I cannot call it man, but I saw the thing which, I doubt not, had killed poor Deeping with the crescent-knife and had propelled a poison-dart at me.
It was a tiny dwarf! Neither within nor without a freak exhibition had I seen so small a human being! A kind of supernatural dread gripped me by the throat at sight of it. As it turned with animal activity and bounded into my bathroom, I caught a three-quarter view of the creature's swollen, incredible head — which was nearly as large as that of a normal man!
Never while my mind serves me can I forget that yellow, grinning face and those canine fangs — the tigerish, blazing eyes — set in the great, misshapen head upon the tiny, agile body.
Wildly, I fired again. I hurled myself forward and dashed into the room.
Like nothing so much as a cat, the gleaming body (the dwarf was but scantily clothed) streaked through the open window!
Certain death, I thought, must be his lot upon the stones of the court far below. I ran and looked down, shaking in every limb, my mind filled with a loathing terror unlike anything I had ever known.
Brilliant moonlight flooded the pavement beneath; for twenty yards to left and right every stone was visible.
The court was empty!
Human, homely London moved and wrought intimately about me; but there, at sight of the empty court below, a great loneliness swept down like a mantle — a clammy mantle of the fabric of dread. I stood remote from my fellows, in an evil world peopled with the creatures of Hassan of Aleppo.
Moved by some instinct, as that of a frightened child, I dropped to my knees and buried my face in trembling hands.