several inches and then creep closer to him. It sank and arose
again--a headless, hideous, monstrous thing of menace. Its very
silence rendered it the more terrible.

Bradley was a brave man; ordinarily his nerves were of steel; but
to be at the mercy of some unknown and nameless horror, to be
unable to defend himself--it was these things that almost
unstrung him, for at best he was only human. To stand in the
open, even with the odds all against him; to be able to use his
fists, to put up some sort of defense, to inflict punishment upon
his adversary--then he could face death with a smile. It was not
death that he feared now--it was that horror of the unknown that
is part of the fiber of every son of woman.

Closer and closer came the shapeless mass. Bradley lay
motionless and listened. What was that he heard! Breathing?
He could not be mistaken--and then from out of the bundle of rags
issued a hollow groan. Bradley felt his hair rise upon his head.
He struggled with the slowly parting strands that held him.
The thing beside him rose up higher than before and the Englishman
could have sworn that he saw a single eye peering at him from
among the tumbled cloth. For a moment the bundle remained
motionless--only the sound of breathing issued from it, then
there broke from it a maniacal laugh.

Cold sweat stood upon Bradley's brow as he tugged for liberation.
He saw the rags rise higher and higher above him until at last
they tumbled upon the floor from the body of a naked man--a thin,
a bony, a hideous caricature of man, that mouthed and mummed and,
wabbling upon its weak and shaking legs, crumpled to the floor