along the floor. This was followed by a dull sound, like the falling of
a log to the earth.

And then there followed two sounds which made his flesh creep: The first
was the creaking, and cracking of wooden boards, and the second was a
slow, sliding noise, which lasted, intermittently for what seemed an
hour.

When the latter noise ceased something fell heavily to the ground. That
was a sound there was no mistaking, and then the creaking went on for
what seemed a long time, and ceased suddenly in its turn.

And then, again, there was dead silence, dead stillness.

By this time Max was as cold as ice, and wet from head to foot with the
sweat of a sick terror. What the sounds meant, whence they proceeded, he
could not tell, but the horror they produced in him was unspeakable,
never to be forgotten.

He did not move for a long time after the sounds had ceased. He wanted
to shout, to batter with his fists on the doors, the window. But a
hideous paralysis of fear seemed to have taken possession of him and
benumbed his limbs and his tongue.

Max was no coward. He was a daring rider, handy with his fists, a young
man full of spirit and courage to the verge of recklessness, as this
adventure had proved. But courage must have something to attack, or at
least to resist, before it can make itself manifest; and in this
sickening waiting, listening, watching, without the use of one's eyes,
there was something which smacked of the supernatural, something to damp