As he lay thus, a faint sigh came through the lattice of the window. The wind had risen, and was moving the cherry branches and the azaleas.
Then came another sound—the sound of a stick tapping on the garden path, as if some blind person were cautiously feeling their way round the house.
Up along the garden path, pausing now, now advancing, now dying away, now returning, somebody was promenading in front of the house, keeping watch and ward like a sentry, somebody whose feet made no sound, somebody blind.
A feeling of sick terror came over him—terror not to be borne.
He pulled the mosquito-net aside, and rose, shivering and trembling, feeling that he must look out at all hazards—even at the worst.
He pulled the slats aside and looked out. Nobody. The moonlight lay on the azaleas and the garden path, but of the prowler there was no sign.
Then he saw the cause of the sound. A lath broken from the house wall was hanging with tip touching the path, and tapping upon it as the wind shook it.
He returned to bed, and tried to snatch a few hours’ sleep, but the sound of the blind man tapping his way continued all night long—now faint, now loud, and insistent as the wind rose and fell.