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The Best Ghost Stories by Various
page 42 of 285 (14%)
scalp. There was black and tattered drapery about it; the coarse hair
covered it as in the drawing. The lower jaw was thin--what can I call
it?--shallow, like a beast's; teeth showed behind the black lips; there
was no nose; the eyes, of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils
showed black and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy
life which shone there, were the most horrifying feature in the whole
vision. There was intelligence of a kind in them--intelligence beyond
that of a beast, below that of a man.

The feelings which this horror stirred in Dennistoun were the intensest
physical fear and the most profound mental loathing. What did he do?
What could he do? He has never been quite certain what words he said,
but he knows that he spoke, that he grasped blindly at the silver
crucifix, that he was conscious of a movement towards him on the part of
the demon, and that he screamed with the voice of an animal in hideous
pain.

Pierre and Bertrand, the two sturdy little serving-men, who rushed in,
saw nothing, but felt themselves thrust aside by something that passed
out between them, and found Dennistoun in a swoon. They sat up with him
that night, and his two friends were at St. Bertrand by nine o'clock
next morning. He himself, though still shaken and nervous, was almost
himself by that time, and his story found credence with them, though not
until they had seen the drawing and talked with the sacristan.

Almost at dawn the little man had come to the inn on some pretense, and
had listened with the deepest interest to the story retailed by the
landlady. He showed no surprise.

"It is he--it is he! I have seen him myself," was his only comment; and
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