I was yet able to walk right on for an hour or more. What I
feared I could not tell. Indeed, I was left in a state of the
vaguest uncertainty as regarded the nature of my enemy, and knew
not the mode or object of his attacks; for, somehow or other,
none of my questions had succeeded in drawing a definite answer
from the dame in the cottage. How then to defend myself I knew
not; nor even by what sign I might with certainty recognise the
presence of my foe; for as yet this vague though powerful fear
was all the indication of danger I had. To add to my distress,
the clouds in the west had risen nearly to the top of the skies,
and they and the moon were travelling slowly towards each other.
Indeed, some of their advanced guard had already met her, and she
had begun to wade through a filmy vapour that gradually deepened.

At length she was for a moment almost entirely obscured. When
she shone out again, with a brilliancy increased by the contrast,
I saw plainly on the path before me--from around which at this
spot the trees receded, leaving a small space of green sward--the
shadow of a large hand, with knotty joints and protuberances here
and there. Especially I remarked, even in the midst of my fear,
the bulbous points of the fingers. I looked hurriedly all
around, but could see nothing from which such a shadow should
fall. Now, however, that I had a direction, however
undetermined, in which to project my apprehension, the very sense
of danger and need of action overcame that stifling which is the
worst property of fear. I reflected in a moment, that if this
were indeed a shadow, it was useless to look for the object that
cast it in any other direction than between the shadow and the
moon. I looked, and peered, and intensified my vision, all to no
purpose. I could see nothing of that kind, not even an ash-tree