"How do you know that?"

"The vicar said that they saw on the ceiling--Oh, Jim, you can see
it even now!"

He held up his candle, and there was a great, dark smudge upon the
white plaster above us.

"I believe you're right," said he; "but anyhow I'm going to have a
look at it."

"Don't, Jim, don't!" I cried.

"Tut, Roddy! you can stay here if you are afraid. I won't be more
than a minute. There's no use going on a ghost hunt unless--Great
Lord, there's something coming down the stairs!"

I heard it too--a shuffling footstep in the room above, and then a
creak from the steps, and then another creak, and another. I saw
Jim's face as if it had been carved out of ivory, with his parted
lips and his staring eyes fixed upon the black square of the stair
opening. He still held the light, but his fingers twitched, and
with every twitch the shadows sprang from the walls to the ceiling.
As to myself, my knees gave way under me, and I found myself on the
floor crouching down behind Jim, with a scream frozen in my throat.
And still the step came slowly from stair to stair.

Then, hardly daring to look and yet unable to turn away my eyes, I
saw a figure dimly outlined in the corner upon which the stair