I put my hand out quickly, and eased the hitched rope from around
the pillar. The inspector seemed aware of the movement; for I saw the
faint light from his lantern, move a little, as if he had suddenly taken
hold of it, in readiness.
"A minute later, I noticed there was a change in the color of the night
in the cellar, and it grew slowly violet tinted upon my eyes. I glanced
to and fro, quickly, in the new darkness, and even as I looked, I was
conscious that the violet color deepened. In the direction of the well,
but seeming to be at a great distance, there was, as it were, a nucleus
to the change; and the nucleus came swiftly toward us, appearing to come
from a great space, almost in a single moment. It came near, and I saw
again that it was a little naked Child, running, and seeming to be of the
violet night in which it ran.
"The Child came with a natural running movement, exactly as I described
it before; but in a silence so peculiarly intense, that it was as if it
brought the silence with it. About half-way between the well and the
table, the Child turned swiftly, and looked back at something invisible
to me; and suddenly it went down into a crouching attitude, and seemed
to be hiding behind something that showed vaguely; but there was
nothing there, except the bare floor of the cellar; nothing, I mean, of
our world.
"I could hear the breathing of the three other men, with a wonderful
distinctness; and also the tick of my watch upon the table seemed to
sound as loud and as slow as the tick of an old grandfather's clock.
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