“I expected something cataclysmic, world-shaking. Fool that I was, I might have known better. ‘They’ are far too cunning thus to advertise their power needlessly. Day after day I dwelt in a world of terror, and nothing happened, save the complete interruption of any intercourse with the spiritual world. Malevolent forces had closed that door. I waited, each moment expecting disaster, I knew not from what quarter, as a man waits in a dark wood for the lurking danger to spring at him. Suddenly—a week ago to-day—they commenced to act.”
He stopped to allow the import of his words to have full effect on his host. Mr. Gilchrist opened his mouth as if to speak, but he could not give utterance to a sound.
“I was walking, about six o’clock in the afternoon, along Piccadilly. The thoroughfare was crowded. I felt almost happy in the throng. My mind was for the moment distracted from its ever-present anxiety, and I had almost forgotten my danger. Suddenly a man jostled against me and thrust a piece of paper into my hand. I glanced at it and knew my doom was upon me. Here it is.”
He took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Mr. Gilchrist. It bore only the words, in fat black type: “Prepare to meet thy Judge.”
“But,” said his host, grasping at the familiar in this strange story, “this is merely a leaflet circulated by some religious body.”
“I know,” said the stranger, smiling. “That is their cunning. It conveys little or nothing to an outsider. But they knew I would know. I looked around for the man. He had disappeared. The blood surged to my head; I reeled dizzily against a lamp-post and for a moment or two knew nothing. The shock, long expected though it was, was awful. After a brief space my brain cleared. My giddiness seemingly had not been noticed. The street looked normal. I shook myself and prepared to continue on my way. At that moment I happened to look round and saw a large white bulldog sitting on the pavement and regarding me fixedly. Even then—I knew. But I affected to take no notice of it and commenced to walk onward. The dog got up and followed me. I walked faster, but the dog was always a couple of feet behind my heels. I stopped. The dog stopped. I went on again. The dog went on again also. There was no doubt of its connection with me.
“I cannot make you realize, sir, the awful fear that surged up in me, mastering me, throttling me. I almost choked. The lights, the houses, the people swam in my vision. For some moments I walked along blind, unseeing. I trust that I am not a coward, that ordinary danger would find me ready to meet it with some calmness of mind, but in contact now with the peril I had dreaded, such firmness as I have gave way. The seeming innocence of the manner in which my death-sentence was conveyed, the apparently innocuous character of the messenger they had sent, accentuated my terror. I felt that it was useless to appeal to my fellow-creatures for help. The certain reply would have been an imputation of madness. Above all, the purpose of the dog baffled me. It seemed impossible that my enemies, with all the vast forces at their command, should use so petty an instrument to strike at me. I could not even imagine in what manner the dog was to bring about my annihilation. The disparity of means to the end seemed grotesque.
“So strongly did I feel this that I half-persuaded myself that I was under an illusion, that the dog was merely a stray that had followed me for a few yards in the hope of finding a new home. Walking along, looking straight in front of me, for I dared not turn my head, I was almost comforted by a semi-belief that the dog was no longer in pursuit. Presently, with an effort of will, I looked back—to find, as reason told me I should, the animal still at my heels, padding along with its nose to the ground.
“I stopped, more from a suspension of faculties than from any desire to do so, and the dog stopped also. It sat calmly down, looking at me, and I could almost fancy a quiet, diabolic smile on the loose, ugly, dripping jaws. We exchanged a steadfast gaze—I can see it now; its eyes were red-rimmed, bleary, cunning. Standing there, I strove to divine its purpose. Suddenly it flashed upon me. The dog was tracking me to my home. Over the trail it had gone once it would go again, this time accompanied by the active agents of my foes. Why this roundabout method of reaching me was adopted will no doubt seem a puzzle to you, sir—it is so to me. But I was and am convinced of the fact.
“No sooner had I realized this,” pursued the old gentleman, “than I thought over means of ridding myself of it. The obvious way was simple. I walked along the streets in quest of a policeman. The dog got quietly on its legs again and followed. Some hundred yards or so farther on I saw an officer and approached him. It was at the corner where the street flows into Piccadilly Circus, and the open space was a maelstrom of traffic, starred overhead by the lamps which were beginning to glow against the darkening sky. I had to wait an agonized minute or two at the policeman’s elbow whilst he set two fussy and nervous old ladies upon their right way. At last he turned to me, and a radiance of hope commenced to break over the dark tumult of my mind as I explained to him that I was being followed by a stray dog and wished to give it into his charge.