It was not a particularly sensible notion, for the sound was far
too heavy and resonant for such a cause. Yet, as can be easily
understood, my reason was bound to submit somewhat to my fancy at such a
time. I remember now, that the idea of that insensate thing becoming
animate, and attacking me, did not occur to me with any sense of
possibility or reality. I thought rather, in a vague way, of some
invisible monster of outer space fumbling at the dagger. I remembered
the old Rector's description of the attack on the butler.... _of the
void_. And he had described the stupendous force of the blow as being
'like the kick of a great horse.' You can see how uncomfortably my
thoughts were running. "I felt 'round swiftly and cautiously for my lantern. I found it close to
me, on the pew seat, and with a sudden, jerky movement, I switched on the
light. I flashed it up the aisle, to and fro across the chancel, but I
could see nothing to frighten me. I turned quickly, and sent the jet of
light darting across and across the rear end of the Chapel; then on each
side of me, before and behind, up at the roof and down at the marble
floor, but nowhere was there any visible thing to put me in fear, not a
thing that need have set my flesh thrilling; just the quiet Chapel, cold,
and eternally silent. You know the feeling. "I had been standing, whilst I sent the light about the Chapel, but now I
pulled out my revolver, and then, with a tremendous effort of will,
switched off the light, and sat down again in the darkness, to continue
my constant watch. "It seemed to me that quite half an hour, or even more, must have passed,
after this, during which no sound had broken the intense stillness. I had
grown less nervously tense, for the flashing of the light 'round the
place had made me feel less out of all bounds of the normal--it had
given me something of that unreasoned sense of safety that a nervous
child obtains at night, by covering its head up with the bedclothes. This
just about illustrates the completely human illogicalness of the workings
of my feelings; for, as you know, whatever Creature, Thing, or Being it
was that had made that extraordinary and horrible attack on the old
butler, it had certainly not been visible. "And so you must picture me sitting there in the dark; clumsy with armor,
and with my revolver in one hand, and nursing my lantern, ready, with the
other. And then it was, after this little time of partial relief from
intense nervousness, that there came a fresh strain on me; for somewhere
in the utter quiet of the Chapel, I thought I heard something. I
listened, tense and rigid, my heart booming just a little in my ears for
a moment; then I thought I heard it again. I felt sure that something had
moved at the top of the aisle. I strained in the darkness, to hark; and
my eyes showed me blackness within blackness, wherever I glanced, so that
I took no heed of what they told me; for even if I looked at the dim loom
of the stained window at the top of the chancel, my sight gave me the
shapes of vague shadows passing noiseless and ghostly across, constantly. There was a time of almost peculiar silence, horrible to me, as I felt
just then. And suddenly I seemed to hear a sound again, nearer to me, and
repeated, infinitely stealthy. It was as if a vast, soft tread were
coming slowly down the aisle. "Can you imagine how I felt? I do not think you can. I did not move, any
more than the stone effigies on the two tombs; but sat there,
_stiffened_. I fancied now, that I heard the tread all about the Chapel. And then, you know, I was just as sure in a moment that I could not hear
it--that I had never heard it. "Some particularly long minutes passed, about this time; but I think my
nerves must have quieted a bit; for I remember being sufficiently aware
of my feelings, to realize that the muscles of my shoulders _ached_, with
the way that they must have been contracted, as I sat there, hunching
myself, rigid. Mind you, I was still in a disgusting funk; but what I
might call the 'imminent sense of danger' seemed to have eased from
around me; at any rate, I felt, in some curious fashion, that there was a
respite--a temporary cessation of malignity from about me. It is
impossible to word my feelings more clearly to you, for I cannot see them
more clearly than this, myself. "Yet, you must not picture me as sitting there, free from strain; for the
nerve tension was so great that my heart action was a little out of
normal control, the blood beat making a dull booming at times in my ears,
with the result that I had the sensation that I could not hear acutely. This is a simply beastly feeling, especially under such circumstances. "I was sitting like this, listening, as I might say with body and soul,
when suddenly I got that hideous conviction again that something was
moving in the air of the place. The feeling seemed to stiffen me, as I
sat, and my head appeared to tighten, as if all the scalp had grown
_tense_. This was so real, that I suffered an actual pain, most peculiar
and at the same time intense; the whole head pained. I had a fierce
desire to cover my face again with my mailed arms, but I fought it off. If I had given way then to that, I should simply have bunked straight out
of the place. I sat and sweated coldly (that's the bald truth), with the
'creep' busy at my spine....

"And then, abruptly, once more I thought I heard the sound of that huge,
soft tread on the aisle, and this time closer to me. There was an awful
little silence, during which I had the feeling that something enormous
was bending over toward me, from the aisle.... And then, through the
booming of the blood in my ears, there came a slight sound from the
place where my camera stood--a disagreeable sort of slithering sound, and
then a sharp tap. I had the lantern ready in my left hand, and now I
snapped it on, desperately, and shone it straight above me, for I had a
conviction that there was something there. But I saw nothing. Immediately
I flashed the light at the camera, and along the aisle, but again there
was nothing visible. I wheeled 'round, shooting the beam of light in a
great circle about the place; to and fro I shone it, jerking it here and
there, but it showed me nothing. "I had stood up the instant that I had seen that there was nothing in
sight over me, and now I determined to visit the chancel, and see whether
the dagger had been touched. I stepped out of the pew into the aisle, and
here I came to an abrupt pause, for an almost invincible, sick repugnance
was fighting me back from the upper part of the Chapel. A constant, queer
prickling went up and down my spine, and a dull ache took me in the small
of the back, as I fought with myself to conquer this sudden new feeling
of terror and horror.