"'There!' I said to the landlord, and caught his arm, in my turn. 'The
Smell! Do _you_ smell it?'
"He looked at me so stupidly that in a sort of nervous anger, I
shook him.
"'Yes,' he said, in a queer voice, trying to shine the light from his
shaking lantern at the stair head.
"'Come on!' I said, and picked up my bayonet; and he came, carrying his
gun awkwardly. I think he came, more because he was afraid to be left
alone, than because he had any pluck left, poor beggar. I never sneer at
that kind of funk, at least very seldom; for when it takes hold of you,
it makes rags of your courage.
"I led the way downstairs, shining my light into the lower passage, and
afterward at the doors to see whether they were shut; for I had closed
and latched them, placing a corner of a mat against each door, so I
should know which had been opened.
"I saw at once that none of the doors had been opened; then I threw the
beam of my light down alongside the stairway, in order to see the mat I
had placed against the door at the top of the cellar stairs. I got a
horrid thrill; for the mat was flat! I paused a couple of seconds,
shining my light to and fro in the passage, and holding fast to my
courage, I went down the stairs.
"As I came to the bottom step, I saw patches of wet all up and down the
passage. I shone my lantern on them. It was the imprint of a wet foot
on the oilcloth of the passage; not an ordinary footprint, but a queer,
soft, flabby, spreading imprint, that gave me a feeling of
extraordinary horror.
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