Then I knocked on the portcullis with all my might, and was gratified to find that, like a well-regulated portcullis, it fell, and with a loud noise withal.
An intense silence intervened, and then out of the blackness of the blue above me there came a voice with a reddish tinge to it.
"Who's there?" said the voice. "If you are a burglar, come in and rob. If you are a friend, wait a minute. If you are an interviewer from an American Sunday newspaper, accept my apologies for keeping you waiting, turn the knob, and walk in. I'll be down as soon as I can get there."
It was Hall Caine himself who spoke.
I turned the knob and walked in. All was still, dark, and cold, but I did not mind, for it fitted into my mood exactly.
HE APPEARED!
In the darkness of the corridor within I barked what if I were a man I should call my shins. As it happened, being a woman, I merely bruised my ankles, when he appeared—Hall Caine himself. There was no gas-light, no electric light. Nothing but the blackness of the night, and He Appeared! I suppose it was all due to the fact that he is a brilliant man, who would shine anywhere. However it may have been, I suddenly became conscious of a being that walked towards me as plainly discernible as an ocean steamship at sea at night, with every electric light burning in the saloon, and the red and green lanterns on the starboard and port sides of its bow.
"Mr. Caine?" said I, addressing his starboard side.