For answer, I discharged my revolver twice at the ceiling, hoping to
arouse some one, either guests or servants, and fired again at the
shoulder of the man whose leap towards me was like the spring of a
wild-cat. Both rooms were suddenly plunged into darkness, the elder of
the two men, stepping back for a moment, had turned out the electric
lights. For a short space of time everything was chaos. My immediate
assailant I flung away from me with ease; his companion, who tried to
rush past me in the darkness, I struck with a random blow on the side of
the head, so that he staggered back with a groan. I knew very well that
neither of them had passed me, and yet I fancied, as I paused to take
breath for a moment, that I heard stealthy footsteps behind, in the room
which I had been defending. I called again for help, and groped about on
the wall for the electric light switches. The footsteps ceased, a sudden
cry rang out from somewhere behind the bed-curtains, a cry so full of
horror, that I felt the blood run cold in my veins, and the sweat break
out upon my forehead. I sought desperately for the little brass knobs of
the switches, listening all the while for those footsteps. I heard
nothing save a low, sickening groan, which followed upon the cry, but I
felt, a moment later, the hot breath of a human being upon my neck. I
sprang aside, barely in time to escape a blow obviously aimed at me with
some weapon or other, which cut through the air with the soft, nervous
swish of an elastic life-preserver. I knew that some one who sought my
life was within a few feet of me, striving to make sure before the second
blow was aimed. In my stockinged feet I crept along by the wall. I could
hear no sound of movement anywhere near me, and yet I knew quite well
that my hidden assailant was close at hand. Just then, I heard at last
what I had been listening for so long and so eagerly, footsteps and a
voice in the corridor outside. Somebody sprang past me in the darkness,
and, for a second, amazement kept me motionless. The thing was
impossible, or I could have sworn that my feet were brushed by the skirts