“It was like this,” he began softly, “only I was standing instead of sitting, looking over to that door as you and I do now. Hyman moved to and fro in the faint glow of the gas logs against the far wall, playing that ‘crepuscular’ thing in his most inspired sort of way, so that the music seemed to issue from himself rather than from the shining bit of wood under his chin, when—I noticed something coming over me that was”—he hesitated, searching for words—“that wasn’t all due to the music,” he finished abruptly.
“His personality put a bit of hypnotism on you, eh?”
William shrugged his shoulders.
“The air was thickish with fog and the light was dim, cast upwards upon him from the stove,” he continued. “I admit all that. But there wasn’t light enough to throw shadows, you see, and——”
“Hyman looked queer?” the other helped him quickly.
Billy nodded his head without turning.
“Changed there before my very eyes”—he whispered it—“turned animal——”
“Animal?” John felt his hair rising.
“That’s the only way I can put it. His face and hands and body turned otherwise than usual. I lost the sound of his feet. When the bow-hand or the fingers on the strings passed into the light, they were”—he uttered a soft, shuddering little laugh—“furry, oddly divided, the fingers massed together. And he paced stealthily. I thought every instant the fiddle would drop with a crash and he would spring at me across the room.”
“My dear chap——”