She was up in an instant, and stepping softly into the room beyond, leaned out towards me. On the moment an evil thing grew out of the shadow of a buttress close by, and a wicked insolent face looked into mine with a grin.
“A sweet good-night to Monsieur le Comte,” it said, and vanished.
Shocked and astounded, I stood rooted to the spot. But there came a sudden low voice in my ear:
“Quick, quick! have you no knife? You must follow!”
I had taken but a single uncertain step, when, from a little way down the street we had traversed, there cut into the night a sharp attenuated howl; and, in a moment, on the passing of it, a chorus of hideous notes swept upon me standing there in indecision.
“My God!” I cried—“the dogs!”
She made a sound like a plover. I scrambled to the ledge and dropped into the room beyond. There in the dark she clutched and clung to me. For though the cry had been bestial, there had seemed to answer to it something mortal—an echo—a human scream of very dreadful fear,—there came a rush of feet like a wind, and, with ashy faces, we looked forth.
They had him—that evil thing. An instant we saw his sick white face thrown up like a stone in the midst of a writhing sea; and the jangle was hellish. Then I closed the lattice, and pressed her face to my breast.
He had run from us to his doom, which meeting, he had fled back in his terror to make us the ghastly sport he had designed should be his.
How long we stood thus I know not. The noise outside was unnameable, and I closed her ears with her hair, with my hands—nay, I say it with a passionate shame, with my lips. She sobbed a little and moaned; but she clung to me, and I could feel the beating of her heart. We had heard windows thrown open down the street—one or two on the floors above us. I had no heed or care for any danger. I was wrapt in a fearful ecstasy.