I cannot say what I expected to happen, but I had
an extraordinary feeling, almost a conviction, that something peculiar or
horrible would soon occur. It was, you know, as if I knew.
"An hour passed, of absolute silence. The time I knew by the far-off,
faint chime of a dock that had been erected over the stables. I was
beastly cold, for the whole place is without any kind of heating pipes or
furnace, as I had noticed during my search, so that the temperature was
sufficiently uncomfortable to suit my frame of mind. I felt like a kind
of human periwinkle encased in boilerplate and frozen with cold and funk.
And, you know, somehow the dark about me seemed to press coldly against
my face. I cannot say whether any of you have ever had the feeling, but
if you have, you will know just how disgustingly unnerving it is. And
then, all at once, I had a horrible sense that something was moving in
the place. It was not that I could hear anything but I had a kind of
intuitive knowledge that something had stirred in the darkness. Can you
imagine how I felt?
"Suddenly my courage went. I put up my mailed arms over my face. I
wanted to protect it. I had got a sudden sickening feeling that something
was hovering over me in the dark. Talk about fright! I could have shouted
if I had not been afraid of the noise.... And then, abruptly, I heard
something. Away up the aisle, there sounded a dull clang of metal, as it
might be the tread of a mailed heel upon the stone of the aisle.
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