness. He particularly wished to remain in his ordinary and normal state of
mind, and to force nothing. If sleep came naturally, he would let it
come—and even welcome it. The coldness of the room, when the fire died
down later, would be sure to wake him again; and it would then be time
enough to carry these sleeping barometers up to bed. From various
psychic premonitions he knew quite well that the night would not pass
without adventure; but he did not wish to force its arrival; and he
wished to remain normal, and let the animals remain normal, so that,
when it came, it would be unattended by excitement or by any straining
of the attention. Many experiments had made him wise. And, for the
rest, he had no fear. Accordingly, after a time, he did fall asleep as he had expected, and
the last thing he remembered, before oblivion slipped up over his eyes
like soft wool, was the picture of Flame stretching all four legs at
once, and sighing noisily as he sought a more comfortable position for
his paws and muzzle upon the mat. It was a good deal later when he became aware that a weight lay upon
his chest, and that something was pencilling over his face and mouth. A
soft touch on the cheek woke him. Something was patting him. He sat up with a jerk, and found himself staring straight into a pair
of brilliant eyes, half green, half black. Smoke’s face lay level with
his own; and the cat had climbed up with its front paws upon his chest. The lamp had burned low and the fire was nearly out, yet Dr. Silence
saw in a moment that the cat was in an excited state. It kneaded with
its front paws into his chest, shifting from one to the other. He felt
them prodding against him. It lifted a leg very carefully and patted
his cheek gingerly. Its fur, he saw, was standing ridgewise upon its
back; the ears were flattened back somewhat; the tail was switching
sharply. The cat, of course, had wakened him with a purpose, and the
instant he realised this, he set it upon the arm of the chair and
sprang up with a quick turn to face the empty room behind him. By some
curious instinct, his arms of their own accord assumed an attitude of
defence in front of him, as though to ward off something that
threatened his safety. Yet nothing was visible. Only shapes of fog hung
about rather heavily in the air, moving slightly to and fro. His mind was now fully alert, and the last vestiges of sleep gone. He
turned the lamp higher and peered about him. Two things he became aware
of at once: one, that Smoke, while excited, was _pleasurably_ excited;
the other, that the collie was no longer visible upon the mat at his
feet. He had crept away to the corner of the wall farthest from the
window, and lay watching the room with wide-open eyes, in which lurked
plainly something of alarm. Something in the dog’s behaviour instantly struck Dr. Silence as
unusual, and, calling him by name, he moved across to pat him. Flame
got up, wagged his tail, and came over slowly to the rug, uttering a
low sound that was half growl, half whine. He was evidently perturbed
about something, and his master was proceeding to administer comfort
when his attention was suddenly drawn to the antics of his other
four-footed companion, the cat. And what he saw filled him with something like amazement. Smoke had jumped down from the back of the arm-chair and now occupied
the middle of the carpet, where, with tail erect and legs stiff as
ramrods, it was steadily pacing backwards and forwards in a narrow
space, uttering, as it did so, those curious little guttural sounds of
pleasure that only an animal of the feline species knows how to make
expressive of supreme happiness. Its stiffened legs and arched back
made it appear larger than usual, and the black visage wore a smile of
beatific joy. Its eyes blazed magnificently; it was in an ecstasy. At the end of every few paces it turned sharply and stalked back again
along the same line, padding softly, and purring like a roll of little
muffled drums. It behaved precisely as though it were rubbing against
the ankles of some one who remained invisible. A thrill ran down the
doctor’s spine as he stood and stared. His experiment was growing
interesting at last. He called the collie’s attention to his friend’s performance to see
whether he too was aware of anything standing there upon the carpet,
and the dog’s behaviour was significant and corroborative. He came as
far as his master’s knees and then stopped dead, refusing to
investigate closely. In vain Dr. Silence urged him; he wagged his tail,
whined a little, and stood in a half-crouching attitude, staring
alternately at the cat and at his master’s face. He was, apparently,
both puzzled and alarmed, and the whine went deeper and deeper down
into his throat till it changed into an ugly snarl of awakening anger. Then the doctor called to him in a tone of command he had never known
to be disregarded; but still the dog, though springing up in response,
declined to move nearer. He made tentative motions, pranced a little
like a dog about to take to water, pretended to bark, and ran to and
fro on the carpet. So far there was no actual fear in his manner, but
he was uneasy and anxious, and nothing would induce him to go within
touching distance of the walking cat. Once he made a complete circuit,
but always carefully out of reach; and in the end he returned to his
master’s legs and rubbed vigorously against him. Flame did not like the
performance at all: that much was quite clear. For several minutes John Silence watched the performance of the cat
with profound attention and without interfering. Then he called to the
animal by name. “Smoke, you mysterious beastie, what in the world are you about?” he
said, in a coaxing tone. The cat looked up at him for a moment, smiling in its ecstasy, blinking
its eyes, but too happy to pause. He spoke to it again. He called to it
several times, and each time it turned upon him its blazing eyes, drunk
with inner delight, opening and shutting its lips, its body large and
rigid with excitement. Yet it never for one instant paused in its short
journeys to and fro.