With a new match flaring he yanked the door open and strode out, angrily determined to find the source of those soul-sickening drops. He had not far to go. After one straight look at the steps he flung down the match and laughed out in savage scorn of himself.
The narrow steps were wet, but with nothing more sinister than rain. The dampness of the air, the utter blackness around, the silence of the insects—all told of a recent shower. Even now the crickets were beginning to chirp again. Somehow their sturdy notes, which previously had seemed doleful, now sounded cheerful.
“You doddering imbecile!” he jeered. “It’s as simple as daylight. A little shower just before you woke up—a gust of wind shoving the door open—the drip of the eaves for a minute or so. And you, you hysterical half-wit—you shoot a harmless door and turn into a knot of goose-flesh because of that! Who ever told you you were a grown-up man? You’re nothing but a scared-of-the-dark baby!”
He drank in a deep breath of the sweet air and nodded unseen encouragement to some lusty cricket in the grass near the stoop. But, as he turned again toward the door, he hesitated. Wind and rain could not be blamed for the footsteps on the stairs or the sounds and movements of his bed. Something urged him to take his blankets and lie down outdoors, even though the ground was wet: to sleep surrounded by the honest-voiced crickets, unconfined by walls within which stalked bodiless things.
“No!” he growled. “Back to bed you go, and there you stay. This is a fight to a finish, Mister Ha’nt, and I’ve taken one round out of three, with the other two drawn. I think I’ve got you on the run. Now let’s see if you can come back.”
With that he felt his way in, shut the door, kicked the table negligently against it, and returned to bed.
As he rearranged his blankets, heavy drops thudded overhead. Rapidly the spattering impacts swelled into a drumming roar of new rain.
“Aha,” he nodded. “You’d look sweet out in the grass now, wouldn’t you? By the time you got back in here you’d be well soaked, and it would serve you right. The Lord hates a quitter. Come on, Ha’nt. I’m waiting.”
He continued to wait. Steadily the rain pounded on, varied only by slashing swoops at the window. His eyes closed. His breathing slowed. The tumult of the storm faded out of his consciousness.
By and by he found himself drifting over a murky waste of waters which swashed and hissed and gurgled in sullen enmity. Above was no sun or moon or star—nothing but a dreary void. Around was no life; he was utterly alone in the desolation of plunging waves, a derelict at the mercy of wind and tide. But presently weird shapes took form among the billows—ghastly, gigantic wraiths which mouthed hideous grimaces down at him and reached for him with shadowy fingers. They veered away before they touched him, and a great wind blew them apart into fragments of mist and spume. But they formed again, making more frightful spectres than before, and stalked athwart the waste, half seen through a roaring deluge of rain. They began to yell his name, and with the shouts blended a thunder of hollow blows. He tried to yell back at them——