He stood, with his sword drawn, looking up that staircase for quite five minutes, but there was not a sound, and gloomy as the hall was by day, with its narrow stained-glass windows, it was almost blackness itself by night.
“Something must have fallen,” thought the sentry at last, as he recalled seeing, by a light carried by one of the officers as he went upstairs, that the walls were ornamented with trophies of old weapons.
“Yes; something must have tumbled down,” he said again, as he returned his sword to its sheath, changed his piece to its old position, and faced round and marched toward the door.
As he did so, something—not the something which the sentry said had fallen down, but another something which had lain at full length in the top stair but one—moved gently. There was a faint gliding sound, and then perfect stillness, as the sentry marched in again right to the foot of the stairs and listened.
He turned, walked right round the hall, and out once more to the front of the porch, while something long and soft seemed in the darkness to rise out of the top stair but one, as from a long box, on to the stair below.
The sentry marched in again, slowly and steadily, right to the end of the hall, and back to the front of the porch; and as he went the gliding sound was heard again, followed during the next march back by a very faint crack, and then for quite five minutes the long, soft-looking figure lay on the stair motionless.
Then, when the sentry was tramping along the porch, the figure gave a quick writhe and lay still a step higher.
Again, when the sentry was his farthest, there was another writhe, and the figure was on the top of the stairs, to roll by degrees gently over and over across the landing, and lie close to the panelled wall. Then began a slow crawling motion as if some hugely thick short serpent were creeping along the polished oaken boards almost without a sound, till the end of the gallery was reached. Then all was still but the regular tramp of the sentry, who told himself that he had done wisely in not giving the alarm.
Not the first man who has congratulated himself upon making a great mistake.
Meanwhile, Lady Markham was seated at the window, with Lil’s hand clasped in hers, waiting, as it were, for that something which seemed as if it would happen. No great wonder, at a time when change succeeded change with marvellous rapidity. They had neither of them spoke for some time, till suddenly Lil pressed her mother’s hand.